Chapter 76 – On the Trail

  Cole and the others made their way out of the steam-filled, blood-soaked ravine, returning to the high ground that offered better sight lines. Once out of the valley, the heat started to mount again as the occlusion dropped away.

  Once Howie and Nona joined them, Cole pointed out a pinnacle a few kilometers east. “Looks like permanent shade, there on the backside. High ground. That’s where we’ll bivouac.”

  Artian blanched. “Tis some distance for one in my condition,” he admitted. He was struggling under the weight of his own pack, using his unstrung bow as a walking stick. If it came down to it, they wouldn’t be able to count on him in a fight. Though Cole got the impression he was more the type to save his own skin at the best of times, even if the cost was leaving his companions vulnerable.

  “Rox?”

  Roxy glanced over at the thief. “All my secondary charges are still down. I should have one back in twenty minutes, maybe. It won’t heal him all the way, but it’ll make the traveling easier.”

  Cole turned back to Artian. “Can you manage twenty minutes?”

  “Absolutely,” Artian said with confidence. “How long, pray, is a minute?”

  Right. For all Artian seemed like the kind of fast-talking scumbags he’d met at any number of dives outside Bragg, he was still an otherworlder. Cole looked at his watch and tapped his wrist in time with the second hand. “These are seconds. Sixty of them is a minute.”

  “How curious,” said Artian. “twelve-hundred seconds, then? Why not simply say that?”

  “Because math fucking sucks,” said Cole. Howie was about to say something, probably along the lines of how math puts warheads on foreheads, but Cole held a hand up to forestall him and kept them walking. Ahead, Besson ranged out with Nutmeg, while Nona lagged behind to make sure nothing would surprise them from either direction. “You promised me details on Beth Black.”

  Artian’s expression lightened. “I did, didn’t I? Charming lass, for all the sharpness of her tongue. Met her two nights ago, headed east with design to reach the pinnacle of the floor. Called our late leader a chauvinist prick when he said chivalry dictated he lend company, for a woman ought not travel alone. I didn’t know what it meant, but I know the cadence of a fine insult when I hear one. Alas, travel with us a time, she did. We got on well, though she seemed reluctant to trust even me.”

  “Good instincts,” muttered Roxy into her radio. Cole nodded, resisting the urge to snicker.

  “Was she okay?” asked Roxy. “Was she hurt? Scared?”

  Artian laughed, which turned to coughing. “Argh. No, my lady, she was fine in spirit and health. I entertained her with songs and tales of valor from my world. She told me of an epic ballad of magic, love, and loss she called the Twilight Saga, which I hope to someday carry home. She bedded down with us for the heat of the day, and when we awoke, we discovered she had left. What spirits we liberated from Tallorax must have decided she made for finer company, for the lot of it was gone, too. T’was some hours later we descended into that ravine.”

  “She stole your booze?”

  “I would never accuse a young woman of such knavery,” said Artian, grinning.

  Cole did laugh at that. “Sounds like she’s alright for now, then,” he said, looking at Roxy.

  She pursed her lips. “Aside from the trauma and the violence and the monsters.”

  Turning back to Artian, Cole switched topics. “Now, I want to know about where you’re from. Your world, and this Lord Ryan.”

  Artian smiled. “My world… how I miss her. She’s done me many a turn of good and ill, but never was she boring. War makes room for men like me, you see. When the cracks open and authority looks to the horizon, there becomes more breathing room about the edges of the law. People begin to matter more than letters and ledgers and the red and black figures scribbled within.”

  “Ah, he’s a Humanist crook,” said Howie, as he scanned out over their left flank. “That makes me feel so much better.”

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  Artian feigned offense, but the man’s face was creased from his permanent smile. Even if he was a con artist, he was at least honest about it. Cole couldn’t help liking him—though he’d never trust the guy in a million years.

  “So, this war,” Cole prodded.

  “Hmm? Ah, yes.” Artian cleared his throat and took on the cadence of a practiced orator. “Demons of the Deep dredged from the Westfold, some twenty years ago. I know not why, and any who does is like to be selling tall tales. Though I’ve been many places and heard rumor and whispers of strange rituals and mages seeking new paths to power, who reached too far afield, beckoning and bargaining with abyssal gods. It began with shoals of poisoned fish creating such a carpet on the surface of the Boiling Sea that you could walk from Kalgar to Kanth without scalding your toes. T’wasn’t long before twisted, vile creatures climbed from the depths, urged on by ravenous demigods, and fell upon the March.

  “The stewards, desperate to stop them, turned all focus west, throwing whatever they could. Mages, companies of lancers, mercenaries with machines of steam and black powder. Little works, and these invaders are singularly difficult to kill. The naturalists debate. Some claiming that these creatures were never ‘alive’ to begin with, the way that a suit of animated armor was never alive.

  Cole listened. “So these chosen lords, they’re another counter-measure against these Boiling Sea monsters?” he asked. He couldn’t say for certain these were children taken from Earth, or that this Ryan was his Ryan. But this was the first indication he’d had that the theory of his brother surviving the crash held water.

  “Oh, aye. Presented by the very thaumaturgists folk say beckoned the abyss to begin with. Beings of extraordinary potential. But I’m not alone in believing that there is a cost to such power, and that seizing it to combat one evil simply opens the door to one greater, and so on in a cycle eternal. But there is an end, I say.”

  “What’s that?” asked Cole.

  Artian raised an invisible cup in his hand. “The inevitable extinction of humanity by its own hand, and the ruin of all life in the process. So, with what time we may, we ought live for no man but ourselves.”

  Roxy made a disgusted sound on Artian’s other side, and he rolled his eyes at Cole.

  * * *

  Another couple hours rough hike and two more Malleable Mender charges later, Cole and the others reached the shadow of the stone column. From the raised position, they could see the climb to the top of a caldera where the entrance to the next floor was marked by a shimmering beam of light wreathed in a crimson glare. It didn’t exactly look inviting, unless you were the type of person who craved hardship and relished the adrenaline surge that accompanied the risk to life, limb, and eyesight. Cole was extremely eager to know what lay beyond that veil.

  The Kicker team was far from the first to decide the shadow of the pinnacle made for a decent respite, as they found cast-offs and old fire pits from dozens of previous groups passing through the area, and even some modest fortifications in the form of chest-high walls blocking the two major approaches. No real obstacle to them but the positions could be hellishly defended. Howie made it more-so by putting his elemental munitions in key spots covering the slopes. Cole felt the pop pop of charges being burned as the mage rigged the rise. Cole took out his own low-tech alarm wire, fishing line rigged with primers, to hopefully give them notice.

  Two hours hike under the beating sun, with the fire of the resistance potion coursing through his veins, and they were all feeling the exhaustion. While the heat resistance potions apparently prevented heat stroke and conserved body water, they did nothing to mitigate the unpleasant effects of rucking in the heat. If anything they intensified them. And it made for a somewhat miserable experience.

  With their elevation boosting their line of sight, Cole pulled out the multi-band radio and checked for any sign of Moriarty’s team being in range. Unsurprisingly, the channels were dead.

  Howie, Roxy, Besson, and Nutmeg all doffed packs in the shade. Howie looked red from sunburn, and even Besson’s olive skin looked further tanned. Only Nona looked unbothered by the environment. Artian, who hadn’t had the benefit of a heat resistance potion, guzzled the last of his own water with a look of relief as he gazed out toward the portal. Cole stepped up next to him, taking a few sips from his own hydration pack. “Have you heard anything about the next floor?” asked Cole.

  “Only that it’s worse than this one,” said Artian. “Few who see upper levels travel back down, and the alabaster rooms act as valves that choke the flow of knowledge.” He looked at Cole. “We’re perhaps a day behind your woman, this Beth.” He chuckled. “If she’s smart, she’ll also take respite from the sun, and you can steal miles from her. If she’s extra smart, she’ll not challenge the portal lord and instead wait until a full party brings it down before she walks through the door.”

  “Well, she’s a sixteen-year-old girl,” said Cole. “Not exactly known for their good decisions. We’ll set out early evening.” He checked his watch. “Or in six hours. Whichever comes first." The Babel days were not on the same time scale as Earth. Hell, they hadn’t even been there long enough to know if the Babel days were consistent. The occlusion had lasted for five hours and made travel more palatable.

  Artian’s eyes raised. “Only sixteen years? Perhaps your years differ from mine, but sixteen years for us is little more than a child. She stood taller than any of our number, even the retainer bred from noble stock for service in battle.” he looked between Cole and the even larger Besson. “Though perhaps she was not so strange in your home.”

  “We grow ‘em big, that’s for sure,” said Cole. He was pushing five-eleven, and Besson had another two inches and probably forty pounds on him. Howie had an inch and fifteen pounds less. “We’re pretty average height for where we’re from.”

  Artian shuddered. “Truly, the monsters on your world must quiver in their tentacles.”

  Cole didn’t bother correcting him.

  All the monsters on Earth were human.