Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) (42 page)

She shoved the claw into the box. The panels and supports around her arced as electricity flashed through them.

“Ravan!” Holt yelled up at her. There was desperation in his voice, but not for himself. It was for her. “What are you doing?”

“Throw me your claw!” she yelled back down at him.

“Rae—”

“There’s no time, Holt!
Throw it!
”

Holt hesitated a moment more, then clung onto a support, unhooked the claw from his left wrist, and tossed it up to her. She yanked it from the air … right as her fingers slipped. She fell.

Ravan barely grabbed onto what was left of the panel Holt had pulled loose. It wasn’t electrified right now, and it groaned under her weight, bending, tearing free …

“
Ravan!
” Holt’s anguished voice yelled below.

“I know you meant what you said,” she yelled down to him, oddly calm. “But this isn’t where you’re supposed to be.”

With the last of her strength, Ravan shoved the second claw into the box … and then the panel burst loose from the supports and she was falling and the world spun and the ground rushed up at her, and strangely, surreally, she smiled, feeling a sense of triumph, not for having beaten the Eel, but for having embraced a part of herself she had always dismissed as weak and fallible. She knew who she was. Finally.

And then the ground was there.

34.
THE OTHER SIDE

THE TURRET STOPPED
its spinning as the final blaring tone of sound filled the Nonagon, but Holt didn’t notice. He wasn’t even sure how he got to the ground, didn’t remember climbing or jumping, just remembered the need to find her.

The crowd had gone silent. It was eerie, he’d never heard the place not filled with clamoring and furor, especially when someone died, but this wasn’t just another Wind Trader prisoner, this was—

She is
not
dead,
he scorned himself.
She can’t be.

He hit the ground running, eyes scanning, trying to find any sign of—

He saw her. Ten feet away.

The shape of her, bent like that, unmoving.

The world was a slow-motion haze now, nothing felt real. Holt’s legs moved without his involvement, propelling him forward, sliding him down next to her.

She lay there, still. There was no real blood that he could see. Her body didn’t move or shake, it looked like a stone. Only her eyes moved, back and forth, finding his.

“Listen to that,” she said, her voice a fractured whisper. “Finally … shut them up.”

“Ravan…”

“It … doesn’t hurt, Holt. Want you to know … doesn’t hurt.”

Holt couldn’t feel any one part of himself, could barely focus, could barely think. “That’s because you’re going to be okay,” he said, his voice just as ragged as hers. He didn’t even recognize it.

“You’re an optimistic idiot. You … always were.”

Holt felt the sting of forming tears, the burning. “You have to hold on, Ravan.”

“Could have used that advice earlier.” She smiled weakly, and it filled him with a desperate anger.

“
You hold on!
” Holt shouted, and the ferocity shocked him. His hands shook, he felt detached from his body. He couldn’t lose
her.
He couldn’t. Ravan was indestructible, she was … This was wrong.

Her eyes peered into his, she didn’t like what she saw. “You’ve lost so many people, haven’t you?”

Holt couldn’t answer. He put his hands on her chest, felt her weak heartbeat.

“You don’t have to go back to who you were, Holt.” Her voice was fading, getting harder to hear, and it terrified him. “It’s a choice.”

“What’s the alternative?” His voice was bitter.

“Inspire them,” she said, barely audible. “Make them believe. It’s … what you were meant to do. You just … never … believed it.”

Her fingers lifted off the ground, just inches, it was all she could manage. They crawled to his hand, found the tattoo there. Holt was ashamed of it now. He hated it. Not because it was there, but because it was unfinished. It
deserved
to be finished.

“Tell me…” Ravan breathed.

“Tell you what?” He took her hand in his.

“Was there … a time … long ago…” Each word took effort, her gaze was becoming glassy. “When you … loved me…?”

Holt’s eyes shut tight. He felt himself collapse next to her. He almost lost it there, almost just lay down next to her and followed her to wherever she was going. Let the next round start, let it wipe him away. But he didn’t. He made himself speak, if only so that she would hear the truth.

“Look at me,” he told her, gently. “Ravan, look at me.”

Her eyes refocused a little, found his.

“Yes,” he told her. “I still do.”

Her smile, from before, returned, but weaker now. She sighed, seemed to relax, as if the words filled her with some kind of peace that melted away the pain.

“See you … on the other side…” she whispered. Her eyes focused on his one last time. And then she was gone.

As he watched her form sink into the hard metal of the Nonagon floor, Holt felt a stirring of emotion more powerful than anything he’d ever felt. His fists clenched, his head throbbed, his eyes stung. He wanted to scream, but nothing would come. All he could do was look at her, lying there, someone more full of life than anyone he had ever known … and she was absolutely still.

Every memory Holt had ever made with Ravan flashed through his mind—good, bad, painful, tender—merging into one massive stream that flooded his consciousness. That last question had been damning, he still felt the pain of it.
Did you love me?
She deserved so much more. She deserved not to have had to wonder, she deserved to have
known,
and it was his fault she never did. Now she was gone, lost to him forever. The shame and the grief he felt grew and morphed, became hot, became a focused rage.

He stared a second more … then pushed to his feet and started moving toward the Dais. He had a dim impression of Castor and Masyn nearby, watching him silently, stunned, unsure, but he didn’t say anything.

Behind and above, the screen began to whir again, and Holt heard it lock into place, showing the next configuration, but he didn’t even look. Whatever the symbol was, the crowd didn’t seem interested. It was still virtually silent, but Holt wouldn’t have heard them even if they weren’t. He just kept moving toward the Dais, each step filled with new purpose. The pain of his injuries was a memory now.

“What are we doing?” It was Castor. His voice had lost all its eagerness. He sounded stunned.

“Finishing it,” Holt said back in a firm voice. “
That’s
what we’re doing.”

“The … three of us?” Masyn asked back. Her voice was dulled as well. “Isn’t that impossible?”

“
Two minutes,
” the booming, staticky voice announced. The crowd still had yet to respond.

Holt reached the Dais, saw it was open, saw the items inside.

A red tire iron.

A strange blue, electronic device, with two handles, a thick, circular piece of grayish metal, and wires running everywhere. It was a handheld electromagnet.

A series of yellow straps, clearly meant to go around a person’s forearm, with a big, actuated, metallic clip at the end.

And a strange, green collection of pieces and parts—rubber, wood, metal—all welded and formed together into a rounded shape. There was a strap for someone to slip their arm through like a shield.

Holt knew the items, had no need to look to see the image of the bird of prey on the screen, streaking down, claws extended, beak parted.

“Harrier,” Holt said, grabbing the shield and slipping his arm through the strap, tightening it in place. “There’s not much to say. See the arms the crew is raising?”

If the two Helix had looked they would have seen shafts of metal lifting from openings in the metallic floor around the Turret, each probably thirty feet tall, the entire length of which were sharpened to a razor’s edge. More arms, on the Turret itself, were being unstrapped too.

But they didn’t look. Masyn and Castor just kept staring at Holt, shocked and unsure.

“Some strike downward, some are going to come at you from the sides,” Holt kept going, his voice a monotone. He felt the same energy from before building, the rage, the focus. “They’re bladed. Castor, take the electromagnet, Masyn, take the clip. Two of the keyholes are on the arms, those items help you get on top and hold on. I’ll take care of the ones on the ground. Just be ready.”

“Holt,” Castor said intently. “This is
crazy.
We can’t do this with three people.”

Holt grabbed the tire iron and spun to face them. His eyes must have been wild, because the two Helix each took a step back.

“We
are
going to do this,” he said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it was full of energy and anger, and it shook dangerously. He pointed back toward Ravan, to where she lay, cold and still. “Every promise I ever made to her I
broke.
Well, not this time. I promised her we would beat this thing. I promised her we would get to the other side.
So be ready.
”

Holt pushed past them without another look, feeling the anger, letting it fuel him. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Masyn and Castor move for the Dais and the items there.

“
One minute,
” the voice announced.

Let it come, he thought. Let it
come.

*   *   *

AVRIL FOUND HERSELF ON
her feet with the rest of the crowd as the black-haired pirate tumbled down through the Turret, bouncing off the supports, twisting and turning until she crashed into the metal ground cover on the arena floor.

The impact was jarring, even from this far away.

It took Avril a moment to remember to breathe. The crowd went near silent. Even Tiberius seemed torn, staring down at Ravan’s unmoving figure. They had been close. Maybe he had even seen her as a surrogate for Avril, which wasn’t surprising. Ravan was much more like Tiberius than she was.

Or was she?

Avril had more reason to cheer Ravan’s death than most. The pirate had been the one who ripped her from her home, taken away everything she held dear, but in the course of their time together, Ravan had proven difficult to unconditionally hate, had shown herself to be much more than Avril originally assumed.

Ravan’s loss and sacrifice, combined with the performance of Castor and Masyn in the Eel, had done more to shake the foundations of the choices Avril was faced with than anything else. The more of this match she watched, the more she wished she was anywhere other than in this box.

In the distance, Avril could see Holt, Masyn, and Castor conferring around the Dais, watched as they took their items, and, specifically, she watched Holt take
two.
The action wasn’t lost on the others, there was only one reason Holt would burden himself with two items.

“They’re going to try to
win,
” Markel observed, a note of amazement in his voice. And something else too, something that sounded like respect. Even Petra was silent.

The single hand of the huge timer had almost completed its circle. The blaring, staticky voice counted down.

“Ten … nine … eight…”

The crowd didn’t chant along this time, they just watched the three figures moving toward the Turret, spreading out. For the first time since the event had begun, Avril felt nervous, watching the people below.

Gideon
,
she thought to herself. Watch over them.

“Three … two … one…”

The blaring tone of sound filled the arena. The Turret began to turn powerfully. And the crowd, silent until now, roared back to life, but this time they weren’t taunting the spectators or rooting for them to fail. They were
cheering
them. Or, at least, cheering for one. The huge swath of pirates that filled the arena chanted one word, over and over.

“Haw-kins! Haw-kins! Haw-kins!”

Next to her, Tiberius, the only figure still seated in the entire arena, slowly stood. His glare was pure heat, staring downward at the figure of Holt below, moving toward the Turret. Avril couldn’t be sure, but it seemed, even from this height … that Holt stared right back.

*   *   *

HOLT MOVED FOR THE
Turret, gripping the strange shield and the tire iron tightly. He could hear the crowd chanting his name, the sounds echoing from one side of the Nonagon to the other. Part of him registered just how unheard of that was, but it was a dim realization.

He simply didn’t care. It wasn’t like before, though. He hadn’t closed down again—in fact, it was the opposite. There was pain for Ravan, and he felt it passionately, but somehow, her loss had galvanized him, had fully brought him
back.
It was sad that it took losing so much to get him to feel, to get him to
fight.

Inspire them,
Ravan had told him. He would do much more than that.

Holt stared up at Tiberius’s elegant box, glaring at the figures there. He saw one of them slowly rise, knew it was him, and Holt held his stare as he moved, the rest of the world bleeding away until there was nothing but the two of them. He had no idea how this would all resolve, but somehow, Tiberius would pay for the brilliant light he had snuffed out here today. Holt would see to it.

Then those thoughts were ripped away as Harrier’s first blade appeared.

It whizzed through the air, propelled down right toward him, and Holt leaped out of the way and it crashed into the ground with a thunderous impact.

The other blades were falling too, striking downward all over the arena. Masyn and Castor rolled nimbly, dodging the sharpened arms. They reminded Holt of the giant bars of some twisted typewriter, trying to cleave everything below them in two.

One of the arms, near Masyn, had a flashing yellow light near the center, marking the keyhole. Castor’s light hadn’t appeared yet, but it would soon enough.

Another arm flew toward Holt, and he avoided it as it split the metal frame of an old Volkswagen in two, spraying metal everywhere.