Arena Page 14

The arm to which she clung was suddenly warm and slick with sweat and Callie opened her eyes. Pierce was bent over her, gently slapping her face. She blinked and released her grip on him.

  They were in a shadowed cleft. Rock walls soared on either side, framing a narrow rectangle of sky. Pierce’s brow ran with sweat and he was panting. He must have carried her.

  She started to speak, but his fingers pressed her lips, and shaking his head, he mouthed, “Are you hurt?”

  Her knee throbbed and her back ached, but neither injury seemed incapacitating. She shook her head.

  “They’re just below,” he whispered, “searching for our trail. I ran through the stream to confuse them, but it won’t last. We have to get to the road.”

  She eyed the sheer rock faces, the slit of sky above, then shook her head again. “I can’t. You saw what happens to me.”

  “It’s only about six feet of vertical, then it slopes back. Just wedge yourself into the chute and work your way up. I can help you.” He regarded her soberly. “If you won’t try, we might as well slit our throats now.”

  Callie rubbed her palms on her thighs, staring down the narrow cleft to the green slash of willows and weeds below. Faint sounds drifted up—splashing, snuffling, the rattle of pebbles. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, squeezing down the fear as she squeezed her fists. Finally she swallowed hard and nodded.

  He helped her up. Bracing her back against one side of the chute, her booted feet against the other, she inched her way upward. It wasn’t long before her legs shook from the effort, and pain shot from both knee and spine, but she gritted her teeth and kept on. She was past the halfway point when Pierce started up. Soon she heard him breathing right below her.

  The facing wall became harder to press against as the chute widened. Her legs straightened, and she had to use her toes and the upper part of her back. Panic fluttered in her belly.

  “You’ve done it,” Pierce said. “Now shove with your legs and roll over the edge. I’ll help you. On three.”

  At the end of his count Callie pressed hard with both legs, twisting and arching her back as she did. The movement wrenched a smothered cry from her lips, and she teetered on the lip of rock, not quite strong enough to roll all the way. Then she felt his hands on her bottom, thrusting her up and over. And all at once she lay facedown on the rock, a prickly weed in her face.

  “Here I come.”

  Wincing, she scrambled aside as Pierce shoved out of the chute and rolled to his feet in one fluid movement. From there, as he had promised, a narrow, easily managed path ascended to the rim, not twenty feet ahead of them.

  As a snarling ruckus erupted below they hurried up the trail, Callie in the lead. When she reached the stand of oily-smelling willows on the rim and pressed through it to a grassy flat—there it was. Fifty yards ahead, the broad white surface of the gate road gleamed like a beacon.

  Exultant, she was about to emerge from cover when she spotted four Trogs approaching from the right. She dodged back into Pierce, and he saw them at once. Using the foliage as a screen, they circled the clearing, the sounds of their passage lost in the commotion being made by the mutants still searching the riverbed. But when they came to the end of the willows, thirty yards of open grass still separated them from safety.

  “We’ll have to run for it,” Pierce whispered.

  Callie looked at the four creatures gathered across the clearing at the edge of the cliff, hooting and bellowing at their companions below, then met his gaze and nodded.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Terror overrode the pain in her knee, and Callie ran all out, dodging and leaping clumps of sage and yellow grass. Pierce ran behind and to the side, shielding her from the mutants, whose cries of discovery they heard all too soon, the road still an eternity away. Her breath tore at her throat, and her chest burned. The round weights of a Trog’s bola whirled past her head. Another clattered behind her, followed by a heavy thump. She glanced back. Pierce rolled in a cloud of dust, legs entangled as his knife flashed.

  “Run!” he yelled, the bonds already falling free.

  As she obeyed, a third bola clattered around a sage plant, its heavy black head slamming her ankle. She staggered, vision flashing with the pain as she regained her balance and dashed on. Two dark giants burst from the trees to her left, so close she could see their eyes and hear their grunts as they ran. Then Pierce caught her arm and hurled her forward as he dove for the road. They sprawled in a tangle on its far side.

  Shoulder and cheek stinging fiercely, Callie rolled back against Pierce, and his arm tightened around her. Along the river side of the road, a mere four feet away, nine huge Trogs leered down at them, their chests broad and solid, their hands big as dinner plates. Lank, greasy hair hung over their shoulders, framing mostly bearded faces with piggish eyes and heavy brows. Ragged, too-short britches wrapped their bodies, exposing furry shins above worn boots. Surprisingly, one of them was female, an oddity among Trog populations since most women did not survive their initial months of capture. This one had grown almost as big as the males, so coarse and heavy of feature her gender was only distinguishable by the most basic of female accoutrements, and even that took a second glance.

  Gagging on the stench of urine and old sweat, Callie cringed against Pierce, feeling unspeakably small and helpless. And yet, though the mutants grimaced and growled, they did not advance or lift their weapons, though bolas dangled from several hands, and all had knives and crossbows.

  After all its inconsistencies, the manual appeared to be right in one thing: The road was a safe zone.

  As her terror waned, Callie took note of the mutants’ deformities, side effects of their exposure to the fire curtain. The one in the tight red trousers had a flared, piglike nose with a large, oozing, dark-crusted mole. Another sported two hornlike knobs sprouting from his forehead. A third had a clubbed hand so large it resembled a flipper. And a fourth continually changed form before her eyes, alternating between a handsome, almost stark-naked blonde and a lizardlike creature squatting at the roadside.

  They hooted and snarled and roared, made threatening motions with bolas and knives, but not one of them set foot on the white pavement.

  We can probably get up and walk away.

  She was preparing to test that theory when the creatures ceased their fussing and murmured, “Andrews . . . come with us. . . .”

  Andrews? Wasn’t that Pierce’s last name?

  “Taste the fire. . . .”

  The wind kicked up a veil of dirt around them as overhead one of a growing number of cotton-ball clouds blotted out the sun.

  “You know you want it. . . .”

  Pain in her bicep drew Callie’s attention to Pierce’s hand, tightening viselike around her arm. His bruised face had paled, his good eye darted wildly, and he panted like a trapped animal. She sensed he was near to breaking, that any moment he might bolt, panic-stricken, or curl up inside himself and seal it all out.

  “Andrews . . .”

  Fear for him tightened her throat. She pried his fingers off her arm and turned to face him. “Pierce, they can’t hurt us. Don’t listen to them.”

  He gave no sign he’d heard her.

  “Come on.” She took his hand and stood and, when he did not respond, bent to shake his arm. “Pierce! Come on!

  ” Behind her the mutants jeered. “Won’t do no good, babe.”

  “He’s not listening, girlie.”

  “Give it up, sweet cakes. He knows what he wants, and it ain’t you.”

  “Forget them!” She grabbed his bearded chin and forced him to look at her. He was trembling, and sweat sheened his brow as the wind fanned locks of hair at his temple.

  “Don’t,” he said in a small, tight voice. “Don’t let them . . .” His eyes flicked to the Trogs, came back to her, full of terror, then glazed.

  “No!” she cried, shaking him hard. “You’re not giving up now.” She stood again and tried to pull him to his feet, but he was dea
d weight. “We’re on the road!” she cried. “They can’t hurt us. Come on, Pierce! Don’t do this.”

  Her vehemence must have gotten through—for a moment his eyes focused on her, and then he helped her pull him up, let her tug him into motion. But after that he marched mechanically, his hand limp in hers, face blank.

  The Trogs followed alongside, taunting and hooting, and after a while they even included Callie in their abuse, offering obscene comments and lurid suggestions of what they wanted to do with her. Occasionally the shapeshifter leaped ahead and, assuming his lizard form, screamed wildly. It scared her at first, then became mildly amusing. With time, even the taunts ceased to unnerve her—being nothing but noise and bluster. As long as she stayed on the road, they couldn’t touch her.

  She wondered why they persisted. Did they really expect them to panic and bolt? Maybe. It seemed the mutants weren’t strong on brains—the enlargement of their bodies appeared to work a reciprocal shrinkage of gray matter.

  Up on the rim, the clouds knocked together and rumbled with thunder, but they offered little relief out here on the plain. The sun beat at her like a mallet on a gong, burning her exposed skin and raising a sweat that stung the raw spots on her face and shoulder while pain stabbed her knee with every step. The river’s cool shimmer grew increasingly tempting, especially since the Trogs frequently went down to douse themselves, returning wet and pungent smelling to offer her bags of water, which they then laughingly drank in front of her.

  Callie’s mouth grew dry, and the sun’s heat intolerable. She floated through spells of dissociation, caught up in visions of a cool, sweet plunge into one of the river’s deep eddies, and finally found herself stopped at a break in the bank where a path led down to it. It wasn’t far, and she ached for a drink and a rest.

  Surprised by the silence, she glanced around. When had the mutants left?

  Oh well, what did it matter? They were gone. And she needed water. She’d come right back, just be a minute.

  The voice at the back of her mind—the one she always seemed to ignore—told her not to be foolish, that she wasn’t that thirsty. But look—Pierce was already running down the path, so she might as well follow him, right? As she started after him, she wondered at his sudden recovery. And several steps off the road, she realized he hadn’t recovered at all. Whirling back, she saw him standing where she’d left him, staring blankly back in the direction from which they’d come. As she raced to his side, a bola sailed after her, flying over the road and pin-wheeling around a sage bush.

  Reverting to his lizard form, the shapeshifter came back up the bank to watch them. Callie seized Pierce’s hand and glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, the Trogs were hiding in the willows along the bank’s edge. And not just Trogs. Beyond them, also in the willows, stood three gray, spidery-limbed Watchers.

  Waiting for her to walk into the trap?

  Shuddering, she limped on with Pierce in tow. One thing was certain— they weren’t leaving this road until they reached the Safehaven.

  As the shadows lengthened, the anvil of clouds building above the cliffs finally spilled out over the plain, lightning raking its black underbelly as thunder rumbled across the land. The wind kicked up and rain scent rode the air. Callie reflected sourly that, where earlier she would’ve welcomed the storm, now it only promised a wet and miserable night—to say nothing of the possibility of their being electrocuted. But when she topped a rise, the sight of a low white building awash in warm light revived her flagging spirits. Although she tried to pick up the pace, Pierce continued to walk like a zombie, so by the time they plodded through the gate in the Safehaven’s outer wall, fat silvery droplets were splatting the pavement around them. Even then he wouldn’t hurry, mechanically crossing the white flagstone patio to the pair of entry doors, which slid open before them in a rush of foliage-scented air.

  “We made it!” Callie cried as they stepped into the plant-choked atrium and the doors slid shut. Smiling, she turned and almost crowed with joy to see Pierce emerging from his shell.

  His gaze roved the hanging ferns, the fishpond and fountain, the blue-and-white tile—and came to rest upon her. He looked long into her eyes, then drew his hand from hers to touch her cheek. “Thank you.”

  His words came out ragged, more breathed than spoken, and she stared at him, vibrating with unexpected emotion. Suddenly her eyes teared and she turned away, swallowing a lump in her throat. Perplexed and embarrassed, she hurried through the atrium into the common room beyond and stopped in amazement.

  State-of-the-art appliances lined the left wall beyond a curved freestanding counter, and to the right, an oak dining table stood before a wide rain-pecked window that looked out on a walled garden. Gleaming blue-and-white tile paved both areas, ending at the edge of a sunken sitting room carpeted in beige and furnished with sleek white sectional couches. A semicircle of floor-to-ceiling plate glass afforded a view of the rumpled landscape, and an entertainment center stood left of the window, stocked with books and compact discs. Soft, jazzy music tinkled from hidden speakers, but the place, though well serviced and obviously awaiting guests, appeared deserted.

  Following directions on a screen among the appliances, they obtained two large glasses of water, followed by two of root beer, then toured the premises in search of beds and showers. Two opposing hallways led off from the common room, one accessing several bedrooms, the other a breezeway leading to a windowless side structure. The wide horizontally sectioned door at the front and the smaller people-sized door in the breezeway suggested a garage, but since both doors were locked, they couldn’t be sure.

  “What would they need a garage for?” Callie asked. “Delivery trucks?”

  “Maybe it houses a swimming pool.”

  “All locked up? And without windows? No, I think it probably holds the workings for this place—supplies, generators, that kind of thing.”

  “And the little robots that come out in the night and clean up?”

  Callie glanced at him, surprised. He was not acting in the brooding manner that usually followed a mutant encounter. And was that the ghost of a smile on his face?

  “Why not?” she said. “Somebody’s gotta do it.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Well, I’m heading in. It doesn’t look like this building’s gonna yield its secrets today, and I want to try out one of those fancy showers.”

  She chose suite seven, right off the main room, and immediately discovered the door had no lock. At least not on the knob. Etched into the wall beside it, though, was the familiar triangle of golden circles surrounding a central dot. Maybe that secured the door.

  Pressing her hand to it, she felt a thrum of electric current but nothing more. She tried pressing the dot, then the centers of each of the circles, first one at a time and then simultaneously. She even tried outlining each of the circles while positioning her thumb on the dot in the middle. Nothing. Finally deciding it was probably a recognition logo and feeling foolish for her antics, she gave up and left the door unlocked. Pierce wasn’t likely to barge in on her anyway.

  The suites were each furnished with a king-sized bed, desk and chair, CD player, and a private bath. The latter was a marvel, awash in soft illumination without visible light fixtures. The basin faucet was motion activated, and the toilet, while familiarly shaped, held no water and no controls for flushing, yet disposed of the waste instantly, silently, odorlessly. Across from it a chute labeled Laundry instructed her to empty her pockets before depositing her clothes, assuring her the apparel would be returned when she emerged from the shower.

  “You guys thought of everything,” she muttered, shaking her head.

  She had one foot in the shower when a tone sounded and the chute door reopened, her jeans and shirt still lying on the tray at the bottom. A soft voice insisted, “Please empty all pockets before depositing garments.”

  Frowning, Callie felt through her clothing until she found the crystal stylus she’d made weeks ago, long
forgotten in her back pocket. Her garments now acceptable to the laundry chute, she stepped into the white-tiled shower and swore she’d gone to heaven. She stood under the beating spray long after she’d finished washing, letting it massage her aching back and shoulders. The hot water never diminished, and in the end she had to force herself to get out. Fans kicked on as she toweled herself dry, sucking out the steamy air in minutes. A white terry-cloth robe hung on the back of the door, sweet smelling and soft. She belted it on, reentered the bedroom, and collapsed onto the bed with a sigh.

  This is so much better than the last place we stayed! Wonder what dinner will be. Wonder if there’s room service.

  A ping drew her attention to the wall beside the closet where a shelf extruded to present her clothing, clean, mended, and neatly folded. Once redressed, she set about finger combing the rat’s nest that was her hair—as usual, an exercise in frustration.

  “I take it back,” she muttered as she worked. “There is something they didn’t think of—a comb.”

  She was working out the twentieth snarl when the design by the door began to flash. She frowned at it. The last time one of those things flashed at her, the road had disappeared from under her feet. Was the whole Safehaven going to vanish this time? She seemed to recall the manual saying they were allowed twenty-four hours here, but maybe she was mistaken.

  She waited. After a few minutes the symbol went dark, and the whole thing faded into the wall.

  “I wonder what that was about.” She scanned the room, floors, ceiling, mirror. Was it some kind of test? Or warning? Or . . . Well, who cares so long as we’re not being evicted!

  When she returned to the main room, Pierce was already there. With his face clean and his wet hair combed back from his forehead, his black eye looked worse than ever. At least the swelling had gone down, though his lips were still red and chapped. He was fiddling with the kitchen appliances—various panel lights glowed red and green—and the aroma of melted cheese and chili filled the room. As Callie slid onto a stool, he glanced over his shoulder.