Queen Loreign held her sword steady, pointed at her son. Dorian stepped forward, pressing his chest against the tip of her blade.
“It is not your Throne,” Loreign said. “It belongs to the people of Kylios, which is something you never understood.”
“Stand aside, whore!” Dorian snapped.
“I cannot, so long as I draw breath.”
Dorian’s face flushed, his brows furrowing, his eyes bright with fury. “I am your son.”
”Duty to my people comes first.”
“So be it,” he growled. In an instant, he slapped your mother’s blade aside, stepping inside her guard. A sharp blade flashed in his hand, and he gripped her neck with his other. He stabbed her, viciously, drawing the knife back and plunging it repeatedly into her chest.
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Snickers poked his head out of Keyla’s backpack, and Elion could swear the cat smirked at him. They hiked down a dusty, overgrown trail, Keyla taking the lead. This was their second trip of the morning.
Keyla had roused him, dragging him out of bed and telling him Gorman had a job for them. So they’d hiked down from the village, to the top end of the island, where the river split to run around both sides.
There the cliffs had crumbled, allowing for a steep path down to the river. An alcove, out of the swift current, sheltered the old shipping dock. Constructed of scavenged scrap metal and repaired with lumber from the forest on the island, the dock hadn’t seen much use since the crystal Shard had appeared on the far bank.
A few crates and barrels still sat expectantly on the dock, alongside a rotting coil of rope that hadn’t been moved in months.
The dock house ran alongside the dock, extending over the water on one end but resting on the sandy shore at the other. It held cargo waiting for a boat to come through, along with several crates filled with equipment that hadn’t yet been brought up into the town.
As they reached the shipping house, Elion breathed heavily, sweating beneath his hoodie even in the chill of morning. Keyla didn’t even seem phased by the exertion, even though she carried Snickers in a backpack and a rifle slung over her shoulder.
For some reason Keyla had decided to start talking to him again. She’d also insisted that Elion carry a rifle. At first he liked the feeling of toting the weapon around. The sling held it close to his chest, and the weight of the weapon made him feel powerful.
Considering the amount of fighting that Elion had seen since he’d arrived, the weapon was a reassurance. He liked having something a little more powerful than a butter knife at his disposal.
Still, the novelty of toting a laser gun around had quickly worn off, and he every time the weapon bumped against him or got in the way, he felt more annoyed at Keyla for insisting he carry it with him.
Kasm waking up from his coma had put the whole town on edge. His healing from the infection was a miracle. But he asserted that he’d dreamed of an assault on Aterfel; that a malevolent entity within the Shard drove the infected to try to kill them all. So, everyone had been carrying weapons around, and the guard at the bridge had been doubled, just in case.
Elion walked out onto the dock, wooden planks thunking beneath his feet as the soothing slosh of running water calmed him. The fresh scents of the water, of wet wood, and of growing vegetation filled his lunges.
From here he could see through the gorge to the bridge, where Gorman still struggled with the machinery. Keyla followed his gaze, inspecting the bridge. Not fully raised, the movable span of bridge leaned over the chasm, like it longed to be reunited with its other half.
“It’s not designed to be permanently raised,” Keyla explained. “A lot of stuff has worn out over the past few years. The bridge wants to be lowered; he’s fighting gravity and inertia as best he can.”
“Why doesn’t he just weld it or something?” Elion asked.
“He probably will.”
From here, the gap in the bridge seemed too small. Not enough for a person to get across, but a few prowling pemalion had to be driven off by shots from the sentries rifles. They probably can’t jump that gap, but good to be save, Elion figured.
Down here by the water they were already much closer to the river’s far bank. The pale facets of the Shard jutted into the sky, just visible over the lip of the canyon. The far shore was still several hundred yards away, but it wasn’t as steep on that side, and around the bend upriver he could make out scavengers.
The infected scavengers had beaten a path down to the riverside, and carried things down to the water, working on whatever they were doing down by the shore. They were upriver a way, before the place where it split to flow around the island.
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“What are they doing up there?” Elion asked, raising his rifle to peer at them through the scope. He had a hard time tracking them, their movements covered by foliage.
“Just making sure that no ships get through,” Keyla said. “They blew up a ship, stole another, and killed a lot of people before the settlements upstream gave up. They actually tried to use the ship to cross over to the island, but the engine was damaged in the fighting, and they didn’t have enough power to escape the current.”
“What about downriver?” Elion asked. “Don’t they ever send ships up?”
“Mostly we shipped things downriver, and the empty boats traveled back upstream. It takes a strong engine to move against the current here. And we don’t have much to trade with them now. Used to be that we had the best access to Karin Tol, for scavenging. Since nobody wants to risk getting past the infected, no ships come here anymore.”
“Surely a crew could fight them off. Or an armored ship could just ignore them.”
Keyla shrugged. “I don’t know. Nobody seems willing to try.”
“Aren’t they close enough that you could come down here and shoot at them?”
“Sometimes people do. They’re pretty far for accurate projectile shooting, and they are close enough to the crystal shard that the energy beams start to fizzle. So the infected just duck behind cover or move away when people shoot at them.”
“They never shoot back?”
Keyla shook her head. “Their guns aren’t as good. They’ve only got projectile weapons, and they use those sparingly.”
They entered the dock house, and Keyla handed him a crate, about the size of a carry-on suitcase. “Here, you take this box,” she said, turning back to the stack to pick up another one.
“I think I can take two,” Elion said, hefting the crate. It wasn’t too heavy, and if he could save himself another trip, it would be worth it.
“Did you listen to Gorman?” Keyla asked. “We’re not taking any risk with this stuff. It’s too delicate. What if you trip?”
“I won’t trip,” Elion said. “I’ll be careful.”
“One crate,” Keyla said, picking up one of her own. “Be careful.”
Elion shrugged. Gorman had been emphatic about that point. The equipment in these crates had been delivered just before the Shard landed, over a year ago. Apparently the equipment inside was so highly sensitive to being jostled, Gorman hadn’t bothered to carry it up the hill to his tower and risk damaging things. Elion couldn’t decide if that made sense or was just lazy.
But now he needed it for work on the bridge, which is why Elion and Keyla were carrying the crates across the island to him.
“What if we just bring all the crates up to the top of the cliff, then load everything up into a wagon hitched to an ATV and pull it really slowly down to the bridge?”
Keyla scoffed, rolling her eyes. “The road is too rough for that. We’d have to go way slower. Don’t be lazy, just carry the crate. It’ll only be one more trip.”
So they hiked back up the switchbacks toward the main road. About halfway up, the cliffs gave way to steep slopes, littered with broken stones, and a narrow track cut around the edge of the island; a dirt bike shortcut from the docks to the bridge.
Gorman apparently couldn’t ask anyone else to help carry these boxes of precious equipment. Elion wondered what he’d done to deserve Gorman’s trust.
Keyla still carried Snickers around in his backpack, and the smug little cat kept poking his head out to look at Elion. The cat definitely winked at him this time.
After depositing their second load at the bridge, the temperature had risen significantly. Wondering what the UV index was here, Elion wiped his brow. He tended to burn easily. Beneath his hoodie the shirt soaked up sweat. Feeling insecure, he kept the hoodie on.
Elion followed Keyla back to the dock, but he struggled to maintain her pace and fell behind. She didn’t seem to notice the heat and sun, and her tanned skin suggested a familiarity with the outdoors. She moved nimbly over the uneven path, lithe body balancing effortlessly. Elion knew she was walking fast just to bother him.
When she disappeared around a bend in the path, Elion sat down on a partially shaded rock to rest. He unslung the laser rifle and leaned back, recovering his breath, staring out across the water.
From where he sat he could just make out the edge of whatever the infected were constructing upriver. Some kind of structure, he guessed, which they could use as a platform to assault any ships that might try to pass them on the river. He raised his rifle, peering through the scope to get a better look.
He couldn’t see much from this angle, his view blocked by trees and a shallow bend in the river. Out on the water, he spotted a floating platform with a strange contraption atop it. A long spear appeared to have been shoved down the barrel of a cannon, and a coil of cable nearby fastened to the spear. Elion guessed they might use it to try to harpoon a passing ship.
There did seem to be a lot of activity along the shoreline, as infected scavengers ducked in and out of cover, working on their project. Elion had imagined the infection would make scavengers wild and rabid, but these worked in a calm, coordinated manner. They had a strange aura about them, working like ants or bees—some kind of hive insect. Every once in a while Elion caught a glimpse of the inky blackness that filled their eyes, the visible indication of the infection.
Still, Keyla hadn’t seemed too concerned about them, so Elion guessed it was normal.
Refreshed after his short breather, Elion continued along the path, mentally preparing to defend himself from Keyla’s quips about his slow speed. The path wound lower down the side of the cliff, weaving between gigantic boulders and trees which blocked his view of the river.
A loud boom cracked the air, echoing up and down the canyon. Elion glanced back at the bridge, but it hadn’t moved. He ran down the path toward the river. Rounding a corner, the dock came into view.