Army of the Goddess: A Bona Dea Novel (Stormflies Book 2) (3 page)

He walked away from them, heading for the travel depot at the town center. After putting in his name for volunteer duty, he'd been recruited to work on the new facility to house the communit factory in Bexan. Trucks of crew and supplies waited for him at the depot.

“There you are, Jon!” Kyle greeted eagerly, his oblong face and side eyes doling out more enthusiasm than seemed natural to Jon. “Morning! Ready to hit the road?”

Jon took mental quick stock of what he'd packed for the duration of the trip. His thin trunk held the bulk of his wardrobe, mostly chambray work shirts and unbleached algodon pants, and his backpack held his mementos and contact book, along with sandwiches, honey cakes, and an insulated mug of hot black tea that his mother had packed for him. He felt like a teenager heading out for his first service day.

“I've got everything I need for now.”

“Wonderful. Let's hit the pavement. Come on, boys. Jon, these are my sons Gray and Almit. I talked them into volunteering with me, so we're now a team. They couldn't wait to get away from their sister for a few weeks before the next session of classes,” Kyle stated as the four climbed into the large cab of the dray. The flat bed was loaded with paper bags of cement mix and a pallet of curved terra cotta roof tiles used on nearly every roof on the planet to collect potable water. Tools for these projects filled in the spaces and everything was tied down with flat sections of bandrope to prevent any loss or damage.

The engine started with a more vigorous hum than other vehicles, the engine larger and more powerful to pull the load. Jon could feel the thrust vibrate up through his feet, into his legs and body, a vibration that didn't cease until they stopped along the way for a brief rest. A tall venting pipe emitted a cloud of water vapor, a by-product of the steam part of the powerful engine. The combination of solar and steam made for a machine capable of hauling several tons of material.

In Duchene, a common rest stop along the well-traveled road to Bexan, a food stand served hot lunch to travelers. Jon took advantage of the warm soup and bread as he sat in the open-air pavilion next to the stand, trying to find a pocket out of the prevailing wind of the open flatland. Soon they would reach the Levianthus forest that surrounded the urban hub of Bexan, the now largest community on Bona Dea due to the influx of both refugees and industry training volunteers. Those majestic hardwood giants would block the northern gusts brought down by the dipping jet stream. At the moment, there was only a trace of the spring green canopy on the edge of the horizon. That forest was a least one hour away, and the fact that he could see the trees at all was a testament to their cloud-scratching stature.

“News for you, sir?” offered a young man circling the pavilion with a cache of machine-pressed parchments in hand. Jon accepted a copy, surprised by the thickness of the folded papers, and perused the reading for a brief respite from watching the road continually widen from pencil thin to four meters in front of the truck.

Among the headlines and titles were scattered several color photos. Of course, the first one that caught his eye was a photo of Axandra, his old lover and now Protectress. Instantly his jaw slackened and dragged his eyes into a somber expression. She had just left, disappeared without any warning and little explanation. There was only the few preceding days after he found her half-conscious on the beach—when he'd been shaken by the strangest sensation—and then she stepped out of his life leaving only a cryptic letter in her wake.

He forced himself to admit that part of this was his fault. Something strange had happened, and though he was barely adept with his mediocre touch sensitivity, the abrupt alteration of her base emanations had struck him with a prickling sense of discomfort. He didn't know what to say to her or to do about it, so he stepped back from the relationship. Perhaps if he'd taken the time to ask her, if she would have told him the truth—he hoped she would consider the seven years they'd lived together enough to trust him—he might have found a way to comfort her.

But what right did she have to lie to him for all that time about who she really was? It wasn't like she had amnesia. She knew her previous life. She must have known eventually she would have to go back. What would he have done if she had told him to his face that she was actually a long-lost relative of the Matriarch? He didn't know, because he wasn't given the chance. Instead, he found out the day her face appeared on all of the newssheets and placards declaring the date of her installation. And he had felt like a complete fool.

Angry and mortified, he drank until his gut hurt and his head muddied and he could barely remember his own name, let alone care that Axandra had run off. Eventually, his neighbors pulled him out of his stupor. They weren't pleased at being duped either, and together most of Gammerton voiced their disapproval for the woman who would be their queen. Then eventually all the discord went quiet and life resumed as close to normal as possible—until the islanders were told they had to leave their homes behind or die in the floods.

And here he was, sitting on the mainland, trying to start over with all that he owned.

Now he was being told by newssheet that his old lover was engaged to be married. She appeared happy standing next to a short, stocky man with thinning dirty-blonde hair and a crooked smile with deeper dimple on one side than the other. It was an informal photo, captured as the couple exited the theatre after a musical concert sometime in the last month. Jon noted how thin she appeared, and how tired her face appeared, as though she'd aged a half-dozen years in the last nine months. Her dark, wavy hair had lost much of its curl—it used to hang in a mass of springy ringlets—and her cheeks possessed a sunken, hollow appearance, causing her lips to span the width of her face. There was evidence of her on-going recovery in the bandages on her right arm, not so well concealed beneath her teal and plum shoulder wrap. The wedding would take place sometime next month, according to the date in the article, though the exact date was not provided.

“Anything of interest?” Kyle questioned as he found his travel mate among the diners. He came with his own bowl of soup and a large mug of hot tea. “The boys are…exploring.” He nodded toward a far corner where the two sons flirted with some young women at another table. Genuine laughter occurred on both sides of the exchange. “Gregarious youth. So…?”

“In the paper? If you find the Protectress' love life interesting.” Jon attempted to play off his disappointment by heaving in a deep breath and flipping the page over to more innocuous news headings.

“Is she marrying that fellow that's been around the Palace? Good for her. She deserves a little happiness after all the crap that happened to her last year.”

Kyle must have noticed a dangerous spark in Jon's eyes, for he cleared his throat abruptly and added, “If you give a damn about her. She's not much of a leader, but she wasn't raised to be one either. I'm surprised the whole planet hasn't collapsed yet. And with this continuing threat of…what do they call them? Stormflies?”

“That's the term,” Jon concurred.

“If these things are going to take a shot at decimating the capital city, as the reporters keep telling us, then we're going to be in real trouble with a woman who can't get her own life under control. If she's getting married, she's showing the rest of us she's getting organized, and that she believes everything will come out well in the end.”

Jon shook his head at Kyle's statement. “Sure. If you think so.”

“If you don't mind me saying so, you look like you swallowed your own heart. Do you want to tell me about it?”

Jon didn't necessarily want to, but he also didn't know if he could keep it to himself for another two and a half hours in the confines of the truck. “I used to know her, is all,” he replied in a veiled way, enough to release the tightness in his chest but not lay out his entire life story.

Kyle nodded slowly. “Ah. I see.”

“I don't want to talk about it, if you don't mind.”

“Got it,” Kyle acknowledged with gruff
basso voice
.

The two men fell into silence and finished their soup.

“So, we'd better get a move on if we want to get to Bexan before sunset,” Kyle prompted, his long body stretching upward from the bench with his leftovers. “Let me get the boys corralled and I'll meet you at the truck. You can drive.”

As he gathered up his used utensils, Jon debated whether to take the newssheet with him or not. Taking it meant he could finish the articles after dinner. It also meant he'd have to look at her face again.

He missed her and he was, in some ways, glad she was happy. He also wanted to punch her betrothed in the face to release the stress.

The abandoned sheaf of papers fluttered in the wind, held to the table by random stone.

Chapter 3 - The Roadside

12
th
Unimont (Hopesday)

Holton Elgar opened his eyes at the sensation of the bus coming to an abrupt stop, the kind of sensation experienced only when a vehicle encounters an unexpected obstacle and not the gentle deceleration of a bus arriving at a destination. He came fully awake in less than fifteen seconds, oriented himself to the interior of the bus, and then forced his eyes to look at the landscape. Grass-clothed plains to his right, stark naked mountains to his left, and only open road fore and aft. Smack dab in the middle of nowhere.

“Stay calm, everyone,” the driver announced in a voice signaling this was a rather routine, if inconvenient, event. “Flat tire. I need everyone who is able to please exit to the right, and I will accept any volunteers willing to help make the change.”

A few grumbles and complaints filled the compact space like the susurrus of insect wings. Beginning with the front seats, the passengers unsettled themselves from their traveling positions and, with some stiffness, lumbered up the aisle and down the exit steps. Having chosen a rear seat, Holton waited and watched as the variety of travelers formed a loose mass along the east shoulder of the paving, choosing a point far enough away for safety. Most of the passengers consisted of middle-aged folk making the trek north for the annual planting season. Smaller villages requested extra hands to get their fields sown, so many men and women volunteered, taking the opportunity to travel and collect regional favorites to take home again, in particular the frostberry liqueur from Saddle Knob in Northland. The ambrosia-like libation made for worthy compensation for the travel due to its icy-sweet flavor.

Accepting a seat on a random boulder, a brown-haired woman settled uncomfortably with her infant secured in a shoulder hammock. The baby traveled well, for Holton had been unaware there were any children on the fare today.

Making his way out at last, Holton eyeballed the crowd to ascertain if enough assistance had been offered. Three gentlemen proceeded to open the rear-most storage compartment to retrieve the spare tire and appropriate tools. Considering himself relieved of any obligation, Holton paced southward, hands in the pockets of his black trousers, in order to stretch his legs and back.

The day's weather began with rain when they left Range End. He could still see the cumulonimbus clouds to the south. Cloud lightning danced along the iron gray shadow of rain. Holton fell asleep before the bus escaped the showers. No evidence of precipitation colored the terrain in this area. The tailing edge of the clouds, to the west, boasted a brilliant, lacey border, as the two suns evaporated the condensation a fraction at a time, leaving irregular gaps in the cloud cover. Perched at a forty-five degree angle in the eastern sky, the suns offered a modicum of warmth to the bus patrons by cast beams of light through the windows in the clouds.

Turning back north to continue pacing, Holton noticed a dark shape moving among the rocks about a half-kilom to the west of the road. At first, he couldn't place the shape precisely. It could have been a prairie cat skulking or a crown goat balancing. At this distance, the blur concealed its true nature. As it moved in this direction, the shape coalesced into that of a human being dressed in a dark robe that fluttered like a flag in the wind. A second shape followed.

At first, he assumed they were coming to the rescue, locals who might come bearing food and water for the weary. He realized when they made a final approach that he should have been more alarmed by the unlikeliness that anyone capable or willing to assist them would be residing in this no man's land between Undun City and Range End.

By the time it registered in his brain that the two men approaching were of Prophet origin, known to him only by the large symbol stitched in gold upon the robes, the men were overtaking the other passengers. Bodies collapsed unconscious upon the ground. Holton didn't see either of the Prophets touch a single person, yet every one of the travelers succumbed to some sort of attack. The woman screamed in terror, turning her body away to protect her baby. Her cry was replaced by the shriek of the infant as the mother slipped silently to the earth.

“Hey!” Holton protested loudly, for he was a good twenty meters down the road. The attackers hadn't noticed him until then.

And for his attempt at heroism, he was rewarded with sharp blackness.

+++

13 Unimont, 308 (Hundsday)

“Head-of-Council, we have an alarming situation,” Ty Narone announced upon entry into the senior councilor's office.

Antonette Lelle looked up at the Commander of the Guard with a serious expression reflecting in her gray eyes. She expected him, of course, for she could not pretend she didn't sense his anxiety five minutes before he appeared in her doorway. When something concerned the commander, he focused upon it completely.

“What is it?” she questioned, placing her pen carefully upon the desk beside her working notes and folding her fingers together.

Acquiring a formal stance of feet shoulder length apart and hands clasped behind his back, Ty reported, “A bus due in from Range End at ten this morning is missing. The bus never arrived in Undun City and scouts report no sign of the vehicle, the two drivers, or the twenty-five passengers. They are now seven hours overdue.”

Brow furrowed, Lelle restated the words silently in her head to confirm her understanding. “An entire bus-load of travelers is gone? That doesn't seem possible. That's never happened before.”

“That is correct, on both accounts. Our first and most logical conclusion is that the Stormflies are involved.”

“I will not contradict your assumption. Have we formed a search party in their last known location?” she questioned, suspecting the answer would be yes. She preferred to ask questions to which she already knew the answer. Narone practiced his craft with extreme fortitude.

“Several teams are in the act for searching for the bus along the main road. Evidence suggests they disappeared among the foothills between Red Bridge and Undun, after the last scheduled rest stop that they are known to have reached. There are footprints in that area suggesting the entire fare disembarked at the roadside. However, the vehicle itself is nowhere to be found,” Narone reported. “We are tracking down and questioning anyone who traveled that road today, looking for information that may narrow down what happened and when.”

“Very good. Keep me apprised of the situation.” Antonette watched Narone spin with a snap and exit her office. A moment later, she let her tense shoulders sag like limp noodles, and a deep breath escaped as a loud sigh.

Ever since the Believers had been decimated by the Stormfly infestation a few months ago, the People's Council had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. The Stormflies promised they would return to damage the human race, at least according to the Protectress, her fiancé, and Commander Narone, the only three people witness to the Stormfly escape. The Protectress admitted that her memory and her mental faculties were damaged in her assault. Mr. Elgar, Lelle believed, would do anything in his power to protect and comfort his wife-to-be. Narone was the only one of the three Lelle trusted completely, so she took his words at face value. She didn't want to believe it would happen, yet here was the evidence. Twenty-five people missing without even a trace, innocent people who didn't suspect they would ever be in this kind of situation.

She prayed they would be found alive and well and quickly, because explaining this to the public was going to be one of the most difficult tasks Antonette ever faced, and she'd only been Head-of-Council for four months.

Other books

El hombre del rey by Angus Donald
Rising Star by JS Taylor
Losing Faith by Asher, Jeremy
Dead Cat Bounce by Nic Bennett
Reinventing Rachel by Alison Strobel
Gravity Brings Me Down by Natale Ghent
The Stocking Was Hung by Tara Sivec
A Perilous Proposal by Michael Phillips
Smittened by Jamie Farrell


readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024