Rising by Patrick Sean Lee (first color ebook reader .txt) 📕

big target. He’s holding one arm near the shoulder, bullets and tracers ripping by his head, his bulk of a body, plowing up the ground beneath his feet. He not-gracefully leaps toward me and the protection of the wall, landing face-first in the dirt.

Darra be damned. My first and only thought is, how badly is he injured? How many times was he hit? I deserve the bullets. I should never have sent Faerborn back.

“Faerborn?”

He lifts his head. “Faerborn sorry, Alana. Not stop men. Faerborn sorry.”

“No, no, it’s okay. You tried. Oh Faerborn, how badly are you hurt? I’m the one who’s sorry, dear one. I should never have sent you.”

“Arm hurt. And leg, Faerborn think, Yes, leg. Feel like fire. Faerborn will die?” he asks in an innocently apologetic tone.

“No you will not! They will! Alana will destroy the men who shot you. And I will take care to heal you!” Somehow.

“Can you stand?”

He cringes, something I’ve never seen him do before, as he starts to push himself up. Slab of fur-covered granite that he is, Faerborn is vulnerable.

We are in deep trouble. I must leave him behind, go to the gates, face the fire…and incinerate everything outside. I have no doubts that before I get it done, I’ll be hit.

I leave Faerborn and walk forward. Shaking.

 

                                       ***

 

It shocked me at first. That is an understatement. I sent Sant flying backward onto his rear that first day in the branches of Catanar. I had no idea I even did it. Much later, however—after Keeva was shot, after Sant and I escaped Jade, after we’d met Faerborn for the first time, and then were kindly pitched out of the cavern by his mother (may she maybe rest in peace). After all that, standing atop the mountain looking down on the Jades gathering like locusts far below, I finally discovered the true extent of the power I mysteriously possessed. The power Marcus, instructed by Darra to investigate and develop—and control—before they knew what hit them, I raised my hands in a rage. I knew the Jade wild men were massing in order to attack Sant’s—and by then my—people.

The entire valley and everyone camped in it went up in flames. I didn’t know, I couldn’t have imagined I was capable of causing such destruction. The sight of it afterward made me vomit. Yes, the Jades would have attacked in force—so unlike them, acting on their own without Marcus directing their every move. I thought at the time that by some means they would simply hack at the mighty trunk by the hundreds, non-stop, until it fell. As it happened, they had an uglier plan. Burn it to the ground, which another hundred or thousand of them gathering from a different direction accomplished. But the ones in the valley. They died at my hands instantaneously. Looking back now, having witnessed more and more and more horrors unleashed by Darra and Polit, I have no moral scruples left.

Faerborn is down, at least for a while. Mondra and Tereka have suffered the gods-know-what humiliations…Before I die, and this time I have no doubts that I will, I am going to rid Black of Darra and as many of his polished and spotlessly groomed savages as I can. The troops fired at Faerborn. Darra couldn’t have been in that line of fire, but he hasn’t had time to be whisked away. He is either standing among them directing, or else he is just getting settled into one of the Skirters. I’ll take all of them out.

 

                                   ***

 

I step around the wall, raise both hands, palms forward, and unleash all the hatred that has grown inside me for sixteen years.

 

SEVEN

I feel nothing, but I hear a thousand bursts of rounds. Maybe ten thousand. The noise is deafening for an instant or two. But I feel nothing. Why?

Oh wait…I do feel something. The explosive part of my being that causes the palms of my hands to vibrate. The force leaving. A different, distant horrific noise. Metal bashing against metal. Crashes as chunks batter the earth; cartwheel…somewhere. The distinct roar of fire. No screaming. It happened too quickly for any of them to utter a sound.

I am alive. I think I am, anyway. Nothing hurts. I am standing, a little dizzy, but I'm not lying on my back. I open my eyes, and then lower my arms to my side.

Oh gods.

A wall of flame. The twisted remains of Darra’s invincible force. Fire moving, running aimlessly, batting wildly at itself. Another red-yellow ghost off to the right. Now the screaming.

Where was Darra when it hit? He cannot possibly have survived. My mind’s eye sees him, one of the human torches, his face melting, that indescribable panic in his seared and bulging eyes, the hard grimace of his mouth.

I remember the howls of pain coming from those men when he taught Black its lesson. Burning is too good for him. Amidst these thoughts, a previous one keeps banging away, demanding an answer. Why was I not hit by at least one of the bullets fired?

No time to scrape for the possible answer. The troops on the ground are gone, but Polit military force is comprised of much more than foot-soldiers. There are gunships, and not simply one or two that might be lurking in the cloud cover overhead. Seriously more. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that ten—or even fifteen, twenty—are readying for an attack. Complete and final obliteration of the thorn in Polit’s side. Who is second in command at Polit? Does he have any idea that hundreds of his Skirters and everyone in them no longer exist? Can he know that Darra the Terrible is dead, and if he somehow does, will he give the command to the Helicere pilots and their crews to open fire? No prisoner leader any longer. No personal danger unless he hesitates.

I try to think like him. I would make the call. Maybe a lucky shot will find Alana Bendrece. It is ironic. They don’t even have to see us to kill us, although, not knowing everything the Heliceres are capable of—probably not the half of it—I think they can see us.

I am alive. My skin crawls at the sight of the scene in front of me. I have to unlock my eyes from the carnage and run—go back and get as many of Black’s people out as I can. Gather them and go to the woods west of the wall. Through it, over it, it doesn’t matter. Some of them will make it. I fear that many won’t. But if they stay here, by tomorrow none of them will be alive. My heart sinks. Wherever I go, thousands die.

Sant is two steps behind me, his eyes welded to the destruction, his jaw slack. A few feet away at my left, Faerborn is on his feet. He is bent a little, trying to part the fur on his right leg to inspect the wound, however damaging it is. Far back, a few adults have reappeared, moving toward the gates, a few smiling; most with faces that mirror Sant’s. I want to go to Faerborn—Sant looks fine, and he’ll awaken soon enough—instead I sidestep him and begin shouting, “To the wall! Grab your children, but leave everything else. Tell your neighbors! We’re going to be attacked. Run!”

They stop in their tracks, trying to make sense of what I’ve said, and then one woman bolts. In a flash of jumbled arms and legs and bodies, the remainder throw off their stupors and follow her lead. A few straight for the wall six blocks over, the rest back toward their homes.

Half a minute or less pass, and bodies begin to pour out of doors flung open. The shouting begins. There is one avenue between the packs of houses at this end of town, and they begin to funnel into it. In the midst of the pandemonium I keep shooting glances up at the now-thick layer of clouds. Try to force my ears to listen for the distinctive sound of Helicere engines, but there is too much noise.

I don’t know what to do about the thousands trapped in the environs blocks away, oblivious to what is happening, or likely will happen very soon. Surely, though, the noise of gunfire and explosions afterward reached even the farthest corners of Black.

I turn around. “Sant! Help Faerborn. We’re going to be hit. Get him out of Black. Follow everyone back there. Find the hole to crawl under…” Oh wait. Faerborn! “Have Faerborn smash the wall down if he’s able. Just get out! I have to warn the others. Go!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just go! I’ll find you in the woods!”

What am I thinking? It will take hours for the thousands of men, women, and children to squeeze beneath the wall, and Faerborn is in no condition to do any smashing. I dash to the spot where Faerborn stands, still inspecting his thigh.

“Come with me, Faerborn. Can you walk? We don’t have much time.”

He looks up—or down at me, really. “Faerborn leg hurt.”

“I know, dearest, but you must try to come with me. Can you do that?” Please, Faerborn. Please, please say yes.

“We go…where?”

“I’ll show you.”

He limps, but even his hobbling strides are close to the speed, and cover the distance, that I could at a run. We’re on our way out.

“Sant, change of plans…Stay close to Faerborn. Follow me.”

I take the perimeter road that follows the wall, running as fast as I can. There are only a few people on this circuitous route, all of them in a state of confusion and panic. Short, mostly nonsensical questions hit me with every one of them I pass. No time to slow down and answer any of them. I keep looking up, but so far nothing threatening, except maybe a rainstorm. Beyond the wall, smoke from the fires rises and melts into the bottom of the clouds. They’re up there, I know it. Just waiting for the command.

It takes forever to cover the distance separating me from the bulk of the Blacks packed against the stones of the wall. A hundred feet before I arrive, I stumble to a halt, back up against a hovel on the far side of the road. I motion wildly for those behind me to stop, and then I close my eyes and raise my hands out.

Please work.

I feel the rip of electricity inside me. Almost as quickly hear the thunderous explosion twenty feet away. The shock wave and tiny backwashes of rock slam me hard into the wall of the house, and I wonder if the rickety thing will collapse inward, bringing the tin roof down on top of me.

Did they hear it up there? Did they see it, and are right now focusing their guns?

I open my eyes and scramble to my feet. Gods, the hole across the road is massive!

Not a single person on either side of me moves. To a person they are staring blankly at what I’ve done. Or at me.

“Move!” I shout, motioning for them to wake up and get away. It works. Seconds later a deluge of bodies begins to pour over the pile of rock, and the cloud of dust settling, a few looking back