Ice Phoenix (40 page)

"What will happen if she does?"

"You'll die. You better leave now."

The wings on Master Drummik
's back snapped into position, and he pushed off the ground, accelerating into the sky with Terrana.

Meldogan screamed and unleashed several lightning bolts that should have struck
the fleeing master and his charge, but instead they were deflected by the rods Kuldor had created.

"
How?
" he screamed at Kuldor.

"Simple science," replied Master Kuldor. "Metal rods deflect lightning. Everyone knows that. Combine that with conductive fibres, careful design, and correct positioning, that
's how."

"But you are not even weaving! You
're just standing there!"

"Oh, I don
't have to weave for something as simple as that. In fact, it's been a long time since I've really woven anything."

Meldogan glared at Master Kuldor. "How are you deflecting my lightning?"
he screamed.

"
Nanomites. Now then, would you like to see some real weaving?"

"
Can you actually weave anything without your precious nanomites?"

"Why don
't you tell me?" Master Kuldor's right shoulder suddenly came alive with thousands of tiny ants, connecting and locking with each other to create a type of impenetrable armour. It continued to unfold and expand, and before Meldogan's astonished gaze, a huge bazooka had formed and was aimed directly at him.

Master Kuldor wrapped his finger around the trigger and pulled. A large cannon ball shot out and hit Meldogan directly in the chest; the Valpuri was sent flying several metres
, where he crashed into a concrete pillar.

"Good old-fashioned release mechanism." Master Kuldor gave his bazooka an affectionate p
at. "Good old-fashioned ammunition too. A little adjustment here and, hopefully, you should die with the next shot."

Meldogan scrambled to sit up
, and as Kuldor approached him, he snarled and pointed behind the Imeldor. "Why don't you try it on
them
instead?"

Kuldor turned and saw a hoard of
infected citizens stumbling towards him, bleeding and crying. There must have been at least three hundred of them.

"Help us!" they cried. "We can
't control ourselves. We're starving!"

Master Kuldor swore
as he turned back to Meldogon. "You would use innocent people?"

Meldogan sniggered. "You underestimated me if you thought I would abide by an honourable code of battle. This is
an extermination; there is no such thing as honour!" He rose to his feet and shouted, "Live meat, everyone!"

The
rabid horde dashed forwards like starving scavengers on a raid, their eyes glazed. Meldogan shrieked with laughter and rose into the air.

"A single bite or scratch, and you will turn into
one of them! But I'm sure you already know that, right?"

Master Kuldor backed away in horror as
the desperate people closed in on him.

"
Foooood!" they cried.

Lorn could not see what was happening to Master Kuldor. He was just regaining consciousness and was sprawled on the ground just outside the gate to the bunker. He
groaned and rolled over, grateful that the rain washed to the side of his face as he did so, and not through his nostrils, which had accumulated enough liquid to hurt his brain.

"
Ahhhhh Lorn, you're okay!" Mikin cried, his voice choked with tears. He wrapped his trunk around Lorn's chest, helping him to sit up.

"Mikin," Lorn said, grimacing. His body hurt all over and he suspected he had a few broken ribs. He looked at
his friend and saw that his left ear had been torn almost in half and he was bleeding badly. His face was covered in scratches and burnt patches. "We need to get out of here. How are the girls?"

"Doing better than you, thank you!" said Kalindra, as she kicked away the concrete chunks that had come loose from the pavement after being struck by lightning. She
had suffered some minor cuts, bruises, and a sprained elbow, but otherwise she was fine. Misa was the only one unhurt, and as she helped Kalindra to her feet, she unlatched the baton that was strapped to her hip. She shook it once, and it extended into a Kampu staff.

"Master Drummik and Terrana
have gone, and the other man who was with him is still unconscious. There are two more people standing close by. I think one of them is an Imeldor," said Misa.

Lorn glanced towards Master Kuldor, and his face paled when he recognised Meldogan. "Into the bomb shelter
now
!" he barked.

They hobbled as quickly as they could towards the
gate, but upon reaching it, they discovered it would not let them pass through.

"Let us in!" they screamed
.

"
The sentries must have gone. No one's answering!" whimpered Mikin. "They've deserted us."

"How could they?" Kalindra screamed, tears running down her face. "They left us to die out here!"

"Hold onto that thought," said Lorn tersely, still watching Master Kuldor, "because we
are
going to die if we don't leave this area immediately."

The
four of them turned around just in time to see the horde of infected citizens sprinting towards them, with crazed looks on their faces.

"What
's wrong with them?" cried Misa. "Why are they running towards us?"

"I don
't know and I don't want to find out," replied Lorn. "
Run!"

On his command, they dashed away and around the building, coming to a long street
. It was littered with cars and air vehicles that had been abandoned in a hurry. Thunder rumbled above, and lightning lit up the obsidian rain clouds.

"What now?" groaned Kalindra, glancing back at the crazed
mob. A few wrails landed heavily amidst the rabid citizens, scattering them in several directions. The wrails didn't look worried about the students getting away — nothing could get away from them. They were larger than the average air vehicle and putrefying acid dripped from their gaping jaws.

"Watch out!" shouted Misa. Something flew directly at Kalindra, crashing into her shoulder. She was lifted off the ground and thrown back several metres. Sharp teeth buried into her flesh
, and she screamed. Her right hand immediately burst into flames, and she thrust it into her attacker. It hit the ground with a thud, screeching and wailing as it died.

Several more of the same creatures flew towards them, and this time, Misa dealt with them. She threw her staff high into the air and it whirled like the blades of a helicopter, quickly bringing them down.

"Kalindra, are you all right?" Lorn ran over to her.

She was bleeding from her left shoulder
, and though she was in pain, she nodded. She looked at the fallen creatures and scrunched her face in disgust. "What are they?"

"They look like heads," answered Mikin, stepping cautiously around them.
"They're different from the ones we saw earlier and they definitely weren't on the news. I think they are a new kind of wrail."

They were definitely heads. Foul, rotting humanoid heads with ghastly teeth and rabid eyes. Bat-like wings sprouted from either side above tiny holes which could have been their ear cavities.

"We've got to keep moving. We'll barricade ourselves in the next building we can get into!" said Lorn. No one objected. Looking around desperately, Mikin spotted a large department store with its front doors shimmering.

"There!" he pointed. Without hesitation, the four of them sprinted towards the store, leaping over cars and fallen debris
. Just as they reached it another group of people came running around the corner and pushed through the door ahead of them.

"
Hey wait!"
Misa shouted. "
Don't seal it yet
!"

A man looked back, noticed they were children, and beckoned them to hurry. Within seconds the four of them reached the door, huffing and sweating.

"Thank you!" Mikin cried.

"Hurry up and get in!" barked the man. He was an
Octpien, from the planet Octa in Sector Two, and had the characteristic eight tentacles wriggling along his jaw-line. The students shuffled in gratefully, but as Kalindra walked past, he shoved her back roughly.

"Not you," he
said, his eyes cold.

"What? Why?" cried a shocked Kalindra.

"Let her through!" barked Lorn, seething with anger.

"No!" said the man. "
I can see she's been bitten. She's infected! If we let her in, she'll turn on us and eat us!"

"What? No! I
'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me! Lorn!"

"Please sir, let her through. She
's not infected!" begged Mikin.

The man shook his head.
Turning to face Kalindra, he said, "I'm sorry, girlie, but if you don't step outside now, I will kill you myself."

To everyone
's horror, he pointed a large, double-barrelled gun directly at her head. "It's probably better this way."

Kalindra
's eyes became large orbs in her pale, terrified face. She took a step back, her mouth trying to form words that wouldn't leave her throat. "Don't," was what she wanted to say. Time slowed down to a snail's pace as she watched his finger pull back the trigger.

There was a loud bang and the bullets whistled past her head, only just grazing her skin
, and for the third time, Kalindra found herself being thrown to the ground. She could have cried with relief to see Lorn had thrown his body over her, his green eyes glittering with fury, his face monstrously dark.

"Fine," snarled the man. "Get out of here all of you!
Let her eat you!"

He
began shoving Mikin and Misa through the door, but they were already running out. As the man moved to seal the doors, a wrail similar to the ones that had attacked the students in the sky, appeared out of nowhere. With a huge roar, it leapt at the man.

Horrible screams filled the air as the wrail made short work of the
man and bounded into the store after the rest of his group. Five more wrails climbed down the sides of the surrounding buildings and charged towards the crowd. Lorn, Mikin, Kalindra, and Misa were surrounded and had nowhere to run. They all had the same terrible thought; their end had arrived.

"What a way to go," muttered Lorn as he helped Kalindra to her feet.

"I don't want to die like this, Lorn!" cried Kalindra. "I won't, I won't die like this!"

Lorn gritted his teeth and tried to keep calm while searching for a way out. He couldn
't see any. He knew that as soon as the wrails had finished off the people in the store and the infected group coming towards them, they would turn on him and his friends. He was so focused on trying to find a way to escape, he did not feel the tremors until they grew stronger. He tensed as the ground shook, and he looked down the street to see what was happening.

Mikin suddenly yelped in excitement and pointed to an abandoned air-vehicle several metres away from them.
"Everyone, huddle against that car now!"

Puzzled, they all scrambled up to it. Surprisingly, the wrails paid them no attention; they were more concerned with something else.

"You know what's coming, don't you, Mikin?" Lorn said.

"Help
!" Mikin yelled, flapping his ears like a signal flag, although it must have been painful. The tremors turned into powerful pounding, and Lorn dared to peer past the car. What he saw charging down the road filled him with hope, and he could have cried with relief. In fact, he did. He jumped to his feet and screamed with every breath of air in his lungs.

"C
'mon Niku!"

Niku charged down the road, tossing vehicles into the air. T
he hulking, enraged brudisaurius thundered his way past the students and slammed into the wrails, taking three of them down instantly. The first wrail died immediately as Niku gored it with his horns, and the brudisaurius flung it off as he turned on the other wrails. He let out a roar, which echoed down the street.

The other wrails quickly surrounded the brudisaurius, hissing and whipping their powerful tails out behind them. They charged together, their nimble yet powerful legs propelling them onto the brudisaurius.

For the first time, the others noticed someone clinging to Niku's back. It was Bagruth, but there was something wrong with him. He was unconscious, and blood ran down his forearms. A large wound gaped from his side. How he had managed to climb onto Niku's back and remain there was anyone's guess.

Niku rolled onto his side, effectively crushing the two wrails that had locked onto his flanks. He then repeated the same manoeuvre on the remaining wrails, but they leapt free and circled the brudisaurius warily. A vile steam clouded the air above
Niku's back from where the acid had come into contact with his body, but his thick scales had managed to ward off most of the burns.

The brudisaurius caught sight of
his master's friends huddled against the car and suddenly reversed into them. As they scrambled out of his way, Niku lowered himself to his knees and wailed mournfully. It was only then they realised that Niku had been holding onto Bagruth by wedging him between his back muscles. Even as they watched, their unconscious friend began to slide off the brudisaurius.

"Mikin!" cried Lorn.

He and Mikin ran forwards to catch Bagruth before he hit the ground. It wasn
't an easy task because he weighed more than the both of them combined.

"Good boy, Niku," Lorn said, stroking the brudisaurius
's neck despite his legs quivering under their added burden. He and the others had been so shocked and glad to see Niku and Bagruth, they had not even wondered how the pair managed to be in the city. Now, looking at the state of Bagruth's body, he realised his friend had severe burns, which could mean only one thing; the carriage Niku and Bagruth had been travelling in had crashed. Lorn's questions about how they managed to survive and find their way to the city would have to wait. Right now, he had to concentrate on carrying his friend to safety. He looked over at Mikin, who was trying to get his attention.

"Lorn, he
's cleared the way for us. We can take shelter in the next building until help arrives," huffed Mikin. He had practically disappeared under Bagruth.

A strange thing happened then. Niku released another wail and gently swept
Bagruth and the others aside with his tail. He turned his head slightly so that he was looking at them, and wailed again.

"I think he wants us to go. He —" Mikin retched involuntarily. He wasn
't the only one; the others also discharged the contents of their stomachs. The stink of a thousand rotting corpses saturated the air, and even the wrails hissed and slunk into the dark allies of the nearby buildings, much to everyone's relief. Except for the rain beating down on them, the street had turned strangely silent.

Niku let out a low growl and lowered his head, readying his horns for attack. He stared down the street, and it didn
't take long for Lorn, Mikin, and the girls to see what he had sensed, and what was responsible for the stench.

It glided around the corner, twice as large as Niku, the most fearsome wrail
to land on the planet. The monster wrail spotted them and abruptly skidded to the ground, stopping about fifty metres away, and roared.

The terrified students could only
look on in disbelief at this giant wrail as it unleashed an exploding furnace of liquid flames that melted the sides of the nearby buildings. The wrail proceeded to tuck its wings back, revealing protruding joints that became additional limbs. With a dragon-like head covered in a multitude of short horns, scaled hide, and a powerful tail that crushed cars like cookies, it eyed the students and Niku greedily.

"Lorn, I can
't move," Mikin whimpered. Next to him, Kalindra had slumped to the ground, and before they all knew it, they were lying next to her.