Liz moaned. “This must be what it feels like to be a hundred years old.” She looked back at Tom and Ellie, who stood wide-eyed beside the trail. A slow smile crept. “You got him, Ellie?”
“Yup.”
“Tom? You doing okay, sweetie?”
“I’m fine mom. Ready to go.”
She took a step. “Oh Lordy,” she rolled her eyes heavenward.
“The Cuerti, they are coming too fast,” said Bimji. “They will catch us!” He fumbled through his satchel. “Children, what do you have for weapons?”
“Never mind,” said Liz. “We’re not fighting anyone.”
“Lizbet, we maybe have no choice.” He removed something white and tubular from his bag. Frank had no idea what it was, but he had seen something like it in the cache.
Ellie unlashed her longbows. Tom removed a sling shot from a sack.
“What about Misty or Miles?” said Bimji. The two had stopped partway up the trail to the pass.
“They don’t have much,” said Ellie. “Maybe some knives.”
“Idiots!” said Liz. “Get it into your heads. We’re not fighting any damned Cuerti. We act the slightest bit aggressive, they’ll take us for Nalkies and cut us down.”
“Mistake us?” said Bimji.
“Point is … we’ve got no chance in a fight. Toss all that crap on the ground. Now!”
“I don’t know about this, Liz,” said Frank, eyes tracking the riders. “These guys mean us harm.”
“I said toss it on the ground, now! Everything. Show me your hands.”
Ellie had already complied, tossing her bows and quiver into the grass. Bimji threw a dagger into the pile; Tom, a blocky sword shaped like a machete.
“Don’t look at me,” said Frank. “All I got is scalpels.”
Misty started doubling back down the slope, but Liz waved her back. “Go. Go!” she mouthed. Miles had kept on walking.
They stood and faced the six horsemen. The seventh trailed far behind, riding what appeared to be an injured horse, based on the hitch in its gallop.
Frank had never seen Cuerti mounted before, and they presented a bizarre profile, their flanged and articulated armor merging with the curves of their horses’ own armor, as if they were a single beast.
“Show them your hands,” said Liz. “Up high, so they can see we pose no threat.”
The entire clan obliged.
The Cuerti widened their spacing and slowed to a trot. Sabers sizzled as they slid from scabbards.
“Mercy of Cra!” shouted Liz. She turned to the others. “Say it!”
“Mercy of Cra,” everyone repeated, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
“I think it worked,” said Ellie.
One of the Cuerti pulled a long-handled mace with a faceted ball from his saddle and spurred his horse forward. He yelped something to the others. They spurred their mounts and sprang into action, circling to surround the party.
Bimji ran off up the trail, fumbling with something in his pocket.
“No!” said Liz.
Tom pulled out a sling and stooped for a stone the size of his fist. He came up swinging, let loose, and the stone struck a rider full force in the chest, knocking him askew in his saddle. His saber clanged against the stones as he struggled to hang onto his reins.
Ellie retrieved her bow and retreated behind a cracked boulder, snapping off an arrow that stuck harmlessly into a Cuerti’s armor. Frank took Liz by the hand and ran, but her legs were planted and he tumbled, hauling her down as a rider stormed past. A saber came slicing neck-high through the air where she had stood.
Bimji turned and knelt on the trail, fiddling with something silvery and white as three of the riders bore down on him. Tom stood his ground, firing stones with uncanny accuracy, cracking the side of one Cuerti’s helmet, breaking another’s hand.
“Stay down!” Frank shouted to Liz, and scrambled to retrieve the fallen saber.
“Tom! Look out!” Liz screamed.
The lead Cuerti had circled back on Tom, flail raised high above his head.
Chapter 56: Intervention
The trail turned steep, slanting up the mountain’s shoulder. Miles bounded along, pushing the pace. He was anxious to reach the top of the pass, less concerned about who got there with him as long as he had some company and Misty kept up with him just fine. It was the others who kept falling farther behind.
“We’ll wait for ‘em up at the top,” he told her, if only to keep her keeping on.
He hoped that the way back would be obvious, because this Tezhay guy did not give the most detailed instructions. He could only assume it was the same sort of thing that brought him and his Prius to Gi, only in reverse. Did that mean they needed to look for a chalcopyrite spewing fog, or did these portals manifest in other ways?
He let the music pour forth from his radio, not giving a damn about the batteries. Even the FM was coming through now loud and clear, and he had found a station that played some of his favorite bands. Indie rock had always been a source of inspiration for him, never more than now on this hillside.
When they paused to rest, he kept tabs on the battle shaping up below. He could make little sense out of what he saw: blocks of troops maneuvering and countering, abandoning lines, forming new ones, fighters on horseback swerving and whirling, like animate miniatures on a game board. Distance afforded him the luxury of being a detached observer, watching the fighting as it were some kind of abstract choreography.
His phone chimed. It was his mom, again. He picked up.
“Miles! What is going on with you? You promised to call me back.”
“Bad service up here, mom,” he said. “But it’s okay, mom. I’m on my way home.”
“Uncle Anton called your work. They told him you haven’t shown up for days. Haven’t even bothered to call in sick. What gives?”
“It’s … complicated. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”
“And when will that be?”
“Don’t know exactly,” said Miles. “Soon?”
“Why are you so out of breath? What are you doing?”
“I’m … hiking,” he said. “I’ve had some car trouble. It’s … totaled.”
“Oh my God! Are you okay?
“I wasn’t the one driving it. It was stolen. It’s a long story, mom.”
“I told you never to lend it to your friends. You see what happens? I hope you’ve called the insurance company already. They’ll be needing a police report too, you realize.” A pause ensued, filled by a hum. “You did report your accident to the police, didn’t you?”
Six riders bedecked with armor, saddles bristling with weapons, burst from among the barrows, homing in with great speed on Lizbet and the others. The battle had suddenly become very real and personal.
“Um, Mom? I gotta go!”
“Miles don’t you dare hang up on—”
He flipped the phone shut and flicked off his radio. The sudden silence uncovered wind moaning through the pass above, distant shouts, a lone raptor shrieking, his heart, thudding against his breastbone.
“Gotta pick up the pace, Mist.”
“What’s wrong?” said Misty. “Are we late?”
She saw him look back and followed his glance, squinting down at the others as they transition from meadows to the rockier ground of the heights.
“Are those … Nalkies?”
Was she nearsighted or merely wishful? It seemed obvious to Miles that the riders pounding up the hill were the sort he had shot at from the cliff-side bunker and that they had violent intentions. But to keep her calm and moving ahead, he did not disabuse her of that idea, letting her believe that they might be friendlies. He wished Liz and the gang the best of luck, but there was nothing he and Misty could do for them.
As the riders closed in on the clan below, Misty stopped dead in the trail, let out a cry of alarm and starting backtracking to the others.
“Misty, no! Don’t go down there. We gotta keep r
unning!”
“Those are Cuerti, Miles. They’ll all be killed!”
“Can't help them," said Miles. “Gotta save ourselves. Those dudes look badass.”
“Damn it Miles, those guys are like ... my family.”
“If Tezhay hadn't taken my gun, then ...” A movement below caught his eye. “Look, even Liz wants us to skedaddle. She’s waving us on.”
“I don’t care,” said Misty. “We gotta help them.”
“With what?” said Miles. “My Swiss Army knife? There’s nothing we can do, Come on!”
With reluctance, Misty reversed direction and stumbled after him. Miles took her hand and yanked her up the trail. Her faint sobs twisted something inside of him, but he kept on running.
They reached a place where two ledges diverged, one slanting up to the top of the pass, the other descending into a cirque holding a glassy tarn. They took the high road, running until they were doubled over from lack of breath.
Miles gazed in horror at the scene unfolding below. Misty started to raise her head.
“Don’t look,” said Miles.
***
Tezhay crouched low, cheek to neck with the straining mule. He rode that poor creature harder than it had probably ever been ridden. The badly fitting saddle flung him from side to side. The beast resisted his urgings and repeatedly tried to buck him.
He lost ground against the surging Cuerti until they slowed to a trot and spread out to stalk the family. Finally, Tezhay was able to close some ground with them.
The family acted submissive, palms in the air, but it was clear from the riders’ posture that they would be extending no mercy. He was still too far to get a reasonable shot off with his rifle. There seemed no chance that he would reach them in time for his intervention to make a difference. At most, he could avenge their deaths.
When the Cuerti closed in for the kill, the clan leaped into battle. Some of them, at least, had no intentions of laying down for the slaughter.
Tezhay banged his heels against the mule’s ribs, spurring it on. The beast bleated in complaint but mobilized whatever reserves it had left. If only Lizbet and her clan could have stalled a little while longer.
***
The Cuerti had been caught off guard by Tom and Ellie’s resistance, but Bimji knew the tide would turn and they would prevail unless he did something drastic. He backpedaled up the trail, dangling a tube of tovex in front of his body, hoping to lure the riders away. He realized that to them, the white cylinder probably did not even resemble a weapon so he gripped the end like a dagger and thrust it at the two Cuerti stalking him.
“The power of Cra, right here in my hands!” he shouted. “This brought down the viaducts of Siklaa.” The Cuerti looked at each other. Five came after him, the sixth preoccupied with Tom.
He straightened out the tangled fuse, and readied the fire starter.
“Come closer, pretty boys,” he muttered to himself.
The fire starter lit with the first flick of his thumb. He looked towards Lizbet and Ellie as he touched the flame to the fuse. They were screaming at Tom, telling him to run for the ledges. Better that they not see what Bimji was about to do.
The fuse sparked and sizzled. He turned and ran, to put more distance between himself and the family. The tovex was just a fraction of the amount he had set in the gorge to cause that landslide, but it would be enough to take the Cuerti out along with him.
To have been back with Lizbet for a day was one day longer than he had ever expected. He was a lucky man. He took an odd glee in knowing he would save his family, even he would never see them safe, never be sure his suicide gambit worked.
Now he wished he had set the charge with a shorter fuse. A rider swooped past him and cut off his retreat. The fuse still had the length of a couple of hands left to burn. He ducked around the rider’s mount to find another one heading him off. It was good that they were clustering so, but he had to keep himself alive a little longer.
He swiveled to evade one saber, into the path of another. It slashed into his upper arm and chest. He fell to his knees, blood gushing from the gaping wound. The severed fuse sputtered on the ground before him, unlinked from the tovex charge that was to have saved his family.
Despair, darker and deeper than the dungeons of the Alar, flooded into his heart.
***
Tom made for a gap between two boulders but the flail-wielder ran him down. His hand shot up to protect himself but the spiked ball blasted through his wrist and struck the back of his head. He crumpled to the ground like a sack.
Liz shrieked. Compelled by forces deep and primal, Frank snatched the wavy-edged saber from the gravel and charged the flail-wielder. The Cuerti seemed surprised to see him coming, but he did not balk. He worked his mount around to face Frank.
Halfway there, Frank reconsidered. He stopped and started backing away. The rider bolted forward and swerved to cut him off, cornering Frank against a ledge. The flail came swinging in a wide, powerful arc. He ducked his head and thrust the saber up to block it. The spiked ball grazed his shoulder and cracked into the ledge, its chain wrapping around the blade on the rebound.
Frank tried to pull away, but the chain tightened and gripped the wavy edge of the blade, plucking it from Frank’s grip. He saw the hilt dangling the links and lunged to retrieve it, latching on with both hands. His full weight hanging on the sword yanked the flail and gauntlet from the Cuerti’s grasp.
Frank rolled to his feet and took the heavy-handled flail, and swung it upwards with all his might as the Cuerti unsheathed a sword and came back after him. The ball caught the Cuerti full in the face, cracking the flanged cheek guards of his helmet. His mount ran off, out of control, across the meadows, its rider unconscious and flopping in his saddle.
***
Tezhay narrowed his eyes, tunneling in on his targets as the carnage escalated. Tom and Bimji had had already fallen and it looked like Doctor Frank, stumbling about in the open, would be next. He glanced down to prepare his gun. When he looked up, Doctor Frank had somehow acquired a mace, and the rider who had wielded it dangled limp in his saddle as his mount galloped off up the trail.
Tezhay praised whatever miracle had led to this outcome and raised the rifle, before reconsidering. The mule would certainly throw him if he pulled the trigger as he rode, so pulled up and hopped off, a little farther out than he would have liked, but now every second mattered. The other Cuerti had turned to deal with the surviving members of the clan. Lizbet had risen and limped across the killing field to reach Tom. The family’s extermination seemed imminent.
The weight of the flail threw Doctor Frank off-balance as he swung it. He completely missed the rider he intended to strike and careened off a boulder, falling to the ground. Ellie continued to shoot arrows though they failed to penetrate the Cuerti’s armor. Her shafts accumulated until one of her targets came to resemble a badly plucked chicken. The object of her archery dismounted to go after her on foot among the rocks where she had taken refuge.
Tezhay put the AK on full automatic and raked the space in front of the dismounted rider.
Tugga-tugga-tugga-tug!
Rocks splintered. Bits of armor flew as the bullets tore threw it as if were made of clay. Ellie’s pursuer crumpled. The noise caused the other horses to rear, spilling two riders. Frank pounced on one with the flail, striking him square in the breast plate. The rebound nearly sent the spiked ball into his own leg.
Tezhay jogged closer. Ellie pounced one of the fallen Cuerti, whose leg seemed to be broken, and slid her dagger beneath the rim of his helmet.
“Tugga-tug!” He brought down the rider going after Lizbet. The surviving Cuerti, deciding to fight another day, galloped away, weaving evasively as if expecting bullets to follow. Tezhay was tempted to grant their expectation, but decided to conserve his ammo. In his haste he had left his extra bullets back with Hantar.
The wind sighed across the rocks, joining the distance shouts of battle, Lizbet??
?s sobs, and Ellie’s wails as they knelt beside Tom.
***
Still in a daze and amazed that he had survived, Frank came up behind Liz. Ellie, in a confused panic, rushed to Bimji’s side and let out a cry of dismay. His stomach sank when he saw Tom’s condition.
Liz was lifting Tom’s head out of the waterlogged sod. “My baby boy!” she cooed.
“Best you didn’t move his head,” said Frank,
“His head’s floating in a damn puddle!”
“Here,” said Frank. He pulled off his shirt and folded it into a pillow.
Liz paused, panting. She took it and tucked it gently under Tom’s head and smoothed his hair. She wailed when her hand brushed over the angular depression where the mace had dented his skull.
Frank gently nudged Liz aside and bent over Tom, trauma kit tucked under his arm, his mind in triage mode where emotion had no place. Tom bled from his ears. One pupil was dilated larger than the other. He was alive but barely conscious, a low, monotonous moan escaping from his throat.
“Get your kit!” said Liz. “Do something!”
“Not much I can do for him, Liz.”
A clear, yellowish fluid, tinged with pink drained from Tom’s nose. His eye sockets darkened.
“Liz … I can’t. There’s nothing to be done.”
Frank pulled himself away and went to Bimji, where Ellie sprawled, pressing her wadded scarf into his wounds. Her face was soaked with tears, and she could barely speak through her snuffles.
“They got him good,” she said. “I hardly know where to plug him first.”
Bimji was conscious, but his pulse was quick and weak. Frank tightened a tourniquet around his arm, which was awash in bright arterial blood. He fed an IV bag into his good arm, hanging it on a scrubby little pine, like some sad ornament on a Christmas tree. Bimji had a gash on his neck as well, but the wound looked worse than it was. He panted heavily. Blood trickled down the corner of Bimji’s mouth.
Tezhay came up behind them.
“Thanks,” said Frank, glancing up.
“For what?” said Tezhay. “I am too late.”
“Yeah, well. We’d all look be in his condition if you hadn’t come when you did.”
“Misty and the boy?” said Tezhay.