Horizon (5 page)

Not if we can stop Strand first
, Hoku thought.

Squirrel bounded out from behind a rock and leaped in front of Sunbeam. Hoku barely managed to hold on to the reins as Sunbeam jerked his massive body to the side.

“They didn’t like that we sped up,” Squirrel said to Pocket. She acted as if Hoku weren’t even there, as if Sunbeam hadn’t almost trampled her to death. “I heard the big one say they needed to attack now, before we got too far ahead.”

“How many are there?” Hoku asked.

“All my fingers,” Squirrel said. “Plus one.”

“Eleven coming,” Hoku said aloud so Aluna could hear.

Squirrel bolted away, her springy feet carrying her to Odd in three quick strides. A moment later he yelled, “Circle up! Pocket, Squirrel, and the prisoners on the beast. Everyone else, get ready for blood.”

Pocket headed for the rhinebra. Hoku paused to grab the reins of Vachir and Calli’s horse, even though Aluna and Calli were already moving to where Odd wanted them. Calli’s hands were still bound, but he could see Aluna toying with her ropes.

Dash made the rhinebra sit, a defensive pose intended to protect its more delicate underbelly. Not that the other kludge would try to hurt the beast; the rhinebra was more valuable than tech to a bunch of nomads. Dash slid down the rhinebra’s side and joined their group.

“Do we run?” he asked Aluna, his dark eyes darting down the path, to the sides of the valley, and back again. “We must make sure we survive.”

“We’ll know what we’re up against in two flashes,” Aluna said. Her eyes seemed brighter now that a fight was close. “It may be too late to run.”

“Good,” Dash said. “I would not abandon these people to a slaughter unless we had no other choice.”

As he spoke, the world around them seemed to burst into blades and flames and battle cries.

A
LUNA PULLED HERSELF
to the top of the rhinebra’s saddle so she could get a better view of the fight. She thought Pocket had already climbed up, but when she got there, she found only the saddlebags and supplies strapped to the animal’s side.
Good.
She didn’t have to worry about playing prisoner in the middle of a crisis.

“More Upgraders,” Aluna said. She knew Hoku could hear and would share her words with the others. “The girl was right. There are eleven. No beasts of their own, as far as I can see.”

The attacking Upgraders had come from the south, so at least they hadn’t had time to surround the kludge. She watched Odd wade into a cluster of men and women and metal and start swinging his massive, armored arms. The Upgraders dodged and taunted him, but he didn’t falter. He’d seemed focused and methodical, as if he were merely a farmer pulling in his fish nets or a gardener weeding his kelp beds.

Aluna spotted Mags and Squirrel working together. Squirrel darted in and out of combat, grabbing a satchel off one woman and pulling another Upgrader’s shirt over his head. She was a tiny blur of chaos, too quick and unpredictable to be hit.

Mags, on the other hand, approached the fight with calculated precision. Aluna watched her load a needle full of red liquid into a tube, then lift the tube to her mouth. She blew sharply, sending the needle shooting through the air. It lodged itself in the fleshy leg of a huge Upgrader trying to race past Odd. He stumbled to the ground and twitched in the dirt.

Zeelo, who Aluna had assumed was nothing more than a crotchety old woman, wielded her two walking sticks with deadly force and far more speed than seemed possible. Aluna could have watched her forever. She’d never seen someone turn such simple objects into weapons of such incredible power and versatility.

The kludge may not have had any “slayers,” but they were clearly no strangers to fighting for their lives. Even so, they were outnumbered. The attackers were going to win.

“There are too many,” Aluna said to Hoku. “We have to join in to give them any shot of surviving.”

“Dash already decided that for himself,” Hoku said.

Aluna scanned the battle until she found him, a dark-haired figure holding off two Upgraders who’d tried to sneak around the side. Dash’s sword blade flashed, sending a spray of red across his mismatched leathers and robes. The Upgraders — a man with a blackened helmet and a slender woman with silvery fists — were in for a tough day.

She felt another sharp pang in her chest. She wanted to leap into the fray, talons spinning, and fight by Dash’s side. She’d been named the Dawn-bringer, after all, not She Who Watches from a Safe Distance.

Reluctantly, Aluna tore her gaze from Dash and surveyed the rest of the fighting. Most of the attackers were still clustered around Odd, trying to break through his wild, vicious swings. An Upgrader barked an order and three others detached themselves from the pack and ran straight for the rhinebra.

“Three on their way,” Aluna said to Hoku. “You and Calli get up here!”

“No,” Hoku said. “If I hide, our plan is over.”

She looked over the rhinebra’s side and saw Hoku searching in the packs for a weapon. Calli tugged at his arm, but Aluna couldn’t hear what she was saying. Probably something about certain death, because that’s what Hoku was walking into. It was one thing to be brave, but surviving fights also took skill and practice, and he didn’t have either.

“Wait,” Aluna said. “I have a plan.”

The rhinebra had clearly been trained to sit and do nothing during battles; it was too valuable a treasure to be harmed by either side. But a motionless rhinebra made a great barrier — not between them and their enemies, but between Aluna, Calli, Hoku, and the rest of Odd’s kludge.

“Vachir!”

Vachir looked up from where she was standing with the other horses. Her tail swished, her front hoof pawed at the earth. She wanted this almost as much as Aluna did. Without another command, she cantered over and stood by the rhinebra’s side, right under Aluna.

Aluna maneuvered herself off the rhinebra’s saddle and slid down its flank. She grabbed Vachir’s saddle and twisted it onto her back. In two flashes Aluna had her tail wrapped around the front saddle horn and the end strapped to Vachir’s side. Vachir’s hair bristled. They were ready.

“What are you doing?” Hoku said. “You can’t go out there! If the attackers don’t kill you, Odd or Mags will when it’s over.”

“Hoku’s right,” Calli said. “But maybe I can fly us away, one at a time. I’ll start with —”

“No,” Aluna said. “We stay here and fight . . . . We just don’t let Odd and Mags know we’re fighting. We can use the rhinebra for cover. Hoku, can you bring them to us?”

It took Hoku a moment to figure out what she was asking. “I’m the bait?”

“If you’re up for it,” Aluna said.

He grinned. “Anything is better than actually fighting!”

“Don’t forget to use your shield,” Calli said. She pulled a retractable spear from Vachir’s saddlebag and expanded it to its full two meters.

Hoku bolted out from behind the rhinebra and yelled, “You Gizmos want a fight? Come and get one!”

Aluna saw him twist his wrist to turn on the force shield. A shimmering wall appeared just in time to deflect one of the Upgrader’s daggers. His bravado wavered slightly, but he recovered. “Nice shield, right? You’ll have to kill me to get it!”

“That’s enough,” Aluna said. “Get back here!”

She maneuvered Vachir to the side, frustrated that they had to stay hidden behind the rhinebra. She could see the three Upgraders charging at Hoku: a large, dark woman wearing scaled armor over most of her body; a lighter-skinned man with an animal’s muzzle jutting out of his face; and a person completely hidden in bulky robes, but wielding huge swords in each hand.

“Faster!” Aluna called to Hoku. She released Spirit and Spite, her newly repaired talon weapons, from their hidden spot in her sleeves and started to swing them. In a flash, the two thin chains were whirring in deadly circles at her sides. Vachir danced beneath her, a storm barely contained.

“If it goes badly, you fly Hoku away,” she said to Calli.

Calli gripped her spear tighter and did a few slow figure eights. The girl had been practicing regularly, but still wasn’t ready for this kind of fight. Aluna preferred to handle the enemy herself and use Calli as backup.

Hoku ran between them and there was no more time for thinking, no more time for wondering if they should have done something else.

Aluna sent her right talon at the large woman’s eyes and sent her left for the woman’s arm, hoping to either blind her, immobilize her weapon hand, or both. The woman yelped and dodged, batting the talon out of the air with her armored limb.

Vachir spun and kicked, landing two powerful hooves in the woman’s chest. She went sprawling backward with a grunt — and hopefully some broken ribs.

“Like a thunderbolt,” Aluna said. Vachir shook her head proudly and spun to face their next victim.

The battle became a blur. The attacker with swords managed to land a cut across her forehead. She blinked the warm blood out of her eyes and managed to wrap a talon around his throat. When his hood fell back, she almost dropped her weapon in surprise. The Human underneath had been burned so badly that she couldn’t even make out his features. All she saw were two bright-orange eyes glaring out from a ravaged landscape of angry flesh.

One of the burned man’s swords burst into flames while the other crackled into blue ice. He plunged them both at Vachir’s flank, thinking she’d be frozen in place by her rider’s shock. But Vachir had a mind of her own and danced easily out of the way.

Aluna yanked the talon she’d wrapped around his neck and he fell face-first to the ground with a strangled cry. Vachir reared, ready to bring her hooves down on the back of his head or his spine.

“No!” Aluna shouted. “Just an arm. Or a leg.”

Vachir screamed her frustration but shifted her body and landed on the man’s shoulder. The ground muffled his cries.

After the third attacker fell, knocked unconscious by a vicious hit from the butt end of Calli’s spear, Hoku ran off to fetch more of them. Aluna scanned the battle and saw Dash helping Mags and Squirrel, saw Odd fighting three opponents and still holding his own. Zeelo seemed to be cursing more than fighting, but her old bones and incredible skill were keeping her up and alive.

“Last two!” Hoku called, racing toward them with his shield activated.

“Bring ’em in,” she answered.

Aluna could hear her heart beating through her body, could see the glow of her breathing necklace as it pulsed at her neck. Sweat dripped down her forehead and down her back. Vachir’s body was too warm under Aluna’s tail, her gray horse flank slick and darkened with moisture.

Tides’ teeth, she felt
alive.
Maybe for the first time in weeks. She wanted to whoop and yell, to scream at her enemies and run, fast as sunlight itself and as far as she could go. And maybe a few months ago, she would have. But now she harnessed the battle rush, channeling it into her strikes, her precision, her technique.

She watched Hoku running toward their spot, two Upgraders gaining ground right behind him. One of them shot a gout of sickly green liquid from a weapon in his hand, and Hoku twisted, flicked his wrist, let his force shield take the damage.

But in that moment, in just a flash, his foot hit a rock and he fell. It seemed as if the entire world slowed down as his shoulder crashed into the hard ground and he slid, suddenly obscured by a cloud of dust and grit.

“Hoku!” Calli screamed.

The Upgraders would be on him before he could get back up. One raised her ax above her head, ready to strike. But Hoku hadn’t made it to the rhinebra. If Aluna went for him, everyone would see.

“Go,” Aluna told Vachir. The horse leaped forward eagerly, out into the open.

Even on the ground, Hoku had the brains to activate his shield for the first of the Upgrader’s attacks. The ax bounced off it with a shower of sparks. The Upgrader took the sudden recoil, spun the ax, and went for a second hit.

And then Aluna was there, spinning her talons and wielding Vachir like a weapon.

She heard someone behind her and assumed it was Calli, coming to pull Hoku out of the battle. “Get him out of here,” she said.

“We will,” said a boy’s voice.

Aluna turned and saw Pocket helping Calli drag Hoku back to the rhinebra. There was no time to argue. No time to figure out what this meant for their survival or their hopes of finding Karl Strand. Her enemies were still up, and in this moment, they were all she had time to see.