Unwelcome Guests
The old temple site had proved to be an archaeological treasure trove. Esha smiled, her breath condensing in a puff before her. Even this far from the temple itself the amount of Kadethii artifacts was enough for a lifetime of cataloguing and study. Kneeling down, she stuck several microbeacons on the ground to mark the field so that subsequent snowfalls wouldn’t affect her work, and moved on to cover more ground.
An alarm went off in her ear. Already? She couldn’t believe that time had passed so fast. Esha made sure that her satchel, full of carefully wrapped relics, was securely attached to her back, and set off. The temple wasn’t that far, yet her path presented difficulties. What had possessed the Kadeth to build this far up was something still to be discovered, but it certainly had helped with the preservation of the Kadethii sites. Nobody ever came this far up in the mountains.
Esha started her descent, her spiked boots clawing at rocks and ice, using her pike to help support her weight. It took her the best part of an hour to reach down to the river. The river was really little more than a rill here, gathering more waters when the snow thawed. But now it was completely frozen over, and Esha used it to move faster. She stomped her boots down with force, so she had enough grip, and plunged ahead. Esha always set her alarm so she had plenty of time to reach the temple and her base camp before sunset, but it was always better not to tarry: the temperature dropped in the nights, from uncomfortable to deadly.
She turned what she used to call “the last corner”, and felt a lump in her stomach. Esha found herself in awe every single time she stared at the imposing Kadethii bridge. It spanned the gorge between the mountains between an outcrop to the left and the temple entrance to the right. A watchtower rose from the base of the valley, as if it had been grown from the crook. Esha’s heart missed a beat every time she saw it, but this time her blood froze.
An airship was moored to the watchtower, with three smaller ones circling above.
She recognized the banners.
Damn. All her work was in jeopardy.
Esha ran towards the tower. She started feeling the heat inside her thermosuit: it was designed for light work in the snow, not for exercise. She ignored it and kept pumping her legs, gaining speed on the iced surface of the rill. She stared at the airship drifting pleasantly in the frozen breeze and cursed.
She reached the base of the tower, shouldered the gate, and climbed up the spiral staircase two steps at a time. She met nobody until she reached the top level, where she saw two people at the entrance to the watchtower’s main room, what had been the Kadeth guardroom. They stared in surprise as Esha barrelled through them, striking man and woman down with her pike, and entered the guardroom.
Esha had installed her living quarters in the guardroom, as well as her laboratory and storage space. And there, sitting comfortably on her chair before her lab table, was him.
Löwen. The archaeology pirate. The owner of the airships outside.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Hello, Esha,” he snickered. “Long time no see.”
“You idiot!” she said. “You shouldn’t be here! Nobody can know we’re in this together, not even your crew! You’ll ruin the operation!”
~~~~
This is my accompanying entry for the Weekly Writing Exercise: October 16–22, 2017 at the Writer’s Discussion Group on Google+. I am responsible for creating the prompts for the Exercise, so I don’t take part, but I still like to write a story each week.
I’m late once again, but better late than never. I’ve started a series of prompts I’ve titled Strange Worlds, and this is the second one. And this is the story I came up with. And that’s it. Not all stories have… a story behind them.
