22 – Pursuit
When Denise said, “betrayal,” Andy frowned, shaking his head.
“Maybe not, at least not the kind of betrayal you’re thinking of.”
Denise jerked her head in his direction, locking eyes with him. Hers were bloodshot and full of tears; Andy could understand why, considering everything she and her people had lost that night. “What do you an?”
“I an—” Andy looked up at the nearby roof and the guard tower Denise’s people had built up there, pausing briefly to gather the right words. “I could get up there if I wanted to. I could sneak past your people and take out so guards—”
Denise growled, reaching out to grab his coat. “What’s the point?”
Andy put a hand on her shoulder, speaking calmly. “I an, I’m just saying—if I could do it, soone else could. Your people might not have betrayed you; it could be an assassin from outside.”
“And where were you?” Kent asked, his voice still thick with emotion, his knuckles white where they gripped his bow.
Andy’s irritation mounted as the man’s accusatory tone hit ho. His neck got hot as he glowered at the man and said, “Helping. We just passed out all our damn healing potions! You think we’d bother if—”
“Hush, Kent,” Denise interrupted, shaking her head as she backed away, holding up a hand in a gesture ant to soothe Andy’s flaring temper. “He was fighting the monsters. Without him, things would have been a lot worse.”
Omar set his shield on the pavent by his feet with a heavy thunk, squinting up at the tower, then around the parking lot at the post-battle chaos. “You’re vulnerable; maybe they don’t have another attack lined up yet, but they will. You need to hunker down—or move.”
“They?” Denise scowled, but everyone knew who Omar ant: Leo Rukowski and whatever force he served.
Kent nodded. “It makes sense. If anyone knows our watch protocols—I an anyone who would want to hurt us—it would be Leo. The asshole helped build that tower!” He jerked his thumb toward the rooftop.
“How, though?” Omar asked. “How could they ti the bugs to follow the, uh…”
“Behemoth,” Andy said.
Kent nodded along, picking up the gist of what Omar was saying. “Right. How could they make any of that happen? That behemoth didn’t seem like anyone’s pet, and I don’t believe anyone could control a horde of giant mites.”
“You wouldn’t need to control them,” Andy said. “You just need to know how to stir them up—get them going in the right direction.”
“The behemoth to break down the barriers and the walls, the mites to flush us out…” Denise spoke softly, her face reflecting the horror her words evoked. “Could anyone really do that? If we hadn’t stopped the behemoth—if it had gotten the walls down… Imagine the kids!” She turned to regard the main school building.
“Could anyone do it?” Kent shook his head. “Hell no—but Leo could. They were eating kids, rember?”
“Have you guys ever seen a monster like that before?” Andy nodded toward the ruined bus barricade and the enormous behemoth corpse. Huge white bones stood up from the mound of minced flesh left behind by the mites.
Kent nodded. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that one before, and maybe a dozen more. They wander the ruins…”
Andy looked around, his glowing eyes peering into the midnight city streets beyond the fence. “Well, if there are more…”
“What do we do?” Denise asked, eyes wide, looking around the parking lot and schoolyard. People were hurrying back and forth, carrying or dragging wounded people toward the gym. Others were collecting bodies, and a few were already trying to push another bus into the gap in the barricade. “This isn’t…”
She trailed off, but Andy knew what she was thinking. It wasn’t any way to live; the ruins of a city overrun by monstrous creatures, littered with the corpses of a fallen civilization—it wasn’t an ideal situation to rebuild society. “You should move out to the sa.”
“The sa?” Denise looked at him sharply.
“Our settlent.”
“Andy…” Omar looked at him sideways, but he didn’t disagree. In fact, he rubbed the stubble on his chin and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“We can’t just run. We can’t give up everything we’ve done here—” Denise looked around, fresh tears running down her cheeks. Before Andy could respond, she asked, “You have room? For five hundred?”
“Denise,” Kent said, shaking his head. “It’s more like three hundred now, and more than half are teenagers.”
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She shook her head, still staring toward the bus barricade and the piles of burning insect corpses. Her gaze followed a pair of n dragging a human body toward another pile. Everyone stared for a minute before she spoke. “We can’t go now. We have to get organized and pack up. We purchased boons—we can’t just leave the fla. What about the anvil? What about the supply caches, weapon stocks, and—”
The ground shook. Everyone stumbled, but Andy’s balance was beyond natural, and he caught himself easily. He scanned the darkness to the east, his Fla Sight making things clear as daylight. A building was caving in about half a mile from the school, falling down in a great cloud of dust and debris. He shook his head, pointing. “I don’t know what to tell you, Denise, but it doesn’t seem like whoever attacked you is done. Sothing’s coming—sothing that just knocked another building down.”
“We need to move!” Kent said. “I get that you’re the leader, but everyone should get a choice. It’s not safe for the kids, but maybe so of the teens want to stay… I just—”
“No.” Denise shook her head. “You’re right. We need to move. Go—tell everyone to grab what they can carry, but warn them it’s a long walk.” She looked at Andy. “Right?”
“Yeah. A few hours, probably.” As Kent ran off, shouting for people’s attention, Andy had another thought, but he hesitated, unsure if he should say anything, worried that Denise’s resolve was fragile enough.
She read his expression. “What?”
“Um, if your—our—enemies are coordinating this attack…” Andy glanced at Omar, then back to Denise. “If they’re coordinating it, they’ll probably have a plan for when you run. They’ll want to hit you while you’re out and vulnerable.”
Denise clenched her jaw. Her tears were dried, but her eyes were still red as she scowled into the darkness. “So we’re screwed no matter what we do?”
“Nope.” Andy gripped her shoulder. “They don’t know about . I’ll shadow your column and watch for them. If I see Leo or one of his troll buddies, I’m gonna take him. We’ll get so answers.”
“He’s strong…” Denise trailed off, glancing at Andy’s spear. “Never mind. Just, um, if you want to take him alive, be careful; one thing we learned when Leo was fighting for our side was that the trolls are weak to fire.” She grabbed the tal rod hanging from her belt and, with a flash of yellow-tinted mana, it lengthened into her copper staff. “Anyway, I’ll be looking for him too. If they think we’re going to be easy pickings, they’ve got another thing coming.”
“Just don’t—” Andy was going to tell her not to turn invisible. He wanted Leo to feel like he knew where all the defenders were; he wanted the troll and his forces to be overconfident. Denise didn’t give him a chance, though; she interrupted him by holding up a hand as she turned to jog toward the main school building.
“I have to get people moving!” Perhaps she’d sensed it before Andy, but her words were punctuated by another shudder passing through the ground. Whatever was coming, it was big—maybe another behemoth. The thought gave Andy an idea. “Sothing’s gotta be driving that thing this way.”
“You think it’s him?” Omar asked.
“I’m gonna go find out. You good with staying with these guys? Guiding them to the sa? If I don’t find Leo or another troll I can question, I’ll catch up.”
The warrior—warden, Andy ntally corrected himself—nodded, picking up his shield. “I’m good.”
“Right. Stay safe, man.” Andy thumped him on the shoulder, making the tal scales of his armored coat jingle.
Omar grinned. “Don’t worry about .” With that, he turned and started yelling into the smoky haze of the post-battle schoolyard. “Let’s get moving! Don’t carry anything you can’t run with.”
Andy watched as the school’s front doors opened and people by the dozens began streaming out. So were young, but it looked like most of them were high schoolers and adults—probably forr Tanque Verde students and adults who’d lived nearby. Andy gripped his spear, checked that his mana was nearly full, then cast Deepsmoke Shroud, wrapping himself in clinging, shifting smoke that concealed his presence, bending the light around him, muffling the sounds he made, and even masking his scent.
When he neared the high chain-link fence that bordered the school’s property, he channeled a bit more mana into Smoke Drift, sprinted, and leaped. His spell lightened him, allowing the air to carry him aloft. He nearly cleared the fence, but even though he fell short, he just grabbed the top and hauled himself over, gliding down over the grass and onto a nearby road. A rumble sounded, much closer than before, and he jogged toward the sound.
He could see dust in the air and a palm tree swaying, so he aid himself toward the tree. When his path was cut short by an overgrown mid-century ranch ho, he leaped onto the roof, padding lightly over the flat, dust- and debris-covered surface. He paused at the far edge, taking in the scene.
Sure enough, another behemoth was heading for the school, but this one bore a striking resemblance to a gigantic caterpillar. Its shape made it easy to compare to a school bus; Andy guessed it was about the size of one, but longer. It undulated as it moved, millions of stiff, bristle-like hairs shifting and scraping along the pavent. Overall, the thing was red, but it was spotted with patches of black hairs. Andy didn’t know much about the coloring of things in nature, but if he were guessing, he’d bet money that the gigantic caterpillar was venomous.
The front of the giant insect was the only thing that reminded Andy of the other behemoth—its tooth-filled maw opened and closed reflexively while a pair of long, tentacle grabbers snatched things to draw into it. Andy watched as it ate a small shrub, a large dog’s corpse, and the mummified remains of a human it yanked out of a derelict car. He was still crouching there on the roof when he caught sight of his quarry—the behemoth’s antagonist.
A humanoid wearing dark, tattered clothes darted out from behind an overturned panel van, not fifty yards from the behemoth’s front end, and fired a crossbow at it. The bolt flickered with sizzling red electricity, and when it hit the behemoth’s mouth, punching deep into the pink inner flesh, a cascade of red sparks showered through its maw. The behemoth bellowed, reared up, waving its tentacles, then crashed down on the road.
The impact was enough to shake the house on which Andy perched, but he held on, falling flat to his stomach while he watched the giant monster lurch forward, surging down the street toward the shooter. The figure slung the bow, turned and ran, leading the behemoth in a bee-line straight toward the school.
“Gotcha,” Andy hissed, leaping to his feet and charging toward the far side of the roof where he leaped down, gliding for a dozen yards before landing in the overgrown yard. He sprinted toward a fence, jumped, and carried on, racing the behemoth as it undulated down the road to his right.
Andy didn’t have a complete plan yet, but he was determined to catch the figure. He wasn’t sure how he’d get him to talk, or even how he’d subdue him without killing him, but he figured he’d cross those bridges when he ca to them.
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