Sunset in Silvana (Da'ark Nocturne Book 1) (28 page)

“But do you care for him?”

“That’s just it: I don’t know.  The one thing I
do
know is that he’s comforting to be around at the moment.  I feel safer when he’s near me.  And he is rather appealingly vulnerable.”

This took Tanya aback.  Officious, yes; obnoxious, often; competent, yes, very; but vulnerable?  She looked over to where RD was supporting Bartes’ weight on his shoulder.  Perhaps she should re-evaluate him.

The valley began to open out, and they could see the tops of trees ahead.  Anoushka ran to a ridge a little ahead of them.  “We’ve made it,” she cried.

As Tanya caught up with her, the vista below unfolded: the sun was setting behind them, but ahead of them, in the shadow of the mountains, was a long wooded slope that led to a range of foothills.  Several rivulets trickled down the sides of the valley to form a mountain stream that flowed down the hillside and onto a cultivated plateau.

RD helped Bartes to a flat rock and, having settled his burden, strolled forward to survey the land ahead through his binoculars.  “I think you’re right,” he announced after a few minutes.  “I can see a barbed-wire fence beyond the foothills that must mark the border, and I can make out a small town some miles beyond it.  Perhaps the night after next we’ll sleep in a Telphanian hotel, and – you never know – there might even be a restaurant... with candles…”  He smiled, and raised an eyebrow in Anoushka’s direction.

She giggled, then frowned.  “But could we afford it?” she asked.

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”  There was an uncharacteristic playfulness in his voice.  “I’m certain our good doctor has enough left from her illicit trading for a few drinks.  And after we’ve spent her profits, we can contact Mercy, and find out how senior a field agent we’ve been nurturing in our collective bosom.  I’m sure she has access to enough credit to put us all in the lap of luxury, eh, Tanya?”

He rarely used Tanya’s first name before, and she was trying to work out how to respond to his olive branch when the rocks behind him started to shift, as if the stone was turning to mud, and something emerged from the cliff face.  It was as large as a man, but black and chitinous, and it moved with inhuman speed.

“Oh God,” breathed Tanya, pulled back into the past...

...“Tell me another story, Mama –
please.
”

“Just one more, darling.  (Stop wiggling if you want to stay sitting on my knee.)  You remember that I told you about Lyra?”

“Yes – Lyra the Brave. She was my great-great-great-great...”

“Well, let’s just say she was your ancestor.  And you remember that the Ancients made our people slaves for a long, long time?  And how we fought for our freedom?”

“And there was a bear, wasn’t there?”

“Well, Lyra’s husband was called Beran, but I don’t think he was a bear!  But he
was
a great fighter, and led the resistance in our province.  Well, one day, while he was away fighting, the Ancients sent a Ripper to attack his family.”

“What’s a Ripper, Mama?”

“The Rippers were made by the Ancients to kill our people.  They were partly like us, and partly like giant insects.  They were covered in sharp bits, and had big knives for hands.  They had one purpose: to chop people into little pieces.  And once they came after you, they didn’t stop until you – or they – were dead.”

“But - but Lyra killed this one, didn’t she?”

“She did.  She defended her children with the great sword Dragonfang, and the Ripper couldn’t get to them.  But the Ripper sliced her apart as they fought, and when Beran got home, she and the Ripper were lying in a pool of blood in front of the nursery door.”

“Oh!”  Tanya recalled how she buried her face in her mother’s hair and sobbed.  “But it’s just a story, isn’t it?” she wept.  “It didn’t really happen, did it?”

“Sweetheart, it’s a story – but not ‘just’ a story.  It really happened.  Our freedom was hard-won, and cost many lives.  Why do you think we’ve sung of it every dawn since?”

That night, she dreamed of running down endless corridors, followed by the click of claws on stone and the grating sound of scales rubbing together.  It had triggered her first – involuntary – use of teleportation.  She had woken with a scream, naked and shivering, in her parents’ bed.

Her mother’s description of the Ripper was etched in her brain, but it was just a pale reflection of the horror that stood before her now.  It had a face, but more like an insect than a man, with mandibles like a cockroach but the size of a scimitar, and compound eyes like an enormous fly.  Its body was almost human in shape, though no human would have an extra pair of limbs extending from the lower torso.  It was covered in black armour-like scales with spikes protruding from every joint.  What caught her eyes, though, were the curved blades that took the place of forearms and hands.  They were well over a foot long and razor-sharp, and the way they swept back and forth was mesmerising.

Anoushka screamed and hurled herself towards RD in a desperate attempt to save him.  Suddenly, it seemed to Tanya as if everything had slowed down and her companions were dancers in some weird low gravity ballet.  Everything?  No, the monster was still moving quickly, though not in the blur of movement she had just seen.  It occurred to her that she was cursed to witness RD’s death in terrible slow motion.

She stood there, paralysed like a rabbit in front of a snake, until Slimmest raced past her.  Almost without volition, her hand clawed at her pistol.  She levelled her gun and started firing as soon as its barrel cleared the holster.  It was a lightning draw, but still far, far too slow.

Anoushka thrust her hands against RD’s shoulders, knocking him to one side.  She was still airborne when the creature reached her, and one of its scythes caught her just about the level of her left breast.  The impact spun her round, and they saw her face contort with a scream that she suddenly had no breath to make as the razor-sharp talon sliced right through her torso, leaving the two pieces of her body to fall to the ground.

Through desperate tears, and screaming imprecations, Tanya emptied her gun into the hideous thing’s face, firing as fast as her pistol would cycle, watching the bullets emerge from the barrel like a train’s carriages emerging from a tunnel.  She threw the now-empty gun at the demon and, wanting to reach her dying friend, found herself on her knees by Anoushka with no memory of having crossed the intervening ground.

There was nothing she could do to save her friend – all she could do was to take her hand and squeeze it.  Slimmest was standing with her forehead pressed to Anoushka’s.  She was purring, and the terrible surprise and agony cleared from the dying girl’s face.  She looked up into Tanya’s tear-filled eyes and gave a slight smile.  Suddenly, for a mere moment, an expression of hope and joy filled her eyes before the life in them vanished.

Tanya closed those still, blue eyes and whispered a prayer.  Slimmest reared up on her hind legs and gently patted Tanya’s face before leaving her to her grief.  Without warning, there was a brief pain in Tanya’s thigh, and she found herself standing up. 

When the attack came, Bartes had been relaxing, grateful for the opportunity to rest.  Anoushka’s scream had roused him from his reverie, and his training had taken over: he’d swung his ACR up and been firing almost before the stock was resting in his left hand.  His ankle might have been injured, but there was nothing wrong with his aim, and he’d pumped continuous fire into the monstrosity, with Iain and Tanya matching him on either side.

He’d watched as many of the bullets had glanced off the fiend’s armour, but had noticed that enough got through to slow its inhuman speed.  It had begun to leak a greenish ichor in multiple places, had faltered then sunk to – no, into – the ground.  When he inspected the area later, even the demon’s vital fluids – if that’s what they were – had disappeared.

He’d looked on helplessly as Tanya fell to her knees by her closest friend’s riven corpse.  Now he saw a shiver go through her body.

Tanya rose to her feet.  “We must move on,” she said tonelessly.

“What do you mean, you bitch?” RD cried.  “Anoushka’s dead.  Don’t you even care?”  Tanya ignored him, and started to remove Anoushka’s blood-soaked pack from her remains.  “Stop right there or I’ll shoot you down.”

She turned.  Her face showed no emotion, nor did her voice.  “Oh, I care – but we have to escape.  The mission comes first.”

“Tanya?” Bartes said.

“Of a sort.  As a senior Mercy operative, I have a pharmacopoeia implanted in my femur.  It has a very special drug in it, designed to help save my life – and those of my team – in extreme situations.  It triggers if and when I can’t cope with my feelings, and temporarily cauterises my centres of emotion.  It brings a more – efficient – personality to the surface so that I can function.”

RD did not seem to be listening.  “You snake!  You should have died instead of her.”

“If you want a shouting match, I can’t help you there,” the woman said.  “Believe me, you can’t blame me any more than I blame myself.  Part of me desperately wants you to stop waving that gun around and put me out of my misery, but I’d have to advise you that such an act would be detrimental to the mission.  You’re only trying to assuage your grief – and your own feelings of guilt – by taking them out on me, anyway.”

RD stopped dead, and sank to his knees by Anoushka’s body, angrily brushing away the moisture which filled his eyes.  “You’re right, damn you,” he said.  “If she hadn’t pushed me aside…”

Iain shook his head.  “She clearly cared enough for you to sacrifice her life in your place. There was nothing you – or any of us – could have done.”

“I know,” RD said miserably.  “But what shall we do about her body?  We can’t just leave her like this.”

“There’s nowhere here to bury her,” the woman that was Tanya said.  “We should cremate her remains.  I’ll appreciate that – when I’m myself again.”

She helped RD and Peter gather some fallen pine branches and lay out Anoushka’s body on them: she coldly efficient, the others both weeping openly.  Iain and Bartes could only watch in solemn silence.  They gathered around the pyre.

“Does anyone want to say anything?”  Tanya looked around the others, but one by one they shook their heads.  “Very well.  I know how you’re all feeling and – if I were myself – I couldn’t find any words, either.  As it is, though…”  She closed her eyes.  “Dear Lord, we ask you to receive the soul of our dear friend and companion, Anoushka.  There is no greater testimony to her love than she gave her life for another.  Please welcome her into your arms.  We will miss her, and pray that we will all one day meet again in your presence.”

They ignited the pyre, stood for a moment watching the flames take hold, and set off eastwards again.  They trudged downhill through the pinewoods, along the side of the burgeoning stream, until night fell, and sought shelter in a thicket.

In the early hours of the morning, Bartes was disturbed by someone laying down beside him.  He blinked himself awake and in the moonlight he could see the tears running down Tanya’s cheeks.  She didn’t have to say anything.  He put his arm around her and held her as her shoulders heaved.

As if in sympathy, a steady, unrelenting rain began.  The trees were scant cover, and it seemed an age before the Eastern sky was tinged with a paler shade of grey.  “We’d better move on,” Bartes said.

“What’s the point?”  Tanya’s voice was nearly inaudible.

“We have to get back to Regni – people are depending on us.”

“Like Anoushka did?”  Sorrow and anger fought for control of her face.

“Yes.”  He sighed.  “But she was only one person.”

“You bastard!”  She pushed him away.

“That’s it – let it out.”  He caught her wrists and held them firmly.  “Look, I know you blame yourself, but you did all you could.”

“There must have been
something
more.” Her body went limp.  “It’s happened again.  I’ve b-been given these abilities, but when I need them most – they fail me.”

“There’ll be time to talk about all this later, but for now we must get moving.”

“You’re right.”  Tanya shook herself and sighed.  “Can you walk?  How’s your ankle?”

“Improving.  The cat’s been doing all she could, and she’s been showing me how to use my own talents to regenerate the damaged tissue.”

“I’m sorry.  I’ve been so turned in on my own misery, when I should have been helping you and Iain.”

“Well, I can put a little weight on the injured leg, and with a stick, I should be able to make reasonable time.  This’ll do.”  He picked up a nearby fallen branch, shaped it with a few deft strokes of his combat knife, and lifted himself to his feet.

Nobody wanted breakfast, so they were soon stumbling on through the trees under overcast skies in their individual cocoons of misery, putting one foot in front of the other, hardly noticing their surroundings.  They paused several times by what was now becoming a small river for a brief rest and some food, but nobody ate a great deal.  They spent another miserable night, huddled together in what shelter they could find.

By late afternoon of the next day, the rain had stopped, though the canopy still dripped water down their necks.  Suddenly, Bartes, who was leading, raised his hand.  “I can see something through the trees,” he said.  “Wait here.”

They slumped wearily to the turf, too tired and wet to care where they sat.

Bartes was back after a few minutes.  “That fence we saw from the mountains is just ahead,” he said.  “There are a couple of wooden towers just this side of it – the one on the left is quite close, but the one on the right is several miles away.  They look like they’ve been built recently, and in a hurry.”

“To watch for us?” Iain asked.

“Possibly – or maybe just because of cross-border tensions,” Bartes said.

“What’s on the other side of the wire?”

“A broad strip of ground that looks barren and scorched.  I’d reckon it’s so the Telphanians could watch for anyone coming from this side, but I didn’t see any buildings over there.  We’d better move round to the right till we’re about equidistant from the towers, and make a run for it after dark.”

They moved as quietly as they could for a mile or so through the woods, and Bartes was about to call a halt, when a voice said, “I thought there were more of you.”

They grasped for their weapons and looked around frantically.  On their left, leaning against a tree with his arms folded, was a tall, lean man.  “You won’t need those,” he said.  “I’m Sub-Major Gilbert of Telphanian security, and I’ve been sent here to retrieve you.”

RD pointed his rifle at the newcomer, but Bartes pushed it aside.  “I’d like to believe you,” he said, “but we’ve been let down and betrayed so much that it’s not easy.  Have you any proof?”

The Sub-Major shrugged.  “I could hardly come across the border in uniform – and to carry Telphanian papers would be suicide.”

“I wouldn’t have trusted any of that, anyway,” RD replied.  “We’ve been fooled once too often.”

“I do have this.”  He reached into his pocket.  “It’s for one of your group – Tanya?”

Tanya snatched the paper and scanned it.  Her eyes filled with tears and she crumpled the note and thrust it into Bartes’ hands before turning away.

Bartes straightened out the note.  With a catch in his voice he read it aloud.  “
I’m looking forward to our girls’ night out – the three of us will paint Brogovel red!  S.
”.  He sighed.  “Well, that’s good enough for me.”  He turned to the Sub-Major.  “We left one of our team behind, to escape by another route – so as not to put all our eggs in one basket – and two didn’t make it.  A few days back, one of them had a fatal accident – and the other was killed by some sort of hideous creature, just when we started believing we were going to escape...”

The Telphanian sensed their sombre mood.  “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Well, if you can get us into Telphania, you have my vote of confidence,” Iain said.  “How do we get across the border?”

“That barren strip of land just ahead
is
the border,” the Sub-Major said, “but you can’t just walk across it – there are satellites in orbit whose task is to detect and destroy anything much bigger than a squirrel that tries to cross it.  The satellites are ours – Mercy provided them to help protect Telphania from being invaded.  I have a transponder which gives off a signal that prevents me, and those with me, from being targeted.”

“How did you get across without being spotted?” Bartes asked.  “And how did you know where we would be anyway.”

“As for that, your friend Sophie – the one who gave me the note – told us.  And I crossed last night, by way of the culvert this river runs through.  I was lucky – with the sky overcast, it was very dark, and the cold water prevented them from seeing me on infra-red.”

“Could we get out the same way?” Iain asked.

“No – I could only manage to bring the camouflaged wet suit I wore and a single re-breather.  And anyway, the sky’s clear again, and we couldn’t hide from the ringlight while we crossed the ground to the culvert.  We’re bound to be seen, but hopefully, if we move quickly, we can be across and into the trees before the enemy can react.”

They waited till the sun had fully set and, in the blue-grey light of the rings, the Sub-Major led them along the fence to a hole in the wire.  They scrambled through one by one and waded through the intervening bushes as quickly as they could, then the Sub-Major switched on the transponder and they stepped out onto the strip.

Before they’d gone more than a dozen paces, their silhouettes were projected in front of them by a bright light, several spurts of dust flew up, and an amplified voice said, “That’s far enough.”

They turned, and through the glare of the spotlight, Tanya could just make out the shape of a helicopter.  She muttered a very unladylike expletive.  “Another bloody helicopter!”

“Dammit!” Bartes said.  “They must have been in the air already, patrolling the border.”

“Stay right where you are until we can retrieve you,” the voice said.

“I can see movement from the tower on the left,” Iain said.

“And from the one on the right,” RD added.

Tanya turned to Bartes.  :
I’m not going back,
:
she sent.

The look in her eyes sent shivers down his spine.  :
What are you going to do?
:

:
What I do best.  I failed Anoushka, but I
won’t
fail you.  Warn the others to be ready to run while I distract the enemy.  Do it psionically – RD can bitch about it later.  I’ve got to prepare myself.
:

He did as she bade him, and then sent to her,
:
What exactly do you mean?
:

Her answering grin was barely sane.  :
You remember that drug dispenser I’ve got embedded in my thigh?
:

:
After the other day, how could I forget?
:

:
There’s a special mixture of drugs in there which will give me the ability to do things the enemy won’t be prepared for.
:

:
There’s something you aren’t telling me, isn’t there?
:

Tanya shrugged.  :
It puts a massive strain on the body.  There’s a chance I won’t survive.
:

:
What sort of chance?
:

:
Oh, upwards of 90%.  Now run as soon as the spotlight swings away.
:  She disappeared, and there came twin screams from the direction of the helicopter.  True to Tanya’s prediction, the spotlight swung back towards the fence.  The ’copter’s mini-gun started firing, but not at the fugitives – at the troops from the tower.

-------------------------------------------

As soon as Tanya was ready, she mentally triggered her pharmacopoeia.  :
Black, black, zero, zero, black,
:
she sent deliberately.  :
Authorisation: extreme prejudice.
:  She shivered as the drug cocktail coursed through her bloodstream. 
That should do it: level 4 blur – 16 times normal speed, and freedom from natural self-preservation restraints. 
She instantaneously teleported into the helicopter’s cockpit. 
So this is what it feels like to be invincible.  It doesn’t seem that different – though everything else seems to hardly be moving – and I can’t remember my senses ever being so intense.