Planetfall, p.43
Planetfall, page 43
Fear of being too late drove her to kick her heels into the horse's wet sides and force a yet quicker pace, even as the rain and wind returned to buffet her and the liquefied mud splattered up around her to complete her disguise. She could only hope that she would still have two brothers by the time she rejoined Gerik's force and that Ahearn still rode guard at the rear. Rain dashed against her face as she pondered the coming battles and she dreaded the prospect of fighting the demons in the wet; maybe the Spirits would banish the rain, she thought hopefully, and pulled the hood of Pig's loathsome cloak further down to shield her face, and clasped it more tightly against the incessant rain.
Still, she thought with some relief, my warrior-mage should be safe in Kehrin's hands; I'd trust her more than anyone, except perhaps poor Lady Seeker.
Balasore
When Kehrin awoke, she did so slowly, as if her body wasn't yet ready to release her from slumber. Her eyes were mere slits as she squinted against what seemed to be a bright light, and her ears caught the distant sound of rain drumming against wooden shutters. Rain? It had been raining in her dreams too, she could remember that much, but where was she? The glare of the light softened and waned, as her eyes grew accustomed to their surroundings and she found herself staring at a beamed ceiling, but one she didn't recognise. Where was she? Kehrin yawned silently and then winced at the pain this caused the side of her head, and could remember being hit in her dream - yet, if it had been a dream how could she feel pain now? She thought about that for a while, though for how long she wasn't sure, but she did remember being wounded in the side, and the dream had also been full of strange beasts, grassy plains and a battle within a wet city - yes, that was right, it had been raining there too. She stretched beneath the warm woollen blanket that covered her, but felt no pain in her side, so was she still asleep? Running her left hand down the side of her body, her fingers suddenly came into contact with something glued to her skin, a warm almost tacky lump of . . . something - what! She snatched her hand back and threw off the blanket to look beneath it, yet as soon as she rose to a sitting position a blinding pain shot through her head, and she forgot about her side as she screwed up her eyes in agony and held her head in both hands.
"Argh - darkness!" she moaned. When the pain lessened, she opened her eyes slowly and peered at the thing stuck to her side like a monstrous leech. It was a translucent, jelly like mass, through which see could clearly see a red scar - and her full memory came flooding back; the battle at the barricade, the demons, fireballs, rain falling and the warrior-mage.
"I have not dreamt at all," she murmured, remembering the blow that skewered her like a pig. Had they won? Surely, they must have, how else could she have the mage's magic skin leeched to her side. She marvelled anew at the strange thing, for she could feel no pain at all, and recalled how it had certainly saved the lives of many troopers. Touching the jelly, she frowned, hadn't the mage said that this magic had run out?
Kehrin looked around the small room, which seemed cramped and mean, with little light passing through the shuttered windows, and most of the illumination being provided by a single oil lamp resting on a table. The only other furniture was a single chair, which had been turned towards her, and the bed on which she lay. Yet everything had been cleaned, she noticed, and wondered why as she breathed in air that reeked of age, and she realized that the place must be very old. The battered table top held a clay jug and a rough, well worn mug, and suddenly she felt weak with thirst and hunger; although the cramped room made her feel claustrophobic, as did all towns or cities, and she yearned for the freedom of the wide open plains of Hvar.
From beyond the closed door, she could hear the sound of muted conversation, and she wondered who was there, and how long she had lain in this room. Laughter carried from the front of the house. A chair scrapped backwards across a stone floor and the sound of footsteps approached. The door opened, and she squinted against the light to study the figure that carried something towards the table.
"Carlin?" she croaked hoarsely, surprised at how dry and rough her throat felt.
The figure almost dropped the plate, but with a muffled curse banged it down upon the table, and turned to stare at Kehrin where she sat in the bed. Why, she wondered, was he looking at her like that, did she appear worse than she felt?
"What are you doing, Carlin?" she asked.
"Wot?"
"What are you doing and how long have I been here?" she repeated, her voice gaining in strength and annoyance. "Darkness preserve me if you're my healer!"
"I - we be looking after you, Squad Leader," began Carlin uncomfortably, "we brought you here last night, we did, after them northern scum ran away like, on account of 'em having no guts. The mage, he fixed you up right proper, with that tricksy stuff, and he told me you'd be ready for food at midday."
"How'd he know when I'd wake up?" demanded Kehrin.
Carlin just shrugged. "Don't know" and he pushed the plate further onto the table.
"Where's he now?"
"Er - gone, ser" replied the trooper, unhappily.
"Gone, where?" she asked, instinctively aware that Carlin didn't want to talk about it, and given that he would normally talk at length on any subject, she conjectured that he had been told explicitly not to. Damn the mage! She was supposed to guard him, and how could she do that if she was stuck in here!
"Is he out on his own?"
"Ah, no ser. He's taken most of the squad wiv him, down to the river."
"He's what?" demanded Kehrin.
"Yus, and he made Tallin temp-ary Squad Leader, on account of how he never stop talking like," offered Carlin, who couldn't help sounding peeved at the unexpected promotion. "Of course," he added, in a more upbeat tone, "the mage did say if'n he didn't act like a squad leader by the time they reach the river, then he'd throw Tallin in and turn him into a fish - ha, I reckon he be swimmin' right now!"
"He can't do that!" fumed the Squad Leader angrily - he's got no right to promote anyone!
"Ah, but they do say he can turn a man into cold stone - if he be angry enough, ser."
"Who says?" asked Kehrin, intrigued - despite herself. "No, I haven't got time for this nonsense, what's he doing at the river?"
"Don't know," started Carlin, who then changed his mind on seeing the Squad Leader's face. "Well, it's got something to do with them Demons, surprise attack like. He be watchin' it."
"Darkness!" swore Kehrin in frustration, why couldn't he stay in one place, and when had he ever just watched anything. Trouble was drawn to him like flies to a carcass, and though she admired his strength, he was just so infuriatingly unpredictable.
She looked down at the heavy blanket covering the lower part of her body, and saw that she was naked - no wonder Carlin had been acting strange - but where were her clothes, for the room had nowhere to keep them - except for the chair, which was empty.
"Where are my clothes?" she demanded.
"Mage said you've to stay in bed," complained Carlin nervously.
"Get my clothes and sword - now!" yelled Kehrin. Carlin turned reluctantly for the door, as the Squad Leader swung her legs round and down to the floor. Her stomach growled hungrily, and she looked at the unsavoury offering that lay upon the table. "And bring me some proper food!"
She braced her hands on the bed and started to push herself up, only for the pain in the side of her head to return, and she sat back dizzily as the room swam before her eyes. Damn, frigging head, she thought, furious with her body for being so weak while her duty remained unfulfilled; and how dare the mage take away her clothes.
Erech in Hvar
Kiera stretched back on the centre couch as she studied the output of the new control hub's integration testing, displayed on the starship's main view screen. She could hardly believe that it was a complete success, that there was nothing now to stop the starship from undertaking atmospheric flight, even if it wouldn't be able to achieve orbit, not until Dex returned with the reforged mounting arms that would allow both engines to be run at one hundred percent. At last, something seemed to be going right for a change, and for the first time since they had landed on this cursed planet, she felt she could actually relax and feel more confident about their chances for escape.
Tomorrow morning we can do a static engine test, she thought, and in the afternoon we could make a trial flight. It was a pity she couldn't do more, but it was already late in the day, leaving her with little time to make more progress, especially as the engineer wasn't on board. She chewed her lip nervously, as the very idea of flying the starship unnerved her now, and even the prospect of a short flight, quite frankly, scared her, making her break out in sweat, while her pulse raced madly and her breathing became short and erratic. What the hell was the matter with her, she wondered, why was she so worried about flying Cochise? She'd have Emmett there to watch over the engines, so why should she feel so panicked? Kiera shook her head, as if that would exorcise her fear, but found she was thinking about Dexter instead.
"I wonder where he is," she said out loud, and then decided to try and contact him via the netlink - maybe it was working again. She accessed her implant and requested a link, and then waited impatiently, hoping desperately for a connection, and completely unaware that she had tensed up almost every muscle in her body as she awaited the outcome. The link failed and she sagged back on the couch in disappointment; the light grey walls and mauve instrumentation panels seemed cold and depressing, curving around and above her like a cell. God I hate this place, she thought vehemently, nothing has gone right on this mission. Seeker dead, Dexter missing, Emmett injured, and to cap it all we have to run into the first space-faring aliens ever discovered! What a great record - colonisations zero, disasters one. She shivered despite the warmth of the bridge, hating to be reminded of the demon-alien weapons stashed in the crew module, from where their presence continually preyed on her mind, just like an insidious, creeping illness. Hell, just walking by that locker gave her the creeps.
An incoming netlink request from Emmett, who was visiting the blacksmith, distracted her. Yet, as soon as he started to speak she knew something was very wrong.
Kiera, I've . . . hurt my ribs again -
Emmett? she queried, shocked by the raw pain in his voice, conveyed and reproduced perfectly by the netlink empathy processors.
Can't move, breathing hurts - like hell -
I'm coming, Emmett, and she jumped off the couch and ran for the crew module.
Kayin's sending . . . boat -
Bloody hell, she worried, what's he done this time! Stay still, Emmett, if you're lying down - stay there.
No answer.
Not again, she panicked, as her mind flashed back to the horror of their nightmare descent to the surface of P5469, and she condemned herself once again for her failure. With shaking hands, she pulled open the medical drawer in the crew module, removed the emergency medi-pack and jumped to her feet. She sent a netlink command to open the starship door, and grabbed a PA from the rack as daylight flooded into the compartment, bringing with it the warm smell of dry grass and pine needles, and that certain something that Kiera had come to associate with the vast rolling hills of grassland. Jumping the half meter to the hard ground, she netlinked the hatch shut, and then ran past the rear of the ship towards the river, along the path beaten out by their regular evening visits to the inn, and by the coming and going of visitors from the port. The grass and bushes had grown vigorously on either side of the track in testament to the length of their stay - which was already into its second month.
Kiera was panting by the time she reached the river, with the late afternoon sky grey above her and two highly agitated brown fantails screeching in her wake, the birds disappearing towards the birch and pinewoods beside the river. She stepped down through the long grass of the bank and onto the loose stone of the shingle bar next to the water. Looking out over the river, she saw a small rowing boat approaching rapidly, with its oars splashing noisily from the hasty strokes of Yarin, the blacksmith's apprentice.
Before the boat could run aground, Kiera caught the prow and pushed the craft around so that it faced upstream and into the current. Yarin pushed the left-hand oar into the shingle bank to help steady the boat, as Kiera stepped into the back and sat down. She fidgeted impatiently as the boy rowed hastily back to the port, but she refrained from questioning him as his nervousness was already making his technique sloppy and slowing them down.
I could have flown the ship across, she thought, but then dismissed the idea as it would have meant firing the engines without the engineer being present, and she was loathed to do that - what if something went wrong, she just couldn't take the risk.
The boat thumped into the harbour wall, and Kiera scrambled rapidly up the side, her feet slipping with her haste on the seaweed coated timber bars that served as a ladder. She pulled herself up and over the heavy beam that guarded the edge of the quay, and stepping across the stone paving, she broke into a run along the cobbled road. Seagulls scattered noisily before her, shrieking their indignant abuse as she disturbed them, but Kiera hardly even heard them as she rounded the end of the harbour and followed the road to the left, where it ran by the sawmill on the right-hand side, and the blacksmith's forge on the left.
Kiera slowed to a trot as she approached the open doors of the single storey building, passing by the assortment of metal and scrap that always seemed to collect in front of the forge. The acidic stink of hot metal and its quenching hung in the air, as did the ever present smell of burning coal, surrounding the smith's workplace and catching in Kiera's throat as she slowed to a walk at the entrance, pausing briefly to let her eyes adjust to the lower light levels within.
She stepped forward, still breathing heavily and looking for the smith or the engineer. "Emmett! Kayin!"
"Over here," rumbled the deep voice of the smith.
Kiera peered through the red glow thrown out by the forge, in the direction that the call had come from, and could make out the kneeling figure of the blacksmith who was waving one hand in the air. She trotted forward and knelt beside him, and looked down at the prone figure of the engineer, lying on the hard packed earth of the floor.
Emmett was out cold, but Kiera could see his chest rising and falling in time with his laboured breathing, and even in the dim light, his face looked pale and hollow. She held his wrist and searched for a pulse, and found it beating fast and ragged. Shit, she thought, what's he been doing now, I told him to take it easy! She ran her hands carefully over his chest and was rewarded by the engineer wincing as she traced her fingers across his ribs. She looked at the blacksmith.
"What's he been doing?" she asked.
The smith pointed towards the back of the dark workshop. "Building a new forge," he offered helpfully, though his face was drawn in concern.
"Jesus Christ!" swore Kiera. I told him, she thought, I bloody well told him not to do any heavy work! How the hell do I get him back to the ship now? There's no way he can go in the boat, no way, and he can't stay here - Shit! What am I going to do with him, he's got to be kept still. She shook her head in frustration and fear, desperately trying to avoid the thought that was running round inside her head, the nagging thought that refused to go away, and constantly reminded her - you're alone, all alone. Seeker's gone, Dexter's gone and now Emmett. All gone!
Behind them, Yarin the blacksmith's assistant arrived to stand behind his master and looked down nervously at the prostrate stranger.
Kiera pushed back the sleeve of Emmett's shirt, and extracted a midi-patch from her pack and stuck it firmly beneath his arm. She established a netlink connection with the device and instructed it to administer both painkillers and an anti-inflammatory drug, and set up an automated heartbeat alert to warn her of any worsening in his condition. She turned back to smith Kayin again.
"We need to take him to the inn, on a stretcher, yes?"
The man frowned.
"A stretcher," repeated Kiera, but the blacksmith still just shook his head. "We need to carry him to the inn - OK?" and she pantomimed carrying the engineer.
"Ah, carry him," agreed Kayin nodding, "to the inn."
"Carefully!" warned Kiera, "we need a plank of wood or something, yes?"
"Ah," the smith nodded his head.
Over an hour later, Kiera had the engineer safely in bed inside The Ship Inn, having strapped his ribs as tightly as she dared, with the help of Henka, the innkeeper's wife. Yet, she was frightened by his rough breathing, which had the faintest sound of gurgling to it, as if fluid was collecting in one of his lungs. She watched the engineer's gaunt face from the chair she had positioned next to the bed, and clenched her hands together - anything to stop them from shaking. If - if there was fluid on his lung, then he may have punctured one with his ribs, and there was little she could do. Not here, and not in the starship, she just didn't have the equipment - or the training.
She accessed her implant and requested a link to Dexter, and as she waited, a sense of hopelessness washed over her, as all of her fears surfaced from the deep places where she had hidden them. Tears welled from her eyes to roll unhindered down her cheeks as the room dissolved before her, washed away, just as her reserves of strength had been eroded. The netlink failed, and she brought both hands up to cover her face like a shield against reality. How has this happened, she wondered, when we have all our technology, it shouldn't be possible - should it? Am . . . am I alone? I don't want to be . . . I just want to go home . . . please . . .
Isford River Road
Adesina watched the off-white clouds pushing in from the northeast and forcing the dirty grey rain clouds away into the southwest, grateful that the weather was finally improving and that they wouldn't have to fight in the rain. She smiled to herself, maybe the Spirits had intervened on their behalf, and she opened the hood of her cloak a little further to gain some small relief from the rising temperature and humidity. The light rain of the morning had given way to a pleasant freshness by midday, and then a cloying humidity in the early afternoon. Yet, she still kept the hood of Pig's cloak raised to hide her identity, and it did deter the flies that were swarming since the change in the weather, and she found herself wondering where the insects had hidden during the downpour. Lady Seeker would know, she thought, as the stranger seemed to have known a great deal about all sorts of things, although her ideas were, quite frankly, so far-fetched that Adesina had dismissed many of them. Like her theory about clouds, which sucked water out of the sea and then dropped it as rain over the land - mad, of course, for who had ever seen a cloud sucking up seawater?
