Kalil: The Hunt
[Continued from this comment.]
His prey had left no tracks leading to or from Nebelice, but Kalil had found the point of impact where it must have landed. His suspicions were correct: the thread rising from the creature in the grainy photograph must have been a harness. He bided his time, watching the sky and the horizon, for a sign as to where the thing might next descend. When he felt more than heard the thrum of an awakening star, he began the next leg of his journey, improvising a bike from the wreckage.
Sighting the chaotic scene, he was not disappointed. The monstrosity that the Order had sighted was even now descending, and an airborne struggle to lift what appeared to be an ancient warhead suggested that he had more to gain from this assignment than he could have guessed. He would not have much time, however - the star was nearing its zenith. If he was not a good distance away when its eye first opened, he could not expect to survive.
He leapt from the bike, which flipped and shattered against the gray dusty rocks, its pieces joined by nothing beyond his will. He rolled, running almost before he'd regained his feet, weak sunlight glowing against his small glasses. The descending foe had not yet detected him: it was intent upon the unsteadily hovering warhead (very likely, Kalil thought, the cause of its coming). The wreckage of the missile body rose before him; and as he neared it, it began to rearrange itself, a reverse settling that lifted it like a scaffolding to teeter into the sky. Kalil began to climb, lifted more rapidly by the structure's movement than by his own.
His attention tracked sideways, almost too late to evade the clockwork wing that tried to clip him: a servant of the star. He moved aside, so rapid it was almost a transposition, and sheared the thing with a nothing-thin knife. It had disintegrated before it realized it was dead.
Kalil balanced at the unsteady tower's tip, gauging the distance, and then he jumped, the missile body collapsing behind him with a sound like a thousand tortures. He caught the straining steel cable with one hand and severed it just below with the other, smiling grimly as his prey began to fall.
It could not escape him now.
His prey had left no tracks leading to or from Nebelice, but Kalil had found the point of impact where it must have landed. His suspicions were correct: the thread rising from the creature in the grainy photograph must have been a harness. He bided his time, watching the sky and the horizon, for a sign as to where the thing might next descend. When he felt more than heard the thrum of an awakening star, he began the next leg of his journey, improvising a bike from the wreckage.
Sighting the chaotic scene, he was not disappointed. The monstrosity that the Order had sighted was even now descending, and an airborne struggle to lift what appeared to be an ancient warhead suggested that he had more to gain from this assignment than he could have guessed. He would not have much time, however - the star was nearing its zenith. If he was not a good distance away when its eye first opened, he could not expect to survive.
He leapt from the bike, which flipped and shattered against the gray dusty rocks, its pieces joined by nothing beyond his will. He rolled, running almost before he'd regained his feet, weak sunlight glowing against his small glasses. The descending foe had not yet detected him: it was intent upon the unsteadily hovering warhead (very likely, Kalil thought, the cause of its coming). The wreckage of the missile body rose before him; and as he neared it, it began to rearrange itself, a reverse settling that lifted it like a scaffolding to teeter into the sky. Kalil began to climb, lifted more rapidly by the structure's movement than by his own.
His attention tracked sideways, almost too late to evade the clockwork wing that tried to clip him: a servant of the star. He moved aside, so rapid it was almost a transposition, and sheared the thing with a nothing-thin knife. It had disintegrated before it realized it was dead.
Kalil balanced at the unsteady tower's tip, gauging the distance, and then he jumped, the missile body collapsing behind him with a sound like a thousand tortures. He caught the straining steel cable with one hand and severed it just below with the other, smiling grimly as his prey began to fall.
It could not escape him now.