Penult (28 page)

“
See?”

“
Their orders have been
communicated to me. We Seraphim are connected.”

“
Through the Singularity?”
I speculated.

“
No,” said Petros. “A
private channel. Created by us, available only to us.” He tapped a
lump behind his ear. “The Lords provide.”

“
He’s got a mod,” said
Olivier. “Like the wings, only permanent.” He climbed atop a slab
of stone. “Get your asses moving people! Off your butts. Don’t
worry about washing the damn dishes. Leave them! You can make new
ones. Dump any gear you don’t need. We need to move fast. We’ve got
Cherubim on our ass.”

The gaggle of warriors and refugees
rushed from the shelter of the overhang. Tyler, Det and I scrambled
to get our wings while Olivier herded his flock back out to the
riverbed.

The marching Cherubim had descended
out of sight into one of the dry channels, but their presence was
revealed by a low-hanging cloud of dust.

“
Man, they’re moving fast,”
said Tyler. “They’re gonna catch up to us at this rate.”

“
Not if we do something to
delay them,” I said, cinching the straps across my
chest.

“
Like what?” said
Detmar.

“
No, you guys. No
aggression,” said Kitt, hovering just above our heads. “Least … not
until we complete the swap.”

Chapter 26: The
Basin

This time, I flew point, while Kitt
brought up the rear, which was fine with me. She was closer to the
enemy now, while I had only the friendly front lines of the
resistance before me. My cowardly streak approved of this
arrangement.

I couldn’t help but wonder what would
happen if I faded back to life while I flew. That would be fine
with me. I was not crazy about being here. But what would happen
when the roots eventually came to haul me back to the Liminality?
Would I find myself naked and wingless, plummeting twenty stories
to the riverbed? Maybe this wing business was not such a great idea
for someone who was not yet a Freesoul. I didn’t fly quite as high
after that realization.

I kept about a mile or so ahead of the
ground party, circling back regularly to see how they were doing.
Olivier had his marchers moving at a pretty good clip now. The
Cherubim on their tail had closed only a bit of the gap between
them.

They travelled much lighter now,
having shed much of their extraneous belongings back at the
overhang. Having an army of brainless mutant warriors on their tail
was a pretty good incentive to keep moving briskly.

The valley narrowed with every bend in
the riverbed. As I swooped ahead of our ragged column scouting run,
I was shocked to come upon a formation of Cherubim arrayed at the
base of a side gulch, kneeling in wait.

It looked to me like an ambush so I
zoomed back to warn Olivier. I made another awkward landing, coming
in too fast and tumbling in the gravel at Olivier’s feet, and wing
tip caught Petros full on in the face before he could duck. He
staggered back. Only Olivier’s firm grip on the thick cord attached
to his neck kept him upright.

I scrambled to my feet and shook off
the dust.

“
Fighters!” I said. “Around
the next bend. Waiting for us.”

“
How many?” said
Olivier.

“
Two, three
hundred.”

“
No worries,” said Petros.
“My brothers will let you pass.”

“
Yeah? And how do you know
this?” said Olivier.

Petros ignored him. His gaze remained
distant and unfocused. “My Lords are sending someone to meet us …
at the basin … beyond the marshes.”

“
You talking to them
somehow?”

There was a glaze over Petros’ eyes.
He seemed distracted.

Olivier sighed. “Nothing to be done
but keep moving,” he said. “Not like we take them on … and there’s
even more Cherubim coming up behind us.”

I nodded and flicked my shoulders
intending to fly straight up, only my wings weren’t on straight so
I lurched to one side, barely avoiding smacking into Petros
again.

Back on point, I came to grasp the
full scale of our predicament. The Cherubim trailing us represented
only a small fraction of the invasion force. Detachments massed at
the base every tributary and side valley. We were running a
gauntlet, surrounded on all sides by the enemy.

But the Cherubim lining our flanks
kept still, their weaponized limbs loose and inert at their sides.
Not a one glanced up as I flew over their heads. They were either
disciplined to extremes or devoid of curiosity.

There was not much human about them
beyond their shape. I saw no shelters or bedding. They built no
cook fires, dug no latrines.

Their masters, in contrast—the
Hashmallim and Seraphim who controlled them—camped in relative
comfort. Their pale, silky domes clung to the ridge tops and cliff
faces like the egg sacs of spiders.

A cluster of shattered pillars pierced
the ground along the river bed. These ‘crackers’ had been destroyed
before they could be fully deployed, my first indication that the
resistance had enjoyed any success in fighting back.

Clearly, destruction of these devices
had been a matter of high priority for the resistance. The ground
before them was littered with corpses of Frelsian and Dusters
warriors and their mounts—the carcasses of giant bugs and
domesticated Reapers.

There were signs that the fighting had
been recent. One of the Reapers still writhed and moaned where it
lay.

It kind of bothered me that I saw no
Cherubim corpses among them. Either they were super-efficient at
recovering their dead or they simply hadn’t suffered any
casualties. But then again, the winners of a battle controlled
access to a battlefield. To the victors go the spoils and the
dead.

Up ahead the river cut through a fin
of up-tilted bedrock that slashed across the valley. It formed a
natural rampart behind which yet more contingents of still and
silent Cherubim were deployed in a defensive formation.

The terrain would force the ground
party to pass within spitting distance of them, but I didn’t bother
troubling Olivier with my concerns this time. If Petros wasn’t
right, there was nothing we could do about it. The folks on the
ground would be sitting ducks. I kept my sword at the ready and
hoped I could conjure something effective if something bad went
down. I might be a coward but I had friends down there and I would
not abandon them.

Tyler and Detmar came in from the
flanks in support as they passed through the choke point. The
stolid Cherubim did not even toss a glance in our direction as we
filed through the gap in the ridge. They stared straight ahead,
faces blank, feet planted in the ground like a human forest. They
reminded me of those terra cotta warriors archeologists unearthed
in China.

Up on the flanking ridges, a few
Hashmallim and Seraphim ventured out from their precariously
perched shelters to watch us pass. Something about their body
language put me at ease. They acted less like mortal threats and
more like folks sauntering out on a nice day to watch a
parade.

Beyond the squeeze, the land spread
out into a huge flat basin, ringed by mountains. Patches of marsh
were interspersed with rocky hillocks clothed in arid scrub. It was
an odd contrast of wetland and desert.

Olivier led his flock to the nearest
high point and called for a halt. He signaled for us scouts to come
down and join them.

Tyler volunteered to stay aloft while
the rest of us landed. I welcomed the respite. A burn of fatigue
had begun to set into my shoulders from using muscles and
stretching ligaments that weren’t used to being worked.

Olivier wore a broad smile. He seemed
a bit less anxious. I slipped out of my wings and rubbed my
shoulders. There were thin spots in my hoodie where some of the
weaving was already coming undone and reverting back to
roots.

“
Just wanted to give you
guys the lay of the land,” said Olivier. “See that mountain over
there? The one that looks like a Mexican pyramid? That’s New Axum.
Friendly territory. We’re in the home stretch.”

“
Cool,” I said. “Looks …
not too far. What do you think? Half a day’s march?”

“
If that,” said Olivier.
“Once we get through the marshes it’ll be easy going. Flat and open
land. Be nice if the resistance could meet us halfway but … I’m not
sure they want to stick their necks out. Looks like they got beat
up pretty bad.”

Petros knelt in a clump of dead and
dry marsh weeds, his back straight, head tilted back.

“
What’s up with him?” said
Kitt. The Seraph’s eyes were closed. Sweat dewed his brow. He
shivered and rattled his restraints.

“
Some kind of trance,” said
Olivier. “He’s been doing a lot of that. I think it’s how he
communicates with these Lords of his.”

The Seraph’s eyes popped open and
drilled us with a penetrating glare.

“
The wings,” said Petros.
“You must surrender them. All of them.” His eyelids slammed shut
again. His lips trembled.

“
Say what?” said Olivier.
“No fucking way.”

“
My Lords … they did not
realize you had captured … so many. They belong to us. They must be
returned.”

“
Captured? Wait a minute,
those are ours. James made the joints.”

“
Not … possible. My Lords …
demand … their return.”

“
No way, no how! This
wasn’t part of any deal. The only pair we took was your own, and
fine, you can have those back, but the others, we’re
keeping.”

“
No,” said Petros. “My
Lords … require … all … of the wings. All … of them.”

“
We ain’t giving you shit
if you keep this up. The deal was a prisoner for a prisoner. That
is all. You can’t alter the terms after the fact. If your guys want
to renege, maybe we should just haul your ass back
underground.”

“
No. My Lords … need …
their wings … back.”

“
What the fuck, Petros? You
knew we were working on copying them.”

“
And failing.”

“
But James here managed to
get it done.” Olivier snickered. “I bet your Lords didn’t expect a
ringer to show up out of the blue, did they?”

“
Ringer?” Petros pursed his
lips and his eyes went cold and distant. His jaw quivered with
strain. “The wings. My Lords must have them back.”

“
Pathetic! Look at them
yank his strings! This ain’t a man, it’s a puppet. Well, you can
tell your Lords to fuck off, Petros. They’re not getting our
wings.”

“
As you wish,” said Petros,
almost inaudibly.

Olivier glowered at the Seraph.
“Listen. This had better not cause any problems. For your sake,
things had better go smoothly at transfer time. How about you
communicate that to your Lords next time you mind meld or whatever
it is that you do with them?”

Petros only stared back at Olivier,
his face betraying not a shred of emotion. Part of his humanity had
slipped away. For the moment, at least, his Lords had rendered him
little more than just another expendable Cherub.

Chapter 27:
Condor

I floated on the breeze, allowing a
tailwind to nudge me across the basin, just ahead of the ground
party and only a little quicker than their pace. I kept my eyes on
the sky and on the units of Cherubim arrayed in an arc along the
higher terrain to our rear. There were so many of them! Now I knew
how Petros could afford to be so haughty and confident about his
side’s prospects. The resistance was facing an overwhelming
force.

The land rose gently beyond the
marshes, giving way to an ever more arid landscape as we entered
the rain shadow of the ring of terraced, blocky mountains that
loomed ahead. Giant cacti and succulents replaced the fuzzy,
white-glazed shrubs that filled the lower valley. Several side
gulches emptied into this vast bowl, though their creeks had mostly
gone dry.

Olivier kept his marchers in a tight
cluster. Bunched together like that they looked so small now
against the vastness of the basin and the forces of Penult arrayed
all around them. But so far anyhow there were no signs that any of
the Cherubim units arrayed on the rim were making any move to
intercept us.

We were headed straight for a
multi-tiered mountain with cliffs that rose in steps each a hundred
meters tall. It was separated from the neighboring massifs by deep,
narrow gorges on both sides.

Debris the outlets of both gorges and
as I flew closer, I could see that these were not natural. They
were barricades erected by the resistance forces, tangles of
driftwood and uprooted tree trunks woven together with thick cords
of root. Giant ants clambered over the barricades to the right
while the left was guarded by a rank of armored Reapers.

It unsettled me that the Frelsians and
the Dusters segregated their forces, but I supposed it made sense.
These were former enemies after all, and separating
responsibilities probably facilitated command and control and
allowed each to employ their unique tactics. I only hoped that they
each had liaisons in each other’s ranks and some way to communicate
with each other.