Whatever Gods May Be (28 page)

Valry cringed as the lightning bolts rained down around her, but at least their fiery presence was a good indication that the more dreaded tornado was not immediately forthcoming.  Once the charring rain of bolts diminished, and if the clouds had not dissipated, it was a certain sign that the worst of the storm was about to begin.  The cyclone would suck in residual and scattered electric currents and literally transform the polluted skies into a million-volt hot shroud, in which anything underneath would be thoroughly cooked.  Anyone caught below a fully matured Light Storm stood a much better chance of being electrocuted rather than vaporized by the swirling madness offered by the actual twister.

Both alternatives were completely unacceptable to Thalick.  However, if he did not reach the relative safety of higher ground shortly, there would no longer be a choice in the matter.  He hissed nastily as a light bolt screamed downward several yards ahead, forcing him to sharply turn and avoid the blast.

Thalick was more afraid for his human passenger, who was completely vulnerable to a stray strike.  Had the Stinger actually sustained a hit, he could suffer massive damage and extreme discomfort.  But he would live to hiss about it later; a talent the little Valry did not possess.  He cursed himself inwardly for allowing the girl to have persuaded him earlier that afternoon to descend into the crater at this time of year.  Like Valry, had been deceived by the promising calm and perpetually bland overcast that assured a respectable margin of safety from the seasonal twisters.  It was a mistake he hoped he was not going to permanently regret.

The sky suddenly blazed.  Valry closed her eyes, clutching on tighter to Thalick as the Stinger shifted to the right.  When she opened them she had time to glimpse an enormous, smoking crater pass behind her -- the indelible trademark of a deadly light bolt.

Scorched, sick earth filled her nostrils.  Another blast flashed brilliant, and then another and another, until the bolts began hailing down at a rate of one per second.  This impeded Thalick's speed considerably, as he was forced to dodge, stop and start again in order to gauge sensorially the points of impact.  It was a rough ride for Valry, but she hung on fiercely, her concentration like that of the Stinger, focused on the slopes of the plateau directly ahead.

Then they heard it.  An eerie growl reverberated across the land, and through the raining death around her, she could see the descending funnel strike earthward.

"It's starting," she screamed against the snarl of wind and mud that slammed into her face, making her cough and gag.  She stamped her food against the hard armor of Thalick's back.  "You've got to fly, Thalick.  I know you don't want to, but it's the only way."

Another explosion rattled the ground, sputtering wet rock and muck all over Valry.

"I'll be okay," she continued yelling, keeping her head and face covered with her fur wrap.  "Open your wings."

The Stinger did not respond, though he was adamant at not following Valry's suggestion.  Had he taken to the air, the chances would be excellent that the girl would be torn to pieces.  The Stinger himself would probably finish severely injured.  The light bolts were too haphazard in their offensive, and once airborne it would be much more difficult to accurately avoid being struck by them.  Progress would be slower on the ground, but it insured more of a chance for survival for Valry.

Abruptly, the hail of lightning ceased.  The tornado had completely formed, and a moment later, Thalick understood why Valry had been so insistent that he take to the air.

The twister was gargantuous, spanning half a mile in diameter.  The air became suddenly very still, which allowed the Stinger to use his time greedily to hop and run where he could, but both he and the girl knew that only seconds remained before all hell broke loose.

There was almost something alive about the funnel, Valry thought to herself, shivering in spite of the warm air.  She had seen Light Twisters from a great distance before and even then she felt a cold slice of terror run through her.  Even from twenty miles away, the power of the tornados could still shake the earth and moan across the skies like some horrible demon in its death throes.  Now, only a few hundred yards from the thing, Valry thought that the twister was more than alive.  It seemed more a creation of pure and conscious evil anxious to rape and destroy everything in its path.

Thalick regarded the twister somewhat less metaphysically.  For him, it was simply big and mean and ready to attack blindly at anything it could; yet another execrable byproduct of this damned planet that owed its entire existence to the nuclear folly of a civilization that rightfully lay buried underneath several tons of fused rock.

The shock wave from the twisters formation crashed into Thalick and the girl, followed by a blinding explosion.  Valry found herself flying for what seemed an eternity, until she plowed roughly into a mud pool feet first.  Shaken but uninjured, Valry clawed the slop out of her face and frantically searched for Thalick.

The Stinger had also been thrown easily into the air, though his landing was not as smooth as Valry's had been.  Crashing on his back, he was dimly aware of a sharp burning in his belly.  He had been lucky; a few more inches and the single light bolt that had thrown both he and Valry so effortlessly skyward, would have just as easily vivisected him.

A charred pit of black, smoldering ash received the brunt of the high-velocity bolt, and even as Thalick landed, burned rock and earth rained down on top of him from the fallout.

Disoriented, Thalick rolled himself over, disgusted to discover one broken antennae.  It was a painless casualty, but one which diminished his navigational effectiveness.  More distracting, was the riveting pain on his underbelly, which he could not do anything immediately to correct.  During a dormant period, any damage to his exterior could be rectified easily, and in fact be corrected in a matter of hours.

Unfortunately, the growling twister now heading directly for him was not prepared to allow Thalick such luxuries.

Valry spotted Thalick and the tornado dogging him.  She was forced to squint now, because the twister was vacuuming up tons of topical sand and dirt around her, which made the air grow darker.  But even with such poor visibility, the girl could still see that Thalick was in a deadly position.  Though practically indestructible, she doubted whether even Thalick could hold together if sucked into the snarling vortex approaching him.

Getting her own bearings, Valry noted that she had been thrown quite a distance.  She had landed at the base of the slope of the crater; a few hundred feet above her lay safety and refuge from the hellish conditions now prevailing below.

But thoughts of escape eluded Valry.  All she could see was her precious Stinger in mortal peril.  Hysterically, she floundered in the mud pit, clawing and screaming at the same time.

"Thalick!" she yelled into the deafening roar of the storm while waving her arms frantically to get the shocked Stinger's attention.  "Over here!"

The air was getting hotter, and Valry could feel her entire body start to tingle.  In a few minutes, the temperatures would skyrocket several hundred degrees higher as the weird ionization surged to a fevered pitch; a few moments later and Valry knew she would roast slowly from electrocution.

"Get away, Thalick:" she hollered desperately, extricating a leg from the thick muck that held her.  Though five hundred yards away Valry could still feel the powerful suction of the twister fighting for her.

The Stinger's extraordinary senses could perceive every thought and word Valry relayed to him, but his reaction and motor impulses had slowed down from the blast shock.  With a kind of drunken fascination, he watched the twister's approach.  The lightning that had earlier posed so much threat to himself and the girl was imprisoned within the unholy conflagration of wind and rock, sparkling and flashing periodically with trapped menace.

Like some unearthly serpent, the twister lashed from side to side with a speed that was surprising for its enormous mass.  Within seconds, it had covered a hundred yards of ground, moaning horribly all the way, as it plowed towards the dazed Thalick with eerie relentlessness.

Because of the heat and gale force winds, Valry was forced to ascend the slope.  Wisely, she crawled on all fours, keeping as much of her body as flat as possible so as to avoid being struck by racing debris.  But even as she retreated, she continued yelling into the ferocious winds.

"Your wings, Thalick.  Use your wings." Thalick had reoriented himself sufficiently so as to push off towards the slopes ahead, but the speeding twister was gaining on him.  He was losing too much fluid through his belly wound and was manifesting symptoms of the bends.  The Stinger's system was bound and linked to enormous pressures maintained internally; any dramatic loss or alteration of such carefully balanced forces affected function to every cell in his body.  Left untreated, Thalick would immediately go dormant to allow the intricate fail-safe systems within his body take over and heal the damaged tissue.

Under less hectic conditions, hibernation would be the recommended therapy.  An hour-long sleep would do the trick, and the Stinger would awaken as good as new.  Thalick struggled against the euphoria enveloping him, realizing that to go dormant now would possibly lead to a much longer sleep than he desired.

"Open your wings," Thalick heard again through the rumbling crescendoing around him.

Wings, Thalick kept hearing through clouded thoughts.  Someone wanted him to open his wings, but he wasn't completely sure who was calling to him.

Then he remembered.  Valry was out here someplace.  His focus grew cloudier with each second, but he could still make out the slopes ahead of him.  Stumbling and weaving, he struggled to keep his attention on the plateau wall in front of him.

The tornado was almost on top of the Stinger, and from where Valry was positioned, the Stinger looked totally drawled by the frightening storm.  Demonically, it weaved side to side appearing to almost study its helpless prey before striking.  The split-second delay, gave Thalick the time he needed.

The periphery of the twister struck Thalick just as he spread two veiny wings.  Six tons of flying claw and tail soared over Valry's head and out of sight into the thick woods above.  She did not even hear the Stinger crash gracelessly into the trees, because the tornado took a decidedly new approach to its attack; one that put the helpless girl directly in its path.

Relief mingled with terror, as Valry stared at the oncoming twister.  As if cheated from something hot and delicious, the storm hissed and spat with a vengeance.  Valry grappled for footing as she climbed higher on the slope, but at her present pace, the twister would be upon her before she reached higher ground.  Already, the tornado was breaking up, which attenuated to a certain degree the velocity of the winds circulating in the crater valley.  She was no longer actually feeling the storm pull at her as it approached.  But this was little comfort, since the generated electrical energy that the storm had produced would continue to soar until the twister died out completely.

Dizzy and fighting off nausea, Valry looked around herself desperately.  She was already absorbing a good dose of voltage, and the shock to her system was taking effect.  If she did not find cover in the next few seconds, she would either be ripped to pieces by the twister as it slammed into the slope or cooked alive by the electric fallout.

The twister was a hundred yards away when she caught sight of the small, foreboding hole a few feet above her.  Under normal circumstances, caves were things to be avoided unquestioningly; the assortment of oozing obscenities that frequented such places had a penchant for human flesh and the chances for emerging again undigested were dismally slim.

In this instant, however, Valry didn't hesitate for a second.  Dragging herself on her belly, she entered the darkness head first, crawling as far as she could into it before running into rock wall.

The twister slammed into the slope, pulverizing several tons of bedrock and mud.  The cave shuddered and brought a rain of stones and debris hailing down on Valry, as well as outside junk being forced through the small aperture from the tornado's impact.  The ground beneath her heaved and shook a moment longer, then quieted down completely.

Valry turned on herself and glanced towards the cave's entrance.  She had crawled for fifty yards after she had entered, yet the force of the twister had decimated so much of the mountain, that only a hundred feet separated herself from the newly formed cave mouth.

Outside, wind and rock still prevailed; had she exited at this point, she would have been killed instantly.  The twister had disappeared, but the hundred mile winds would continue bouncing off the walls of the crater valley for another hour, generating electrical currents well over several thousand megawatts in magnitude.

Even with solid stone as insulation, Valry could still feel the penetrating electricity prickle her entire body.  The sensation was irritating if no longer dangerous, and Valry decided to move yet deeper into the cave.

It suddenly occurred to her that the tunnel she was so courageously advancing into may not be vacated.  The thought brought her to a dead halt.

The cave was black as pitch, and Valry couldn't even see her hand in front of her.  She fought back the terror that threatened to rise within her.  A few minutes earlier outside, she had not considered twice the possibility of something unpleasant residing in the cave waiting for a meal to come its way.  Now, she felt the walls closing in around her, with every loose piece of dirt that crumbled nearby signaling the arrival of a famished predator that could see her but which was invisible to her own eyes.