Penult (Book Four of The Liminality)

  “We’ll have to go north before we turn east,” said Ubaldo. “We stay low, close to the wave tops. Otherwise they will spot us.”

  Something flashed at ground level and went flying up towards the specks. A rumble followed a few seconds later.

  “Hey, those are … some of those are bugs!”

  “The scouts!” said Ubaldo. “Merde! They are being chased. I see only two. We lost one.”

  Olivier and Yaqob emerged from the forest and hurried up the side of the dune, their faces concerned.

  “Fools!” said Yaqob. “They passed too close to the beach head. They were spotted.”

  The two dragonflies were being followed by a flight of seven falcons, sleeker and quicker than the ones we had tangled with in the valley. These had a single pilot, and instead of talons they had gleaming blades on the tips of their wings. Three condors escorted by several standard falcons followed close on their tail.

  Yaqob exchanged words with Ubaldo in the guttural language of the Deeps.

  “Everyone! Call your flies.”

  Ubaldo shrieked and his hornet immediately took wing. Hurtling over the forest it pounded into the sand beside us, its eyes gleaming, abdomen pulsing, its saddle already in place. Yaqob’s scorpion fly came buzzing down beside it, also already saddled.

  “Keep the beetles grounded,” said Yaqob. “But I want every swift bug in the air.”

  He and Ubaldo swung up onto their mounts, with Ubaldo right behind him. They sprang off the dunes and darted out over the bay, skimming low over the wave tops.

  The scouts had spotted us and altered their course. They remained ahead of their pursuers were steadily losing ground. The new falcons were swifter than anything Penult had in the air previously, and nearly the equal of any bug. They spat out projectiles that left spiral, greenish vapor trails.

  The dragonflies made quick and twitchy adjustments to their flight path to evade the objects coming at them from behind. The bulge of their compound eyes gave them, in effect, eyes in the back of their head.

  Volunteers variously screeched and clapped and whistled for their beasts. The canopy bounced and swarmed with bugs sorting themselves out and seeking their riders. I attempted to mimic how Ubaldo had called Tigger the other day, but my voice cracked before I get out a decent screech and I was reduced to a fit of coughing.

  Karla’s robber fly came buzzing down into the glade and she leapt on its back, wielding a scepter like a knobby wooden baton. Her fly had no saddle.

  “You’re riding bareback?”

  “There is no time!” she said, her eyes anxious. “Where is your bug?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He was just up there.”

  I screamed again for Tigger. My shriek was a little more convincing this time, but it still got me nowhere. I gazed up hopefully at the dragonflies flitting back and forth overhead but none bore Tigger’s distinctive broad striping.

  In quick succession, one volunteer after another alighted from the dunes until half a dozen were winging out after Yaqob and Ubaldo.

  “Enough,” said Karla, and she too took to the air, followed by several more stragglers.

  “We’re heading into the trees to get the beetles tethered,” said Olivier. “They’re not equipped for aerial dog fights.”

  “I’ll stick around here,” I said. “Maybe Tigger will show.”

  I was the last dragonfly rider left on the dunes. When the last of the robber flies took off, I was alone, feeling useless and impotent. I couldn’t even strap on a pair of Seraph wings. Tigger still had them lashed to his side.

  I kicked my way through the light, fluffy sand to the crest of the tallest dune and watched as the volunteers closed on the first wave of attackers. Behind them, an array of old-style falcons escorted a pair of huge, lumbering condors carrying something large and bulky in their talons.

  Ubaldo’s hornet raced into the lead, accelerating past the scouts. He homed in in on the lead falcon, weaving erratically to avoid the barrage of bolts emanating from the bristling nose of the enemy craft. His hornet swung its abdomen stinger first and pierced the Hashmal pilot through his cage. All six wings instantly ceased and the craft went tumbling into the surf. Yaqob came zooming up behind him, his scorpion fly flailing its spiked tail, raking and slashing at the other falcons. Pieces flew off and another falcon went crashing into the sea.

  The volunteers caught up just as the second wave hit, firing a massive barrage of ballista bolts, some of which found their mark. A robber fly spun away from the formation, its wing damaged, spiraling down to the water. It made its way back over the shoals, staying just above the waves until it crumpled onto the beach, spilling its rider in the sand.

  I ran down the dune towards the beach, fearing it was Karla who had fallen. But it was a guy, some Duster fellow I didn’t know. He rose from the sand and tried taking a step, but couldn’t put any weight on it. He fell back down and just sat there, staring at his robber fly which was just as battered, its wings torn, thorax pierced with bolts.

  I rushed down to help him. His foot jutted at an odd angle from the rest of his leg. He had badly broken his ankle.

  “You okay? Is it just your leg?”

  He nodded, grimacing. I helped him up and over the dunes and got him tucked away under the trees.

  The battle in the sky had drifted closer to shore. A wild dogfight was underway, flies and falcons dodging, diving, firing bolts, exchanging bursts of plasma. A cluster of falcons harried Ubaldo like nesting sparrows chasing a crow, but few bolts struck the shifty hornet.

  Yaqob’s scorpion fly fought like a winged demon, whirling and slashing at any falcon that came within reach. Several falcons had already begun to retreat back to the beach head, their cages shattered, six wings reduced to four or five.

  Amidst the chaos, I noted a set of striped wings on a rider-less dragonfly. Tigger was up there battling without me.

  I noticed the cracker columns sitting out into the open on the forest side of the dunes. Someone had hauled them out to make it easier for the beetles to pick them up. The Pennies were bound to spot them. I didn’t care about the copies, but the real one had to be protected.

  I ran back out onto the dunes and peeked under the shroud of each column, looking for the real one. Olivier’s was easy to spot. It was crudely carved with grooves too shallow, bumps too rounded. But the other two were practically indistinguishable. I grabbed the lines securing each or their shrouds and dragged them towards the underbrush. They weren’t heavy at all, just bulky.

  A condor hovering over the shoals fired a blast from the device dangling from its talons. A fiery orange blob came thundering into the side of a dragonfly, tearing it in half and unsaddling its rider who went plummeting into the drink.

  Distracted, I tripped over some driftwood and went chin first into the sand. But I kept on going, hauling the columns the rest of the way on my hands and knees. Once I got beyond the first line of trees, I ripped some branches off some saplings and arranged them to conceal the columns as best I could.

  I went back out onto the dunes. The sky directly above me was now a chaos of darting bugs and falcons. Ballista bolts and plasma bursts flew every which way. I saw another Duster fall from a dragonfly, her long grey hair trailing like a streamer. Her dragonfly continued to fight, slashing at a falcon with its claws. I held out my sword, searching for that willful feeling in my middle, but things were so confused overhead, I held back. I feared hitting one of our own.

  A condor landed on the beach, not downed but rather executing a hard, but intentional landing. Viktor on his damselfly, swooped down to harass the armored Hashmallim who poured out of its cages. He engaged them with bursts of his scepter, nimbly dodging the bolts they shot back his way.

  I retreated back into the trees as the Hashmallin ran up and over the dunes, heading straight for the column I had left behind. I watched them bash it to bits with their heavy staffs. They were welcome to whack away at Olivier’s replica all they wanted.
I stood ready to defend the real thing with my blackened and blunted, but still potent sword.

  One of the Hashmallim spotted me lurking in the trees. Before he could do anything, I leveled my sword at him and let loose a blast. I had no inhibitions today. A tight little baseball-sized wad of supersonic energy struck his side and slammed him down. His staff went flying. The Hashmal I had hit writhed a bit and then went still.

  Emboldened, I came out of the trees. The other Hashmallim brandished their staffs at me, grasping them by the middle. The staffs flattened and curved into bows. They peeled perfectly formed arrows from the bodies of the bows and strung them on what seemed to be invisible bowstrings.

  As they raised their newly conjured bows, my sword shuddered. A blast ripped out of the tip and flared out wide, striking both Hashmallin with one hit, crumbling their bows, stripping off their armor and vaporizing their arrows.

  They looked at me with some astonishment before turning and running back towards the condor, abandoning their fallen comrade in the sand.

  The condor pilot witnessed all of it was already preparing to flee. He raised his wings and turned the craft to face the wind while the fleeing Hashmallin sprinted across the beach and clambered aboard.

  I stalked after them, stretching my sword out at the condor just as it lifted off and turned out over the ocean. It was still gaining altitude when another blast thundered out of my sword tip. This emission, wider and more diffuse, caught the condor, shredded its membranes and splintered its frame. The condor collapsed in on itself and crashed into the surf.

  I looked up and found the sky still full of bugs. Five of the sleeker falcons remained engaged in battle but the other surviving craft were retreated south down the shore.

  A volunteer on a robber fly took down a falcon with a burst from a scepter that gummed up its wings and stuck them together. Tigger zoomed down to give it a bump for good measure before it crashed into the trees, unable to recover from a steep dive.

  Ubaldo’s hornet was a killing machine, systematically destroying each falcon it encountered, latching on and stinging each pilot through the cockpit cage. Wings would go slack, the hornet would release, and falcons would drop, limp wings trailing like the feathers of a shuttlecock as they crunched onto the beach or splashed into the surf.

  This dog fight had turned into a rout. The last two falcons disengaged and fled, zipping away at top speed to catch up with the other retreating craft. Bugs began landing on the beach and dunes all around me. I was heartened by how many had survived the battle. But where was Karla?

  “Damn good show!” said Olivier, striding up behind me.

  Two beetle riders came slinking out of the scrub where they had taken cover with Olivier. One by one, the rest of the bugs landed on the dunes, some without riders. Tigger did not join them but instead flew back to the fig tree and its aphids. I looked around for Karla and her robber fly but could not spot her. My stomach dropped.

  “Looking for me?” I turned to see Urszula smiling back from atop a dune, beside her dragonfly, her short but sturdy scepter propped over one shoulder.

  “So … how did the scouting go?” asked Olivier.

  “We have a few problems,” said Urszula. “There were many marches of new Cherubim moving to the boats. We hide in the tall grass until the night came. The bugs were restless. But coming back … we came too close to their ships. They have new weapons. They are using the plasma now. One hit destroyed Tyler’s fly and he went down into the water. That is how they catch him.”

  “They got Tyler? Shit!”

  “But … there are targets. We find many good targets. We can show you.”

  Urszula tore a branch from a shrub and stuck it into an urn slung from her saddle. She slathered some kind of resinous balm over some severe abrasions in Lalibela’s shell. It looked like someone had taken a chainsaw to her.

  Olivier stared out across the bay at the retreating Pennies.

  “We’d better get a move on. Now that they know we’re here, they’ll be back, by air and ground. Maybe even by sea.” He started counting heads. “Alright now. Who did we lose?”

  “I saw at least three volunteers get hit,” said Ubaldo, still astride his hornet. “Plus one of the scouts.”

  “Kitt?” said Urszula, alarmed.

  “She took a direct hit from one of the condors,” said Ubaldo. “I saw it happen.”

  Viktor came screaming in low over the trees.

  “Yaqob’s fallen. In the forest.”

  “Shit!” said Olivier.

  “We need some help over here!” someone shouted.

  A group of volunteers had gathered around a limp body sprawled in the sand—Kitt. She panted heavily. Her flannel shirt was soaked with blood.

  Urszula rushed to her side, skidding to her knees in the sand beside the fallen scout. I kept looking around for Karla. Where the hell was she? I was beginning to fear the worst.

  I went over and crouched down next to Kitt, placing my hand gently on her arm. Besides all the bleeding, there was something terribly wrong with her mid-section. There were lumps and dents in all the wrong places.

  Urszula shook her head. “The bones in her chest are crush. They have new weapons—a kind I have not seen them use before. They now use the plasma like us.”

  Kitt’s face was bruised and bloated, her hair matted with blood and sand. But her eyes were open and alert. She beamed at me with bloody teeth.

  “Hey James. It’s nice to see you.” Her voice was croaky and weak, but she sounded almost cheerful. She writhed around and took my hand, squeezing it tight.

  Her manner was much too chipper for the situation. It threw me for a loop. What do you say to a dying person acting so nonchalant?

  “I guess I’m headed … to the Deeps, finally. “

  “I’m so sorry, Kitt. We’ll find a way to get you back here.”

  At least … I won’t be alone.” “Tyler’s probably there already. Did you hear?”

  “Yeah. Urszula told us.”

  She pressed her eyes closed, grimaced and grunted.

  “You’re gonna be all grey next time we see you, though. You’re gonna be a Duster.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “Some of my … some of my best friends are Dusters.”

  Two men came down off the dunes carrying Yaqob, clearly struggling with his girth and weight. Thick ballista bolts pierced his chest and belly. The hole in his chest wheezed and foamed pink as he struggled to breathe.

  The men laid Yaqob down beside Kitt. Three others who had fallen were assembled in a separate group down the beach where their comrades mourned the souls who had already passed into the next realm. I was afraid to look too closely over there just yet.

  “Hey Yaqob, those wounds look patchable,” said Olivier. “You’re not bleeding too bad. Someone get a flesh weaver over here.”

  “No need,” said Yaqob, wearily. “It is my time.” He took Kitt’s free hand and clasped it gently.

  “Will you show me the ropes, Mr. Yaqob?” said Kitt, struggling to be brave, but her voice was strained.

  “I … will not … be joining you,” said Yaqob.

  Oliver reached down and put his palm on Yaqob’s chest. “His body, it’s getting cold. His breathing is slowing. He ain’t dying. He’s shifting modes. He’s heading off to the long sleep.”

  “Crap,” said Kitt. “I was hoping for some company. Any chance I can go with you to the Singularity?” She dug her fingers deep into Yaqob’s fissured palm.

  “I am afraid that you are not an old soul, Kitt,” said Yaqob.

  “Listen, the Deeps aren’t so bad,” I said. “And maybe Tyler’s already there, scouting ahead.”

  “Not to mention, the three volunteers we lost,” said Ubaldo.

  “You guys stick together,” said Olivier. “Stay away from the marches. Ignore the fucking Horus.”

  “Find one of the free settlements,” said Urszula. “Go there. The Hashmallim stay away. And it is safe there from
the Horus.”

  “I still have friends there who didn’t cross,” I said. “Like Urszula said, find one of the free towns. Ask for Lady An. She knows me. She’ll take good care of you guys.”

  As we gazed into Kitt’s eyes, they dulled and took on the terrible and unmistakable glaze of death. I felt a pair of arms slide around me and hug me tenderly from behind. I turned and buried my face in Urszula’s dusty hair.

  Chapter 58: Regrouping

  From the tangled rat’s nest that was Urszula’s hair, I looked up to see Karla standing a few feet away with a group of other volunteers gathered around Kitt’s body. Karla glanced at me and smirked, before looking away, feigning disinterest, though she blinked a few too many times to make her apathy convincing.

  Urszula saw what I was looking at, she pulled away like she had suddenly found herself in the embrace of a hot, pot-bellied stove.

  “Your woman? She is back?”

  “Yeah. She’s back, yes. But … she’s not my … uh….”

  “Not your what?” said Karla, with a lopsided grin, her eyes now fully engaging mine.

  “You’re a friend. Just a friend. That’s all.”

  Her smirk only deepened.

  “And what is she?” said Karla.

  “I am friend too,” said Urszula. “We are all friends. She backed away towards Lalibela, but then stopped and faced Karla. “But you had better watch out. Be nice to him, or I will make him more than friend.” That erased Karla’s smirk pretty quick. Urszula winked at me, turned deftly on her heels and skipped across the beach to her dragonfly.

  “Glad you made it back okay,” I said, feeling awkward. Should I go to her? Hug her? Make up for the affection I showed to Urszula? But I just stood there, gawking. “So … how’d it go out there? The fighting?”

  Karla stared at me a bit, before answering.

  “You saw, no? I did not get any good shots in, if that is what you are asking. Your dragonfly did better than me … and without you. You stayed behind, I see?”

  “Yeah, well. I guess don’t have the knack yet for wrangling bugs.”

  Olivier came bustling over, one side of his face crusted over with freshly clotted blood. Ubaldo followed behind him, looking sullen and pensive. He stood at the edge of the surf and let the waves lap at his ankles as he stared across the bay to where the Pennies had retreated.