Tikker's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

The frost-pepper smell seeped through the red rock, cold and sharp. Tikker pressed a shell edge to the stone and pushed. Nothing cracked. Tikker's soft shell slid off the hard surface. The spice sat sealed inside, and the humming formation would not let Tikker rest beside it. One push, two, ten. The rock did not care. Tikker needed a harder edge than its own body. Tikker crept away from the pipes to think. The ground opened into a strange field. Desert flowers grew in bright clumps, red and gold and purple, around rusted metal half-buried in sand. An old war had ended here long ago. Now cacti stood like quiet guards over the wreck. Tikker slid between the blooms, low and slow, hunting for anything with an edge. At the field's far side rose a small house built into the rocks. Its stone blended so well Tikker almost missed it. Worn steps led to a dark doorway. No one answered Tikker's scrape at the stones. The place was empty, a hideout left behind. But something glinted near the threshold, half-hidden in a patch of sagebrush. Tikker nudged the brush aside. Arrowheads lay in the dirt, chipped from flint and dark glass. Their edges were thin and sharp, shaped by careful hands long gone. The largest one gleamed blue-gray, its point like a frozen tooth. Tikker smelled the cold stone and remembered the sealed spice. A hard point could do what a soft shell could not. Tikker gripped the biggest arrowhead against the inside of its shell, wedging it tight. The edge bit into Tikker's soft body. It hurt. Tikker held on anyway and dragged the point back toward the humming pipes, scraping a thin line through the sand. Tikker climbed the base of the red rock. The frost smell grew strong. Tikker found a seam, a thin dark crack in the stone. Tikker set the arrowhead's point into the seam and threw its whole weight behind it. The point slipped. Tikker tried again, lining the edge to the crack, pressing until the shell ached. Stone chipped. A flake of red rock broke loose and tumbled down. Cold air hissed out of the gap, sharp enough to sting. Tikker drove the arrowhead deeper and twisted. The seam split wider. Gray-blue dust spilled out, fine as frost. Tikker caught the first grains against a shell edge and smelled fire and ice at once. The second spice. Real, loose, Tikker's to carry. Then the whole formation shook. The humming dropped to a growl that rattled Tikker's shell. The crack Tikker had opened ran upward fast, splitting the pipes. Deep in the rock, the thing that lived there woke and pushed. Dust rained down. Tikker snapped shut over the loose spice and slid back as the first red column cracked and leaned toward the ground.