Suicide Run (Engines of Liberty Book 2) Page 9

  “I’ve got it! It’s here, okay?” He left the tent and went to the campfire. He had just uncorked the vial and was about to dump the blood onto the smoldering coals when the green glass exploded in his hand. With a jolt, Calvin dropped the whole thing into the fire pit. A few feet to his left, a tomahawk thudded into the ground.

  Footsteps in the woods! Calvin turned his head toward the sound, and this simple act saved his life. An arrow sliced past his ear so close that the tail feathers brushed his cheek. With a scream he dropped down, his muscles screaming. Deep in the trees he caught the faintest shadow of a man sprinting through the foliage, almost invisible.

  Iroquois, in the woods—they were shooting at him!

  Scrambling to recover the tomahawk, Calvin took cover behind Karahkwa. The bird sharpened his focus and saw the plants moving in different spots, indicating more men hiding in the brush. Karahkwa sent Calvin an impulse so intense that it nearly manifested itself as words in his mind.

  Cut, he thought.

  Trembling, Calvin grabbed one of Karahkwa’s restraints and sawed it open with the tomahawk’s blade. Cut faster! Get him free! He can take you to Amelia!

  Karahkwa grunted. An arrow struck his side, but the bird had a tough skin beneath his tight feathers. One rope snapped and Calvin immediately attacked the next one, but there was slack now. He pushed it to the ground with one foot and hacked it apart.

  Brush and twigs snapped under heavy footfalls in the woods. A war cry sounded, and an Iroquois man charged into the clearing, arm cocked back to throw a long knife.

  Snap! Karahkwa tore the rest of the rope apart with the strength of one wing. All at once his binds unraveled from his body and he spread his limbs wide, catching the Iroquois man on the jaw so hard that he flew backward, struck the tent, and brought it down in a heap.

  “Whoa!” Calvin jumped back, landing hard on his rump.

  The other men burst from the trees with weapons in hand. Calvin rolled over and over to escape their incoming missiles, which seemed to be coming for both him and Karahkwa.

  The bird reared up on its thick, muscular feet and, with one razor-sharp talon, hooked the thong on his beak and sliced it off. Fully liberated, Karahkwa spread his four wings to a span that

  made the wide clearing look cramped.

  The hunters stopped dead in their tracks, brandishing their weapons and shouting to each other in a garbled mix of Iroquois and French. Calvin snuck a peak and was surprised to see two Frenchmen in colonial clothing, working alongside the Iroquois. What were Frenchmen doing this deep into British territory? They looked ragged, like the way Calvin felt. Perhaps they were refugees also, but right now they were hunting Karahkwa, and that made them enemies.

  Calvin was just about to throw the tomahawk at them when Karahkwa opened his beak and drew in a deep breath, one that puffed up his chest to nearly twice his size, a feat Calvin would have thought impossible. One of the Iroquois men screamed and nocked an arrow, aiming for Karahkwa’s expanded lung; another Iroquois tried to stop him from releasing the string. As they fought, Karahkwa unleashed his most dangerous weapon of all, and Calvin soon realized that the hunters never stood a chance.

  The bird shrieked. It was more than that . . . it was a thunderclap, the sound by which his species had earned its name.

  A mighty booming crack broke the sky apart. Dirt, rocks, flaming embers, all of it exploded in a rushing cloud. The hunters flew, flew, with their feet off the ground and everything, back into the woods, engulfed in with a wave of debris and sound for which they had not been prepared. Their bodies hurdled into the trees, which also bent under the terrible force of the cry. The sound wave died out almost as fast as it had begun, returning the woods to an eerie, calm silence, save for the ringing in Calvin’s ears. At the closest edge of the clearing there remained only bare trunks and the wreckage of the hunters’ camp.

  Calvin uttered a profanity that he reserved for special occasions. He couldn’t even hear the words escape his lips.

  Drawing in a second breath, Karahkwa flapped his wings and kicked up more dust. Eyes wide with panic, Calvin jumped up and lunged for a rope that dangled from Karahkwa’s ankle. The action made the device tear his chest again, yet he held fast as he was yanked into the sky.

  Squeezing his eyes shut, Calvin bit down hard, gasping with the effort of holding on. Karahkwa was fast, much more so than a mimic. His arms burned and his chest bled in protest, but he didn’t dare let go—at this height and speed, death was guaranteed. Summoning the last dregs of his will, he pulled himself all the way onto Karahkwa’s back, crying as he went.

  Karahkwa reached out to Calvin with a feeling akin to gratitude. Tears gave way to a budding sense of hope; for the first time, Calvin dared to think he would make it. He patted Karahkwa’s back, then almost immediately slumped forward and drifted to sleep, willing the noble bird to carry him to Amelia.

  CHAPTER 12

  Amelia’s soft hair brushed Calvin’s fingers like the downy fluff of an infant lamb. She drew closer to him until her hair cascaded across his arm, his face, his whole front, and he reveled in the smell of her, feeling more at home, more belonging than he had in ages.

  “I thought you weren’t coming back,” she murmured.

  “I’ve missed you,” Calvin said.

  Amelia squawked. Loudly. Right in his ear.

  “Huh?”

  Calvin jolted awake, spitting out a mouthful of Karahkwa’s feathers, which flitted away in the fast-moving wind. He reeled at the vivid qualities of the dream, and as it faded, intense heartache gripped him. Not the literal ache of the device, but a deeper anguish at the notion of not seeing Amelia again before the contraption went off.

  No! Don’t think that way. He’d see her. They’d shut it down together. First things first.

  He rubbed sleep from his eyes. Wind whipped at his hair and tunic; they were still airborne, flying fast. The now-familiar projection of Karahkwa’s thoughts suggested that they’d covered a tremendous distance, and it was time for them to part ways.

  Calvin perked up at this: had Karahkwa pried Mount Vernon’s location from his dreams? Where they already there? He couldn’t tell. Wherever they were, the air smelled different. Breathing quick against the stiffness in his muscles, he worked his neck to one side and gazed down past Karahkwa’s massive bulk; even in the waning light of evening, he could tell that he’d never been over these woods before. The trees were wrong, the ground too rocky, the feeling all too . . . unfamiliar.

  “Where are we?”

  Karahkwa responded with a wave that knocked Calvin onto his back. Anxiety hammered through him, and his heart ached even worse against the nails in it. This was a sensation that Calvin knew very well, the drive to find someone very important to him. For Karahkwa, it was the need to reach his mate.

  Ehnita. That was her name. She was still a great distance away, and despite knowing that the hunters no longer had her blood, Karahkwa wouldn’t rest until she was again by his side. It was that sense of need that had invaded Calvin’s dreams, making them feel

  all the more real.

  Have mercy, Calvin thought as he sat up and rubbed his head. Then he froze: what had Karahkwa said? Calvin had destroyed her blood? Hadn’t the vial belonged to Karahkwa?

  No. Another mental impulse confirmed it: Calvin had misunderstood. The hunters had taken Ehnita’s blood, using it as bait to trap Karahkwa. Until Calvin had destroyed it, Karahkwa could never have had any assurance of Ehnita’s safety.

  Calvin palmed his eyes and tried to convey to Karahkwa that he had a love of his own, and he needed to get to her. He pleaded for several minutes, garnering only curt replies before the thunderbird finally shut him down with a resounding no. The problem was their destinations: Amelia was south of them, but Ehnita was west. That was all there was to it.

  “I helped you! I saved her!” Calvin screamed into the wind.

  Without warning, Karahkwa dived hard and fast toward a curving river down below, fas
t as a missile. He twisted abruptly to the side and bucked Calvin out into the open air, his side slapping painfully against the river’s surface, reminding him of all the abuse his body had endured of late. He skipped once, then sank like a stone into the shockingly cold water, limbs flailing as he clawed his way back to the top. Sputtering, he struggled over to the eastern shore, cringing at the sting in his chest; two more hooks had torn free on impact, drawing blood.

  Quaking and panting on the muddy bank, Calvin watched Karahkwa’s silhouette shrink into the sunset. He bellowed every

  ugly word that he knew, knowing they wouldn’t reach the bird’s ears. If only he’d just ignored the stupid flying chicken dinner and let him die; now he had no damned clue where he was.

  Night fell. Judging by the stars, he wasn’t any closer to Virginia, just further west instead of north. A pox on the cruel luck that had allowed him to hope for relief!

  Again the chill had diminished his aches, so he re-tied the fabric around his shins and got to running, gently increasing his cadence over time. He didn’t bother charting a strict course, instead aiming south by southeast, his thoughts centered only on how little time remained to reach Amelia. According to the numbered dials in his chest, he’d been moving for four days.

  No more distractions. No more helping others. There was only the run.

  *

  Another two days passed. He made fewer calculations now, caring only for the immediate needs of rest and nourishment when he could manage it. If he crossed farmland, he stole from the storehouses. If he was close enough to the barn, he grabbed other provisions; he replaced his tattered, blood-stained shirt and found a pair of boots that were only slightly too large, a problem he remedied with a pair of gloriously thick socks. And he got back to running.

  He wouldn’t call it luck that he found these things. Calvin was bereft of luck. This was just chance.

  Mid-afternoon the next day—three and a half days to go, and

  counting—his stomach growled and his legs begged him to stop. He had new blisters on his feet, a result of adjusting to the boots, but at least the cuts on his soles were healing up. He allowed himself his first real respite since falling off of Karahkwa, and before long he came across yet another unexpected boon: the unmistakable aroma of meat smoking over an open flame. His stomach rumbled again, and his nose practically dragged him to the scent.

  He followed his nose to a vacant camp in the woods, some hundred yards off the main road. Someone had left the fire going, and over that fire a whole pork shoulder crackled and roasted, leaking fatty juices into the coals, filling the air with sweet, smoky goodness. Calvin thought he might die of happiness. Nobody was in sight, though surely the camp’s attendees would return in short order. He’d have to be quick.

  He instantly wished he’d never bothered.

  The toe of one boot had only just crossed the edge of the clearing when the fire completely vanished, taking the meat and its divine scent with it. In its place were three grown men, all wearing mages’ robes and pointing wands at him. Hoods concealed their faces from the brows to their noses, leaving only their leering smiles exposed to the light.

  “No!” Calvin gasped.

  “Gotta love the illusory charms, eh Rupert?” said one mage, his homestead accent thick.

  “You can definitely catch new dogs with old tricks, Niles,” said

  another.

  Calvin seized, unable to believe he’d fallen for this. Who in their right head would leave such a glorious cut of meat on a spit where the fire could ruin it? He’d been warned back at Mount Vernon not to fall for obvious illusory charms—think things through, find the fault, don’t jump into an open trap. Had he thought about it for three more seconds, he might have known!

  “Onstyrian gestillan,” said the third mage, casting a spell. Against his will, Calvin’s body went completely rigid, ignoring his every attempt to move. He stood as steady and still as a statue from the neck down.

  “No! Stop, I didn’t do anything!” Calvin said.

  Rupert and Niles casually lowered their wands and threw back their hoods, but their companion held still, wand trained on Calvin.

  “Hold, mates. Sump’n about that voice.” With a flourish, the third mage threw his hood back. His face had been scarred on one side by fire and intense pressure. The skin had healed somewhat, but the disfiguration couldn’t be fully remedied. Calvin’s eyes locked on that face, on the side unmarred by whatever had burned him. Dread gripped his soul.

  It was Hammond Birtwistle.

  “Tell me again how you din’t do nothin’,” Birtwistle seethed. He touched a finger to his cheek. “This a whole lot of nothin’ to you?”

  “You were dead,” Calvin whispered. “The grenade . . .”

  “Gave me this face!” Birty snarled. “You gave me this face!

  Tintreg!”

  Calvin screamed. A full-body torment punched him right in the head and got worse from there. Fire, ice, pins, needles, cuts, and blows all at once. There was a time when it would have permanently crippled him, but his newfound familiarity with extreme pain only made it last longer. Worse yet, the paralysis spell kept him upright, unable to do anything but suffer it until Birtwistle diverted his wand. The pain lingered, and Calvin panted until it ebbed.

  “Right then, so Hammond has a history with this one,” Niles observed.

  “I didn’t see no torture curse. You see a torture curse, Niles?”

  “Not I, Rupert.”

  “We gonna have fun with this one then, boss?”

  Birtwistle didn’t reply. His steely gaze remained on Calvin, his demeanor taut, like he was debating whether to use the torture curse again. Calvin could only hang his head, breathing hard, wishing that one of them would just kill him and be done with it. Maybe he’d come far enough, anyhow. Some relief was more than welcome.

  Death. He could live with that.

  And yet, it was not to be.

  “Put him with the others!” Birtwistle ordered. “I think our haul’s good enough for one day, mates.”

  “Sounder judgment I’ve never heard, Hammer,” said Rupert.

  Birtwistle rolled his eyes at the nickname and trudged off. The

  two junior mages worked more magic on Calvin, turning out his pockets with invisible spells to confirm he wasn’t armed. Once assured, Niles took Calvin’s hand and touched his wand to Calvin’s right wrist.

  “Unnytt.”

  An intricate geometric glyph appeared on Calvin’s skin, inky and black as night. His hand went dead, unresponsive, limp as a day-old fish. Rupert duplicated the spell on Calvin’s other hand. With additional charms, they levitated him to a nearby wagon he hadn’t previously noticed, a simple four-wheeled contraption with an iron frame, a wooden body, and a canvas top. It had a conductor’s bench up front but no reins, no horses. Birtwistle sat in the middle, looking angry and bored at the same time.

  The mages threw Calvin into the open rear of the wagon. He landed unceremoniously atop three other prisoners, who by his reckoning had been asleep.

  “Heoloohelm weall!” Rupert declared. This charm was directed at the back of the wagon, which had no rear door.

  “Don’t you just love that look in their eyes, Rupert? Like you can see them thinking how easy it’ll be to give us the slip,” Niles said.

  “Almost makes me want to stay and watch, Niles. Hey, boy! Just so’s you don’t make trouble back there, we done took away them hands a’yours. We also done charmed the wagon so’s you can’t make off without our wanting you to. This is home for a few days. Get used to it.” Rupert cackled triumphantly, and the two of

  them disappeared from sight.

  “You mind getting your knee outta my ribs?” asked a voice near his ear. The speaker had a Merykan accent.

  “Sorry,” Calvin said. The word felt strange on his lips.

  As the prisoners struggled to untangle themselves, Calvin rolled off and studied his markings. The mages hadn’t lied; he couldn’t move a
nything past his wrists. His hands and fingers hung limply, unresponsive, as though asleep.

  “Just my luck,” he muttered to himself. He was furious, but he wasn’t surprised. Not yet.

  “Well, ain’t it a day for reunions,” said that same voice. “Hey Dan, you recognize this kid? Baltimore, right?”

  Frowning, Calvin squinted in the dim light of the wagon, and got his first look at the others, recognizing their faces one by one. Under no circumstances could he have been less pleased to see them.

  They sat against the sides of the wagon, their ankles bound in irons, their wrists marked with the same paralysis enchantments. Calvin matched their faces to their names in his memory: Griff Cade, Daniel Aberforth, and John Penn. The very trio that had tricked him into joining the technomancers.

  Calvin searched for the right thing to say, for the most accurate conveyance of the rage that so easily blossomed with him. Nothing sufficed. As he trembled with fury, Penn just shook his head and sighed, leaning back.

  “Save it, kid. We’re all in the same briar patch today.”

  “No thanks to you!” Calvin tried to kick Penn, but the wagon was too cramped. He only succeeded in falling over, causing his cheeks to flush with embarrassment.

  “Onbringan, let’s move!” said Birtwistle from outside. A spell took effect and the wagon rolled of its own accord, carrying them to an unknown destination.

  CHAPTER 13

  Though she was accustomed to believing in things that other people didn’t, Amelia wondered what she’d eaten that had made her dream of a thunderbird. Mom had told her stories about crossing paths with the giant fowl in her early days as a mimic pilot. They’d been more plentiful back then. Kings of the sky, she’d said. Vibrant in color—the males red, the females blue—and endowed with ferocious powers from nature, they were a sight to behold. Nowadays their numbers had dwindled to the point where some people doubted they’d ever existed in the first place.