Read Online NovaForge by Scott Toney - Free Book Online

forged with her body, was that they liked the heat, in fact thrived on it, and the hotter it was the more energy she had to fly. She pumped her wings and burst upward, higher and higher as the light of both suns almost completely blinded her with whiteness. Then she halted her wings, letting herself free fall and embracing the pummeling wind as the desert floor blurred and closed in on her. By curving her wings and beating them once, she leveled out just above the land and glided parallel to its terrain.
    “Do you see the city yet?” Ivanus called from far behind her. His voice was almost silenced by the sound of the wind against her ears. “Riad says it should be just over those mountains!”
    Julieth pulsed her wings again and arched her back, soaring high above once more.
    Great mountains rose up in the distance. They were a different color than the desert, black goliaths from a different time. What have they seen? Julieth wondered. What civilizations have lived and died at their feet? She could see the remains of structures on the mountains and on the desert at the foot of them, but she could make out nothing moving. All looked eerily barren.
    With a thrust of her wings she soared through open sky, moving closer and closer to the mountain’s ridge. As she flew above its base she looked down, watching her two shadows from the suns following below. Torn white flags beat in the wind, climbing the mountain face. Huts lined a road that weaved upward, and then disappeared in the mountain’s center. Some were burned, some had fallen and some stood silent, with no people around them or in the streets.
    She flew near the mountain’s face, a sulfur scent charring her nostrils as she soared above the mountain and looked down.
    A vast city of clay structures lined the mountain’s base, with the arms of a wall shielding it from the desert and nestling it close to the massive black rock. Where are Olan’s people? Julieth squinted while looking down, scanning the city for movement. There appeared to have been a disturbance. The buildings were all intact, but the streets were in disarray, with goods and other things strewn over them. Pockets of darkness coated the roads. Whatever has happened here, it cannot have been natural or good. She pulled an arrow from her quiver, cocked it in her bow, and then curved in the wind, seeing something move below while passing back over the mountain’s peak. Was it a man? Julieth wondered. She would investigate the city with the others. We will have to come here, because we will need to replenish our supplies, but there is no need to place myself in possible harm.
    As she returned to Riad and the others, diving down and scattering a cloud of sand with the beating of her wings, Ivanus came quickly to her.
    “What did you see?” he asked impatiently. “I can see the city’s form with my future-sight, but see nothing living.”
    “Something is wrong in Olan,” she said, looking to Ivanus and then to Riad and the boys. “I cannot place it, but you are right, I see little sign of life there. There is nowhere else nearby that we could go, is there?” she asked Riad.
    Riad’s cybernetic eye adjusted as he looked toward the mountain, a pinpoint of light burning within it. “To my knowledge, Olan is the only city for a good distance. We need to search out a food-replicater there before moving on.”
    Ivanus held a hand above his eyes. “You said ‘little’ sign of life?” he asked Julieth. “Did you see something? I can sense nothing living on the mountainside or in Olan’s streets.”
    “As I left I saw a quick movement below. That is all. Perhaps the heat played a trick on my eyes.”
    Ivanus stood with a distant look on his face. “Possibly, but this has happened several times in the past few days. It makes me nervous to know I am not seeing all around me properly.”
    They approached the road at the base of the mountain cautiously. Riad led the group, with Ivanus staying behind