Ice Phoenix (41 page)

"It absorbed our qi," Lorn said
, feeling sick with apprehension.

The wrail advanced on them. Niku took one step forwards, and then another. The brudisaurius sensed he was heading towards his death, but that did not matter to him as long as he could protect his master. He snorted and pawed the ground in a display of defiance, and
then he charged.

With his head lowered, he collided into the wrail
's chest and continued to run his horns down the underside of its body. They failed to penetrate the fire and acid-resistant scales, and Niku only tickled the wrail rather than hurt it.

But Niku was not done yet. Every instinct he possessed told him there
was a vulnerable spot on the wrail, and he was determined to find it. As he extricated himself from under the wrail's body, his horns found a tender area beneath its heavy tail, and the wrail roared in pain.

It whipped around immediately, catching Niku on the side and sending the brudisaurius crashing into several vehicles. However, Niku found his feet quickly and galloped away from the wrail, just in time to avoid a searing
blast of liquid flames. He vanished around the corner of the street, and the wrail followed. It reached the corner when it changed its mind and turned back to the helpless students instead.

With a terrible shriek, it raced towards them, eager to rip into their flesh. It snatched Lorn and an unconscious Bagruth
in its teeth and tossed them into the air. Then it lowered its head, ready to bite their heads off. The girls screamed and clung to Mikin as they looked on in horror.

There was a thunderous, blood curdling shriek as Niku
came charging back around the corner and hurled himself straight into the wrail's face. He slammed into its left eye, rendering it blind, and the wrail dropped the boys and stumbled sideways. It opened its mouth and flames gushed out, but they missed the students completely. As it stomped about in a furious rage, Niku used his mouth to drag Bagruth towards a nearby building. Lorn and the others suddenly found they could move, and they followed the brudisaurius.

"The door
's open! Get inside!" shouted Mikin.

T
he wrail charged once more. As the students rushed into the building, dragging Bagruth with them, their friend opened his eyes. When Niku saw this, he released a happy whimper.

"Run, Niku," Bagruth said, his voice weak. "You can
't fight him, boy. Run."

The wrail loomed behind Niku, an image of doom. It raised its tail like a scorpion, and a large blade appeared at the end. It disappeared into Niku like a skewer through soft butter. The brave brudisaurius screamed in agony and collapsed to the ground, his big gentle eyes focused on his beloved Bagruth as the wrail dragged him away.

"
Niku!
" screamed Bagruth, struggling against Lorn and Misa. He was too weak to fight them as they pulled him into the building and away from his beloved pet.

"I
'm sorry, Bagruth," sobbed Misa, "but we can't save him."

There came a heart-wrenching cry as the wrail breathed fire on Niku. When the wrail finally stopped, the brudisaurius lay in a smouldering heap
. Unable to watch any more of Niku's suffering, the students dragged a screaming Bagruth into the depths of the building, sealing the doors behind them as they sought refuge.

Outside, the wrail continued its attack on Niku, nearly severing his hind leg while
dripping liquid fire onto his face. The brudisaurius shrieked as his face burned, but he could no longer move.

Niku was scared. He was blind, and he couldn
't sense his beloved Bagruth anywhere nearby. He didn't like being alone either, and as the rain washed the blood off him, a deep sense of abandonment filled him, confusing him and making him feel heart-achingly forgotten. His heart and spirit broke.

Lying on the road in his own puddle of blood, unable to cry out as the wrail chewed into him, Niku surrendered to the darkness.

I did not forget you, stupid!

A familiar rough tongue licked him gently on the head, and though he couldn
't see, overwhelming joy coursed through Niku. It crushed the darkness, forcing tears through his eyes. Niku was a big, simple-minded animal; the mere presence of a friend by his side was enough for him to know he was loved. He could now sleep happily.

Kazu
's stare was the equivalent of a thousand hot needles piercing a person's soul. The wrail felt a moment of fear and stepped back as it tried to make sense of the angry kitten staring up at it.

The silver-striped
ball of fury hissed, and it didn't seem so small anymore.

Kazu is going to kill you.

Kazu grew before the wrail's eyes, his coat transforming into velassium.

The wrail would not have believed that, ten minutes earlier, this threatening creature had been mewing pitifully and feeling sorry for
himself.

Terrana!

Kazu tried his best to project his thoughts across to his mistress, who was being carried through the air like a bird that had swallowed rocket fuel. At the same time, he harboured murderous thoughts towards the school master who was taking her away from him. It didn't help that his legs were short, and he had to dodge between the countless alien freaks that seemed intent on stepping on him. With a sinking heart, he realised he wouldn't be able to catch up to his mistress, and he watched her grow smaller and smaller until she became a dot and vanished.

He sat down suddenly and meowed pitifully. Above him, jet fighters and soldiers in mobile suits crisscrossed the sky as they waged a desperate battle against the wrails. Weapon fire, bombs
, and even nets were being deployed against the enemy. A foul stench pervaded the air and Kazu flicked his tail in disgust. A large shadow passed over him and he looked up to see an enormous creature glide by, dripping a strange, burning liquid from its mouth. Kazu hissed as some of it landed nearby, charring deep holes into the ground as it seeped through. Everywhere he looked, there was smoke, fire, and ruined buildings.

A large platoon of foot soldiers in mobile suits approached from the opposite direction of the passing wrail
, and there was a sudden eruption of weapons fire accompanied by screaming. Kazu growled, but remained where he was, which was out of sight, as he watched half the platoon roast in their suits, while the other half was attacked by the advancing herd of afflicted citizens who were trying to eat through their armour.

Liquid flames rushed through the street like a tidal wave
; no one was spared from the giant wrail's wrath. Kazu had the sense to flee to higher ground the moment he noticed the wrail's chest swelling. There was no point in looking back to observe the senseless deaths, so Kazu bounded away along the city's many walkways, heading to the last place he had seen Terrana. He had no wish to encounter the menacing, evil creature that had destroyed an entire platoon of soldiers with one breath, and he was determined not to — until he heard Niku's terrible shriek.

His big, gentle playmate was in agony
, and Kazu wanted to help him. Niku was invincible, a powerhouse that could crash through trees and stomp over whales, and there was not much that could stand up to him unless ... the memory of the fire-breathing wrail came back to him.

Without hesitating, Kazu
turned and sprinted towards the cry of impending death. Aided by the conveying walkways, he reached Niku in mere minutes. When he saw his hulking, dumb friend twitching on the ground with the light slowly diminishing from his cloudy eyes, a rage like no other flooded Kazu.

The wrail stumbled back, terrified of the silver-striped creature advancing slowly. They had been fighting for several minutes, but with each minute, the wrail sensed its life was getting shorter. Blood dripped off Kazu's back, but it wasn't his. Deep scars appeared in the road where he stepped, unable to cope with the alien material known as velassium. Kazu didn't even appear to be a living creature; he was neither warm nor cold-blooded. Compared to the monstrous wrail, he was tiny, the mere size of a full-grown tiger. A very angry one.

Unable to understand why its flames failed to affect the
feline, the wrail took to the air. It flapped its gigantic wings and lifted off the ground, hoping to escape to the open sky where it was king. But Kazu would have none of it. He bounded off the sides of the buildings, using his legs to propel him high into the air and straight onto the wrail's head.

The wrail screeched in pain as velassium claws scored its head open. Liquid flames exploded from its throat, melting anything that was unlucky enough to lie in its path. Suddenly it choked, beating its wings erratically
, and collided with several buildings before crashing to the ground. As it lay dying on the road, a cold vapour escaped its gaping jaws, gradually covering its entire body. As the rain beat down, the wrail melted away completely, leaving a lonely little kitten standing in the mist.

Kazu meowed sadly and looked around, sniffing the air. The scent of his
dying friend drifted over to him and he ran back to Niku.

Terrana placed one hand on the window looking down at the vanishing planet, and her heart went out to everyone remaining below. Even from the darkness of the In-Between, she could see the tiny sparks of explosions across the city, and the swarms of mosquitoes that were the fighter ships and wrails clashing in the sky.

Kazu
! She had heard his thoughts when Meldogan had loomed over her, when she had felt T2 struggling to come out. His cries had broken through her internal struggle with T2, and had helped to push the dark girl back into her slumbering depths. She could no longer hear him now and she clenched her fists.
How could I have abandoned Kazu like that? How could I have abandoned all of them, to leave them fighting for their lives on the planet while I rocketed away? Are they all right? Are they still alive?

Those thoughts tortured her and she wanted to scream and kick out in frustration. A reflection appeared on the window in front of her and her face settled into a commendable impression of a rock. Right now she wasn
't very happy with Master Drummik, and neither did she like the way his blue eyes seemed to pierce her very being, as if he could hear her every thought.

Master Drummik hid a sigh. He
had doubts about the wisdom of placing Terrana on a ship that was headed to the very being who, if he broke out of his prison and learned of her existence, would kill her on sight. Even though they didn't have much of a choice, he was not sure that justified the decision. He recalled his discussion with the grandmaster.

Grandmaster Deitrux, wouldn
't it be better if you dropped Terrana and me off at the next planet?

That would pose a problem for us, Drummik.
The Council has put all transport leaving Pa Gumpina on the red alert list. We do not have clearance to go to any other planet, but no one will not try to stop us from entering the Voron Cloud. Anyway, the five L-Masters on board have already noticed the girl. Unfortunately, one of them has already met her. I have told them that you and Terrana were overwhelmed by the wrails and sought refuge on this ship. Of course, I could not abandon the both of you to the wrails.

That had wounded
Drummik's pride. Now he had to contend with a ship full of lacers and weavers smirking over his shortcomings as a protector. While the weavers understood the predicament and pretended arrogance, the lacers snubbed him. They had no idea of Master Drummik's identity as an Imeldor, and the Imeldors preferred it that way.

Shaking off thoughts about his wounded pride, D
rummik hesitantly placed a hand on Terrana's shoulder.

"They
're survivors," he said, referring to Lorn and Mikin. "They'll be all right. The people of Pa Gumpina are tough."

"Is it true that UWIB will annihilate Pa Gumpina if we cannot destroy all the wrails in three days?"

"Yes."

"There
are thousands of them, and we don't know which type is infecting the people. All the ships are being prevented from leaving the planet. Can you honestly say they'll be okay? Even if there are survivors, what good is that if UWIB is going to blast them out of this world anyway?"

"Have a little faith, Terrana." He squeezed her shoulder gently. "Headmistress Marl is down there with Master Kuldor. Grandmaster Deitrux has placed a lot of faith in them and believes they
'll pull through. I do too."

He took a deep breath and tried to lighten the mood. "This ship has a lot of amenities — you won
't be bored. We can conduct lessons and continue with your Kampu training. It's important to train your muscles when you're in the In-Between for long periods."

"I miss
my friends. And I miss Mum, Dad, and Archie. I miss them so badly. Will I ever see them again?"

"Terrana ..."

"And Baneyon. Baneyon's gone, Master Drummik. He was supposed to take care of me after my family died, he was supposed to stick around for a long time, but he's gone. It's not fair. None of them deserved to die."

"It
's an answer you can only come to understand by living, Terrana. And perhaps it won't be as painful as you expect it to be."

They both stood by the window, looking out at Pa Gumpina
, and even when it vanished from their sight completely, they remained there, wondering about their friends and colleagues, and whether the planet would still exist in three days. They would have no way of knowing until they returned from the Voron Cloud — if they returned.