Contact (I)

The sandstorm lasted most of the day, not letting up until mid-afternoon. The remainder of the day was cooler than the summer norm, but the world was filled with lingering dust that turned the sun and sky into shades of burnt umber. They traveled in that dreary light and into the deeply shrouded night, stopping once at midnight to rest.

By the pre-dawn hour, the ground had started sloping down and Iraj called a halt. The land was changing form again, from cracked hardpan to gradually accumulating soil. Hearty thick-leaved thorny shrubs that stank of resin scattered themselves in disarray, with plenty of space between them. They were often found beyond the edge of established mischus, so Pashtuk's garden must be near.

The sky was nearly clear by then, and there wasn't a trace of wind. It had all the makings of a hot day. They rested in a line, appalons kneeling, humans sitting on blankets faced downhill, waiting for the sun to rise.

"This part requires good light. You will see," Iraj promised them. They ate a breakfast of dried dates stuffed with nuts and dried fruit, rolled up in herbaceous leaves then dried again. A few such treats kept a body moving for hours but were best taken with plenty of water. Otherwise, they'd sit in one's stomach like pebbles.

The sun rose behind them, touched their heads, and drew their thirteen shadows long into the dark of falling ground before them. When the light first touched the ground it did so far beyond them, in the distance. Whether it was caused by subsidence of the aquifers below, or the path of some great river in ages past, Taylor couldn't tell, but they were looking into a channel maybe twenty-five or thirty meters deep and several kilometers wide. The course ran north to south, almost exactly, for seventeen kilometers according to his map.

Gradually, an expanse of mischus was revealed, starting on the far side and working towards them. When sunlight reached the center of the draw they saw it: Pashtuk's garden. Superficially, it was the same as Dagono: inward-facing houses with their backs to the world, formed a barrier against bandits and the weather. In the interior, the settlement was overgrown with life. There were some differences, however. Pashtuk was bigger than Dagono, large enough to hold several times as many people but in some places, their wall was just a wall: there were no houses attached. About half their garden was very different, a field of grass-like plants he couldn't make out in the distance.

Taylor pointed, "What's that in your garden, Iraj?"

"Amaranth and millet. Basket reed and flax." He drank in the view with widened eyes like his home would disappear if he dared to blink. "In winter we have lily roots, a delicacy, fried with tiny spicy peppers. But maybe not this year. They need watering and there's been no one to tend to them. We'll eat lily roots next winter, I'm sure of it."

Not only did the sun reveal mischus and the garden, but shadows too. Blotches of darkness squatted in the mischus — the cadre counted four of them, scattered almost to opposite ends of the field. With his spirit-sensitive eyes Taylor could see more than shadows of cursed monsters: he could see the spirit emanating from them too. More were in the garden, hiding in the trees and inside dwellings.

"Switch to mana-spotting," he told the bulwarks wearing inscribed goggles. "Tell me what you see."

The bulwarks nearly shouted in surprise and passed around the goggles: while wearing them, blue light rimmed around each shadow, and a haze of blue emanated from the trees in Pashtuk's garden. Everyone agreed there had to be at least a few inside the town but it was hard to be precise. Spirit didn't penetrate most solids but scattered and diffused through the thick vegetation.

"Khali, it's your hunt." The woman was startled and stared at Taylor. "What do we do first?"

"Are you sure, Eldest Brother?"

"Lector James says you're ready, and I've seen no reason to doubt him. How do we proceed?"

"Well, we don't know what they are so we have to light one up. Carefully. Whatever these things are, they don't have great eyesight or they would have seen us already. Or, their eyesight is fine but they aren't pursuit predators. There's no wind … my team will approach that one with Overlook and softened feet," Khali pointed at the nearest zone of darkness, "Mahzad's team will be on the slope with slings. If we get into more trouble than we can handle, we'll bring it toward you at a good angle."

"We'll aim for center darkness," grinned Mahzad, "and wreck 'em."

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"And what about me," said Taylor hopefully.

"You can't be risked," Khali admonished him, "so you stay here where it's safe. You'll be the spotter. If everything goes sideways, run."

"You know that's not going to happen." Taylor shifted uncomfortably. She had changed from subordinate to cadre leader so thoroughly, she was prepared to lecture him.

"But it's the right answer. I'll let Maestro Inez explain it to you, if you're unclear on the concept."

Taylor looked down the line to where his five bulwarks looked back at him. They were entirely on board with keeping him behind.

"You're in charge. Go forth and conquer."

Khali and Mahzad's teams grouped around their respective disciples for prayer. Rapid syllables escaped the disciples' mouths, and then they touched each bulwark one by one, adjusting the degree of enhancements for each person's abilities and role. That process was repeated several times to stack all the protections they might need. There was plenty of time to prepare and not many people to enhance, so there was no need to be stingy.

Taylor repeated the process for his group, but silently and much faster. To him, a prayer was but a Word, said silently and all at once. He spared a little spirit for Iraj as well, giving him enough speed to hurt himself if he panicked, enough protection to keep from killing himself with the speed, and enough strength to move under the strain of the other prayers.

Overlook was last, and caused the teams to disappear from normal sight. Mahzad rode to his station on the rim while Khali went downslope on foot. Taylor could still see them as blobs of spirit, but through the magic lenses they were as visible as if they hadn't used the hiding prayer at all. It was an impressive achievement, the kind one kept secret from one's enemies.

Khali's group approached the shadow gradually, on foot with careful steps. They had no idea how much shadow was just shadow, and how much was filled with monster. Taylor relaxed his breath, released his shoulders, and unclenched his hands. His first dark monster had nearly killed him, and he couldn't help imagining Khali's first could kill her in some sudden and horrific way.

They met in Enclave: She accosted him for stealing work from her. From that encounter, he discovered how badly Enclave taught the arts to most of their students, and resolved to update their practices. Maybe that was where the schism started, with Taylor teaching good techniques to students from improper families. All the promise he'd seen back then, and all the training invested in her so far, had to be tested sooner or later.

Just breathe, he told himself, she's been well prepared. Every disciple has to face their first cursed monster.

Khali's group halted at a good throwing distance from their target. "Here comes the light," she said on the link. A javelin appeared in mid-air as it left her zone of secrecy, a mere splinter in the distance propelled by the extra leverage of an atlatl, rocketing toward the darkness. It would be the kind with a fragment attached, rigged to open on sharp impact. It plunged into shadow and vanished. A split second later the darkness burned away in shreds, banished in silver light emanating from the fragment. The throw had been a good one, pierced the monster in the center of the darkness, wounding and revealing with a single blow.

A scorpion, bigger than an appalon, thrashed around trying to dislodge the shaft stuck in its body. Its tail whipped dangerously back and forth, it turned in circles, and massive pincers swept back and forth. Its main eye was a huge black circle on top of its head that flashed violet in reflected sunlight. Taylor wondered what pained it more, the injury or the light. His vision flickered to the other blobs of darkness. All but one of them was moving.

"They're moving, Khali. The one to your left will get there first." He resisted the powerful urge to tell her to withdraw. She was a trained disciple. She knew better than to challenge all of them where she stood but, if she did, she probably could.

"Understood." Parts of the wounded scorpion exploded into shards, and a second later Taylor caught the delayed boom of a ten-kilo slingstone shoving through the air. It was badly lamed now. "Backing off."

"They're not following you. They're going after the wounded one."

Two of the mischus scorpions converged on their wounded sibling. The first to arrive attacked the wounded one and got a stinger to the eye for its trouble. The pair of them grappled pincer-to-pincer while their tails whipped and parried and stabbed at each other's bodies. The second to arrive ambushed the injured one from the rear and, with a single grab of its oversized pincer, clipped its tail down to a nub. The two healthy ones disassembled the first into several pieces and commenced to stuffing themselves with the quivering pieces. The fragment's light was still burning, discarded on the ground as inedible.

"Three coming over the wall," Taylor informed her. The shadow-shrouded forms hauled themselves above the garden wall to join the feeding frenzy. Khali had retreated, but not so far to be out of range. Her bulwark lobbed more stones at the feeding scorpions. One of them was killed outright, and the other one was wounded. When the three from the garden reached the killing field, they finished off the wounded one and started eating.

Khali's voice was on the link, amused. "So, the best bait for giant scorpion is injured giant scorpion. Aren't we short one monster?"

"It's on the far side of the garden," Taylor informed her. "I'll tell you if it moves."

There was a long pause while the three monstrous arthropods ate their fill and Khali made more ammunition. Primitive monsters were often hard to kill with javelins or spears. Their nervous systems were more distributed than mammals, so a single penetrating stab to the brain was often not enough. And their hearts were in strange places, tough to locate if one hadn't memorized their anatomy. Massive damage was better, and that's what slings provided.

A few stones later, only two of the monsters were living. One was uninterested in their proceedings, and the other one was feasting.

"We're closing in for melee," Khali said, "let's find out how they fight."