The Rift - Howard Chris - Страница 22

At the top of the pass, we were tucked out of the wind, and the stars sparkled so close you could taste them. I rested against the tank with Alpha as Kade began heading back down the slope without saying a word.

“Guess he had a change of heart,” I said, watching Kade descend, scraping to hold on with his one hand but mostly just sliding along on his ass. Hell, he might never have stopped if he hadn’t run right into Crow.

“Red must like Zee even more than I figured,” said Alpha. “Least that’s my take.”

“Well, I don’t reckon she’s liking him back.”

“No?”

“You should warn her,” I said. “We both know what he’s after.”

“And what’s that, bud?” Alpha’s face was buried in her hood, but I got the feeling she had just winked at me.

“Come on,” I said. “She listens to you. You should look out for her.”

“I’m looking out for those Harvesters.”

The base of the slope had disappeared in the darkness, but I could see lights flashing down there, like torch beams at the bottom of a deep pit.

“How far do you reckon?” I said.

“They’re a couple hours behind us. Less, if Crow keeps slowing us down.”

I watched as Kade pulled one of Crow’s arms over his shoulder. Ten-foot tall, but Crow was stooped so low, he was damn near folded in half. Zee had him by the other arm, and they were dragging him up the mountain between them.

“Should leave me,” Crow mumbled when they finally reached us.

“That’s no way to talk,” Zee said.

“Just holding you back.” You never heard such a big voice sound so pathetic. And he kept whining as we dragged him to the other side of the pass.

A valley stretched to the south, the terrain dropping down steep and disappearing under a blanket of night, until it reared up jagged and snowcapped once again in the distance. And beyond those rocky peaks, on the far side of the valley, the Rift glowed red as it flickered and spat.

I’d never felt so numb with cold nor more in awe of the earth and the sky and the battle one waged with the other. The wind had dropped and turned things silent, and the night grew more strange and beautiful because of it. The moon was not yet fully up, but I knew when it rose, it would dwarf even these mountains, just as it could outshine those stars.

And the five of us were like wide-eyed pilgrims, gazing at the soaring peaks and the steamy red sparks beyond them. It felt like standing at the top of the whole damn world.

The lava bloomed across the southern sky, splashing against the wall of mountains that kept it from pouring into the valley below us, and that lava looked alive. Trapped. Like a living thing caught in the rocks.

“How can there be a way through?” Kade said.

Alpha shrugged. “How else did GenTech get us up here?”

She was right. Somewhere there was a path, a passage, a way that the agents had taken us. A way back to the world that we knew.

“So we go down?” Zee peered into the depths of the valley.

“I say we keep to the high ground.” Kade pointed. “Follow this spine of rock as far as we can.”

The peaks to the west rose tall and crowded, but east of the pass, the ridge ran smoother than anything we’d faced in a while. Hard to see, dark as it had gotten, but it looked like the ridge curved south eventually, and that meant we might avoid dropping into the valley and having to climb back out.

“Problem is,” said Crow, still leaning on Zee, “these tracks go east also.”

He pointed at the strange marks in the ice. We’d followed them the entire way up the pass.

“Maybe they’re heading the same way we are,” I said. “Maybe they can lead us on through.”

“We take the ridge,” Kade said. “None of you has a better idea.”

“How about this for an idea?” I grabbed the tank’s control pad from the ground, my legs numb and weary. “We all ride on top of this thing.”

“We can try,” Crow said, and I helped him climb up there, feeling like a sack of shit for not helping him before.

I caught Zee staring at him, her pretty face choked up and wrinkled with worry. She could hardly breathe, but she looked more concerned about Crow.

“Told you,” Kade said behind me, real quiet. “Dead weight.”

I glanced up at Crow, but he hadn’t heard the punk. Or maybe he had and was too gone to care. And it bothered me that Zee hadn’t heard Kade, either. What was the redhead playing at? Acting the hero, helping out, but on the inside, just looking out for number one.

Alpha had scrambled back to the other side of the pass, standing atop the edge of the slope we’d just climbed.

“We’re not gonna make it,” she said when I joined her. We stared down at where the Harvesters’ torch beams wavered and spun, splashing higher as the troops moved up quick. “Not with Crow.”

“You know we can’t leave him.”

“Never said nothing about leaving him.” She turned to face me, and her eyes were all wet. “But he needs to get his shit together. We’ve seen him use those legs. It’s just in his mind.”

“You can’t say that.” Zee had come up behind us, and Alpha turned away, not letting on she was crying. “You could help him, instead of whispering about him.”

“Easy, girl,” Alpha said. “We’ve all seen him use those legs proper, that’s all.”

“He’s trying. You don’t know him like I do.” Zee went to say more, but then she got choked up, coughed up something dark and spat it out on the ice.

And was it blood? No. Couldn’t let myself think that. I’d promised to get trees growing around her. She was going to get a forest just as pretty as she was. A place she could rest easy and breathe the clean air.

“Let’s go,” Alpha said, steering my sister back towards our busted Soljah and our slippery new friend. “All of us.”

“Try to breathe softer,” I called to my sister, but it came out wrong. Like I was bossing at her, instead of being a good brother. Like I was faking the feeling, and she was still too much of a stranger.

We squeezed on top of the steel box, Alpha working the controller up front, and Kade stationed in the rear with the sub gun. He wrapped his free arm around Zee, and I watched her nestle against him, leaning away from me as she did.

And as the moon began to rise, we started making good speed. Zipping along the ridge, dodging the steep chutes and boulders. Only time we got off to walk was when the route got too skinny, and then we picked our way along behind the tank till things got wider again.

It was a clear night and colder for it. The huge moon looked as frozen as everything else. But we kept warm enough, being all bundled together. Just our teeth chattering. Our fingers shaking in our fuzzy gloves, and our toes numb in our boots.

Weren’t talking at all. Hell, even Kade kept his mouth shut. And I reckon in the end, we moved too quick through the moonbeams. Because we never slowed down to think about how long those tracks had sat in the ice ahead of us. Or how close we might be getting to whoever had made them.

They were waiting for us. Must have heard us coming, or glimpsed us through the dark. And there was no warning.

Just a rush.

A swarm of shadows swept up from both sides of the ridge, appearing before us and behind us, smothering the path.

Our attackers were cloaked and hooded, the clothes they wore shaggy and thick. And they had bows, pulled taught and snapped back with arrows.

Alpha slammed the tank to a halt amid the surge of bodies. And before Kade could open fire, I yanked the gun out of his grasp.

He spun around to glare at me, his eyes on fire.

“Can’t shoot our way out of this one,” I said, staring down at the hooded strangers, the rows of arrows. There were maybe fifty of them surrounding us.

“Look at their weapons,” said Kade. “One bullet would send them running.”