Earthbound, p.5
Earthbound, page 5
Knox heaved in an exaggerated breath. “Right.”
“There!” Tehran shouted as he spotted the telltale undulation of earth near the centre of the field. Frozen waves dissolved before the beast and crashed anew into one another.
Knox hit the throttle and accelerated straight toward the earthbound. At the edge of the liquefaction, he turned the machine and shouted, “Now!”
Tehran leapt from the deck, hit solid ground with a couple of quick strides, and launched himself into the sky. The beast’s head remained submerged with only its neck and torso breaking the surface this time. Its back revealed a rough maze of interlocking plates, a row of spines running its length, like spears of flint scratching the sky.
He’d aimed for the earthbound’s neck, where the scales were smaller and the spikes remained dull nubs. Hurtling close, he lifted the wedged-tool over his head. The oily pool of a sensory gland glinted in the light. He hit and drawing on all his strength, plunged the pole into the beast.
The stave connected with the dark spot and shattered. Splinters flew into Tehran’s face. Trying to clear his eyes, he heard Knox’s distant voice shout. “Jump!”
Without hesitating he pushed off the rough, tilting surface. Wind rushed over his body. He opened his eyes, heart seizing at the shallow angle he’d launched himself off the creature. Knox wasn’t going to be able to get to him in time.
The vehicle whined as Knox pushed the engines to their limits. As if in slow motion, Tehran watched his friend cut straight across the broad swath of liquefaction surrounding the earthbound, directly over the creature’s back, grazing the deadly spines by a hair’s breadth, and shot beneath Tehran before he could disappear within the opaque waves.
At Tehran’s sudden impact, the vehicle’s tail kicked out unexpectedly. A sharp correction almost righted them, but a frozen crest took the craft broadside, sending the vehicle into a roll.
Tehran tucked as he was tossed across the broken ground, the impact jarring every bone in his body. Heat flared through his limbs until he finally skidded to a stop near the edge of the field.
“KNOX!” He shot up, immediately searching for signs of his friend.
A cloud of dust obscured his vision as the ground continued to shudder and quake. He stumbled forward blindly, feet sucking into the soft ground of a receding liquefaction. “Knox!”
The field looked like a fast-drying puddle, the once flowing surface cracking and pulling tight in an exaggerated fashion. A breeze picked up, the air began to clear, and a glint of light from the wrecked hovercraft caught Tehran’s eye. Its tail tipped skyward as it lay on its side, the flat deck buried up to the storage compartments by dark soil.
He ran down into the sloped trough left by the creature and caught himself against the machine’s hot engine. Heat seared his palms, but he ignored the sensation as he looked for any sign of Knox. He can’t be— No tuft of fabric caught his eye. No peek of flesh rose from the tumultuous ground. He jumped to the next low crest, seeking a better vantage point.
The beast was gone. Returned to the depth, leaving the surface in chaos. All that remained were small clusters of grain tipped at odd angles like the remnant hair on a mange-ridden animal.
His throat constricted. He can’t be gone. He widened his search, taking longer strides, desperate to see a snatch of colour amidst the neutral earth. A tremor took his hands.
“Tehran?”
Emilia’s voice drifted over the broken ground and his heart crumbled at the unvoiced question. He had to find Knox before she did. Tehran picked up speed and ran through the channels of earth, sweeping every inch with anguished intensity.
A scream cut the air.
He spun, despair tearing at his chest. Please, no. Quick steps led him back to the wrecked hovercraft. Emilia knelt, hands frantically tearing into the soil. Tears stained her face. Muddy rivulets tracked down her cheeks. “Give him back! Give him to me—”
Her desperate cry echoed in his ears and cut into Tehran’s soul. His movements stuttered at the wound, mind rejecting the obvious truth. It can’t be— Emilia’s cries turned distant, surreal. Grief gripped Tehran’s throat in a chokehold, and he stood and stared with sightless eyes at the woman wrestling with the earth itself for the return of her love.
He lifted his eyes to the tree line. Knox could have been thrown clear and knocked unconscious. He could see figures searching the perimeter, weaving through the trees, and a flicker of hope had him imagining Knox striding from the forest with a grin and a nonchalant tip to his shoulders. The mental image cut deep, and he growled, fighting back a wave of emotion. Knox had no power. The impact would have killed him instantly.
The sound of choking sobs cut through his numbed daze. Emilia had collapsed face to the ground, tears wetting the earth she’d clawed at moments before. He dropped to her side, pulling her into his chest and together they broke.
◆◆◆
Hands eventually pulled at them and guided them to the deck of a hovercraft. Emilia was wrapped in someone’s coat, and everyone spoke in hushed whispers. Late afternoon light cut across the hills as the slow procession reentered the cluster. Doors opened, and the town converged on the bedraggled survivors.
Loved ones were swept up into embraces, and others joined Tehran and Emilia in the numb grip of grief. People swarmed Tehran with questions he could not hear, let alone answer, peppering him like flies at a carcass.
“Let him be,” a voice intervened. Council Ship. Loghin’s father remained the eldest Council member in the cluster. His deeply lined face and a head of wispy white hair sat atop a twisted spine. “Give them room,” he commanded, and the press of bodies broke away.
“Thank you, Council,” Tehran mumbled as they stepped from the hovercraft.
Emilia doubled over with a groan of pain. Concern shocked Tehran lucid. She couldn’t speak, but she gripped his arm, and in her dark eyes he saw a new fear bloom.
The baby. Oh, by my oaths, please no.
He straightened and looked around. “Where’s Maven?” He could hear the fear in his own voice, before years of training came to bear. He sucked in a cleansing breath. “You,” he grabbed the arm of a young boy, “go find Maven. Tell her to meet us at Emilia’s place.”
The boy nodded and scampered off.
Tehran spun back to the older man. “Ship, tell the Council I will be there shortly. I need to see to Emilia first.”
Ship nodded and moved off, his twisted back hunched.
Tehran turned back to Emilia, scooping her into his arms. “Let’s get you home, Em. It’s going to be okay.”
She turned her face into his chest. “I can’t lose them both today. I can’t,” she whispered.
“I know.” He moved as quickly between buildings as he dared, trying not to jostle her. Maven and her apprentice Lin were hurrying up the steps of the house as he approached. The women took over the space with calm efficiency.
Tehran lay Emilia in her bed and was prodded out of the room. Emilia, mid-contraction, did not even notice. He caught Maven in the kitchen. “Will she be okay?”
Her expression held an uncharacteristic twist of worry. “I know my business, and I know my daughter. I’ll call when we have word.” She squeezed his arm as she hurried past him towards the small bedroom, leaving him alone.
On the tabletop sat two empty glasses, forgotten emblems of what felt like a lifetime ago.
Memory
Tehran
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. Grief pressed in constricting Tehran’s chest even as he spent the evening moving between council meetings, orchestrating final head counts, to organizing watches around Rikken to warn of any earthbound movement.
Not a tremor had been felt since the upper plateau attack, but Tehran couldn’t trust their luck would hold. He’d offered to go to the Order himself, but the Council nearly mutinied on him right then and there. In compromise, Jai, one of the cluster’s most well-spoken messengers, would be sent with the data they’d managed to gather, along with a plea for support.
It wasn’t until the sun dipped below the horizon that Tehran had been able to slip home and get cleaned up. Half an hour later he reemerged, hair still wet, in a clean long-sleeved top and a worn-in pair of pants. Tehran rubbed his jaw, hesitating before the door to Knox and Emilia’s home. The days’ stubble scratched at his palm.
It felt right to leave a part of himself rough and unkempt, a way to express loss he didn’t have words for. With a steadying breath he knocked softly and stepped inside. Maven sat in the wooden rocking chair in the corner looking worn.
“How’s Em?” he asked, moving through the room and lowering himself into the stuffed chair next to her as quietly as his large frame could manage.
“Still sleeping. The pains have stopped and now we wait. I sent Lin home while it was quiet.”
A clear breath entered his chest at the news. The day held too many worries, but chief among them was his concern for Emilia and her unborn child.
“Tea?” Maven asked as she gestured to herbs in ceramic bowls on the side table between them, pouring only hot water into his mug.
“Thank you,” he said. With a sniff, he identified raspberry leaf and dried ginger and grabbed a pinch for his cup. He didn’t let it steep long enough but took a sip anyway. “It’s good.”
“I made some for Emilia too. It’s calming.”
Tehran grunted and sipped again. Good wasn’t the right word, but the muted flavour felt wholesome and clean.
Maven nudged at a plate filled with large buns stuffed with a variety of different fillings. “Have you eaten today?”
He had to think; he had been running from one crisis to the next all day long. “No.”
“I know I shouldn’t offer, but I swear on the Sky above there is nothing restricted in what’s before you.”
His eyes flicked up to hers. “How would you know?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been around you Overseers long enough. Not to mention, I’m a healer; it’s our business to know what heals and what damages those under our care.”
“Damages an Overseer?”
She met his eye. “You know there are such things.”
“And you shouldn’t advertise such knowledge. The Order is jealous over their secrets.”
She didn’t even feign concern at his warning; instead, she gave a light shrug and smiled. “I’m not sharing with the Rikken Council; I’m telling you, our Overseer. I am here to serve and support how I may.”
His brow furrowed as he considered her words. There were a few ways Overseers could be killed, but they were closely-guarded secrets and not something a rural healer should be privy to. Dismemberment, decapitation and—suffocation. If Knox had his power, he would have been buried alive—and I would be out there digging. A shudder coursed through him at the thought.
“Fair,” he said. “But this isn’t something we speak of.”
“True,” she said simply. “And what of the toll on the man within the Overseer? Is he also invulnerable?” Her voice was soft and without condescension. “You’ve lost much today, and if I can ease your burden, I would like to do so.”
She picked up one of the large buns and took a bite, watching him.
Tehran’s stomach growled, but he ignored it and blinked away the unwelcome moisture glazing his eyes. “I’m not hungry, thank you.”
There was no choice in the action. A lifetime of denying one’s needs and impulses became hardwired by his age. Each assurance demanded attention to details those outside could never fully grasp. Some foods were off-limits, but more often, the restriction lay in how it was prepared or what it was paired with.
Overseers could not be maliciously ‘poisoned’ by restricted food being hidden in their personal food stores. It had been attempted, to no effect. A grace of the Sky, his Patrem had said. But if an Overseer, through their own apathy, violated an assurance, their power was immediately forfeit.
This made eating food prepared by anyone else a dangerous proposition. Even someone as trustworthy as Maven.
She seemed to note his hesitation and tipped her head toward the kitchen.
“Of course, there are also supplies in the kitchen if you are hungry later. Help yourself.”
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, her kindness tempting the emotion locked within his ribs to break free. He rubbed a hand over his face and leaned back in the chair, watching the glow of the fire in the hearth.
Maven finished her stuffed bun and then reached for her needles and a ball of fibre from a bag at her feet. The melodic sound of her working in the small, still room comforted Tehran with its rhythmic tapping, and soon his eyes drifted closed.
◆◆◆
"KNOX! TEHRAN! WAIT UP." A YOUNG girl called, chasing after the two boys.
“Ugh,” Knox groaned as he slowed and turned. “You’re so slow, Em.” He looked to be all knees, elbows and red tinted hair. His voice pitched in the middling tenor before its inevitable drop.
Tehran playfully shoved Knox. “You’re just mad I was winning.”
Knox scowled. “You were not. I would’ve caught you.”
Tehran’s mouth broke into a wide grin. “See.”
Knox rolled his eyes and the two waited as Emilia joined them at the crest of the hill. They’d long ago given up trying to lose her.
Not long after they had taken their first oaths as Acolytes, she had started to hound their every move until somewhere along the way, they’d adopted her. Even Patrem Solace had given up trying to shoo her away.
“Rockheads!” she yelled as she got close. “Why do you always have to race?”
“Why do you always have to come?” Knox shot back.
Her shoulder-length hair was loose, and the wind pulled at the dark curls, tossing them back into her face. She swatted at them petulantly. Her lean frame looked small next to the two boys.
Tehran draped an arm over Emilia’s shoulder. “If she didn’t come, who would you have to show off for?”
Knox’s face flamed, and he shoved Tehran hard, pushing him away from Emilia and then tackled him to the ground. “Take it back.”
“Can’t. You’re doing it again,” Tehran grunted as he leveraged his strength against Knox’s speed. The two wrestled in earnest for another minute before it devolved into a good-natured match. When the two finally stood, Emilia had vanished.
“Where’d she go?” Knox asked.
Tehran looked around and made out her willowy frame at the base of the rock formation at the far end of the field. “She’s at the bluff.” The three often spent hours at the top of the rock bluff, lounging and talking as they overlooked the cluster.
“I won!” she yelled, her voice a thin echo over the distance.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Tehran said as he broke into a jog. “We’ll never hear the end of it.”
Knox’s laughter was cut short as Emilia began to pull herself up the rock face. “What is she doing? She’s going to get herself hurt.”
One of them had always carried her on their back while climbing. The cliff was too sheer, and the drop too far for her to attempt on her own without vows to protect her or an extra measure of strength to ensure her grip did not slip.
“Em, wait,” Tehran yelled, a hint of the tension Knox voiced, leaking through into his words. The two broke into a run.
She didn’t slow but eagerly pulled herself up the rock, obviously trying to reach the top before they could reach her. A third of the way up, she found a hold and paused. Beaming, she let one grip go and waved. “Come on, slow pokes.”
Knox broke stride next to him and muttered. “Don’t be stupid Em—”
A gust of wind buffeted her, and she wobbled. Emilia’s face twisted in surprise as her grip pulled free and with a scream, she fell in a swirl of cloth and curls.
Both boys moved forward with a burst of speed, reaching the base of the bluff to find Emilia lying tangled in the tall grass, eyes closed.
Knox skidded to her side, dropping to his knees and gripped her limp hand. “Em wake up.”
Tehran searched for a pulse, a flush of relief leaving a numb tingle in his fingertips when he found it. “We have to get her back to the cluster.”
Knox swallowed. “I’ve got her. Run and tell Maven we are coming.”
Tehran opened his mouth to argue. He was the stronger one between them and they both knew it, but one look from Knox stopped him cold.
A fiery determination lit his friend’s silver-grey eyes, possessive and raw. Knox pulled Emilia’s limp frame into his chest. In an instant Tehran saw into his friend’s soul and he knew—Knox would do anything for the girl in his arms.
◆◆◆
Tehran awoke to Emilia’s screams. Maven’s muffled voice murmured from within the bedroom. He jumped up and instinctually moved toward the door, thought better of it, and paced across the small living space. He pulled back one of the dark curtains, surprised to see the full light of day blazing outside. How long had he been asleep?
Another cry. The door opened and Tehran spun as Maven’s assistant Lin moved into the kitchen and gathered a few items from the counter. Before she could retreat again, he intercepted her path, hand on her arm. She paused, expression serious.
“The baby?” he asked.
Lin shook her head, empathy in her eyes.
Another rope of pain at the loss lashed itself around his heart. “And Emilia?”
The young healer’s brow creased. “We don’t know.”
Tehran’s hand dropped; he pushed past her and into the room.
Maven crooned even while her hands moved with a speed that caused Tehran’s heart to beat faster.
“She’s giving up,” Maven whispered.
Tehran dropped to the bedside and grabbed Emilia’s hand pulling it into his chest. “Come on, Emilia. Fight.”
Maven nodded encouragingly. “Keep talking. Let’s give her a reason to pull through.”
