Penult (The Liminality, Part Four)

Chapter 26: The Basin

This time, I flew point, while Kitt brought up the rear, which was fine with me. She was closer to the enemy now, while I had only the friendly front lines of the resistance before me. My cowardly streak approved of this arrangement.

I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if I faded off to life while I flew. That would be fine with me. I was not crazy about being here. But what would happen when the roots eventually came to haul me back to the Liminality? Would I find myself naked and wingless, plummeting twenty stories to the riverbed? Maybe this wing business was not such a great idea for someone who was not yet a Freesoul. I didn’t fly quite so high after that realization.

I kept about a mile or so ahead of the ground party, circling back regularly to see how they were doing. Olivier had his marchers moving at a pretty good clip now. The Cherubim on their tail had closed only a bit of the gap between them.

They travelled much lighter now, having shed much of their extraneous belongings back at the overhang. Having an army of brainless mutant warriors on their tail was a pretty good incentive to keep moving briskly.

The valley narrowed with every bend in the riverbed. As I swooped ahead of our ragged column scouting run, I was shocked to come upon a formation of Cherubim arrayed at the base of a side gulch, kneeling in wait.

It looked to me like an ambush so I zoomed back to warn Olivier. I made another awkward landing, coming in too fast and tumbling in the gravel at Olivier’s feet, and wing tip caught Petros full on in the face before he could duck. He staggered back. Only Olivier’s firm grip on the thick cord attached to his neck kept him upright.

I scrambled to my feet and shook off the dust.

“Fighters!” I said. “Around the next bend. Waiting for us.”

“How many?” said Olivier.

“Two, three hundred.”

“No worries,” said Petros. “My brothers will let you pass.”

“Yeah? And how do you know this?” said Olivier.

Petros ignored him. His gaze remained distant and unfocused. “My Lords are sending someone to meet us … at the basin … beyond the marshes.”

“You talking to them somehow?”

There was a glaze over Petros’ eyes. He seemed distracted.

Olivier sighed. “Nothing to be done but keep moving,” he said. “Not like we take them on … and there’s even more Cherubim coming up behind us.”

I nodded and flicked my shoulders intending to fly straight up, only my wings weren’t on straight so I lurched to one side, barely avoiding smacking into Petros again.

Back on point, I came to grasp the full scale of our predicament. The Cherubim trailing us represented only a small fraction of the invasion force. Detachments massed at the base every tributary and side valley. We were running a gauntlet, surrounded on all sides by the enemy.

But the Cherubim lining our flanks kept still, their weaponized limbs loose and inert at their sides. Not a one glanced up as I flew over their heads. They were either disciplined to extremes or devoid of curiosity.

There was not much human about them beyond their shape. I saw no shelters or bedding. They built no cook fires, dug no latrines.

Their masters, in contrast—the Hashmallim and Seraphim who controlled them—camped in relative comfort. Their pale, silky domes clung to the ridge tops and cliff faces like the egg sacs of spiders.

A cluster of shattered pillars pierced the ground along the river bed. These ‘crackers’ had been destroyed before they could be fully deployed, my first indication that the resistance had enjoyed any success in fighting back.