Shadowkill

##

Rohant leaned against the trunk of a tree, winced as his weight shook a spatter of drops from the leaves overhead. The rain was almost finished, but there was still a steady drip here under the trees as their leaves released what they’d captured.

The creature in his hair shifted position hastily to avoid being drowned, burrowing deeper into his tangled mane.

“What…” He reached up, touched it. “What happened? Who…”

“I was about to tell you… be careful…”

Rohant sneezed again, held his hand still so the creature could crawl onto it. He grinned as he set it on his knee. “Miji,” he said. “He’s a sakali. Friend of mine. You were about to tell me?”

“Right. About to introduce my rescuer and sometime partner. Ginny Seyirshi.”

“What!”

Miji eeped with fright, went running down Rohant’s leg. He sat on the Dyslaeror’s ankle, tiny hands pressed to his ribs, black eyes shifting from Rohant to Shadith and back again.

“Long story how that came about, tell you later. Looks like he decided to dissolve the relationship.”

Rohant ch’ch’ed at the sakali; without looking at her, he stopped his coaxing a moment, said, “So why are we alive?

“He gave his word, said he wouldn’t kill me for at least a year. It was Omphalos he was after.”

“You trusted him?”

“Didn’t have much choice right then.” She ran her hands through her hair, shivered as a vagrant draft hit her soaked undersuit. “Besides, he keeps his word. You just have to be careful you know what he means by it. Like, he’d be clam-happy if Miralys ashed us both, but he wouldn’t do it himself. Um, not too long from now, this place isn’t going to be very healthy.”

Deflected by the defense shield, a missile hit the ground, blew a hole in it, and sent fragments of stone scything through the trees a short distance downstream.

Rohant coaxed Miji onto his arm, drew his thumbclaw down his mustache, raised a brow at her. “Don’t know why you say that. Consider our gently salubrious surroundings.”

“Hah!” Shadith pulled herself onto her feet. “Discounting little things like…” she waved a hand at the shattered trees and steaming water, “this is going to be ground zero of a humongous meltdown.”

Rohant stood, scowled at her. “Meltdown?”

“Yeah.” Shadith shivered as another explosion shook earth and air. “Ginny’s sent his special EYEs at the kephalos. They’re going to trigger Mimishay’s self-destruct. Good-bye island, good-bye all of us, them included.” She jerked her thumb upward, waved her hand in a circle to include the attacking landers.

“How much time?”

“God knows, not me.”

Rohant scratched absently behind the neckfrill of the sakali. “Shadow, could you reach Miralys?”

“Not Miralys. Kikun maybe and that’s only if his gods have him looking.”

“Well, try it.”

“Not here. Hunh.” She began walking upstream.

Cuddling the sakali, Rohant shook himself all over, spat, and started after her. “This doesn’t work, we can always climb on a rock and dance. Hope they see us and don’t shoot us.”

Autumn Rose/Kikun

Autumn Rose booted the skimmer away from the Cillasheg, started descending in a wide spiral, keeping her distance from the attack zone. Without taking her eyes from the board, she said, “Just where is it you want me to put down?”

Kikun scratched at the skin folds under his chin. “North side, close as you can get.”

“Big place. Mountainside north or seaside?”

He frowned. “Tlee! I don’t know.”

“Then we better go too… Z’ Toyff!”

An immense elongated form went rushing past the skimmer, sending it into a wild tumble, falling end over end toward the ground.

Autumn Rose’s crashweb snapped tight and the emergency pad popped up under her hand. With the argrav spurting out streamers of blue smoke while the skimmer flipped over and over and Kikun lying unconscious in the co-chair, twisted under his crash web, half strangled by it, Rose rode the wild oscillations, praying for time, widening and flattening the curves, holding the skimmer longer and longer in the flat mode until she had control over the drives again and took a look round to see where she was…

And found herself in a descending slide across the top of the Compound with cutter beams dancing around her and the swarm of Dyslaera Landers swinging in and out of view and she was heading straight for a broad beam that was also sweeping toward her seconds away…

A black Bear fifty meters high reached out a smoky paw and the beam was deflected, turned downward, the blade-end slicing through the already tortured earth.