The Gift of Volkeye (31 page)

With his wings at full extent, Jalum soared through the air with his mouth open, waiting to swallow the first infantry beast he met at the ramp. As he made it back to the castle wall and cut a hard right, he felt a violent wave of heat attack his left wing, followed by two simultaneous blasts, not ten feet away from them. Jalum heard Maugrimm growl and then his back became exceptionally light. When he looked below, Jalum found his friend racing through the abyss to his death.

In a spin of such speed that it even dizzied him for a moment, Jalum pulled his wings inward and entered a free-fall dive. At this speed, Jay knew that if he tried to catch Maugrimm with his feet, he would accidentally dismember him with his talons. Instead Jalum allowed himself to drop just beneath Mawg, and he opened his wings and the wind caught him instantly.

Maugrimm, wailing in terror, was shocked to see the dark mass beneath him. For a moment, he believed that the earth and mountains below had somehow extended their height, welcoming him to an even earlier death. Then as his eyes adjusted to the drop speed, he was able to make out Jalum’s saddle. He grabbed hold but landed awkwardly, dangling over the bird’s side, behind his wing. Mawg slung himself up and kissed the beast’s feathered back.

Violently slashing through the wind with each stroke, Jalum ascended hundreds of feet in a matter of seconds. As they reached the castle, a cloud of black smoke (created by the blasts that had nearly annihilated them) camouflaged them. Cloaked in darkness, they waited patiently for the assailants to emerge. As the clouds took the shape of a peculiar vortex, spitting forth a duo of threatening attack ships, Jalum catapulted from his blanket of secrecy and shrieked with anger as he met the enemy face to face.

With Maugrimm hidden in Jalum’s intimidating pose and massive wing span, to the soldiers aboard each ship, the beast before them seemed as the smiting right hand of God—the great cosmic deity, to whom none of them had ever paid any mind or pledged allegiance to. Only now, much too late, did they silently pray. As they took their last breaths the beast’s eyes lit with reddish-orange flames that leapt out to the face of each ship. The windshields shattered and the control boards exploded, sending glass and metal debris every which way, ripping out the soldier’s eyes and tearing the flesh from their bodies. Mangled and burning, their lives were vanquished before they were able to drop to their knees and beg God’s mercy.

Mother Nature’s death messenger flapped its wings in boastful strokes of victory, as his counterpart upon his back, the Grim Reaper, flared his nostrils and took in the pungent aroma of smoke from his bomb chambers. Having done God’s good work, they turned to do more of it, seething with rage as they went to lay down Her wrath.

11

Convulsing with heavy gasps, trying to clear their throats of dust and smoke as they recovered, each of them gripped their weapons tightly.

“Is everyone all right?” Zynathian yelled.

“We’re fine!” Teshunua and Bahzee replied at once.

“Khyeryn…Sing?” Asha called out.

“I’m fine,” Khyeryn said, choking out his reply. He heard Sing groan as she brushed up against his leg, stumbling as she climbed from the floor.

“I’m bleeding everywhere,” Sing said, “but the cuts are shallow.”

“I think we’re all in the same state, dear,” Asha replied, feeling the blood trickle down her face. “I’m lucky not to have been beheaded!” She felt the soggy mess of dreadlocks at the front of her scalp.

“Blast…where’s the switch for the exhaust fan? I can’t see anything!” Zynathian said.

Each of them waited to regain their vision, holding fast to their weapons as they nervously anticipated new surprises from their assailants.

“Stay sharp everyone, but don’t be hasty…remember we don’t want to accidentally shoot each other, seeing as we have no eyes right now,” Asha warned.

They waited for Zynathian to clear the atmosphere, hearing him stumbling upon the debris as he felt his way along the wall, finally reaching the stairwell.

“Here it is. We’ll have our vision back momentarily.”

The bit of relief they felt with this news dispensed immediately as they felt the vibration of something wide and heavy touch down on the stone floor. Hair standing on end, shivering from the frigid air permeating through the cavity, they heard the subtle movement of strange machinery that they’d become all too familiar with over the last couple of days. Khyeryn’s arm had transformed.

“Khye, be careful!” Asha warned, switching off the safety on her weapon. Sing and Teshunua did the same. They flinched as they heard Zynathian making his way back towards the master control room, swearing under his breath as he frantically began pressing buttons.

“Asha, I could have sworn I heard other explosions! What if…”

She cut Zynathian off.

“If there are more, we’ll deal with them when it’s time!” She caught her breath at the sound of troops entering. Asha began strafing the end of her weapon back and forth in the thick, dusty air before her. This was it.

“Listen to my voice and follow it,” she said. “Find me.”

They all backed up and reached out for her. Someone’s hand touched her face. Another, her head and shoulder. Then someone grabbed her robe at the hip, followed by a slight tug at her dreadlocks.

“Aim for their heads,” Asha commanded, looking back towards the master control room (which had become slightly more visible).

“Zynathian, raise the shield over that door!”

“Are you mad, woman? I’ll not leave you here in the open with no option for shelter!”

“Your immediate concern is to get us out of here, and you can’t do that if you die from getting shot in the back, fool! Now strap on your armour and raise that goddamn shield!”

Knowing that the issue was no longer up for discussion, Zynathian obeyed.

The soldiers, despite Phyllamon’s orders for swift and immediate destruction, hesitated because they as well couldn’t see an inch ahead of them. This first group (seventeen in all with two more platoons still aboard the ship) waited patiently. One, a beast armed with a rifle whose tip was shaped like a crossbow, walked forward into the black smoke, listening. For a moment he swore there were whispers just ahead of him, then dismissed the idea, knowing they were all probably hiding.

“I think I should be in front,” Khye whispered.

“No! Where are you going, boy?” Asha panicked, scolding him as he let go of her shoulder and began to advance forward.

Senses heightened from fear, Khyeryn’s heart rate doubled with each step. He knew that if anyone was going to make the first move, it should be him. He was easily the most powerful in the family, and if there was any chance at all that he could put an end to this first group quickly, why hesitate and put his loved ones in danger?

“Now yours, Khyeryn, is much more powerful. Your gun will, without a doubt, massacre anything in its path,”
he remembered his father say. Trusting Zynathian’s word, he aimed at the soot-filled air in front of him.

“I won’t go far, I promise,” he whispered in short, nervous breaths. “If I start firing, the blasts will be bright, so you’ll know where I am. Aim in every direction except mine!” Khyeryn commanded.

Though he was only twelve years of age and inexperienced with warfare, they took his orders without question.

As the air before him became less and less heavy, the contents of Khyeryn’s stomach churned. The battle with the Karnovs had come and gone in an instant. This, however, was much worse because of the anticipation. With each passing second, his courage was dwindling. Still, he didn’t budge. As a ray of moonlight outlined the head of something as enormous as Maugrimm before him, he saw its rank, hot breath come racing at him through the cold air.

Khyeryn opened up.

To the infantry, this seemed like some powerful spell of sorcery, as they watched their comrade’s weapon fall when his body was suddenly impaled by hundreds of lasers, cutting him to pieces. The beast’s head was obliterated, and his arms were severed at the deltoids. The torso, as well, was annihilated as the beams of blue light punched holes in his body, mocking his armour as they worked their way down. When there was nothing of him left standing except the ankles and feet, only then did the spell of sorcery turn to wreak havoc on the others, seemingly saying:
You all were wrong to come here…for that you will pay the dearest cost!

Everyone began firing on Khyeryn’s lead. The first group of soldiers was flustered and shooting out of panic, because they were still blind. The exhaust fans were behind them, so the heavy black air was being pulled in their direction, whilst visibility for the others was almost at one hundred percent.

If not for the amount of death surrounding them, the streaks of coloured light whizzing through the air could have been mistaken for an indoor fireworks show. Using the flashes of light as a guide, they picked off Phyllamon’s men one by one, while they themselves remained unscathed. Each of them spread out, giving precision to their aim, because they no longer worried about hitting Khyeryn. They could see him. As the dim emergency lighting cut on, their eyes went wide in observation of body parts, armour, and articles of clothing that came exploding out from the remaining pockets of smoke when Khyeryn let loose on them. They were right to have let him take the lead.

A squat muscular beast hawked up a glob of dusty spit as he fired every which way ahead of him. All he could make out of the blackness was laser fire. Though he couldn’t see, he could feel his comrades drop at his side, knowing that the flurry of blue lasers was cutting them to pieces. There was no option except to return fire and hope to kill or disable whatever it was that was attacking them. (It had to be a machine! If not, then it was the power of some deity, for he’d never before witnessed such an awesome display of artillery.)

The soldier felt a burning sensation in his left arm and abdomen, falling to the floor as he squeezed off his last round. The air on his end was finally clear, and he saw that he’d hit a girl.

Sing was down, as she’d been hit square in the chest. Asha went to her aid. Though the shot didn’t penetrate (or even dent) Zynathian’s work, this still didn’t stop the wind from being knocked out of her.

Because Sing lay on the floor, coughing, no one but Bahzee noticed the second string of troops about to disembark. She knelt over and grabbed a huge stone from a pile of debris, hoisting it over her shoulder. Bahzee took on a vicious snarl as she gazed ahead at the infantry running down the ramp. By the time Asha helped Sing back on her feet and the others had begun to take aim, Bahzee was already in motion.

The fallen beast braved a look at himself. His entrails were slowly spilling from his body, sliding down his upper thighs, and his left arm lay about ten feet from him in a pile of random body fragments. Far ahead, he saw a black woman knelt beside the girl he shot. Also, there was a tall dark skinned boy adjacent them with a miraculous being on approach. The creature couldn’t believe his eyes. What he saw was a human boy but also part machine. He’d never witnessed the like of it before, and as the child turned in his direction, aiming, he was distracted by an even more wondrous spectacle. A teenage girl had just lifted a stone that had to have been twenty or thirty times her own weight! As the beast listened to the hurrying steps of a new squad of approaching soldiers, he longed to call out a warning.

Too late.

Bahzee bowled the rock forward with all her might, watching the sharp edges break off as it raced forward, taking on a more rounded appearance. By the time the first soldier touched down, sliding on the guts of his fallen comrade beside him, he, along with those following, was met with a demolishing blow.

The beast on the floor was crushed instantly, spewing what was left of him all over the rock and clinging to it like a piece of warm chewing gum. The others had most of their bones shattered upon impact, and they died instantly. Those that didn’t suffered an even worse fate, for they were still alive as the jagged stone took them over the edge of the ramp. Their limp, broken bodies begged the night sky for rescue, but all she could offer them was open arms as she lured them into her deadly embrace.

Bahzee readied herself yet again. She hoisted another massive stone upon her shoulder, while Khyeryn busied himself, blasting pieces of the ramp away. However, it was a massive thing, and it would be a while before he wore it all the way down. Not having made much of a dent, new beasts had emerged from the ship. There were several that stopped just a few feet from the now-untrustworthy portion of ramp, courtesy of Khyeryn. The soldiers glared inward and took aim.

“Everyone, take cover!” Khyeryn warned, letting loose another flurry of bursts.
Blast!
he swore at himself, as none of his shots met their mark. (His weapon was more effective at close to medium range.)

Letting up for only a moment to adjust his aim, Khyeryn’s work was made easy as a large shadow blocked out the moonlight over the soldiers. No sooner than batting an eyelash were they cloven in two and silhouetted against the moon, spattered sloppily across the midnight sky. It happened so fast, Khye only caught the end result, and Bahzee hadn’t seen Jay at all!

Jalum’s tail feathers had only just missed being scalped, as Bahzee hurled another rock at the face of the ship, destroying it. The explosion’s bright orange and red flames merged with their background colour and painted the sky a dark shade of purple for a moment before losing their luminescence and taking on tones of black and gray. The thick cloud of smoke trailed behind the rapidly falling ship.