Expedition Beyond Page 21

  “Moving into the void. More cable, quickly!”

  His lights pierced only blackness.

  Two seconds later, Sam shouted, “Stop! I’ve got suction here; we have suction. Bill, bring me up, quick! I’m spinning again!”

  Bill said, “Hold on, Sam—the Buddy can’t overcome the weight. I’ll need to lower the gear ratio.”

  Sam screamed, “Get me out of here!”

  “Fire your jetpack downward!” Bill ordered.

  “There is no down!”

  The white light appeared on the monitor and was getting closer.

  “Sam, you all right?” Bill asked.

  It was a very long few seconds before he answered.

  “Yeah, but I feel like I’ve been yanked in half.”

  Chapter 29

  LATITUDE 82° 10’ NORTH

  LONGITUDE 73° 42’ WEST

  LAPTITUDE 68%

  Month 3, Day 9; 1500 UTC, 9:00 AM LTD

  It had rained all night and had stopped only just recently, so the air was laden with mist as Des and Anastasia strolled down the path.

  “She hates me,” Des said suddenly with a laugh.

  “Who hates you?”

  “Your sister.”

  “Oh, Des, Bethenna does not hate you!”

  “Oh, yes, she does!” He shoved his hip against Anastasia’s, knocking her down.

  “Oh, no, she doesn’t!” She jumped up, brushed herself off, then gave Des a hip-shove of her own, knocking him sprawling off the path on the cliff side.

  He saw nothing but wet leaves. There was mud underneath him and he felt himself sliding down the slope. He scrambled for traction, but found only more mud. He grabbed for a branch with one hand, then wiped the goop from his face with the other; some dripped into his eyes, so he shut them tightly. Anastasia was tugging on his legs to keep him from slipping further. He finally managed to turn his feet downhill and gained purchase for them on a root.

  After Anastasia helped pull him back up, he sat on the edge of the path and wiped his face with his muddy hands, then opened his eyes and tried to focus.

  He briefly caught sight of B`ahta through the mist, building sand castles on the beach far below him. Then the fog obscured. Moments later, she reappeared, waving toward the sea.

  Des gasped, “Anastasia, the beasts are back! B`ahta is signaling!”

  Why was Adeyo not sounding the alarm on his drums? The beast boats were not expected for another five days, but still he should be watching. No one was ready; no one was in position.

  “Alée!” Des called.

  She came quickly.

  “Find Ray-na and May-lee and bring them here. The beasts have returned.”

  She nodded and left.

  Des told Anastasia, “Adeyo probably can’t see the boats because of the mist. You have to get him to sound the alarm now.”

  “Abba,” she said, running.

  Alée returned with Ray-na and May-lee.

  Des told them, “Tell the other captains the beasts are here, then push off in your canoes. Hurry! We may already be too late.”

  He ran to Anastasia’s house, plunged headfirst into her tub and washed off the mud. When he resurfaced, he saw Bethenna and her children standing there.

  “The boats, the men, the beasts are here,” he told her.

  She nodded calmly and ushered her children away.

  Des dressed in a white tunic and headband. As he left the house, he noticed that Bethenna had changed her clothes, as well—she was now in red, with a beaded necklace.

  He couldn’t see the beach through the mist and still heard no drumming. Come on, Anastasia, come on.

  The mist cleared for a moment, revealing B`ahta still sitting on the beach, still waving at the sea.

  Des hurried toward Oom’s hut, past which were the warriors’ reed canoes—but no one was in them.

  Come on, Alée—where was she? What’s taking them so long?

  The warriors finally appeared. They pushed their canoes into deeper water, glided near the shore, then headed out to sea, their paddles below the water’s surface. The warriors were lying flat so the small boats appeared empty.

  They know silence. They know war.

  He heard the drums far above him.

  When Des caught sight of B`ahta again, she was no longer waving. Directly in front of her was a small, boxlike boat with three odd figures clad in leather vests and leggings. One held a rope as he waddled towards her.

  “B`ahta,” Des whispered to himself, “get off the beach!”

  She sat near her sand castle, unmoving.

  The other two figures leaped out of the boat. The fickle mist was beginning to enshroud them again, so Des wasn’t entirely sure he saw what he thought he saw, or if he just didn’t want to acknowledge it. While one beast was tying up the boat with a rope, the other two appeared to place their knuckles on the ground, swivel their shoulders forward and lope on all fours towards the village in a gait as fast as most men could run.

  Why hadn’t anyone told him this about the beasts?

  Anastasia came running.

  “We must get B`ahta off the beach!” Des told her.

  “It is too late. No one can get to her now. She is past the line.”

  “What will they do?”

  “They will kill her if she doesn’t move,” she answered grimly.

  “We must get closer.”

  Des ran towards the sea with Anastasia close behind him. But he wouldn’t get so close that the beasts could see him and jeopardize his battle plan. He and Anastasia knelt in bushes that bordered the sand. Des listened intently and watched B`ahta, who still hadn’t moved.

  An old beast with a paunch stood over her.

  “Ah-coo-lety?” B`ahta cooed.

  “Shoo!” the beast commanded her.

  B`ahta cocked her head questioningly.

  The beast turned and went back to his boat. He removed an animal horn and blew into it, sounding a smooth, low tone.

  Des heard the sounds of machinery and gentle splashing from the foggy sea.

  Three seventy-meter boats slowly emerged to settle near the shore, their bows in waist-deep water. The paddle cage at each stern stopped rotating; smoke and cinders billowed from cone-shaped flues. The ships’ bows were square and hinged near the waterline; they opened with a rattle of chains and splashed into the sea to become ramps.

  Dozens of village women were walking towards the beach, wearing brightly colored tunics and jewelry; among them, the warriors were dressed in white. One dressed in red—Bethenna, Des realized—plodded down to B`ahta and stopped. An elderly woman, using a blowgun as her staff, moved haltingly towards the water, assisted by a few women in white tunics.

  A tall, ugly beast emerged from the central boat to stand at the top of the ramp. He was dressed in a leather vest with overlying flat straps that wound over his hairy shoulders from his belted waist, leather pants and black leather boots. He held a birch switch—his long fingers ended in claws held flat against his wrist. He revealed far too many shark-like teeth.

  “Shrive,” Anastasia whispered to Des, indicating the ugly beast. “He is their leader.”

  These beasts didn’t need manufactured weapons, Des realized, because they could run fast enough to catch any prey, grab it with teeth and talons, kill it and butcher it quickly. Why hadn’t he been told?

  Shrive surveyed the beach, from one upturned fishing boat to the other.

  “Jilese,” he called.

  A grotesquely fat beast waded to shore with a small table, a chair and a book on his back. He set the table upright on the dry sand next to Bethenna, who had been speaking with B`ahta, now behind the table.

  Jilese flopped into his chair.

  Shrive threw back his head and howled a bloodcurdling screech, whi
ch he repeated.

  A team of twenty-five beasts emerged from each boat, waded to shore and loped off towards the village. Another fifteen beasts moved towards the livestock and ten sentries began patrolling the beach.

  Shrive strode down the ramp and waded to shore. He ignored B`ahta, but confronted Bethenna by tapping the switch against her leg.

  “You see,” Shrive said in Anasazi, “I am not as bad as you think. The girl lives, even though she is across the line, and I will not kill her as long as all goes well.”

  Des didn’t need Anastasia’s translation—he understood precisely what Shrive had said.

  Bethenna spat on the ground. “Why should all not go well?”

  Shrive laughed and brushed Bethenna’s neck with his fingernails.

  Des whispered, “If that son-of-a-bitch touches her again, I’ll kill him with my bare hands and to hell with the others.”

  The men held captive inside the boats began to chant. Their chanting obviously irritated Shrive.

  “Stop them,” he shouted, slapping his crop on the book. “Jilese, get the men off my ships.”

  Jilese whistled, and a single file of men started down each boat ramp. The chanting stopped. The old sentry waddled from his rowboat to Jilese, placed the animal horn on the table and returned, crawling over the gunwales to sit, his eyes closed. The troopers guarding the men cracked their whips in the air as the men waded to shore to line up next to Jilese.

  B`ahta continued digging in the sand, appearing oblivious.

  One of the men looked robust and even muscular among his emaciated countrymen. A trooper whipped him, but the man pushed the whip off his back and sneered at his attacker.

  “Who is that man?” Des asked.

  Anastasia sighed, but said nothing.

  Jilese opened his logbook. The first man in line signed, then stumbled up the beach. Women in white tunics picked him up and carried him off.

  More men signed the book.

  Shrive relieved himself.

  Puma pulled herself soundlessly over the paddles of the central boat, her blowgun strapped to her back, and slipped over the railing to squat on the deck. Where was May-lee? Des had said they were to fight only in pairs, so she would have to wait.

  As she watched warriors climb into the other boats and disappear, she realized it would be easy for any passing beast to spot her. There was a wooden wall surrounding a stairwell into the bowels of the boat just twenty meters in front of her. Puma crawled into the shadows of the wall and hid behind some barrels, her blowgun at the ready.

  Still no sign of May-lee.

  A beast came up the stairs, facing away from her. She untied the bladder on her belt, set it down near her foot, pulled out a dart and loaded the gun.

  The beast flapped his arms and turned, looking past her. Could he see her? Puma wasn’t sure. Could he be looking at May-lee climbing over the railing? Puma didn’t look. She brought the blowgun to her mouth and fired, but her foot slid on the bladder, and the other darts spilled out and rolled across the deck.

  The dart hit the beast in the neck. He whisked it away with the back of his hand while he focused on the rolling darts.

  Then he saw Puma.

  The beast growled something in his own language; she didn’t understand him. She slid her blowgun behind a barrel and stood, her hands flat against the stairway wall.

  “What are you doing here?” the beast asked in her language.

  He was twice her width and almost as tall. He swung his gaze up and down her body, then sliced open her tunic with his fingernails and cupped her breast.

  “Now I will take you downstairs,” he told her.

  Puma closed her eyes. He lifted her by grabbing her tunic below the waist and pinned her against him with one massive arm. Puma pounded his shoulders with her fists, but she otherwise kept quiet to avoid alerting the other beasts. She thought of her friends who would have done the same for her.

  The poison from the dart kicked in. The beast stumbled and swayed, then he toppled over—on top of Puma. Air gushed from her lungs; she struggled for breath as she pushed to get his weight off her. Even in her struggle, she remembered to keep silent. She heaved on his shoulders with all her might. Planting one foot on his neck, she pushed until she was free.

  She turned towards the bow and saw three beasts were watching her from not thirty meters away.

  As she grabbed her blowgun, her bamboo breathing tube slipped out of her pocket and rolled. The beasts rushed towards her; one slipped when he stepped on the tube. As the other two helped him up, Puma grabbed a dart, packed it in the gun, aimed at the middle beast and blew.

  The dart hit the left beast in the knee, but another beast sliced open her wrist with a claw. As blood spurted from her limp hand, the beast slapped her hard.

  She tried to remain conscious while her head swam. Don’t scream, she told herself. Don’t scream.

  One beast threw her blowgun and darts overboard, as the other two picked her up and flung her down the stairwell.

  Alée snuck down the boat’s staircase, her war club ready. Behind her, Ray-na had her back, with her dart gun aimed up the stairs. When Alée reached the bottom, she glanced quickly into the room below, then pulled back and studied the picture in her mind: One beast was eating, the furnace was glowing brightly...nothing more. She rounded the bottom of the steps and crept along the wall’s shadows while Ray-na remained on the steps.

  The beast didn’t see Alée until she was right behind him. He turned with a mouthful of bread and started to stand, but Alée whacked him in the head with her club. His body crumpled lifeless against the furnace’s hot metal.

  Alée opened the furnace door and shoveled blazing coal fire onto the dead beast and the wooden floor. She and Ray-na ascended as the room caught fire. With breathing tubes in their mouths, they slipped off the boat and disappeared from sight. The boat would soon be engulfed in flames.

  They had killed five beasts in fifteen minutes. Not bad.

  Des saw Shrive sniff the air.

  Women in white tunics surrounded the elderly woman, whose blowgun was now pointed at Shrive. Other warriors were rushing the men who had signed-out off the beach.

  Shrive sniffed again. “Jilese, process the rest. My troops, back to the boats!”

  “He smells blood,” Des whispered.

  Beasts began moving into the water and up the ramps.

  Shrive stood by the table as he scanned the beach. One of his troops was trotting towards him, carrying a lamb that was bleating incessantly.

  “Jilese, hurry up!”

  “I am hurrying.”

  A dart hit Jilese on the chest, where it dangled like a medal. Shrive eyed it curiously.

  “Jilese, blow the horn. Get my troops back. It’s time to go.”

  The trooper with the lamb had slowed to a walk. The sheep was kicking and bleating. The old sentry in the rowboat awakened and watched sleepily.

  Jilese said, “I’m almost finished. Men, stay in line and sign out.”

  The beast with the lamb stopped in front of Shrive.

  “Don’t bring it to me, you idiot! Put it on the ship!” Shrive pointed toward the sea without looking, so he didn’t see the smoke billowing from the deck of the farthest boat.

  The beast with the lamb fell forward onto his face. The sheep wiggled out, twitched her tail and trotted away. Blood streamed from the fallen beast’s head; bone and brain matter exuded from the head wound and his hairy back was matted with blood.

  Des’ warriors were now running to the fishing boats, heaving them upright and pulling out war clubs. Des strode toward Shrive, brandishing Oom’s sword. Anastasia was by his side.

  Shrive saw them. “The she-wolf?” he asked, aghast.

  Des raised his sword.

  Shrive shouted at Jilese in unintelligible dialect, then
shoved his aide, who toppled over the book and over the table; his bulk fell to the sand. When Shrive stooped over him, a dart whizzed above his head. He grabbed the horn and wheeled around to run as Des charged.

  “Ahhh, yi!” B`ahta swung her war club hard against Shrive’s knee.

  Shrive squealed in pain as he buckled.

  “You bitch! I’ll kill you for that!” he hissed. Another dart whizzed over him.

  B`ahta was flipping her war club around for another blow, but Shrive wasn’t going to wait to receive it. He limped quickly into the water and up the ramp to his ship, blowing the horn. The boat nearby was ablaze. He blew the horn again, more urgently.

  Des heard splashing from the stern. Beasts were running down the ramp of the burning vessel and wading over to Shrive’s ship.

  Shrive lined them up at the top of his ramp.

  Beast troopers loped from the village, dodging women wielding war clubs and Des’ swinging sword. Two were felled and beaten by the women.

  B`ahta approached the sentry, still seated in his rowboat.

  “What are you doing?” the sentry asked. “Don’t you know Shrive will kill you for this?”

  She lifted her war club above her head.

  “You...die...first!” she said, and smacked him hard; his body fell over the boat railing.

  Des hacked off the old beast’s head.

  He heard the rattling of chains as the ramps closed on the two still-functioning boats. Their paddles started churning, and they began to move.

  The women were lined up on the beach, swinging their clubs, chanting and shouting at the ships.

  Shrive appeared on the bow-deck of his boat. He blew his horn again. He shouted at the warriors and pointed at Des. He screamed as the boats disappeared in the fog until he couldn’t be heard.

  “What was the beast saying?” Des asked Anastasia.

  She appeared glum, in spite of their rout.

  “Nothing important.”

  A frail, malnourished young man meandered through the warriors, his eyes bulging.

  He asked Anastasia a question. When she answered, he spat upon the sand.

  “What does he want to know?” Des asked.

  She sighed. “He asked if you were the one that led us into war with the beasts, the one who leads.”