The Outskirts: The Sky Raiders (Jace x OC)

Part 44

The autocoach clomped southeast through the night and into the next day, pausing only to let the us get out and freshen up. We passed through pleasant country made up of sparse forests, open fields, meandering streams, and low hills.
Around midday, we spotted a wagon pulled by horses coming along the road from the opposite direction. The wagon slowed to a stop as they approached, and Mira ordered the autocoach to halt. We ended up side by side.
"Good day," said the driver, a big man with simple clothes and a straw hat. "Are you folks certain you want to head this way?"
"I'm on holiday with my grandniece and grandnephews," Bertram said, leaning forward to be seen. "We're out enjoying the countryside."
The driver squinted back the way he had come.
"This may not be the right direction to go for pleasure. The whole area is clearing out. Carnag has been active, and reports have him coming this way."
"We'll turn northeast before long," Mira said.
"You know your affairs," the man said. "The monster is hard to predict. Comes and goes. But I suggest you choose a new direction sooner rather than later. The towns you'll reach down this road won't have their normal services. Springdale got hit hard, and now the whole region is evacuating. Not many are coming northwest like me, since Carnag has shown a recent preference for this direction. You'll pass many refugees when you head northeast."
"Thanks for the warning," Mira said. "I'm sorry for your troubles."
"Are you sure you won't just turn around?" the driver asked. "You're tempting fate going southeast."
"It's no crime to see some sights with your relatives," Bertram said.
The driver raised his eyebrows.
"Uncle is kind of a thrill seeker," Cole apologized. "We'll turn up the next good road."
"Just offering a neighborly warning," the driver said, shaking his reins. "Take care."
"Thanks," Cole said. "Travel safe."
The next day we passed through an empty town. The area seemed like an abandoned movie set. There was no visible damage to any of the buildings. A few roosters roamed the streets, strutting and pecking.
The silent town drew my attention to the quietness of the road. The broad lane looked well traveled, but they passed nobody no autocoaches, no wagons, no horsemen, no one on foot. Uninhabited farms went by on either side.
After nightfall, we rolled through another derelict town.
No lit windows brightened the darkness. Some cows roamed a fenced field, munching the long grass. The abandoned countryside heightened the tension.
People didn't pick up and clear out like this for a
minor annoyance. Carnag had panicked the whole area. The possibility that the monster might come their way had convinced people to leave their homes behind and head for the hills.
On the evening of the third day since leaving Middlebranch, with the setting sun coloring the horizon lava red, they reached another town.
Upon arrival, Mira called for the autocoach to halt, and they all spilled out.
I could hardly decide where to focus my attention first. Ahead of the autocoach, the road disappeared into a bowl-shaped pit that resembled a crater from a meteor strike. Two wagons lay upside down on the roof of a local inn. Several trees were white as snow—leaf, limb, and trunk. One home had no walls or roof, but the floor, chimney, and furniture remained neatly in place.
"This place looks like it came straight out of a horror movie." I said.
"What happened here?" Twitch moaned.
"You only get one guess," Jace said.
"I know it was Carnag," Twitch said. "But what did it do?"
"Those trees aren't supposed to be white, are they?" Cole asked.
"No, it's unnatural," Mira said. "I also can't imagine it's easy to strip away the walls of a house without knocking over any furniture. We better take a good look. We might find some clues about what we're dealing with."
She started down the main street of the town.
We passed a large tree propped against a sagging building, soil-clotted roots in the air, leafy limbs on the road. A section of the town was a smoldering field of charred rubble. One side of the tallest building still standing was crusted with pink coral. A granite boulder lay in the middle of a shop, having apparently crashed through the wall. For one stretch the street undulated, like a stormy sea that had paused, leaving an abnormal pattern of swells and troughs. Half of one house was gone, sheared off cleanly so as to reveal a perfect cross section of the inside, like a full-size dollhouse.
The street ended at a reedy lake. Drowned buildings poked out of the foul water for another hundred yards.
"The town is totaled," I said. "How big is this thing? It looks like a giant had a temper tantrum. What can't Carnag do?"
"Some of this might have been done physically," Mira said. "But a lot of it had to be shaping. The lumps in the road, the coral, the house neatly sliced in half. Maybe all of it was shaping."
"So it's a semblance and a shaper," Jace said.
"Kind of makes sense," Mira replied. "It's made out of shaping power."
"How powerful are you?" Twitch asked.
Mira laughed softly. "I had some talent.
Nothing like this. Don't forget what Declan told us. This is unrestrained shaping energy, free from my limitations. It's probably much more powerful than I could ever be."
Cole ran both hands through his hair. "How do we fight something that can blast the ground out from under us, chop us in half, crush us with a boulder, then grow coral on us?"
"And that's just for starters," Twitch added.
"I don't really know," Mira said. "We use everything we have. We hope my connection to Carnag can be an advantage somehow.
Remember, it can't kill me without killing itself."
"I still worry Declan could be using us," Jace said. "He might just want Carnag gone, whatever the cost. He might have purposefully sent us to our deaths. If you get killed, Carnag gets wiped out too, and Sambria has one less problem."
"Maybe," Mira said. "But it's something I have to do. It's my power."
"You're not to blame," Jace said. "You didn't turn your power into Carnag. Whoever took your power is responsible. Blame your dad. Let him figure this out."
Mira took a deep breath. "This may be hard for you to understand. I'm not doing this just because I feel guilty. That power is part of me.
Like a lost limb. Worse, even. Like a lost piece of my actual self. I've wondered for years if I could ever get it back. I knew it might never happen. But this is my chance. It matters enough to me that I'm willing to die trying. If you want to watch from a distance, that's fine. This town shows how scary Carnag can be. If you want to run away at top speed, I'll understand."
"Sometimes I feel like you're trying to get rid us." I said.
"I kind of am," Mira admitted. "This is my risk to take. Not yours. I can live with getting myself killed."
"Technically, you can't live if you get killed,"
Jace pointed out.
"You know what I mean!" Mira snapped. "My life is mine to risk. I can't stand the thought of bringing you all down with me."
"We volunteered for this," Jace said. "You didn't make us."
"He's right," I said.
"I know," Mira said. "But you don't have to keep volunteering. Sky Raiders run from danger. It's what we know. It's how we've gotten this far.
But this time we're heading right at the danger.
We're tracking it down on purpose. And I'm not going to run."
We all contemplated that in silence.
"You might need us," Cole said. "You might not survive without us. Jace is pretty good with that rope."
"I am," Jace said. "Don't try to get rid of me ever again. I'm done having this conversation. If you're determined, I am too. I see the town. It's a mess. We knew this thing was powerful. But I won't abandon you."
"If it goes really bad, we can still try to run," Twitch said. "You know, last minute. I'm not quitting now."
"What about you guys?" Mira asked me and Cole. "You're not even from here. You have friends to find. Do you really want to get killed fighting my shaping power?"
"I don't want to get killed," I said. "We promised our friends that we'd find them, and we're going to keep that promise. Your father has our friends as slaves. His laws led to us being taken from our world. You want to overthrow him. Doing that would be the best way to help our friends. It all starts with you getting your powers back. We're with you, Mira. Not only because we need to help Jenna and Dalton. You're our friend too."
Mira wiped at her eyes. "Okay. I'm grateful. It's not that want you to leave. I just feel so responsible."
"We get it," Jace said.
"Where did you kids come from?" a voice interrupted.
We all jumped and whirled toward the speaker. An older man with a long white beard was coming their way down a side street. He wore dirty work clothes and walked as if he might be a little arthritic.
"Didn't mean to startle you," he said. "I'm wondering what news you've had."
"We came from the northwest," Cole said.
"Things are quiet that way. The towns have evacuated."
"We were mostly evacuated," the old man said, drawing closer. "Some of the men stayed to fight."
"You saw Carnag?" Mira exclaimed.
The man shook his head. "Not me. I weathered the attack down in my root cellar. I'd seen a town the monster had hit. It leaves some of the buildings untouched. I've lived here all my life.
Decided to take my chances hiding out."
"What happened to the men?" Cole asked.
"No sign of them," the old man said, his voice quavering. After a moment, he regained his composure. "You're the first people to happen by since Carnag visited five days ago."
"Any idea which way the monster went?"
Twitch asked.
"Looked like the fiend doubled back the way it came," the old man said. "I didn't see it, mind you, just signs of its passage. That's been the pattern. Carnag ventures out farther every time, but falls back between forays."
"Are you all right?" Mira asked. "Do you need anything?"
"I have plenty," the old man said. "A whole town's supplies. The worst of it should be behind me. So far there have been no reports of Carnag hitting the same place twice. What brings you this way?"
"Family emergency," Mira said. "We better get going"
"Need provisions?" the old man asked.
"We have enough," Mira said. "Thanks, though.
Keep safe."
"You too, young lady."
We returned to the autocoach. Mira instructed Bertram to go around the pit in the road and then continue to the southeast.
The autocoach trotted ahead through the night.
We all decide to rest. I leaned against Jace, and promptly fell asleep.