Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop (8 page)

“
These are
the things that attacked us,” Annalise answered my next question
before I could ask it. Her tone turned into one of half adoration
and half fear. “It’s true, this thing’s from International
Aeronautics. Very old. Haven’t been in the public eye since museums
put out a call for them. I read about it while I was in
Beaumaris.”

Davion scoffed at the mention
of Beaumaris, squinted at Annalise, and was about to say something.
Instead, Davion shared his look with Melanie. I’d never heard of a
place called Beaumaris, but it seemed to hold judgmental weight
over Annalise. Doubting it was anything important, I returned
attention to the pod. The cover was cool to the touch. I expected
to have had to pull my hand back, thinking the heat would have
burned the flesh off my fingers.

“
Shouldn’t it
still be warm?” Melanie asked the question that had occurred to
me.

“
That’s the
coolant system at work,” Annalise said. “Re-entry should have these
things burning red hot. Once they start to heat up, the internal
systems kick in. Practically freeze the outer shell once it hits a
certain temperature, which is why they were such good escape pods.
Stabilizers control impact.”

“
How do you
know so much about these?” Melanie asked. “Or was this something
else you read at Beaumaris?”

“
Do you live
here?”

“
Of
course.”

“
Then how do
you not?”

Melanie stepped back and
scoffed. She rolled her eyes and joined Davion, who’d taken his
turn looking down the hillside. “I’d expect as much.”

“
Whatever was
inside is heading that way,” I interrupted. I pointed out the
myriad crevasses bounding down the hill, hardly noticeable until
pointed out. One large bump in the decline showed claw marks having
grabbed at the soil to slow down. The two snapped tree branches at
the bottom of the fall confirmed it for me – it must have cracked
them on impact. Annalise looked in the direction I pointed. She
groaned, slumped, and looked up into the sky.

“
Dammit. Of
course. It only makes sense,” she muttered. “We have to warn
them.”

“
Warn who?”
Melanie asked. Annalise nodded her head to the area beyond the
trees, towards the suburban sprawl I’d seen. The one I’d been able
to blot out, maybe an hour or two’s walk through the
woods.

“
If we were
closer, outside of the farm, you could see a certain house.”
Annalise began. I didn’t know what she meant by farm, but something
told me she was referencing the odd placement of the woods at the
bottom of the hillside. It never struck me until later how odd the
trees looked in comparison with the clay and dirt, even with
sporadic patches of grass erupting from the soil at
discombobulating intervals. “Near the second cul-de-sac at the end
to your right. Blue, with green trim. That’s my house.” She sighed
and shook off the look of regret. “On the other hand, if we can
make it there, I have an idea on how to get going a bit
faster.”

“
Oh no,”
Davion mumbled. He crossed himself, and we all watched as he knelt
down and began to pray. His lips moved quickly, and he pursed his
eyes shut. A distant tumbling of rocks and the sound of someone
impacting with soil caught our attention. At the bottom of the
hill, a boy and girl scrambled out of the tree-line.

The boy had hit the miniature
version of crags introducing the decline to the forest. They were
both trying to escape something. He clawed at the top and tried
hoisting himself up the hillside, only getting caught in the
flattened region while pebbles and clumps of dirt rebounding to the
ground rewarded his hard work. The girl cowered by his side.

It should have
been night
when we first saw the
Belovore.
There should have been a mist
dredging itself up from the soil or a swamp impossibly placed in
the middle of the woods. But, as it stands – and from the way the
creature stood – it made me think of a scorpion.

Davion would classify it as a
Belovore later, but for that moment we all thought of it as a
monster. None of us had ever seen anything like it. Its first
appearance was stepping around a tree trunk barely wider than it,
scowling and pushing away the brush with the heels of its feet. The
creature stood roughly six feet tall and bipedal. Its skin came in
segments; plates of black with just a hint of red around the edges.
I wouldn’t have called them scales or an exoskeleton, but armour.
Two large, bulky legs propelled it forward, no toes. They attached
to a hip that could have once been the inner workings of a codpiece
displaying smooth craftsmanship. It had two sets of arms. The upper
set was muscular, like the arms of bodybuilders, to a hand of
spindly fingers. The second set was what reminded me of the front
end of a scorpion. The two smaller arms wrapped around in thin
poles to claws which locked together at the navel and belted across
the creature’s waist – these were the chelimbs. When the creature
turned, I could see its spine protruding from the skin. Its face
was flat and nearly human. There, the blackened plates had a
fresher, dark red sheen and came in smaller sizes to allow facial
expression. The creature’s mouth arced downwards. Its eyes were
pure white, dotted by cat’s eye slits. It had no hair. I could see
why the young man and woman were terrified, as everything about the
Belovore cried out that it meant to kill them.

The boy was no more than
twenty, thin, and his cheekbones jutted out from his face. His
clothes hung loose around his body. The girl was taller than him,
also thin, and had long brown hair that curled around the tips. It
matted where sweat had stuck it to her shirt and neck. She was
well-chested and her arms were a healthy size – easily matching her
ovular face. The boy scrambled to his feet as she helped him
up.

Just then, they both looked up
at us.

My heart froze when I realized
the creature’s eyes watched me – burned into me like nothing I’d
ever felt before: we were the brief distraction interrupting its
hunt.

My first reaction was to place
my hands in the air and claim my innocence.

A cracking sound registered,
faintly, displaced by my own fear.

The creature had moved his hand
over his torso reflexively. Another rock tumbled to the ground. It
jangled against the soil and a few other pieces of refuse as the
creature kicked it aside.

A small chip in the skin-armour
revealed itself when the creature pulled away its hand. The kids
scattered away, putting distance between them and the creature.

The Belovore ignored them and
kept its eyes on us as it neared the cliff-side of the hill. It
scaled up the incline easily on all fours. I looked left as
Annalise pulled back – she had a rock in her hand, looked at me,
and smiled before launching it at the creature. At least she’d
distracted the creature from the kids long enough for them to get
away. It pierced the soil with its claws and climbed slowly.

Annalise scrambled to pick up
another rock.

It crumbled partly in her hand
as she flung it down the hill.

Her knuckles were red from
squeezing too hard. Her shoulders had tensed and it looked as if
she couldn’t turn her head. She watched the creature with intent
fixation. I watched the two teenagers hide. The boy pulled the girl
past the first layer of trees, and they disappeared from my
sight.

Davion yelled: “Young woman,
you cannot attempt to hurt a Belovore! Melanie, please help; stop
her before she brings us to our deaths!”

Melanie didn’t listen. She’d
taken Annalise’s cue and was looking for stuff to throw. She must
have felt the landed escape pod was perfect, as she scrambled
towards it and began pulling at the open bowl-shaped propulsion
source at the end. She tore at the edge, afraid to touch the blue
ribbons on the inside.

The next rock missed and
Annalise swore.

She turned around. Her hands
stuck out from her side as if she’d forgotten something important,
but she was only looking for a larger rock. Her eyes darted around
us and then fixed on a boulder set in the soil, only a hump poking
out. It was the size of a large ball, with rough corners stabbing
out at random intervals around the curve. Her hands plunged into
the soil and she clawed at the corners of the large stone.

Davion, doing nothing but
yelling, said something that confused me even more, a plea that
I’ve never heard before: “If you have any faith in your own Lord,
then allow mine to work through you. I am not afraid to finish what
you are beginning, but I hope you gain the resolve to stop before
it needs finishing!”

Before long – less than a
second or two after she’d begun digging – the boulder was
loose.

She smiled.

She couldn’t lift it, but
instead of asking for help, she knelt and rolled it to the hillside
edge.

The creature pounded into the
dirt, climbing slowly.

We had time to run, but it
seemed I was the only one considering getting so far away that the
creature couldn’t pursue. I felt the nerves in my arms jumping,
urging me to tell everyone to run with a wide gesture. Again, fear
held me back. Daniel popped into my mind. He asked, ‘How long had
it been since you stood up for something? Maybe it was best you
lost everything. You certainly aren’t fighting for it.’

Melanie continued to search for
something more substantial than a rock. She fingered the edge of
the pod until she found a line indicating a release catch in the
canopy. The plate hadn’t fallen off; it had simply conjoined with
the piece behind it. She dug her fingers into the slot and started
to pry the lid off. When Annalise had pulled the boulder from the
soil, Melanie released the catch to the cover. It slid off,
whispering metallic.

Annalise let the boulder
fall.

It caressed the hill, the way
it fell.

Life slowed.

The Belovore continued
climbing, not noticing it.

Annalise watched, placing her
hand over her mouth.

The boulder connected with
another rock embedded in the soil and bounced. The clack made a
solid reverberation that stung my ears. The Belovore heard it and
looked up. His eyes were now slits, and they focused on one, if not
all of us. It stood. The incline made it look ready to charge, and
it shook clumped dirt off its fists.

The boulder aimed at its knees.
However, it pulled out a hand and caught the stone. The Belovore
was only sent back an inch or two. Its feet dug into the hillside.
Streams of dirt scattered away. The Belovore rolled the boulder
around him and let it continue sliding down. It scowled. Two
flat-edged teeth bore from the corners of its mouth.

“
Huh,”
Annalise muttered. The boulder crashed into the trees and thumped
against a large trunk. Something round and heavy flew past my
sight. It flew like a Frisbee before I realized that it was the
sheet Melanie had pulled off the pod.

The Belovore tried to dodge the
cone, but it flew too fast for the creature’s reflexes and landed
on the its left chelimb. The arm snapped off like a crab’s claw.
The crack reverberated up the hillside as the Belovore yowled,
sounding like a dog singing to an out of tune cello. The creature’s
chelimb dangled from a very loose thread-like tendon, and the other
chelimb started to spasm as it dislodged and reached for the
severed arm.

I wanted to be stupid. I
couldn’t help it – seeing all of them do something and knowing that
I was too afraid to act forced my hand. I remembered thinking about
my rage for Davion earlier, about how Davion could have been a
better man to Daniel than I. I looked around and knew that everyone
had been acting of their own accord, whether it was to save
themselves or some complete stranger.

What had I done?

Was I really going to die like
this, after running away like I had?

The Belovore surveyed its
broken chelimb and jerked it from the sinewy thread keeping it
connected. It tossed it behind him and let it casually roll to a
stop a metre away. In that same moment, I inched closer to the
hillside. The decline was still just as terrifying, but something
about the way the Belovore stood on it, defying logic, had skewed
my perception. The thought only occurred halfway, ‘I still have
time…’

I slipped.

“
Stop!”
shouted Annalise; I faintly heard her add: “what’s his name,
again?”

My gallant and noble show of
strength had become a coordinated fall.

I impacted with the Belovore
headfirst. My skull connected with the creature’s chest plates and
the ringing sent a shiver down my spine. My arms spasmed and shot
outwards, wrapping around the Belovore’s torso. I’m sure there was
pain, but when I think about it now, all I can remember is cold.
Blunt, uncontrollable cold. My sight dulled and my hearing was
nothing more than the ringing of a phone in the back of my head.
The creature smelled of machine oil and rust. Its skin was hard to
the touch, a fact my head had already discovered.

Physics did the rest of the
work. All I could really think was: Daniel was right.

The Belovore
tore at the
ground and pushed me away with
its remaining chelimb as we fell. It stabbed at my side with the
remaining chelimb, and could have easily cut a rib had our tumbling
not screwed with its aim. I could have sworn it had pierced my
skin, but a look at my clothes later revealed it hadn’t even cut a
thread. I had no control of my own movement until the Belovore
pushed me loose.

Grass and dirt caught in my
mouth as I separated from him. I pulled my arms to my chest to
cover my face with my hands. Everything changed in a second – the
hillside was smacking into me with blunt force, and then suddenly,
nothing. I was floating.