Penult (56 page)

Olivier frowned. “Alright. But we’ll
bring it along anyhow. We already got good use out of that one
decoy. We’re not going to need three beetles though. Maybe we send
mine back to the bog with some of the wounded.”

“
Yours? So then what will
you fly?” said Urszula.

“
I was thinking, time to
upgrade my ride. I have my eye on Yaqob’s scorpion fly,” he said,
winking.

“
We need to leave,” said
Ubaldo, staring out across the waves. “Before they have a chance to
respond.”

“
Yeah. We’re almost ready,”
said Olivier. “Viktor’s fixing to lead a bunch of the more banged
up back to the bogs. Soon as we see them off we can ship
out.”

“
How far is it to cross?”
said Ubaldo.

“
Not far,” said Urszula.
“The water is narrow like a river. It is not really ocean. How you
say? Strait?”

“
How long did it take
you?”

Urszula shrugged. “A few hours. We see
land most of the way. Only in the middle do we see nothing. There
were … some boats.”

“
Boats?” said Ubaldo,
perking up.

“
Oar boats,” said Urszula.
“Rowed by a single Hashmal. Like the condors. The Cherubim they
stack like wood … in the hold.”

“
Maybe … we can attack
some?”

“
I don’t think so,” said
Olivier. “We don’t need any diversions. This mission is all about
giving the Pennies a taste of their own medicine, delivering a
cracker column to their shores.”

“
Though I worry about the
beetles crossing,” said Urszula. “Taking over a boat would give
them a place to land and rest.”

“
Our beetles did fine on
the way over,” said Olivier. “Those bugs might be clumsy fliers,
but they have staying power, unlike the mantids. If we get fed and
watered well, they should have no problem getting
across.”

“
Perhaps,” said Urszula.
She and Ubaldo shared a glance.

Olivier climbed up a sand pile and
counted heads. “Eight,” he said. “Looks like we’re down to eight
able bodies and bugs. Alright people, gather around. This is how we
do it.”

Chapter 59: The
Boat

We hung out on the beach, nervously
eying the far point where the Pennies lurked, until Viktor, Ydris
and the worst of our wounded had lifted off and were streaming over
the forest, heading for refuge in the bog lands. Riders doubled up
on the saddles of the fittest bugs, while the injured insects flew
home alone.

I managed to sneak up on Tigger while
he sunned himself on the sand, and clambered onto the saddle before
he could get away. He first tried to buck me, but quickly settled
down, resigned to have me as a rider, this time at
least.

“
I don’t think he likes
me,” I said to Karla, beside me astride her comparatively
well-behaved robber fly.

“
He’s just a baby,” said
Urszula, on the other side of me. “Even Lalibela, I had to chase
when she was new.”

Ubaldo stood in the saddle of his
hornet, watching Viktor and his contingent recede across the
landscape.

“
If the Pennies are
watching, hopefully they’ll think it’s all of us retreating,” said
Olivier, as his scorpion fly nosed around in a heap of rotting
kelp.

“
Shall we go?” said
Ubaldo.

Oliver gave a nod.

“
We stay low, skirt the
northern arc of the bay till we’re over the open sea.”

Ubaldo zipped away on his hornet. It
dangled its tarsi, skimming the tops of the waves. The two beetles
went next, each hoisting a cracker column. The rest of us followed,
keeping as low as we could as we sought our assigned positions in
the escort formation.

Tigger kept drifting higher, but when
none of the other bugs would join him, he shifted back down to
their level. Good thing, because, I doubt any of my kicks and
stomps were having any influence on him.

Tigger also insisted on flying fly
next to Lalibela, the only other dragonfly left in the formation.
There wasn’t much I could do to deny him, even though Olivier had
intended for us to fly on the other flank with Karla. Urszula just
looked straight ahead and smiled like Mona Lisa. I can’t imagine
Karla or Olivier were too thrilled.

Ubaldo’s wasp, by far the strongest
flier among us, ranged far and wide, scouting our flanks and the
path ahead. Our overall speed was limited to the ponderous pace of
the beetles. Their thoraces vibrated like Harleys as they glided
over the glistening water. They were flying a little too low for my
comfort. I worried what might happen if they dunked one of the
columns. Those things were so porous, they would probably suck up
seawater like sponges.

Finally, we passed the rocky headlands
that formed the northern buttress of the bay and moved out over
open water. The sea here was clear and quite shallow. The sun
easily penetrated to the sandy bottom, reflecting back aqua and
turquoise hues with the occasional cobalt slash of a deeper rift or
canyon.

We passed over a pod of huge,
long-necked, large finned creatures. They looked too long and sleek
to be whales. Some weird kind of fish? Plesiosaurs.

Ubaldo doubled back and did a loop
around us to get our attention. He jabbed his finger across the bay
to the huge complex of sandbars where the Pennies had made their
beachhead. A large flight of falcons and condors had lifted off
again were heading back along the shore towards our former camp.
Had we lingered another hour, they would have caught us for
sure.

We kept low, gliding just above the
whitecaps until we were pretty far off the rocks. I thought for
sure we would be spotted, but the Pennies never diverted from their
course.

As the enemy formation homed in on the
old beach camp, Olivier signaled for us to gain a little altitude,
now that there was little chance of us being intercepted. The
beetles thrummed their broad wings to get high above the
waves.

We quickly—too quickly, it
seemed—reached a point where land was no longer visible behind us
and there was nothing but open water as far ahead of us as we could
see. The horizons were nearer here. The planet or whatever it was,
had a smaller diameter than the earth, even though its gravity felt
about the same.

But now one of the beetles began to
flag. The horned beetle, whose rider, a Duster, had named ‘Rhino,’
kept swooping up and down like a roller coaster, at point dropping
perilously close to the water, before struggling back up. Its mate,
on the other hand, seemed to have no trouble flying
level.

Oliver flew down to see what was
wrong. Karla came zooming across, spooking Tigger, who veered away
before I was able to nudge him back.

“
He should go back,” said
Karla, shouting above the wind.

“
He cannot,” said Urszula,
hovering just above us. “The falcons would tear him
apart.”

“
But he is not going to
make it across,” said Karla.

“
Which column is he
carrying?” I said. “If it’s the fake one he should just drop
it.”

“
Fake one?” Karla screwed
up her face at me. “Are you telling me that one is not
real?”

Shit. I had just spilled the beans.
Olivier had apparently kept mum to everyone about the presence of
our decoy

“
So which one is not
real?”

“
I don’t know,” I said,
shrugging. “I didn’t check who grabbed what. I didn’t think it
mattered.”

“
We are already half-way
there,” said Urszula. “Maybe if we go slower … he can make
it.”

“
I don’t think our speed is
the issue.”

I leaned over Tigger’s shoulder to see
Rhino plummeting yet again. This time, before he could pull up, the
tip of the cracker column dipped into the water and dragged a bit
before he managed to pull it free.

“
He should just drop it!
Let it go!”

“
But what if he carries the
real one?” said Karla.

“
Real one?” said
Urszula.

“
It doesn’t matter. He
should just drop it. If he flops into that water, there’s no we’re
getting him out. Believe me, I’ve seen enough drowned bugs in
pools.”

Urszula suddenly wheeled around. “I
see a boat!” She pointed down at the water.

The boat was a bulky, angular
contraption with twin sets of oars moving in in perfect synchrony.
I expected to see oarsmen, but there were none. Each oar was linked
to a central mechanism operated by a single Hashmal harnessed to a
cage amidships, much like a condor pilot.

Silhouetted against the glint of the
sea, Ubaldo’s wasp was already descending in a broad arc, circling
around behind the craft.

“
Holy shit! He’s gonna
attack!”

Without me having to twitch a muscle,
Tigger pulled out of the formation and dove after him. For once, my
intentions and those of my beast were perfectly aligned.

***

A Hashmal standing watch on the prow
spotted me and Tigger coming at him and screamed into the hold.
Several more Hashmallim scrambled out, crossbows at the
ready.

Ubaldo reached them first. He swooped
low along the hull, his wasp’s claws slashing through the water,
then popped up and stopped on a dime, blasting the watchman with a
tight pulse from his staff that burned a hole right through the
thick of his armor.

I had my sword, and my will manifested
easily, once again I was shooting blanks. My plasma spread too wide
and buffeted the Hashmallim like a strong breeze. But at least it
was enough to throw off their aim and delay them from firing at
Ubaldo.

Olivier thudded down onto the stern
and leapt from his saddle, staff ready for business. The rest of
our party, beetles excluded, came screaming down behind us. I let
loose a second shot that had more force, though not nearly as
deadly as Ubaldo’s. At least it knocked one of the bowmen off his
feet, and forced the other to retreat behind a capstan.

Urszula and Karla came zipping by to
harry the other bowmen with shots of their own. Ubaldo’s wasp
attacked the oarsman’s cage, stabbing through a gap only to be
stung itself by a pair of bolts from the crossbows.

Olivier tangled hand-to-hand with the
watchman, beating him with the club end of his staff. The watchman
countered with a powered mace with blades that spun like buzz saws
and chewed into his staff. We hovered just behind Olivier. I was
aiming to take the man down with a well calculated blast but Tigger
had ideas of his own and took off, flitting all around the boat,
acting more like an excited spectator than a participant in this
clash.

Seconds apart, a pair of bolts slammed
into Olivier’s legs, and he screamed and crashed to the deck.
“Motherfucker!”

This time Tigger and I were on the
same page and he surged after the Hashmallim who had hit Olivier,
plucking one right off the deck, snapping his neck with a quick
chomp of his mandibles, and dumping him over the side.

As the watchman, blades twirling,
closed in on Olivier lying prone on the deck, Olivier swung his
mangled staff and summoned a pulse that thudded into the watchman’s
chest and made him crumple.

The last Hashmal standing threw down
his weapon and dropped to his knees, holding his arms high. Urszula
had her scepter leveled at his head, a wish away from crushing his
sky.

“
Spare him,” said Ubaldo,
climbing down off the oarsman’s cage. “He might be
useful.”

Wings thundered and one of the beetles
came alighting down onto the deck, carefully laying down the
cracker column.

“
Where’s Rhino?” said
Karla, landing beside him.

Far behind us, a cracker column bobbed
in the swells, and beside it, Rhino, wings spread and soggy, his
rider still sitting in the saddle.

***

Ubaldo pulled the oarsman out of his
cage and strapped himself in his place. Rowing, it turned out,
worked pretty much like flying, with the added control of hip
motion as a means to turn the rudder. While Urszula tended to
Olivier, the rest of us flew off to see about rescuing Rhino and
his rider.

Even working together with multiple
lines, the beetle proved too heavy for us to extract. But Ubaldo
maneuvered the boat close enough for Rhino latch on. The beetle
pulled himself partway up the side, water dripping from his
waterlogged wings. His rider, a Duster named Georg, had gotten
soaked but was otherwise fine, if a bit miffed about Rhino’s
lackluster performance.

Not much was left of the cracker
column when we reached it. It was already soft and soggy, and
beginning to come apart like a donut in a mud puddle. There was no
way we could salvage it.

Back on the boat, Urszula was still
working on getting Olivier patched up. One of the crossbow bolts
had struck only muscle, but the other had cracked his femur.
Urszula managed to stop the bleeding, but was unable to do much for
the other damage. None of us had the skill to heal him on the spot.
Ydris might have, but we had sent him back to the bogs with
Viktor.