The other riders had already dismounted, letting their horses drink at a long trough and setting out bags of feed. Most of them scattered as Brooke’s horse charged into the clearing among the buildings.
When Hobbes finally got his hands on the bridle, Brooke’s horse slammed to a stop and reared up, and she was forced to jump to the ground mid-rear to avoid being thrown. She landed on her feet, looking furious, and raised her hand threateningly. The horse whinnied wildly, reared up again, and then kicked at her, and Brooke had to quickly back away. Hobbes dismounted and, along with a couple of other soldiers, jumped in to grab the reins. Together they subdued the animal, the soldiers leading it away toward a stable in the compound.
I forgot to tell you, Elise sent to Will. I speak pretty good horse.
So I see.
I started talking to horses a long time before we figured out how to do this.
What’d you say to it?
I told him exactly what kind of crazy scary bitch was on his back.
“Here it comes,” said Ajay quietly. “Right on schedule.”
He pointed up above the tree line. Will picked up a faint shimmer in the air arcing down toward them at a swift rate of speed. He just started to discern the darker outlines of the drone and heard a faint buzz, no louder than an approaching bee.
“Come on, baby,” said Ajay. “Come to Papa.”
Then, just before it cleared the edge of the tree line closest to their position, the drone clipped a branch, spun around, tumbled forward a few times, and got hung up in the branches.
About fifteen feet off the ground and only twenty yards from the center of the camp.
Ajay quickly pulled the remote control from his pack and used it to kill the drone’s motor. Still dealing with the aftermath of the ruckus caused by Brooke’s horse, none of the soldiers appeared to notice.
Only Hobbes looked out that way. And all he saw were a few leaves slowly drifting to the ground. He took a few steps in that direction, but Brooke screeching at some of the soldiers, and operatically freaking out about her horse’s meltdown, pulled his attention back to the camp.
“Same old Brooke,” said Nick, shaking his head as he watched.
“What’s she doing here?” asked Elise.
“Obviously, she’s rotten to the core,” said Ajay bitterly, glancing at Will. “And has been from the moment we’ve known her.”
“Her father’s a Knight,” said Will. “He’s been part of this all along. That’s where her loyalty lies.”
“I still can’t believe it,” said Nick.
“Blood trumps friendship, old boy,” said Ajay.
“Doesn’t matter what the reason is,” said Jericho. “She’s their problem now.”
“Yeah, well, have fun with that, Hobbes,” said Nick, looking toward the clearing. “Next time she throws a hissy fit and melts your face off.”
“But how’d the two of them get into the zone in the first place?” asked Elise. “If we have the only Carver, and the Carver’s the only way to come across.”
“I don’t know,” said Will. “Maybe Franklin lied to me. Maybe the Makers have another one.”
“Maybe they have one he didn’t even know about,” said Ajay.
“Or maybe they just followed us in,” said Jericho.
“I thought the portals only stayed open a short time,” said Elise.
“That’s what he told me,” said Will. “Maybe the old man lied about that, too.”
“At a certain point one has to wonder: Is there anything he didn’t lie to you about?” asked Ajay.
“It is kind of awesome, though,” said Nick.
“What is?” asked Elise.
“Dude, they’ve got horses.”
“And so, for the moment, our most immediate problem remains,” said Ajay, ignoring him. “How do we get my drone out of the tree?”
“I can climb up and grab it easy if we wait until after dark,” said Nick, then when everyone looked at him, “Oh. Right.”
“We’ll have to wait for them to move on,” said Jericho, “or find a way to clear them out of that camp.”
“Let’s wait awhile,” said Will. “Maybe they’ll move out on their own.”
Jericho immediately lay down, stuffed his pack behind his head, folded his arms, and closed his eyes. “Wake me when you’re ready.”
“Good God, how can you sleep at a time like this?” asked Ajay.
“This is exactly when we need to sleep,” said Jericho, who then appeared to immediately fall into a profound slumber.
“Dude, that’s actually awesome advice,” said Nick, who lay down near him, put his pack behind his head, and closed his eyes.
Ajay looked at Will and Elise. “Have they both taken leave of their senses?”
“Who knows, why don’t you try it?” asked Elise, lying down to join them. “Little rest wouldn’t hurt you.”
“I’m far too wired,” said Ajay. “I feel like I’ve been up all night after chugging a six-pack of Mountain Dew Code Reds and I’m about to take the SATs.”
Nick winked open one eye. “Dude, trust me, one thing you do not have to stress about is the SATs.”
“Keep an eye on the clearing, then, Ajay,” said Will, setting down his pack and lying down as well.
“Good God, man, not you, too.”
“Wake me up if they make any moves. I need to think. If they don’t, wake me in twenty minutes.”
Will closed his eyes, not sure if he’d be able to sleep but grateful for any opportunity to rest and let his subconscious chew on the problem in front of them. Within seconds, he drifted off into a deep sleep.
Ajay started a timer in his head and crouched by the edge of the grass line to watch the camp.
The soldiers cooked something large and ugly on a spit over the campfire. They poured hot drinks into mugs that looked like they were made out of skulls. They ate, they drank, but they talked only a little; high verbal skills did not appear to be on the menu.
Hobbes consulted with one of his soldiers, something like a sergeant by the look of the insignia on his uniform and helmet. Together they examined a large parchment, most likely a map, on the porch of one of the larger buildings, probably a barracks.
A short distance away, Brooke sat by herself on the steps outside another one of the buildings. She looked pale and miserable. One of the soldiers brought her a plate of whatever they’d been cooking. She looked at it—burnt, grisly meat of some kind—made an exaggerated face, took a small tentative bite, made an even more exaggerated face, said something nasty to the soldier, then tossed the plate at him.
“Still the same old Brooke,” whispered Ajay.
Fifteen minutes later, Hobbes called the soldiers to order. They brought the horses back around. Hobbes and Brooke mounted up—she took a different horse this time—along with half of the soldiers they’d ridden in with. The rest remained behind with the soldiers from the garrison. Hobbes signaled the party forward and they rode out of camp at a gallop, their mounts’ hooves clattering heavily across the wooden bridge.
The sound woke Will immediately, before Ajay could rouse him. He came out of it refreshed and relaxed and knelt next to Ajay, looking at the camp.
“How many did they leave behind?” he asked.
“By my count,” said Ajay, scanning the garrison, inside and out, “eighteen.”
Will blinked on the Grid; a quick head count of heat signatures throughout the camp arrived at the same number.
“I’d hardly call that a fair fight, would you?” he said.
Ajay grinned.
By now Jericho and Elise had woken up as well. Nick was still snoring slightly. Will nudged him with his foot and he came out of it.
“What’s up, Chief?” asked Nick.
“I’ve got a plan,” said Will.
The soldiers around the campfire heard the horses react first, stamping and whinnying in the stable. Something stirring them up like that usually meant animals nearby, sometimes large, dang
erous ones. Three of them went inside to quiet them down.
Nick was waiting for them. Three down, fifteen to go.
A few moments later, the rest of the soldiers heard the approach of some large dangerous animals nearing the outpost. Thundering footsteps, then a series of rib-rattling yowls. Wouldn’t be the first time a herd of some wild river animals from the delta wandered into their garrison, and they knew what to do: The soldiers grabbed their weapons and gathered in the center of camp, rifles at the ready, taking defensive positions.
Something ran toward them through the grove from the direction of the road. They couldn’t see exactly what it was because it was moving far too fast, but they perceived motion more than they saw it and they couldn’t miss a line of dust kicking up toward them. They tried to draw a bead on it and braced for action.
Before they even had time to pull the trigger, the blur raced right past them through the center of camp and toward the bridge. Six of them turned to chase after it, while the others, obeying the orders of their sergeant, held their positions, anticipating an attack from the still unseen, but still heard, large animals, which even now appeared to be shaking the gum trees as they approached from the direction of the river.
The blur turned course away from the bridge at the last moment and veered behind one of the larger buildings in the compound. The six soldiers turned and kept up their pursuit, until a gigantic bear silently leaped out at them behind the building.
Nine down, nine to go.
Their sergeant heard a commotion going on behind the big building that deeply troubled him, and then he heard something else make an odd buzzing sound as it swooped over the heads of his remaining soldiers. When he spotted it, he found even more reason to worry.
Something was falling out of the sky toward them—a ball-shaped object unlike anything he’d seen before—and then the ball exploded or expanded or opened up into something else, somehow turning itself into a large net made out of thin rope. It dropped down over the top of them and immediately tangled up their arms and legs, and the more they struggled against it, trying to free their weapons, the tighter the rope seemed to grip them. They could barely hold on to their rifles.
Then a girl stepped out from behind a nearby tree and walked toward them. A young girl, with long black hair, slight and very pretty, and as he continued to struggle against the netting, the sergeant thought, The bald man warned me about a girl who could—
When she was about ten feet away from them, the girl stopped, braced herself, took in a deep breath, and opened her mouth wide.
And that was the last thing any of the soldiers remembered.
They dragged all the bodies into the largest of the buildings, which turned out to be a barracks lined with wooden bunk beds. Each of them took a set of armor off the soldier that seemed their closest physical match. Although they had the expected dimensions of human bodies, when they removed the soldiers’ masks, they realized that these weren’t men, exactly, but some kind of humanoid hybrids. No two of their faces looked alike. Each had obviously been crossed with some kind of wild animal—boar, jackal, ox, wolf, and to Nick’s delight…
“Hey, I think this one’s part lion,” he said.
“Good, so your field trip’s complete,” said Elise. “Be sure to tell Teacher.”
“Whatever. I got dibs on lion dude’s armor.”
Once they’d stripped the armor off, Ajay helped each of them fasten it on—boots, leg pieces, a vest, something like shoulder pads, arms and forearms, heavy gloves. It covered them nearly from head to toe.
“It appears to be made from some material akin to carbon fiber or a weapons-grade Kevlar, so that gives the lie to the idea that they’re entirely without some access to high-caliber manufacturing.”
Ajay picked up one of the weapons.
“And these rifles don’t appear to be all that different from a modern M-sixteen,” he said, looking down the barrel. “In fact, they may be an improvement.”
“Don’t shoot your eye out, Junior,” said Jericho, taking the rifle from him, checking the magazine, and slinging the weapon over his shoulder.
“What about you, Ajay?” asked Will after they were all suited up.
“Oh, no, none of this gear is going to fit me,” said Ajay. “I’m far too small.”
“Too bad they didn’t cross one of these dudes with a shrimp,” said Nick, then, after Elise punched him hard in the shoulder, “Sorry.”
“Nick,” said Jericho, “help me with the horses.”
He hurried off toward the stable and Nick followed.
Will looked down at the faces of the soldiers they’d unmasked, lying in a row. “Reminds me of the animal masks we found near the tunnels. In that trunk that belonged to the Knights.”
“Perhaps that’s no coincidence,” said Ajay.
“Feels like a really long time ago, doesn’t it?” asked Elise.
“A hundred years,” said Will. “Let’s get out of here.”
When they walked outside, Will watched Elise as she took the lead, effortlessly slinging her rifle up to a ready position. He couldn’t help thinking she looked completely at ease in that sleek black armor, her inner badass ever closer to finding its fullest expression. She must have felt him watching her, because she turned around and shot him a look.
What do we do with Ajay now? she asked him. If he’s not wearing the armor, they’ll spot him right away, but we can’t leave him behind.
Of course not. He’s coming with us. We’ll figure it out.
If anything happens to him—
Nothing’s going to happen to him. Or to any of us. I’m working on it.
So, no turning back.
That’s right. Moment of truth.
Time to bust down a few doors, kick ass, and take some names.
You took the words right out of my—
Will realized that Ajay was looking back and forth between them again, eyes wide open, like someone watching a tennis match.
“How long have you known how to do this?” he asked.
“Do what?” asked Elise; then she looked over at Will, alarmed. Is it that obvious?
“You know what I mean,” said Ajay. “And there’s no point in lying to me. Do you realize how many indicators I can spot from just the observation of facial muscles alone when someone’s not telling me the truth? Forty-five! How long?”
Elise flicked another glance at Will, looking for guidance. He didn’t see any reason to hide it at this point.
“Quite a while now,” said Will. “Since last spring.”
“Really? How fascinating. I’m astonished you’ve kept it a secret from me as long as you have. Do you suppose this is another side effect of our genetic birthday bequest?”
“Yes,” said Will. “Definitely.”
“Yes, of course it is,” said Ajay, almost to himself. “Then it should work for me as well. Doesn’t that stand to reason? Can you teach me how?”
Will didn’t answer. Now he looked to Elise for her thoughts about it.
“It takes a lot of practice,” she said.
“I’m nothing at this point if not the definition of a quick study,” said Ajay. “Please try, Elise. If nothing else, who knows, it’s a skill that may come in handy for us somewhere along the line.”
Will agreed and nodded his consent to Elise, where all of Ajay’s attention remained fixed.
He wants to try with the pretty girl first, Will sent to Elise. Big surprise.
Elise looked away, appearing slightly flustered. Will immediately second-guessed his choice of words. Should he not have said pretty? He’d just blurted it out without even thinking about it, since it was obviously such a ridiculous understatement.
“Let’s give it a try, Ajay,” she said. “And given the state of your brain, I’m thinking it shouldn’t be too hard for you.”
“Okay, ready when you are,” he said.
She directed a thought toward Ajay. He closed his eyes and scrunched up his face, making more
effort than he would on a twentieth push-up.
“Don’t try so hard,” said Will.
“Quite right,” said Ajay.
He tried, with just as much effort, to relax. Will watched Elise direct another thought at him, and waited. Ajay shook his head.
“I’m still not picking up a doggone thing,” said Ajay, opening his eyes.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Elise. “This is new to you. It might take a little while.”
“But that’s just terribly disappointing—”
“Go easy on yourself, pal,” said Will. “It’s like learning another language, that’s all.”
“If I can master French in three days, I should be able to pick up this.”
“And you’ll pick it up fast,” said Will, “but we’ll have to practice on the way.”
Jericho and Nick returned from the stables, leading four fully geared fresh horses.
“Choose your ride,” said Jericho.
“Oh, dear, I’m afraid I’m not much of a horseman,” said Ajay, backing away from the massive beasts.
“You’re riding with me,” said Jericho.
“Which one do you want?” Will asked Elise.
She looked them over, then turned to the stable. Will saw her concentrate long enough to send another thought somewhere. Then she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled sharply.
The horse that had nearly trampled Brooke came running out of the stable and trotted right up to Elise, bowing its head and stamping its foot in front of her. A beautiful brute of an animal, gleaming black, with a long shaggy mane and tail and wild, intelligent eyes.
“This one,” she said, patting the blaze on its forehead. “We already talked about it.”
Ajay leaned in and whispered to her, “It works with horses, too?”
“I found this in the main building,” said Jericho, holding up a rolled parchment. “Take a look.”