Sunspire (The Reach, Book 4) (24 page)

He nodded.  “I understand.  They were both fine men.  Gernot was a good employer to us over the years.”

“We’re sorry about what happened,” Kolos added.  “We failed to protect those in our care, and we ask your forgiveness.”

Talia turned away from them, remaining emotionless.  “So.  What now?” she said.

“We keep moving,” Norrey said.  “It’s probably best if we put as much distance between the raiders and ourselves as we can.”

“Do you think they’re still here in the city?”

“Probably.”

She sighed and looked down at herself.  Her arms were still crusted in Silvestri’s dried blood, and at the sight of them, Talia couldn’t help but think of his ruined face, the way the floor had been covered in a pool of crimson.  It made her feel sick to her stomach.

She doubled over and dry
retched, then again.  She remained there for a moment, trying to work up enough saliva to spit, but she couldn’t even manage that.

She straightened, her head pounding, hands shaking.  She thought of Silvestri again and felt a pang of guilt.

“I have to go back for him,” she said suddenly.

Norrey frowned, confused.  “Who?”

“Silvestri.  I can’t leave him that way.”

“Talia, there’s no point.  You can’t help him now.”

“I’m not going to leave him there to rot.  He deserves better than that.”

Norrey raised his arm and pointed.  “There are raiders out there, do you know that?  You could walk straight back into them–”

“So what?  Why do you care what I do?”

Norrey held up his hands.  “I just don’t want to see more innocent people killed.”

“I’m going back,” Talia said adamantly.

Kolos stepped forward.  “She’s right, Norrey.  Gernot deserves to be laid to rest with dignity.  We owe him that much.”

Norrey stared at his companion for a moment, then back at Talia.  “Very well.  Go and rouse the boy, and let’s get this done with.”

They found a small plot of bare ground not far from the tavern, in the shade of a steepled stone building that might have once been a church, and got to work.  The tools they had at their disposal were rudimentary, little more than metal scraps, and the ground hard.  As a result, the graves they dug were shallow.

Better than nothing
, Talia thought.

As they covered the bodies with soil, she could barely stand to watch.  It still didn’t seem real that Silvestri was gone.  He’d seemed so resourceful, almost indestructible at times, and for him to perish in this way was utterly shocking to her.  Roman seemed lost in his work as he shovelled soil onto the grave, but she could tell he was just as unsettled as her.  He’d hardly said a word since last night, and a kind of numbness seemed to have overcome him.

He’s in shock.  Give him a break.

As the last wad of soil was put in place, the four of them stepped back to rest.  The graves seemed so pitiful, not a fitting tribute at all, but it was the best they could do.

The enormity of the situation dawned on her for the first time.  Here they were, just her and Roman, cast adrift in the lowlands, in a place they knew nothing about, desperately trying to make it to a space elevator that hadn’t been used in decades.  And what were they to do if they managed to get there?  How were they going to operate it?

She hadn’t even heard from Knile since leaving the Reach, and now she wondered if she and Roman truly were on their own.

“Talia?” Norrey said at her side.  “Do you have any words to say?”

“Words?”

“Yes.  Words for the dead.”

She stared down at the mounds of earth before them, waiting for the tears to come again, but her eyes remained dry.  She felt worn out, too drained to even cry, like her emotional reservoir had been drained by the events of the past few days.

You said you’d never leave, Silvestri
, she thought bitterly, but the words did not escape her mouth.

“No,” she said.  “I have nothing more to say.”

She turned and took Roman by the arm and led him to the far corner of the plot.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“We can still do this, right?  We can still make it to Sunspire.”

He shrugged.  “Yeah.”

“Knile will be waiting for us there.”

“I know.”

She drew him to her and hugged him, more for her own sake than for his, and Roman returned the gesture warmly.  She smiled sadly despite the circumstances.

All was not lost yet.  She had to go on for Roman and for Knile.

“Talia?”  She turned to see Norrey standing not far away, holding out the butt of a handgun for her to take.  “You should take this.  You’ll need protection out there.”

She reached out and took the handgun, hefting it to get a feel for the weight.  Norrey offered another to Roman, who took it uncertainly.

“Thanks,” she said, tucking the gun under her belt.  “I appreciate that.”

“Where will you go from here?” Kolos said.

“We’re meeting friends in the hills to the east.”  She glanced toward the rising sun and saw a range of mountains looming not far from the ruins.  “We’ll hopefully be there before sundown.”  She looked between the two bodyguards.  “What about you?”

“With no master, we’re adrift,” Norrey said.  “But I’m sure that, somewhere out there, we’ll find employment once again.”

“I’m sure you will.”  She smiled and offered her hand to him.  “Good luck.”

He shook her hand, then took a deep breath.  “I wonder if you would allow us to repay our debt to you, at least in some small part?”

“What debt?” she said.

“We were entrusted to protect Gernot, and we failed to do so.  At the same time, we also failed Silvestri.  We told him we would take the first watch.  We should have been more vigilant.  As a result, he’s dead as well.”

“You’re not in our debt,” Talia said.  “The raiders came right past Roman and I, and we didn’t hear them either.”

“I agree with Norrey,” Kolos said.  “We failed you.  Even though you may not think it, we are men of honour.  Would you allow us to make it up to you?”

“How?”

“Let us accompany you across the lowlands.  We have weapons and we know how to use them.”

Talia shook her head.  “I appreciate the thought, but–”

“What happens if a band of raiders spots you out there in the open?  Could you fight off ten of them with your handguns?”

Talia stewed over that.  “Probably not.”

Norrey lifted his weapon.  “Kolos and I have rifles, and we’ve been trained to use them.  With a bit of luck, we could pick off ten men.  Maybe more.  It might make all the difference.”

Talia shook her head.  “I can’t pay you.”

“We’re not asking for that.  All we want is to go on our way with the knowledge that we repaid some of our debt to you, and to Silvestri.”

Talia thought it over.  The idea made sense, she had to admit.  And the thought of just her and Roman going up against the raiders scared the hell out of her.

Although she knew little of Norrey and Kolos, she couldn’t think of a reason why they couldn’t come along.  If they’d wanted to rob them, rape them, or anything else, they’d have done so already.  They had Talia and Roman at their mercy.

“Okay, we accept,” she said finally.  “We’d be happy for you to accompany us.”

“Good,” Norrey said with a relieved smile.  “Thank you, Talia.”

“So let’s get moving,” Roman said, “before the damn raiders come back here.”

The bodyguards moved past, and Talia stood watching over the little plot of earth for a few moments more, offering Silvestri a final goodbye.

Then she turned and joined the others.

29

Vincent Rojas pulled the quad bike to a halt and stepped off, taking a moment to glance around the surrounding lowlands.

The raiders seemed to have cleared out again.  The place was quiet, empty.

Not far away, the tattered remains of the dirigible fluttered in the wind.

Yefim and the boy had already disembarked from their quad bike and now stood waiting for his command.

“This is it?” Rojas asked the boy.  “You’re sure of it?”

“Uh-huh,” the boy said.  “Came over yesterday afternoon, right over my pop’s barn, making a funny sound.”

“And it was going down at the time?” Rojas said.

The boy nodded.  “Yup.  Smoke pourin’ out of the thing.  Surprised they got as far as they did before they hit dirt.”

The boy, a native to the lowlands, was a pimply adolescent, dressed in little more than rags.  He emitted a powerful stench that Rojas could barely abide.

Still, he was the only one who had been able to provide information on the dirigible in which Roman had been travelling, so for that reason alone Rojas would have to put up with him a little longer.

“Stand back while Yefim makes his inspection,” he instructed the boy.

The lad complied, standing his ground while Rojas’ henchman began to circle the downed airship.  Rojas glanced around the bare landscape once again, impatient to keep moving. With every moment, Ciro, his greatest enemy, was moving further away.  They had to pick up his trail again, and they had to do it quickly.  Otherwise they risked losing him forever.

“Did you see anyone aboard the dirigible?” Rojas said to the boy.  “Anyone at all?”

“Nah, it was too high.”

Rojas took out his holophone and selected a photo of Roman, the dark-haired teenager he sought, and held it out.

“You haven’t seen this boy?  Goes by the name of Roman?”

The lowlander stared at the phone.  “Nope.”

“His real name is Ciro, and he is a demon.  Many years ago he killed my mother, you see.”

The boy scowled.  “This kid killed your mother?”

Rojas sighed impatiently.  Most people did not understand the inner workings of the Greatness, how the spirits of men and women transferred between planes of existence.  How, in one life, Ciro could occupy the body of a brutish thug, and in the next, a young and innocent-looking boy.

“Ciro killed my mother, then in turn was killed in a tavern some time later.  His spirit moved on and came to inhabit a newborn.”  He waggled the phone.  “This boy, Roman, received Ciro’s spirit.  He
is
Ciro in another form, and now I want him dead.  Do you understand?”

“I don’t know nothin’ about that, mister.”

Rojas rolled his eyes, exasperated by the simpleton boy.  “Never mind.”  He turned to his henchman.  “Yefim, what have you found?”

Yefim appeared from behind the flapping remnants of the dirigible.  “There’s not much to find, I have to say.  The raiders worked up quite a frenzy here.  There are footprints and tracks all over the place.  Finding the prints that belonged to the boy and his companions would be near impossible.”

Rojas stalked over toward him.  “You were a tracker in the lowlands for many years, were you not?”

Yefim’s cheeks flushed.  “Yes, but–”

“And now you’re telling me that you can’t even find a trace of our quarry, who happened through here only a matter of hours ago?”

“I won’t find trace of them here.  Maybe in the surrounds, where the tracks spread out.  There might be a chance out there.”

“Then I suggest we start checking the surrounds, Yefim.”

Yefim glanced about, conflicted.  “Are you sure you want to keep going with this, Vincent?  Chances are, Ciro was gutted by the raiders.  There is probably nothing left to find.”

Rojas bristled, stepping close to the other man to impose himself.  “Do you remember what happened a week ago, Yefim?”

“Yes.”

“Roman was in my grasp, strapped to my own fucking
bed.
  He was the last in a very long line of expensive purchases from that greedy bastard Hoyer Honeybull; the result of years of searching. 
Years
of searching.  And when I finally found Ciro lurking within the boy’s eyes, what happened?”