Above World (21 page)

Dash was still talking to the creature, commanding it to keep hopping around. But Hoku knew that as soon as the creature tired, the Upgrader clinging to its side would recover his balance and shoot Dash and Aluna.

Hoku grabbed the strap with both hands, took a deep breath, and pulled as hard as he could. The fastener wiggled. He widened his stance, using his feet to push against the earth for more power. He never could have done that in the ocean, but up here, gravity had its uses. He pulled again. The rhinebra jerked up suddenly, and the strap popped free.

He used the creature’s erratic movements to help loosen the next fastener. As soon as it popped open, the third strap snapped. The thick leather whipped across his face. He reached up to touch the bridge of his nose and found it slick with blood.

Zorro squeaked. Hoku looked up and saw the saddle twisting off the rhinebra. In a second, he’d be face-to-face with that horrible Upgrader. Unless . . .

He jumped and tried to grab the flailing straps, hoping they would pull him up the rhinebra’s flank as the saddle slid off the other side. The straps slapped him in the face instead.

The Upgrader grunted as he hit the ground, then yelped as the immense saddle fell on top of him. Hoku scrambled to the rhinebra’s head and found Dash guiding it by the reins.

“The Upgrader is down, but only for a flash!” he said.

Dash nodded and said something to the rhinebra. The huge creature bent its foreleg. Dash hopped up onto its knee and clambered onto its back, the reins still clutched in the hand of his good arm. Hoku scrambled up after him.

“Wow,” Hoku said. Had Dash really told this animal what to do — and it had listened?

“Sit behind me and hold on,” Dash said.

“No, we can’t leave Aluna,” Hoku said firmly.

“I have no intention of leaving without her,” Dash said. “Hold on, or you will find yourself on the ground again.”

The rhinebra’s striped fur was too short, and everything worth clinging to had gone overboard with the saddle. Hoku had no choice but to grab Dash around the waist.

“Here we go!” Dash said some strange words to the rhinebra and jangled the reins toward the left. The creature reacted instantly.

Aluna and the tattooed Upgrader woman were still fighting. Hoku watched her send a searing cone of fire toward Aluna. Aluna dropped and rolled forward. She tried to kick the flame shooter out of the Upgrader’s hand, but it didn’t budge. It was attached! The Upgrader swung her bladed hand down, but Aluna dodged. The black sword plunged into the earth right where Aluna’s head had been.

“Hurry,” Hoku said to Dash. His heart stuttered so fast that he could barely catch his breath.
Don’t get skewered,
he thought at Aluna.
Don’t get skewered!

Dash turned the animal around and whispered to it again. The rhinebra threw back its head and roared. It wasn’t the high-pitched giggle of a dolphin or the distant weeping dirge of a whale. Its bellow crashed over them like a tidal wave.

Aluna and the female Upgrader both looked up, dazed.

“Now!” Dash yelled.

Aluna jumped to her feet. She whipped one of her talons through the air and sent it flying toward the rhinebra. The thin chain wrapped around the biggest horn jutting out of the creature’s forehead.

“Go!” she shouted back.

Dash urged the rhinebra into a trot. The ground thundered with each of its steps. Aluna ran beside it, stumbling, but using the talon chain to keep her balance.

Flames licked Aluna and the rhinebra as the female Upgrader recovered her senses. The creature bellowed again and launched into a full gallop. Hoku grabbed Dash tighter. Zorro seemed safe enough clinging to the creature’s mane. How Dash was staying upright using only his legs was a mystery.

A spear whizzed by the rhinebra’s flank. Another nicked Dash in the ear. Both the Upgraders were up and chasing them now. Aluna ran and tried to jump onto the rhinebra’s head. She got one hand around its horn. Her legs dangled off the side as the creature galloped.

“Hold on!” Dash yelled.

The horse-boy urged the rhinebra even faster. Hoku could feel the animal’s muscles bunching and springing. He could barely keep his hold on Dash.

Aluna’s legs dragged along the ground. She tried to pull herself up, but kept slipping even farther down the rhinebra’s horn.

“Can’t make it,” Aluna panted. “Go . . . without me!”

“No! We will not leave you here,” Dash said.

“You’re strong. You can do it!” Hoku urged. If he could barely keep his own seat, how was he going to help Aluna?

“Do you have any ideas?” Dash said to him. “We are running out of time.”

Hoku looked back toward the dome and saw the Upgraders racing straight at them on another rhinebra and a terrifying black creature with eight legs. They were far behind, but gaining ground.

“Surrender,” Hoku said. “Maybe we can reason —”

“No!” Aluna screamed. “Do it, and I’ll . . . kill you both . . . myself!”

Hoku caught a flash of tawny wings in the sky.

An Aviar!

The Aviar dove faster than he believed possible. So fast, all he saw were feathers and a streak of brown hair. A moment later, she was lifting Aluna to the rhinebra’s back, tucking her wings, and grinning at him.

“Calli!”

“Hi,” she said, panting. Her cheeks glowed lobster red and her smile made his heart somersault in his chest.

“Go!” Aluna yelled.

Dash directed the rhinebra toward the path that wound around the outside of the plateau and led to the forest far below. They barreled down it in the near dark, and the two trailing Upgraders were quickly out of sight.

Hoku burned with questions for Calli but didn’t speak. None of them did. Not until they’d reached the ground and the rhinebra plunged into the thick foliage of the forest. Only then did his words come tumbling out.

“Calli! But what about your mother? How did you get away?”

“Logic,” Calli said, her eyes sparkling. “I pointed out to my mother that her grand plan had actually worked. Aluna
did
teach me about courage and honor, and I felt it was my duty to aid you in your quest. Mother tried to object, but I think it was mostly for show. She was so proud, she practically kicked me out of the palace.”

“Well, I’m grateful she let you go,” Aluna said. “You saved my life!”

Calli lowered her eyes, embarrassed, then looked up again. “I kind of did, didn’t I?”

Hoku laughed. And if he hadn’t been holding on to the rhinebra with every ounce of muscle he possessed, he would have leaned over and kissed her.

A
LUNA COULD SEE
through the nighttime forest, but the rhinebra’s eyesight wasn’t much better than Dash’s. The third time the massive creature stumbled, she said, “We should make camp.” Dash seemed intent on getting as far away from the SkyTek dome as possible. Good instinct, but they were all exhausted.

Dash nodded. “I agree. Do you see a good place to claim for the night?”

She directed him to a small, tree-covered clearing and he pulled the rhinebra to a stop.

Aluna jumped down first, eager to get her feet on solid ground, and collapsed in a messy heap. The long ride had not only bruised her backside but rendered her legs useless. Hoku landed next to her with even less grace and an “Oof.”

Calli drifted down and landed gently on one foot.

“How is your ankle?” Aluna asked.

“Better,” Calli said. “It’s only a sprain. We need light bones for flying, so SkyTek gave us superfast healing to compensate. It was a good trade.”

Behind her, Dash slid easily off the rhinebra, even with just one good arm, and looped the animal’s reins around a tree branch. He moved with such grace and fluidity. If he had a tail, he’d fit right in with the Kampii.

“I will go back and misdirect our trail,” Dash said. “Build a fire while I am gone. It will be cold tonight.”

“Cold?” Hoku said, pushing himself to his feet. “It’s not like this is deep ocean.”

“We don’t need a fire,” Aluna said. Aside from the fact that she had no idea how to build a fire, they hadn’t been cold once since they came to the Above World. Not even a little. Thick Kampii skin kept them warm in the frigid ocean and kept them sweltering in the Above World sun.

“You never need torches?” Dash asked.

Hoku snorted. “Why would we need torches when we have glowfish? Besides, fire doesn’t work that well underwater.”

Dash’s shoulders seemed to deflate. “Well, I will need a fire. Both for warmth and to see.”

“And to honor the sun,” Aluna said, remembering what Dash had said about the Equian word-weavers keeping a fire blazing all night.

Dash looked at her strangely. “Yes,” he said quietly. “And to honor the sun.”

“I’d like a fire, too,” Calli said. “We’re built for the cold of high altitudes, but I can’t see in the dark.”

Dash walked into the clearing and squinted in the darkness. “Can you please clear a spot here? And fetch some twigs and small branches?”

“I can do that!” Aluna said. She jumped up and limped toward the forest, picking up sticks as she walked. She had no idea what would burn, so she grabbed everything she could find and piled it next to the fire spot. Her legs threatened to stiffen whenever she stopped walking, so she kept at it, bringing armful after armful. She would have brought the rhinebra some food, but it seemed content to munch on the nearby bushes.

“Hey, fish breath!” she called to Hoku. “You want to help gather twigs?”

“Not really,” Hoku replied. He was sitting with his back against a tree, talking to Calli and fiddling with his water safe. “Calli and I are teaching Zorro how to try combinations.”

“That sounds useful.”

“It is! He can test numbers much faster than I can. His paws are like little hands.”

She glanced over and saw Zorro pressing numbers with blurring speed. But Hoku and Calli weren’t even watching him — they were staring at each other instead. Aluna shook her head and headed back into the forest.

By the time Dash stumbled back into camp, the forest was dark as deep ocean, and Aluna had made a little ring of stones around some of the twigs she’d collected. She remembered the configuration from the Human village they’d stumbled on back when they’d first come to the Above World.

“Good,” Dash said, sounding surprised. “You are sure you have never done this before?”

“Not even once,” she said, feeling a bit too proud for someone who had merely pushed some stones around and picked up some sticks.

Dash knelt by the circle — looking a little less graceful and more tired than before — and motioned to her. “Come, sit here. I will show you the rest. And besides, I need your eyes until we get the flames started.”

She hobbled over and sat a foot or so away from Dash, close enough but not too close. At least that’s what she hoped he would think. Had he wanted her to sit closer?

Barnacles,
she thought,
I’m turning into a gibbering mermaid.
In her mind, mermaids spent the whole day combing their hair and thinking about boys, two things that normally bored her beyond reason. Aluna ran a nervous hand through her hair. When
was
the last time she’d bothered to untangle it? Good thing the Aviars’ chief groomer had chopped off most of it for her before they’d left.

Dash plopped his satchel in the space between them — the perfect amount, Aluna decided — and dug around inside it.

“Aha!” he said, pulling out two unimpressive pieces of stone. “Here is my flint. We are going to scrape these together until we get a spark.”

He did it once to show her how, then handed her the stones. It took her twelve tries. She knew the exact number because Hoku and Calli counted them aloud.

“Excellent,” Dash said. “Now we will use the spark to ignite some of our dried leaves and tiny sticks.”

She followed his instructions and even let him reposition her hand for a better angle. Eventually, one of the leaves started to smolder.

“Now blow gently on your tiny fire,” Dash said. “It is your way of asking the flames to grow.”

The flames surged briefly when she blew, but quickly shrank back to embers.

“Softer,” Dash replied. “Let me show you.” He blew, and within a minute, they had a real fire blazing.

She didn’t need the warmth, but she loved the fire anyway. It crackled and sizzled, dancing wildly to some unheard rhythm. And the smell! So unlike the stench of the Human village. A fire didn’t just warm your outsides; it warmed your insides, too.

The wind changed, and the smoke blew in her face. She coughed and tried to blink away the soot. Her face stung, as if the fire were trying to burn out the orbs of her eyes.

“This way,” Dash said, and pulled her to the other side. “Never sit downwind.”

Her lungs cleared. She stared at the fire again, a little more warily.

“This really is your first fire,” Dash whispered. He motioned to Hoku, Calli, and Zorro, who had curled up by their tree and fallen asleep.

Aluna nodded. The firelight flickered off Dash’s face. He looked strange and wild — and unlike any of the Kampii boys back in the city. Some Kampii shared his coloring, but none had the same eyes. What were the girls like where he came from? she wondered. In her mind, they were tall, strong girls with the bodies of horses who could run for miles and miles and never get tired. Their hair streamed behind them as they ran, much like their horsey tails, and they laughed in the sun.