Beyond the Sky: Chapter 17
Shadow Friends
Jasam could still scarce believe it. Even in his island captivity he’d heard rumors of the Black Triangle, but to see it—and its pilots—was something else entirely.
That creature’s face would haunt him until the day he died. It had not seen him at first, chasing after those Nevi who ran up that tree, but a moment of curiosity brought him into view, and a flat, smushed visage stared back, and fled. Taking the rebel girl with it.
He invoked the Ancestors for her, begging freedom for she who freed him in turn. Then, it was time to escape. Eight years he’d waited, playing the model slave through all the beatings and starvings and labor, to seize the chance he knew would come.
A manor down the road had clothes drying outside, he waited until the slaves weren’t watching and helped himself. The jacket was made for a fat Fesk, and barely fit, from a shirt he tore a strip of cloth and wrapped it around his forehead. He’d be a clear runaway, but provided he stuck to the country and away from the law, no one ought to accost him. His warrior’s composure returned like a warm hunting-coat.
From there? Ghanat-Tahj was the dream of every slave, but it lay far away. Only a ‘skimmer ticket, or a trek through the minefields and desolation of the Forsaken Lands, could bring him there. A Flyer’d have little trouble, but few enslaved them.
Patrols were frequent, covered trucks trundling through the orchards or desert flats, all Occupation. He hid in ditches until the sun went down. His destination was a place he’d heard about two or three masters ago: The Shadow Friends.
Officially, they were illegal. As were slave escapes, so he expected good company. The Great North had few Shadowstalkers, as he drew closer the main emotion filling his mind became curiosity.
A forest path led to it, a little flat-topped pyramid with accompanying mastabas, built as a burial site by some old Jepsei culture. It had been years, he wondered if this still remained a meeting place—but Shadowstalkers lurked everywhere at night, he’d not need to look long to find one.
They were here, now: a chittering, and a sensation which chilled his bones on reflex. He steeled himself, it did not befit a warrior of the Blue Mountain to feel such fright. Shadowstalkers were little things!
In great numbers. Dark shapes scurried from trees to the pyramid and ruined tombs, climbing up out of sight, chittering and scratching.
He drew his stolen knife, and turned to face the person who’d come down the path. A Cepic man, in a black robe and holding a basket of fruit. “It is not easy to sneak up on me.”
“There are arts which can be learned.” The man motioned to the gathered, hidden Shadowstalkers.
“You are of the Shadow Friends?”
The fabric of his robe crinkled, concealing his ears. Overhead, a faint shadow interrupted the zodiacal light as a Yune spiraled down to a landing. Another Shadow Friend? The last two arrived behind the man: a woman and her daughter. Both bore a smudge of black dye on their foreheads, obscuring a slave-mark.
“Who is he?” the girl whispered.
“A friend.” The man smiled, and turned back to Toras. “Most of you don’t make it this far.”
“A warrior of the North fails not at his task,” replied Jasam.
Before the pyramid lay a flat slab of stone, the man took more baskets from the Cepic woman and her daughter, and set them there. The Yune did likewise, with a leather pouch. From it protruded the wrappers of several candy bars.
The Cepic man looked to Jasam. “What have you to offer?”
It took but a moment to think. Puffing out his chest, he declared, “I slew three Oppressors yesterday, at least!”
The Shadowstalkers erupted in chitters.
“They rejoice.” The Cepic noticed his confusion. Looking back to the slab, he saw the baskets and pouch now empty. Right under his nose, what he wouldn’t give for that skill! “You may make your request.”
“And they will understand?”
“The speech of the Day People is familiar to our Friends.”
“In that case,” he looked out into the night, “I wish to fight! I have won my freedom, now take me to the National Front, that I may free others!”
“Excuse me.” The Yune craned his long neck down. “I might be able to help with that.”
Toras Gulin was now officially Dobok, of Clan Snow Peak—a soldier of fortune hired by the Jepsei National Front some months ago, intercepted and disposed of on an unrelated mission. Steel Hand inherited his papers and now, it was time for him to report in.
Still, his thoughts disturbed him, as he rode in a taxi driven by a doddering Cepic. Toras of Clan Gulin, the Steel Hand agent, had been all across the world, to both poles and back, becoming familiar with—and killing more than a few—of all the Eight Peoples. Leapers, Flyers, Sunlings, Titans, Climbers, Shadowstalkers, Striders, and Deep Ones. Though many believed otherwise, there was no Ninth Species. The world was simply too well-explored.
So if it was not a disguise or an elaborate hoax, as seemed less and less likely each time he checked his Occupation contacts, where did these things come from? One ridiculous thought, inspired by cheesy speculative tales and television dramas, entered his head, he pushed it away.
He returned to anger—at his failure, at his King for risking the Princess and Heir so, at the National Front. Mespreth had tried dealing with them in the usual, brutal way, but for every one they killed or sent to slavery in the test sites, five more enlisted. Vermin, all of them, clinging to some narrow creed of freedom in a backwater province.
The taxi took him to a market district, Dobok’s signal was a letter slipped through the slot of a street-level apartment, then he waited by the market’s east gate. His clothes marked him as a foreigner—no hiding that—and the mostly Cepic local population gave a wide berth. A few Yunes took off from a perch atop the post office, following their routines, all the while Toras kept one hand on the butt of his pistol, hidden under his robes. After what the JNF had done, anything was possible.
Another old Cepic stopped beside him and whispered:
“Behind the record shop. For the cause.”
Toras raised his ears, and paced down an alley. Behind the shops waited a small covered truck. A Cepic was waiting around the corner, Toras caught him and knocked him flat.
“Easy, easy!” another hissed, hand grabbing something behind his back. He looked to Toras. “Dobok?”
“Yes,” he replied.
The Cepic helped his comrade up. “Took you long enough.”
The covered bed was just big enough, to fit his cover he protested the rude conditions, but not too much. A flashy mercenary like Dobok would be a little haughty. They drove for hours, past fields worked by slaves, then stopped in a seemingly nondescript grove.
Toras dismounted and looked around. Empty fields, scattered trees. If there were more JNF, he would think his cover blown, and this his place of execution. On reflex he thought up a plan, of killing the two Cepic and departing in their truck.
It proved unnecessary. One JNF fighter whistled, and from a hole in the long grass (an old Burrower tunnel?) emerged his commander. A uniformed Cepic, looking a little past his prime, he strode up and greeted Toras. “Commander Udan, Third Division. Headquarters sent you?”
Comments