Celestara Veylin's Arc

Chapter 7 of 9

Celestara followed the thread across the plain in her mind. The scattered horde was drawing together. But at the center she felt something new. A single mind, awake and vast, calling the others home. It had not sensed her yet. She held her thorns tight and crept closer along the link, careful not to touch it. "There is a caller," she told the stone. "Bigger than the one I killed. If I probe it, it will feel me. Then it turns them all toward me." "Then do not probe," the presence said. "Listen only." A sound broke her focus. Gunfire, close, outside the gate. Short bursts, spaced like a man who counted his shots. Celestara's eyes snapped open. She climbed to the parapet and looked down. A blue-skinned hunter stood with his back to the wall. He wore black armor and fired a machine gun into three shambling creatures. Each burst dropped one. He worked fast and calm, reloading with steady hands. He was a stranger, and he was killing her hunters better than she could. "Hey!" he shouted up, not looking away from his aim. "You going to open that gate, or watch me get eaten?" Celestara went down and dragged the heavy gate open. He backed inside. She shoved it shut. He turned his gun on her, then froze on her gray clawed hand. "You're one of them," he said. "I am not. My name is Celestara Veylin. This is my family's fortress." She raised her human hand. "Lower the gun. I killed the thing that led them once. I am hunting the new one." He kept the barrel up a moment, then lowered it. "Zax Cortez. I hunt these things for a living. I've been tracking the pack for days. They're gathering." His yellow eyes narrowed. "You feel it too. The thing calling them." "I feel it in my head," she said. "If I reach for it, it reaches back. Then every creature on this plain comes here." Zax wiped grime from his jaw. "So don't reach. Let it think you're one of the pack. You look the part." He nodded at her claws. The idea landed hard. The caller felt her as a hunter, not a threat. She did not need to probe it. She only had to answer its call like any other creature, and let it pull her straight to its heart. Celestara closed her eyes. She loosened one thorn, just enough. The call washed in, warm and wide. Come home. She did not push against it. She let it draw a line through her mind, back to its source. A place. Low ground, far east, ringed by dead water. She saw it clear before she sealed the thorns again. Her eyes opened. "I know where it sits now. And it never felt me." Zax racked a fresh magazine. "Then we've got a target. When do we move?"