Kyle West: Darkness

Well, good thing we have the mightiest around.

I felt a bit of doubt coming from Askal, but all the same, he stamped his feet in preparation to cast off for the cold, dark sky above.

Sensing this, Anna wrapped her arms around me even more tightly. I put my glove back on. I felt my eyes revert to their normal state.

“I will never get used to flying on this thing,” she said. “This is my third time doing it and it never gets easier.”

I squeezed her hands, such as I could in my gloves. “You’ll be fine. I’m more worried about freezing to death.”

Anna said nothing as Askal gently lifted from the ground, with several flaps of his massive wings. Outstretched, an Askala’s wings were a wonder to behold — perhaps one hundred feet from end to end. The Askala themselves had to be incredibly lightweight even with a wingspan like that. I watched Askal’s powerful muscles bulge below where I was seated. I wondered how much fungus he had to eat a day in order to have the energy to do this. It had to be a lot.

Taking off was always the scariest part, but I found it helped to lean as far forward as possible into Askal’s back. It helped us to stay balanced and not be caught by sudden gusts of wind.

Below, the tents, wooden buildings, and palisade wall of Pyrite fell away as Askal wheeled himself south toward Bunker 108, a place that was sure to kill us if this flight in the cold didn’t do the job first.

“Bunker 108, here we come.”

From behind, Anna groaned.

The journey was as cold and harsh as I expected and more. Anna and I leaned into Askal’s warm body as much as possible. The body temperature of an Askala had to be much higher than that of a human just judging by the amount of heat radiating from Askal’s scales. Even with the majority of Askal’s form blocking the harsh wind, gusts still pierced my clothing, sending me into shivers.

Fifteen minutes into our flight, we were high above the Wasteland — perhaps one thousand feet. Any higher and the cold would have been absolutely unbearable. Dawn broke over some low hills in the east, tingeing the clouds red where once they had been gray and cold. A sudden wave of exhaustion overtook me. Even with all of this warm clothing, the elements were sapping my strength. The coffee I’d had with my breakfast no longer warmed me.

It would be Christmas in just a few days, which seemed a strange thought. Bunker 108 had usually celebrated with extra rations and a full day off, though the significance of the holiday had been lost on the younger generation. I knew the basic story from the few times I’d attended chapel on Christmas Eve. However you looked at it, this time of year was celebrated by a lot of people around the world.

These days it seemed that we had little to celebrate. The Exodus was on its last legs, suffering at least a few deaths every day — mostly from cold and sickness. Within two weeks, the food would completely run out. The clock was ticking, which made our mission to find a shelter all the more pressing. If there was to be any form of celebration, it would come only when everyone was safe underground.

We had been in the air for two hours and so far Askal had given no sign of slowing. It was about two hundred miles total to Bunker 108 from Pyrite. I didn’t know how fast he could fly, but it didn’t seem to be that fast at all, judging by how slowly the twisted, dusty landscape passed below. As the day brightened, the desert floor was lit its usual crimson. I had no idea if we had a couple of hours more or even as much as six hours . This was the main reason we had left so early. So far, the sun had not brought much heat — though it seemed to have warmed ever so slightly since we set out.

“How are you holding up?” I asked Anna.

She buried her face in my back. “Cold.”

“We can go to the ground. Find some place to warm up a bit.”

She didn’t answer. On our way to Bunker 108 we would probably be flying across, or at least close to, Oasis. It would have been a good place to rest, except for the fact that we were flying on Askal and would likely be shot once in range. Also, such a stop would add time to our journey. I had a long-range radio attached to my belt, so I could contact Odin or Gilgamesh if things got too unbearable. The radio was for emergencies and status reports, but if things did get too cold, it was good to know we had a way out.

“We’ll make it there soon enough,” I said. “And when we do, we’ll have Odin pick us up this time.”

“If Odin isn’t busy,” Anna said. “I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

Even if it was absolute misery, we would make it, if only because we had to.

That was when I saw wooden buildings rising on the horizon, surrounded by a wooden wall. In the center of the buildings was a gleaming pond, frozen.

“Oasis,” I said.

Anna perked up behind me, looking over my shoulder. Smoke rose in streams from the clustered wooden buildings on Oasis’s southern side. It was good to see at least one settlement alive when so many had already been overwhelmed — even if that settlement was Oasis. I wondered what Ohlan’s reaction would be to the Vegas Exodus and the New Angels — that is, if he did not already know about us.

“Hard to believe we’ve flown this far already,” I said.

“Oasis is at least a hundred miles from Pyrite.”

Askal flapped his wings in long, steady sweeps, never breaking his rhythm, oblivious to our conversation. The Askala was a lot faster than I’d given him credit for.

It would just be an hour or two more until we touched down by Bunker 108. This thought was both welcome and unwelcome — welcome because we would be out of the cold air, and unwelcome because we had go inside that horrible place.

A few minutes later, we passed over the city. The buildings below looked empty and forlorn. I would have thought the town abandoned except for the fact that I saw a few people walking its streets, pausing to look up at us. Some of the people ran for the cover of buildings. Obviously, they had seen xenodragons before. We were far enough above the town to be out of range, unless someone below happened to get a very lucky shot. We soon found ourselves flying over a line of hills, having passed the town in mere seconds.

I realized, with a start, that Makara and I had traversed these hills a little over three months ago when we had been running from Brux and his gang of Raiders. Seeing that rough terrain pass in just a minute was a bit surreal. It had taken hours to cross those jagged hills. Below, toward the east, a winding trail struck across the desert plain, between two ridges of mountains.

“Raider Road,” Anna said. “Runs from Raider Bluff in the east all the way to Los Angeles in the west. A little farther south and it takes a turn for the city along the line of I-10.”

“Which all means what?”

“That if Bunker 108 is north of I-10, we must be close.”

It had taken a little over a week for me to get from Bunker 108 to Oasis when I had first entered the Wasteland. But I hadn’t been going in a straight line. I’d set off east and had wandered aimlessly for a week before meeting up with Makara. That meant that Oasis might not be that far from Bunker 108, as I had originally thought — perhaps only a two days’ journey. Bunker 114 and Bunker 108 were about fifty miles apart, and Oasis was probably halfway between Bunker 108 and Bunker 114, give or take.

My brain did a flip as its internal cartography was thrown upside down.

“So I don’t really know exactly where I’m going anymore…” I said.

“We just have to find that trailer you talked about. Right?”