Black Water Page 21

  “Down with the zenzens,” he answered. “She wants to get out of Leeandra early, before anybody asks where you’re going.”

  I dragged myself off the couch and took a couple of deep breaths. Every move I made hurt, because my body was covered with bruises from sleeping in that gar prison. Even my hair hurt.

  “I wish I was going with you,” Boon said, sounding like a disappointed kid who didn’t get the pony he wanted for his birthday.

  “I know,” I said. “But if anything happens to us, you’re the only one who knows what’s going on. You’ll have to stop Saint Dane yourself.”

  Boon gave me a long, worried look and said, “Now I really wish I was going with you.”

  I laughed. “Stay close to the Council of Klee, but don’t let them know you’re watching. Saint Dane doesn’t know who you are. Keep it that way. When we get back, tell us where they stand on Edict Forty-six.”

  “Got it,” he said. “Good luck, Pendragon.” Boon grabbed me in a big bear hug. Or cat hug. It was kind of scary, but sincere. So I hugged him back. I liked Boon. I liked Yorn, too. It was Kasha I was shaky on. I left Boon and took the elevator down to the jungle floor. Three zenzens were at the base of the tree. Kasha sat tall in the saddle of one; Yorn was in the second; the third was loaded with equipment. Swell.

  “I guess the gar walks,” I said snottily.

  “Only until we leave Leeandra,” Yorn said. “It’s against the law for gars to ride alone.”

  “Of course it is,” I said sarcastically. “Maybe you should just load the equipment on my back so the zenzen won’t have to work so hard. Better yet, maybe I should carry the zenzen.”

  “Do you want to go or not?” Kasha said flatly.

  “Absolutely,” I said quickly. “I am so over this town.”

  I was being obnoxious, but I was in a grumpy mood after having just been woken up three years too early, discovered I was one big black-and-blue mark (which Boon’s hug didn’t help, by the way), and then told I was the only one who had to walk. It wasn’t a good way to start the day.

  Our little caravan made its way along the jungle floor, headed for the giant gates of Leeandra. I glanced at the zenzens to see a number of vicious-looking weapons lashed to the sides of the strange horses. There were a couple of spears, some short wooden clubs, a few coiled ropes with the three balls on the end, and even a bow and arrow. It all looked good to me. I was pretty sure that at some point we’d need some firepower against a hungry tang. As we trudged along, I saw that the city was quiet. We hadn’t passed a single klee, and I was about to ask if I could ride when a dark shadow leaped out of a tree, landing right in front of Kasha. Her zenzen reared back and she had to wrestle it to a stop. At first I thought it was a tang and was ready to go for a weapon, but before I could make a move, it spoke.

  “The gar is mine,” Durgen said.

  Uh-oh. What was this guy doing up so early?

  “You had no right to take him in the first place,” Kasha answered.

  “You owed me,” he spat at her.

  “And you got value for him,” she snarled back. “Step aside, Durgen.”

  Durgen didn’t move. This was bad. For me. I slowly moved toward a zenzen and reached for one of the short clubs. I wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight against Durgen, but I didn’t know what else to do.

  “Durgen, please,” Yorn said calmly. “You two are friends. Be reasonable.”

  Durgen spoke angrily through clenched teeth, saying, “The klee who was killed on the forage was my friend too. You, Kasha, have become dangerous. You are no longer a forager. I’ve had you ejected.”

  “What!” Kasha shouted, stunned. “You can’t do that!”

  “I can and I did! And if you continue this subversive behavior, you’ll be banished from Leeandra. Now get out of my way and give me the gar!”

  Durgen pushed past Kasha’s zenzen, headed for me. In that one instant, all the horrible memories of prison came flooding back. It gave me a shot of adrenaline like I had never experienced before. I clicked into survival mode. I yanked the club out from the last zenzen and made a quick decision. Attack. I thought if I surprised Durgen, I might get in a lucky shot. Or not, and he’d kill me. Either way, I was not going back to that gar prison. I leaped out from behind the zenzen with the club held low. Durgen didn’t expect that. The big cat swiped at me. I ducked. His paw swept over my head so closely, I felt his claws cut the air. Cut was the right word. Durgen wasn’t trying to capture me. He wanted to kill me.

  I drove the club forward, ramrodding it into Durgen’s exposed ribs. He let out a sharp, pained cry that made me think I might have broken something. But it didn’t stop him. It made him angry. He came at me with his paws swiping like I was a boxing speed bag. I backed off, using the club to knock away the relentless attack. The big cat hissed angrily. His ears were back. I was way out of my depth. I knew I couldn’t defend myself against this onslaught for long. I took another step back and fell on my butt. How pathetic was that? Durgen dropped to all fours and crouched down low. He was a jungle cat who had his prey in sight.

  Suddenly he yelped and stood right back up. His eyes were wide and he arched his back as if something had hit him from behind. He snarled and turned his back to me. I saw that sticking out of his shoulder was a round, polished disk the size of a CD. But this was no CD. It had sharp teeth like a miniature buzz saw, and its blades were imbedded in Durgen’s back. The cat squealed with pain. He desperately grabbed at the disk to pull it out, but his arms didn’t reach.

  “Kasha!” he screamed, and yelped in pain as he jolted again. He spun back toward me. I saw another disk imbedded near the top of his other arm. Blood blossomed from his wounds, spreading across his tunic. The dark, wet stain glowed with light from the street lanterns that hung overhead. Durgen fell to the ground, breathing hard, growling in pain.

  Kasha walked up to him calmly, holding another killer disk ready to throw.

  “You might as well kill me,” Durgen said through clenched teeth. “You’re as good as dead anyway. You’ve attacked a forager within the city. A klee! You know the penalty for that.”

  “Death,” Kasha said. She put the disk back into a pouch on a belt around her midsection. “You are a good klee, Durgen,” Kasha said. “You’ll do what you think is right.”

  Durgen couldn’t move. Or maybe he decided not to. He must have known that if he attacked Kasha now, with his wounds, he’d be done. Kasha strode over to the last zenzen and yanked off the saddle bags, revealing the saddle. She tossed them up to Yorn, who sat on his zenzen with wide, stunned eyes.

  “Carry that,” Kasha commanded.

  Yorn caught the saddle bags and fixed them across his own saddle.

  Kasha looked to me and said, “Get on the zenzen.”

  I was too stunned to move. Kasha stared down at me.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Can you ride?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then get on the zenzen, Pendragon,” she commanded firmly. “Now!”

  I wasn’t about to argue. I got to my feet and ran to the strange horse. I wasn’t graceful about it, but I was able to climb aboard and get my feet into the stirrups.

  “What has happened to you, Kasha?” Durgen screamed. “Don’t you see what you’ve done? And for what? A . . . a . . . gar?”

  Kasha walked deliberately to Durgen and looked down on him, saying, “What you and the handlers do to these poor animals is criminal. It’s bloodthirsty, and it’s wrong.” She coldly yanked one of the disk weapons out of his arm. Durgen screamed in agony. “I may need this,” she said. She stuck the weapon into her pouch, then backed away and leaped onto her zenzen. She gave the animal a kick and shouted, “Don’t stop. It’s our only chance of getting out.”

  Her animal reared up and bolted forward. Yorn kicked his zenzen and with a loud “Yaa!” he charged after Kasha. Though I had ridden on the back of Boon’s zenzen when I first got to Eelong, I hadn’t had to contro
l a horse since my fantasy adventure on Veelox, but I knew how to ride. I could only hope that riding a horse with a few extra joints was the same as riding a regular old Second Earth-style horse.

  “Yaaa!” I shouted and gave my zenzen a kick. I sprang forward and galloped after the others, leaving Durgen in a cloud of bloody dust. As it turned out, riding the zenzen was easy. In fact the extra joint somehow made it pretty smooth, don’t ask me why. I galloped behind the other two, headed for the gates of Leeandra. We sped past surprised klees who were coming out to start their day. They didn’t expect to see three speeding zenzens flying by . . . with a gar picking up the rear. In no time I saw the tall gates to the city. They were open to let out a wagon of foragers. Our luck was holding.

  That’s when I heard the alarm.

  It was a horn that pierced through me like fingernails on a blackboard. A quick look ahead made me realize what Kasha meant when she told us not to stop. Several klees were scampering toward the gate to close it. I didn’t know if Durgen had sounded the alarm, or if it was because a gar was riding a zenzen, or both. Either way, the klees now hurried to close the gates.

  “Don’t stop,” Kasha called back.

  We were either going to make it, or crash.

  JOURNAL #18

  (CONTINUED)

  EELONG

  The klee sentries scrambled to swing the giant gates closed. I didn’t think we were going to make it. We were too far away. But surprise was on our side. The klee sentries took a look over their shoulders to see us charging right for them, and stopped pushing. I didn’t know if it was because they were surprised to see us galloping pedal to the metal and about to splat against the closed gate, or because they were shocked to see that one of the suicidal riders was a gar. Didn’t matter. All that counted was that a few of them were startled enough to stop pushing the gate. Those few seconds were exactly what we needed. By the time they got their wits back and continued pushing, we blasted through the gate at full throttle, barely squeaking out of Leeandra.

  Once outside the city, we didn’t slow down. I think Kasha wanted to get as much distance between us and Leeandra as possible in case we were chased. We charged along the wide jungle path as if it were an open field. I had to duck down low like a jockey, for fear of getting lashed by a stray branch. Kasha made a quick turn and galloped onto a connecting trail. It was a good thing I had my eye on her or I would have shot right past the turn. As it was, I barely made it. We galloped on, not slowing down a fraction, flashing past branches that bit at my arms.

  Thankfully, we broke out of the trail into a wide, grassy meadow. Going from a closed, dark trail to such a wide-open space took my breath away. The sunbelt was just coming up over the horizon, burning off the morning dew that glistened on miles of dark green grass. Kasha didn’t stop pushing. There was no trail, so we fanned out, galloped up a rise and down the other side. Spread out before us was an immense, green pasture. We didn’t stop to admire the view. Kasha pushed her zenzen even faster. Its hooves dug up the soft grass, sending clumps of dirt and sod into the air that peppered Yorn and me.

  Finally Yorn galloped up beside her and yelled, “We’re safe, Kasha! Slow down!”

  Kasha looked back, and I immediately realized that her mad gamble wasn’t just about escaping from Leeandra. I saw it in her eyes. Kasha was freaking out. She pulled on her reins and slowed her zenzen. Yorn and I did the same until we came to a stop near the far end of the pasture. Kasha immediately jumped off, dropped to all fours, and paced.

  I looked to Yorn for a reaction. He was breathing too hard to speak. This was a lot for such an old guy. It was a lot for a young guy too. I was pretty winded. My heart was thumping like crazy. Even the zenzens were spent. Sweat poured off them as they gasped for air. We needed to take a break. But Kasha wasn’t even close to calming down. She paced for a few seconds, then stood on her hind legs and shouted angrily at me, “Is this what it means to be a Traveler? Is everything going the way it’s supposed to? My father’s dead, I’m a fugitive, and now we’re at the mercy of the tangs.”

  Nothing I could have said would make it better. So I chose not to answer.

  “Say something, Yorn!” she demanded. “Is this the big battle against evil you’ve been telling me about? Are you happy now?”

  Yorn stammered, “Kasha, I-I—”

  “Don’t bother,” she snarled. “I don’t want to hear it.” She dropped back down on all fours and continued pacing.

  “I’m dead,” she said to the wind. “If I go home, Durgen will have me arrested and executed. Everything I’ve ever known, my whole life, is gone.”

  We were at a dangerous crossroads. I didn’t know how to talk her down. Yorn and I kept looking at each other nervously, hoping the other would come up with something to say, but neither of us rose to the occasion. Kasha paced a bit more, then without warning she sprang for her zenzen, landing in the saddle.

  “It’s a long way,” she announced, sounding slightly more in control. “We don’t want to lose daylight.”

  That was it. The crisis was over, at least for the time being. Kasha coaxed her zenzen into a trot and continued on across the valley.

  “I’m too old for this,” Yorn admitted.

  “Me too, and I’m still a kid,” I replied.

  “Her whole life has just been twisted,” Yorn said. “We can’t blame her for being angry.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “But if we fail, her life will get a whole lot more twisted than it is now.”

  I kicked my zenzen into a trot. Yorn followed right behind. We traveled that way for most of the day, with Kasha in front, me in the middle, and Yorn picking up the rear. Kasha kept checking the map and often made course corrections. I was on a constant lookout for tangs. I feared that at any moment we could ride into an ambush. A few times I thought I caught a glimpse of a green tail slithering into the bushes, but when I looked, it was gone. Either they saw our weapons and were afraid to attack, or I was loony and hallucinating. Either way was okay with me, so long as nothing came after us.

  When I wasn’t totally consumed with scanning for predators, I tried to take in my surroundings. Eelong really was beautiful. We traveled through dense, tropical jungle; crossed lazy streams; climbed steep trails that brought us up and over ridges that gave us incredible views of the jungle below; and even swam across a glassy, warm lake on the backs of our zenzens. Most of the territory seemed to be uninhabited, but every so often we’d pass a village built into the trees, like Leeandra. These small towns were nowhere near as big as Leeandra, though. They were farming villages that existed solely to tend acres of crops that grew beneath their homes. After a few hours of traveling, these villages became fewer and fewer. By the time the sunbelt was directly overhead, all signs of civilization had disappeared. We were headed into scary, desolate territory.

  There was wildlife, too. I’m happy to report that we saw many different creatures on Eelong, and for a change, none of them wanted to eat me. There were beautiful, deerlike animals with strong, sharp antlers that must have been used to fend off tangs. I saw more of those funny, green monkeys, along with multicolored birds that chattered in the trees. When we’d pass beneath, the birds would take flight, looking like a chaotic rainbow. There were bugs, too. On the ground, and flying. Some were the size of hummingbirds. A sting from one of those babies would hurt. We passed a large flock of birds pecking at the grass in a meadow. They were hefty things, about the size of turkeys, but with brilliant blue feathers.

  “What are those called?” I asked Yorn.

  “Rookers” was his answer. “Very tasty.”

  I realized they were the same birds that had been roasted on the coals of Kasha’s kitchen.

  Kasha seemed to be pretty clear on where the map directed us. Sometimes we’d traverse a large field with no trails and hit the other side right at another trailhead. Once we had to detour around a truly huge lake. Many times we had the choice of several trails, and after a quick glance at the map, Kasha a
lways seemed to know which one to take. I never questioned her.

  From the get-go, my body was sore. After trotting along for several hours, I was totally worked. And hungry, too. I needed a break, but I didn’t dare suggest we stop. I was on thin ice with Kasha; it wouldn’t have taken much to crack it. Besides, Yorn wasn’t complaining. My pride alone made me keep quiet. Finally, after my butt had gone beyond sore into full-on numb, Kasha stopped.

  “We’ve still got a ways to go,” she said. “We should rest and eat.”

  I could have kissed her. If she wasn’t a cat and if she didn’t want to kill me, I might have. We got off our zenzens, and after walking around to get the circulation back into our legs, we sat down at the base of a gnarled old tree to eat. Yorn had packed food that was nothing more than long, brown strips of dried something.

  “I don’t care what this is,” I said. “So long as it isn’t gar.”

  “It’s not.” Yorn chuckled. “It’s a mixture of fruit and rooker meat.”

  “The blue birds?” I asked.

  “Exactly. It’s mixed together, dried, seasoned, pounded into strips and then dried again. It may not taste like much, but it’s good for you, and it’s light for traveling.”

  I bit off a piece and chewed. It was tough, but after a few chews it softened up. It actually tasted pretty good, too. On the other hand, I was so hungry, the rags on my back would have seemed tasty.

  “We have something like this on Second Earth,” I said. “We call it jerky. I’m not sure why. Maybe the guy who invented it was a jerk.” I chuckled. Nobody else did. So much for clever conversation.

  Kasha didn’t say a word as we ate. She sat with her back to us, staring at a mountain range far in the distance. Yorn and I made small talk about the birds, but my mind was on Kasha, wondering what she was thinking. She was the Traveler from Eelong. We needed her. Eelong needed her. Heck, Halla needed her. I wished I knew how to convince her of that. When she finally did speak, I was surprised at her question.