Alight (36 page)

Some carry muskets. Most carry other weapons: axes, knives, swords and spears.

Behind the first line, a second.

And a third.

Thousands
of them. My people are hopelessly outnumbered. The war machines will be our only hope of survival.

Closer the marchers come. I have to move soon or I won’t be able to get down without being seen.

Wait…in the middle, straight out from me, behind the second line. Springers hacking at trees and vines, cutting away underbrush. Stretching out behind them, a maroon streak through the jungle—they are clearing an old road.

Something on that road. I squint, lean forward, as if those extra few inches can make a difference. I recognize the design. The toys Barkah showed me, the ones with the long, straight wooden tails, the carts that smashed spiders…they weren’t toys at all. They were models of something real.

These are too big to call
carts—
I think
wagons
is a better word for them. The tent-poles-without-a-tent frameworks brush against overhanging branches. The thin, straight tails stretch out twice the length of the wagons themselves.

The wagons are big enough for several Springers to ride on top, although no one is riding. Instead, there are five Springers on each side, pushing the wagons over the broken, bumpy, just-cleared road.

Springers are marching on our city. They are prepared to take on the spiders and win.

My people will be slaughtered—I have to go back, I have to warn everyone.

The way the Springer lines angle away…

I turn and look back, see the city of Uchmal rising out of the jungle. Oh
no
…there is no way O’Malley and I could make it to the gates without the Springers seeing us. The only hope of escape we have is to continue along the trail as fast as we can go.

The Springer church…the cellar where Barkah hid Spingate and me…

Omeyocan’s second moon slips from behind the clouds, adding pale blue light to the jungle. It’s too bright—if even one of those thousands look up here, they’ll see me.

I start down, dropping fast. My hands and feet slip on wet bark. I smash my knee, then my shin, but the pain doesn’t slow me. I lose my footing a third time, fall into a branch that hammers my ribs. Can’t stop—if I stop now we’re dead.

Branches, vines, feet, hands…faster and faster.

When I reach the last branch, O’Malley is kneeling, half-hidden behind the wide trunk. I drop to the ground next to him, feel the rhythmic
stomp-stomp-stomp
of the marching army.

“Em, we have to get out of here!”

For once, I don’t mind his whispers.

I peek around the trunk. Through the dense underbrush, I can see them coming—a line of alien soldiers hopping straight for us, weaving around trees, dipping down the far side of jungle-choked craters only to hop out the near side.

When I turn and run, O’Malley is right behind me. We stay low and sprint down the trail. Our booted feet eat up the distance, enough that I start to think we got away clean.

And then I hear the long, droning note of a horn.

They’ve spotted us.

W
e sprint through endless jungle ruins, doing our best to keep to the trail. Overhanging vines and encroaching leaves slap at us, splashing us with beaded drizzle that soaks our hair and runs down our faces into our coveralls.

A flash of lightning. Thunder follows two seconds later. As if the deafening noise ripped the bottom from the clouds themselves, the rain pours down again.

The horn echoes through the trees.

They are chasing us.

I think we’re a little bit faster than the Springers, but hopping and landing on both feet makes them more stable on this rough, wet ground. I’ve fallen once, banged my chin on a tree root. O’Malley has fallen twice. He’s bleeding from a cut on his temple. Each time we hit the ground, we’re up before our momentum slows. We are wet and muddy and running for our lives.

I try to see where we are, but all the jungle looks the same. Are we near the church? Have we already passed it?

A double burst of lightning pulses across the night sky, and in that split-second glare I see it: the steeple, the rings with the six dots.

I turn off the trail, sprint headlong into the underbrush. I hear O’Malley crashing in behind me.

We enter the dark steeple. It’s empty. O’Malley quietly shuts the double doors while I stumble to the wall, around the statues, until I find the trapdoor. I open it and urge O’Malley in.

From outside, I hear the horn again. Then, an answering call from the other direction—so close they must have been just ahead of us on the trail. Did they see us come in here?

O’Malley rushes down the rickety stairs, stands in water up to his knees. I descend a few steps, lower the trapdoor slowly, ease it into place, then join him.

Grunting and chirping outside: the Springers are close.

I look out the slot made by the missing board. Thin moonlight reveals two long blue feet tied up with strips of cloth. The feet are so close I could reach through and touch them.

We hear the Springers talking.

The floor above us creaks. There are at least three of them up there—if they find us, we’re dead.

O’Malley’s cold, wet hand takes mine. His strong fingers grip me tight. He is calm, resigned to this situation. I admit I didn’t expect this from him. I would have thought he’d panic, or do something stupid to give us away. Instead, his steady presence gives me strength. His eyes tell me something deep and overwhelming: if he has to die, he is glad he gets to spend his final moments with me.

I loved this boy before he even woke up. I was the first thing he ever saw. Will I also be the last?

The floor above us creaks again, the sound of a Springer hopping from one spot to the next. Then the creaks move closer to the trapdoor.

The creaks stop.

We wait.

I peer out the slot, through the underbrush. No feet, just rain.

We stand there, still and motionless, for a long time. Any simple noise—a cough, a sneeze, a heavy breath—could mean our death. We listen to the rain come down. We wait.

I hear the horn blare. Distant, barely audible: the hunters have moved on.

When the floor creaks again, I start to shake.

Short hops, each producing a creak, the creaks coming closer to the trapdoor. A straggler? Or is it a squad of them, five or more, hoping to flush us out so they can shoot us dead? If it is only one or two, maybe we have a chance.

I grip my shovel with both hands. O’Malley draws his knife.

Maybe we will die, but we won’t go easy.

The trapdoor slowly opens. Darkness beyond, hints of motion…a Springer. They have found us. If we can’t see them, they can’t see us. I wait, coiled and ready to strike. When the stairs creak, I will thrust the shovel point up at my enemy.

I can’t breathe, I don’t
dare
breathe.

“Hem?”

That single syllable makes me sag with relief.

Barkah has come for us.

S
oaked and freezing, I climb the stairs.

Barkah hops back, giving me room.

He is not alone.

He stands with three Springers, all with lush, young, purple skin like his. I instantly recognize Lahfah, by both his face and the wooden splint on his leg. His face contorts in what I can only think of as an alien sneeze, and he lets out that broken-glass laughter.

“Hem!”
he says.

The other two are wide-eyed, two-fingered hands fidgeting on their muskets. Are they afraid? Do I horrify them? When O’Malley climbs the stairs and stands next to me, the two guns snap up. Hammers lock, barrels point at us.

“Don’t move,” he says quietly.

“Wow,
Kevin,
thanks for that brilliant advice.”

This isn’t the time for sarcasm, but does he think he’s the only person on this planet with common sense?

Lahfah hops between us and the guns, a fast movement that obviously causes pain in his broken leg. He yells at the new ones—that’s the only word to describe the awful noise he makes. The two new ones yell back.

Barkah lets out a single, sharp shout. The yelling stops. The two new Springers lower their muskets. There is no question as to who is in charge here.

“I see it, but I can barely believe it,” O’Malley says. “I mean, I know you told us about them, but…well, they aren’t
human
.”

I’ve never seen O’Malley in awe before. He stares at each Springer in turn. The two new ones stare at us in equal astonishment.

The rain beats down. The leaking roof creates the same quivering mud puddles I saw last time. The waist-high statues gleam wetly.

Barkah hops to me, reaches out slowly. I see the fingers of O’Malley’s hand twitching, drifting toward the jeweled hilt of his knife.

“No,” I say, calmly but firmly. “Pull that and we’re dead.”

O’Malley forces his hand still.

Barkah touches my sternum. He looks at his friends.

“Hem,”
he says.

Then Barkah’s finger slowly moves toward O’Malley. O’Malley stiffens, as if he’s about to run back down the stairs.

“Don’t you move,” I say, forcing a smile. Then I wonder if smiles might be horrifying to them, with all those bare teeth and our squinty eyes.

O’Malley forces a smile of his own. “What if they have diseases?”

“Then you and I will be sick together. Stay still.”

Barkah’s fingertip touches O’Malley’s sternum. Barkah looks at me, waits.

“Ohh, Malley,”
I say, sounding it out. “His name is
O’Malley
.”

Barkah starts to talk, stops. His frog lips wiggle as he imagines how to make the sounds.

“Ohhh-malah,”
he says.

I laugh at the simple mispronunciation. I say the name slower, sounding it out,
“Oh…mal…eee.”

Barkah concentrates.
“Ohhh…mah…lah?”

O’Malley looks at me, astonished. An alien just said his name—or at least tried to—and just like that, Barkah isn’t quite as
alien
as he was a few moments ago.

“Oh-mah-lah,” O’Malley says. He laughs with delight and relief. “Good enough for me.”

A word pops into my head. I reach out and touch O’Malley’s sternum.

“Kevin,” I say.

Barkah thinks on it a moment, then says,
“Kevin
.
”

O’Malley’s face lights up. “That’s perfect!”

“Kevin,”
Lahfah says.

“Kevin,”
the other two Springers say in unison.

I shake my head in amazement. “Of course, your name is the one they can pronounce correctly.”

Lahfah pokes one of the new Springers in the chest.

“Tohdohbak,”
Lahfah says.

I repeat the name as carefully as I can. So does O’Malley.

Lahfah points to the next one: its name is
Rekis
. Rekis seems pleased when O’Malley and I pronounce that name correctly. The delighted Springer hops from foot to foot.

The moment is surreal—we are introducing ourselves to aliens, who are probably teenagers just like us. We are laughing, together. This is simple, natural. Why was there ever a need for violence, war and death?

If these Springers are with Barkah and not with the army, maybe they aren’t soldiers. Are they too young to serve? I have no way of knowing. Whatever their role, I don’t have time to worry about it—there is a war to stop.

How do I communicate that to Barkah?

I pantomime drawing on my open palm, point to Barkah’s bag. He understands immediately, hands me a swatch of fabric and a stick of charcoal. I lay the fabric flat on a dry bit of floor. I point to Barkah, make a single mark. I point to Lahfah, make another. Then a mark each for the other two Springers.

I look up at Barkah, waiting to make sure he understands.

Lahfah does first.
“Kayat,”
he says, pointing to himself, then he points at Barkah—
“jeg”
—then at the other two Springers—
“nar, bodek.”

“He’s counting,” O’Malley says. “Their words for one through four.”