“Do you see a 965 here?” I asked. “We have to take what we can get, Auby. This is after the apocalypse, we’re pretty limited in our resources, I’m afraid, and this is an emergency.” He settled back down, but I could see how his eyes kept darting distrustfully at the various controls and sensors, like he thought we were going to crash at any moment. “Don’t worry. I’m a capable pilot.”
That made Felicia laugh, but she did not tell me otherwise. My mate was a pilot too, and probably a much better one than I was. She had not commented about wanting to fly herself, though, but for lack of anything better to do, I began familiarizing her with the controls anyway, explaining each switch and dial, and the meaning of each reading.
That’s how the hours passed, and the world blurred by. Morning came, though we kept flying toward darkness for a long time. We’d crossed the desert, then flown over forests and other Clans whose territories I was forced to avoid so they would not see us. Then came mountains I had to carefully find low passes through so our altitude did not rise too much. It wasn’t going fast enough, and time sped by all the same.
Felicia seemed lost in thought when I’d run out of things to explain about the flyer. Her head pressed against my shoulder, her hand petting Auby, and her eyes taking in the rapidly changing terrain. We saw evidence of the quakes in landslides and toppled trees, then crevices and cracks in the ice when wereached the icecap. My heart thudded in my chest as my worry increased.
Whatever was happening, we could see the light even in the day, burning like a star ahead of us. Serant, normally shaded violet by its purple-hued sun, looked wrong because of the bright whiteness coming from ahead of us. I had to dim the canopy glass to protect our eyes. That the planet was in turmoil was obvious, and it appeared to be getting worse the farther north we went. It had to be Felicia’s ship, but what had changed? Why was it doing this?
It was late morning when I brought the flyer in for a rough landing near the site of her ship, by the winch hanging over the hole the Burrower had dug. I saw no sign of the massive machine, but given that we’d taken several days to reach Serqethos, that made sense. We had probably passed it, if it was even headed here.
Snow had piled high on the icy plateau, but it was actually calm outside now. We awkwardly dressed ourselves inside the cramped space of the flyer, my handheld scanner blaring alarms the whole time. I felt grim, a darkness settling over me like a shroud, as we climbed from the machine and onto the ice. This was the moment of truth, this was when Felicia was going to have to make the choice to leave or to stay. My choice was already made; I’d go wherever she went, but I ached thinking about it.
“The ice won’t be safe down there, but we’re going to have to risk it,” my mate said as she peered over the edge of the massive hole. It had been dark before, but that was not the case now. We were blinded by the light that emanated from it, but the true sourcecame in a beam straight through the ice a little farther away. Neither of us had to guess to know that her ship was directly below it.
“Yes,” I agreed grimly. “We’re fairly limited in our options. Do you think you can shut that down?” I pointed at the light show up ahead, my nictitating membranes protectively drawn over my eyes. Felicia did not have such a protective feature, and she wisely did not even look at the brightness; she kept her eyes on the toes of her boots.
“We won’t know until I try,” she answered. We stepped to the winch, which had survived the Burrower crashing by, though it had fallen over and been partially buried by snow. I set to work getting it operational again with quick fingers, while my mate checked coil after coil of rope for integrity. There was no sign of the savage Naga from before, and the council had also not informed us of another Shaman already having been sent here. It was just the three of us, an eerie silence, and a complete lack of icy wind.
“Uh, guys,” Auby suddenly said. His eyes might have flashed blue then, but the bright light beaming from the ship masked it. “We’re about to have company, and they’re just as unhappy to see us now as they were last time.” I swore under my breath as I searched the snow for any sign of the lost Naga Clan, my scales fluttering beneath the furs in unease and my tail twitching over the ice. The surge of aggression that began to boil in my veins briefly alarmed me, but then it swept me away on a tide of fury. Those savages—if they thought to threaten my mate—I’d teach them a lesson they would never forget. I’d tear them to shreds with my bare hands, rip out their throats with my fangs, and bathe in their blood.
They came from the snow, as if they’d slumbered there to await our return, or slipped through it somehow, hidden until they could snap their trap closed around us. I saw white and pale blue scales, shards of ice and hair sheathed in snow. Their furious grimaces were contorted by the same anger I felt burning in my veins. I fought for control of that terrible rage that had a hold of me now, vaguely aware it wasn’t natural. I needed to protect Felicia, not battle against a force with overwhelming numbers.
The winch crunched beneath my claws as I slammed it back into the ice and secured its anchors as quickly as I could. “I don’t think a knife is going to do much good here,” Felicia agreed, and without being told what to do, she secured the ropes back in place and checked the pulley system, even though I’d already done that. “Cover your ears, Levant. Auby, do that screech.” I barely had time to obey the order, but it was a good idea.
I clamped my hands over my ears and watched Felicia do the same. It only muffled some of the terrible sonic assault the little Revenant released, but it was enough to prevent me from getting disoriented like last time. I felt a surge of guilt that I had protected myself instead of my mate, but she was fine. Perhaps I did not need to be quite as protective as I’d made myself think I needed to be. Feliciawasa very capable female; she had already secured the winch harness to herself and was turning to do the same to me.
I began to assist, but that’s when chaos erupted. The fire that burned in my veins couldn’t be controlled when the savage Naga leaped at us, snarling with foam frothing at their mouths. They weren’t just angry we’d interrupted their ritual; they were like wild beasts, and in answer, a wild beast erupted in me. A hazedescended over my eyes, and all I could see were the faces, the claws, the threat. Fight. I needed to fight. I needed to protect.
Chapter 22
Felicia
One moment, Auby’s sonic burst seemed to halt the ice-covered Naga in their tracks; the next, they shook it off and lunged for us. Levant’s response was one of fury and lethal grace. It turned my stomach as blood spurted and coated the pristine white snow red. He bought us the time we needed to use the winch to go down, but he wouldn’t take it. Like he was possessed, he gave chase, attacking with a fury I would never have guessed he possessed. He’d been so careful not to harm any of them last time, but today, a switch had been flipped, and he seemed to be hellbent on killing them all.
“Levant! We need to go, now!” I tried to reason with him, but he appeared not to hear me. He wasn’t attached to the descent harness yet, but we had to go. I could see how the light was changing, growing intense enough that it burned my eyes and forced me to squint. It was also beginning to shift through various colors, red, purple, blue. Then the earth rumbled beneath my feet, and I stumbled, my foot sliding on the edge of the gaping hole. “Levant!” I screamed, and I went over.
In the blinding light, I saw shapes hurling after me, accompanied by a roar of fury so powerful it overshadowed the rumbling of the quake that shook the ice. The harness I’d secured around me abruptly halted my descent, and pain bloomed bright and hot all along my hips and waist. The thick layers of fur probably saved me from serious harm, but the pain was intense. I blinked through it, fought to see, but heard the crash below me before I recovered.
“No!” I shouted. Peering down into the brightly lit hole, I saw how much snow had drifted in and piled high. I also saw where a shape had plummeted into it, but there was no sign of life. Raising my head, I hoped fervently that Levant was at the edge, looking down at me. Only Auby stuck his pale lavender and pink snout over the lip of the hole, his eyes bright, visible even from a good fifty feet away. “Auby, please tell me Levant is up there with you,” I begged. He shook his snout and let out a mournful whimper.
When he disappeared, I feared for his life. The winch hummed, and I began sinking down at a steady pace, my feet dangling and my body spinning in slow circles as I dropped lower and lower toward the floor of the tunnel. The ice groaned and creaked around me, and it felt like it wanted to squeeze in and crush me to death. A rumble morphed into a growl so visceral and mean that it made the blood in my veins turn to ice. That was not the earthquake—it came from below me.
The fear that sound had evoked morphed into hope. Levant! He’d survived the fall. It was nearly impossible to see him because the light was so bright down here. It was going to scorch my retinas and make me go blind if this lasted much longer. I needed sunglasses on steroids, but all I had was the thick, furry edge of my fur hood to pull lower over my head to shield my eyes.
I saw movement then, the snow pile sliding and roiling. A hand burst through the surface, and my belly clenched with renewed fear. That hand wasn’t black, but nearly white and dusted with ice crystals. One of the savages… I instinctively clutched the rope I hung from and tried to slow my descent. “Auby! Auby!” Ishouted, but he did not respond, and I kept lowering deeper into the hole.
The Naga burst from the snow with a howl of rage, his eyes locking onto me. I dangled helplessly above his head, and though a couple dozen feet still separated us, I knew that might not be enough if he was truly determined; and he was. He rose on his tail, lunged, and would have snatched me out of the air, but I managed to lift my legs just enough that he missed. As he crashed back to the cave’s icy floor, Levant rose from the snowdrift. Yes! He’d survived. The snow had broken their fall, and their big bodies and tough scales must have done the rest.
The pair clashed with fury, slashing and clawing at one another. If I kept lowering, I’d end up caught in the middle, and I wasn’t sure Levant would realize that in time. I could be squashed like a pancake, flattened like a bug before he knew I was there. “Auby!” I shouted again, but when he still didn’t respond, I feared the others on the surface had somehow gotten to him.
Then the earth shook again, and abruptly, that blinding light vanished. Darkness descended over the cave, and my ears rang as if a loud noise had exploded across my senses, but I hadn’t heard it. My breathing sounded loud in the silence that followed, raspy and frantic. My heart pounded in my chest. The darkness was so absolute, my eyes struggling to adjust. What was happening? Where was Levant? And Auby?
My hand found the knife sheathed on my belt, and I clenched my fingers tightly around the grip. The winch had stopped lowering me at last, right when it might not be necessary any longer. Should I cut the rope and hope that the short fall and the pile of fluffy snow below would protect me from harm? Ihadto findLevant, and Ihadto stop the ship from imploding and taking the planet with it.
Then the ice rumbled and shook again, harder, louder; this quake was worse than the last. Ice groaned, creaked, and then it gave out with a horrendous crack. A rain of ice and snow came down on me from above. I swayed dangerously on the rope, and felt the ice cut through fur and leather in more than one place. The sting of those wounds was nothing in comparison to the terror I felt—worse, the fear of losing Levant and Auby. I couldn’t see enough to know the extent of the damage to the ice shaft, and it was still shaking, still splintering and breaking.
When everything halted after what seemed like way too many endless minutes, I was certain everyone was dead and I was somehow the sole survivor. My mind already flashed with plans of what I’d have to do next: get down to the ground, to my ship, and engage the self-destruct so it would stop harming the planet. There wouldn’t be anyway for me to escape, but that was a detail I couldn’t care about when Levant lay broken at the bottom of this shaft and Auby had become a bad afternoon snack for some beast again.
