The Godgame (The Godgame, Book 1) (10 page)

Her dad said something, but it was so quiet she couldn’t hear him.

“What, Dad?”

Her dad cleared his throat. “Remember when you and your brother were little and he tried to scare you with a jumper bug?”

Kya nodded.

“He pinched it between his fingers and shoved it in your face and you didn’t even flinch. I remember thinking ‘that’s my girl’.” Her dad smiled, more sincerely this time.

“I remember, Dad.” Kya had never told him how she’d later collected a jar of dung beetles from the horse barn and put them in her brother’s bed while he was sleeping. Her brother had been furious, but he’d never said anything to their parents.

“Everything’s going to be alright,” her dad said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?”

Her dad dropped his gaze. He sighed. When he looked up, he had a very serious look in his eyes. “They’re scared,” he said. “There have been a lot of rumors. When people are scared, they act funny.”

Kya rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. That’s why I’m never scared.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“It’s okay if you are. Fear is a good thing. It tells us when we should be careful.”

“Michael’s parents wouldn’t let him come out,” Kya said.

“They’re just being careful.”

“Because they’re scared?”

Her dad nodded. “That’s right.”

“Then why do you let me out?”

Her dad blinked, surprised by the question. “Because—”

“Aren’t you scared?”

“No. Of course not. I’m not scared. The Talosians will never come here.” Her dad smiled. “Besides, I could never keep you locked up inside, could I? You’re too wild and your mother made you tough.”

“That’s right!” Kya said and jumped to her feet. She pulled her wooden sword free, turned to the side, and spared with an invisible attacker.

“Careful with that thing,” her dad said.

“I will. I gotta go, Dad. Just wanted to say hi.” She bolted for the door.

“Kya?” her father called after her.

She stopped in the doorway, turning to her father.

“I...I’m afraid I’m not very good at these talks of ours. Your mother is the wise one. She…” Her father took a deep breath.

“What is it, Dad?”

“I lied,” he said. “I am scared.”

Kya dropped her eyes to her shuffling feet. “I know.”

“If you see anything, anyone dangerous, promise me you’ll run. Can you do that for me? You’re fast. Don’t try and fight. Just run.”

“Okay, Dad,” she said, then pushed through the door and was outside.

~

Using the tip of her wooden sword, she tapped on the window. “Michael? Psst. Michael, are you there?”

After a moment, Michael’s face appeared. He looked down at her, frowned, then slid his bedroom window open. “What are you doing?”

“I came to rescue you. Come on, let’s go.”

Michael didn’t move. “Go where?”

Kya shrugged. “Don’t you want to come outside?”

Michael glanced over his shoulder. “Keep quiet,” he said. “My parents will hear you.”

“Then hurry up,” Kya said, waving her sword.

For a moment, it looked like Michael wasn’t going to come, looking down at her doubtfully. Then, he began to climb down. He landed on his feet, kicking up dust, and stood.

Kya smiled. “Alright, let’s go!” She began to run, Michael behind her.

When they’d reached the end of the street, Michael called after her: “Wait!”

Kya stopped, looking back. “What is it?”

Michael caught up to her, breathing hard. “Where are we going?”

“To the sand pits.”

Michael shook his head. “That’s too far.”

“Why?”

“The Talosians. They—”

“You’re just like everyone else,” Kya interrupted, throwing her hands in the air.

“Like what?”

“Scared.”

Michael looked hurt. “I am not.”

“Then come with me.”

“No.”

“Then you’re scared.”

“Oh, shut up,” Michael said, giving her a shove.

Kya stumbled backward, shocked.

“I’ve heard what everyone is saying,” Michael said, anger flushing his face. “Your mom’s one of them.”

Kya stared at her friend. She could feel her mouth hanging open, her throat was very dry. “What?” she managed.

Michael dropped his eyes and shuffled his feet, as if suddenly ashamed of what he’d just said. “That’s what they’re saying.”

Kya swallowed. “No, she’s not.”

Michael shook his head. “I’m sorry. I have to go home.” He turned his back to her and began to walk slowly back the way they’d come.

Kya watched her friend leave. She was shaking. “No,” she whispered. She yanked her wooden sword free and gripped it tightly by her side.
My mom’s not one of
them
. She’s good. She’s...she’s sick…
She lifted her sword and screamed.

“
You
shut up!” She charged Michael, who whirled around just in time to see her sword coming down. She struck one of his arms, swung her sword back and chopped again, catching Michael in the chest.

Michael grunted, clearly in pain, but angry too. He threw his body forward as she was lifting her sword for another chop and crashed into her. He was on top of her and he was larger. She fought and struggled as he grabbed first one wrist and then the other and pinned her to the ground. His red-burning face glared down at her. “Stop,” he said. “Stop!”

“Get off me!” Kya squirmed, but she couldn’t pull her arms free of Michael’s grip. She kicked her legs uselessly, dust filling the air around them like smoke.

“Stop! I hate you!”

Kya stopped squirming and looked up at her friend.

“We can’t play anymore, okay?” He pushed himself up and backed away.

Kya lay in the dust, motionless, staring up.

“Mutt,” Michael said, turned, and ran.

Kya felt her heart beating in her throat, choking her. She’d never heard Michael use that word before. It felt as if his weight was still on her chest, making it hard to breathe. She tried to hold them back, but her world began to blur with tears.

~

“What did you do!” Her father burst through the door, looking angrier than she’d ever seen him.

She was in the bedroom she shared with her sisters, on the other side of the house from where her mother lay sick and sleeping. Terry and Alex were sitting on the floor in the corner and she was sitting on her bed, flipping through one of her old story books with trembling fingers, but not reading or even looking at the pictures, still too angry at Michael to do anything else. She was still in her dirt-smudged clothes, her wooden sword slung through its loop and sticking out over the bed behind her.

“Did you hit the Mason kid?”

Kya looked up at her dad and blinked. “No,” she said. “I never hit him.”

Her dad stomped into the room. Her sisters shrunk back, clutching their dolls tightly. “No? Michael Mason? His dad came to the shop and told me what you did. Are you sure?”

“He… He…”

“I don’t care what he did.” Her dad bent down and grabbed her sword, wrenching it from the loop in her pants. “How many times have I told you, no fighting? No more fighting!”

Kya watched her father take her sword in both hands. He snapped it in half over his knee. His eyes were bloodshot, sweat dripped from his beard. “I’m...I’m so angry,” he said. “I’m going to have to talk to your mother about this.” He dropped her broken sword to the floor and left. She could hear his feet stomping down the hall.

She looked at the shattered stick that used to be her sword lying on the floor. She stepped over it, and left her sisters quaking alone in the corner.

~

She slumped with her back against the nova tree in their backyard. She wiped her eyes and held her breath until she had herself under control. She hated to cry and she’d found that holding her breath was the best way to hold back the tears.

Slowly, she began to breathe normally. She could hear birds chirping in the branches above her. She’d always liked this tree, with the bulbous red fruits it grew in the fall. She could see it from her bedroom window and sometimes, while her sisters slept, she watched it at night, its branches like gnarled hands trembling in the breeze. She sometimes stared at it for hours. It had a certain hypnotic, calming effect on her.

Michael was a jerk. Her dad was a jerk. Everyone could go to hell.

She pushed her thoughts away. She didn’t want to cry again. Michael was right about one thing: her mom
had
come from Talos. Kya herself was half brean, a genesis rarely seen in Nova. Maybe someday, when she was older, she could go to Talos. They’d teach her to fight in Talos. She had an aunt who lived there, she knew: Embla, her mom’s sister.

Creak.

Kya turned her head, startled. The sound had come from within the tree. She lifted herself and turned to examine the trunk of the nova tree. There was a cleft cut into the wood that had been there for years. Sometimes pikas lived in there during the summer months. One of them might have made the noise.

Something gleamed at the bottom of the dark hole. She reached her hand down slowly and carefully. She gripped something cool, solid and heavy. She lifted it into the light.

It was a knife, steel, with a slight curve to its blade. She ran the ball of her finger carefully along its edge: very sharp. It had a grip of soft leather and a parry guard to protect its wielder’s fingers in a fight. It was clean, immaculate. But what was it doing in the tree in her backyard?

She got on her tippy-toes and looked into the cleft in the tree. There were other things down there. Some clothing, heavy leathers, it looked like; a scabbard for the knife; a compass; a small leather pouch, which she was reaching for when she heard her dad calling her name.

“Kya! Kya, where are you?”

She quickly put the blade back where she’d found it and turned just in time to see her dad walking from around the side of the house.

“Kya,” he said, walking up to her. “Are you okay?”

Kya nodded.

“I’m sorry I yelled. Why don’t you come inside for some dinner? I made—”

“Blanch root stew!”

Her dad smiled and shrugged. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay, Dad,” Kya said, flinging her arms around her dad’s waist and squeezing tight. “I’m sorry too.”

ASH

He opened his eyes. He was lying on his back. There was something caught in the tree above him. His head throbbed painfully. A large branch was lying next to him, which must have struck him when it fell.

He sat up, watching something struggling in the branches above. Although the foliage was thrashing about, he couldn’t hear it, only a dullness, a muffled scratching that tickled irritatingly inside his head, his ears swollen. He couldn’t quite tell what it was up there in the tree.

Then, a branch snapped away and he could see it was a man, strapped into a suit of some kind, dark and leathery wings jutting from his back, tangled and fighting to free his arms. The man was looking right at him, his eyes stony and cold and murderous. The man managed to free one of his arms and drew from the scabbard at his belt a glimmering blade.

Ash couldn’t tear his eyes away. The surface of the blade the man was now using to cut effortlessly through the branches that bound him caught the light as he worked, and shown brightly.

Someone next to him said something, tugging on his arm, but he ignored the tug.

He knew what the man was. He’d seen pictures of flying men in the papers the news carts often left blowing in the streets like leaves. He was a Talosian Dropper Scout, highly trained to leap from the prow of an aerial and glide down to strategic locations. They often carried canvas balls about the size of human heads, which the scout had to drop before its weight carried him too close to the ground where he would crash. These canvas balls, constructed by the engineers, were filled with some sort of explosive substance, capable of leveling entire houses.

The man was now almost free. He was dangling by one arm. He looked down at Ash and pointed his blade threateningly, then returned to hacking at the last few cords that wrapped his arm.

The tug became a frantic yank and he looked over and Pera was yelling something at him. Slowly, he got to his feet.

Faintly, he heard the man growl something and when he looked over the Talosian scout had begun climbing down from the tree.

Pera pulled hard and Ash fell, tumbling to the ground, taking Pera with him.

The Talosian landed on his feet and began to run at them, his blade raised.

Ash and Pera scrambled to their feet and ran into the forest.

~

He couldn’t hear. The trees whipped by with a hum, and a punctuated high-pitched whine. The branches scratched his face, leaving his skin swollen and inflamed. He must have been hit by part of the blast from the dropper’s bomb. He could smell smoke in the air, acrid, from burning trees and bubbling sap. He could barely hear Pera screaming as they ran.

Could he hear their pursuer? Were those grunts his own or the crazed Talosian who chased them?

His rifle, still strapped over his shoulder, jostled and jabbed his hip.

His rifle.

He could use it. He could turn, unsling the weapon, aim, and blast the enemy away. He’d loaded the rifle properly, always at the ready like a good Novan soldier was supposed to be.

Pera had pulled ahead. She was much faster than he, darting through the woods with ease. He was going to have to fight. This was his chance to prove himself.

He turned and dropped to one knee. He ripped the rifle free of his body, cutting his face with the strap. He brought it up, set it in the crook of his shoulder, and pointed it into the woods.

He’d expected the Talosian to be right behind him, that he’d have to be quick, but there was only the forest.

He waited.

His hearing was beginning to return. He could hear the forest again, the rush of the wind through the boughs high above. He could hear Pera’s screams of panic, now distant and indistinct.

He heard a branch snap.

He readied himself. His heart was beating too fast and a deep terror filled him, but all he could do now was point the rifle and prepare to shoot.

When it happened, it happened fast. The Talosian stepped from the bushes and into sight. Ash’s finger jerked with surprise, triggering his rifle. The Talosian dropper scout exploded.

Later, he could see it clearly in his head, just before he fell asleep each night: the skin bulging, stretching, tearing; the eruption of wet strands of red; tissue flung through the air in wobbling shreds; the sound like a sudden rainstorm through the forest, and the hot smell of ruptured digestive organs; something sagging from a low-hanging branch; a crimson mist hanging in the air; and the taste on his lips and sticky skin; and the single booted foot, jagged with flesh torn at the ankle, left standing, until, as he watched, it slowly slumped to one side, and came to rest in the blood-soaked leaves.

He dropped his rifle and fell back. His ears, once again, began to ring.

~

When Pera found him, he was laughing, soaked in blood.

She appeared from the trees, moving lightly, floating toward him. She leaned down, looking at him.

Ash was almost out of breath from laughing so hard, but he managed to say, “I got him… Must’ve still had the bomb…”

Pera had a confused, disbelieving expression on her face. But when he wouldn’t stop laughing, she began to laugh too.

Pera grabbed his hand and pulled him into the forest.

They spent the afternoon among the trees, shaking the saplings so that water fell from the leaves high above in a cold and refreshing spray. They laughed. They spoke very little. They spun around each other. “Someday,” Pera said, “I’d like to have babies.” She sighed. “Someday…” she let her voice fade. And Ash grinned at her.

They reeled back to where the hut with the door built into the side of the hill stood. Inside, suddenly very tired, Ash said, “I wish Brent would come back.”

Pera shook her head. “Never.” She looked at the door at the back of the hut. “I don’t want to go.”

Ash looked at the door. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.