Allie's War Season One (129 page)

The leader didn’t seem to notice. He grunted, motioning in affirmation.

The one on the horse spoke again.

“...leave alone if the...” (something else that sounded insulting) “...orders?” (something else) “...dead? She couldn’t have...” (something else he missed) “...few thousand in his own...” (Revik was pretty sure the word was “army”).

He looked between them. He found he had started grinding at the wood of the steps again with the chains, almost unconsciously. If they knew who Allie was, they might not be here to help him.

Where the
fuck
was Balidor?

The third Wvercian exited the house, half-running down the steps. At the leader’s level look, he gestured negative. The leader grunted, then looked down at Revik, his black eyes devoid of feeling.

“You are Dehgoies Revik?” he said in heavily accented Prexci.

Revik hesitated. He looked between the three of them, then decided he didn’t have the luxury to be coy.

“Yes,” he said, gesturing affirmative.

The leader looked him over, then motioned towards the younger of the three Wvercians. Revik stiffened, trying to push his body backwards when the smallest giant pulled his rifle off his saddle. It had organics in the stock, too. Revik stared at it, watching as the man clicked off the safety and raised it to his shoulder.

“Wait!” he yelled, holding up a hand. “Wait! The Bridge!”

The man with the rifle lowered it slowly, his eyes puzzled.

Revik spoke faster, louder. “You’re looking for her...right? If you kill me, you kill her! She’s my mate! I swear to the gods she is! Take off the collar, and you’ll see. Check the telltale...”

The man with the rifle looked at the leader, his eyes bewildered.

The other two laughed. The one on the saddle motioned at the one with the rifle. A thick scar ran across his forehead and down beside one eye.

(a string of run-together words) “...thinks you’re going to kill him!”

The leader motioned for the young one to proceed, then turned to Revik.

“Hold still,” he said, pronouncing the words deliberately.

Revik did. He watched the youngest of the three seers aim at the chain around the base of the stairs. Realizing what was happening, he closed his eyes, turning his face away from the chains.

There was a metallic clang, and hot metal burned his arm.

He winced, but when he moved, the chain came free. His wrists were still cuffed, but no longer to one another...or to the stairs.

He sat up with an effort, gasping a little when he jarred the shot leg.

“Thank you,” he said, gesturing respectfully. “Thank you.”

“Can you walk?” the leader said.

Revik winced, trying to pull himself closer to the stairs.

“I don’t know,” he said.

They looked at one another. “Can you ride?” the leader said.

Revik nodded, looking between them. “Yeah.”

He started to pull himself up the first stair towards the house. He heard them talking amongst themselves...then the one with the gun got in his way, motioning him off with his hands, his gestures adamant.

“No,” he said in Prexci. “Stay!”

Revik pointed towards the house. “I need clothes.” He looked at the leader. At the blank look on the giant seer, he gestured in sign language. “Clothes. There are some inside. I need my gun...”

The one on the horse laughed, saying something in a joking tone.

But the smallest one vaulted up the stairs again, past Revik and into the house, once more letting the door slam behind him. Revik lay there, on the wood, happy to be out of the sun. He was still slumped with his back against the steps, when the leader pulled a canteen off his horse. Walking over, he offered it to him.

Revik nodded in thanks, and drank for a full minute. He was still drinking when the youngest Wvercian clomped back down the stairs, holding out clothes. Revik saw he’d gone into the refrigerator too. He handed containers to the man on the horse, then walked back to Revik, handing him a shirt and a pair of loose, cotton pants, both Chinese in style. Revik struggled into them while the three Wvercians talked amongst themselves in low voices.

The younger one handed him a container of food when Revik tried to get up.

Revik waved it off, but the young seer thrust it forward again.

“Eat,” the leader said. “We will go soon.” He used his hands to indicate a person falling off a horse. “Ouch,” he said, smiling.

“Yeah,” Revik said. “Ouch.” Reluctantly, he took the container off the young seer, fighting impatience as he dug his fingers into the thick pile of greens and pasta in the wooden box. He was still putting fingers-full of the casserole in his mouth, swallowing without a lot of chewing, when the leader approached him with what looked like a pair of bolt cutters, only made of some kind of organic.

“Hold still,” he told Revik again.

Revik froze as the giant fitted the cutting tool under the collar he wore. He felt the round loop of the collar drop into the notch inside the shears. Then the massive seer squeezed the handles together, his trunk-like arms flexing. Revik flinched as the cutters grazed his skin, nicking the side of his throat. He gasped a little as he felt the organic in the collar die, just before it broke apart on his neck. The two prongs at the top of his spine unwound...

Then the mechanism clunked open entirely.

Wincing, Revik pulled it out of the holes in his neck, letting it drop to the dirt. For a moment, he only rubbed his neck, nodding again in thanks to the other seers, unable to speak. The world gained dimension around him as he flexed his light. He could see the seers now, and relaxed a little.

He still couldn’t feel her.

He forced it out of his mind, even as the pain worsened briefly, making it hard to see at all. He looked up at the broad-faced seer. His outline appeared less flat, but if anything, the three of them looked even more intimidating.

“Thank you,” he said, nodding again. Gratitude briefly closed his throat. “Will you take me as far as Seertown? I will pay you well...”

At their puzzled looks, he looked around at each face.

“I will pay you very well,” he repeated in Mandarin. “I will pay each one of you, for even the loan of a horse, if you cannot take me...simply tell me how best to make arrangements with you.”

The leader glanced at the others.

The man in the saddle shrugged, gesturing vaguely, nodding towards Revik.

The leader sighed, facing him.

Seertown is gone, little one,
he sent, speaking directly into Revik’s mind.
They bombed it into the ground...this past night.

Revik halted in mid-motion, about to take another clump of greens into his mouth. He could only stare at the hulking seer. His mind tried to reject the information, then to make sense of it. He couldn’t get his mind off Allie, even for this; he couldn’t help but think about this in terms of her.

It explained why Balidor hadn’t come at least.

“Who?” he said finally. “American?” He made the correct motion in sign language. “The planes? Were they American?”

The giant seer smiled, but his eyes grew flat.

Who cares which worm flag they fly? They came in their dead machines and they bombed the town until every seer in it was run away or murdered...
Taking his canteen from Revik’s hand, he took a long drink, gesturing up towards the house.

We are here for you, brother. We come seeking the Bridge and her mate.

Revik fought the pain in his chest. He clutched at the cotton shirt, forcing more food in his mouth, if only to distract himself.

Did Balidor send you?
he said finally.

The giant seer smiled, but Revik once again saw him exchange looks with the others. They still weren’t telling him something.

He kept his nerves out of his light.

“Does any of you have a smoke?” he said, to dispel the tension. “Hiri?”

The one on the horse threw him a stick. Revik put it to his lips. He inhaled on the end while the one who’d shot at his chains leaned close, cupping his rough hand around a flame housed in a silver lighter.

We were sent by friends,
the leader sent.
...We will take you there.
Smiling, he gestured towards the wooden bowl. “Eat!” he said.
We ride soon.

Where are we going?
Revik sent. He kept his thoughts neutral.

The larger seer made a vague gesture.

To base camp first. We will get supplies, fix your leg...
He smiled, his dark eyes flat, doll-like.
...Then we go looking for her, yes?

Revik smiled, bowing politely in gratitude, but he felt his mind growing sharper as he scanned around the giant’s light.

The youngest of the Wvercians motioned for him to hold out his arms. Using the same cutting tool that broke the collar, he cracked the bracelets of the handcuffs, one by one. Revik continued to focus his light on the other two, rubbing his wrists.

The thing about Seertown appeared to be true. He got glimpses of burning buildings, the town’s evacuation sirens going off while planes screamed overhead. He’d felt something, anyway...when Terian’s guards were kicking the crap out of him on the steps. Whatever it had been, it made the Wvercians’ story ring true, even apart from what he felt in their minds.

None of the three seemed to be trained as infiltrators, but he was extremely careful as he scanned their light. He couldn’t afford to anger them.

For now, it was better to pretend he believed everything they told him.

In any case, he was reasonably sure they weren’t taking him to Balidor.

THE RIDE ACROSS the field and down through a narrow, rock-filled canyon via a winding goat trail wasn’t comfortable. Even when they reached the green meadow at the other side of the canyon, every step of the horse jostled his leg, sending harsh stabs up to his hip. He’d broken at least one major bone.

On his instructions, they’d brought him the roan with the red face, and saddled him with a few of the sheepskin blankets, thinking a regular saddle would be too rigid. They were likely right, but having to grip with his legs to stay on was its own kind of torture. He felt sick within an hour from pain.

He was having a harder time not thinking about Allie.

Away from the house, it seemed to worsen...and the worse the physical pain got, the more it confused him, blending in with wanting her. A part of his light scanned for her compulsively, even as he fought out the images that wanted to play out in the forefront of his mind with her and Terian...or, conversely, her and the boy. He tried to get the three seers to talk...anything to feel he was using the time, not just wasting it while she got further away.

They didn’t avoid his questions entirely...but they circumvented them in odd tangents, giving vague answers whenever he tried to pin them on details.

After multiple queries, he finally learned that the Americans had, indeed, been involved in the bombing.

Revik had always assumed most seers knew of the infighting in the seer community between the Rooks and the Seven, and that the Rooks had heavily infiltrated the United States government. But the Wvercian seers seemed to find such details unimportant.

To them, the source of the problem was clean, straightforward, and could be encompassed in a single, all-inclusive word: Humans.