Had Janex not thrown itself over her, the shard would have gone right through her body. Aryl pressed her hand against the creature’s chill shell. “Thank you,” she whispered.
A groan drew her attention to the others. The sound came from Marcus, slumped in his seat. Pilip was—what was left of the Trant was thoroughly broken and the source of the odor competing with the smoke. Aryl scrambled over the ruin to reach the Human.
His eyes were closed beneath a mask of blood. As red as an Om’ray’s, she noticed with a calm that astonished her. Her quick inspection was a relief—nothing worse, that she could find anyway, than shallow cuts on his face and through the cloth to lightly score his chest.
Aryl finally found the courage to look at where they were.
Jagged gray rocks, the smallest larger than her body, surrounded them on all sides. They looked as though they’d slipped from a great hand to lie in a vast even sweep that continued as far as her eyes could reach. The mountainside. She’d feared as much. Well away from the first pass that led to Grona. She looked toward Yena. From this height, the great rastis groves looked like the surface of the Lake of Fire, flat and featureless.
Aryl didn’t know what lived here. She’d never cared before. Now, she worked quickly. There was nothing she could do about the corpses—they would attract hunters. She almost laughed. Hunters who were in for an otherworldly surprise.
“Enough of that,” she scolded herself, knowing the only chance she had was to keep a clear head.
That they had.
Decision made, Aryl worked to free the Human’s legs, presently trapped in a spongy white substance. It pulled away easily. She didn’t wish harm to him, despite what he’d done with his meddling. He might even be of help, though she had her doubts on that score.
Marcus groaned again when she was done, but didn’t wake, not even when she shook him roughly. Not giving herself time to doubt, Aryl placed her hand on his forehead and lowered her shields. She’d given strength to Yorl for his healing; she didn’t have that Talent herself. But she could rouse the Human. Or try.
If he didn’t wake, she’d have to abandon him. That was the cold truth.
His thoughts were dazed and full of pain. Aryl concentrated, sending his name into that unfamiliar mind. His name plus her image of him, all she knew of him, everything she felt. That couldn’t be helped. It was what Om’ray did when summoning a mind back. It was what she had to do.
“Set—nam?!” He gave a violent shake that dislodged her hand. Aryl moved to give him room, checking their surroundings as she did.
She hated the rocks already. The perfect cover for an ambush or lurker, they obstructed every path, adding time to walk around. Time—she looked at the sky—time they probably didn’t have.
“Ar-yl?”
She turned back to Marcus. “We must leave. Now. This—” her fingers brushed the Carasian’s shell, “—there will be hunters. Do you understand me?”
Under the blood, his face was stricken. His hands shook as he stood at last, shook as he touched first the Trant, then, with an anguished cry, the Carasian.
Was it a difficult thing she asked? Aryl wondered. An Om’ray would walk away from the dead, feeling grief, but no connection to the flesh once the mind was gone. Did a Human feel the same?
They were so different. How could he trust her?
Because he must. The swarms might not threaten them in the dark; Aryl was quite sure something would. It was the way the world worked. “Come, Marcus,” she said gently, taking his hand. “We need a safe place before truenight.”
She was relieved when he nodded. “First. Comtech—” then a rattle of his words, which he stopped almost at once. “Find what need first,” Marcus managed to tell her. “Quickquickquick.”
Quick she approved. And if there was anything left in the wreckage of use, she was willing to look for it. While Marcus fumbled around the area where Janex had been, she looked everywhere else.
Her search took her outside the remains of the aircar. Pristine white boxes lay everywhere. Aryl didn’t like how visible they were. Her gaze kept returning to the groves below, alert for the signs of pursuit.
The Tikitik wouldn’t leave them alone. That, more than night hunters, drove her to search for anything that could be a weapon. But the aircar had been made of tough materials, and she found no broken pieces small enough to carry though many were sharp. She settled for a length of flexible tube, scorched and hollow. Whipped through the air, it would deliver a substantial blow.
“Are you ready?” she asked Marcus, having spent all the time she dared.
He supported himself on one hand, shaking his head. He’d wiped most of the blood from his face. The deeper cuts still dripped—a significant problem they could do nothing about here. He had a bag with a long strap over his shoulder. She reached for it, and he shook his head again, the movement causing him pain.
“I’m stronger,” Aryl reminded him.
“Comlink, bad. Stay here, us.” With a pat on the ruined aircar. “Help. Help come. Here. Comtech, good.” A gesture to Janex’s body. “Call help. Safe soon.”
“Not soon enough.” She pointed down the slope. “Look.”
Flickers of movement where the vegetation met rock. She’d seen them for a while before recognizing what caught her attention. These were cautious, deliberate moves. Not hunters or grazers. Tikitik. Never out where they might be clearly seen, but Aryl felt no doubt, only a quiet dread. “Tikitik,” she told her companion. “The ones who tried to trap us in the air. Do you understand, Marcus?”
“Understand who. Not understand why.”
Seeing what appeared to be honest bewilderment, Aryl shrugged. “You killed quite a few. They aren’t the sort to forget that.” She took pity on the Human and made it simpler, with gestures. “You killed them.” This was no time to mention what lay beneath the Lake of Fire, or the other Harvest.
“Accident.”
“You have too many,” Aryl said bitterly. “Come.”
Taking his bag despite his protest, she secured it over her shoulder using the braided blanket strip around her midsection. She started walking, her choice to cut across the slope at first to test the footing. It would test Marcus’ ability with this terrain as well, knowledge they’d both need.
After a moment, she heard him follow.
The Tikitik stayed down, within the grove, their moves furtive and disturbingly quick. The sun, on its way to give day to Grona, soon hid its brightness behind cloud. The rocks surrounding them flattened in that diffused light, confusing the senses. They had to work their way around and between the largest, some the size of the strangers’ building, most taller than they. If Aryl hadn’t been able to sense exactly where she was, she’d soon have been as lost as the Human appeared to be.
“Where we?” The same plaintive question. He didn’t have breath to spare for it. Sweat soaked his torn shirt, spread the bloodstains. She’d driven them both; as she’d feared, Marcus wasn’t used to physical exertion.
She hadn’t expected him to endure it as well as he had. “Where are we?” she corrected gently. “We are close to the Watchers. We can rest there.”
“Safe?” He’d noticed her preoccupation with any view downslope, toward the edge of the grove. He’d begun to watch himself. Now his voice cracked on the word.
“Better.” Aryl sighed inwardly. In the coming dry season, they would have met scouts and Adepts, as well as those who came to clean the Watchers and prepare them for the next M’hir Wind. Now, if she reached, the rock-littered slope ahead was empty of Om’ray. They were alone.
Aryl had tried to contact Taisal again and again without success. She tried now as she slipped between two flat-sided rocks that might have cracked, one from the other, leaving this cool, shadowy gap. The same result. Taisal was there; for some reason she wouldn’t connect through the other with her daughter.