Surge: A Stone Braide Chronicles Story Read online

  © 2016 by Bonnie S. Calhoun

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-0277-9

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  1

  2

  3

  Sneak Peek of Storm

  About the Author

  Books by Bonnie S. Calhoun

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  1

  Selah Rishon had waited impatiently for the AirWagons to pick up her group, and now the trip seemed to take forever. She ached to get back to the Mountain cave. Her brain kept repeating, What if? What if Glade had survived? She peered over the side of the AirWagon, trying to distinguish landmarks as tendrils of her long dark hair whipped across her eyes, stinging them and prompting tears.

  “We’re coming up on the cave side of the range, but it’s all mud-covered rubble that’s baking dry. I can’t make out landmarks or openings,” Mari said.

  The range, scrubbed clean by the raging torrents, resembled a wasteland. Splintered sticks stuck to the ground by their roots, representing what had once been trees. Selah gawked at the now-concave depression where the Mountain top had blown off, releasing millions of pounds of chemicals into the atmosphere.

  How does someone even think this up, let alone accomplish it? she thought. The cloud seeding had resulted in a chemical rain deluge that burst numerous dams, cleared a mountain pass to the West, nearly killed her whole team, and sealed the Mountain for an eternity. Understanding that this scenario had been planned 150 years ago made Selah wonder just how much control she really had over the situation.

  The AirWagon slipped into a stationary hover, then lowered to where Bodhi motioned. Selah scrambled from the vehicle with digger in hand. She studied the terrain as she took deliberate steps onto the landslide. She moved left, then farther forward. Her breath sharpened into gasps as she tried to shoulder a large rock out of her way.

  Bodhi hurried over and took her arm. “Selah, stop. What if one of them rolls down on you?”

  She brushed his hand away. “I have to know. I can’t just leave him here if there’s hope.” She clambered over another boulder.

  Mari grimaced. “Father prepared me for his demise many years ago, and I feel fortunate I got to see him one last time when I never expected to see him again. My heart is telling me he is truly gone, and I’m at peace with it, but if you need more . . .” She tied back her flowing blonde curls with a leather cord as she juggled a digging tool under her arm. “Where do you want me to start?”

  Selah swallowed the lump in her throat. “I think the opening was here.” She pointed to a spot with trembling hands.

  Bodhi shook his head. “No, go another fifteen feet to the right. I’ll get another tool.” He darted back to the AirWagon.

  Mojica, still in the navigator seat, ended a conversation over her combat gear headset. She turned and yelled to Selah, “We’ve only got a half hour here, or we’ll lose short-range communications with the group.”

  Selah refused to answer. She would have to agree to limit and then abandon her search, or admit there was no hope.

  Bodhi edged in to dig next to her. “You know your father gave his life so you could live.”

  “I don’t want to hear that.” She dug at the ground with a vengeance. “I didn’t have any time with him. Everything was about me! Do you know what that sounds like in my head?” Selah stopped digging and lifted her head. Tears threatened to puddle her vision. “It sounds like I killed him.”

  Bodhi shook his head. “I spent the most time with him, and I know your father loved you more than living. He’d have given his life twice over if it would have saved you.”

  Selah burst into tears and collapsed onto the rock pile. “None of this means anything without my father.”

  “But you gained Mari as a sister, and your mother and brother are with you, and Mojica, and Taraji—and me, Selah! You’ve got me.” Sweat poured from Bodhi’s brow, plastering his blond hair to his forehead in ringlets that obscured his mark. “Can’t we be enough?”

  “I just can’t leave without knowing for sure.” The rocks and grit dug into Selah’s knees, and she felt lightheaded from digging and breathing in the sunbaked dust.

  “I found something!” Mari yelled. She dug with both hands in the soft dirt behind an outcropping of rocks, creating a trail of pebbles and dirt clumps down the grade.

  An opening big enough for Bodhi to crawl through materialized as the dirt rolled into the new hole. Selah and Mari tried to follow him, but Mojica handed Bodhi an illuminator and wedged her tall, Amazon-like frame in the small opening.

  “Let me go in.” Selah tried to sidestep Mojica, but the woman easily rebuffed her entry.

  “No. Glade did not give his life to have you lose yours so recklessly.” Mojica kept a hand across the entrance. “Besides, Taraji warned that if I let anything happen to you, what she’d do to me wouldn’t be pretty.”

  “I have to find out—”

  “You have to stay here. Bodhi will find out.” Mojica remained firm.

  Selah yelled into the hole, “Bodhi! What do you see?”

  The silence loomed large.

  Skidding most of the way down the steep slope of loose dirt, Bodhi heard Selah yelling, but her voice faded the farther he slid. By the time he reached the cave floor, his eyes had become accustomed to the low light.

  Well, isn’t that something. The old man’s lights still work.

  Bodhi shook the dirt from his hair and peered around the corner and down the long corridor hewn through the cavern. He promised himself if it was blocked he’d go back.

  It was clear.

  His heart pounded against tightening ribs as he maneuvered the passageway. What would he do if he found Glade dead?

  The cave shuddered. Small stones shimmied loose from the walls. Bodhi stopped. He turned to leave.

  A groan. Was it a man or the cave?

  He heard another sound. What is that?

  “Glade? Can you hear me?”

  Another moan.

  Bodhi began to trot. The floor of the tunnel trembled, throwing him into the stone wall. The main room lay straight ahead. Breathing heavily, Bodhi stormed into it.

  “Glade? Where are you?” He scrambled to check the side rooms, then wrestled open the door to the control room and jerked to a halt at the sight of dirt and hundreds of boulders. The room had collapsed in on itself.

  The lump in his stomach rose to his throat. He turned away. If Glade had been in the room, there was no chance of survival.

  The cave trembled again. A good-sized chunk of the wall dislodged itself and rolled into the main room.

  Bodhi turned. He faced the huge door they had closed, the one leading into the Mountain tunnel . . . but now it stood ajar. Bodhi charged the entrance.

  “Can you hear me? We came back.” He listened. No sound other than his pounding heartbeat. “Glade!”

  He paced. Should I go in the tunnel to see if Gl
ade is there? He could be hurt or unconscious. The passage might be clear all the way into the Mountain.

  The tunnel vibrated with another tremor. Bodhi glanced around. His breathing grew labored. Dust filled his nostrils. “Gla—” The word caught in his throat. He coughed and it turned into a gag, doubling him over for a few seconds. Another rumble started. The far wall began to crumble. A cloud of gray dust filtered from the Mountain tunnel doorway, filling the main room.

  He couldn’t stay here. Bodhi slammed his hand against the wall in frustration and immediately regretted the action as a stabbing pain shot up his arm. He loped from the main room, gasping for air.

  The tunnel shook harder this time. Larger rocks came loose and rolled to block the tunnel. He dodged falling debris but tripped over a stone that threw him sideways and shoulder first into the crumbling wall. His throat turned raw and his breath came in jerky spurts as he inhaled more dust than oxygen.

  Bodhi stumbled back to the end of the main tunnel. The trembling lasted longer, shaking down the dirt forming the earthen ramp up to the rubble at the cave entrance. Bodhi’s lungs fought him, but he wheezed his way to the unstable pile of dirt. The dust grew heavier, blocking the light from the tunnel. He began to climb toward the only light he could see. He glanced up, but each time he blinked it was like rubbing his eyes with sandpaper. Bodhi dug his fingers into the dirt, pulling himself up the steep slope.

  The tremors turned to a rumble. The sound seemed to be traveling along the tunnels. Bodhi pushed himself harder as the sound grew closer.

  The light above grew smaller.

  Selah tried to muscle her way to the shrinking hole, but Mojica blocked her. The tremors caused the dirt to shift, and smaller rocks and stones tumbled down the hill, spilling into the opening.

  “The terrain isn’t stable.” Mari grabbed Selah’s jacket to pull her back.

  Another rumble shifted the dirt beneath their feet. Mari stumbled into the hillside. Selah missed her footing and started to slide. Mojica grabbed her wrist and helped her to her feet.

  “Bodhi!” Selah screamed and lunged for the hole, clawing at the dirt to get inside.

  “I have to get you off this hillside. The tunnels inside the Mountain are still collapsing, and this opening is unstable.” Mojica pulled Selah away as the tremble overtook the hillside. “We’ve got to get down from here.”

  Selah struggled against her. “Bodhi’s in there. We can’t leave him!”

  “I can’t let you be harmed. Get in the AirWagon and lift off. I’ll come back for him,” Mojica said.

  Before Selah could protest, another rumble sounded. This time the dirt slid down and covered the hole.

  Mari cried out and dove toward the sliding dirt. Her momentum carried her elbow-deep into the pile of dirt. Loose earth cascaded over her head, but she shook it away as she gasped for air.

  “Pull us out!” Mari screamed. “I’ve got Bodhi’s hands!”

  Selah dove to the pile. “Hold tight.” Her hands scooped away the loose dirt with a rapid paddling motion. When that became harder, she dug at the dirt with her nails until her fingers were bloody.

  Meanwhile, Mojica dug her hands in alongside Mari’s to find Bodhi’s wrists. They coordinated pulling, and slowly the top of Bodhi’s head broke through where Selah frantically dug. She brushed away the dirt to free his face.

  Bodhi sputtered and coughed a few times. He grimaced. “I think I dislocated a wrist,” he said in a raspy voice.

  Selah sighed as relief flooded over her. She helped pull him from the hole.

  “We need to get off this Mountain, people,” Mojica yelled. “Move it now!”

  Selah didn’t want to abandon Glade, but the thought that Bodhi or any of them could lose their lives because of her stubbornness wasn’t acceptable. She wrapped an arm around Bodhi’s waist and gave him a shoulder to lean on as they slid their way down the hillside and climbed into the AirWagon.

  Mojica fired up the machine, and they lifted off just as the Mountain quake erupted. The shaking dislodged large boulders and several felled trees, which rolled down into the valley stripped clean by the original explosion. A massive fissure opened and swallowed the stone plugs. The shaking subsided.

  The AirWagon hovered over the landscape.

  “The heat signature has dissipated.” Mojica watched the thermographs for other internal activity from the Mountain.

  Tears stung Selah’s eyes as she leaned against Bodhi’s shoulder and watched Mari administer first aid for his ankle and wrist. “That was my last chance. I’ll never know if Glade was alive.”

  “Yes you will. I went all the way back to the tunnel door into the Mountain,” Bodhi said.

  Selah sat up straight. “Did . . .” She sighed. “Did you see my father’s body?”

  “The control rooms were already blocked, and even the tunnel into the Mountain had caved in.” Bodhi winced at the support wrap Mari wound around his ankle.

  “How could you see the tunnel was blocked? I closed that door when we came through.”

  Bodhi shrugged as he pulled his boot over the bandage. “Maybe the suction from the tunnel collapse sprang it open, but the point is that your father was nowhere to be seen, and the control room where he could have been was already caved in. The tunnels collapsed behind me as I escaped.” Bodhi lowered his eyes. “It’s over.”

  Selah looked down at her trembling palms. “I have to tell Mother he’s gone.”

  “Your mother already knew. She just wanted to be sure I was with you when you had to face it.” Bodhi croaked out the words through cracked lips, then slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

  Selah leaned her head onto his shoulder. She just wanted rest. She’d had so very little time with Glade. Could she remember everything about him? Were her memories going to degrade too? Maybe she was paying more attention lately, but she was sure the twinges in her head were coming closer together. She just didn’t want to lose the only part of Glade she had left.

  2

  The AirWagon skimmed along at top speed for almost an hour before they caught up to the rest of the caravan for the last sixty miles into WoodHaven. Mojica communicated with Taraji, and the AirWagons came to rest in the open field near the waterfalls.

  Selah loved the sound of the water. It gave her peace. She quickly descended from the AirWagon with Bodhi and ran across the field to her mother’s unit. Dane met her halfway and wrapped his arms around her waist, hugging her for all he was worth.

  She pasted on a smile for her little brother as her heart wept for Glade. “Easy, little man. You’ll break me right in half with a grip like that.”

  “Mother was very scared, but I was brave and took care of her like you told me to,” Dane said. He smiled broadly as Selah patted him on the back, but she barely heard him.

  Selah remembered how WoodHaven’s security system had affected Jaenen. The settings had changed since her last visit. How many in her group might be affected? She needed to find Mari.

  Pasha approached. Selah’s eyes met hers. Pasha held out her arms and Selah collapsed into her mother’s embrace. “He’s gone, Mother. I barely got to know him and he’s gone.”

  The look in Pasha’s eyes made her stop. A shiver ran down Selah’s spine. “What’s the matter?” Were others already exhibiting signs of being in proximity of WoodHaven’s system?

  “You’ve suffered so many losses in the last few days. A girl your age should never have to deal with this much grief in her young life,” Pasha said. She brushed the hair from Selah’s eyes.

  “Mother?”

  “Treva is not going west with us. She refuses to leave TicCity, and she’s competent enough that you can’t force her. I’m sorry, I know you love her like a sister,” Pasha said.

  Selah huffed out a great sigh and squeezed her eyes shut as she massaged the bridge of her nose. Relief and pain. Another headache was building. She felt the bursts in her head. Was she being affected by the security system too? “I’m disappo
inted but not surprised. I could tell from our time in the cavern. She’ll never be the same. I just hope she can find some peace. I need to see her.” Selah, reluctant to leave her mother, disengaged from her loving embrace.

  “Selah, we need to move these people into WoodHaven’s safety zone. I called my scouts in to help guide your people to our community,” Mari said as she hurried across the field. “And one of my forwards signaled there are bandits in the area.”

  Selah tapped her head. “I feel that. Someone’s changed the security settings.”

  Mari scrambled to uncover her wrist console, then furiously tapped at the system.

  Selah yelled to Bodhi and signaled Mojica and Taraji. “Instruct the civilians to follow Mari’s people into the woods.”

  “Is that such a good idea? We’d have more cover here in the AirWagons,” Mojica said. Though she was scowling and her fists were pressed to her hips, she appeared confused.

  “I’ve been here before. We’ll be much safer inside their perimeter,” Selah said. She hoped she was mistaken about Mojica’s symptoms. She couldn’t afford to have her disabled before Mari could adjust the harmonics.

  Taraji finished talking to her squad as they checked the load on their weapons. She strode over to the gathering with both forefingers to her temples. “Can you feel that?” She levered her jaw back and forth. “What a weird sensation. Several of my tactical squad are becoming agitated for no apparent reason. And I’m not feeling so well myself. What’s wrong with this place? I think we need to move on to somewhere else.”

  Selah turned to Mari. “Please do something. This can’t turn into a mob of Jaenen Maliks.”

  “I’ve noticed. Very strange. I need to make deeper adjustments to the SensiNet before this elevates. Someone changed the settings I made for you last time,” Mari said as she worked.

  Selah looked around at the different groups of people and noticed some of the added inflections in their voices. Apprehension. Panic. She remembered Jaenen’s violent reaction and thought about it multiplied by maybe two dozen. Her throat tightened.