CHAPTER NINETEEN
Into the Open
Maddy cleared the tree line and cut back into the grass, her feet finding wet ground, the jungle closing behind her and opening again as she wove between the outer trunks. Erika and Tony were right with her, their dark cloaks pulling behind them, the sound of their breathing sharp and controlled through their masks.
The impacts came up through the soles of their feet in a deep, rhythmic hammering that traveled through their knees and into their hips with every stride the creature took behind them. Steady. Growing. Each impact heavier than the one before.
They cut back left into the trees and the canopy thickened overhead, the light going green and dim, the air smelling of wet bark and old rot. The wraths phased right through a cluster of roots without breaking stride, the phase cold and instant, and Tony shivered as the sensation crawled across her skin.
The creature hit the same roots and went through them the hard way. The sound of cracking wood and splitting branches echoed in the air behind them, the predator roared and sent shivers right up Maddy’s spine, and she looked at her sisters running on either side of her only to find Erika grinning back at her.
They broke back into the open, the grass slapped wet against their shins. The creature came through the tree line behind them stumbling and tripping up as it collapsed, hitting the ground hard. It didn’t stay down for long though. It managed to pull itself up, again finding itself on open ground.
Shaking it off, it burst into speed and was right back on their heels. Its hind legs drove it forward in long, lunging strides, each one swallowing more distance than any of them could cover in three.
The head was enormous, and as it chased them its jaws were open, bearing sharp teeth and a toothy grin. The Predator had a ridge of deep orange plumage that ran down the back of its neck, and across the length of its spine. The hide beneath was a dark brown and red that shifted toward amber where the light caught it.
This thing was beautiful, Tony thought.
And it was gaining on them.
The head dropped toward Maddy’s back and she phased without breaking her stride, the jaws closing through her and finding nothing, the displaced heat of the creature’s breath washing across the back of her neck, smelling of rotten meat. She came back into phase and kept running. Erika cut wide to the right and the creature swept its head in a low arc after her, a full-body motion that came in hard and fast.
Erika phased through it, her cloak ripping on one of its teeth. The skull passed through her and drove into the earth a foot beyond where she had been, gouging a long dark scar through the wet grass.
The tree line thinned ahead and Maddy could see the shape of the clearing opening up through the trunks.
She pushed everything she had into the last stretch. Her legs burned and her lungs pulled hard, her feet hit the wet ground with an impact that jarred up through her hips with every stride. Behind them the creature accelerated into the open and the hammering of it through the earth grew until she could feel it in her back teeth.
The three of them hit the outer trees and went through the last cluster at a dead run, phasing without slowing. The clearing beyond was wide and flat and Maddy cut hard to the right, pulling Erika and Tony with her, all three of them peeling away fast from the center line.
The creature came through with momentum behind it before skidding to a clumsy stop.
It stood there with its chest heaving and looked at what was waiting for it in the center of the clearing, and for a moment the only sound in the open air was the ragged rhythm of its own breathing.
Four squads of Legionary spearmen held tight interlocked lines across the clearing’s center, their composite shields overlapping edge to edge, the bronze fittings catching the pale morning light. Their spears were braced forward, angled toward the creature’s chest and throat.
To the right, Velitas Javelineers stood with the first volley already raised. Their shafts at shoulder height, tips level and ready. The Praetorian squad held behind the main formation, their heavier plate and longer shields forming a second line. Sayid stood just forward of center, his spear held at rest across his body, watching the creature with the stillness of an experienced hunter.
A short distance behind the formation stood two kobold mages. Wayne’s arms were loose at his sides, a shimmer of heat distortion wavering around his right hand. Next to him, Garth’s eyes were focused on the predator as a cold mist curled between his fingers.
Tanya and Hannah stood off to their right. The articulated legs of Hannah’s armor spread slightly at a ready stance, the slit across the front of the core open, her eyes moving across the terrifying features of the creature. She took a deep breath as she attempted to steel her resolve.
The predator roared. A full-throated pressure that rolled out across the clearing and came back off the trees on the far side as a low echo. The plumes flattened against its neck, the jaw came open wide enough to show the full length of its teeth, as it took one heavy step forward.
Sayid’s arm came up, and dropped. “Loose!”
The Javelineers threw.
The volley crossed the clearing in less than a heartbeat. Six of the eight javelins drove into the creature’s face and the soft tissue at its neck. It shook its head in a hard, violent arc trying to tear them free.
Sayid’s arm came forward.
The Legionary formation advanced.
They moved together, shields locked, feet finding the same rhythm, spears leveled. The creature dropped its head and swung it across the front of the line in a committed, sweeping blow that came in low and hard, and the impact scattered the forward edge of the left squad. Three kobolds went tumbling across the field, one of them sliding a long way before slamming into a protruding boulder with a sick thud.
Tanya was already moving.
She crossed to him at a run, dropped to one knee, and pressed both hands flat to his chest plate. The little kobold winced in pain as her healing pushed through his wrecked body. Two Velitas Javelineers pulled him back through the rear of the formation without being told, dragging him clear by the arms.
The formation had already closed the gap.
The creature swept again, lower this time, and the shield wall buckled but held, the kobolds grinding backward two steps under the weight of the blow, their feet tearing at the grass as they leaned hard into each other.
But they held their ground.
Tanya stood and turned and found Garth already looking at her across the width of the rear line.
She gave him one short nod.
The Phasemancer stepped forward to the edge of the rear formation and raised both hands, palms out. The mist curling from his fingers pulled inward for a moment, thickening, gathering, and then the bolt left his hands all at once, a hard fast concussion of cold that crossed the distance and hit the creature’s face.
The effect was immediate.
Its jaws were locked open, frozen at an angle, and the heat of its breath puffed out of its throat as steam. The plumage along its neck went rigid, sealed under a layer of ice that crackled and spread, and the creature’s roar died into a grinding, strangled heave as it tried to move its head and found that it could not. Its hind legs scrambled at the ground underneath it, the rest of its body still fully functional, still fighting for purchase.
Hannah moved. The articulated legs of her armor carried her forward in long covering strides. She stopped just short of the rear of the formation as her grappling hook raised up across the top of her shoulder. She fired at a flat upward angle into the underside of the frozen mass, the hook punching through a thick plate of ice and driving deep into the tissue beneath it. She let the line draw taut, reached out and grabbed it, then yanked the hook back toward her with a rapid and powerful pull.
The frozen head came apart.
The ice shattered outward in a spray of pale fragments that clattered off the shields of the forward formation, and the grapple caught on what was left of the creature’s head, pulling it down and into the earth.
Hannah released the line.
“Finish it!” Sayid ordered.
The formation came in hard and low, plunging their spears into its body until the massive predator went limp.
When it was over the clearing was quiet except for the sound of armor settling and small feet moving through the grass as the formation stood down. The creature lay on its side in the churned earth.
Tanya moved among the Legionaries, checking the ones who had gone down. None of them were hurt. The one she had healed was sitting up on his own now, his shield across his knees, and he tapped his chest when she crouched in front of him.
She looked over toward the mages.
Garth was standing with his hands at his sides, the cold mist gone. Wayne had moved a step closer to him at some point during the fight and now stood with one hand on Garth’s shoulder, their colored cloaks whipping in the wind.
Then she turned toward Hannah. “I’m not sure I would have gone with a grapple. What if it had pulled you down?”
“Or how about thanks, Hannah, for ripping the head off the top of the dinosaur,” Hannah snapped at her sister.
Hannah walked forward and stood staring at the predator that now lay motionless on the ground. The slit across the front of her armor slid open and she stared at what was left of the monster, trembling.
All at once she stepped forward and started kicking the creature in the side, screaming, before her powered armor crumbled onto the ground around her in a pile of parts. Hannah collapsed onto the grass, burying her face in her arms, and cried. The frustration and fear she had been holding in washed over her all at once.
Tanya walked over and stood beside her without saying anything for a moment.
The creature’s plumes moved in the morning breeze. One feather worked loose and drifted across the grass.
“It was going to kill someone,” Tanya said.
“I know.” Hannah’s voice was muffled through her arms. She was quiet for a long moment. “That’s so much blood.” She swallowed hard. “I didn’t think there would be that much blood.”
She lurched forward and was sick in the grass.
Tanya crouched beside her and said nothing. Some things didn’t need words.
Sayid’s voice carried across the clearing as he spoke with Maddy, Tony, and Erika where they had come to a stop near the tree line. The three Wraiths had pulled their hoods back and removed their masks. Even at this distance Tanya could read the posture of the conversation. Maddy was doing most of the talking and Sayid was listening with his arms crossed, his helmet tucked under one arm.
Tanya walked over to join them.
“We’re pretty sure that’s the one that attacked the airship last night,” Maddy said. “We followed its tracks all the way down to the quarry. That thing was a tough son of a bitch too. There was barely any blood from the gun batteries.”
“Just to be safe,” Tanya said, “the airships will stay off the ground tonight. Gavin already spoke with both crews before we came out here and they’re capable of hovering near the keep through the night.”
Sayid considered that and gave a slow nod.
“What about the camps?” he asked.
“Ari plans on extending the walls out around them. She’s going to make sure there’s a place where at least one airship can land safely, behind the walls to load and unload troops and supplies for the garrison.”
She looked back toward her sister, still a mess in the grass.
“Is she all right?” Tony asked.
“I don’t think she’s ever had to kill anything before.”
Tony looked at the other wraiths and then back to Sayid.
“She’s going to have to find a way through it,” he said. “Better it happened like this, with all of us around her.”
“I’ll go help her,” Tanya said. “The rest of you, start breaking down that carcass. Tim was right — Hannah and I should be able to pull the meat into our inventory. That should be more than enough food to last a couple of weeks.”
“Good!” Maddy said. “I can’t wait until we make that thing into hamburger. It’s what it gets for trying to eat me.”
