Pilgrim (3 page)

The ropes fell away and she pulled her arms
down to her sides. Her shoulders ached but there was no time to
think about it. She rolled over and pulled her legs to her chest,
her fingers working at the knots tying her ankles together.

“We’ve got trouble,” Cal said.

Nova glanced up from the knots. A group of
five children sprinted up the hill towards her. They held spears
and were shouting to each other. She turned back to the ropes and
worked even harder to untie them. The knots were firm and her
fingers ached. Her hands refused to do what she told them and she
fumbled with the rope.

“Shall I release fire?” Cal asked.

The children were halfway up the hill, a few
more seconds and they would be upon them.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Nova said. The
knot tipped apart and she tossed the rope to the side. She stood to
her feet and hobbled in the opposite direction.

“I don’t think that will work,” Cal said,
watching the approaching children.

Nova limped to the top of the hill and
stopped dead. The ground dropped away in a steep cliff. There was
no way down, she looked left and right but the cliff-face continued
on both sides. The hill, up which her attackers were running, was
the only way down.

“You could have told me,” she yelled at Cal,
turning to face the oncoming group. She reached into her holster
and pulled out her gun. “Fire at will,” she said. Ordinarily, she
wouldn’t condone shooting a bunch of children, but clearly they had
plans for her and she was damned if she’d be sacrificed to some
savage god.

Cal’s panel lifted up and a small pistol
extended out. As a labourbot, he hadn’t originally been equipped
with a weapon but Nova had made the adjustment as soon as she’d had
the chance. One never knew when an armed robot could come in
handy.

Both she and Cal fired their weapons at the
approaching children. Nothing happened. There was no loud pop or
sudden burst of plasma energy.

Nova’s eyes flew to her gun. The energy cell
glowed blue and the trigger was set. By all appearances, there was
nothing wrong with it.

“Cal, what the hell is wrong?” she
yelled.

“There’s some kind of magnetic force. It’s
interfering with the gun’s machinery,” Cal said.

“Well, can we fix it?” she said. She smacked
the side of her gun with her palm and tried to fire again. Nothing
happened.

“Not before they reach us,” Cal said.

The barbarian children crested the hill and
ran straight for them. Behind them, more armed children were
climbing the mound.

“Get out of here,” Nova said. “There’s no
point both of us getting caught, but you better come back for
me.”

Cal lifted up into the air and sailed over
the heads of the oncoming children. He shot forward and disappeared
into the trees beyond.

“Look at her sorcery!” the boy in front
said. Nova recognised his voice from when she was first
attacked.

“That settles it, we must sacrifice her,” a
girl said. She was older than the others and her voice carried a
tone of command.

Nova crouched low. She slammed her gun back
into its holster and flicked a small knife out of the inside of her
boot. Her heart was beating hard but her mind was clear. She could
take on the savages. They were children and she was no stranger to
a fight.

The five children spread out and surrounded
her in a semi-circle. The cliff-face loomed at her back. The girl
in command stepped forward. As Nova looked closer at the new face,
she was surprised to see that the girl could only be eleven at
most. The way the girl carried herself was deceptive; she had a
confidence which made her seem much older. She held a long piece of
wood with a dagger tied to the end. Her brown hair was held back in
a rough ponytail. The ends were ragged, as if she’d cut it with the
knife attached to her spear.

The girl wore a tunic made entirely of
animal fur. It was cut to fit her body and left her arms free to
move. The material and design were so primitive, Nova thought they
would be better suited to a museum than a young girl. The girl’s
skin was tanned and taut across her muscled arms. Her waist was
tiny, and the rest of her was far beyond skinny; the girl looked
half-starved, but Nova didn’t doubt she was stronger than she
looked.

Nova took a deep breath, trying to quell the
voice that warned her fighting children was wrong. Guilt and fear
bubbled just beneath her skin but more powerful than anything was
her desire to survive. She hadn’t fought her way up from the slums
of her homeworld just to be killed by a group of rabid children.
Crouching low, she held her knife in front of her face.

The girl stopped five paces away from Nova.
It was only then that Nova noticed the silver metal band encircling
the girl’s head, almost like a crown from ancient times. Nova was
flummoxed when she realised the silver ring was actually the rim
from a small tyre. What was the girl doing with it on her head?

“Surrender or we will take you by force,”
the girl said.

“Who are you?” Nova asked.

“I am called Vera, not that it is any
concern of yours. Surrender.”

“Why should I? You’re going to sacrifice me
anyway,” Nova said.

“Yes, we will, but you can suffer now or you
can move on in peace.”

“I’d rather go down with a fight,” Nova
said.

She glanced around at the group. There were
more of them approaching. She had to take these out before the
others arrived or she would be too far outnumbered. If she could
remove Vera, then the others might back down.

She didn’t wait a second longer. Leaping
forward, she swung her fist at Vera’s head. Her arm sailed straight
towards Vera’s face.

Vera stepped backwards and Nova’s fist swept
through empty air, sending her off balance and her body tilting to
the left. Vera whipped her stick around and slammed the blunt end
into Nova’s ribs.

She cried out and stumbled back. The others
were closing in. The boy who had taken her captive jumped at her
from the right. He had big arms and he lunged at her with both
fists.

Ducking out of the way, Nova let him stumble
past her. When his body was out of the way, she swung around with
her right leg and slammed it into his back. The force of the kick
sent him sprawling onto the ground.

She didn’t waste any time. She stepped
forward and slammed her boot into the boy’s head. It crunched on
contact and his body lay still: unconscious.

At the fall of their companion, the other
children moved in. They rushed at Nova from all directions with
their spears held out.

“I want her alive, she will be a worthy
sacrifice to the Great Rock,” Vera said.

The children obeyed her command and slammed
into Nova with the blunt ends of their spears. The pieces of wood
smashed into her arms, legs and torso. With each blow, pain burst
out from the point of impact.

She turned in circles, desperately trying to
stop the attacks. There were too many of them and she couldn’t
watch all sides at once. She grabbed onto a stick as it swung at
her face, wrapped her hands around it, and yanked as hard as she
could. The spear flew out of her attacker’s hands and she gripped
it firmly. She stepped towards her unarmed attacker and swung as
hard as she could.

The boy was taken by surprise and couldn’t
get his hands up in time. The spear slammed into his temple and he
collapsed to the ground. She stepped forward, creating room to
move, and whirled to face the remaining three attackers.

A smile played at the corner of Vera’s mouth
while the other two had expressions of fixed determination. They
moved forward with their spears held out.

Nova stepped back. She gauged her enemies.
They were confident but over-sure. She had already taken down two
of them, only three more to go. Nova lifted her spear above her
head and opened her mouth to bellow at her attackers.

Pain exploded at the back of her head and
the world went dark.

CHAPTER
FOUR

Nova’s eyes blinked open. She squeezed them
shut again at the bright light burning through her eyes and into
her brain. Her head ached as if it was being crushed by a giant
vice. Her left cheek stung, her ribs ached, her shoulders were on
fire, and her legs burned.

Her wrists and ankles were rubbed raw by a
rope, stringing her limbs together and holding her to a wooden
pole. She was tied face up so that the sun burned her face but the
agony in her shoulders was less than before.

Her vision was somewhat lopsided. All she
could see was blue sky and the wooden stick. Her body swung
mid-air, dangling in a light breeze. Half of her field of view was
blacked out.

“What the—” she began, before grinding to a
halt. Her left eye was swollen shut.

“Cal?” she whispered, speaking out loud for
the comfort of a familiar sound. Her throat was dry and her voice’s
vibration sent a new wave of agony through her head.

“Thank goodness you’re alive,” Cal said.

“I’m beginning to wish I wasn’t,” she said,
gasping.

“Hold onto that thought,” Cal said, “I’ve
been watching the village. Things don’t look good for you. You’re
trussed up over some kind of pyre.”

Her eyebrows shot up and she wriggled
against the ropes. “They’re going to burn me to death?”

“Certainly looks that way,” Cal said.

“I’m glad you can be so calm about it. Why
haven’t you found a way to get me out of here?” she said.

Nova ground her teeth together. She’d never
expected her mission for a warp converter to be easy, but she
certainly hadn’t counted on being taken captive by savage children
and burned alive. As a last resort, she considered trying to reach
through time and break herself out, but she wasn’t willing to do
that until the flames were actually licking her back. Just the
thought of toppling through time made her throat close and her
breaths come in ragged gasps.

“Mostly because none of our weapons
work.”

“Can’t you just fix them?”

Her headache worsened. She closed her eyes
against the sun’s bright glare.

“I’m afraid not. The magnetic source is some
kind of rock, not far from here. There’s no way to overcome the
strength of the field.”

“Okay, so come up with another plan,” Nova
said.

“Crusader and I are working on it.”

“Work faster,” she said, struggling to keep
her panic from boiling over. “I really don’t feel like being a
sacrificial lamb.”

“How would you feel about calling in help?”
Cal said.

“No way. I am not turning into the Jagged
Maw’s running joke. You find a way to get me out of this.”

***

The sun was setting and cast an orange glow
over the countryside. The grass and sky shone in the dying light
and Nova was forced to narrow her eyes against the glare. Her arms
and legs ached. She had been tied up like a dead pig and she longed
to be let down. No matter how hard she struggled, there was no way
to get free of the ropes; the knots were too well tied.

Campfire smoke occasionally crept up her
nostrils. Voices drifted to her, but she was alone. The wind blew
over her goose bump-covered skin as the day disappeared, bringing
an icy cold. She drew a deep breath and let her mind race. She
needed Cal and Crusader to get her out of here. Maybe once the
children were asleep, she could escape.

The drums started beating. They reverberated
around the countryside in a steady booming rhythm.

Her stomach clenched as the drums neared,
accompanied by high pitched wails.

She looked right, toward the collection of
tents. A procession approached. A young girl of about five was at
its helm. Behind her, a young boy beat on a drum made from a metal
canister covered in animal hide. The lead girl had red lines on her
cheeks and a single line running down the centre of her face. She
stared at Nova, her eyes bulging.

The girl stopped beside Nova’s head and the
others fanned out. Each of them had various markings on their
faces, painted in red ochre. The ten children created a rough
circle around Nova and the pyre on which she was strung. The final
child, who was no older than ten, set down a wooden box in front of
the first girl.

“As you requested, Sora,” said the younger
child before backing away to join the other children.

Sora stared at Nova, retracting her lips to
reveal pointed teeth. Her eyes were sunk deep into her head,
leaving dark circles around their edges. She bent down and thrust
her hand into the crate. When she stood straight, she held a
struggling rabbit by the scruff of its white neck. It whimpered and
pawed at her. The girl’s smile widened.

Nova frowned and looked to the other
children, but they were all staring at her with blank
expressions.

“What are you doing?” Nova said. “I don’t
mean any harm and can help you. I have food and technology.”

“Silence!” the girl, Sora, said. “Your
sorcery is not welcome here. You will be sacrificed to the mighty
Rock.”

Sora wore a white piece of fabric wrapped
around her like a simple dress. It was stained with dirt and
speckled with blood. She held the rabbit up to Nova’s face, reached
her left hand out, grabbed hold of the rabbit’s neck, and
twisted.

Snap.

The rabbit stilled and sagged. The girl
tossed it towards Nova. It sailed in an arc up and then under
Nova’s body where it landed with a thump on the pile of sticks.

The girl reached into the crate and
retrieved another struggling rabbit. Her lips widened and her eyes
glowed. The other children didn’t move.

Nova gritted her teeth as blood pounded in
her ears. She was no stranger to death, but watching the rabbit
slaughter made something stir inside her. Her stomach rolled as she
watched their innocent lives snuffed out. She clenched her fists
and strained to get free but the ropes held firm. She couldn’t stop
the slaughter but she was determined not to watch.