Fire Hunt: The Fire Planets #5 by Chris Ward

Author:Chris Ward
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AMMFA Publishing

17

Lia

Wilt was sitting bolt upright, staring at the door into the dormitory room. Lia had heard nothing, but Wilt’s breathing was coming in thick gasps as though he were hyperventilating. Lia stroked hair back from his face. The boy was feverish, Lia’s palm tingling with heat.

‘He’s coming,’ Wilt said. ‘He plans to kill us all.’

‘Who? Wilt, can you tell me who is coming?’

‘The fish with wings. The lizard king.’

Lia frowned. Wilt’s eyes had closed again, but behind the closed lids his eyes were flicking back and forth. She rubbed his shoulder, unsure what else she could do beyond comfort him. She was desperate for more information, but Wilt could only tell her what feelings he had, leaving her with a creeping sense of dread.

On a lower level of the road station complex, Troad Rolt was working on an old maintenance rover he had found. The old Abaloni claimed the vehicle could be repaired well enough to get them back through the tunnel, and had spent the last days working almost continuously. Lia wondered how much longer he needed.

‘This fish with wings … is he here now?’

Wilt shook his head, allowing Lia a breath of relief. ‘But he is close. He knows we are here. He will kill … Troad.’

Lia felt a shiver down her spine. The previous words had felt like panic, but now the boy’s tone had taken on that of a prediction. If he was really seeing the future, she needed to protect her friend in order to ensure that Wilt’s prediction proved false.

‘But not me or you?’

‘We are too valuable.’ Wilt’s eyes snapped open. ‘He will gain from keeping you alive. Gain greatly.’

‘Someone is paying him?’

‘A man of power. A … king.’

Lia frowned. Perhaps Wilt didn’t know the words in the common language, but he could mean Raylan Climlee. It had been three years since she had been anywhere close to Raylan’s field of vision, but he would not have forgotten her. This “lizard king” could well be a bounty hunter.

‘And what about you?’

‘He has hunted me before. The man who protected me….’ Wilt shook his head. ‘The lizard king took him away.’

Another shiver. Lia wished the boy could give her more information about himself, but on the few occasions he had said anything about the time before they met, it had been as sudden flashes of memory recovered during his trances, as likely to fade away as to stay.

‘Who hired him? Who asked him to hunt you?’

‘The … gods.’

Again, a substitute for perhaps a word he didn’t know. Lia pulled him close, ruffling his hair. ‘I won’t let them hurt you,’ she said. ‘Even if I have to fight a god … I will.’

‘You cannot fight them,’ Wilt said, but he was no longer using the seer’s voice, but that of a frightened little boy. ‘If you do, they’ll kill you, and I don’t want you to die.’ He wrapped his arms around Lia’s waist and pulled her close, sobbing against her chest.

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