53. RIEKA
53
RIEKA
T he mission to the Old Capital hit a snag. On the night we were to leave, eighty-five passengers were drawn for a Hunt there. I was one of them.
Rhydian assured me that it didn’t matter. The factory was within the station boundary. I could still join the Runners on the mission. But Hentirion and Farox had also been drawn for the Hunt, and I refused to abandon them without letting them or the rest of my bunkmates know why. I made Rhydian tell them the truth, about where I needed to go during the Hunt.
It didn’t seem to surprise any of my bunkmates. “It explains why you kept disappearing for days,” Farox said, unaffected by the news I was helping the Runners due to my T'eiryash traits. Hentirion immediately requested details as to how he himself might be of help, hoping his training in the Haltian Fire Infantry might be of benefit. And Saska vanished only to reappear ten minutes later kitted out with a backpack and the Hunter’s armour he’d acquired. He volunteered for the mission. Rhydian explained the risks. Saska simply started sharpening his knives.
The Old Capital Hunt was held exactly where it sounded. In the Old Capital, the location of the Marian 1 st Massacre, and the home of Rhydian’s family house. The Royal House of Imaris, former kings of Kensilla. Rhydian said it was now nothing more than a concrete battleground full of Rabids and traps.
When Hentirion, Farox, and I deboarded the train with the other passengers, we did find concrete. But there were no traps, no Rabids, and no Hunters. Rhydian had warned us that this station Hunt was different. The Hunters who participated in the Old Capital did so because they liked to play games. They were like the one I killed. Purists. They chose one passenger to kill and they were unrelenting in their pursuit.
Rhydian had provided us with a map of the landscape which Hentirion had memorised. We would meet the Runners where Rhydian had indicated on the map and go on to the factory from there.
It was surreal how much the city reminded me of Aronbok. But where the capital of Deos was brimming with life, the Old Capital was a ghost town, an echo of a world long gone. Dilapidated buildings, overgrown plants crawling up walls and out windows, abandoned vehicles on the road, yet everything was still intact. The power was still running. The streetlights were still on.
It was as if everyone had just abandoned it. Just woke up one morning and left. The hairs on my arms stand on end at the thought.
We ran through dozens of those streets. Screams of Blessed echoed off through the cold barren landscape providing us enough evidence that the danger was just hiding. I kept my senses on alert, Farox with his eyes, and we followed Hentirion.
After running for thirty minutes, no Hunter in sight we finally turned the corner to the building where we were to meet the Runners. It was then, with only two hundred meters between us and the doorway to the underground tunnels when one of the gods of luck decided to withdraw their favour.
Farox swore under his breath. A row of Brutes blocked our path. At least two dozen were leashed to a cable that ran from one building to the other. I thought we might have stumbled upon a Hunter’s captives but the moment I took a step forward, the Brutes instantly grew aggressive. Growling and howling, they ripped and clawed at the air.
Rabids
“A little overkill, isn’t it,” Farox mused, his tone attempting to hide his fear.
Hentirion shifted beside. “They’re showmen. How we die doesn’t matter, just that we do. They are awarded for the collars they claim.”
Always the Fucking collars!
A voice cut through the wild creature’s feverish cries, their words Kensillan. “A woman, a Drake and an old man.”
I looked up and saw a Hunter standing in the window frame of the windowless building ahead. “This should be quick.”
We didn’t even have time to react. There was the whistle as the dart pierced the air and then the sharp pain as the tip pierced my calf.
Farox hissed as he pulled out the dart. His eyes, a very humanly brown stared violently up at the Hunter as his body was forced to return to its human state, his scales; his armour now forbidden to him.
Hentirion placed himself between us and the Rabids. “It was only a matter of time before they figured out how to inject us with the vapour.”
“We’re in a godsdamned Void trap,” Farox fumed.
The Hunter raised his hand, a device held within.
It wasn’t just a Void trap, it was a kill pit.
We tried to bolt, but we didn’t make it ten feet before two more Hunters on horseback emerged to block our escape. One drew a sword, the other a bow and arrow.
“THEY ARE MINE!” shouted the first Hunter.
A cackle erupted from the swordsman. “KILL SHOT CLAIMS!” He raised his sword and rode towards Farox. He ducked fast, only narrowly avoiding the Hunter’s blade.
Even in its liquid form, I was still free from the effects of the Void vapour, so I spun around to face the Rabids. However it worked, my growl might just be enough to scare the wild creatures into submission so we could have a chance to escape.
I took a step forward to attack only for Hentirion to grab my wrist. “You can’t risk it. There are too many.”
There was a click and the leashes keeping the Rabids at bay snapped open. The creatures charged us, their mouths open in slobbering snarls, their eye bloodshot and fixated on us.
The other Hunters screamed in anger and the archer drew back on his bowstring and aimed at me.
Heat scorched the air. A whip of flame erupted before me and lashed out at the arrow turning it to cinders.
The horses reared up as flames struck their riders. I spun around and found a wall of fire preventing the Rabids from getting any closer, and standing before it, unaffected by the Void trap, hands engulfed in flame was Hentirion.
The realisation struck me hard and fast. I didn’t know whether to hug him or scream at him for not telling me.
“The T'eiryash in your story,” I said, reaching out to him with my inner voice. “It was you.”
Hentirion drew his gaze away from the Hunters, the whipping flames moving as if of their own accord, striking the Hunters from the horses. Hentirion’s eyes had changed, no longer were they the amber brown I’d come to know. They shone a burning gold.
“I have searched decades for someone like me,” his inner voice lamented. “ I will not lose the only family I have ever called my own.” I felt Farox flinch beside me when Hentirion spoke to us both. “Don’t move.”
I took Farox’s hand in mine and watched in awe as Hentirion’s entire body erupted into flame. And it grew. The flames burned hotter and hotter, the man within them vanishing, becoming flame itself.
Farox cried out in anguish beside me, his body instinctively trying to rush to our companion. But I held him in place as the flames intensified, the heat burning my eyes.
We huddled close to the ground as every inch of the alley was engulfed in sentient fire, incinerating everything in its path.
It was over in a matter of seconds. I opened my eyes and found we were sitting in the only untouched part of the street. Everything around us was gone. Black snow dusted the air as the buildings crumbled down around us.
“HENTIRION!” Farox cried beside me, rushing to his feet. I spun around to see Farox crash to his knees before a blackened figure on the ground. It was Hentirion, clothes and hair burned away, skin blackened with soot. But he was alive.
I knelt to help him, but Farox objected. “You have to go Rieka. Find Rhydian. Get the code. I’ll take care of Hentirion.”
I wanted to object, but I knew he was right. I hugged him, praying to the Eldertides to protect them both and fled the devastation of the street.
Down the street, I found one of the Hunter’s horses unscathed. I mounted it and rode through the city, praying that Rhydian hadn’t been beneath us.
The Old Capital had hundreds of tunnels built beneath it that citizens used to use for public transportation, back when trains were used as such. The tunnel I was supposed to go through before Hentirion erupted was beneath those destroyed buildings. So I’d had to ride through the city and locate a new entrance.
I found one an hour later in the middle of an overgrown park. I left the horse there and headed into the tunnels in the hopes I would be able to find Rhydian.
The factory was in the northern part of the city, so I headed down into the tunnels, hoping I would find some method for navigating the tunnels.
It took my eyes a minute to adjust, and when they did I saw the signs on the walls. Names and arrows. More searching led me to a list of names of the areas of the city. I searched for the one where the factory was, thankful Eleen had told me to memorise the name in case I got lost in the tunnels. However, I doubt this is the type of ‘lost’ she had in mind. I eventually found the location and a map of the tunnels. I matched the factory area name to one of the tunnels and began my long walk through the dark.
I travelled three miles before I scented someone I never thought I would be happy to meet.
“Wade?” I called out with my inner voice, having been warned during the mission briefings that Rabids often bedded down in these tunnels.
“Rieka, oh steady, you’re alive. We felt the explosion. Are you ok, where are Hentirion and Farox, are they with you?”
I followed his scent as I tried to contain my surprise . “Have you always been this chatty?”
Wade’s inner voice chuckled. “Since birth. You were probably too busy sending me scathing death stares to notice.”
“Fair enough.” Wade may still be banished from the train, but that didn’t stop him from helping with the mission.
I continued my walk through the dark until the scent of blood halted me entirely. “Wade, who is injured?”
“We had a bit of a scuffle earlier. The explosion sent Rabids running through the tunnels.”
I quickened my pace at the realisation the blood could be Rhydian’s. “Oh gods, Rhydian, Saska are they…”
“Saska’s fine. ..” I could hear the smile in the man’s voice. “ Rhydian took the brunt of it, but he’s only got a few scrapes, nothing Sal can’t heal when we get back .”
That was good. Wade didn’t think it was a major injury, which meant Rhydian’s blessing was likely to heal any wound before we ever got back to the train. Probably before the factory. I sighed in relief.
The tunnel began to brighten, up ahead someone was using a Bright-light. I let my eyes adjust to the change and was greeted by the relieved faces of ten Runners.
No, eleven.
“Jae, what are you doing here?” I asked as I greeted the raven-haired man.
“Oh. that is such an odd feeling. Like talking to myself, only I’m talking to you.” Jae made a face that looked like he was trying to get water out of his ear. “Rhydian needed another human for the guns. Kensillan weapons are species-coded, so Devos can’t touch them.”
Correction. Rhydian needed a human since Jae and I both knew Rhydian wasn’t one. Jae shouldn’t be here. He’s about to be a father.
“I know what you’re going to say, but I don’t care. I’m with Rhydian on this. My son is not going to be born a prisoner.”
Mal, fully manifested into his Bear-Blessed state grumbled under his breath a few feet away. I felt his thoughts a few seconds later, his inner voice much deeper in this form. “We need to get moving. We’re behind schedule.”
As per my job on this mission, I kept my opinion on Jae to myself and I passed on Mal’s message. Immediately all the Runners moved into formation. Mal remained at the rear, the three flyers, Si’mon, Anika and Amida took up shield positions on the left. Jordry, Eleen and Oric, the Kindling with the birthmark, and who I suspected was in some kind of relationship with Eleen took positions on the right. Wade and Rhydian were to lead, leaving Jae with his guns and Saksa with his knives to protect me in the centre since the mission hinged on my survival to the factory.
Rhydian, who’d been sitting on the platform, hopped off at my approach and winced.
“Where are you hurt?” I demanded to know, touching him when he came within arms reach. I moved to examine him when he stopped me, taking my hand in his . “ I am fine, Rieka. It just nicked me.”
“Are Hentirion and Farox alive?” Saska had silently approached from behind Rhydian, the sundered Slyph deathly silent. Rhydian ran a hand down my arm as if to reassure me he was indeed fine. He then departed for the others to leave me with my bunkmate.
I quickly explained to Saska what happened, of which none of the details remotely surprised the Pazgari. His only response was, “I always thought it was weird I liked the old Kindling. Now I know why.”
We were quickly corralled into formation and headed back out into the dark.
We walked for three miles where the only definable feature of the tunnel was the train tracks. Nothing grew down here but mould and mushrooms. And rats. Lots of rats. We travelled across three underground platforms, through two more train tunnels and a long passage through the underground space with the train and city maps.
We surfaced near what appeared to be a large crossroad surrounded by tall buildings. Much taller than the ones I’d seen earlier, and in far worse a state. Pieces were missing from these buildings, some of those pieces littered the pavement around the base of the buildings.
“Are you ok? You’re heart rate is elevated,” Rhydian’s voice sounded gently in my head.
I swallowed nervously, my eyes darting from window to window as if I expected to see another face staring back down at me from one of them. The glow from the still-powered neon signs cast the city a terrifying shade of red and blue.
I took a few steps towards a window. A mannequin like the ones I’d seen in the dressmakers in Aronbok stood behind the glass in an emerald green dress. If I stood at just the right angle, it looked as if I myself was wearing the garment. A spectral of a life that might have been.
The light suddenly flickered and when I looked up at the source, a shiver coursed through my body. A moth had flown right into the neon sign over the shop door.
A tight knot began to coil in my stomach.
All Deogns know moths are the only creatures known to traverse both Terra and The Dark Sphere. That is why they are seen as an omen.
Lightning flashed in the distance, tightening the knot further.
I sought out Rhydian’s hand and squeezed it. “Let’s get going. There’s a storm coming.”
We ran the mile from the old city square to what the Runners called the warehouse district where the factory was.
According to Lex, who was the one who first discovered the factory on his reconnaissance missions, the lowest of ranking Thralls worked here during the day. At night they were all corralled into a transport truck and moved to barracks several miles down the road to sleep before being returned early in the morning in the same transport to begin working again. Which meant it was currently empty.
The Thralls who worked within the walls of the factory were inhibited from using their blessings on account of the Void traps that scattered the perimeter. Which meant there was no security. Even the surrounding area had been cleared by Saska and Jae for any signs of a Blessed who might scent or hear us.
I stared at the gates of the factory in abject terror. I was actually, voluntarily walking into a death trap, after barely surviving the last one.
I turned to Rhydian, his own features were a mask of concentration. He was damn lucky I loved him. I took his face in my hands and kissed him.
“What was that for?”
“Luck.” I took a deep breath and returned my gaze to the fence line where Si’mon was already waiting for me. He looked just as anxious as I was, even his wings fidgeted nervously behind him.
He offered me his hand. The moment I took it he swept me into his arms and launched us into the air.
The factory loomed out below, a great industrial achievement of the Republic. The very air we flew through buzzed with power, scenting it a steely copper.
Rhydian had scrapped the plan months before I arrived because they’d discovered the factory was protected by Void traps. Even without the security, breaking in without the use of their taints, and being unable to detect threats from the outside was suicide. Even being what I was, from the air I could only smell the factory itself and not the traces of those who worked within. There was no telling what the Runners would have faced if they’d tried this earlier.
“You ready?” Si’mon asked shifting me in his arms. The moment I said yes, he dropped me. It was intentional of course. He was the only person who could even get close, so it fell to him to get me inside the factory fence line.
I fell into a roll to soften the landing, and froze, allowing my senses to acclimate to the environment. To listen for anyone that shouldn’t be here.
The scents of hundreds of Blessed engulfed me. Their presence imprinted on this place like a painting. But that was all they were, remnants.
I was alone.
Inside the perimeter, I would be able to roam freely, but without the other Runners, I’d never be able to get the codes. At least as far as Rhydian knew. So now my job was to locate and destroy the traps. We were lucky Lex was such a brilliant spy.
I’d memorised the layout of the facility from Rhydian’s blueprints. Within the fence line were three buildings, a mess hall, a guard tower which currently stood vacant, and the factory, the largest of the buildings. But the traps weren’t in any of those. Along each perimeter, standing at roughly thirty feet each were the largest Bright-lights I’d ever seen.
According to Lex’s intelligence, that was where I would find the Void traps. “There might be other’s,” he had said. “The Thralls seemed to avoid them.”
Twelve. There were twelve lamp posts in total, including the ones on the other side of the factory.
“Wade are you ready?” my inner voice called out to the Pneumatic.
He responded a moment later. “I’m in place. I should be able to maintain the barrier for twenty minutes. That should be long enough.”
I sent a silent prayer to the Eldertides that it would be, and I ran over to the nearest post.
“STEP AWAY FROM THE LAMP!” came a voice from inside the post.
My heart leapt into my throat, I’d never unsheathed my dagger so fast. Crouched low, with my eyes on the post, I called out to Rhydian, “Did you hear that?”
“No. It’s silent on our end,” his inner voice assured me.
I swallowed my nerves and moved closer. The voice repeated itself. “STEP AWAY FROM THE LAMP, AND GET BACK TO WORK!” Relief flooded me.
It’s a recording.
I closed the distance to the post, ignoring the woman’s voice, and noticed a hissing sound coming from inside the post. I found the panel Lex had claimed would be here and opened it.
Inside I found two canisters, larger versions of those I’d destroyed in the military medical compound. They were attached to a series of pipes that ran up and into the posts. On closer inspection I found a word inscribed on the surface of each canister. The left said Vyamash, the Gods' Tongue word for Charmer, and on the right the script said Khurma, meaning Void.
The posts were being used to house and disperse. That’s what the hissing sound was. The device releasing Toxicant vapours into the air. Void vapour to inhibit the Thralls and the Charmer pheromones to prevent them from trying to free themselves. And the gods had used their own language to ensure not even their servants knew what they were handling.
I reached in and after a minute of tugging and twisting, the Void canister came loose. When nothing happened. I removed the other.
One down, eleven to go.
I tucked the cannisters into the pack slung over my shoulder and ran to the next post, each one instructing me to step away and go back to work. I managed to remove all the canisters with five minutes to spare.
When I held the last canister in my hands, Si’mon swooped down and landed before me.
“Is that all of them?” he asked, staring at the pack with interest.
I handed it to him with a nod. He departed with it without a second thought, heading to where Oric was so the Kindling could burn them.
A gust of wind pushed at the back of my neck, and I turned to see Anika land, and behind her floating down on the air was Wade.
Steel creaked to my right. The entry gate opened, and Rhydian, wearing an arrogant smile, jogged in at an almost lazy pace.
“What is so amusing?”
He leaned down to kiss me, quick and chaste. “Are you sure you’ve never broken into a high-valued target before?”