Chaos. Part 4

And drawing aside, Silvie saw. Not unlike herding hunters pulling wide to give the archer plenty of s.p.a.ce for a shot at the prey.

"He's after us, Johnis!" Panic swelled through her mind. "Go! Run for your life! Get us out of here!"

The Chevy surged forward. Johnis whipped the car around a white one and left it to deal with the hunter behind them. As if they needed any confirmation that they were indeed being hunted, the Chevy with flashing lights veered around the same white car and closed quickly.

"Dear Elyon, help us!" he cried and wound the motor higher.

"Faster."

"I'm going faster!"

"It's a race car; make it race!"

Johnis set his jaw the way he had heading into the Black Forest and the Horde city or a dozen other occasions when he'd thrown caution to the wind in favor of principle.

Gripping the wheel with both fists, he swerved first to the left around a third car, then all the way across to the right, racing past the Chevys as if it were now they who were standing still.

"Careful a" Silvie cut herself short, thinking that he was actually mastering the Chevy with surprising ease.

The hunter behind had been joined by a second, both wailing as they gave pursuit. "Never mind, go! There!" She pointed at a large green sign that read LAS VEGAS BOULEVARD.

Johnis swerved for the road under the sign and flew down the slope, blaring his own horn to warn the slowing cars to move out of his way.

An obstacle they hadn't yet seen presented itself ahead: red lights hanging over the road. A dozen Chevys had stopped under them as if facing an invisible wall.

"Johnis a"

"Navigate!" he cried. "We can't stop; the hunters are gaining. Find a hole, tell me a" His intense concentration stopped him, but she knew that he was right. They were in a Horde city from the Histories, being hounded by two warriors or hunters who undoubtedly meant to kill them.

If they were to survive and go after the books a "To the right!" The opening was narrow, between two cars, and she couldn't see beyond, but it was the only gap she could see.

"Over the lip?"

"What lip?"

Johnis shot for the gap to their right, and Silvie saw Johnis's "lip" then: a thin fence bordered the road, then gave way to a cliff beyond.

"Johnis!"

But Johnis was flying faster. They cut the car on their right off, forcing its rider into a squealing brake. It was all a blur now, and Silvie threw her arms up to protect her face.

The Chevy hit a curb and launched up, nose high in the air. Then they were airborne.

"Hold on a"

"Dear Elyon, save us!"

They sailed ten yards and landed level with a horrendous crash, bounced once, then flew forward on spinning wheels.

They'd survived?

Unscathed, it would seem, but the car was now screaming directly for another line of cars stopped beneath a line of hanging red lights.

To this point Johnis had managed to maneuver the Chevy down the mountain and into the city without touching another car. Seeing the line, Silvie knew that would now change. She braced herself for the impact.

Johnis whipped the wheel to his left, slammed his foot on the brake, then released it and applied more gas. The Chevy went into a broad slide, then abruptly straightened, flying past the line of stopped cars.

Horns blared. The Chevy missed all but the last car, which was pulled out halfway through a right-hand turn.

"Watch it a"

The impact came along Silvie's door, a loud clash of metal against metal. Sparks flew. More horns blared.

And then they were through, up over a curb, clipping a tree trunk, and back on the road.

Clear.

"You okay?" Johnis asked.

"Yes. We did it?"

"We caused a ruckus. They all stopped, but they'll be after us, that's for sure."

The rising and falling horns of the warriors in pursuit wailed through the Chevy's carriage.

"By the sounds of it, a whole horde of them are after us." Silvie tried to calm the trembling in her hands but failed to.

"I think we should leave this car,"

"No, no, no, we can't leave the Chevy. It's a" Johnis's eyes darted about, blinking at the towering lights by the road, then behind in the mirror. "You're right. You're right, we're too obvious."

Silvie settled enough to take in the lights that rose on both sidesa"an incredible display of reds and greens and every color of the rainbow. Ma.s.sive squares the size of whole buildings were painted with moving faces and pictures.

She couldn't make sense of anything she saw. Terrifying.

"Fantastic," Johnis muttered.

Silvie twisted back and saw not one, not two, not four or six sets of flashing lights, but a dozen, racing up the empty road behind them.

"We have company."

"We have to leave the Chevy. I see it; hold tight."

Johnis whipped the car to the right through a crossroad that led to a ma.s.sive pyramid structure. The sign read EXCALIBUR.

"See what?" Silvie demanded, looking back to see if the warriors had seen them make the turn.

"Excalibur. Hold on!" Johnis jerked the wheel hard, throwing her into the door. The car careened into a dark alley. They clipped a large green bin and slid to a stop. He killed the motor and extinguished the lamps.

The motor ticked in the sudden quiet. He looked at Silvie, eyes wide, face beaded with sweat.

"What do you think?"

The warriors' Chevys wailed with increasing intensity.

"I think they saw us turning," Silvie said.

They moved as one, each shoving open a door and scrambling out. The wailing from the cars in pursuit was now on top of them. Johnis grabbed her hand and pulled her into a sprint down the alleya"away from their Chevy, toward the Excalibur.

he Excalibur was built like a castle, with red and purple spires lit brightly against the black sky. Ma.s.sive. Everything in the Histories was colossal. And as brilliant as a colored sun.

They ran side by side, their feet pounding with the roar of the citya"noise, noise, everywhere noise! It was as if sun had been captured by the Horde and was now hooked into this city called Las Vegas. The burning smell was enough to make Silvie blanch, though she suspected the odor came from the cars, not the buildings.

They saved their breath, but Silvie was too astonished by the sights and sounds and smells to speak intelligently. Having been stranded in a strange world only to find company in such frightful things as warriors screaming about in Chevys and mountains of lights that flashed overhead without pause, she was a twisted knot of mangled nerves.

She grabbed Johnis's hand as they approached a flight of stairs leading into the Excalibur and pulled him to a stop, barely winded despite their last run.

A steady river of people flowed in and out of a dozen gla.s.s doors. They stood on the landing between the Excalibur and Las Vegas Boulevard, breathing hard.

"Good night! You ever hear so many sirens?" a large redheaded man exclaimed, facing the street. "That ambulances or police?"

"Cops," said a shorter fellow wearing a sleeveless tunic and baggy shorts. "Some crash has the traffic piled up at Tropicana."

Johnis pulled Silvie forward, then released her hand and took steps two at a time. Silvie glanced back and saw no immediate threat. Their best option was to enter a crowd and lose themselves. The authorities knew the city and would quickly cut off any avenue of escape. But if they could lose themselves inside the hunter's net while they came to terms with their predicament, they stood a strong chance of slipping through that net later.

If they were to take Ray, the bald gas man, at his suggestion, they should fit in at the Excalibur. Smart, she agreed. But seeing Johnis rush up the steps now, she wasn't sure they would fit in. None of the other guests wore battle leather or tunics similar to their own. Boots clacked on the stone behind her, and she twisted back to see five blue-suited warriors running past a fountain fifty yards away.

"Johnis a" She bounded up the steps and pa.s.sed him near the top. "They've seen us! Hurry!"

They spun through the doors into a world even more frightening than the one outside: hundreds of machines situated in long rows, green-clothed tables, lighted wheels. The sheer number of people and the horrendous crash of bells and gongs made her head spin.

"Excuse me."

Silvie turned to her right. A warrior in a brown shirt, bearing a club and a weapon in a waist sheath.

"Knives aren't permitted in the main casino. You'll have to take the fighter's entrance on the west side."

Silvie crouched and touched the knife on her right thigh. The warrior's demeanor changed the moment her fingers made contact with the bone handle. Had she made a mistake?

For a moment neither of them moved. And then the guard lifted a black box to his mouth and issued orders. The man waited a second, and the box spoke back to him: "On our way."

"Follow me!" Johnis whispered.

He ran over a soft red floor, woven cotton perhaps, past what he now saw were gaming tables, not so different from the more rudimentary betting cages that some of the Forest Guard played to waste their time between battles.

"Stop!"

Johnis flew through the aisles, and Silvie stayed hard on his heels. They raced the full length of one aisle before he cut sharply to his left and ran directly into a long table surrounded by eight players.

He could have stopped in time to avoid a collision, but in this state of anxiety dove over the table, landed on his hands, and rolled to his feet.

So Silvie dove as well. With all of her might, she launched herself into the air, soared ten feet, and landed on her hands as he had. She rolled to her feet and plowed into Johnis.

He staggered back a step, but his eyes were on the table. Stunned by what they'd just done with surprising ease.

"After me." He sprinted to his right, glancing up. Silvie now saw what had caused him to turn in the first place: a sign bearing a warrior dressed in fighting leathers, armed with a sword.

CLASH OF THE GLADIATORS.

They'd lost the guard and whatever reinforcements had come to his aide, and they'd done so with surprising speed. But Silvie didn't have time to dwell on this small accomplishment at the moment. They were like two rats on a king's banquet table; expecting to dash around from dish to dish without being soundly smashed and fed to the dogs was the stuff of fancy.

Johnis ducked into a hallway marked by the CLASH OF THE GLADIATORS sign and slowed to a fast walk. Silvie glanced back down the aisles as they rounded the corner. Three guards raced into the aisle a hundred yards behind.

She leaped into the hall. "They're still coming!"

The hall they had entered was bordered with several white doors marked by lighted signs that made no sense to her: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The hall ended at a red wall with a large picture of a stately looking fellow wearing a crown on his head.

"Find an open door." Johnis was already trying the handles.

"It's a dead end, Johnis!" She stepped across the hall and tried two of the doorsa"both locked.

The guards boots pounded down the aisles.

"Johnis!" she whispered. "This is nothing! We have to get out of here!" Panic crowded her throat. They were trapped rats!

Johnis tried the other doors and found them all locked. Silvie grabbed his elbow. "We're going to have to fight them." She flipped a knife into her left palm. "If it doesn't go well, I want you to know that I love you. I always have."

The door behind them suddenly flew open, and a short, fat man with ruddy cheeks and cropped blond hair that had tinges of red in it held the door wide. He looked surprised to see them.

"Gladiators?"

Johnis hesitated only a moment, then shoved Silvie forward. "Finally!"

They hurried past the man into a dark hall that ran to a lighted door. "All partic.i.p.ants use the west entrance, man," the fellow said after them. "Second door on your right." Then he dipped back out the door, leaving them alone.

From somewhere to their left a crowd roared. They looked to be in the innards of the building, behind the arenaa"this Clash of Gladiators. But for the moment they were safe.

"Did they see us?"

Silvie didn't have to answer. m.u.f.fled cries reached them from beyond the door they'd just entered- "This way! This way!"

Johnis and Silvie ran down the hall, flew into the second doorway to their right, and slid to a stop in front of a long row of uniforms.

"Dress, hurry!" Johnis dashed to the line of battle dress and quickly shrugged into a red cape.

There were three things that all Forest Dwellers held in the highest regard, things Thomas of Hunter, their supreme commander, reminded them of often: their ferocity in battle, their gentleness in love, and their enthusiasm in celebrating at the end of a long day of both.

The celebrations consisted of all forms of song, dance, and the spinning of tales. And playacting brought it all together.