Page 32 of Dalla's Royal Guards
Musad’s eyes narrowed slightly as he considered his brother’s question, and then he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if I—or we—believe it. What matters is—she believes it.”
“We need to leave if we are going to meet up with the helicopter,” Donovan warned.
“Let’s move out,” Musad instructed, but he paused when his brother gripped his arm.
“What about Dalla?”
“Once Nanna and Cianna are in the air and safe, we will go after her,” Musad replied.
Nasser gave his brother a stiff nod and turned to Donovan. “What is the ETA on the helicopter?”
“They are in flight. ETA is forty-five minutes. It doesn’t give us much time to reach the rendezvous spot,” Donovan answered.
“She couldn’t have gotten far. We may find her on our way since we are heading in the same direction. Move out,” Musad ordered.
Dalla knew she had taken the coward’s way out by slipping away after Musad and Nasser had fallen asleep, but she had left out of a sense of desperation. They were awakening emotions inside her that she thought had been laid to rest long ago—and more besides, because the fact that they were alive was a testament that love was not eternal. Her emotions were rocketing back and forth between disillusionment, despair, and plain old jealous rage. Gerold and Pascal had ‘moved on’ after her death.
“Moved on and had a life and children!” she growled under her breath.
She kicked a stone in her path and sent it bouncing. She knew she was being irrational. She should be grateful the two men she’d once loved so fiercely had found happiness. It would never have worked out, anyway.
A distant, unfamiliar noise broke through her wayward thoughts and caused her to look up. She had never heard the sound before. It was reminiscent of a bird’s flight, but sounded far too large to be one. A dark speck appeared on the horizon, coming in from the mountainous region she was focused on reaching. As the spec grew larger, so did her anxiety.
The flying beast suddenly emerged—sharp and terrifying. A cry of horror slipped from her, and she scrambled for cover. There was precious little protection from such a monster. She gripped her longbow and tried to blend in with a small grouping of rocks not much larger than her. Her gaze followed the beast as it passed overhead.
The belly was smooth. The tip and tail were sleek. The front was fatter than the rear. Its wings did not flap up and down like those of a bird but rotated in a dizzying circle over its body. Inside its stomach, Dalla caught sight of a man before the beast swept past her, moving toward the hut.
She rose shakily and stared after it. In the distance, she could see a line of glowing eyes moving down the curving road from the mountain. Her lips parted in wonder. She knew the three sets of glowing eyes were cast by the carriages Musad and Nasser had. The metal beast must be one of theirs. She had seen man’s flying machines when the world had been at war when she was last here, but there had been nothing like the one that had flown over her a few minutes ago.
Regret and longing washed through her. The brothers and their charge would soon be gone. She had taken a few extra precious minutes to say goodbye to the little girl who had reminded her of a young Runa. She stood watching the line of vehicles as they wound down the mountain road to the bottom of the valley. They would travel along the same hard road that she had been following for the past several hours.
In the distance, the flying beast circled before landing. The line of vehicles soon closed in on it. She lifted a hand and pressed it against her heart. If she found what she was looking for, the pain of another existence would soon be over.
She turned and continued her trek to the distant mountains. The wat-wat-wat of another flying beast drew her attention. Her eyes narrowed when she noticed not one, buttwomore. These had different markings on them.
They were coming from the south and heading toward the first one. Horror rose inside her when the two beasts began firing onthe one lifting off, but it moved with an agility that startled her as it evaded and returned the gunfire. It wasn’t long, however, before smoke started billowing from its tail and it was forced to retreat. They were moving in her direction.
Dalla reached for a long shaft nestled in her quiver, fitted it, and braced her feet. The one that belonged to her own people weaved back and forth as it was fired upon.
She didn’t know if her arrow could pierce the closest pursuing machine or not, but she focused on the clear glass and the man sitting in the front, drew her bowstring back near her ear, and breathed deep, steady breaths. Her people’s machine passed over her, low enough to the ground that it stirred the sand and pushed her scarf off her head. She closed her eyes to keep the sand from blinding her and listened for the closest pursuing beast, judging the distance based on how close it had been to the first.
Picturing the man sitting behind the glass, she opened her eyes and released the taut string. She kept her gaze on the arrow as it soared upward. The tip pierced the glass, drilling a hole through as the momentum of the beast met her arrow.
In the dim glimmer of early morning light, Dalla caught the man’s shocked expression as the shaft impaled him in his seat. The metal beast wobbled in the air, gunfire no longer sweeping through the air above her head, but across the ground, moving toward her.
Dalla lowered her arms and ran for the short cropping of rocks that she had taken refuge behind a few minutes earlier. A thunderous crash shook the ground. Dalla crouched lower and covered her head as fire and metal rained down around her. A second explosion shook the surrounding area. The force of theshockwave sent her sprawling. A fiery wave of heat swept on either side of the rocks.
Dalla rolled closer to the outcropping, curled into a ball around her longbow, and buried her face in her hands. Thick, black smoke roiled around her, and she remained still as explosion after explosion shook the ground. Whatever weapons the metal bird had on it did not survive the crash.
She rolled to her knees and peered around the boulders once the explosions and popping noises ceased. The second enemy beast changed course. It was now heading in her direction.
Dalla coughed and rubbed at her watering eyes. The acidic smoke and the flames made the vehicle look like an illusion. She fumbled for another arrow and staggered to her feet.
She stumbled backwards, trying to keep the metal bird in her view while also trying to escape the heat and smoke. The beast was closing the distance, and she hastily fitted the arrow. A light breeze blew smoke from the wreckage across her line-of-sight and blinded her.
Pain from the smoke made her eyes water until she couldn’t see, she could only hear the sounds of gunfire and the flying machine. None of the bullets touched her, one part of her mind noticed.
There would be time to curse her immortality later.
