David Farland - Beyond the Gate

Someone pushed Maggie from behind, and she looked back. Orick had her pack in his teeth, and Ceravanne was stooping to grab Gallen’s incendiary rifle. Gallen was leaping toward them all through the flames. Maggie saw with relief that the timid albino girl had come out, that she was running to the far side of the ship.

In a moment, Gallen was beside Maggie, half carrying Tallea. They rushed to the aft of the ship, found sailors lowering a lifeboat. It had just hit water, and already some of them were scurrying down the rope ladders to get in.

Gallen aimed his incendiary rifle, shouted to them, “Go on, all of you. Get away from the boat!” And the sailors stopped. One man leapt off the ladder, began swimming for shore, while another raced back up to the deck. The sailors at the ropes all rushed to the far side of the ship, hoping to get to the other lifeboat before the ship burned.

Gallen stood on the weather deck, keeping the sailors at bay, while Maggie and the others climbed the rope ladders down to the boat. Maggie held the Caldurian in her lap, for the woman had saved her life, and with her own hands she pushed the woman’s intestines back in place. The Caldurian’s brown face was a mask of pain, and she looked up toward the stars, her dark eyes fixed, unfocused.

Then everyone was in the boat, and Ceravanne was pulling at the oars, splashing them all with water in her hurry to leave. Gallen stood in the prow, balancing on a seat, incendiary rifle in hand.

Fire-lit smoke streamed across the water, and the ship was a roaring inferno. Maggie looked up. The batlike scouts were circling the burning ship, and Orick said to Gallen sadly, “You can’t let them get away, lad. It’s a man’s work you have to do.”

Gallen nodded, took his incendiary rifle, sighted for a second, and fired into the sky. Plasma streamed high, lighting the darkness, and hit one of the scouts, splashing enough so that a second also fell.

A third wheeled out over the water, and Gallen fired. But the scout was far away by then, and it dodged the incoming plasma.

Gallen fired twice into the ship for good measure, and Maggie watched several men throw themselves overboard. A dozen men rowed into view from the far side of the ship, and Gallen fired into their boat at a hundred yards. The plasma rushed toward them, a bolt of lightning, and for ten seconds after the hit, the sailors sat burning in the inferno, flesh melting from bones, so that they were skeletons that crumbled in the furnace.

And then the horror of what had just happened-of the murders Gallen had just been forced to commit-fell upon Maggie like a solid weight, like an invisible stone falling from heaven. She saw him standing with head downcast, shoulders limp, limned in the light of the fires.

“Oh, god forgive us,” Ceravanne whispered, and then it was over.

They were rocking in the lifeboat, and the sea was fairly calm. Gallen made a little whining noise, a cry of shock and disgust and fear, and he let his rifle clatter to the hull of the boat.

Men were out in the water, swimming for their lives, and the flaming ship was sailing to oblivion, making a sound like the rushing of wind, while spars and timbers cracked. And Maggie knew that some of those men were her enemies, servants of the Inhuman, and it was dangerous to show them any mercy. She knew that they should row out there and cut the men down.

But none of them had the heart for it. Gallen shook his head, muttering, “I know what I’m fighting for, but what in the hell am I fighting against?”

No one answered. Instead, Ceravanne brought out her bag of Healing Earth and began to administer to Tallea. Maggie watched out the back of the boat, to a cloud on the horizon, and at that moment, she saw that the Inhuman was but a shadow, a vapor. Every time they tried to strike against the Inhuman’s agents, they faded back and disappeared. She wondered how they would be able to strike against enemies who would not face her.

As Gallen took the oars and rowed toward the distant shore, where the city lights dusted the hillside like flour, Orick began reciting the last rites for those who had died.

Zell’a Cree dove deep beneath the burning ship, and looked up. It seemed for a second that the sky was aflame-or as if the water had turned to amber that scattered the sunlight. Then he climbed for the surface, broke through.

The burning ship roared like a waterfall, and Zell’a Cree floated a moment, floundering, then a wave lifted him and he saw a dark ball floating in the water. He swam to it. It was Captain Aherly, his bald head lolling as if it had been crushed.

Zell’a Cree clung to the floating corpse, and gritted his teeth, looked up at the scouts who were wildly flapping about the ship. All of its masts were aflame, and there was nowhere for them to land, yet the scouts seemed to be circling in the hope of helping survivors.

One of them spotted Zell’a Cree and dove toward him, just as a finger of light arced up from the sea. The scout turned into a flaming skeleton that dropped like a meteor, splashing not far away.

Poor Ssaz , Zell’a Cree thought. Some of the sailors were getting away in a boat, and another finger of light touched them, sent them screaming into torment.

And then Zell’a Cree was nearly alone in the water. Dead, nearly all his men were dead, and of those in the water, he couldn’t guess how many might make it to shore. One lone scout had escaped.

Zell’a Cree fumbled for the bag tied to his belt, feeling the contents. His last Word was there, whole and safe, more precious to him than diamonds. Zell’a Cree let his eyes adjust, until he could see Gallen’s little lifeboat tossing in the waves, and beyond it the lights along the distant shore, and then he struck out.

It would be a far swim, but Zell’a Cree was Tosken. He ripped the bag from his belt, put it between his teeth, and his mood grew foul as he followed the boat.

* * *

The wind and current carried the lifeboat east for many miles, so that as Gallen began rowing, they drew farther and farther from the city.

Ceravanne lay in the boat, stunned by what had happened. She carried the memories of her own suicides, suicides that she had been forced to endure in order to evade the Inhuman, but she had seldom seen such butchery. She’d seldom actually seen men seek to annihilate one another, and she was shocked to the core of her soul.

There was nothing to do but tend to the wounded. She administered the last of her Healing Earth to the Caldurian. The woman had a slash across her belly. It was long, but ran little deeper than the flesh at its deepest point. No vital organs seemed to be hit. Still, Ceravanne did not know if the woman could heal.

Maggie was talking to Tallea, trying to keep the Caldurian calm, her mind occupied. “Are you well? Are you comfortable?” Maggie asked. “Here, let me move, so you can lean your head back.”

Tallea leaned her head back at an odd angle, and after a minute seemed to register the question. “Comfortable. I’m comfortable.” Maggie held her hand over Tallea’s wound, and blood seeped through it. It was a large wound, too big for the Healing Earth to help much.

“Is there anything more that you can do?” Maggie asked Ceravanne.

“No,” Tallea answered, apparently believing that Maggie had asked a question of her.

Ceravanne considered. The nanodocs in her own blood were far more potent than the Healing Earth, but she was proscribed by law from giving her blood to a nonhuman. The nanodocs could establish a colony in her, which would extend her life by decades. Ceravanne pulled a knife from Tallea’s sheath and cut her own wrist in violation of the law. Then she let the blood flow into Tallea’s wound. In a moment, Ceravanne’s own bleeding stopped as the nanodocs closed her cut.