Chapter 24

  Faster, faster, faster!

  Dalex fled up toward the ceiling and the fireball rose to consume him. It licked at his heels. The sheer heat of the explosion did a full point of damage to his armor, bringing its durability down to 79.5. The ground beneath him fully disappeared. Every mutt down there that had been so eager to chow down on his flesh was either incinerated or buried.

  And then Dalex shot past Buddy and planted himself face first into the ceiling. By the time he dug himself out, {fly} had worn off and he yelped as he fell fifty feet back to where all this had started, hitting the ground outside the tunnel mouth with a jarring thump. The fall didn’t damage his armor even a decimal of a point.

  He got to his feet, brushed off some of the dirt, and then nimbly danced away from the partially collapsed cliff face.

  He saw the others out of the corner of his eye and straightened to meet them, “Oh hey, you guys are safe,” he said, feeling a little sheepish after hitting the ceiling. “You wouldn’t believe what I just went through.”

  Hitasa, Metsa, and Oyuun all stared at him as if they were waiting for him to reveal their chosen card in a magic trick. Before falling into the pit, Dalex had seen Hitasa enter her catatonic state. It seemed as if she had escaped it. Dava was slumped against the cavern wall, unconscious. Green vines wrapped all around his body, squirming this way and that. Judging from the two headless mutt corpses, they had been through a lot, as well.

  He pointed at Dava. “Is he okay?”

  Instead of answering, Hitasa stood up, walked up to him, and grabbed him by the collar. “Where do you get your paper?”

  Dalex raised his hands in surrender. “Paper? Uh, I probably have a source.”

  The elf’s eyes widened and her nose flared in anger. “Probably? You said you could get me as much paper as I wanted.”

  “I did. I’m just not totally sure how it will work. I’ll need to look into once we’re out of here.”

  Her grip on his collar slackened. “You haven’t done it before?”

  Dalex shook his head. “No, but in the last few days I’ve done a lot of things I’ve never done before.”

  If his Benefactors had the technology to cross galaxies in minutes, blow up suns, and create food from thin air, they could manufacture some paper. Dalex hadn’t asked Seventh about it yet, but he had no doubt it was possible.

  “But it is not certain,” Hitasa said, and her eyes glassed over. She fell to her knees, motionless. Dalex thought he heard her whisper, “There is shame in our history,” but he couldn’t be sure. When he leaned in, she was totally silent.

  Dalex straightened with a wan smile. Hitasa had probably been through a lot. If she wanted to retreat into herself for a little while, he couldn’t blame her.

  “What just happened?” Oyuun asked. She jumped to her feet and jogged over to get a better look at Hitasa’s face. “There’s something wrong with this she-elf.”

  “Oyuun!” Metsa said, her voice chastising. “Show some respect. She saved our lives.”

  Oyuun whirled around. “After we saved her life three or four times.” She glared at Dalex. “What in scale-covered shit is going on here? How are you still alive? I saw you go over that cliff with three ravenous mutts. You should be bones in their teeth by now.”

  “You have no idea how right you are,” Dalex said. “But first, is Dava alright? I have some healing spells that could save his life if it's in danger.”

  Metsa, still sitting next to her party’s leader, shook her head. “He will be fine. Hitasa has seen to his treatment already.”

  “And what is that!?” Oyuun asked, now pointing at the {attack golem}.

  Dalex eyed the vines probing a gash on the big beastkin’s calf. “If you say so.” He looked around. “Hold on, we’re missing one. Where’s the kid? Where’s Staja? No, we’re missing two. Where’s Seventh?”

  “Staja went to get your woman,” Oyuun said. “He’s not back yet.” Now she pointed at the {attack golem}. “What is that?”

  The gears in Dalex’s mind turned, winding a conclusion he didn’t like. “Seventh didn’t come down here on her own?”

  “Why would she?” Oyuun said. “You told her to guard our backs. Answer my question.”

  “Just ignore the floating silver sphere for now,” Dalex said. He made no further comments about Seventh. He didn’t want to say anything until he knew for sure, and he didn’t want the hunters to mistrust Seventh. But she knew essentially everything that went on with Dalex. She must have been aware he had gone over the cliff, leaving Hitasa and the hunters to contend with three mutts on their own. And she would have discovered the cave was full of a thousand more mutts at the same time Dalex did.

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  As long as there was a radio—or whatever tech it was—connection between the two of them, she knew everything he knew. As deep underground as he had been, at no point in his battle with the mutts had that connection been severed, otherwise he would not have been able to call for a {tear of God}. If Seventh was still standing at the entrance to the cave, she would know what had happened.

  Dalex took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. Perhaps the interference the mutts generated had prevented her from understanding the full picture. Or, worse still, maybe more mutts had arrived outside the cave to flank the hunting party. Dalex didn’t know for sure what had happened.

  He quickly checked over the side of the cliff to make sure no mutts were climbing up after him. The mutt bats he hadn’t known existed worried him the most. But he didn’t see any movement below.

  “We need to get out of this cave,” he said, facing the others again. “Can you two carry Dava?”

  ***

  Dalex scooped Hitasa into his arms. Metsa and Oyuun carried Dava, who seemed to be in and out of consciousness. The five of them followed the tunnel back toward the surface. Dalex checked the shadow he had put on Hitasa. It was still there, but oddly enough, it hadn’t activated. Was it a malfunction, or had she just not needed it?

  Oyuun kept up the questions as they jogged through tunnel, asking Dalex if there were more mutts in the cave.

  “Probably,” he answered, “but I’m pretty sure I got most of them. I’ll check once the rest of you are safe.”

  He couldn’t explain why there had been so many mutts in this den or why they hadn’t swarmed out to destroy the nearby Batulan-bar. Dava had told him fifteen mutts together would start to threaten the local population. A thousand of them should have been enough to overrun the entire region and devour the city in less than a day. Why were they hiding underground, and how many similar dens could there be?

  Suddenly, a spot of natural sunlight appeared—the end of the tunnel. Dalex readied himself for more mutts. But when he walked out of the cave, there were none; only the afternoon sun, Seventh giving him a curious look, and Staja kneeling on the ground, a pair of pale blue manacles around his hands.

  “Is the hunt complete?” Seventh asked. “Did you find any benefine?”

  Dalex stopped and set Hitasa down. The others ran out of the tunnel after him. When Metsa saw her son, she froze, taking in the situation silently. Oyuun was less inclined to analysis.

  Her eyes widened and she shouted, “What dog’s breath is this, human? Release Staja at once!”

  Seventh turned her head robotically to face her. “He threatened violence if I did not leave my post to enter the cave. I was forced to restrain him.”

  “Let him go, Seventh,” Dalex said.

  Her head swiveled to look back at him and she stared silently for several seconds. It occurred to Dalex that he still didn’t know who held more power in their relationship. Would she listen to his order or would she do whatever she wanted?

  “Very well,” Seventh said, and the manacles on Staja’s wrists vanished into {astral mortar}. He stood up and backed away from her toward his mother and companions.

  Seventh continued, “I request an answer to my original question. Did you find any benefine?”

  As soon as Seventh asked the question, the {attack golem} floated out of the cave and took up a post just next to the entrance. It was battered and bruised, but still functional. The hunters shied away from it.

  Dalex gestured for them to move to the edge of the edge of the crater surrounding the cave. “You all stay clear for now. More mutts might come out.”

  Oyuun looked like she wanted to say something, but Metsa made a tsk sound and the three of them carried Dava away. They left Hitasa behind. Dalex didn’t like that, but he understood. Hitasa was part of Dalex’s group, and the humans weren’t to be trusted.

  “Dalex,” Seventh said, “I insist that you–”

  “I know, I know. Hold on.” Dalex grabbed her by the arm and led her a few yards away from Hitasa. Even if the elf was catatonic, he knew she was listening. “I haven’t had time to look for any benefine. The cave is crawling with mutts, but I’m sure you already knew that.”

  “Indeed,” Seventh said. “I am aware.”

  “Why didn’t you come in to help us?”

  “I was monitoring your vital signs. Had the integrity of your armor dropped below fifty percent, I would have intervened. It seemed you handled the situation well, and it was wise to bring the [point control drone] with you. Your combined arsenal and timely request for aerial support prove your competence in dealing with unexpected and novel configurations of unknown faction weapons.”

  “Okay, that’s fair. I was probably perfectly safe.” Though he hadn’t felt particularly safe. Dalex pointed to the retreating hunters. “What about them? What about Hitasa? They can’t take care of themselves as easily as I can, and you had to know they were in danger. Why didn’t you help?”

  “The elves and beastkin are irrelevant to our mission. Given the presence of large numbers of mutts in the cave, I thought it prudent to remain here and ensure no more arrived to overwhelm you during your search.”

  Dalex stared at her, grinding his teeth to keep from shouting at her. “You could have watched my back and helped them at the same time. In the future, if any orders I give you prevent you from keeping our allies alive, I want you to disregard them. I didn’t want you to just sit out here and let Hitasa and the others die.”

  A moment of silence stretched between them as Seventh considered this.

  “To clarify,” she said, “I did not wait out here because you ordered it. I simply deemed it the correct course of action. Again, the elves and beastkin are irrelevant to our mission.”

  Dalex turned away from her. He didn’t want her to see his face. He rested his hands on his stomach and took several brief breaths, in and out. When he turned back around, he simply asked. “Can we make paper?”

  “What kind of paper?”

  “The common modern earth kind. 8.5 by 11 sheets, I guess. Probably a ream would be enough to start. And we’ll need pens, too.”

  “That should be easy to manufacture on the [stealth frigate]. Would you like to begin now?”

  Dalex plastered on a smile. “Yes, please. I’ll tell you when and where to deliver it when it’s time.”

  He walked away from her back to Hitasa. She was still a blank slate. He crouched down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I confirmed it. I can get you paper, as much as you need. There’s no doubt. Just tell me when you want it.”

  She looked him in the eye. “You are certain?”

  “Absolutely.” Now that she was awake again, he added in a whisper, “Don’t trust Seventh to ever help you of her own accord. Always come to me first. In the future, I’ll make sure you never have to rely on her again.”

  Hitasa looked at him, confused and maybe even slightly afraid, but she nodded.

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