Sky Raiders (41 page)

“Who?” Cole asked.

“Joe MacFarland.”

“The guy from Skyport?” Mira asked. “The messenger?”

“The man is dedicated,” Liam said. “He warned us that the legion was planning a major offensive through the Boomerang Forest.”

“How’d he warn you?” Mira asked.

“He used the confusion of you guys escaping Skyport to find a hiding place,” Liam said. “Keeping his ear to the ground, he discovered you had escaped into the Eastern Cloudwall and lived. When he learned about the planned offensive, he stole a skycraft and came through the cloudwall to warn you. I rescued him from the terminal void the same way I saved you four.”

“Where is he now?”

“Coming as fast as he can on horseback,” Liam said.

“Why didn’t you bring him?” Jace asked.

“How big does my disk look? It’s hard to keep it aloft away from the Brink. Some of my birds are guiding him.”

“Should we wait?” Mira asked.

“I’m leaning toward no,” Liam said. “After missing us at Cloudvale, the legionnaires are coming this way. Joe is a good distance behind me. There’s a chance he’ll never make it to us. Right now will be our best opportunity to confront Carnag without the legion at our backs.”

“Sounds okay to me,” Mira said. She approached the legionnaire’s horse and stroked its neck. “Good girl. You don’t mind heading back into danger, do you?”

“Have you ridden a lot?” Cole asked.

“A fair amount,” Mira said. “I had lessons in my youth, and opportunities have come up over the years. She feels warm. He was riding her hard.” Placing a foot in a stirrup, she mounted up. “You guys ready?”

“I’m not sure,” Cole said. “How about ‘willing’?”

“Good enough,” Mira said.

Liam laughed warmly. “I’m going to put some distance between us. You won’t see me at first, but I’d like to stay in communication.” Drifting closer to Cole, he held out a hand. “If you put these in your ears, I’ll be able to hear you, and you’ll hear me. They won’t work over huge distances, but they should be perfect for today.”

Cole took what looked like a pellet of clay. The others each accepted one as well.

“It’s not fragile,” Liam explained. “Just squish it in there. Not too far. It’ll mold to the shape of your ear canal.”

Cole pressed the pellet into his right ear. It molded to fit snugly.

“Any other goodies?” Jace asked.

“That’s it,” Liam said. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Bertram,” Mira said from astride her mount, “take us to find the monster over the hill.”

The autocoach started forward. Mira kept pace alongside. Liam soared out of sight.

“We came looking for this, and now we found it,” Cole murmured to Twitch. “Be careful what you wish for.”

“Because you might get it?”

Cole gave a nod. “Exactly.”

32

A
s the autocoach came around the side of the little hill, Cole gripped his bow like a lifeline. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he knew it would be horrible. As Mira had made clear, this time they were running toward the danger.

He wasn’t sure how to prepare himself. Was he going to shoot an arrow at something that turned towns upside down and defeated regiments of trained soldiers? Maybe it would have a weak spot. At least he could help distract it while Mira figured out how to defeat it. With his Jumping Sword, he might be hard to catch.

What if he got killed? He tried not to dwell on the possibility, but he couldn’t resist. There was a very real chance that they were all about to die. Nobody back home would care. His parents didn’t remember him. There would be no mourning, no grave. It would be like he had never existed.

What would happen to Dalton, Jenna, and the others from his world? He supposed they couldn’t blame him for
not saving them if he got killed. That was a pretty ironclad excuse.

Then again, if he did nothing, that wouldn’t rescue them either. They might never know it, but he was doing his best to help them.

He was relieved Liam had come. His shaping might not be as strong here as at the Brink, but the guy could fly, and he was confident, and he certainly had useful skills. Hopefully, Liam would be able to lend Mira the kind of support she deserved.

“There,” Jace said, pointing into the woods.

Cole squinted. In the distance, treetops swayed violently, as if something not much shorter than them was passing through.

“I see it,” Mira replied from astride her mount. “Bertram, can we go that way?”

“The forest is too thick for the autocoach,” Bertram said. “Perhaps we can work our way around the perimeter of the woodlands.”

“You better just stop and let them out,” Mira replied. “Then try to work your way around. Stay as close to us as possible. Flail, follow!”

Cole jumped down. Mira led the way into the forest on horseback, cantering through the trees, the flail jangling in her wake. Jace used his rope to slingshot himself from trunk to trunk. Twitch put on his ring and started hopping. Cole knifed forward, using the Jumping Sword to take long low leaps between the trees. Soon he was ahead of Mira.

There came a creaking moan, like a barn about to collapse or the hull of an old ship under stress. The hugeness
of the sound made Cole pause. The great creaking repeated, somewhat lower and slower. Mira kept loping forward, guiding her horse through the light undergrowth. Jace and Twitch continued to advance as well. Feeling a little jealous of the legionnaire sleeping back in the autocoach, Cole exclaimed, “Away!” and sprang ahead.

After a few more jumps, Cole saw Jace stop at the edge of a meadow. Twitch came to a halt beside him. Their backs to Cole, the two just stared. Cole heard the enormous creaking again, massive groans of tortured wood.

Cole’s next leap brought him almost to his companions. As he edged forward, he looked out to the meadow and caught his first sight of Carnag.

The towering creature was made of tree stumps, dirt, rock, shrubs, part of a chimney, wooden beams, some crumbling battlements, bricks of varied shapes and sizes, half a wagon, a section of cobblestone street, a damaged rowboat, and three iron cages. It balanced on two asymmetrical legs and had a pair of long arms, but it was only vaguely humanoid, like a haphazard scarecrow. The misshapen head displayed a crude imitation of a face.

The scale of the monstrosity was astonishing. Cole stood no taller than its ankle. Only the loftiest trees in the forest overtopped it. The moaning creak hadn’t come from the mouth—it was the sound of Carnag taking steps. With a grating of stone against stone and a crackling of timbers, the giant bent over. It gripped a good-size tree with one hand and yanked it out of the ground with an earthy rending of roots and soil.

Tree in hand like a club, Carnag turned to face them from the far side of the clearing. The colossus roared, the bellow blending the howl of a jet engine with the deep rumble of an earthquake. The cacophonous cry reverberated for a long time, echoing strangely, the volume surging unpredictably.

The roar shook Cole to his core. He felt like he had awakened on railroad tracks to find a train bearing down on him.

“Get out of here!”

“Run for it!”

“Go for help!”

As overlapping voices shouted desperate advice, Cole realized that the cages making up part of Carnag’s body were occupied. One cage served as most of its right shoulder, another was embedded in the left side of its chest, and the third took up much of one hip. The people inside, many in legionnaire uniforms, waved and yelled.

Carnag took a step toward Cole. Though the meadow was large, the giant was only three or four steps away.

“Split up,” Jace advised, using his rope to launch himself to the left.

Twitch took off to the right.

Cole held his sword tightly. Should he keep still? If he followed Jace or Twitch, they wouldn’t be splitting up very effectively. Carnag took another step in his direction, the ground trembling beneath its creaky weight. Cole wasn’t sure what move to make. Should he fall back? Should he try to juke the giant at the last second?

Another step. The jolt to the ground made Cole’s teeth
rattle. Carnag reached out its free hand, crouching toward him. One more step and the hand would grab him. Cole decided to gamble on a last-second jump between the legs.

Still on horseback, Mira emerged from the trees beside Cole. “Carnag!” she called. “We have to talk!”

Carnag froze, then drew up straight and tall, all attention now on Mira. “You!” Carnag said, the female voice deep and raspy. The word repeated like an echo in reverse, growing louder through the final rebound.

“What have you been doing?” Mira demanded.

Cole could not believe her boldness. For the moment, her courageous accusation seemed to have stalled the monster.

“I do as I please,” Carnag finally responded, the words echoing backward again, the last reverberation the loudest.

“You belong to me,” Mira said. “You were taken from me.”

“I belong to myself,” Carnag rasped.

“No!” Mira insisted. “You’re part of me. You’re not whole. Neither am I. We need each other.”

A long pause followed. Cole began to wonder whether Carnag would respond. Then the words came. “I’m more now, not less. You were my prison, as was another. Come to me. I will not harm you.”

“Come to you?” Mira asked.

“You will belong to me now,” Carnag said, crouching and reaching.

Mira drew her sword and jumped from her horse, landing on a high limb in a tree. “I’m not yours!” she yelled. “You’re mine! You come from me.”

This prompted a slow laugh that resembled the unsettling
sound a mine might make right before a cave-in. “I am much, much more than you.”

The giant hand grasped for her again, and Mira jumped a great distance to land in another tree. Cole noticed Jace casting out his rope. It lengthened more than Cole had ever seen, thickening as well, and wrapped three times around Carnag’s shins.

As Carnag tried to take a step, the golden rope held, and the huge monster toppled forward, knees hitting first, then both hands. Jace immediately reeled in his rope. Mira sprang to another tree.

Carnag stood, tilted her head back, and roared at the sky. Jace covered his ears, but the punishing echoes of the cry pulsated through his body. The leaves and brush around him trembled.

The branches of the tree where Mira perched suddenly closed around her, like a thousand fingers making a fist. The ground where Jace stood surged up on all sides, trapping him in a mound with only his head visible. Carnag whirled and stuck out an arm, catching Twitch in midair.

Twisting, Carnag faced Cole. As the ground heaved up around him, Cole thrust his sword skyward and shouted, “Away!” He soared upward, soil brushing against his legs, but not quick enough to entrap him.

Cole was still rocketing up when he realized his mistake. In his haste to avoid getting swallowed by the ground, he had aimed for the random sky and jumped with everything he had. There was nowhere to land. He had just killed himself.

Near the apex of his flight, Cole looked down from a dizzying height almost level with Carnag’s neck. As he started losing altitude, a huge hand appeared beneath him. Landing on Carnag’s palm, Cole jabbed his sword toward Carnag’s shoulder, yelled out the command word, and jumped before he had settled.

Carnag’s fingers closed too slowly, and Cole rushed toward the earthen shoulder. Upon contact, Cole pointed the sword at the nearest tree and kicked off, yelling the command again.

Speeding through the air, Cole watched for where he would land and prepared for his next jump. He’d never really tried stringing jumps together like this so rapidly. It took some of the jolt away from the landings. Or maybe that was the adrenalin.

Just before he landed, Carnag’s giant hand closed around him, snagging him in midflight and holding him tightly. Cole squirmed, but there was no give.

Carnag slapped Cole into the cage in her chest. The door clanged shut before Cole could react. Five legionnaires shared the cell with him, their uniforms torn and soiled. One of them helped Cole to his feet. There was also a woman, and a child of maybe eight years.