The Faarian Chronicles: Exile (14 page)

“He’s an import from Glass City,” Thal shrugged as if that
explained everything. “One of the ones with chlorophyll, obviously.”

“Hot, isn’t he?” said Lyta, wiggling her eyebrows. Thal
rolled his eyes. We’d reached the end of town now, and the road petered out
into a web of trails through the desert.

“I can’t wait until we get to go away to school and all the
guys look like that,” Otrere said.

“You both have to get in first,” Thal pointed out with a
smirk. “I’ve got more chance of making it in before you two do.” Otrere grabbed
him and started giving him nuggies.

“Ow! Let go!” An elbow to Otrere’s stomach and a brief
tussle and Thal was free, rubbing his head and glaring at his sister. “And I’m
sure not all the guys there dress like that.” He rolled his eyes at me. “I’ll
be going as soon as I can pass the entrance exam, in a few months maybe.”

“Yeah, if they accept a little weakling like you into the
warrior program,” Otrere said.

“Hey, did you not notice the reversal he just did on
you?" I asked. "Fast and light is better than heavy and slow like you
two, any day.”

Thal grinned at me.

“What do you know about it, Earth Princess?” Lyta sneered.
“You wouldn’t even fight me fairly, and Myrihn told us she saw video of you
sparring on Earth and you were pathetic. And that sneak attack this morning
doesn’t count. You got lucky.”

“Whatever,” I replied.

“I told you,” Otrere laughed and elbowed her sister,
“haratchi fodder.”

“What do you two want, anyway?” I glared at both of them
suspiciously. Despite Myrihn’s order that they partner with me, I hadn’t seen
them since we left the compound.

“Oh, lighten up! You’re not still sore about us looking
through your Earth stuff this morning, are you?” Otrere asked. “We would have
given your dolly back. You know, eventually,” she said with an amused smirk.

“We were just testing you. No hard feelings, right?” Lyta
smiled at me.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I sniffed. I wasn’t going to be
stupid enough to trust them again.

“You know Lee, I’m hurt,” Otrere whined mockingly. “I don’t
think she likes us.” I snorted and kept walking, catching their grins out of
the corner of my eye.

Otrere’s phone buzzed on her hip. Her expression sobered
immediately as she read the text. “A den is erupting. Let’s go.” All three of
them took off running, consulting their links and leaving me to run after them,
soon lagging behind, gasping in the thin air. Thal was the first to notice.

“Sunny, can you keep up at this pace?” he asked. “The site’s
only a couple of miles away.”

I shook my head, sucking wind and unable to talk.

“Hey, we have a problem!” he shouted to his sisters and we
all slowed to a walk. “She can’t run. What do we do?”

I winced at being the “problem.” I was in good shape back on
Earth. This was ridiculous! I bent over and braced my hands on my knees while
they talked over me.

“So walk with her.”

“Uh-uh. I’m a full trainee now, just like you two, and Aunt
Vaeda promised I could watch this time. I’m not missing it again,” Thal said.
His sisters huffed and sighed.

“Fine,” Lyta said finally. “Mom made us promise to make sure
you got to see this time. You go ahead and we’ll stay with new girl here.”

Thal looked at me worriedly and started to protest.

“Do you want to go or not, Thal? We already said we were
just testing her before. No hard feelings right?” They took my silence for
agreement. “See, she’ll be fine. Go on, Thal. We won’t do anything to her.”

“Okay, but I’m trusting you two to be nice,” Thal said. They
nodded innocently. “Yes! I’m so excited!” he exclaimed. “You’ll come next time,
okay?” he said to me, then took off without waiting for a reply.

No!
I wanted to shout
after him.
Don’t leave me out here with these
two!
But I didn’t want to be the one to keep him from doing something
cool because I couldn’t keep up. I’d never been the one to fall behind on a
run!

“So,” Lyta said, both of them advancing menacingly as Thal
shrunk in the distance. “We’re the slow ones, huh?”

“Hey!” I said, straightening as much as I could with the
stitch in my side, holding up a hand. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“Oh relax, Princess. We don’t want to fight a half-breed
gimp like you anyway. You’re practically crippled out here.”

“Yeah, it wouldn’t be any fun.” Otrere shook her head.
“Can’t even run outside. You’re a disgrace to the name Katje.”

“Good thing my last name is Price then,” I mumbled.

“So, we’re gonna do you a favor, Princess,” Lyta continued
as if she hadn’t heard me. “It’s simple,” she said, glancing at her sister. “We
still want to see the haratchi den, so we’re gonna run…”

“…And you’re gonna keep up,” Otrere finished. “Outdoor
training starts now, Princess. Let’s go.”

“But…” I started to protest.

“We’re not missing this because of you, so get moving.”
Otrere shoved my shoulder as she jogged past me.

“I tried,” I said, running after them. “Did you not see
that?”

“Nope, must have missed it.” They grinned at each other.
“And you’re wasting your breath talking. Let’s see how far you can go.”

I gritted my teeth and concentrated on measuring my
breathing. How far I could go turned out to be maybe half a mile before I
collapsed in the dust and put my head between my knees as spots danced in front
of my eyes.

“That was pathetic,” Otrere said. “You’re concentrating too
much on breathing.” I squinted up at her as she shook her head. “What are we
supposed to do with her now? We’re gonna miss the eruption!”

“Ugh, let’s just leave her here and come back for her
later,” Lyta replied.

I wanted to say, “Hey, I’m right here!” but couldn’t catch
my breath enough to get the words out.

“Yeah, you’re right, Lee. She’s got water. We can go watch
the eruption, and she’ll be fine here till we get back."

"Okay, go sit under that tree and we’ll be back for you
later,” Lyta said. “We patrolled this valley yesterday, so it ought to be safe
enough.” I just flopped my hand at them, completely gassed.

Sheesh! I was an elite gymnast and I couldn’t even run here
for crying out loud. How pitiful was that? I got up and walked slowly to the
lone tree in the distance.

When there was rain, this valley was probably a lush field
of wildflowers a few times a year. Now, I ran my fingers through the tall dry
grasses, all gone to seed and blowing gracefully in the breeze. Hiding all
manner of evils.

I moved the flat of my scy blade slowly to either side as I
walked, as if it were a blind person’s cane, trying to see what lay a few feet
on either side of me. If there were eggs here, I could walk within a few yards
of them and never know.

The repetitive motion soon had my mind wandering to Kysa and
that bloody picture. I tried not to think about those fierce orange eyes as the
woman cleaved her enemies in two with one swipe of her scy. Was that Kysa’s
imagination? Or was that what haratchi actually looked like, larger than humans
with huge black wings and blood dripping from sharp, serrated beaks? I
shuddered from the idea that she could have drawn that from memory, from
something she’d actually seen.

Like those buildings being eaten. Had there been anyone
inside? What happened to them? God, what a nightmare. What a life for a kid to
have.

But the thing that I really couldn’t wrap my head around was
why Kysa called my mother “Telal-ursu”. What did that even mean? My
translation, “demon-warrior,” made no sense. I’d have to remember to ask Thal
later. If he and the twins ever came back for me.

Chapter 16: Fluffy Little Fuzz Balls

Why couldn’t I find any game apps on this thing? I needed
something to do besides sit under this ancient, scarred tree in the dusty heat.
If only I had a way to practice gymnastics, I could put this time to good use.
Well, I could at least get in a bit of a workout, if I could survive the heat
and thin air that is.

I did a couple sets of plyometrics, lunges and squats, then
dropped to the dry, cracked ground to catch my breath. I was going to do
crunches and handstand push-ups too, but paused to take a drink from my bag
first and noticed how light it was. I tried calling Thal on my link, but he
didn't pick up. Maybe if I climbed the tree, I could spot my cousins returning,
or anyone else out on patrol for that matter. The thought crossed my mind that
maybe I had been left out here on the Macawi version of a snipe hunt. I
scowled.

The first branches were too high for me to reach, so I took
my belt off to wrap around the trunk. I’d seen this done by climbers in logging
competitions on TV. How hard could it be?

I tried to convince myself of that as I looked up at the
distance to the first branch. That’s when I saw it, almost hidden by leaves
about twenty feet up, that unnatural blue color. A haratchi egg sac, and it
looked like a big one. I knew I was supposed to use my link to call for help
now, but I decided to try out the platform in my pack and get a closer look
first. I’d been dying to try out the compact gadget all day, since Thal had
explained it that morning.

“It only has enough charge to expand once,” he’d told me as
we started patrolling. “So don’t use it unless you’re sure you have something.”
Well, I was definitely sure, and I didn’t want to take the chance that the
jarring of climbing the tree would break the egg sac or something.

I took the thin, octagonal plate out of my pack and laid it
flat on the ground, positioning it under the pulsing blue netting before
stepping on. It was about the size of a stepping stone in a garden walkway, big
enough for both of my feet and not much else.

“Up!” I commanded, not sure what I was doing.

When nothing happened, I examined the plate and noticed what
looked like recessed buttons set into the edge of the platform: up and down
arrows, and a horizontal line with arrows on both ends. I crouched on it this
time, took a deep breath and pressed the up arrow once, briefly, receiving a
little jolt upward in reply.

Okay. I took another breath and pressed the button, holding
it down this time and speeding upward. A branch nicked my shoulder painfully on
the way up, almost knocking me off the tiny platform, but I managed to stay on.

I let go of the button about five feet from the sack and had
a strong sense of déjà vu. Years ago, shortly after the avalanche, I’d had a
dream very much like this.

I’d been alone in a tree, wondering how I had come to be
there, and there was an egg sac hanging there, iridescent blue and pulsing with
some kind of malevolent energy. I’d known that I had to destroy it. There
hadn’t even been a question in my mind.

The egg sack was a danger to everyone I knew and loved, and
in the dream, that had been a very long list of people relying on me. I’d had a
scy in my hands and I’d known what to do. I went to work.

The dream had been so vivid that I couldn’t stop thinking
about it the next morning, and it had been so strange that I described it to
Dad and Sensei over breakfast. “…and they pulsed, like big, blue, pulsing
grapefruits,” I said through a mouthful of pancake. It was the best way I could
think of to describe the eggs. I thought they’d get a kick out of it, tell me
what a vivid imagination I had.

 Instead, Sensei exchanged a surprised look with Dad
and replied, “Really. That sounds like a good exercise.” The next day I entered
the workout room to find a rough wooden platform that stood about six inches
high off the polished floor, eight feet wide, octagonal, and oddly reminiscent
of my dream perch. In place of my usual heavy bag, there was a ten-pound, mesh
bag of white grapefruit hanging from the ceiling.

As if I had still been in the dream, I had picked up my scy
and stepped up to the bag of Texas’s finest, somehow already knowing Sensei’s
instructions.

What I was seeing now looked exactly as I remembered from my
dream all those years ago. The large, grapefruit-sized blue eggs looked soft
and bumpy and were held together by a kind of organic netting. I remembered
this feeling too, this thrumming in my blood, this instinct to kill. They were
dangerous, unnatural - evil.

I looked down at the tiny octagon I clung to, fifteen feet
in the air and swaying like an out of control car jack. That other button caught
my attention and I thought, what the heck? It couldn’t hurt.

The platform immediately folded out from below, expanding in
every direction until it either extended a good four feet from center, or hit
part of the tree. I gingerly put my weight on the new, much thinner sections
and found them springy, but stable. I looked back at the iridescent blue eggs
and thought once again about calling for help, but some of the eggs were doing
a funny stretching. They were hatching, I realized, and my heart rate shot
through my chest. There wouldn’t be time for anyone to reach me here. Besides,
I had this feeling that I couldn't wait. I had to destroy those eggs.

I pulled my scy from its sheath on my hip and pressed the
button to extend it from resembling a police nightstick to full-sized
deadliness. This was so much like my practice grapefruits back home, I thought.
How hard could it be?

I started slicing in the old familiar rhythm, cutting a
small hole in the netting first and catching each egg as it fell. I immediately
realized that one thing was definitely
not
like my practice sessions
back home. Grapefruits didn’t bleed.

The squirting blood and smell of wet feathers were enough to
gag me. I swallowed hard in disgust and held my breath; this would be over in a
minute.

The squishy eggs started falling faster and faster,
cascading out of the loosening netting, some of them hatching in midair. Man,
but these things hatched fast, exploding out of their shells. I was slicing as
fast as I could, catching short glimpses of blue beaks and feathers, but I
couldn’t concentrate on that now. Swinging, slicing, moving, jabbing. The
rhythm took over and I stopped thinking. Several times I had to sweep off the
platform with a swipe of my boot or blade as the bloody mess grew around me.

Finally, the sac was empty, and the last egg fell, its
spongy shell splitting and bursting open on its way to the platform. I realized
I didn’t even know what these things looked like. Morbid curiosity made me turn
my wrist at the last second and I missed slicing it in half.

I’m not sure what I expected, some scaly gremlin thing,
maybe. Instead, I saw a fat little chick emerge, all fuzzy with blue down and
big dark eyes.
This
was the big threat? I thought incredulously, as it
flapped its little wings and shook out its round, downy body, making it look
even fluffier and cuter. I noticed as it flapped that it had two extra
appendages: short arms growing from under the wings.

It tilted its head and looked around at the carnage
surrounding it on the platform. I winced, hoping it didn’t know, couldn’t know
what I had just done to its siblings. I felt suddenly guilty. Unsure if, in
doing what I’d been trained to do, I had done the right thing. Absently, I put
my scy down as memories of holding baby chicks on our neighbor's farm came to
me.

I couldn’t resist reaching out and scooping it up in my
hands, rubbing its adorable head with my forefinger. It looked up at me with
big, liquid eyes and cheeped.
“Cheep! Cheep, cheep!”
sounding like a
newborn chick. Soooo cute.

I was astounded. How could this adorable fluff ball possibly
be trouble? I’d just had this thought when it turned its downy head and gave me
a nip on the side of my finger.

Reflex made me drop it with a gasp as I stared from the
chunk missing from my finger to the ball of cuteness on the platform, now
eating the grisly remains of its kin with gusto.

Ugh! Completely disgusting! And freakin’ OW! It took me a
minute as my finger bled profusely down my hand for my mind to wrap around the
fact that this cute, fuzzy, baby bird
could
actually be as bad as they
said, especially if there were a bunch of them. It had started on the tree
truck, happily chomping into hardwood when I picked up my scy and swung.

“Well finally,” I heard from below. “I thought you were
going to let it get away and burrow on us.”