Crystal Rain

Chapter One The Wicked High Mountains loomed around Dennis and his men as they skirted house-sized, reddish slabs of rock jutting from the soil, avoided deep, echoing chasms, and paused at a tiny stream to fill their canteens. Above the tree line the air cooled enough that Dennis could see his own breath. Yesterday he would have been amused. Today his huffing betrayed how fast he moved over the crumbling ground. Dennis looked around at his men. Mongoose-men. Nanagada's best bush warriors. They hopped from rock to rock with grunts. Some had long dreadlocks down their backs and full beards. Others had short, cropped hair. They came from all over Nanagada, and despite being smeared with mud and colored chalk to help them blend into the shadows, they had skin ranging from mountainside and Capitol City soft brown to south-coast dark black. Each man dressed in gray: heavy canvas trousers, long-sleeved shirts, and floppy wide-brimmed hats. All over this dull uniform sticks and leaves jutted out, glued on in random patterns. Out of the jungle and on the rock they stood out like shaggy gray-and-green creatures. Still, this was the quickest way to Mafolie Pass. The second moon rose. A dim double-lit darkness would be far better than the blatant daylight they'd been running in. Dennis glanced at the sky. They'd be less likely to get spotted by an Azteca airship at night. Earlier, many miles downrange of Mafolie Pass, they'd captured an Azteca scout. Much to their surprise, the Aztecan knew several code phrases. The mongoose-men had few spies among the Azteca. It was a rare encounter. Most Azteca who came over the mountains fled for Capitol City: Nanagada's farthermost northeastern point. As far from their past as they could get. This Aztecan said his name was Oaxyctl. O-ash-k-tul. His teeth chattered. He had barely made it over the mountains. Shivering, hungry, and hardly understandable, he told them Mafolie Pass was under attack. "That happen sometimes," the mongoose-men replied. Azteca threw various-sized attack parties at the pass randomly to test the thick walls and Mafolie's perfectly placed guns, but the pass remained impenetrable. The mongoose-men based Nanagada's defense from Mafolie Pass. "Not from the pass," the spy hissed, his back against the rough bark of a turis tree, his legs in the mud. "Mafolie Pass the only place any big army able to cross," Dennis objected. The spy wiped his face with a dirty sleeve. "They dug a tunnel," he spat. "You understand?" They blinked. "A tunnel? Under the whole mountain? We would know about that." "Nopuluca," the spy cursed at them. "Azteca dug for a hundred years now. They fooled you into thinking they were still testing the pass while always digging. But they're here. Believe me. We are dead men." He'd begged water and food off them. They'd told him where the next low-mountain station was. Then the strange spy scrambled off down the mountainside. "If we all done dead," they called after him as he clambered down into the thick greenery, "why you come here? Where you think you going?" But he had already disappeared into the bush. Dennis and his mongoose-men broke their camp after a minute's consultation, leaving anything they couldn't carry where it sat, and started the run for Mafolie Pass. The heavy morning mist made it impossible for Dennis to see more than a few trBuckell, Tobias S. is the author of 'Crystal Rain ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780765350909 and ISBN 0765350904.