Chapter 24

BLACKWOOD’S BATTLE

The Early Sun sank toward the western horizon, as the Main Sun burned a late afternoon heat onto the reinforced metal deck. Kheppra Isle was barely visible to the north, over the Trievanic Sea’s sparkling ripples. A steady trickle of smoke rose from the top of it, leaving a slight haze and an ashy smell in the air.

Blackwood, spent from struggling, slumped against the anti-aircraft gun in the center of the deck. Only a single soldier held her hands behind her back now, though another stood nearby, rifle at the ready. Blackwood glanced at the conning tower where another pair stood, one on a radio, the other peering through a small scope. The atmosphere was tense. She heard the word leuftkernel being tossed around a lot, as well as kommandir. For the moment, she gathered, they were waiting on that autorotor to return and hadn’t expected to be out here without a commanding officer. They knew there were enough explosives beneath their feet to blow up a small island, and wanted to be off the boat.

Another surge of nausea churned Blackwood’s stomach. Again she pictured the black-jacketed officer with his gun pressed into Andrew’s forehead, and again she heard the bang in her head that had never come. She heaved, but she had nothing left in her stomach. The soldier holding her wrists made a noise of disgust, and muttered something to the man on the left. Something about women’s weak stomachs, no doubt.

Blackwood tried to focus. The lightning. If she hit the submarine right now, in the right place, the whole thing could blow, long before reaching Marldox. If it weren’t for Andrew down there somewhere, she’d have done it already. If I’d never joined the navy? If I’d been a better listener? If I’d chosen not to trust him with a fifteen year-old Dhavnak boy, merely because of the rumors of a war? She shook her head violently. She couldn’t change the past, and wouldn’t know where to start if she could. The bottom line was, Andrew was in over his head, and no one else would save him. Not any of these soldiers, not that traitor Holland, and definitely not Cu Zanthus, no matter what Andrew thought.

The access hatch near the conning tower opened, and Cu Zanthus climbed up. Blackwood still wasn’t used to this older, harder-looking version of him, with the dark hair. Not someone she would have called handsome, with his too-large ears and square chin, but it was still easy to see why Andrew had gone for him. It wasn’t just the looks, though; she knew that instinctually. Cu Zanthus had been exactly who he needed. Someone who listened and didn’t judge, and told him what he wanted to hear. A combination of disgust and guilt turned her stomach.

One of the soldiers on the conning tower yelled to Cu Zanthus. Something something leuftkernel something something something, ending in a gesture at the hazy sky. Cu Zanthus got his feet on the deck, and leaned down to pull Andrew up behind him. Blackwood started breathing again. Andrew caught sight of her halfway out, but jerked his eyes away quickly. Once fully out of the access hatch, he slunk to the base of the conning tower and huddled against it, eyes fastened on Cu Zanthus. There was a red mark on his cheek she didn’t remember. Blackwood’s jaw clenched, and she slid her eyes back to Cu Zanthus.

He was answering the soldier. No gestures from him, just a commanding tone with an edge of anger. The soldier saluted with that strange combination that crossed both face and chest, using only one fist, then went back to scanning the sky. The soldier beside him got back on the radio and made a vague rounding-up gesture toward the other soldiers on the deck – some ten of them just on the bow, with who knew how many on the other side of the conning tower. They wouldn’t all fit in an autorotor. Some of these had been on the boat already and would leave on inflatables, so the officers at the base wouldn’t suspect anything. The submarine was probably already running on auto-pilot, as they all prepared to disembark. Blackwood hadn’t seen anything to indicate there were Belzenes on board. At this point, she would just have to assume there weren’t.

But where was Holland? Were both he and the leuftkernel missing?

Blackwood watched Cu Zanthus, striding across the deck and barking commands to the soldiers at the rails. Now that she was looking for it, she saw his agitation. He slid into the role of commander easily, despite looking younger than almost anyone there, but his body was too stiff, his words too forced, his face too tight. He hadn’t been expecting to do this alone. The leuftkernel was gone, and it hadn’t been either him or Andrew who had done it. That left only one possibility: Holland had shrouded the leuftkernel away. Double agent then? Or had he just received contradictary orders?

The beating sound of blades hit her ears. The autorotor was finally in sight, coming from the direction of the island. A few of the men cheered. Others looked uneasily at the access hatch, as if still waiting for their commanding officer to return. Blackwood looked to Andrew again, and caught him staring at her. Glaring, as if everything were her fault. If I’d made Holland take him somewhere else, where Cu Zanthus wouldn’t have found him? No. Here and now. Cu Zanthus would take Andrew on the ’rotor, she was certain. At some point, whether Blackwood herself was still on the boat or not, Andrew wouldn’t be… and that was when she could strike it with lightning. When he was just far enough to be safe.

After that, Andrew would be on his own with Cu Zanthus, one way or another. I have to get through to him before then. But how?

What had Holland said? His fears and desires are just as real to him. How could that help her? Andrew feared her, and desired Cu Zanthus. Or… no. That wasn’t quite right. He got agitated at her often, but he wasn’t scared of her, not really.

An image came back to her, of twelve year-old Andrew motionless in bed and staring at the wall. Fears and desires. To lose both parents at that age must have made the whole world feel unstable, as if anyone could vanish at any second. No wonder he’d been afraid to reach out again. But five years ago, Cu Zanthus had made it happen – he’d brought back light and hope, and maybe even tentative trust. And then both he and Blackwood had left, almost simultaneously, leaving Andrew reeling all over again.

No. It wasn’t his sister Andrew feared. He’d told her his worst fear, right in that basement in Ellemko, and it had rolled right past her. They’re gone, you’re gone, and I’m alone, Mila.

Blackwood’s next thought hit her like a blow. I shouldn’t have left. It wasn’t the familiar guilt that spoke this time, heavy with excuses, but a deep conviction that she’d taken the last vestige of solidarity in his life and thrown it away. And there was nothing she could do to fix it. She couldn’t promise him she’d always be there, especially not now. But she’d be damned if she left him thinking for the rest of his life that no one had ever cared.

Andrew is not my enemy. Three deep breaths. He’s my brother.

She looked away from the ’rotor and back toward the conning tower. “Andrew! I need to tell you something.”

Both the guard holding her and the one nearby glanced over at her voice. But either the Belzene words meant nothing to them or they didn’t have orders to keep them from talking, because they turned back to the approaching autorotor after just a second. Only Andrew kept his eyes fastened on her, his expression even harder than before.

She pitched her voice loud enough to carry over the approaching ’rotor. “I shouldn’t have left you to raise yourself at fifteen. And I’m not just saying that because of Cu Zanthus. It wasn’t fair to you. It wasn’t fair to either of us. I’m sorry. I hope – someday – that you can forgive me.”

Andrew’s brow drew down, as if Blackwood had said the last thing he expected. He straightened, his gaze flicking to Cu Zanthus at the other end of the boat, then back to her. “Someday?” he repeated, an edge to his voice.

“You’re not alone,” Blackwood said. “You’re not alone in still trying to figure the world out. You’re not alone in learning. You’re not alone if you think things should have been different. Whatever happens, from here on out, remember that. You are not alone. And you never have been.”

The sound of the autorotor’s propellers thrummed louder as it came directly overhead. The blink of a solar cell from its tail flashed into Blackwood’s eye. The force of its blades sent a windstorm over the whole deck, tossing her curls into her face. Blackwood didn’t dare look away from Andrew.

He took a single step closer. A look of urgency had come over his face. “Mila!” he said, clearly straining to make his voice heard. “What are you gonna do?”

“I’m still with you, Andrew,” she said. “Don’t forget it. You hear me?”

“Mila, no, you can’t just stand there and tell me you–”

Suddenly, Cu Zanthus was at his side, taking his arm. Andrew flinched at his touch, and clammed up instantly. His eyes stayed on her, wide and frenzied. Cu Zanthus barked something at the guard who had her wrists, ending with an angry jerk of his head toward her. The guard answered, his expression terse. She couldn’t hear their words, and couldn’t imagine they could hear each other, either. Cu Zanthus shook his head. He jabbed a finger first at her, then at the rope now dangling from the autorotor. The guard shoved her forward.

Blackwood glanced back just long enough to make sure Cu Zanthus was planning to bring Andrew up behind her. How far away would they need to be before she risked that strike? Would Cu Zanthus kill her afterward? Right in front of Andrew?

But what about Holland? Her breath suddenly came short. She didn’t know anymore. If he’d taken the leuftkernel, maybe she’d been wrong about him. He might come back. And if the submarine was in the process of blowing up, or was sinking to the bottom of the ocean, Holland would be dead. As fast as that. Xeil’s grace. Could I live with myself?

She was almost to the rope when the submarine bucked beneath their feet. Blackwood’s foot slid and she slammed to the deck. Her thigh erupted in pain. A couple soldiers were thrown over the rail. Blackwood, her hands free now, clawed herself to a halt as the boat righted itself. Her foot dangled over the edge. She looked around wildly for Andrew, and found him wrapped around one of the ladder rungs leading up to the conning tower, his face ashen. Cu Zanthus, at his side, was already back on his feet, gesturing emphatically for the soldier who’d let go of Blackwood to continue loading her up. The soldier leaned down to grab her, but his lips were moving in some desperate prayer – like Holland, Blackwood couldn’t help remembering – and his hands shook as he tried to pull her up.

Blackwood shoved him off and got to her feet, limping as fast as possible toward Andrew. She expected the guard to grab her again, but he didn’t. She started to glance back, but the boat lurched a second time. She kept her weight low and didn’t go down. She could hear the shrieks of the men now; the autorotor had backed off, no doubt because of the pilot’s fears of the submarine exploding. No. Not yet. Not yet!

The access hatch burst open as Blackwood passed it, and Holland poked his head out. He spotted Blackwood immediately.

“CSO!” he yelled. “I shrouded back – he touched me right when I – he was throwing lightning and – and then this lava came down, and he grabbed me – I tried to send him back, but he got away–”

Blackwood leaned over and took his arm, hauling him out in one swift move. In his right hand, Holland clutched his chunk of arphanium, his bandaged forefinger the only one not closed around it. His garrison cap was gone and his Dhavvie uniform jacket was covered in blood – not quite dry, by the look of it.

“Did you take the leuftkernel? Did you shroud him?” Blackwood shouted.

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Killed him?”

Holland glanced down at his jacket, then back up. “Yes, ma’am!”

“Are you with us? The truth!”

“Yes, ma’am! I swear!”

The boat swayed in the other direction and Holland staggered back, stumbling as one foot fell into the open access hatch. Blackwood caught herself on the hatch door, throwing another quick look around the deck. It was madness. Some soldiers clung to the rails, while others leapt into the water and swam away as fast as possible. No one was paying the least bit of attention to her or Holland.

The minute the boat was even slightly upright again, Blackwood pulled Holland away from the hatch.

“Those creatures want to get back here, CSO!” Holland said urgently, staying at a low crouch. “I’m sure of it! I’ll tell you everything, I promise, ma’am, but right now–”

“It talked to you, did it?”

“Yes, ma’am. We don’t have much time. Please, we have to go!”

Blackwood ground her teeth and glanced toward Andrew. He was clinging to Cu Zanthus’s jacket and staring at the two of them wide-eyed. He was close enough that he’d probably heard every word. Cu Zanthus was screaming into a radio, while his free hand beckoned vigorously for the autorotor to come closer. The pilot seemed to be ignoring Cu Zanthus as completely as Cu Zanthus was ignoring Andrew.

Which meant there was almost no chance of Andrew getting off the submarine on that autorotor. Blackwood was out of options. Dhavvie spy or not, Holland was all she had.

She turned back to him. “Get my brother and get him out of here!”

“I can take you first, CSO–” Holland said.

“No! Get Andrew safe. Now!”

“I can bring you both!”

“Right now, this boat is set to hit Marldox. I will not leave until I personally see it stopped or destroyed. Whether there’s a monster on it or not. Whether I’m on it or not. But I don’t want you or Andrew here. Is that clear?”

Holland gaped. “Are you saying the second we’re gone–”

“Don’t argue, Holland! And don’t you dare shroud back to this boat once you’re gone. I can’t have the distraction. Am I clear?”

Holland hesitated, then saluted. “Ma’am.” He turned and took off across the deck without looking back. Blackwood limped in the other direction to open the access hatch over the aft power room. Halfway there, she heard Andrew start screaming.

“Mila! The lightning! Don’t let it use the lightning! The darkness–”

And then his voice cut off, as abruptly as it had begun. Blackwood darted a look over her shoulder. Andrew, Cu Zanthus, and Holland were gone. She drew in a shaky breath. Don’t let it use the lightning. What was he trying to tell her? How could she stop it from using it? And why was that his focus all of a sudden?

Blackwood turned back to the hatch. Andrew was barely reliable, and now was hardly the time to worry about it. She lowered herself and braced her feet on the gauges of the control panel, then pried open the overhead slats. The submarine life rafts were in here, in big yellow canvas bags. One at a time, she heaved them onto the deck. Four of them – enough for twenty-four people. She doubted any of the Dhavvies would get far, but it was a chance she was willing to throw them, if only because it was a chance for her too.

She was just pulling herself back up when a huge, muscled creature crashed headlong through the interior wall at her left, just beneath her feet. The boat heaved with its weight. She clung to the lip of the hatch, staring back down into the submarine. The same burning head she’d seen before, huge teeth, wide black eyes. Sparks danced over its body, sending equipment hissing and sizzling. Blackwood cringed. If Holland had shrouded this thing to the lower flats where the bombs were, instead of the aft torpedo room, they’d be dead already.

One of those crimson eyes latched onto her, where she hung half-in, half-out of the access hatch.

“Tre,” it breathed through its jagged teeth. “Tre-ta-oncho-okmi.”

Blackwood scrambled from the hatch and slammed it shut behind her, closing the monster inside the sub.

“OK. OK,” she whispered under her breath. Dhavnak men still ran rampant over the deck, but several had jumped overboard and were swimming toward the autorotor. Two of the life rafts she’d tossed out had been dragged to the rail, and one was even half-inflated. Thank Xeil; some of the men up here were submariners that had been sent to pilot the boat, and knew what they were doing. It lightened her work load. She opened the straps of the closest bag and yanked out the high pressure cylinder and pump, then hollered to one of the other men.

“Get this operational! Quick!”

She left him to try to figure it out, and jogged – or rather, limped briskly – across the deck toward the conning tower. Something slammed against the underside of the deck, sending vibrations through the metal planks. The submarine tossed sickeningly. Blackwood caught herself on the huge barrel of the anti-aircraft gun, using it to anchor herself as she checked both sides of the conning tower as best she could. No one; even the soldiers nearby had taken flight now. Bobbing heads speckled the water, swimming away as fast as possible.

She turned back to see whether any life rafts had been launched yet – and saw the monster from the shrouding realm rearing its gigantic body through the access hatch. Just the part that was out was twice as tall as she was, its body bulging far too wide for the small opening. The steel of the hull, thicker than the interior bulkheads, creaked at its pressure. Beyond it, she saw the barely-filled life raft bobbing in the ocean, several men crammed onto it, and another completely packed one, floating with two hangers-on just behind. She didn’t think there was a single man left on the boat now. At least not on the deck.

Lightning crashed down from the sky, hitting the conning tower behind her. The galvanized energy from the strike washed across the steel and up through the AA gun she held, jolting her whole body. She felt her muscles lock tight as the energy coursed through them. Horror filled her. The monster was going to take her out, right now; she wouldn’t have time to swim to a life raft, wouldn’t have time to kill it, wouldn’t have any way to stop the Desert Crab getting all the way to Belzen if the monster didn’t blow it up beforehand. Whoever had that detonator could still get there and trigger the explosives, if they didn’t find some other way to ignite them. She had waited too long.

No. The mark on her forearm was buzzing with energy, almost as if responding to the monster’s power. Don’t let it use the lightning. Well, it was too late now. And that lightning – the power she may have gotten from this very monster during the attack – was the only weapon she had. She would use it to kill that beast, if it was the last thing she did.

Her whole body began to tingle in resonance with the mark, from the soles of her feet to the palms of her hands. Intense cold flooded her. She gritted her teeth and sent her will up toward the sky, clutching intangibly for the energy she’d used before.

A bright flash of light lit up the sky to her left. Stabbing pain erupted over the burn mark. Blackwood slid down the AA gun, her body trembling violently with sudden weakness. She saw the creature clinging to the deck now, its chitinous legs scrabbling madly to pull its body from the hatch and get to her. It was only about a body’s length away now. Lightning seared in front of Blackwood’s eyes, splashing against the nose of the submarine with a loud crackle. She felt the backlash from the strike wash over the steel of the boat, jarring her to her teeth.

She’d hoped to hit the beast. She’d hoped to blow up the boat around it. But the submarine had been hit at least a couple times now, and the bombs hadn’t gone off. It wasn’t working.

Slowly, painfully, Blackwood pulled herself back toward the open hatch directly in front of the conning tower. There was still the self-destruct system. She’d fixed the severed wire. She just had to make it to the control room – or, more likely, into the conning tower above that, where the captain would have been during battles. If she could get to that, she could take care of both of these problems, once and for all.

A bolt of light streaked from overhead again, washing the world blindingly white. The boat pitched, and Blackwood rolled. She threw out an elbow and stopped herself, her back scraping excruciatingly against the steel deck. But she didn’t have time to recover before her body went rigid, as galvanized energy poured through her. Thunder erupted like a sonic blast. The lightning had struck dangerously close; maybe it had even struck her.

She tried to get up, but she seemed to be glued to the steel deck. Currents of voltage coursed through her body. She tried to move her arm, her leg, her head, anything, but the muscles stayed locked. Her own body had become a prison. She knew, without a doubt, that she was about to die.

Move. Just move. The conning tower is right there. All I have to do…

The monster was suddenly above her, huge eyes narrowed, jagged teeth bared. “Chenel-gabell-mo-cumachas-beaatha!”

Blackwood focused, harder than she ever had before. She focused on bringing energy forward from every switch, every wire, every solar cell and humming motor, every battery and generator, within the Desert Crab. She focused on pulling the power up through the surface of the deck and concentrating it all on this center of gravity that stood over her. She focused on the flash powder and dynamite inside the Dhavnak explosives.

She felt a surge of energy, more powerful than anything yet. The blinding light in the sky pulsed, held a beat too long, then fluttered and died. Thunder washed over them in one last earsplitting crash that seemed to shake the boat like a piece of debris. The creature reared and let out a roar. Its head whipped from side to side. The deck beneath Blackwood’s back heated so fast and so hot that it was like being dropped on an oven. Clouds of black and orange surged toward her from either side.

Then suddenly, Holland was sliding beneath the beast. He threw his body atop Blackwood’s. The Desert Crab vanished. The monster vanished. There was a flicker of stars, a painful stab of cold after the excruciating heat, then hard cement beneath her back. In the distance, Blackwood heard the low boom of the explosives, ripping apart both her submarine and the mysterious creature from another world.