Pilgrim (4 page)

The worst thing was that Sora’s wide eyes
and curled lip stayed frozen as she snapped each rabbit’s neck.

“Cal, I don’t think I’ll have much longer,
you really need to work this out,” Nova said.

“My systems recommend you try to escape,”
Cal replied into her head. “The possibility of being able to rescue
you is decreasing rapidly: now at point one percent.”

She groaned and rolled her eyes. What good
were a spaceship and a robot if they couldn’t save you from a bunch
of savage children? Probably just as good as being able to reach
through time but not being able to control it. It had been months
since her run-in with the Ancients, and all she’d gotten was many
sleepless nights and closer to madness.

She risked a glance back at the girl in the
once-white dress. The box at her feet was empty and she stared at
Nova.

The drumbeat picked up tempo.

She wanted to put her hands over her ears
and bury herself in a deep dark hole where light and sound couldn’t
reach. She was out of luck.

The children began to dance. They hopped
from foot to foot as they moved around the circle and jumped into
the air. Some pulled out sticks and instruments and played them as
they danced, adding to the primitive music. The children chanted in
unison. Unlike their normal language, Nova couldn’t understand what
they were saying.

Their feet dashed across the dirt as they
spun. Strange beads clinked at their wrists and necks, unlike any
beads Nova had ever seen. They weren’t made of clean plastic, but
of rattling teeth and bones. Down in the village, Nova saw a bright
fire and heard more children singing and dancing.

A small light separated itself from the fire
down in the village and weaved its way towards them. It was a
bright spec of light in the darkening night. She looked to the
night sky, wishing for a sign of Cal and Crusader. It wouldn’t be
hard for them to take out the children now. Hell, if they convinced
the savages they were gods then all her problems would be over.

The glowing light neared until it revealed
itself as an older boy holding a piece of wood lit on one end, with
a glowing flame. He knelt by Nova’s head and held the torch toward
her. Sora came out of the circle of dancers and took the torch. She
held it above her head and grinned at Nova. Her sharp teeth glinted
in the glowing torchlight.

She gazed into the starry night sky. She
stomped her left foot and the gathering fell silent. Each of the
children stopped mid-dance and stood like statues. They stared at
the flaming torch, their eyes glazed over and their mouths
open.

Sora closed her eyes. Her voice was deeper
than it should have been.

“Many years ago, the great Rock became
lonely. He wanted to carve people in his image so that they could
live on Taive and relish in his wonder. So the great Rock carved
children from the dirt. He breathed into them the air from the sky
and covered them with the fur of the beasts. So it was he created
the Taiveans.

“These people thrived with magical powers.
They could see over great distances and travel at great speed.
These people had no need for hunting because their food appeared in
magical silver boxes. The people tamed the land and built
structures which blocked out all of the great Rock’s gifts.

“The great Rock grew angry at his children.
They didn’t appreciate his gifts and were obsessed with their
magical powers. It is said that some of these people lived for over
one hundred years! But their bodies were not meant to last for so
long.

“The children’s hair went grey. They lost
the ability to see, even with their magic and eventually they lost
the air from their lungs and died. This was not the respectful
death we know of but an ugly slow death which left a lifeless
corpse. The living then had to bury the corpse in the hopes that
the great Rock would take care of it.

“The great Rock became so angry at the
people’s ignorance, he fell from the sky and collided with the
ground with so much force it caused the people’s towers to crumble.
They were left with rubble and no evidence of their power.”

Sora swung her torch through the air and her
sudden movement made the younger children gasp and step back. Her
eyes were cold and piercing as she regarded the children before
finally coming to rest on Nova’s face.

Nova’s skin prickled under the gaze. She’d
been swept up in the story and despite her circumstances was eager
to hear how it ended.

Sora stomped her foot and resumed her
tale.

“The people approached the fallen rock and
even dared to touch its sacred surface. The younger children knew
better. They watched it with awe and reverence, the way a piece of
the great Rock should be observed.

“But the great Rock hadn’t meant to just
crumble the Taivean’s buildings. He had much bigger plans. After
twenty-five years, something changed. The elders continued living
while the children sporadically vanished from their beds, never to
be seen again.

“The great Rock told the children that the
older people got, the more foolish they became. The Rock had
decided that he only wanted Taive to be populated by children who
wouldn’t go against his will. The great Rock told them that from
now on, each person would live only for their allotted life-span.
When that was over, at thirteen years of age, they would be taken
from Taive and returned to the great Rock.

“In order to please the great Rock the
children lit a fire and threw the adults onto it. They burned
alive, screaming in agony.

“The children never regained the elders’
magic but that was a good thing because of the evil such magic can
bring. From then, the people of Taive lived only as children and
the great Rock was pleased.

“But there was a warning. If the children
tried to live longer than they deserved, then they would all be
killed and the Taiveans would die out. The Rock demanded that they
make sacrifices to him or risk facing his wrath again. He warned
that the elder kind might appear again and if they did, they would
try to corrupt the children and must be destroyed.”

***

Sora fell silent.

Nova’s heart pounded so hard, she could hear
it thudding. She shook her head to get rid of the tendrils of story
that clouded her mind. She could clearly picture the events of the
tale taking place and feared she was about to meet the same fate as
the elders.

Her mouth felt like sandpaper as she
swallowed the lump in her throat. The story sounded like legend but
the conviction in the girl’s voice and the ferocity of the children
left no doubt in Nova’s mind that they believed it to be true.

Despite spending her childhood on the
drug-riddled streets, Nova was certain that she’d never met a more
savage and blood-thirsty group of children. Their eyes glowed with
a madness that made Nova’s chest go cold and she wanted nothing
more than to get as far away from them as she could.

Sora opened her mouth to reveal pointed
teeth.

“Oh no you don’t!” Nova said. She wormed
against the ropes, bent her arms at unnatural angles and pulled
with all of her strength. Her bonds remained and Sora smiled at her
with the glowing torch in hand.

Sora stepped forward and opened her mouth.
Her bottom jaw disconnected from the top and her mouth widened. Her
now gaping maw was so wide that Nova’s whole arm could have fit
inside with room to spare. Sora’s eyes rolled upward so that just
the whites were visible.

Nova’s heart raced into overdrive.

Sora approached. Her sharp teeth glinted
like razors as she shuffled blindly towards Nova’s pyre. The
torch’s flames licked at the wood and gathered together as if
preparing to leap to the ready kindling piled beneath.

Nova’s eyes widened. Her arms strained
against the ropes. She kicked her legs and bucked her body. Her
mouth was dry; it was like she had licked a pile of dirt. The blood
pumped through her ears and her headache was forgotten. The rope
held firm but the log she was tied to bounced. It was only a
little, but if she could make it bounce higher, it might just come
free.

There was no time to waste. The girl with
her unnatural snake-like mouth was only a metre away from Nova’s
face. It looked as if she intended to swallow Nova’s head whole
while the rest of her body burnt.

Nova bucked her body again and the wood
lifted a little higher. She tried again. This time, the log reached
the top of the support and fell back down. With just seconds to
spare, Nova wrenched her body up. The stick lifted into the air. It
hovered above the support and crashed down on the other side.

The pole fell from its supports and
clattered to the ground. She was carried with it and landed
back-first onto the dirt and sticks. The wind was knocked out of
her and the impact was followed by the log slamming into her face.
She swore and pushed the log away.

The ropes were looser now and she could
twist her hand around to untie the knots. She wasn’t fast enough.
The girl in the white dress shrieked and her mouth snapped closed.
The other children ran towards Nova with shouts, waving their
spears in the air. A boy flung out his foot and kicked her in the
temple.

The force wasn’t enough to knock her out,
but it was hard enough to make her head ring and her vision blur.
Nova’s teeth clenched together and her hands balled into fists.
Waves of heat rushed over her cheeks as blood boiled to the
surface. Every time it looked like she could escape, she was
surrounded and then woke up to a situation worse than what she’d
been in before. She had no way to protect herself as the ten
children circled and began striking out.

The girl in the white dress stood back from
the others. There was no evidence of the dislocated jaw. Her
haunting white eyes were gone. Nova lifted her arms to protect her
head but it was difficult when they were tied to the post.

“Frickin’ cosmic craphole!” Nova bellowed.
She inwardly cursed herself for ever visiting the planet. No bounty
was worth this.

She rolled to the side. Her feet and hands
were still tied to the log so she held it as close as she could and
took it with her. She used her bigger size to bowl over three
children and managed to escape the main ring. She was free of the
blows for a few seconds and returned to working on the knots at her
wrists. She bit down on her bottom lip and dared the rope not to
come apart.

A piece came free and slid off. The tension
at her left wrist loosened and allowed her greater movement to work
at the rest of the rope.

It was too late; the children were ready.
They fell down on her with knees and elbows. They pinned her to the
ground and held her limbs in place. There was no way she would be
able to undo the knots with their small bodies covering her.

Nova heard it before the children.

It was the sound she had been waiting for
and she instinctively breathed a sigh of relief. It was the sound
of engines and fans. It was the sound of air being pushed around
and spread in all directions. It was the sound of Crusader coming
in to land.

A surge of relief flooded through Nova’s
body. The ball of tension she’d had in her chest dissipated and
left her able to breathe. Even the pain in her shoulders faded away
as she let her body relax.

As the noise reached a crescendo, whirring
just above their heads, the lights flashed on. Huge spotlights
exploded into existence and lit up the village beyond. The glow
blinded everyone who saw it.

The children cried out and backed away from
Nova. They pointed up at the ship with their mouths open. The young
girl in charge stared, her eyes glazed over. They backed away
further as the ship got lower. Their hair was flung about their
heads by the gusts of wind and their cries of panic were drowned
out by Crusader’s engines.

Nova squinted her eyes shut against the
glare. She didn’t allow herself to smile. She wasn’t out of danger
yet, but she did allow her breathing to slow. She glanced over at
the children.

They were huddled in a frightened mass,
clothes swirling around their bodies, staring up at the ship.

Crusader landed on the ground beside Nova
and the door slid open. Cal floated out and using a fine knife,
sliced through her ropes. The bonds fell free and she leapt to her
feet. She sprinted back to the ship as fast as she could and dived
through the open door. Cal hovered in after her and Crusader’s door
slid shut behind them.

The sound of whirring engines was blocked by
the closed door and the bright spotlights were replaced by the
soothing glow of Crusader’s internal storage bay.

“Took your time,” Nova said.

“We had some engine trouble,” Cal said.

She panted on the floor with her back
against the metal wall. Her face and body ached with a hundred
injuries. Her left cheek stung and she still couldn’t open her eye.
She tentatively reached down and winced as her fingers grazed her
side. Her body flushed hot and cold in equal parts as her heart
rate returned to normal.

Nova reached over to the left-hand wall and
lifted up a panel. In the compartment was a rudimentary first-aid
kit. Bandages, anti-poison and immune booster injections were
scattered about the box. She buried her hand through the equipment,
shuffling things left and right until she found what she was
looking for.

She pulled the cool-pack out of the plethora
of other items and shook it. The bag turned cold as ice. She laid
the packet on her left cheek. The chill soothed the aching which
had spread out from her cheek and she let out a sigh.

“Do we have any more of these?” she said.
“I’m pretty sure I need about a hundred.”

“I’m afraid that’s our only one,” Cal
said.

“She was going to eat me whole,” Nova said.
She squeezed her eyes shut as she rested against the wall. She let
her shoulders relax as she enjoyed the security of Crusader’s
hanger.