Strategic.
Right.
Thanks, Tzaitel.
Danny grunted as the Centaur behind him shoved him forward into the overwhelming heat of the volcanic chamber atop Centaur Mount. He stumbled and fell to one knee, wincing as the sharp edges of the stones on the floor cut through his trousers.
Mickey hit the floor next to him.
His cousin was in Intense Mode, so he couldn’t exactly read the expression on her face. He’d tried many times to label it. Rock Face. Mad Harna. Basic Tzaitel. Whatever he ended up calling it, the expression was just plain scary.
Meg had an expression like that too, but she wasn’t as good at bottling up what she felt. You could always tell when Meg was angry. The air around her just sort of vibrated. Mickey’s Intense Mode didn’t look much different from her normal, except that her eyes went dark and her face turned to granite. She practically stopped blinking too. It was bizarre.
He’d seen it that night in Texas, and even though he’d seen bits of it showing up in some of the scarier moments of their lives since she’d arrived in Rainbow Valley, he hadn’t seen it like this before.
Basically, he didn’t want to be the Centaurs right now. Meg could stab them with her glowy sword, but Mickey just gave off the impression that she could kill them with her brain.
She probably couldn’t.
But that’s the general vibe she put out.
Jim landed on the floor with a flop beside him.
On the other end of the spectrum: Jim Taylor.
If the reedy bamboo plant in Velanna’s library could grow blond hair and wear glasses, it might be as dangerous as Jim Taylor. The most terrifying thing Jim could do to you is bore you to death with facts, figures, and chemical equations. Sure, he had a handgun, but he wasn’t that great of a shot, so he would be much better served killing someone with calculus talk.
Nerd was a new word he’d learned after his visit to Terran, and no one fit the definition better than Jim.
Where’s Meg? He scowled and glanced over his shoulder.
He’d lost sight of her as T’pau and the goons had marched them into the chamber. Not that she needing looking after. Meg could take care of herself for sure. But if she were going to start a fight, he wanted in on it. The soldiers may have taken his scattergun, but there was more than one way to fight a Centaur.
As he scanned the chamber for his sister, his gaze paused on a shadowed area in the corner where long black figures shifted in the darkness, hide shining in the orange light.
“What is that?” Danny squinted.
Mickey shifted next to him. “Is it those dragon things? What did Velanna call them?”
“Gaja.” Danny frowned. “I think you’re right.”
“I see them too,” Jim muttered. “There’s a bunch of them, but they’re—small.”
“Like what? Baby gajas?”
Pain erupted in his eyes as one of the Centaurs struck the back of his head with a shout for quiet. He blinked his eyes, the chamber swimming in his vision.
Scuffling and struggling drew his attention to the side of the chamber where T’pau had Meg by the hair, dragging her into view. The braided coil around her head had come loose, and her mouth was bleeding. Leave it to Meg to put up a fight when they had no chance of winning.
T’pau had probably tried to take her saber.
He flung her to the floor hard enough to make her grunt and then held up her borrowed saber like a trophy, while the rest of the Centaurs in the chamber cheered. Meg curled her lip as she pushed herself to her hands and knees, eyes glittering with anger.
That was the difference between Mickey and Meg. When Mickey was angry, she turned stony and silent; when Meg was angry, she sparkled. Not a happy sparkle like the firesnappers he and Jenny set off at the turn of the year. Firesnappers crackled and danced in all sorts of colors and noise and joy. Meg’s anger was like frostbite, so cold it burned.
Yeah, he definitely didn’t want to be the Centaurs right now.
Two more Centaurs hauled Velanna and Tzaitel into the chamber and forced them down on either side of Meg. Unruffled, as always, Velanna regarded the room coolly with her expression impassive.
Mickey had Intense Mode. Velanna had Dead Fish Mode.
If it was supposed to be intimidating, he wasn’t sure it worked. He’d only seen it effective in its use against Centaurs, because it usually only made Meg angrier. Personally, he found it hilarious, and so did Jenny. Tolan had thought it funny too how Velanna could just shift into an impassive expression and expect everyone to pay attention or to sit up straighter, as though a lack of emotion in her face instantly earned her greater respect.
Apparently it was a teaching technique from Celtica.
Fortunately, Velanna had learned early it had the opposite effect on her human children than she desired, instantly igniting the temper of one and sending the other two into fits of giggles.
“Welcome, welcome.”
Danny turned his eyes to the large Centaur approaching out of the shadows, his burnished curling horns glimmering in the light from the lava pit. A small velvet bag hung around his neck, swaying against the metal of his cold-forged iron breastplate.
Tiron.
The Centaur paused before them and spread his hands with a twisted smirk. “I knew you would come. Predictable. But I didn’t expect you to be captured so easily.”
Meg sat up on her knees, pinning him with that sparkling dangerous gaze of hers. “Where are they?”
Tiron’s expression didn’t change, though his smirk might have deepened. “You must be kusuka.” He pointed to Meg’s long braid, now dragging on the floor. “I have been told of your skill but not your rudeness. I have welcomed you to my—”
“Where. Are. They.” Meg’s nostrils flared.
Velanna glanced sideways at her, muscle in her jaw twitching.
Tiron tilted his head, smirk not fading. “You mean the humans?” He sidled closer to Meg, towering over her.
Meg, of course, didn’t budge or flinch.
“The ones my sumujoka plucked from the village of the First Tribe?” He reached for something on his back and pulled out the hilt of a Celtican energy saber, and he dropped it at Meg’s knees with a clatter. “The girl who wielded this against us was weak and foolish.” His expression darkened. “And she is dead.”
Danny’s stomach dropped.
It was Meg’s saber. The one she’d lost in Chandan Village. The saber Jenny had picked up and swung like she knew what she was doing.
Jenny. Dead?
No. He was lying. He had to be lying. Jenny couldn’t be dead. That was ridiculous. No one could kill Jenny. She could charm her way out of anything, and if she couldn’t charm you, she’d feed you. And you’d keep her around just so she could make sweet rolls.
Velanna had lowered her gaze.
So had Mickey.
“Once we realized that the girl had no knowledge of the Light, she was of no use.” Tiron stepped back, tail flicking. “Just like the other.”
Jim froze.
“We sacrificed them both to Munga-wa-Damu.”
The red-cloaked Centaurs hovering in the background of the chamber made some sort of gesture and whispered harshly in the silence.
Velanna’s head jerked up. “You did what?”
Judging by the color that faded from Velanna’s face, whatever Tiron was talking about meant bad news. Granted, being sacrificed to anything was probably bad. But Tiron wasn’t worth trusting. If he’d greeted them with Barb and Jenny’s corpses, it would have been one thing, but he didn’t even have a body to show them. So he was lying.
“Velanna,” Meg snarled.
“He threw them in the volcano.”
Horrified silence fell over their little raiding party.
Jim shuddered beside him, sitting up and pinning the Centaur with a glare so furious Danny didn’t recognize him for a moment. “Why?”
Tiron’s smirk hadn’t changed. “It is our way.” He patted the velvet bag around his neck. “And all of you will follow them once I have what I want.” He paused in front of Velanna. “Kuvunja Dunia. I never thought I would meet you. The great Velanna Ittai, the woman who broke the world. You are legend in the North.”
Tiron struck like a snake and seized Velanna around the neck, yanking her off the floor.
“Mother!” Tzaitel started.
“Velanna!” Meg moved to get up, and T’pau knocked her down.
Wrists bound, Velanna struggled to breathe as Tiron hoisted her into the air.
“Give me the Light!” Tiron shook her.
Velanna didn’t flinch at all, though her face wrinkled with rage. “No.”
Tiron’s face twisted in fury, and he threw her to the floor. He shouted at one of the Centaurs in the corner, who rushed in and grabbed Tzaitel.
“Then we shall sacrifice this one as well.”
“Tzaitel!” Meg fought to stand again, and T’pau slugged her in the back of the head. Her face bounced off the floor, and she grunted, clutching her bleeding nose.
Tzaitel fought with the Centaurs, but they were too big, too strong as they bound her. Velanna rolled to her side and stared at Meg with pain-filled eyes.
This was a potential problem.
Meg had the Kirana now. Velanna had given it to her, but Tiron seemed to think that Velanna had it still. That was probably good. But if Tiron was going to sacrifice all of them until Velanna turned the Kirana over to him? That was probably bad.
Now would have been a great time for Meg to whip out Velanna’s magic rainbow and tear this place apart. Across the way, Meg struggled to get back to her knees, nose dripping blood nose and the redness of a black eye forming on the left half of her face.
She gripped the jewel through her blouse.
The muscles in her jaw ticked and twitched.
Oh, great. She was trying to use it. And it wasn’t working. That just figured.
Jim muttered something under his breath, and Danny turned to him. Mickey had already leaned toward him, her stone-cold face expressionless as she watched the Centaurs bind Tzaitel with ropes and haul in a gigantic winch which sat at the edge of the lava pool.
“We need a distraction,” Jim said softly.
“What good will that do?” Danny kept his eyes focused on Tiron.
“Who knows if it’ll be good, but it’ll be something.”
Mickey huffed. “Got any ideas?”
Jim turned his head toward the darkened area of the chamber where the small gajas milled around, skin sparkling in the dim light cast from the lava.
“I got one.”
Danny groaned. “I don’t like it already.”
“We need to get that gate open.” Jim nodded toward the gate that was barely visible on the gaja enclosure.
“This isn’t a good idea, Jim.” Danny glanced toward the Centaurs hooking Tzaitel to the winch.
“Oh, I know,” Jim said. “But sometimes all you get are bad ideas, and you still have to use them.”
Danny hung his head. “What’s your plan?”
Jim started to speak, and Mickey blurred.
She kicked backward and dislocated the kneecap of the Centaur guarding them. He howled in agony and tumbled sideways, dropping the tehnyga. Even with her wrists bound, Mickey snatched it up, knelt, and took aim. Tiron spun in shock, but nobody could move fast enough.
Mickey fired.
The orange pulse of plasma streaked across the chamber and splintered through the gate.
Tiron gaped.
Even if it had been a horrible idea, it was worth it for that expression on his smug, stupid face.
Until Danny glanced at Velanna, whose own expression mirrored it.
“Michelle,” Velanna whispered in horror. “What have you done?”
A chorus of eerie gurgling cries echoed in the chamber.
Tiron began shouting in the Centaur language, pointing and thrashing. The Centaurs binding Tzaitel left her on the floor and ran to the gate, some carrying rocks. Others carrying wooden beams.
In a flurry of motion, a half dozen black blurs slithered out of the shadows into the light. Gajas. But smaller. Not much bigger than a horse, the baby dragons crawled into the hideous orange light of the cave and each of them opened mouths full of teeth like needles.
The first six gajas out of the pen killed the first twenty Centaurs that reached them in less than a minute.
“Uh oh,” Jim muttered.
The next six gajas out of the pen came after everyone else.
Tiron was already galloping for the mezzanine, still shouting orders at his Outcast warriors who descended on the writing nest of infant gaja with clubs, spears, and more of their energy cannons.
But, if nothing else, the Centaurs were all running to fight the dragons, and they’d left their captives on the floor.
So in terms of an effective distraction, this was a win.
A Centaur shrieked as a baby gaja bit into him.
Now, if they could just get away from the distraction before it ate them too, it would be a bigger win.
“Wrists.” Mickey dropped the cannon.
“Wrists.” Jim echoed. “Wrists are good.”
Mickey flipped the tehnyga cannon over so that its sharp end was accessible and sliced her bonds apart with it. Jim did the same, and Danny followed.
“Get everybody loose.” Mickey said, snatching up the cannon. “We need to get out of here.”
Mickey ran to Tzaitel and Velanna. Danny ran to Meg, scrambling to get his knife out of his boot. He knelt and cut the ropes off her wrists.
She grabbed him by the face, turning him right and left.
“Meg, stop!”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” He pushed her away. “Come on, we need to find Jenny.” He grabbed her arm.
Meg stared at him. “Danny, you heard Tiron.”
“I heard him.”
“You know what he did.”
Danny shook his head. “He lied.”
“Danny.”
“He lied, Meg!” Danny fought to keep the break out of his voice. Tiron was a liar. He was a lying liar, and he’d totally made up the story about feeding Jenny and Barb to the volcano because he knew it would make them angry. “He lied.”
With a screech, a gaja made it through the line of Centaurs and charged toward them. Meg shoved him down, snatched up her saber, and ignited it. The golden yellow glow illuminated her hair as she lunged at the creature, but the blade skittered off its steel skin.
Danny rolled over and tucked his knife back into his boot.
“Danny!” Mickey shouted.
He looked up as she tossed him another cannon. He caught it with a grunt—those things were heavy—and spun it so the pulse blaster end faced the baby gaja Meg was fighting. He aimed and loosed a blast that caught the baby gaja in its side. It tumbled over with an indignant and wholly terrifying squawk—and then it clawed its way back to its feet and snapped at Meg again.
“Well.” He screwed up his face. “Gahlee.”
Another yellow saber ignited as Tzaitel joined the fray. Velanna followed suit, although much more slowly, her pure white saber washing the color out of her face further.
Tzaitel stabbed at the gaja, and the point of her blade bounced off. She spun, did something to her hilt, and swung again. This time the blade left a mark, but it didn’t do much else other than make the gaja really angry.
The gaja ran at him again, and he loosed another plasma round. The slobbering needle-toothed monstrosity stumbled but kept running at him. And then, Velanna was at his elbow, her white saber whining like a high-powered engine. She pushed him to the side and braced her feet, and she swung when the gaja reached her, lopping its head clean off.
Its body shuddered and collapse, the black blood seeping into the stones on the floor, and its decapitated head rolling until it stopped against the far wall.
Velanna cast a glare at both Meg and Tzaitel. “Must I kill them all? Or will you do as you’ve been instructed?”
Aha! There was the passive-aggressive Velanna Ittai they all knew and loved.
Danny started as Velanna took his shoulder and turned him toward her, eyes scanning him. “Are you wounded?”
“No.”
“Go help James and Michelle.” She nodded to a boulder in the corner of the room where Jim was standing. “If you and Michelle coordinate your blasts, you should be able to bring one of them down.”
“That’s comforting, Velanna. Thanks.”
She patted the side of his face and ran to help Meg and Tzaitel. Danny hitched up the pulse cannon and ran to where Mickey was swinging at another baby gaja.
“Mick!” He dropped to his knees and took aim. “Coordinate!” He let loose a blast, and the gaja stumbled backward.
Mickey didn’t answer but did the same, firing one of the concussive plasma orbs at the same place on the gaja’s chest. It shrieked and toppled over. The moment it was up again, Danny fired. Same spot.
It shrieked louder.
Mickey shot again too.
One more.
Danny fired again, and the blast finally pierced the animal’s hide. It screeched in pain and dropped to the floor in a jumble of awkward limbs and outstretched leathery wings, its gaping mouth rattling with its last breath as it passed between its needle-teeth.
Danny ran to where Jim knelt behind a boulder and took position at his side. Mickey joined him, not even breathing hard.
Show off.
“Velanna wants us to stay here,” Danny said.
Mickey held up the plasma cannon. “How many shots are in this thing?”
“No idea.”
“Hey, guys?” Jim broke into their conversation. “What’s that?”
Danny rolled his eyes. “You have to be more specific, Jim.” He turned and followed Jim’s pointing finger to a ledge high above the skirmish in the audience chamber.
“Well, it’s—” Danny scowled, narrowing his eyes. “What is that?”
Mickey turned too.
Standing on the ledge was a figure, half in shadow, but in the light enough to sparkle off an intricate armor of burnished yellow and red and black. He stood overlooking the fight, not moving, statue-like.
“It’s a samurai,” Jim whispered. “It’s one of the ones from San Francisco.”
Danny glanced at him.
For a brief moment, he was back in that brown van with Ronnie Akkard, in hot pursuit of the people who had kidnapped Jenny. Ronnie, the good Samaritan, who’d helped them rescue Jenny had shown him a magazine with a samurai on it. It was a word he’d never heard before, samurai.
“Okay,” Mickey said quietly. “What’s it doing here then?”
Jim, wide-eyed and frazzled, looked at her. “Mickey, they’re hoaxes.”
Danny blinked. Ronnie had said something like that too. Hoaxes. Fakes. A publicity stunt.
Staring at the yellow samurai warrior watching all of them like they were grasshoppers, Danny wasn’t convinced.
“Hoax or not, Jim, it’s here.” Mickey raised her eyebrows.
Jim turned his eyes back to the samurai. “But they’re not real. None of them are real.”
Danny laughed and readied the pulse cannon against his shoulder. “Jim. We’re fighting dragons and Centaurs in a volcano.”
Jim chuckled wryly. “What’s your point, Danny?”
Mickey stood and braced herself against the boulder. “The point?” She shook her head. “Maybe we all need a new definition of real.”
Velanna had just killed another baby gaja when the entire chamber shook with a fury-filled shriek. Danny grunted and covered one ear, his brain rattling at the frequency. Across the chamber, out of the black of the gaja nest, a massive head swung into view, venom dripping from its teeth as the adult gaja lumbered into sight and spread its wings fifty feet wide.
“Crap,” Jim hissed.
At the center of the floor, Meg and Velanna and Tzaitel stopped and stared in shock as all the remaining gaja infants flocked to the giant newcomer.
“Oh, boy.” Danny clutched the staff weapon. “I think mama’s angry.”