Authors: Jenn Reese
Horizon
A
LUNA UNHOOKED THE STRAP
securing her tail to Vachir’s saddle, shifted her weight, and slid to the ground. Over the last few months in the desert, her legs had fused together and sprouted a thick covering of greenish-gold scales. Delicate fins had formed along her thighs but stayed flat and lifeless under her skirt. Instead of feet, a large tail fin folded up and wrapped itself around her ankles and calves like a thin, glistening veil.
Her fins were sleeping, waiting to awaken with their first touch of water. Aluna longed to feel them unfurl in the ocean and show her what they were truly meant to do.
Swim swift as a seal, fast as a dolphin.
But here, at the desert’s edge, there were no waves to welcome her. Only dried earth, stubborn trees, and the crumbly beginnings of the distant mountains. When she stood, her whole body’s weight rested painfully on what used to be the heel of her foot. Even with the sturdy leather tail sheath Hoku had designed for her, she could only hop a few meters. Or walk on her hands. She needed crutches to cross any significant distance. Kampii were not meant to live in the Above World.
She gripped Vachir’s mane, grateful for her friend’s four solid horse legs.
Vachir.
It had taken Aluna weeks to get used to calling her that instead of Tal, the horrible name the Equians had given her.
Tal
meant
half
, and Vachir was called that because she was born looking like a horse instead of a Human-horse mix like “real” Equians. After they’d defeated Scorch at the Thunder Trials, Khan Tayan had changed Tal’s name to Vachir —
Thunderbolt
— a perfect match for her bravery and speed, and for her gray star-speckled coat. Now no other name seemed right.
Vachir nickered and stomped a hoof. Hoku, Calli, and Dash had dismounted their horses and disappeared into a tight cluster of shrubs and trees, leaving Aluna to follow behind at her own pace. She preferred it that way. The first few times the others had waited for her and watched her struggle. She’d found their patient stares unbearable. The new arrangement worked best for everyone.
Aluna unlatched her crutches from Vachir’s saddlebag and slid her arms into the braces. Her fingers wrapped around the handgrips. She’d have preferred her talon weapons or a spear, but these were the tools she needed to master now.
The shrubs rustled and Hoku emerged. Aluna’s special Kampii hearing devices carried his whispered words directly to her ears. “We found a group,” he said. “It’s the perfect size. Hurry, before they’re out of sight!”
He disappeared again but she answered anyway, knowing his Kampii ears would pick up her voice. “I’ll be there in two flashes of a tail.” She turned to Vachir. “Keep an eye on the horses.”
Vachir snorted and rolled her huge black eyes.
Distances seemed longer now that Aluna couldn’t walk, and the terrain always seemed devious, as if it were trying to surprise her by being too soft or too hard or covered in twisty sticks and tumbling rocks. When she got to the shrubs, she hooked her crutches to her belt, dropped to the ground, and dragged herself forward on her hands. Her palms, callused from years of weapon training and her recent crutch use, were now tough as sharkskin.
She found Hoku and Calli crouched at the lip of a ridge, Calli’s huge tawny wings pressed firmly against her back. Dash had scrambled up one of the sturdier trees. Aluna could just make out his long dark hair and pale desert clothes near one of the higher branches.
Aluna quietly pulled herself to Calli’s side and peered over the edge of the ridge. A dozen meters below, a group of Humans slowly made their way along the path, a massive striped rhinebra lumbering behind them. The beast’s shuffling feet kicked up so much dust that Aluna could barely make out the figures through the cloud of particles.
“What do you see, Calli?” Aluna asked. The Aviars had far better eyesight for distances.
“There are five in the group there, although more may be scouting ahead,” Calli said.
“I thought I saw something glint. Metal, maybe?” Hoku asked.
“Oh, they’re definitely Upgraders,” Calli said. “There’s one with two metal prongs instead of feet, and another with what look like horns jutting out of his head. I haven’t seen any swords or flame shooters, but they could be hidden.”
Aluna squinted, but the figures remained vague. “At least they don’t have a dragonflier. That improves our chances of speaking to them without being killed from a distance first.”
Dash shimmied quietly down the tree and dropped to his stomach next to Aluna. Dirt smudged his tunic, and a gnarled twig stuck out of the cloth tie binding his hair. He smelled like horse, and he probably always would.
“We could simply follow them,” Dash said. Aluna used to think his accent was strange, but now, after months of living with the Equians in the desert, she couldn’t imagine him speaking any other way. “They travel the same direction as all the other groups we’ve seen. Perhaps they will go straight to Karl Strand.”
“More likely, they’ll just join his growing army,” Aluna said. When she’d suggested they take the fight to Karl Strand, she’d had no idea it would be this hard to locate him. Then again, Strand had been around when all the LegendaryTek splinters were created; he knew the value of hiding. “We have to convince the Upgraders to take us to Strand himself. It’s our only chance of finding him.”
“I still don’t understand why Dash and I can’t go by ourselves, since we can pass as Upgraders,” Hoku said.
Calli shoved Hoku in the shoulder. “We’re just supposed to stay safe and let you two have all the fun?”
Hoku snorted. “Infiltrating a group of Upgraders sounds like fun to you? You’ve obviously been friends with Aluna for too long.”
“They won’t take you to Strand without a reason, and there’s no better reason than valuable prisoners,” Aluna said. “Besides, we need to stick together.” She looked at each of them in turn. Hoku, Calli, Dash. Kampii, Aviar, Equian.
They’d never have freed HydroTek from Fathom if Hoku and Dash hadn’t found a way to win the Dome Meks to their side, or if Calli hadn’t distracted Fathom at just the right moment, or if Aluna’s sister, Daphine, hadn’t helped her pin the monster to the ground until High Senator Electra arrived.
And at the Thunder Trials, Aluna had lost her fight against Strand’s clone Scorch. Scorch should have killed her, and the desert Equians should, even now, be marching to join Strand’s army. Except that Hoku had put himself in harm’s way. He’d stepped between Aluna and a vicious killer, and he’d convinced the High Khan that honor was worth fighting for. When Calli and Dash and the Equian herds had joined him, the whole battle had turned. That one act of courage — not on Aluna’s part, but on Hoku’s — had changed everything.
Asking for help was sometimes the bravest thing a person could do. The lesson had taken Aluna a long time to learn, but now she clung to it as if it were the last bubble of air in the ocean.
“We’re about to walk into the middle of our enemy’s army,” Aluna said. “I don’t know what dangers we’re going to face, but we’ll have the best chance of succeeding if we stay together.”
“If we stop Karl Strand, then we stop his army,” Calli said.
Aluna had been thinking the same thing, yet the words sounded so strange coming from Calli. In her mind, Aluna still saw Calli as the innocent bird-girl cowering in her mother’s throne room. But Calli had grown braver and stronger during their travels. She’d been poisoned and almost killed. Innocence couldn’t survive in a world gripped by Karl Strand.
“Calli’s right,” Aluna said. “The Equians are preparing for an all-out war. If we can get to Strand first, then maybe we can end this before thousands of people lose their lives. It’s worth the risk.”
Dash sat up and Aluna’s gut twinged. He moved so effortlessly, with so much hidden strength. She used to be like that, too, although she was never so graceful. Now she felt clumsy all the time. Her body seemed to delight in defying her.