The Earth Dwellers (31 page)

Making ’em run all night till they reached us. And now they want to eat us.

My next pointer rips into a Cotee’s eye, jerking him back and leaving him twitching on the durt.

They’re too close now and I frantically swing my bow ’round my neck, withdraw a pair of short knives, even as Circ is pulling his sword back, preparing to…

He swings and so do I, snapping my knives forward in quick succession, jamming ’em into the neck of a leaping beast, feeling warm blood spatter on my face as it lands on me, its fur swallowing me up like a blanket.

“Siena!” Circ shouts, but I can’t answer him ’cause I’m eating matted, smelly fur and tasting coppery blood from the dual wounds I inflicted.

People are screaming to the left, to the right, behind and in front; some are cries of war, of violence, of attack, and others, well, they’re the screams that nightmares are made of.

I gotta get up, but I’m drowning under the carcass of my victim. “Argh!” I cry out when I feel something grab my ankle, its teeth sinking in deep, cutting into me. I kick at it, shake my leg, try to dislodge it, and the pressure releases. The dead Cotee falls off of me.

Circ grabs my wrist, my hands still clutching the knives. He doesn’t have time to say anything ’cause there’s a shadow jumping at him—

—and he turns

—and slashes

—and the dismembered head of the attacking Cotees goes flying past me, spraying crimson life in a surreal arc.

My ankle’s on fire, but it ain’t gonna kill me, and there’s more Cotees running toward us. I throw down my knives and draw my bow in a flash, sending two pointers off in short succession, ending the miserable lives of a pair of mangy Cotees.

A third one leaps over its dead comrades and is coming right at me and I’m struggling to nock another pointer and Circ is too far away, slicing at three or four Cotees that are surrounding him…

Acting on instinct without really knowing what I’m doing, I drop my bow—the Cotee’s leaping at me now—and fall backward. As the Cotee is flying over me, I shove the pointer in my hand up as hard as I can, feeling my wrist bend backwards when the momentum of the beast carries it past me.

I leap to my feet, stumbling slightly as my two left feet both decide to turn the same way, but maintaining my balance enough to see the Cotee slump over and die, the feathers of my pointer sticking out of its flesh, right above where its heart should be.

My bow’s at my feet, and I grab it, fit another pointer, whirl ’round to locate another Cotee, and see—

Circ’s down, animal bodies piled on all sides, a beast chewing on his foot and another on his arm, even as he’s slashing at ’em with his sword. I’m not thinking, just acting, like that time I almost got us both killed during that Killer attack so long ago. But this time I have something to offer more’n my two left feet and tentpole skinniness.

I shoot and shoot and shoot, the first pointer cutting into a Cotee’s ear, the second into one of their eyes, and the third, well, that one goes right down the throat of another Cotee that was looking to bite Circ in the head.

Circ’s still slashing at them, yelling himself hoarse, not realizing they’re already dead. I rush to him, crying, “Circ, Circ!” and he stops, looks over.

His eyes widen and I spin ’round, thinking maybe he sees something scary behind me, like a dozen Cotees snarling and leaping, but there’s nothing. The last few Cotees are dying at the hands of Skye, who seems to be the only one still fighting, like she’s somehow attracting the final, desperate attackers. I watch her slash one across the neck and impale another one through the gut ’fore I turn back to Circ.

He’s clutching at his arm and at his leg at the same time, which is ’bout as awkward as I’ve ever seen Circ look, but he’s smiling while he’s doing it. If my heart weren’t still pounding so much and if I weren’t still hearing the cries of the injured, I’d almost want to laugh at how wooloo he looks amongst a sea of fur, lying all crooked like that.

Instead I drop my bow and go to him, help him escape his furry prison, pull him down in a patch of empty durt.

I check his leg first, and it’s not too bad, no worse’n my leg. A few bite marks, yeah, but we’re Heaters, not some weakling group of pale-faced Glassies. His arm is worse, and I can see from the way he’s holding it that it hurts something fierce.

“Am I gonna live?” Circ asks.

“Maybe, maybe not,” I say, hiding my smile.

“I hope it’s maybe,” he says. “I’d miss you too much.”

I touch his durty, blood-spattered cheek. “You’ll live forever,” I say.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Tristan

E
ven as the Sun Realm appears to be exploding from within, I rain down death upon the enemy. They fall before me, and even as their return fire whizzes over my head and skips off the ground next to me, I keep firing. Who am I to hide and live when those who would stand with me are falling and dying around me?

The black wall is advancing, moving up the hill toward us. I’m aware that it’s not all of them, because the rest are heading the other direction, trying to hold off the moon and star dwellers pouring out of the tunnel. We have them surrounded but they still seem to have the advantage in numbers.

Something bites me in the left shoulder and I cry out, rolling behind the truck and clutching at my torn uniform, now slick with blood. Gritting my teeth, I look through the hole, seeing a chunk of flesh missing from my arm. A flesh wound, I think. The bullet went clean through.

My back against the truck, I watch men and women shooting past me at the enemy, their faces full of determination. One falls, then another. Not flesh wounds. Death wounds.

Taking a deep breath, I roll out, shooting with my good arm. But it’s pointless; there are too many and they keep on coming, climbing over the dead like the bodies are sacks of dirt on an obstacle course. They’re so close now that some of them are drawing swords, preparing for the hand-to-hand combat that’s becoming more and more inevitable.

Their mouths are contorted into snarls, their eyes full of anger and violence, and they’re running, running, shooting, and then suddenly…

They stop.

All of them as one, as if responding to a command. Just stop.

A few shots ring out, from both sides, but then even the shooting stops.

What the…?

The enemy soldiers are staring off to the right, down a side street, where—now that it’s quiet, I hear it—the sound of a drum tap tap taps out a rhythm. But it’s not just a drum; there are voices, too. Many voices, singing a song so familiar it’s like coming home or seeing Roc or swinging a sword…

The Tri-Realms anthem.

A hundred, no, a thousand voices just belting it out, raising their voices as one, stopping the entire freaking battle in its tracks, like a pregnant woman crossing the street will stop traffic. I stand, step forward, toward an enemy who could shoot me dead in an instant, in awe of what I’m hearing.

There’s still a mix of firing and explosions beyond, closer to the tunnel entrance, but even that slows and then stops as the song gets closer and louder. I take another step forward, drawn by the music.

In front of me there’s shouting and grumbling and the wall of black slowly parts, opens up, making way for…

General Aboud.

He’s waving a gun in each hand, pointing them at his own soldiers, threatening them to “Move aside or die!”

And when he steps out he looks right at me, narrowing his eyes, but then, even his anger is drawn away by the sound of the singing voices. “What is the meaning of this?” he says, turning to look down the street, but then he takes a step back, shocked by whatever he sees that we cannot.

He raises his arms, both weapons aimed down the street toward the singing. “Go home!” he shouts. “This is not your place!”

I raise my weapon, center my aim on Aboud’s side, hesitate. If I start shooting, everyone might start shooting, and whatever happens, I don’t want whoever is singing the Tri-Realms anthem to get caught in the crossfire.

I wait. Aboud yells, “Go home!” again, but the singing continues, so loud now it’s practically on top of us.

Aboud takes another step back. And then…

A line of drummers emerges into the intersection, hammering out a beat, their heads held high, their backs straight, their eyes on Aboud. And behind them…

A line of people, then another, and another. Marching as one. Singing, singing, singing their hearts out.

“I’m warning you!” Aboud says, but everyone can hear it now. The doubt in his voice. The false promise.

The drummers surround him, and between the flash of their drumsticks I see Aboud drop his guns, cover his ears. The people are sun dwellers. Not soldiers, just everyday citizens, come out from hiding in their lavish homes to show us all where they stand. And where they stand is clearer than the red sky on the earth’s surface:

They stand for Unity.

Hundreds upon hundreds of people, men and women and children, young and old, crippled and whole, pour onto the street that’s become a warzone, splitting in both directions, surrounding the soldiers on both sides. A graying man with soft eyes grabs my arm, which I realize is still up, still aiming my gun into the crowd, and gently pushes it down, until my trembling fingers release their grasp and let my weapon fall to the ground with a clatter.

“President Nailin,” he says, and I can see that while the look on his face is one of confidence, his eyes are wet. “No more. Be at peace.”

And then he moves on, leaving me stunned, gone to disarm the next soldier.

Many of the people are carrying medical supplies, bottles of antiseptics and bandages and gurneys. They go to the wounded, to the dead, begin tending to them. I’m in awe.

Even over the singing and drumming, I can hear Aboud yelling and screaming and there’s a commotion around the drummers. “Come with me,” I shout to a soldier who’s standing, weaponless, watching in amazement as the singing people walk by him. “You and you, too,” I add to two others who look just as shocked by the whole thing.

They follow me as I push through the crowd, forcing my way toward the drummers. When we’re close, one of them falls back, his drum thudding hollowly on the ground. Aboud stumbles through the gap. “You!” he shouts at me when he sees me, his finger pointed at my head. “You did this!”

But I didn’t. All I did was ask the people…

It hits me. My words, they were a cry, a final plea for—

For Unity.

But I never expected…I didn’t think…it’s more and more and more than I could’ve ever hoped for. It shows that the sun dwellers are not my father, that they have minds that can think and make their own decisions and unite as one.

I stride toward General Aboud, stopping a few feet from him. “Aboud, you are under arrest for igniting a civil war in the Tri-Realms.”

The three soldiers step past me, grab Aboud by the arms, pull them firmly behind his back. He’s smart enough not to fight it. He knows when he’s been beaten, not by bullets or soldiers, but by hearts.

A young woman steps up to me as Aboud is being led away. Her eyes are pale blue and she has hair as red as a sky she’s never seen. “President Nailin,” she says.

“Yes?” I say.

“Do it,” she says, handing me a bullhorn.

I take it automatically, surprised, wondering what she means. But of course. I’m the leader. Someone needs to tell them what to do next. I look around, trying to find somewhere they’ll be able to see me.

“Here,” the young woman says, motioning to a wooden slab—a door, I realize, ornately carved and which probably cost a fortune for the sun dweller whose house it adorned, broken off its hinges and being carried through the crowd. A dozen people step forward to hold it up. Two of the drummers set down their instruments and offer me their hands to step into.

They lift me up onto the red door.

A hush falls over the crowd, except for a shout from somewhere near the tunnel, where I can see the uniforms of moon and star dweller soldiers making their way into the city. “He’s going to speak!” the voice shouts.

So many people. All looking up, all looking to me, all listening to what I’ll say.

What will I say exactly?

Of all people, it’s Roc who pops into my mind, his advice to speak from the heart hitting me in the gut.

I raise the bullhorn to my lips. “The citizens of the Tri-Realms have spoken!” I shout. A cheer rises up from the crowd, although even as I scan the people, I can see those wearing the black clothes aren’t smiling, aren’t cheering—many of them are shrinking back, toward the edges, as if they might run.

“Let me first address those who fought against us, who followed the orders of General Aboud and the other rogue generals. You will not be punished!” The cheering stops in shocked silence.

One of my own red-clad soldiers looks up at me. He’s carrying the body of a boy who looks far too young to be wearing a uniform. “They killed my brother,” he says.

I put the bullhorn down to speak directly to him. “I’m sorry,” I say, chasing away the swell of emotion that threatens to overcome me. “I can’t bring him back, but together we can honor him by forgiving the soldiers who were only following orders given to them by those who would destroy us all.”