5 Onslaught (7 page)

9

“You said
we were hundreds of feet underground.” Mira glances around the dull blue cavern.
I can see a good distance in far less light than this, but she probably can’t
see more than fifty feet, which is probably disconcerting. “Is something down
here with us?”

“Actually,”
I say, “it’s above us, and I’m pretty sure it’s still a ways off. Hold on.”

I
close my eyes and focus on the stone around me. A shiver runs through my body
as I allow myself to feel the Earth itself.
Strata of stone,
veins of water and shifting air.
Then a footstep.
I feel the compression.
Massive.
Water is squeezed down
through the ground. The air in the cavern shifts. The weight is immense.

As
I expand my senses, I hear Mira speaking to Kainda.

“What
is he doing?” Mira asks.

“I’m
not really sure. He can...feel the land.”

“Can
he see through it?”

“If
the land had eyes, maybe,” Kainda says. “It’s like the Earth becomes an
extension of his body. He experiences the changes on Antarktos the way we might
on our skin or in our bodies.”

Listening
to Kainda’s surprisingly accurate description of what I’m doing, I start to
lose focus and drift back to the cavern, but not before feeling the thunderous
impact of a hundred thousand more feet.

“So
that’s how he’s able to control the elements?” Mira asks.
“Because
he’s part of them?”

“Something
like
that,” Kainda says.

I
return to my body with a gasp, shifting the women’s attention immediately to
me.

“What
is it?” Kainda asks.

“I’m
not sure,” I say. “But I think it’s an army. I couldn’t tell how many, but
some...” I shake my head, trying to comprehend the weight I felt compressing
the layers of Earth. “They’re so big.”

As
though punctuating what I’ve said, the ground shakes. A rumble rolls past, and
I suspect the distant sound is reaching us thanks to the cool underground
air—which I can’t feel, but I know the ambient temperature is somewhere around
fifty-five degrees—and the acoustics of the solid stone surroundings.

When
the rumble fades, Mira asks, “How far away are they?”

“Ten
miles to the East,” I reply. “Give or take a mile. Feeling through the
continent isn’t exactly a science.”

“Ten
miles, and we’re
feeling
their
footsteps?” Mira looks mortified, but then she wipes the fear away and replaces
it with determination. “Do I need to guess where they’re headed?”

I
shake my head, no.
“The FOB.
We might have a week,
tops.”

“We
need to take a look,” Mira says.

This
catches me off guard. “What?”

“Recon,”
Mira says. “You know, ‘know your enemy.’ It’s what Wright would do. If we know
what’s coming, we’ll be better prepared for it.”

She’s
right, it is what Wright would say, but I would still argue. “Yeah, but if we
take the time to look, we won’t reach the base with much time to prepare
anything.”

“I
agree,” Kainda says.

I
nod. “Thanks.”

Kainda raises and eyebrow at me.
“Not with you. Reaching the others a
few days sooner will not change anything.”

“It
will give them hope,” I counter, though I’m not just talking about Mira.
Strangely, I’m referring to the effect my presence will have.

“It
does not matter when hope arrives,” Kainda argues. “Only that it does in time.
Emilie and Kat will have our forces as prepared as they can be.”

When
I still look unsure, Kainda says, “Perhaps that is why Emilie is called Faith.”

It
is really hard to argue my point when Kainda is invoking the wisdom of an
angel, but even harder when she is acting so differently. Mira’s news about
Thor’s demise has truly given Kainda hope. She’s been transformed by it.

I
relent with a nod.
“Fine.
But we’re going to have to
move fast.” I turn to Mira. “Can you keep up?”

Mira
crosses her arms. “In case you missed it, I ran a race to the geographic pole
of Antarctica.”

It’s
true. She did. Which is impressive, and she’s obviously in good shape. Despite
everything she’s been through—the race, the battles with Nephilim, killing Enki
and being taken by the shifter, and then the gnarly band of mythological
creatures. She’s holding up better than I would have guessed. She was always
tough, but it’s never easy to tell who can stare down a Nephilim warrior and
who can’t. Despite all that, she’s not a hunter, and I need to be honest.

“This
will be harder,” I say.

Perhaps
thinking I’m just bragging, Mira looks to Kainda, who confirms my statement
with a nod and the words, “Hunters are weapons, forged in darkness and agony,
and are trained to endure pain beyond imagining. Running for days is a simple
thing compared to the tortures endured by most of us.” She glances at me.
“Some more than others.”

Mira
has blanched a bit.

“But
don’t worry,” Kainda says, “We understand the softness of outsiders and have
learned what it means to be merciful.”

This
doesn’t exactly put Mira at ease, so I translate. “
Which is
to say, we won’t leave you behind.
But, you’re going to have to push
yourself.”

The
weight of everything Mira has learned in the last hour, including Kainda’s
intimidating speech about hunters is no doubt weighing on her, along with the
fact that this enemy force is bearing down on the FOB, where her parents are
currently located. I’m impressed when I see her set her jaw, straighten her
back and declare, “Then I’ll push.”

“I
have no doubt,” I say, and reach a hand up toward the ceiling. Five of the blue
crystals dislodge and fall before being caught by the air. They swirl around in
a circle, joining together one at a time until they’ve been forged into a
baseball-sized crystal that’s putting off enough light to see by. When the
glowing orb lowers in front of Mira’s stunned face, she smiles.

“Hearing
about what you can do is one thing, seeing it...” She shakes her head. “It’s
still hard to believe.” She reaches through the column of compressed wind holding
the sphere aloft and takes hold of it. “What about you two?”

“We
can see in the dark,” Kainda says.

Mira
rolls her eyes. “Of course you can.”

“Ready?”
I ask of Mira, putting as much seriousness into the single word as I can. A ten
mile run through the dark won’t be that bad. She’s clearly run further. It’s
what I fear will happen after we’ve arrived at our destination, and the sprint
back to the FOB that concerns me.

“Which
way are we headed?” she asks.

I
point to the East.

Mira
looks to the East, takes a deep breath and starts running.

Kainda
looks over at me. “She’s brave.”

“Yeah,”
I say. “But sometimes the brave are the first to die.”

Kainda’s
expression sours for a moment, but then she grins, slugs me in the shoulder and
says, “Then we’re all in a lot of trouble.” She sets off after Mira, leaving me
alone with my thoughts. But I don’t linger, because if I think for too long,
I’ll have to admit that I already know what we’re going to see when we reach
our destination.

Only
one creature—that I know of—could shake the Earth with such violence.

Behemoth.

10

As we run
through the darkness, I realize that my assessment of the Nephilim forces might
have been...inadequate. The idea of a behemoth joining the fight had never
crossed my mind. Not only because the giant I faced on multiple occasions is
now a hollowed out corpse, but I was also under the impression that the
remaining two could not be controlled.

It’s Nephil
, I think. If any Nephilim were
powerful enough to control the mammoths of the underworld, it’s him.
Thankfully, I know that behemoths fear fire, and humans excel at making things
burn or explode. If we get back in time, maybe we can have a few jets loaded up
and ready to go with napalm.

I
nearly laugh at the absurdity of my thoughts. To me it’s been five years since
Justin and I blew up a toy volcano with baking soda and vinegar and now I’m
plotting to use napalm, which burns at 1,200 degrees Celsius and can literally
melt people.

Would
probably melt Nephilim, too,
I think,
ring or no ring on their heads.

Before
my thoughts of war get too dark, I turn my attention forward, reaching out
through the Earth as I run. The tunnel through which we have been traveling
rises at a slight grade, bringing us roughly fifty feet nearer to the surface
with every mile we travel. Having gone eight miles already, we were within
thirty feet of the surface. Every giant behemoth footfall shook dust on our
heads. But now the land above is growing steep, rising toward a tall rock
formation. At first I thought it was a mountain, but now it feels more like a
nunatak
—a flat sided tower that might
have once been a true mountain, or maybe just all that remains of a vast plain
after millions of years of erosion and glacier movement. Basically, it looks
like Devils Tower in Wyoming, the one from
Close
Encounters of the Third Kind
, but wider or longer.
One of
the two.
Of course, Wyoming is pretty close to the North Pole now.
Devils Tower might be the only visible landmark for a hundred miles now.

I
focus my attention on our path. It’s a fairly straight natural passageway that
might have been formed by runoff from the tower, or from a natural spring. I
follow the path as it bends up, its grade growing steeper until…

What is that?

I
stub my toe, stumble forward and fall on my face, all before my senses fully
return to my body. With a groan, I roll over onto my back and find Mira
standing above me. She’s wearing a goofy, one-sided grin. She shakes her head
slowly. “Some things never change.”

Kainda
steps up next to Mira. “What never changes?”

“The
first time I met him, he tripped and fell.
Smacked his head
on the ground.
Thought he was going to cry.”

Kainda smiles.
“He was...smaller before.”

I
roll my eyes and sit up, pointing a finger at Mira. “I seem to recall you being
nicer about it back then.”

“Yeah,
but you were all small and pathetic,” Mira says, which gets a snicker out of
Kainda. “Now you’re all—” She makes her voice deep and hits her chest with a
fist.
“—macho and strong.
Me
Solomon.
I ride dinosaurs.”

“That’s
it,” I say, focusing on the air around Mira’s head. I compress it, and then
flare it out, filling every strand of hair with static electricity.

Now
Kainda laughs loudly. “She looks like Zuh!”

Mira
raises her hands to her head, feeling the pompom of blond hair.

“And
this,” I say, “is how I remember you.”

At
first I think she isn’t amused, but she smiles, and then laughs. “If only we
had a Polaroid. We could take a new photo.”

I
get to my feet. “Someday we will.”

Kainda
huffs and pushes past us. “Then he might pine for you again for two years.”

Mira
looks at me and whispers, “Was that a joke?”

“It’s
hard to tell sometimes, but I think so, yeah.”

“And
fix her hair,” Kainda calls back. “The enemy will see her coming a mile off.”

I
quickly pull moisture out of the air and direct it to Mira’s hair as a thin
mist. She pulls the now damp hair down, but doesn’t tie it back.

“I
think you broke the elastic,” she says.

I
reach into my pack where I’ve got some feeder-leather string that would work,
but I feel something soft. When I remember what it is, I take hold of the
fabric and pull it out.
She kind of flinches when she sees
it.

“Is
that?”

I
hand the blue bandana to her with a grin.
“Your father’s.
I found it on top of a wall.
Where I think the two of you
escaped from a pack of cresties.”

“They
nearly got us,” she says, confirming the story.

“
It’s
how I knew he was back,” I say.
“Your
father.
I didn’t know you were here until later.”

She
smells the bandana. “Smells like Vesuvius.”

“Vesuvius?”
I’m confused for a moment. The bandana
smells like a dog. Then I realize who the dog belongs to.
“Of
course.
Your father’s dog!”

“Did
you meet him?” she asks. “He’s a big Newfoundland.”

“I
didn’t see any dogs at the FOB,” I say. “But I wasn’t there very long, either.”

“Hey!”
Kainda shouts from further up the tunnel. She sounds a little annoyed. “You’re
the one who wanted to rush. So—rush!”

She’s
right of course. I wait for Mira to tie her hair in place with the bandana, and
then we set off up the tunnel, double timing our pace until we rejoin Kainda.

After
another mile, the grade increases to the point where even I’m feeling the burn
in my thighs.

Mira
mutters, “Jane Fonda
eat
your heart out.”

“No
kidding, right?” I say.

Kainda
doesn’t get the reference and even if she did, I doubt she’d find it funny. In
fact, when I look up and see her legs—the muscles accentuated by
a sheen
of sweat—I wonder if she’s even fazed by the ascent.

I
do a quick reach out with my senses, looking for the aberration that caused me
to stumble. It’s just a quarter mile ahead. The tunnel, which is fairly
straight, suddenly angles and spirals straight up. I start to follow the path
upwards, but then Kainda says. “Up ahead. Look.”

I
stop and peer through the dark, at first not recognizing what I’m seeing, but
then the sharp angles leap out at me. “That’s unexpected.”

“What
is it?” Mira asks. “I can’t see a thing.”

Her
orb of blue light allows her to see, but the glow doesn’t come close to
reaching the end of the tunnel.

“A
staircase,” I say,
then
use the momentary pause to
follow it upwards, through the mountain. It’s just over a thousand feet to the
top, probably fifteen hundred steps, but the top...isn’t the top. “There’s a
chamber at the top.”

“What’s
in it?” Mira asks.

I
shrug. “I can’t sense things at that level of detail.
Only
broad pictures.
There could be anything inside.”

“Anything living?”
Kainda asks.

“I—I
can’t tell,” I admit. “All the rumbling footsteps outside are making everything
kind of hazy. Either way, up is the only way we’re going.” I head for the
staircase and reach it a minute later, pausing at the steps. They’re old and
worn, hewn right out of the mountain itself. The steps spiral upwards, straight
through the core of the nunatak.

It’s
Mira who makes the observation both Kainda and I have missed. “These stairs
were made by people.
For
people.”

When
the Nephilim build staircases, there are often two sets of stairs, one with
four-foot tall steps for the warriors and other large classes, and a smaller
set for hunters, gatherers and thinkers. Besides, even without the larger set
of stairs, this tunnel was clearly never used by Nephilim. It’s far too small.
All this and the fact that Kainda doesn’t know about this place leads me to
conclude, “This was built before the Nephilim controlled the continent. Back
before it was frozen over!”

My
excitement is crushed when a rumble violently shakes the tunnel.

“We
should probably get to the top before they bring down the whole place,” Mira
says.

With
a nod, I lead the way up the staircase, growing dizzy after the first fifty
steps, spinning around and around like a human corkscrew. But I don’t really
pay the dizziness any heed. Or the growing
ache
in my
legs.
Or the rising volume of the thunderous footsteps
permeating the stone around us.
My thoughts are of what we’ll find at
the top, and who built it.