Chapter 10 S2

Julisse, a planet in the Massane galaxy. 

The sound of hooves on bare stone resonated without echo. As they were on a plateau, the wind blew everything away, including the sounds. The absence of life made the landscape dull and drab, and the only hues dotting the horizon were either grey or maroon. 

Azure was advancing on a foothill, along the sheer cliff below him. Behind him, Inja and Meica followed quietly. With her head down, the Pegasus mare looked absent-minded. Blank-eyed, Auzur couldn't tell whether she was simply exhausted or completely desperate. Next to her, Inja was looking better, but she wasn't doing too badly either. 

It had to be said that they were both failing. The first fragment had been a piece of cake and they had recovered it very quickly. This easy success had galvanised them and they had gone home with their find. But after that, the two fragments they had tried to recover were fiercely guarded, one in the hands of the group working for Zorkiel. 

If the first was the cause of great frustration, seeing the second pass under their noses as the opposing team emerged from the place where it lay with the fragment in hand destroyed their morale. Since then, the Pegasus had been dragging behind him two desperate women who couldn't seem to get their hopes up. 

He sighed inwardly. He understood their distress, but nothing was decided yet! They could very well recover all the fragments later, and increase their tally at that point. There were a good fifty fragments to recover anyway, according to his estimates, and they would have time to cross paths with their enemies while searching for the others. 

"It would be good if we could get this one back to motivate them," he thought, glancing discreetly behind him. 

While he was thinking about this, his foot laughed and a pebble fell under it and ricocheted against the rock face. The pegasus looked up and Inja seemed to wake up too. 

-Sorry, it's just me," Azure said guiltily. 

-Aaah... sighed Inja. Be more careful. 

The Pegasus didn't answer. He'd been used to this lacklustre voice for a few days now. But that didn't mean he was getting used to it...

-I'm sure we'll find him," he tried to cheer them up. For the moment we're alone on this planet, we just need to find the fragment and then we'll set off for the next one. 

-Even if we do find it, Zorkiel's henchmen have a head start on us," retorted Inja without energy. Not to mention that if they're not here, it means they're somewhere else, recovering another fragment. 

She spoke in a monotone that betrayed her psychological fatigue. 

-Inja, you know that doesn't mean anything," the Pegasus tried to reason with her. And then we're going to go back and get the first one once we've gone to the intergalactic platform to get some Dré, we're not that late...

-I know, but we're in a race against time, and Lord Niris' life depends on it! We can't afford to just let bits and pieces pass before our very eyes, it's pathetic! 

-Don't you think I know that? The longer we wait, the worse the situation gets, the Pegasus began to get annoyed. But what good will it do us to be defeatist and bemoan the slightest failure? We'll have every opportunity to beat them on our journey, and we'll be able to get all the fragments they've recovered by then! 

-You talk as if it's easy to beat them! Have you seen their team? They've got a Salubase with them, a psychic master! None of us are any match for them! replied Inja in the same angry tone as him. And that's why we ran away last time, I remind you!

Tired of her attitude since they left the last planet, he turned back to face her before replying. Their conversation via interposed communication channels was virulent despite the appearance of a monologue that Inja seemed to be conducting in this desolate land. 

-We fled because we weren't ready to face them! he contested with undisguised anger. But now that we know what to expect, we'll be able to anticipate and attack them the next time we come across them! In any case, better a late victory than an early painful defeat! 

-That's right, except that if it turns out he's detected us too, they'll be just as prepared to take us on the next time they come across us, pegasus and knight that we are...

While he was concentrating on his conversation with the angel, Azur noticed that Meica had suddenly straightened her head, ears pointed forward. Yet she didn't seem to be giving any importance to their spat, so something else had alerted her. Azure too felt his instincts tugging at him that something was wrong without knowing exactly what. 

He was about to tell Inja to keep her voice down when he saw a shape detach itself from the wall below them, where they had been just a few minutes earlier. 

-Hello, are you even listening to me?" shouted Inja, enraged that the animal was completely ignoring her. 

-The pegasus told her by reflex. 

Concentrating, he had also pointed his ears forward and was trying to analyse the situation by blowing great gulps of air through his nostrils. He didn't like the smell. 

The angel was about to retaliate when she saw the tension between the two animals. She turned her head in the direction they were looking with concern, then made a panicked movement. 

-My God, it's... a Shurkel? I thought there was no sign of life on this planet! 

-Shurkels are strange beings that could be described as energetic rather than living," corrected the Pegasus. And it's been decades since anyone took an interest in this planet, so it's quite possible that the information we have on it is wrong. 

The guard started to draw his sword when the Pegasus stopped him. 

-Let's save our strength and run, there's no point in confronting him here, we'll just exhaust ourselves for nothing. 

The angel thought for a few seconds and then nodded, putting the sword, half drawn, back into its scabbard. Before their very eyes, a huge stone creature rose to its feet. It had in fact coiled up in a hollow in the wall above which they had been walking for several hours. Now standing on all fours, it stretched for a moment, clearly unaware of the small group's presence. Its elongated head, its eyes glowing like violet flames, turned slowly to scan its surroundings. 

-Okay, let's run, now! said Azur, who was just about to turn around and get away from the colossus as quickly as possible when Meica's voice interrupted him and Inja, who was about to follow suit. 

-Wait!" she said suddenly. Don't Shurkels usually have blue eyes? 

Azure frowned. He looked at the beast a little more closely and realised that the two head-sized torches that served as the Shurkel's eyes were violet, not blue. 

-Their colour doesn't look natural," continued Meica. 

-Be careful, it's spotted us! said Inja, who instinctively got into a fighting stance. 

The beast roared when it saw the group as if preparing to attack. Lit from within by the same light that made its eyes shine, the stone monster wagged its tail before stabilising it. It crouched down, ready to pounce. 

It was then that Azur caught a glimpse of something in its torso that he knew well from having seen it many times before. 

-A fragment!" he exclaimed. He has a fragment of Niyari inside his torso, that's why the light that shines on his head is violet and not blue! It doesn't come from his natural energy but from the fragment inside him! 

Inja frowned, turning her gaze back to the beast that was about to pounce on them. 

-How did he end up with that inside him? she thought aloud. 

-We'll think about that later! For now, we have to avoid his attack! cut her off as Meica prepared to pounce. 

-Wait, don't attack him!" said Azure, but his words were covered by the noise that the Shurkel's attack threw at them. 

After dodging the stone colossus's lethal leap, he looked around worriedly, but quickly noticed the silhouettes of the Pegasus and the Angel rising from the dust kicked up by the Surkel as it fell. He huffed. 

-We don't know how he got in, so we mustn't kill him! they warned. 

-Ah," sighed Inja, a determined look in her eyes, "that's going to be more complicated. 

She drew her sword, and with a glance at Meica, she prepared to rush forward. 

-You stay back, we'll take care of him," she ordered the Pegasus before dashing towards the roaring hound. 

Meica followed close behind. Azur sighed. The two teammates had been used to fighting together for a very long time. He knew that the Shurkel would only be a routine ride for them, but their investment in this fight and their desire to succeed on their own, as if to forgive themselves for their past failures, seemed excessive and unwise. For all that, he obeyed the angel's order and moved a little away from the combat zone, standing on a rock overlooking the sunken area where the Shurkel was. 

"As long as they don't get hurt, that's all that matters," he said to himself, licking his right foreleg as if to make his anxiety disappear with a flick of his tongue. 

He had no doubt that his comrades would win, but the presence of the Niyari fragment created considerable uncertainty. He would intervene if the situation became too dangerous.