Page 13

13

Shattered Smokescreens

RIV

E arly the following day, Riv awoke to the scent of spices and kahawa.

A bright acidity and clean finish eclipsed the tantalizing fruity notes and deeper hints of wine.

His mouth watered as he gazed out of the open window onto the vista and breathed in the freshness of dawn’s cool touch and the headiness of dew-drenched desert flowers.

This place could grow on you, he concluded as he stretched and headed to the living area.

He scratched his bare, hairy Galician chest as he did, getting more irritated at keeping up with the disguise.

Why were Galicians such a shaggy bunch? This shit is itchy, he grumbled to himself.

His feet were bare under his jumpsuit trews, so he made no noise as he approached the sunrise-drenched kitchen.

His silver angel stood by the stove, her hands in her shining hair, attempting to pin it up.

He slowed to a stop, his eyes narrowing as he spotted three more feathers at the back of her head.

Two more than she’d had all those many years ago.

He wondered what they signified in the Katánian world.

Despite being distracted by them, he couldn’t remember her looking so beautiful.

The desire to drag her away and make love to her was intense. He clenched his jaw to tamp down the need and folded his arms across his chest, waiting for her to notice him.

When she didn’t, he cleared his throat. ‘Good morning.’

She jumped for a second and turned, her gaze shifting to his chest. ‘Good morning.’

‘Slept well?’

‘ Naam ,’ élisa said, distracted, her eye flitting around the room as she tried to concentrate on what she was doing. She dropped the hairpin she was holding, and it clattered to the floor.

He picked up the implement and placed it on the rock counter before leaning against it.

She kept her eyes flicking about, not meeting his gaze. ‘About last night -’

‘ De nada . Don’t worry about it. We don’t have to discuss it. Let’s eat first, then perhaps go over the chores we must attempt today.’

She sighed in relief, and Riv rankled, not knowing whether to feel flattered she was choosing his true self or sore because she was rejecting Ribau.

His Galician bounty hunter wasn’t that bad, was he?

He made a note to ask her when he transformed into himself.

‘Please sit.’

He did as asked and settled at the table by the window while she served the food.

‘What’s for breakfast?’

‘Local green beans foraged from the desert bushes, fried in spices and more flatbread.’

His tummy growled in approval. ‘I see you like to keep it simple.’

She nodded. ‘It’s a healthy diet too. Good for sustenance and long life.’

She waved a hand at the plate and indicated that he should eat before moving away, but he didn’t. He kept his eyes on her, admiring how she moved around the kitchen.

She caught his gaze and smiled. ‘Go on, eat, everything will get cold.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

She widened her eyes at him in a mock warning, and he laughed.

As he took a good slug of his kahawa and relished the delicious yet straightforward fare, he felt warmth. He could get used to waking up to her making him breakfast.

Better still, having him return the favor for his cooking skills had much improved over the years.

His musing was interrupted by an unfamiliar sound outside. He stilled as his keen ear caught a noise, a shuffle, followed by the scrape of a foot against rocks further down the hill.

élisa cocked her head and froze, placing the cup she’d been sipping with care on the rock counter.

Working her way to the vents at the kitchen’s back wall, she peered to the back of the property and jerked her head.

She kept her voice low. ‘It’s the sand rustlers.’

He surged to his feet. ‘Here? Now?’

‘They prefer early mornings for a surprise attack. See.’

Not one iota of fear laced her voice as she eased away so Riv could get an edge in on the view.

He peered through the vent and saw at least fifteen silhouettes in body armor creeping up the rear elevation, their lasers ready.

‘How many?’ she pressed, reaching for her laser rifle, which hung on a secured nook in the rock wall, and various other weapons.

‘A little over a dozen. They’re well-armed. They’re fanning into two groups - one here, the other to the front.’

She sighed, slipping into her boots and sliding a phaser into a holster on her waist. ‘They must have spied on our return and think we’ve more supplies to share.’

He leaned back with a shake of his head at the lack of concern in her voice. ‘Fifteen against two. I don’t like these odds.’

‘We can take them. You manage the vanguard; I’ll handle the back. I’ve got to protect my dzo. When I’m done with my mob, I’ll help with yours.’

‘ Fokkin ’ what?’ he blurted.

Did she have what it took to take down so many?

‘Don’t underestimate me, Ribau,’ she flipped back with a fierce growl, handing him his laser, the one she’d taken off him on Neron N13. ‘I’ve fought the rustlers numerous times. They’re not the brightest and keep coming for more punishment. I’m well-versed in how to take care of them fast. Don’t be surprised when I show up to rescue you.’

With a skeptical huff, he nodded and let her go, watching her head slip into the rear courtyard.

Riv charged to his room, tugged on his mag boots, and headed outside, where he activated his suit.

His meta-infused helmet slid into place, and his noids switched on stealth mode.

Racing through the open plan house, he vaulted over the front fence unseen, where he came upon the pillagers, fifteen meters away and closing.

He fired a warning shot at the advance lead.

The kinais , in raven, metal-carved masks that revealed their eyes but obscured their mouths, yelled out in a language he didn’t understand.

They rushed to his general position, confused that the couldn’t see him. Riv turned and darted for the bushes below the home to divert their attention.

He high-tailed past them in a storm of wind, and they whirled around, seeking him.

Grinning at their confusion, he halted at the stand of shrubs and the boulder he’d sat at the night before and waited. When the attackers got to the thicket, they stopped and looked around.

He fired again, taking out one man at the knee. A second pillager lunged, and Riv moved away from the bush.

Riv sprinted along a narrow path away from the mountain and kept running as the laser beams cut through the air.

He made it to a precarious ledge. Looking behind him, he couldn’t see anyone as the bushes and the trees hid their bodies. They were well camouflaged, and so they should have been. This was their territory.

Just as he turned on the heat sensors on his HUD, he was hit with a salvo of fire. One sustained enough that his stealth shield began to flicker and loop him in and out of form.

He glanced over the edge of the escarpment.

The sheer rock face fell at least fifty meters, ending in a steep slope and a narrow dirt track leading to the chasms.

He didn’t have any other choice but to jump.

With no time to activate his mag boots, he soared into the air, hitting the ground hard and rolling onto his back.

The rush of the pillagers thundered behind him.

Riv turned to gauge how far the men hot in pursuit were.

They dashed across the crevice ridges that snaked over the top of the chasm-like landscape of Devansi.

Riv leapt from fissure to fissure but found most topped in deep soft sand that sucked in his boots, slowing him down.

Glancing back, he spotted the Devansi assailants leap from one boulder to another. He, too, began dancing from rock to rock, but he’d lost precious time, and they were closing in on him.

That was when even more battle cries sounded over the fissures, and Riv looked ahead to find another band of advancing raiders. Over twenty flew toward him this time, powered by the packs on their backs.

Fokk? For real?

He needed Mirage. Now.

He locked onto the AI’s neural node. Mirage, I’m under attack from a band of sand hustlers. Requesting support.

Mirage responded in milliseconds . I’m over a hundred thousand klicks away. It’ll take some time.

Riv cursed. Please get here as freakin’ quick as you can.

Naam. Thrusters are at maximum.

Appeased, the Rider pulled his second weapon and began to walk in a circle, firing in an arc even as a barrage of laser beams slammed into his suit.

Riv upped his meta counteractions, so his body disappeared into a blur, his feet sailing midair, arms pumping his Ccyth laser shotguns.

They pulsed in rhythm as he moved across the plain so fast his assailants couldn’t get a fix on them.

The Sable Rider flitted in and out of sight, bursting in and out of shimmering silver noid energy, materializing and de-materializing at will.

Boulders and bushes exploded, and chunks of trees flew into the air, igniting infernos as the fight intensified.

The enemy sent another wave of attackers hurtling into the fray, and they, too, were hammered.

With a pull and click, Riv’s weapons turned into electrified swords, cutting like butter through their limbs and torsos.

However, the raiders had the advantage of numbers, and after a while, their direct hits began to have an effect.

One of them held a cannon and aimed a rocket at the Rider.

It hit him with such force that he jerked. His breath left him in a rush as he felt his suit take most of the explosion.

Ignoring the searing pain of impact, he shot at one assailant, and the man’s chest combusted in flames.

It wasn’t enough.

The band of raiders rushed and surrounded him, ceasing their fire.

He did, too, and they fell into a stand-off.

They laughed under their peculiar masks and imagined they were telling him he was a dead man now.

‘Go to hell,’ he growled at them, glaring as they slinked closer.

He noted that one of the raiders stood out.

He was much taller, and when the wind shifted, pulling the edges of his hood apart, Riv spied a hooked aquiline nose and silver eyes, staring him down.

A Katánian, no doubt.

An older one, Riv concluded by the lined and mottled skin.

It seemed the dark hunters élisa had been so worried about had broken through the nebula storm and found her hideout.

Riv sat up with a curl to his lip. ‘You’re a khōra .’

The creature paused midstep, then cocked its head. ‘I am.’

It let its cloak fall away from its giant body.

To reveal a magnificent winged hawk-like Ka??m??r? with feathers and mottled black skin with undertones that were crimson as cinnabar.

Its beaked lips parted, and Riv glimpsed three rows of ferocious teeth.

His eyes were deep set, and his nose was hooked and razor-edged.

Its muscled arms ended in hawk-like claws, and it thumped its tail plumes with impatience as it tracked toward him, the feathers bristling on each side of the tail. More emerged in a crest from the terror’s head, each a foot long and lined with serrated chrome.

Seeing how the pillagers flicked glances at him, Riv discerned he was leading the raid. He shivered thinking of élisa, hoping she’d fended off the rear attack, wondering how she was managing. Worrying for her.

The Katánian lifted a taloned hand. ‘We want nothing from you, Galician,’ came a voice that screeched and howled all at the same time. ‘Except for a tidbit of insight on where we can find whom we seek.’

‘Who might that be?’ Riv hedged.

The creature’s gaze narrowed on him. ‘The Kinti of Katánē. Missing for over twenty-five years. We know she resides in that rock house with you, stranger.’

Riv studied the khōra for a long moment before giving them a calm smile. ‘To coin a cliche, you want to get to her, you’ll need to go through me.’

‘Very well.’

The taloned hunter lowered his hand, and the assailants around him fired at will.

Riv surged to life, moving with rapid tempo among the pillagers.

He tapped into his noids and began to flit in and out of stealth mode, appearing and disappearing at such great speed the raiders screamed in frustration.

All the while, he returned fire, downing a few of his assailants, but they were relentless and had way more firepower than he did.

A laser grazed his power pack, and it took the hit. Energy fluctuated across his suit, his shields started to fail, and Riv dropped to his knees.

With a great leap, the pillagers shot straight towards Riv. One loomed over him, his finger on the fire button, determined to blow the Rider to pieces.

Riv was about to retaliate with a kapo move to trip the man when a hoarse, whistling screech sent terror through him.

‘Kee-eeeee-arr!’

A cry that cut through with such potency, Riv’s noids froze, and his blood ran cold.

The call lasted 2-3 seconds and then repeated.

Riv and his assailants, also rigid in mid-motion, tilted their heads to the sky from which it came.

A presence soared and roared onto the fissured plain before them in a mighty flurry of wind and feathers.

Riv’s eyes widened at the terrifying beauty of the creature.

He retracted his helmet, not quite believing what he was seeing.

Its glowing face was exquisite, for it was élisa’s, complete with her chrome eye patch.

The rest of her transmuted body was like nothing he’d ever seen. It was the most beautiful yet spine-chilling hawk-like being with long silver plumage over its torso and a long flowing tail.

Its wings shone with wild, metallic chrome hues, and its lilac eye emitted a light beam so bright he held his hand over his eyes to shield them.

Its wings were spread out and over itself, making it seem even more prominent. It advanced, extending one feathered pinion to shield Riv and the other pointing at the trio.

‘Leave now if you value your pathetic lives.’

Riv shuddered. Twas élisa’s voice, yet it had a throaty quality that captivated and enthralled.

The raiders glanced at their leader, who flung back and shook his long-feathered crest.

He bowed before élisa. ‘It honors me to witness your plumage once more, Your Highness. I’m to return you to your Father unharmed, Kinti K’élisa. The Tempest Light, our Kíríga and King, will abide nothing less of this encounter.’

She stared at him with a dispassionate glare. ‘A khōra ? Of what order?’

‘The Kubai , if you must know.’

‘A ritual elder turned into a dark hunter. This is most unusual. In any case, I will not return with you. Not now, not ever.’

The older hawk-man grimaced. ‘Then I will compel you by killing your companion.’

He raised his feathered claw and dashed it downward to the ground.

The attackers swarmed towards Riv.

Until they were cut down by a volley of projectiles that flew in their direction, slicing through them in milliseconds before quivering mid-air, blood dripping off them.

Riv’s eyes widened. Feathers. élisa’s five nape shafts. They’d detached and were zipping through the air, clinical and razor-edged in their slaughter.

The khōra screeched and released its killer plumes from its tail and crest, but they, too, were incised with no mercy.

Still, the pillagers came, undaunted, and more raiders were slivered apart, falling to their deaths.

Finally, it was just the khōra left standing and three pillagers trembling in their sand boots.

The older Katánian lifted a feather talon and waved it at élisa, his eyes glittering with respect. ‘You have become fearless in exile. Your koya sāb?rs are stronger than mine. Yet you have desecrated yourself by removing the hawkstone.’

élisa shook her head, the chrome feathers clouding her face quivering in spectacular fashion. ‘This conversation is pointless, Elder, for the hawkstone passed to its rightful owner.’

His face coalesced into confusion. ‘Who might that be? We are not aware of any other heir.’

élisa sighed, impatience lacing her voice. ‘I will never share that information with you. Now leave, or I’ll be forced to use my koya against you.’

The older Katánian smiled. ‘Do so, Kinti , for you know my life will not be spared by the Kíríga if I depart without you.’

‘I will not do anything so barbaric. Those old ways are why I left Katánē.’

‘Then needs must,’ he sighed. ‘To be truthful, Kinti , you do me a great service. There is little to return to, and we Kiama are like sparks within the cook fires. One by one, we are going out, and so shall I. For if I cannot return without you, I will not return at all. ’

The hawkman’s lips curled. He pulled one of the chromed feathers from the nape of his neck. With a grimace, he turned it onto its serrated edge and, without preamble, sliced his neck as Riv jolted.

The Rider took an instinctive step forward, but a long feathered plume stopped him. He glanced at élisa, meeting her lilac gaze as she shook the silver and violet-tinged crest on her head.

‘Leave him be. He must cross the kanda , the bridge and channel between life and death, in dignity and as he chooses.’

Silver blood poured out as the hawkman fell to the ground, landing with a heaviness. First to his knees, then his whole body collapsed, plumes and all, stirring up a small storm of sand and small pebbles.

The three surviving Devansi raiders bailed in terror and took off down the mountain.

Silence fell.

It was broken with Riv’s curse as he gazed in wonder at élisa transmuting back to her human form.

She strode to her feathers still hovering mid-air, the koya as she’d called them, and plucked them with a sigh on her lips.

She shook off the blood as she studied the fallen khōra surrounded by dead pillagers. ‘Such a fokkin ’ waste.’

Still astounded, Riv strode to her side as élisa sank to her knees before her fellow Katánian. ‘I remember him now,’ she said, eyes searching the hunter’s face, lost in the past. ‘His name was Koroi. He was a statesman, a ritual elder. Not a khōra . Why would he bow so low to become a dark hunter?’

She gazed up and into the distance. ‘Something doesn’t read right. If I remember well, he was on the Kiama , the council of elders. His place was in the Kathi , the great council house, not here in the wilds of Devansi, fighting battles usually assigned to young hawkmen.’

‘Perhaps things have changed?’

She sucked her teeth as she reached a hand to close the hawkman’s open eyes. Then she pulled his robe over him. ‘He will die with honor here, his flesh and bones picked apart by the chasm’s vultures and storks, the fiercest carrion eaters. It is the way we Katánians enter the hereafter.’

Riv pushed a hand through his Galician locks, feeling ever more lost. There was so much he didn’t know, hadn’t known about her.

He found his voice soon enough. ‘I take it you dispatched the pillagers that attacked the house to the rear.’

She gave him a soft smile as she shook the blood from her feathers, the red trails falling clean off the burnished surfaces of her serrated chrome feathers that she’d called koya . ‘Without a problem. However, I was in human form when I did, and I disarmed them and then sent them packing. I only transmuted when I sensed the khōra’s presence.’

‘Majestic and yet menacing at the same time,’ he murmured, staring at her lethal koya .

élisa half rose to her feet. ‘And you, Ribau? Are you hurt in any way?’

He reached a hand to help lever her upright. ‘I’ll live. My suit may need some repairs, but all in all, I’m sawa . On the other hand, you were,’ he inclined his head in wonder, ‘magnificent.’

She gave him an almost shy smile and tilted her head as she contemplated him. ‘Does it put you off seeing who I am?’

He gave her a wry smile loaded with respect. ‘Never. You were glorious. Scarily so. Have you always been able to transmute like that?’

She waggled a finger. ‘It’s an ability that only comes into fruition as a full adult. It manifests for Katánian K?str?l women after we give birth. When we can turn our energies from raising young children to battling with our partners.’

That explained it.

‘Help me roll the raiders into the chasms,’ she interjected into his thoughts. ‘Like we Katánē who sacrifice our bodies to the sun and storks, it’s the tradition of the sand rustlers to bury their own in caves. We tuck them away so their people can find them and retrieve their bones.’

Riv gave a huff. ‘It’s so barbaric.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s the way of life here. Remember, these are the wilds of Pegasi. We are not in the ordered planets of Eden II and Rhesia.’

‘Ah, but it can be just as wild in the city streets. The reality of life and death is just more stark here.’

They worked in rhythm, pushing the Devansi raiders out of the sun and letting their corpses fall into the dark crevasses below.

As they did, Riv considered how best to reveal himself to élisa. It needed to be soon before his reasons for disguising himself lost their moral ground.

He was so deep in thought that he almost missed the sound of a magnetized weapon whistling toward them.

His instincts kicked in. His body leapt into full Rider mode.

His guise fell away, shattering his Ribau smokescreen.

Without it, he was faster, his noids released from having to keep Ribau’s Galician form, the extra energy pumping into his veins to accelerate his reactions.

In milliseconds, he traversed the fissure that separated him from élisa.

Before she could even move a wisp of hair and frond of a feather, he was on her.

Lifting her in his power-driven arms, he tracked away from her position where, seconds later, a webbed, electrified trap fell, bristling with enough punch to either main or knock her out.

He placed her on the ground and moved.

Towards the pinnace bearing down on them.

It was a single pilot racer, and he caught sight of a figure huddled within, tracking hard and fast toward his woman.

Riv took a chance. He activated his mag boots and leapt into the air while at the same time unsheathing his weapon.

His noids provided him with pincer-point precision.

He aimed and fired, falling away just as the racer blasted past. In its wake came a shower of plexiglass as a body tumbled out, sinking to the ground far below.

It landed with a thud as the pinnace, now out of control, whirled through the air before exploding on impact against a large clutch of boulders.

Riv shut his eyes for a moment and steel shards, bracing himself as he descended slowly towards the surface, to where the assailant lay in an unnatural, splayed position, unconscious.

Also, where élisa stood, hands crossed over her chest, her wide, shocked, lilac gaze fixed on his unveiled, true form.