Warsinger - Chapter Ten

A rush of primal fear lanced through my gut. Every Californian knew that sensation of the earth about to rise up under your feet, split apart, or liquefy. The rumbling built, and built, until the few bookshelves we hadn't turned over began to sway back and forth.

"It's the fucking Sandworm Queen." I began to backpedal for the door. "Run!"

No one needed telling twice. We scrambled out of the door and bolted past the fallen Turks, the piled corpses, and down the blasted hallway. I heard a wall explode in behind us, scattering chunks of stone and sending clouds of dust up into the air. 

We burst back into the field hospital to find pandemonium: the healthy were gathering what injured they could, carrying or dragging them as the ground bucked fitfully beneath our feet.

"Here!" Suri hauled up one unconscious man, and threw him unceremoniously over the back of Cutthroat's saddle. "Hector, Karalti - take Cutthroat and get out of here! Don't worry about me; I'll catch up!"

"Suri-" I started, even as Karalti grabbed my forearm and began to drag me toward Cutthroat.

"No! Don't you dare argue with me about this." Suri bared her teeth, hauling one patient up into a fireman's carry over her shoulder. She squatted down so one of the other prisoners could slump another body over her other arm. "If Karalti dies, we're fucked! Get her and Cutthroat out of here!"

She had a point there. I sprung onto Cutthroat's back and dug my feet into the stirrups, caught Karalti's hand as I urged Cutthroat into a sprint, and swung her up onto the saddle as we fled. 

Cutthroat wailed, trying to turn her head back toward Suri until a huge chunk of stone dislodged from the ceiling and nearly smashed into us. It spooked her so bad that she practically bolted back toward the surface. We ran through the junction and swung a hard left up the wagon entry tunnel. Al-Asad crumbled behind and around us. As soon as we hit the straight upward climb I whipped Cutthroat to a full sprint: head down, spine and tail held stiffly out behind her. I looked back for Suri, but couldn't see her in the chaos - and then we burst out into the fresh desert air, clawing through a crowd of agitated rebels, prisoners, and captured guards.

"Where is she?" Karalti searched the crowd.

"I don't know." I wheeled Cutthroat around, reaching back to make sure our injured passenger was still loaded on properly. The dinosaur snapped at people who got too close, clearing a fifteen-foot circle of space with her claws and tail. When the crowd got the hint, she reared up and barked. "Cu-CAW! Cu-Caw!" 

"Uhhhhuuu." Karalti groaned, clenching my thigh with one small hand. "I don't know if she's gonna make it." 

"She will." I kept Cutthroat on a short rein, waiting and hoping.

Men and women were shouting over one another, pressing towards the curtain wall and the single small exit out into the desert. There was a gritty crunch from deep within the tunnel, and then the walls simply sloughed off and collapsed, the tunnel folding down behind it.

"We can't leave her in there if she dies!" Karalti squeaked. "Her spawnpoint is in the Dregs, and the Dregs are underwater now!"

An awful chill passed through me. Karalti was right. Suri's cell was now full of tons of stone and underwater. If she died and respawned there, she'd continuously wake up and die, wake up and die. It was the exact same scenario that had turned Ororgael from a bitter-but-otherwise-ordinary guy into an authoritarian mongrel who considered himself to be the rightful god-king of the world. 

"She's not dead." I insisted. "She's in our party... if she died, I'd get a notification or something."

But as the minutes passed, even I began to feel uncertain. 

In the swirling cloud of dust, I saw a glimpse of red. There was a heavy clanking that could be heard over the deep crunch of shattering stone deep within the collapsing labyrinth - faintly at first, then louder as Suri mounted the ramp. She was almost seven feet tall in her black horned armor, carrying the limp forms of the two prisoners she had rescued over her shoulders.

Around Karalti and I, every one of the Fireblooded and a good number of the other prisoners went to their knees.

"Sultira!"

"Sachara malik'i!"

The Dakhari began calling out as she came to a stop, as confused as we were. She looked to me. I shrugged.

"Righty-o then." Suri carefully slid one of the swooning men down into the crook of her arm, and lowered him to the ground. She said something harsh in Dakhari to them all and made a shooing motion. People rushed forward to take the injured, and then ran with them down toward the gate as more ominous sounds ground out underneath our feet.

“You ready to go, lover boy?” Suri said.

Before I could reply, there was an ear-splitting crack from deep below our feet. The ground lurched, and the gatehouse folded inward like a house of cards. The prisoners and rebels reacted before we did - they ran, sprinting toward the gatehouse and the exit.

"Karalti!" I vaulted off Cutthroat's back.

"Okay!" The smaller woman was off just behind me. She unequipped her armor and flung her arms wide. Her small frame blurred into a shimmering mass of color.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" The ground was starting to tip. I equipped Cutthroat's muzzle and harness. They appeared on her body like a bondage outfit. She squawked in protest. “Get ready to swing up and fly!”

"There's no time for the harness!" Karalti ducked down, spreading a wing. Suri scrambled inexpertly up the slick leathery surface. I Jumped from the ground to Karalti’s shoulder, hooked a foot under the saddle grips, and flopped down on my belly to help the woman climb.

Cutthroat honked in confusion, turning this way and that as the stone beneath us began to split and rupture. 

“Cutthroat!” Suri screamed her name as I hauled her up to the saddle. “Stay!”

Karalti bellowed, and as soon as we were all on her back, she surged into the air, driving up a storm of dust and broken rubble. "Hold on, everyone!"

"Grab the straps and saddle grips!" I shouted back. “Don’t let go!”

Suri flattened herself as best she could, yelping when Karalti pivoted in the air and thundered down, reaching for Cutthroat with her long hind feet. The hookwing cried out piteously as the stone liquified to sand beneath her claws, and she abruptly sunk to her knees - only to be pulled free like a cork as Karalti snatched her up like an eagle grabbing a fish out of a lake. The drag caused Karalti’s whole body to shudder.

"We're going to Taltos!" I roared. "Don't let go!"

Suri squeezed her eyes closed and tucked her head under her arms just before we folded into nothingness and vanished.