D. MacHale - The Soldiers of Halla

“I can’t,” Patrick declared.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because I just tried. Nothing happened.”

“You tried to travel to Third Earth?” I asked quickly. “Just now? And you’re still here?”

“I think Press was right,” Patrick said, glum. “Whatever powers we had as Travelers are gone.”

“But we are still here,” Alder said. “We still exist.”

“What happened, Uncle Press?” I asked.

Uncle Press sighed. “I guess I can be positive and say that you are now the people you always thought you were. Your physical selves are all that is left.”

Gunny said, “So no more healing? No more traveling? What happens to our spirits if we die?”

Uncle Press shrugged and said, “Don’t.”

“So then, what do we do now?” Siry asked.

“This doesn’t change a thing,” I called out. “The dados are still headed this way. I’m going to find Courtney and take one last shot with the exiles. You all should go to Third Earth. Find Mark and be ready.”

“Did you forget, Pendragon?” Siry said. “We can’t travel.”

I looked at the young Jakill from Ibara. He was a brave, dedicated kid. But he didn’t always think things through. I walked to the edge of the new flume and gestured to it with open arms.

“Oh,” he said, embarrassed. “Right.”

“Third Earth!” I called.

The tunnel came to life. The music was back. The lights were back. We were in business.

“I’ll be right behind you,” I said, and jogged toward the village.

My goal was to get back to the council meeting and give them one last warning about the army that was about to arrive on their doorstep. I hoped that maybe by showing them the flume, I’d have a little more credibility. Worst case, if they insisted on staying to defend Black Water, knowing about the flume might help set up an evacuation, if things started going badly. No, that would be when things started going badly. I ran over all the arguments and options in my mind. I had to be positive. I had to convince them.

It wasn’t until I reached the village and almost to the center building that I realized something was wrong. There was no sound. No activity. No gars walking around. No signs of life anywhere. It was eerie. Where had everybody gone? I hoped that it was actually very late at night, and everyone was in bed asleep. I expected to have to track these people down in their homes and wake them up…

When the warning horn sounded. The steady whoop whoop filled the oddly quiet village with ear-numbing sound. The wrong kind of sound. I didn’t think for a second that it was a drill. I ran to the far side of the village, toward the mountains and the tunnel into the valley of waterfalls. I expected to see gars and Yanks running to their posts to man their positions.

I didn’t. I was alone. Where was everybody? Maybe, I thought, they were already at their posts. It was the only explanation. But when I reached the outer ring of the village, I saw that the defensive huts were empty. There were no gars manning the radio cannons, or peering out of windows with arrows at the ready. The huts were dark and quiet.

What was going on?

My eye finally caught movement, but it only added to my confusion. I saw what looked like a pin spot of light glowing on the side of the mountain. It was maybe twenty yards up from the walk able slope, where the rock face turned sheer. It was like nothing I had seen before. Was it some new technology that was brought by the exiles? Was it a visual alarm to go with the horn? Was it an emergency beacon? I stood still, watching. Fascinated. The pin light grew. A beam shot out from the glowing spot and flashed across the sky, casting a line of light over the empty huts of Black Water. All I could do was stare in wonder. The pin spot continued to grow, spilling light onto the face of the mountain. The light became a growing circle. That’s when I realized the truth. I didn’t need to hear the musical notes that soon followed.

I was witnessing the birth of another flume.

Light blasted out of the circle, eating away at the rock, creating the new opening. The music arrived next, quickly growing loud and jangly. I looked back to the village to see if any gars had come out from wherever they were to see what was going on. The village was empty. I was alone. Within a minute the hole of light had grown to thirty yards across. That’s when it stopped. The enormous tunnel was complete. Even from as far away as I was, I recognized the walls of gray stone.

The highway was open.

I knew what was going to happen next.

Saint Dane wasn’t going to wait until morning.

Enough light glowed from the flume so that I could see what was coming in. This tunnel stretched to another world. From deep inside, marching in step, came the first line of invaders, carrying red Ravinian flags. They marched to the mouth of the new tunnel and continued down the slope toward the village. There were more. Many more. Looking beyond them into the flume, I saw no end to them. Like a swarm of red locusts, the Ravinian army poured from the depths of infinity, bent on their deadly mission.

Saint Dane had sent his entire force to march on Black Water.

The final battle for Halla had begun.

Wave after wave of dados marched out of the flume, headed toward the village of Black Water.

Some wore the uniform of the Ravinian soldiers. Others were dressed in the green uniform and gold helmet of the security dados from Quillan. There were even hundreds of dado klees that came pouring out. All were armed with the silver prods that could extinguish life with a single shot. Unlike the attack on Black Water by the klees, these dados weren’t interested in capturing anybody for food. This was an army of execution. As far as I could tell, every dado we had seen in the factory on Third Earth had made the journey. It meant that Saint Dane was pulling out all the stops. This was his final assault. He wanted to complete his quest by destroying every last one of the exiles.

But where were they?

I watched the massive show of force pouring into Black Water from behind the safety of one of the defensive huts in the first ring of structures. Seeing so many dados confirmed my fear that there was no way the gars and Yanks would be able to hold them off for long. Depending on how long the radio cannons had power, they could knock out a thousand, or a few thousand. But there would be a thousand more to take their place. And a thousand more after that. It was small consolation that my fears were correct. I was mesmerized by the sight of such an overwhelming force pouring from the flume.

It wasn’t until I felt the hair on my arms crackle with energy that I was snapped back into the moment. One of the invaders must have seen me and fired his weapon. What the heck was I still doing there? Alone. Facing an army of thousands. With weapons. It was time to be somewhere else.

I ran back into the heart of the village, not sure if I should look for Courtney and the council, or just get back to the flume and jump to Third Earth. I ran past house after empty house. All the lights were still on, but nobody was home.

Paf! Paf! I felt the surge of two blasts of power fly past. The dados were after me. I made a quick turn down a narrow street and was faced with two red-shirt Ravinian dados. Their weapons were up and pointed. At me. I jumped off the street as paf. Another shot flew by. Too close. I couldn’t let myself get hit. No way. If the spirit of Solara was as good as gone, my own spirit wouldn’t survive my body’s death and end up back on Solara. If I got shot now, it would be over. For good. There was no more safety net. I was now running for my life.

I heard dados everywhere, yelling orders and knocking down doors in their search for the exiles. Running through the rings of structures was like sprinting through a maze. I kept changing direction, making it difficult to be tracked. Unfortunately, I outsmarted myself and got turned around. I wanted to end up at the flume, but I was dangerously close to being lost, or accidentally circling back and ending up surrounded by dados. I kept looking up at the mountains that surrounded Black Water, trying to get my bearings. It was impossible. The mountains formed a continuous ridge. There were no particular peaks that stood out. It was like running around inside of a bowl. With every turn I kept hoping that I’d run into a gar, but the village was empty. Totally empty. Except for one lone creature.