(A/N: Well, I apologize for not updating any of my stories recently. For the past three months I have been on vacation in a couple of different countries, so my main concern has been with relaxing and having fun. I kept scribbling little bits and pieces of this chapter while I had some free time, and so here it is! A cliffhanger! People are gonna either love or hate this. Salutations from my American/Canadian adventure!)
Chaz and his company came to a fresh new dilemma about halfway between the townships of Zosa and Reshel. The weather had worsened considerably as the ice digger made good time, pelting it with sleet, snow and fragments of ice. The closer they got to the Garuberk tower the worse the storm became. The five travelers knew now that Raja had been more than just certain about the cause, he had been right. It was now one or two hours before noon and the visibility outside the digger was not perfect, but Wren had still been able to see the roadblock before the vehicle had a chance to directly collide with it. He had to break pretty sharply, though.
The belt treads locked as Wren put his foot on the brakes and the machine lurched forward, like a man with vertigo before coming to a complete halt. In the occupied bunkers Rune was rudely awakened, a case of concentrated trimate falling off the top of a shelf and striking him between the shoulder blades as he lay snoozing and prone in his hammock. He squawked and was immediately jolted awake, prepared to send whoever it was that had awoken him to a fate worse than death. In another bunker Rika cried out in frustration as her surprisingly large house of cards collapsed to the ground. Chaz and Kyra had been watching her work on it with interest. The gods only knew how she had managed to build it up so far on a moving vehicle.
The voice of their driver popped up through the ice digger's loudspeaker system. It wasn't really necessary for him to do that, the machine was small enough for Wren to shout and they easily could have heard him, but it seemed like Wren just wasn't the shouting type. He apologized for their sudden halt and asked for their presence in the conference room. The four adventurers knew that it was far too early for them to have reached Meese yet. Whatever the problem was it was something that Wren didn't want to handle on his own. That meant it could be very, very bad.
"So... what do you think it is?"
Rika still had the cards that she was shuffling within her hands and Rune continued to look half asleep. It wasn't as bad as they had first thought it would be, thank goodness for that. It was actually kind of funny. Chaz and Kyra were smiling at the look of utter perplexity written on Wren's face. They were traveling through very dangerous territory now, formless terrain riddled with snow worm colonies, and the path dictated by the digger's global positioning system was the only road they could take safely. Deviating in the slightest meant they could drive into a whole nest of the creatures.
"I do not know. That is why I called you to the bridge. Should I blast it out of the way?"
There was an obstacle in the middle of their path. "No, it looks like a big bird's nest." Kyra observed. It was several feet across and several feet wide, looking like it had been built from pine needles and the twigs from other coniferous trees. Wren wanted it moved out of the way so they could continue to travel peacefully, but nobody really supported the idea of blowing it to smithereens. Rika was dead set against the idea - she had a feeling that it belonged to a family of Dezoris penguins. When Wren leant across the dashboard to reach the side-mounted laser cannons she grabbed his arm and restrained him.
Rune looked serious and possibly more awake than earlier. He wasn't an expert in Dezorian wildlife but he felt he would be able to tell a Dezo penguin nest from the cradle of some incredibly fearsome monster. There were many ways to tell that sort of thing, but unfortunately the roadblock looked blurry and indistinct in the storm. There was no way he was going outside just for a closer look. The esper stopped squinting. "It doesn't matter what it is, we just have to get it out of our way." He said thickly, feeling his back ache just a tad. That trimate case had sharp corners.
"Without blowing it up?" Chaz added helpfully from where he was standing. He was in a good mood right now and wanted to contribute to the conversation in any way he could. He had an idea, although it probably wouldn't be regarded any better than Wren's idea. The hunter had the slightest inkling that he should stick up for his friend, but he liked his own idea better. "Maybe we should go out there and move it by hand. It's cold outside, but at least we won't have to run it over or anything."
The numan girl brightened instantly, warming up to Chaz's way of thinking. "That's a great idea! I'm sure the penguins won't mind very much if we move their home a couple yards to the left or right. Especially if it means Wren doesn't have to wipe them out." She looked at him slyly and the machine seemed a little put off at being picked on. Beside Rika Chaz grinned at being congratulated, but then the girl asked the question that nobody was willing to answer. "Who's going to go outside?"
There was a prominent lack of response. Chaz, Rune and Kyra all glanced at one another, plumbing each other's expressions to see who would give in first. All were plotting reasons why one of the others were so much more suited to the task. Kyra and Rune were natives to this planet; they could handle the low temperatures better. Chaz was their leader, he needed to take control of the situation. If Rika wanted to save those damn penguins so much, then she should move it herself. The room became full of suggestions on what should be done. The espers considered themselves too important for grunt work and the visitors from Motavia didn't think they could last for very long in the storm. They were only a couple of hairs away from a fully-fledged argument.
Meanwhile they were getting nowhere. Rika suddenly had an idea for a compromise. Nobody would like it but at least it might stop the quarreling. "Well, what if we all all go outside at once? We can leave the digger idling so we won't have to start it up a second time. It shouldn't take long to move one little nest out of the way." They all knew that Rika probably had the best idea. The problem was who was going to stay in the warm ice digger, not who was going to go out there in the frigid cold. They could all endure it.
"That is not necessary, Rika," Wren announced from where he was sitting, "I shall go and remove the obstacle while the rest of you remain here. The temperature and weather does not bother me and it is not safe to send our entire party into a dangerous environment."
"Don't be silly, it's even more dangerous to send a single person into a storm alone, whether they be palman, esper or machine." Rika pressed obstinately. Arguing with her was like trying to nail a zol slug to the wall; you succeed only momentarily before the problem divides and multiplies. "If you're going to go out there by yourself, then I'm coming with you." She finished, then ran back to her small bunker to grab her furry winter coat. At least she was realistic enough to dress up warmly. Wren had not responded to her, because denying her what she wanted only made her conviction stronger.
Chaz suffered a change of heart. He could not allow Rika or Wren to go off into the cold storm without him. He wanted to be close to Rika, to protect her, even more so since his failure to rescue her in the Air Castle. He felt he had to redeem himself in that respect. Wren was a good guardian but Chaz wanted to watch over her himself. Speaking of Wren, Chaz also wished to follow him as well, to see just what kind of shape their relationship had formed. It was only a little task, anyway. "I'll come too, just in case." He said, smiling.
But the chain of volunteers was broken at that point. The two espers didn't really see any reason to get their hands dirty. Those three would be enough to do the job, and now they didn't have to leave the safety of the digger. Rune smirked in his usual cool manner as Rika returned, pulling her arms and her retracted battle claws through the sleeves of her coat. "Sounds like you have all the help you'll need. Kyra and I will guard the digger. Don't take too long or we'll never get to Meese on time."
That was just like Rune, to duck out of work because it was beneath his station. Chaz rolled his eyes at him briefly and then opened the near-invisible doorway etched into the digger's grey hull. There was a small pressurized airlock in case the ice digger was being used upon an uninhabitable planet. The second door opened and then came a blast of incredibly cold air, a smattering of icy flakes scattering upon the floor. The exit was a cleanly cut rectangle of blinding white, the path to the storm. Chaz wasn't even outside yet and he was beginning to shiver. Well, better get it over and done with.
The three adventurers descended down the ramp into Dezoris' snowstorm. There was an audible hydraulic hiss behind them as soon as they all stood within the snowdrifts. Rune and Kyra had wasted no time in retracting the ramp and closing the door again. They didn't want the draft to take their artificial heat away. Rika was standing beside Chaz, her arms folded very tightly across her front. The hunter wondered if she was having second thoughts yet. The wind was tugging and pulling at her coat roughly, exposing her body underneath. Her battle gear may have helped to increase her mobility in combat, but it was not good winter clothing. Poor Rika.
Chaz's full bodysuit managed to insulate him slightly, but it was desert gear, not for the arctic. He was no better off. Being outside in the whipping snowflakes was like being stung by minute needles. Chaz squinted a little to keep the wind from stinging his eyes. No wonder Dezorians were so naturally slit-eyed! Wren started to move forward and the other two gratefully followed him. Chaz and Rika walked closely behind him, using the large android as a windbreaker and as a shield. The jagged wind subsided, but the cold still remained. The obstacle in their path wasn't far.
They were keeping as close as they could to the side of the ice digger, keeping it as a reference. It was funny, the vehicle seemed an awful lot bigger on the outside when compared to the inside. It was maybe just a matter of perspective, but those belt treads stood even taller than Chaz's head. Rune would have said that that was an easy feat to accomplish, but, yes, it was the blank backdrop of the snowstorm that made the digger seem bigger, because of the lack of comparison. Chaz hoped they wouldn't catch snow blindness from it. "This storm is so thick I can't see a thing!" Rika shouted, almost voicing Chaz's exact thoughts.
"Stay close to me and you will not get lost." Wren replied from the front of the line. The other two knew that it was sound advice. They passed the protruding frontal drills that were attached to the ice digger, built from a hefty material able to crush blocks of ice and slow-moving glaciers to powder. The drills were built for that purpose only, but Chaz could imagine the incredible destructive power it could hold when turned against the bodies of other living beings.
The feeling of cold was beginning to fade away. He reckoned that his body was beginning to acclimatise and adjust, and none too early. Chaz couldn't see where they were headed because of the windbreak, but the faint jumbled outline of the bird's nest appeared several yards away, dark yet encrusted with snow. It looked even more bizarre outside of the ice digger but fortunately it wouldn't be as heavy. Chaz fought the winds to one side of the nest and tried to get a good grip on the edge, many little twigs and things scratching at his unprotected fingers. He broke off a few that were irritating him and made a pair of hand-holds in its side. Wren and Rika were doing the same thing on their part of the obstruction.
They lifted, and it was heavier than it first seemed to be, heavier than mere twigs, but Chaz had put on a bit of muscle in the previous few months and the extra weight did not bother him much. The three of them heaved the nest out of the path of the ice digger, leaving deep footprints in the snow. At one point Chaz's boot crunched through a hidden crust of ice beneath the snowdrifts, causing him to sink almost a foot beneath the surface layer. He managed to yank his leg out again with a little strain and a curse.
"Hey, can you guys feel that?" Rika shouted nervously as she scuffled backwards with part of the nest in her arms. She looked to Chaz. Something didn't feel quite right and she wanted to know if the others felt the same. The sense that warned her of danger was tickling her awareness, somewhere in the primitive part of her mind. Odd white shapes were clumped together in the bowl of the nest, weighing it down. Were they dezo penguin eggs maybe?
Wren had to leave the intuition part to his two friends. Everything that he felt was always based on cold hard data. Well, almost everything, that was. He watched Chaz and Rika exchange a glance between themselves but they both looked slightly confused. Whatever it was that they were sensing they did not understand it either. Wren set down his part of the obstruction on the ground and then rose to his full height. "It may be the vibrations of the snow worms that you detect. This area is riddled with their presence."
No, it wasn't that. In truth, it felt like Chaz also was expecting something bad to happen. He wondered why he was suddenly thinking so pessimistically. In any case their job was done. The nest was moved a safe distance to the side and the ice digger could pass through freely. As if to accentuate this either Rune or Kyra flashed the ice digger's lights three times, telling them that they could get out of that crazy storm now. Chaz stumbled over and took Rika by the arm. "C'mon, let's go." He said.
"Wait." Rika answered clearly between two gusts of rending wind. It didn't matter that Chaz was probably about to catch frostbite or that Wren was already walking back to the big machine with one arm held up to keep the snow from blinding his eyes, something had snagged her attention and it didn't want to let go. She knelt beside the large nest and leaned over it, sticking her arms inside. Rika knew it was wrong to disturb a creature's home, but they had done that already, so what more harm could she do? Besides, one of those eggs looked strangely out of shape. She hoped they hadn't broken it somehow.
Chaz watched her lift a white oval shape out of the nest with the greatest of care. An idea came and he shook his head negatively. There was no room in their party for giant penguin hatchlings. "Rika, no. Put it back. That's not yours." The numan girl looked at him reproachfully for a few seconds and Chaz softened a little, as much as the low temperatures would allow. "It would be happier if it stayed here in its natural habitat."
She hadn't been thinking of keeping it at all, Rika had only been concerned that the egg had been damaged somehow. It was nearly completely caked with snow, and as she turned it about in her delicate yet strong hands parts of the icy covering began to fall from it, piece by piece. The numan's eyes widened almost comically, yet there was nothing comical within them. Rika's mouth opened up in a small silent gape of horror.
With the snowy covering removed several seams, cracks and hollows became apparent to the two adventurers still standing and kneeling beside the nest. Twin dark holes were poked in the front with the left eye socket broken and fractured, while below that the triangular depression of the nose was still tightly packed with snow. The brain case was bone white and pristine, save for a violent and precise puncture in the back. There was a quiet little thump as the hingeless jawbone broke free of the snow and tumbled into the nest with a soft rustling sound. Even without its jaw it still seemed to grin triumphantly at them; at Rika in particular.
It was a skull. A palman's skull.
Rika didn't scream, but she made sort of a surprised squeaking sound and dropped the skull straight back into the nest, jerking back reflexively. It landed face-up and continued to smile chinlessly at her, as if it found the expression on her face amusing. Chaz felt weak in the knees and experienced a sick sinking sensation as he recognized what the other white lumps were. Bones. More skulls. Some creature's trophy collection. The hunter pulled Rika to her feet and proceeded to drag her away from the nest, his face ashen grey. If they hung around here that creature might come back, but maybe they could escape in time.
Cries from the west robbed Chaz of his hope. It sounded like a flock of harpies, screeching from far away. They reacted to that sound within moments, Chaz drawing his sword while Rika extended her claws. "Darn it." The blond youth cursed as he turned to face the noise, placing his back against the gently rising slope. The cries were coming overhead from the direction of the ice digger, which meant if they were pressed back it would be away from their only means of safety. How could they have been so stupid?
"Sorry." Rika apologized beside her friend, her hands still trembling just the slightest bit from when she had held the skull. She knew that she had led Chaz straight into a palman's graveyard. Small dark shapes rippled into view amidst the snowstorm, four of them, but Rika still did not regret her decision to try and save some helpless creatures, even if they had turned out to be monsters. She willed her hands to be motionless, and her body and mind to calm. They did so flawlessly and her confidence came back, as strong as it ever was.
"It's okay, you didn't know. Wren!" Chaz answered her forgivingly and then called out to their friend who was currently too far away to be of use. He didn't know if he could shout loud enough in this blustering storm, but Wren seemed to pause and look at him questioningly, detecting the sound of Chaz's voice but not his words. His hair was almost completely white with snow. Rika waved at him hurriedly and Chaz attempted to shout even louder. "Battle! Get over here right now!"
He was able to make out the word 'battle' and that motivated him immensely, the android ceasing the slow walk towards his friends and breaking out into the best sprint that he could manage whilst in the loosely-packed snow. Wren calculated that he did not have enough time to head back to the ice digger and retrieve his plasma rifle, but he was certain that his level of battle effectiveness would not be hampered by his lack of a weapon. He was a weapon, after all. Wren could only hope that he'd be able to make it in time, and already he was charging his flare beam, just in case.
When the conflict struck Wren was still ten seconds away. The dark shapes burst upon the small party and while Rika was able to completely evade in time, Chaz could only swing his free arm up to shield his face and hear the gritty clangs as long hooked talons scraped away at his hand guard. A burst of super cold air struck him full in the face when the monster beat its wings directly above him, but Chaz had gotten a good look at his foe in the one second that he had been given before he closed his eyes entirely to the wind. It was a dezo owl, the fearless hunter of the frosty skies.
This was bad. Dezo owls were dangerous creatures and Chaz's party had only been completely confident in engaging them while they were inside the ice digger. They had an advantage in mobility and speed, while their hardened talons and beaks could crack both metal and bone. Worse still, this was not one owl but four of them, so they were outnumbered too. Chaz lifted his sword arm and swiped blindly with his blade, hoping to strike some flesh or at least beat the bird back a little, but he sensed no resistance to his sword at all. Likewise the clawing at his guard arm had ceased.
Rika shouted a battle cry and plucked one of the birds out of the air, forcing herself to land harshly on her stomach so that the owl would feel the full impact as her cushion. It squawked in pain and surprise then nipped at Rika's upper arm, gouging out a small yet notably deep wound. The snow beneath the numan girl became slightly spotted with red. Meanwhile Chaz's foe had angled away from him sharply and then had dive-bombed him from the side, pushing the youth away from his comrade. Chaz turned towards the new direction of the attack and stumbled over the birds nest that was in his path, the thing that the dezo owls were trying to protect.
Tripping over that thing had probably saved Chaz's life. As he ducked forward a little, wobbling and trying to regain his balance, he felt the tips of the dezo owl's talons part his hair. It had dived at him but missed, and though Chaz should have immediately taken advantage of this situation he got a faceful of the bottom of the bird's nest. He was tipped upside-down with his legs sticking up, then he slid forward and got into a crouch, trying not to slip on the jumbled piles of bones. When the owl doubled back again he let it have it with a concentrated githu technique.
Wren leaped into the battle without announcing himself and released his flare laser at the dezo owl that was bothering Chaz. The githu and the flare struck the monster from two different directions and did what two opposing energy forces were wont to do; cancel each other out. This resulted with the dezo owl screaming one final scream before it disintegrated into a mishmash of invisible particles and gore. Feathers were scattered every which way by the breath of the storm.
"Chaz, are you damaged?" Wren called and took a step forward, but had not noticed that he had sunk up to his ankles in another crust of ice. It held under the force of his momentum and knocked the android off his balance, so Wren tipped over and went crashing into the snow. This would have been funny had they not been in combat, yet Chaz and Rika did not have the time to laugh. There were still three of the four enemies left to dispose of.
One of them was still squirming and flailing in Rika's grasp. She was trying her hand at wrestling and believed that she had at least broken one of the creature's wings, so it couldn't get away from her. The girl was trying to get both of her hands around its throat so that she could cleanly break its neck. The talons were in the way, and if her hands came within five inches of the owl's face it would stretch its long neck out and then snap with its cruelly hooked beak. Rika wanted to kill it in a simple and clean manner, with no unnecessary pain for the bird, but instead she had to rise to her feet and then regretfully crush its chest with the thick sole of her boot. The dry rustling snap of its ribs made her feel sick to her very stomach.
The ice crust shattered as Wren kicked at it with his trapped leg and then lifted his head from the snowdrift. "Chaz?" He repeated and for a moment was blinded by a comparatively rough blast of wind, then his surroundings came back into focus. Chaz was standing beside the large bird's nest, wiping off streaks of the dead owl's splatter from his face. He looked unharmed. Wren stood too and sought harder, firmer ground.
Chaz heard his name being called and saw Wren edging towards the higher ground, not quite mindful of the enemies in the area. He was walking on solid, tough ice, but that was all it was. Ice. Rika turned to look at Chaz and he saw the clear traces of guilty tears in her eyes, but she didn't look angry. She looked sad, and wild. Chaz regarded her with wide eyes and felt like he wouldn't be able to tear his gaze away.
But he did so anyway when he heard the screams of the remaining dezo owls crying out in unison, followed by the artificial whir of Wren's shoulder mortar plates opening. That could only mean one thing, that Wren was planning on using his burst rockets unit in the middle of a blizzard. What kind of chaos would that cause? The android must have figured that his fire-based assault would be similar to the napalm charges of the ice digger. It'd be effective, but dangerous. He was hunched over, the mortar cannons protruding from each shoulder.
Fire spat into the air and was immediately lost to the naked eye, except that one of the charges grazed the outstretched wing of a dezo owl and the monster burst into flames. It turned into a writhing fireball that fell out of the air, smelling ever so slightly of roasted chicken. Wren looked up slowly to see where his attack had gone and was struck in the face by the burning bird, surprising him if not hurting him. The final monster flew free as the rest of the napalm rained down around the android, striking against and hissing into the ice. Some of the fire was extinguished by the snow but a great deal of it weakened the ice beneath Wren's feet, rendering it treacherous and unsafe.
While brushing away embers Wren was unaware of Chaz running towards their last foe, his sword lightening and darkening with wavering energy. He had a skill cooking right up his sleeve and Chaz looked ready for business. He had yet to claim a monster kill all for himself, but those birds just moved too damn fast. It was time to slow them down a bit.
"No, don't!" Rika cried out, vainly trying to keep her winter coat from being blown open by the winds. Her intuition wasn't quite clear but she could still see the great mistake that Chaz was likely to make. If he used his earth skill against the monster he would surely freeze it in place, but to do it on weakening ice at a particular angle would surely cause a great...
Crack! That sound was heard even amidst the howling background noise. It was the sound of solid ice splintering as Chaz drove the blade of his sword straight into its melting heart. There was relative quiet for a time as the motions of the dezo owl were slowed to a halt, then from beneath Chaz's boots he heard the deep rumble of ancient glacier ice coming back to life. All of a sudden it felt like Chaz had swallowed a fat hairy caterpillar; his throat felt all prickly and too tight. Wren glanced at the ground below him and then back up at Chaz. A widening fissure separated Wren from the others. The cliff was breaking away. The android looked utterly blank, as usual.
"I am falling." He said, and Wren was correct.
The puncture of Chaz's sword into the swell of the hill created a series of stress fractures that had cracked all the way down to the bottom of the cliff. As the large plane of ice dropped down from the others Wren took a couple of steps away from Chaz in order to adjust to the change in his center of balance, his arms spaced out from his body carefully. Soon he did not even have ground to stand on as gravity and the air currents knocked him off the broken floor. Without making a single cry of protest, the android fell from the cliff, into the darkness below.
Chaz was only kneeling at the edge of the precipice, the hilt of his sword in his trembling hands, staring at what he had done. "Wren!" He screamed with all the breath in his lungs, standing and losing all sense of his personal safety as he tried to step off the cliff and save his friend.
He would have done this without much of a second thought if Rika had not stepped up in time and saved him from a certain death. She reached out from behind Chaz and grabbed roughly at his forearm, yanking him backwards with excessive force. Chaz tipped back on one heel, his other foot seeking some kind of support in the open air. Rika threw Chaz flat on his back and while he was struggling to prop himself up on his elbows they both heard the great resounding crash of tons of ice slapping and smashing at the bottom of the chasm below.
The storm was clearing, but only very slightly, not enough for it to be the end. Rika looked ahead heedlessly, perhaps trying to register what had happened to her mentor, her bright pink hair flapping in the wind. Beneath the newly stunted cliff the ravine was circular in shape, and very wide. If it was what Rika thought it was, a snow worm burrow, then it might even be up to several miles deep. Not even Wren could survive a fall that devastating. Rika bit her lip and turned to Chaz, now on the verge of tears. "Stop it. We can't afford to lose you too."
The weight of what he had just caused caught up to Chaz's mind. Because he had not thought his actions through he might have killed one of his friends. His most important friend. Chaz jumped up and scrabbled over to the edge of the cliff again, flattening himself against the ground and looking down, desperate to see the android on a ledge of some kind, or relentlessly climbing back up the cliff wall. Wren was practically a palman tank, he was supposed to be virtually indestructible. Could something so basic and stupid possibly kill him? If so, then it was Chaz's fault. All his.
"Wren!" The hunter cried again and it seemed to echo all the way down the ravine. "Can you hear me? Answer!"
Silence.
Rika took Chaz's hand and effortlessly pulled him up from the ground. She was weeping now, just as she had wept for Seed, but she also had a small idea. It was a long shot but better than nothing. "Come on, follow me!" She ordered, and they ran back to the ice digger together, Chaz teetering on the edge of a fully-blown panic attack. Rika tried to take control of the situation while Chaz could not. "If Wren really is still alive and not unconscious, we should be able to reach him using the ice digger's radio. He can pick up narrowband frequency within a ten mile radius!"
"Oh gods Rika, I didn't mean for that to happen! It's all my fault! If Wren is dead then it's all my fault!" Chaz howled.
"Keep control of yourself!" Rika shouted, but her heart reached out to him. She wanted to put her arms around Chaz and console him, for she understood Chaz's feelings. He didn't want to lose another close friend, just as he had lost Alys not that long ago. The numan girl managed a little smile through her weeping. "Don't say things like that. Wren wouldn't want you to think that way. Now hurry up, there still might be a chance!"
Every time that Chaz managed to get close to something he could treasure, it was always taken from him, held away at an arm's length. But please not Wren, not something that he was only beginning to appreciate. Just as he and Wren had run to Rika's aid in the Air Castle, now Chaz and Rika were doing the very same thing for him.
The blond hunter steeled himself and nodded at Rika's words. "Okay, I'm right behind you." He said.
