Sunset in Silvana (Da'ark Nocturne Book 1) (27 page)

On the other side of the room was a further flight of stairs, which they mounted.  At the top was an observation post, similarly unoccupied, with slits covering the whole visible arc toward the border.  From it, they could see the whole plateau, including a military outpost on a rocky platform on the south side of the valley they’d seen earlier.

“This place was set up for four people,” RD pointed out, “but we only killed three.  I wonder where the fourth is.”

“Let’s have a look,” Iain said.  He picked a pair of binoculars off a shelf and looked through the middle slit.  The others followed suit, looking north and south, but it was Iain who spotted the fourth security officer.  He was half way across the valley, heading for the outpost.

“Hold this,” he said as he passed Bartes his ACR and unslung Winona.  “This needs precision.”  He rested the rifle in the slit, aimed carefully through her telescopic sight, and brought his target down with a single bullet.

“Bravo!” Bartes said, and Iain gave a mock bow, but RD curtailed their celebration.

“Keep looking,” he said.  “Let’s make sure we haven’t stirred up a hornet’s nest.”

They trained their binoculars on the garrison and watched for some time, but surprisingly there seemed to be no reaction to the gunshot.  “You’d think they’d at least come out and investigate,” Bartes said, bemusedly.

“I’ll bet they’re ignoring it because it involves the security forces,” Iain said.  “If they’re anything like most regulars, they hate blackshirts.”

“And think what this observation post is for,” RD added.  “There’s no way it’s guarding the border.  It’s here so they can spy on their own soldiers.”

Iain glanced through the northward-facing slit and swore.  “Look,” he said, indicating a transport helicopter which was taking off from a clearing several miles away.

“It’ll have landed some security troops,” RD said.   “We need to move – and fast.”

As they made their way back to the others, Bartes sent to Tanya, :
We’ve got company coming.
:

:
What d’you mean?
: she asked.

:
We’ve just seen a transport helicopter,
: he replied.  :
Some miles to the north.
:

The others were on their feet and ready when Bartes, Iain and RD reached them.  “Do you think we should we stay and fight?” Tanya asked.  “We could set up quite an effective ambush.”

“There’ll be too many of them,” RD said.  “And there’s a garrison on the south side of the mountain pass we’re heading for.  They’ve ignored what’s happened so far, but they couldn’t disregard a fully-fledged firefight.  No, our best option is to keep going, but we’ll have to hurry.  The search party don’t know exactly where we are yet, but they’ll come in this direction, and then fan out and look for us.  We’ve got thirty minutes at best.”

“But what about the outpost?” Iain asked.

“Hopefully, we can slip below it.  It’s there to stop an invasion from Telphania, and with any luck, they won’t be prepared for anyone coming from this direction.  I can’t see much of an alternative.”

As they approached the canyon, they came across a clearing where several posts had been set up.  Tied to three of them were freshly-dead corpses in regular army uniform: a lance corporal and two privates.  They had been shot.  There was a sign around the neck of each body that read DESERTER.  Execution warrants signed by Security Sergeant Krislenko were pinned to their fatigues.

Tanya turned aside, looking rather sick.  “No wonder the soldiers at the garrison ignored what happened,” she said.

“And this place has been deliberately chosen to be visible from the military outpost,” Bartes said.  “I’d guess – if they did see our little fire-fight – they cheered us on.”

“Let’s hope their antipathy stretches to letting us escape,” RD added.

Iain stopped to check the bodies and, as he reached into the breast pocket of the first, something slid up onto his arm and bit him.  His body jerked as pain lanced through it, and he screamed.

Tanya was startled for a second or two when Iain screamed, but then her training took over and she ran to his side.  She was about to ask him what was wrong, but one glance answered that question – there was a pallid, caterpillar-like creature latched onto his right forearm.

Iain was thrashing around in pain, desperately trying to wrench the creature free with his other hand.  Gradually, his movements grew feebler as the hook-like claws clung on, allowing two pairs of wicked looking curved fangs to dig deeper into his arm, until, with one last faint moan, he collapsed and was still.

RD dropped to his knees, took out his knife, and sawed at the creature’s neck.  Its skin was scaly, and tough as old leather, and despite his frantic efforts, it took him several seconds to penetrate.  A green slime began to ooze through the small slit as he stabbed downwards to widen the hole, and a spray of gunk striped the back of his hand.  He yelped, then gritted his teeth and redoubled his efforts.  It took a couple more minutes but he finally managed to slice through the rest of the skin and the underlying tendons.  The body fell to the ground, leaving four lines of red weals behind.  He reached for the head, which remained locked to Iain’s arm, intending to wrench it away.

“Don’t!” Tanya snapped.  “You’ll do more damage.”  She took a pair of forceps out of her medical kit and pushed them to between the creature’s fangs.  She tried to prise them apart, but even in death, the thing would not relinquish its grasp.  She took a deep breath and pulled her hardest.   For some seconds, the jaws would not budge.  Tanya felt herself sweating, and the metal of the forceps bending.  She gave a loud cry and a final heave, and the head dropped to the ground.

Iain’s forearm was already beginning to swell and take on an unhealthy green tinge, so she ignored her own fatigue and carefully opened his wounds with a scalpel and slapped a venom extraction pad over them.  She looked at Slimmest, who was lying on Iain’s chest and purring, with the same glow beneath her chin she’d seen when she was gored.  :
Do you know what that thing is?
: she asked.

:
It’s another creature from outside this plane,
: the cat replied.  :
Be careful.  Its ichor is corrosive.
:

Tanya looked at RD’s expression.  His eyes were screwed up and his lips were set hard.  :
Ya think?
: she sent back to the cat.  She took out a couple of absorbent cloths and handed one to him.  “Clean that gunk off your hands – they’re beginning to blister,” she told him as she wiped her own hands with the other.  “Hold out your arms.”  She squeezed some Dermoflex gel onto her palm, wrung her hands together, and gently rubbed the unguent over RD’s lesions.

The tension on RD’s face subsided, and he said, “Thank you, Doctor.”

Tanya smiled.  “Thank
you
.  Your quick reactions may have just saved Iain’s life.”

“How’s he doing?” Bartes asked.  “We can’t stay here much longer.”

She reached out with all her senses as she removed the pad from Iain’s wound. 
Heartbeat strong and regular,
she thought.
  Heart rate normal.  Respiration good.  No sign of neural damage.  What the devil is going on?  That venom must have
some
effect.
  Her brow wrinkled in puzzlement.  “Apart from the obvious, he seems fine.”  She shook her head.  “If you deal with the detritus, I’ll see what I can do to get him moving.”

Bartes picked up the forceps and used them to gather together the creature’s head and body and the soiled cloths, before using the wide-beam setting on his laser carbine to incinerate them.

Meanwhile, Tanya injected Iain’s arm with both a local anaesthetic and a generalised antibiotic, and gave him a shot of her patent combat drug as a stimulant.

“We’ll have to move on,” RD said.  “That search party must have heard Iain’s scream.”

”Perhaps the echoes from the canyon obscured our exact location,” Anoushka said, more in hope than conviction.

As Bartes and Tanya helped the groggy Iain to his feet, Slimmest’s voice in their heads said, :
I’ve got an idea that might buy us some time.  You go on.  I’ll catch up with you later
:

They reached the mouth of the valley without further incident and, clinging to the walls so as to keep out of sight of the soldiers above them, began to make their way down it.  Their hope that those in the outpost would remain disinterested bystanders seemed to be fulfilled.  Indeed, though they had obviously seen the fugitives, the soldiers only fired a few desultory shots in their general direction. 
They’re only shooting so that they can honestly say that they tried to stop us escaping,
Bartes thought.

Tanya and the others were just beginning to feel a bit more optimistic when Bartes drew their attention to two emplacements half-way up the valley wall.  A couple of heavy flamers were installed on one to their left, and the one to their right mounted four large auto-cannons.  “No wonder those soldiers couldn’t be bothered,” he said.  “We’re trapped.”

“I’m not so sure,” RD said.  “They’re here to help stop an invasion from the other direction, and they look to be automatic.  If we can avoid activating them, we might get through.  Anyway, we’ve no option but to try.”

They moved forward as quickly as they could whilst checking for tripwires or anything else that might bring Armageddon down on them.  The hairs on the back of Tanya’s neck were standing rigidly to attention at the thought of being in the cross-hairs of such massive weapons – or of the search party that would undoubtedly be on their trail by now.

They were just past the artillery when Slimmest caught up to them and jumped up onto Tanya’s shoulders.  :
Call a halt,
: she sent in a peremptory tone, :
I can feel something strange just ahead of us
.:

“Slimmest thinks we’re approaching something that smells fishy,” she announced.

“Well, she’s the expert on fish,” Bartes said.  He examined the valley immediately in front of them with his purloined binoculars, and then with night glasses.   “She’s right,” he said, “There’s a laser detection web across the valley.  I can see it in the infra-red.  It probably triggers the heavy artillery.”

“Could we thread our way through using the night glasses to help us avoid the lasers?” Tanya asked.

“We could try, but the holes in the web are pretty small, and if we made any mistakes, it could prove disastrous.”

“I think that our best chance is to climb up the left hand wall of the canyon – that looks the easier side – and over the top of the web,” RD said.

:
Do we have the time?
: Tanya asked Slimmest.

:
Oh, yes,
: came the reply.  :
I’ve spent the last couple of hours leading the search party on a merry chase, and I’ve left them a little present by the dead soldiers – courtesy of my mistress.
:

“I’ll go first,” RD said, “then Anoushka.  The boy can go next, then the Doctor and Bartes.  We’ll have to leave Iain behind.”

“Not a chance.”  Tanya was vehement.

“I agree,” Bartes said.  “Tanya and I can help him over.”

“I don’t – need any help,” Iain mumbled.  “I can manage – by myself”

Bartes laughed.  “It’s not the time to revert to being Ivan, you idiot.  I’ve got some rope – let’s tie ourselves together.”

That’s a good idea,” said Anoushka.  “Let’s all tie ourselves together.”

RD shrugged, took the rope and cut it into two pieces.  “OK, but in two batches – Anoushka and me, and the rest of you together.”

That’s symbolic,
thought Tanya as she wound the rope around her waist and tied it firmly.

“I’ll see you the other side – if you make it,” RD said as he started clambering up the cliff-face.  He moved slowly, testing each foothold and ensuring that Anoushka put her feet in the same places.  A couple of times those watching held their breath as tentative footholds gave way and cascades of small pebbles fell, but soon the pioneers had reached the far side of the laser net.  RD hurried Anoushka away.

“Where are you going?” Bartes called.  “We could do with your help.”

RD shrugged again and continued walking.  “I don’t want to be hit by the firestorm if you trigger it,” he said over his shoulder.

Tanya led the second party, using the footholds RD had found, with Slimmest in front of her acting as guide.  Peter came second – his light weight and easy athleticism made climbing easy.  Bartes, who took up the rear, was less nimble, but had a reassuring solidity.  It was Iain who was the problem.  He was still rather dazed, and he couldn’t use his right arm to hold on, or to balance.

This made climbing a ticklish business.  It didn’t help that the scree was unstable, and often moved beneath their feet.  Their pace was incredibly slow, and they had to pause frequently to steady themselves.

They were slowly inching along a narrow ledge just over the top of the web when there was a terrible screaming noise behind them and their silhouettes were thrown onto the rocks ahead by a flash of searing blue light.

:
It appears your pursuers have found my little
booby-trap,
: Slimmest told her smugly.  :
I don’t think they’ll be in any shape to follow us – any that survived.:

:
Thank you,
: Tanya replied, :
but a little warning would have been nice.
:

They had dislodged several stones that rained down through and between the laser beams.  They waited tensely to see if anything would be triggered, but there was no reaction from the artillery behind them.

Bartes gave a long exhalation.  “I reckon they don’t want their toys triggered by animals – or minor rock falls,” he said.  “Luckily for us.”

They reached the point at which it was safe to descend.  Step by step they inched downwards, each guiding their neighbour’s feet into cracks and crevices that could take their weight.  Several times hand- or footholds crumbled but the closest they came to disaster was when Peter’s boot caught Tanya’s forehead.

“Careful,” she called.

“Sorry.”

Eventually Tanya reached the valley floor. She breathed a sigh of relief, looked up, and said, “We’ve made…” when Iain’s left foot slipped.  His left hand grasped at the air as he lurched sideways.  As he fell, he managed to grab hold of Bartes’ ankle.  Bartes held on grimly for several seconds, then his hands were inexorably pulled from the cliff face, and both men plummeted past Peter.

Tanya muttered a most unladylike expletive, and knelt down beside Bartes, who was groaning in pain.  He’d landed on his right ankle, which was now bent at a very unnatural angle.  :
How’s Iain?
: she asked Slimmest, who was checking the other man’s injuries.

:
He’s fractured his left wrist,
: the cat told her
,
:
but that’s all.
:

That’s both arms out of action,
Tanya thought,
but at least he’ll be able to walk – and carry a pack.  No such luck for Bartes... 
She gave Bartes a strong shot of local anaesthetic just above his injury and waited for it to take effect.  Once his moans had stopped and his face relaxed, she telekinetically straightened his shattered bones, which luckily hadn’t pierced the skin.  She held the pieces in place while she immobilised the joint with an insta-splint. 

While Tanya was dealing with Bartes, Anoushka arrived, dragging a reluctant RD with her.  ”I can help,” she said.  “Give me the anaesthetic spray and a bandage.”  She numbed Iain’s arm and wrapped it carefully, then helped Tanya mould the quick-drying plaster around his wrist.

“Can we move on?” RD asked once they’d finished.

“We’re going to have to,” Tanya said with a sigh, “but these injuries need proper treatment, and rest, and I’m running out of medication.  We’ve got to reach Telphania soon, or I can’t answer for the consequences.  Slimmest & I can help psionically when we have time – and I’m not exhausted – but for now we’ve got to keep moving.”

“Let’s lighten our loads as much as we can,” suggested Bartes.

They emptied their packs of everything non-essential: extra clothes, most of their equipment – even some of their extra weapons.  The little they retained was shared between Iain, Anoushka, Peter and Tanya, so that RD could help Bartes.

Their progress was achingly slow, but having RD occupied meant that Tanya could talk to Anoushka privately for the first time since they left the ruined tower.  She came straight to the point and asked, “What’s going on between you and RD, Anoushka?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Anoushka replied, but there was a little colour in her cheeks and she seemed to be deliberately looking the other way.

“I thought you had a thing for John D’Arcy.”

“Can’t a girl like more than one man?”  She sounded rather resentful of Tanya’s interest.

“I’m sorry, ‘Noushka – I didn’t mean to offend you.”

They walked in silence for a while.  Finally, Anoushka said, “No,
I’m
sorry, Tanya – I shouldn’t have reacted like that.  It’s just that I’m not really sure of my own mind.  John’s never shown any real interest in me, but on the other hand, RD really cares.”