Magnolia grabbed Rodger. “What are you doing here?” she yelled.
“Just enjoying saving your arses.”
“We can talk about it later,” Les said. “We have to get out of here!”
Michael looked up at the airship. There was no way they could get the three Cazadores back there using their boosters, and Rodger didn’t even appear to have one. Or a chute. Had he really slid down a cable to get here, without a way back up? And had he been stowed away in the Sea Wolf this entire time?
Whatever—it didn’t matter right now. What mattered was getting back to the ship before any more of those infernal snakes surfaced.
“Timothy, send us another cable down,” Les said. “We’ll get the transport attached again. The rest of you, form a perimeter. We hold our ground right here.”
Michael raised his rifle and scanned the terrain for more threats as Alfred’s technicians worked on lowering more cables to bring the disabled transport back up to the airship. Discovery would be seriously overweight, but she could probably do it.
Flames from the tangled wreckage of the tanker down the road provided a grim view of Cazador bodies and parts lying where they had fallen. A severed snake head the size of an oil drum protruded from a hole in the ground, and shreds of another beast hung like moss from the tree branches around Layla’s rocket crater.
Michael’s boot slid on a hunk of scaled flesh in the dirt. He had never seen creatures remotely like these or even read about them in the archives. But he knew that the Cazadores had encountered them before. The men who held this outpost for years had to know they were out here.
General Santiago broke open his shotgun and reloaded with shells from a bandolier slung over his shoulder. His mirrored visor turned to Michael and then looked away.
When they all got back to the airship, Michael was going to find out why the old warrior hadn’t warned them about the snakes. And if they were lucky, Cricket would be able to shed some light on the fate of the Cazador crew manning this outpost from hell.
FOURTEEN
Moonlight made a soft carpet of the whitecaps below. The view reminded X of the moving snowdrifts in Hades. Trekking through those wastes seemed like a lifetime ago.
At his feet, Miles lay happily chomping on a pig bone. The crunching suddenly stopped at the sound of a distant high-pitched whistle. The dog looked up, with the bone still between its forepaws.
“The time has come to see if the Octopus Lords accept our sacrifice,” Rhino said.
He wore his armor tonight, covering the healing gashes he had gotten in the Sky Arena and on the deck of Elysium. X, too, had a bandage covering a recent injury, from the Siren he fought on Elysium.
The two warriors stood on the roof platform of the capitol oil rig. Not far from the piers, a fishing vessel prowled the waters. In the bow, visible in the full moonlight, stood Carmela, parrot on her shoulder, whistle in her mouth.
X didn’t have to wait long to see the summons answered. And while he was too far up to see the octopus’s warty mantle, he could make out the dark tentacles writhing through the chop. They reached up toward the boat like the arms of a child begging for a treat.
“Looks like the Cazadores have been forgiven,” X said. “Let’s hope the goodwill extends to us as well.”
“If only the Octopus Lords knew the truth,” Rhino said. The unfinished words told X there was deep resentment there, but he still could not bring himself to kill Ada.
More whistling floated over the water, and two men on the boat deck pushed the corpses of Warthog and Javier into the water. The tentacles wrapped greedily around the bodies and pulled them beneath the surface.
A horn followed, and the onlookers began to chant.
X turned away, unable to stomach any more Cazador rites today. Miles got up and trotted after him, away from the platform’s edge, while Rhino remained behind for a few moments.
Finally, he followed X around the pool and gardens, to the stairs, which they climbed to the airship’s roof—the highest point in the Vanguard Islands. Flickering lamplight illuminated the canopy of tropical trees growing on the airship.
They strolled past the Sky Arena. The bloodstained dirt was a painful reminder of where he was heading and why.
X steeled himself as he approached a group of sky people who had gathered on the other side of the forest. Ton and Victor stood guard, their spears resting on their shoulders, eyes scanning for threats.
He wondered how they felt about what was happening here. The two men had seen more suffering than anyone should have to see, which was no doubt part of the reason they were so happy to be living as free men at the Vanguard Islands.
X walked past them, toward people holding candles and huddling around two fresh graves. Both were dug in the same area they had buried Captain DaVita and their other fallen friends.
Tonight, they were here to honor two more sky people who had lost their lives. DJ and his son Rhett had been laid to rest. Widow and mother Mallory clutched her remaining child, Keith, in front of her.
X walked past the row of buried officers: Katrina, Bronson, Dave. With them were the Hell Divers and civilians who had lost their lives in the battle for the oil rigs.
Seeing Katrina’s grave made X wonder again what she would have thought of his leadership.
Was Ada right? Would Katrina really have sanctioned killing all the Cazador soldiers after the battle? X couldn’t bring himself to believe that.
He nodded at familiar faces as he moved through the small crowd. While he knew everyone here to some degree, he wasn’t really close with anyone besides Bernie and Cole Mintel, Rodger’s parents. His family and most of his dearest friends were either dead or off risking their lives on Discovery. For a moment, dread curdled in his gut—the same dread he had felt seeing the airship pull away yesterday.
Miles brushed up against his leg as if to say, Don’t forget about me.
X bent down and said, “You’re my best friend of all, boy.”
Cole Mintel opened a box and pulled out two newly carved wood plaques. “Rodger made these before he left,” he said. He handed them to Mallory.
“Left?” X said softly. He looked around, not seeing Rodger in the crowd.
Mallory took them in a shaky hand.
“Here, sweetheart,” Bernie said, and helped Mallory lay the plaques on the graves.
X watched the ceremony silently from the shadows. Mallory sobbed while her son just stared at the grave. Friends took their turns approaching. Some threw flower petals onto the dirt.
Les’s wife, Katherine, walked by with their daughter, Phyl, in tow. They both scattered flower petals and then moved on to Trey’s grave to do the same.
Seeing two mothers who had lost their sons ratcheted up the feeling of guilt, never far from the surface. The darkness was worse even than it had been in the wastes—a crushing, debilitating feeling that made X want to step over to the rail and jump off.
Everyone thinks you’re some badass warrior, X thought, but they don’t know.
Taking a few breaths to fortify himself, he walked over to Mallory and Keith to pay his respects.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” X said. “If there is anything you need, please let me know.”
She turned toward him, rage in her eyes.
He understood the glare, but he wasn’t prepared for the slap across the face. The sting didn’t bother him; he was used to pain. What hurt more were the words that followed.
“My son died because of you,” she growled. “He died in that filthy arena with those barbarians all because you decided to reopen it and give that murdering demon a chance at freedom. Now my husband and my son are dead.”