The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (73 page)

The cockpit cover was badly cracked and smoke was still rising from the port engine. Rael released the canopy and extended a hand to help her out of the front seat. His expression was grim. “We can’t stay here.”

Shann took his hand. “You’re quite welcome.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Rael said. “These mountains are dangerous, especially after nightfall. Apart from the risk of hypothermia and frostbite, there are…well, there are creatures here.”

She reached back into the cockpit and checked Boxx over. The Chandara appeared unharmed. She held out both hands, but it scampered past her and dropped to the snow beside Rael, standing on its hind legs. Shann turned and jumped down, landing in front of Rael. “Well, I already met up with those horned beasts–valthar, you called them. I fended them off on my own, I might add.”

He was wide-eyed and glancing from side to side. “Valthar prowl the lower slopes. They seldom get up this far. The creatures here are…different.”

Shann felt a pit of something cold forming in her stomach that had nothing to do with the frigid air. “What do you mean, ‘different’?”

“We call them murghal–the common name for them is rime beasts or rime slayers. They…have a different chemistry to you and me, one that’s specially adapted to the intense cold up here. They have the ability to absorb heat, extracting it from whatever they touch and freezing it in the process. The blood running in their veins isn’t blood. It’s a green liquid that never freezes. They are like no other beasts on this planet. We have to get away from here.”

Shann remembered as a child being told stories about fearsome beasts like the Great Kharthrun Serpent. Her encounter with the Serpent had taught her that sometimes the name lived up to the nightmare. And Rael did not seem the kind of person who would be influenced by childish tales. The fear she saw in his eyes was genuine.

“Can you get this thing airborne?” she asked.

“I…I don’t know. The avionic carries some basic tools, but…I’m not an avionics engineer.”

She smiled encouragingly at him. “I thought a scientist could do anything.”

“I’m not that kind of a scientist,” he replied. “I deal mainly with calculations, formulae, designs. I work on paper.”

Shann did not see what possible use that sort of a scientist could be, but she didn’t want to discourage him. “Why don’t you see what you can do? I’ll keep a watch out for these murghal.”

“All right,” he said, his voice still querulous, “but if you see one, don’t try and fight it. Just run.”

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Chapter 16

Shann stood alert, her right hand gripping the balance point of Saccath’s staff, black Keltar garb stark against the pure white snow of the mountain. She scanned the area for any movement. In truth, she didn’t really know what she was looking for. She had no idea what a murghal looked like, and after Rael’s brief but chilling description she was afraid to ask. The boy was obviously terrified at the very mention of them. Better to keep his mind occupied with other things–like getting out of here.

She glanced back at the avionic. Rael’s long legs dangled over the engine mounting, his head lost somewhere in the workings of the huge fan. She could hear a sound like rushing air coming from the flame tool he was using. She waited till the sound stopped, then called out, “how’s it coming?”

His head appeared from out of the depths of the machinery. To her surprise, he was smiling. “Good…I think. Of course, I won’t know till I switch on, but I think I’ve managed to patch her up. Enough to get us going again at any rate.” He let himself down to the ground, grabbed a small tablet of paper and began scribbling furiously. “Uh-huh.”

“What?” she said. “What is it?”

“Well, by my calculations, the port rotor should work, but only at about fifty per cent efficiency. Because of the damage, I’ve had to reconfigure the blades to balance them and prevent asymmetrical rotation. It’s not perfect. We won’t be able to pull any fancy moves like the one you did. But if we’re careful and don’t overtax the engines, it should get us off this mountain, at least.”

Shann only understood about half of what he said, but she managed a smile. “Good… That’s good. How long?”

“Well I should run a few more checks before we trust our lives to my repair efforts. Soon.” He climbed back up to the rear seat of the cockpit. Boxx had resumed its former position in the front seat, as if it were impatient to be off. Or perhaps it was just sheltering from the frigid mountain wind.

Shann checked the sky. Thus far the weather had been merciful. It was a beautiful day. Up here near the roof of the world, the sky seemed a deeper blue. Farther up the mountain, the peaks were shrouded in brooding clouds, but here the air was clear. Of course, that could change rapidly. The afternoon was also wearing on. However, she was sure that Rael needed no reminder of the dangers of remaining here after nightfall.

“You know, if Ravid could see me now, he’d laugh his head off,” Rael was saying.

“I don’t know,” Shann said. “Seems to me he’d be pretty impressed by your efforts.”

Rael shook his head and laughed. “That shows how well you know him. He sees me as a real science-head, someone who has no idea what goes on in the real world. Still, after this, I think I could probably find work as an avionics engineer if Hannath does decide to kick me out.”

Shann’s face fell. Rael glanced up from the cockpit and caught her gesture. “Sorry, Shann, I was only kidding. I’m sure Hannath will be angry, but I very much doubt he’d let me go. The truth is he’s very protective of me. In some ways, he’s more of a father to me than my own father ever was.”

Shann blinked in astonishment. From what little she had observed, Hannath was a hard taskmaster, rude, condescending and unappreciative. If Rael’s father was worse than that, she was sure she wouldn’t want to meet him.

She decided to change the subject. “So, who do you think it was who attacked us?”

“Well, it wasn’t the drach, I can tell you that,” Rael replied. “For one thing, they don’t use weapons.”

“They carry those silver staff things–I’ve seen them,” Shann declared.

“Yes, but those aren’t used on people. They’re electrolasers. The laser forms an electrically conductive plasma channel in the air, and an electrical charge is then delivered to the target. But they’re only used to shock, not to kill–and only on creatures from the wild that stray too close to the settlements, like the valthar you encountered.

They almost used one on me
. However, there didn’t seem much point in bringing that up. “You said before that avionics aren’t fitted with weapons.”

“That’s right,” he said. “At least, I’ve never heard of it. I don’t even know what kind of a weapon it was that they used.”

“Maybe it was one of those…electro-things you mentioned?”

Rael shook his head. “I don’t think so. The electrolaser produces nothing more than an electric shock. Whatever it was that they used caused explosive damage. I’ve not seen anything like it before. If you hadn’t…”

Shann chuckled. “It was an act of desperation, believe me. I was as surprised as you were when it actually worked. I guess you can thank Lyall. He was a very patient teacher.”

“I thought avionics didn’t exist in Kelanni-Drann?”

“They don’t,” she confirmed. “But there are certain basic similarities between the flying cloak and your avionics–at least as far as their use of lodestone is concerned. I had to learn the principles quickly when we were being tracked by the Prophet’s men.” Shann paused a moment in reflection. “Maybe it was the Unan-Chinneroth.”

Rael looked up from his position in the cockpit. “What?”

“Maybe it was the Unan-Chinneroth who fired at us.”

“The hu-mans?” Rael exclaimed. “In an avionic? Impossible.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, because for one thing, an avionic could never make it to the mainland from Helice. It’s about ten times too far. The aircraft would run out of charge and fall into the sea long before it got here.”

“And yet the Prophet made it to my side of the world somehow,” she pointed out. “Maybe you’ve underestimated them?”

A low growl reverberated in the gelid air. Shann spun round, eyes wild, trying to ascertain its direction. The sound melded with others; louder, more menacing, until it seemed to come from all around her. All of a sudden, a creature shambled into view. Ice clinging to off-white fur, shaggy and matted. At the centre of what she took to be its head, a huge maw with razor sharp teeth. From its body protruded four prehensile arms with what looked like long waving fingers at the ends. She could not see any eyes, but it was moving directly towards her.

“Murghal,”
she heard Rael cry from behind her. She stepped forward to meet it, blipping the neck control of her flying cloak instinctively to scan for lodestone. The arms waved toward her, seeking her out. “Be careful, it can sense body heat,” he called.

She pushed off a small deposit behind her to gain height, then extended her bronze layer, allowing the push toward the ground to give extra momentum to her swing. Her diamond blade made contact with one of its arms. The blade hardly penetrated before it was stopped short, and the shock of impact travelled through the darkwood and up her arm. It was more like striking iron than flesh. Another of its arms whipped out. She jumped back so that it narrowly missed her midriff. “Whatever you do, don’t let it touch you,” Rael warned. “It attacks by leeching heat–freezing its victim.”
Thanks. You could have mentioned that before.

“Does it have any vulnerable spots?” she yelled.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Rael returned. “They have an oddly generalised anatomy. I imagine it’d be pretty hard to kill one.”

Shann extended her lodestone layer and leaped again, higher this time. She twisted in the air and came down behind the monster, thrusting the staff forward with all her strength, driving it into the creature’s back. Her blade met the same resistance. She managed to yank it out just as the creature roared and whirled around to face her.

“They preserve heat by depositing ice crystals between their cells,” Rael was saying. “It makes their skin hard–like armour.”

I noticed that
. Shann circled around to come between the beast and the avionic once again. As she did so, she saw a second murghal advancing rapidly on her position, then a third and a fourth. She weighed her options. In any other circumstances, she could use the cloak to leap away and make good her escape. However, that would mean abandoning Rael and Boxx to their fates. If she retreated to the avionic, the murghal would soon overwhelm it. From limitless possibilities she was reduced to just one.
Time to make an end of it.

“Can you lift off?” she cried out.

“I’d need a couple of dahns to power up,” he called back.

“Do it.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll hold them off so you can escape.”

She heard his voice crack.
“No. I won’t leave you behind.”

“Get out of here,” she yelled. “Take Boxx and find the Chandara. Get Annata’s instrument and disarm the Prophet’s weapon. Do it for me. Please.”

“No, I won’t…I can’t leave you here.”

The murghal were almost on top of her. From the corner of her eye, she saw there were more on the way. Rael had still not started the avionic’s engines.
Idiot.
Shann cursed to herself. She launched herself skyward, landing on the far side of the flying machine. “Quickly, follow me,” she called.

“What about the avionic?” Rael asked, climbing out of the cockpit and pulling Boxx out by its forelimbs.

“You said they follow heat. Since you haven’t started the engines, they should leave it alone and come after us instead. Maybe we can double back later.”

Rael and Boxx caught up to her just as the murghal were skirting the craft and starting to bear down on their position, hirsute arms outstretched in a grotesque parody of welcome.

“Get behind me,” she ordered.

“Where are we going?” Rael asked.

Shann started backing away, higher up the mountain. “Away from them.”

~

Keris spied the white line of the Great Forest from a considerable way off. Before long, it resolved into individual trunks, like bony fingers pointing up toward a leaden sky. She crossed the tree line and began making her way among the bare trunks. The eerie silence was broken only by her breathing and the sound of her footfalls on the forest floor.