Then he went back to the king. Dripping blood, he bent down and pried X’s helmet off.
The scarred, battered face of the man Magnolia loved like a father tilted toward her.
Horn kicked the king’s legs out into an X shape. Then he kicked his left arm out at an angle. When Magnolia realized what he was doing, she felt bile rising in her throat.
The bastard was going to cut X’s limbs off, one by one.
“No,” she mumbled. “X…”
Horn staggered, then righted himself. He pointed his axe at someone behind Magnolia.
Snorting and the crunch of heavy footsteps told her what was happening now.
The bone beast lumbered by, led by the man with the electrical rod. Even Moreto stepped back, giving it a wide berth.
The skinwalker guard gave the beast a zap, bringing it down on its barbed knees only three paces from X.
Horn walked over to the monster and stopped in front of the ruined face. It was on the same level as his own eyes, even with the creature kneeling.
Blood snorted out of the burned nostrils, flecking Horn’s forehead and nose. He wiped it away and licked his hand.
“Ya vas a comer a un rey,” he said. Magnolia recognized the words “eat” and “king.”
He patted the creature on the head as if it were a dog, then turned back to X.
Horn didn’t just plan on cutting X into pieces. He planned on feeding each piece to his pet.
Over two hours had passed since the drones attacked the Shark’s Cage. The only survivors had pulled Ada and Jo-Jo out of the water, into a damaged fishing boat.
Miraculously, the craft made it to the Vanguard Islands, partly thanks to Ada’s bailing efforts with a metal bucket. Sitting low in the water, they crossed the barrier just before sunset.
Her view of home was obscured by smoke. It appeared that Ada was indeed too late to save her people.
The drones had swarmed the outer rigs, slaughtering civilians and soldiers alike. They had already moved to the interior rigs, leaving burning metal stalks in their wake.
A warship had sailed to meet the drones, but a squadron of the deadly machines rained bolts down onto it from all directions. Fire licked the hull of the massive ship that Ada recognized as Elysium.
The Cazador sailors put up a brave fight. Machine guns and twenty-millimeter cannons blazed into the sky, and pinpricks from small arms flashed from the deck.
Other vessels had also joined the battle, but many had already been turned to smoldering debris on the surface. She searched the sky for Discovery, and the water for the other warships, but none were in sight.
Had the airship already been destroyed? She shuddered at the thought. If Discovery was gone, they were doomed.
The two Cazadores also watched in horror, one manning the motor, the other slumped next to Ada, gripping his side, where a piece of shrapnel from the first attack had punched through his armor.
A pair of drones raked the deck of a fishing trawler with laser bolts. It burst into flames, then exploded. The wave of flames consumed the shapes of people jumping overboard.
Another pack of drones circled a rig that served as a slaughterhouse and cleaning station for livestock and fish. The bolts punched into the bulkheads, and flames burst out. Next to the rig, a farm burned. Hogs squealed in panic.
The machines weren’t discriminating. They were systematically killing everything that moved, from the outer rigs inward.
“We have to get to the capitol tower,” she said, pointing.
The Cazador pilot steered toward the airship roof. She spotted the decommissioned Hive on the horizon. The drones hadn’t made it there yet.
Maybe there was a chance to stop them. After all, some had already been blown from the sky.
Jo-Jo clutched Ada as the craft labored through the waves. So far, the drones hadn’t spotted them, but she kept a close watch to make sure they weren’t being followed.
An explosion bloomed on a rig up ahead. The injured Cazador man beside Ada got up and held on to a gunwale.
“no!” he yelled.
Several drones circled the rig, firing bolts onto the residential levels. Shacks collapsed and tents burned. Cazador civilians leaped off the decks into the water to escape the inferno.
A few Cazadores held their ground to defend their homes, firing rifles at the drones. One woman was shooting arrows.
The bullets and arrows had little effect, merely knocking the drones off course before they came back in and finished the job. The woman with the bow vanished in a fireball.
The Cazador soldier at the gunwale took off his helmet and knelt on the deck, weeping. He wiped the tears away and spat into the water, yelling curses in a language Ada didn’t understand. She shared his sorrow.
Their boat skirted a fishing trawler destroyed by the drones. It was still in the process of sinking, the stern poking out of the ocean and dropping fast.
A halo of debris surrounded the vessel. Barrels, tackle, and panels bobbed in the waves.
Ada pointed at someone treading water and waving. The pilot throttled down and cruised over to them.
This time, Ada was the one to extend a hand into the water.
Days earlier, she would never have dreamed of helping a Cazador. They all were evil cannibals who wanted her people dead. But things had changed since then.
The man who plucked her from the water instead of letting her drown had made her rethink everything.
A memory surfaced of dropping the Lion’s crew into the waves. She had killed them because she feared them, and because of what some of them had done to Katrina. But maybe X had been right about giving them a chance.
She shook off the thoughts as the boat brought her closer to the man in the water. He flailed in the other direction.
“Take my hand!” Ada yelled.
He turned around, treading water, then kicked over to her.
Their hands connected just as another explosion burst on the horizon. The drones had moved on to another rig. The trading post…
Jo-Jo let go of Ada’s leg to cower in the stern while the wounded soldier helped her haul the fisherman aboard. Then they putted away, the motor coughing acrid black smoke.
The rescued man nodded his thanks to Ada. But then, seeing the monkey, he reared back slightly. Jo-Jo, equally afraid, cowered behind Ada on the metal bench.
“It’s okay,” she said.
But it wasn’t okay. The trading post was being torn apart, and one of their farms had already been destroyed.
Elysium sailed over to help, still taking enemy fire. The bolts stitched down the warship’s hull. They were close enough now that Ada could see soldiers on the deck. They weren’t all Cazadores.
Militia soldiers in black armor stood among the warriors. They fought side by side, firing everything they had into the sky.
What had happened since she left? Maybe X had secured the peace he promised, after all.
Remorse continued to eat at her.
She looked back to the capitol tower. Cannons boomed from the rooftop, and in the waning sunlight came muzzle flashes from machine-gun nests.
Of the hundred drones that had attacked, over half were still in the air—enough to inflict major damage on the rigs. And from what she could see, the defectors’ aircraft carrier wasn’t even here yet.
In the waning light, muzzle flashes glowed like fireflies across the top deck of the Hive as soldiers and civilians defended their home. She noticed a gaping hole under the balcony platforms built out from the airship. But this one wasn’t smoking, and it had scaffolding around it. Was this from an earlier attack?
Tracer rounds chased a pack of drones that rocketed toward the Hive. One of the machines burst apart, scattering hot metal over the water.