The welx clamped its jaws shut with a laugh.
“So be it,” she said, and turned to Coyote. “Take his teeth.”
Coyote used the pommel of the khopesh to break the welx’s teeth. The Hunters gathered around to watch, cheering and battering the beast with their rifles until it yelped; two of them broke from the crowd to scorch the mud-tusque nests with flame throwers, while one of Jekel’s Vanquishers administered medical aid to Hessia.
Coyote shoved the Halo down the welx’s throat and Snofrid’s strength threatened to abandon her. She knelt stock-still, zapped into a panicked stupor. Images of Armador streamed before her eyes, all burning in the breath of blackchant. Why someone would want to free Invidia she couldn’t even fathom. Earth would bow under her power, just like Armador had bowed. Invidia wouldn’t be merciful. She’d put both human and Inborn civilizations in chains. And nothing—no weapon or soldier—would be strong enough to challenge her.
Her mind was so numb she almost didn’t register the feathery sensation unfurling across it. Her vision divided; on one side, she saw the welx being force-fed the Halo, and on the other, she saw a sniper barrel jutting from the opening of a hollow log. Two small white hands covered the barrel with leaves as a voice said, “It looks like I missed absolutely nothing.”
Snofrid lifted her head. “Rhode?”
“Who else would it be? Everyone else is either dead or a traitor.”
She wrested back the hope that was trying to spill through her. “I tried to call you before. Why didn’t you answer?”
“I needed to confirm that you weren’t pro-Invidia like Nethers and all the rest of those bastards.”
“What about you?” Snofrid checked. “How can I trust you when you’re Coyote’s half-brother?”
“If I was a dirty traitor, I’d be out there and not over here, girl.” He scraped up some frozen mud, softened it in his palm and then rubbed it on his mask. “And even if I was a traitor, I would never have trusted Jekel Necrosis. She’s famous for hating men. All men, even the Lords and the Governors. The only people she likes are her Vanquishers and Invidia. Bourkan should be watching his back.”
Snofrid had had the same thought. Jekel would choose her allegiance to Invidia over every person here. “Why is her face like that? Is she half Skinwalker?”
“She wishes,” Rhode scoffed. “She broke a Covenant Spell a while back. Being ugly is her punishment.” He slipped on a pair of ear defenders. “Okay, girl. Since you’re anti-Invidia, I’m going to use you—for whatever it’s worth.”
Snofrid had never been so eager to work with Rhode. “I was going to say the same about you.”
“You’re the one in handcuffs, girl. Since the Commander is out and the Coyote is a double-agent, I’m in command now.” He dipped a finger in the snow and scrubbed dirt from his eyepieces. Then he peered through his scope, zooming in on the crowd of Hunters. “I only have a butt shot on Wolba, and his butt is armored, so I’m going to need you to blow him up with the Coyote’s acid grenade.”
Snofrid spotted the grenade swinging from Coyote’s belt. “How am I supposed to get it? My hands are shackled and he’s over fifteen feet away.”
“Patience, girl.” Rhode placed his mil dots on Coyote. “I’m going to herd the Coyote to your position. You’ll probably only have one chance to swipe the grenade, so don’t miss.”
“Don’t worry.” She unfolded her hands, her shackles clanking. “There’s no way I’ll miss.”
Rhode cast a brief look at Hadrian stretched out in the snow. “They’re going to try to frame the Commander as an All-Steam Hunter as soon as they get the portal coordinates. After you blow up Wolba, you need to hit the woods. We’re witnesses, so they’re going to want us dead. We can’t let that happen.”
Snofrid had already deduced this much. “I know. But we’re going to need backup after. The Commander’s brother is in the city. Is there any way you can contact him with your bug dials?”
“Yeah, but wait a minute.” Rhode snorted. “How do you know Cid the Insidious?”
“He’s my Shadow.”
Rhode switched on his phone and pulled up a bucket list.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“It’s none of your business, girl.” He put a checkmark beside the goal—fight beside Cid the Insidious—and then went on. “Okay. Stream me a picture of Cid’s location.”
Snofrid, praying Lycidius was somewhere in the Alley, recollected all the rooms inside and channeled them to the boy’s mind. “He should be in one of those. But hurry. The welx just ate its last Halo.”
She waited in a bout of sweating, counting seconds that felt far too long. Over by the welx, Coyote twirled his khopesh impatiently. Silver light glowed from the beast’s throat as it swallowed Hadrian’s power-source. The Hunters, also impatient, kicked it harder, and shouted for it to digest faster.
Jekel stepped on the welx’s neck, forcing its head into the snow. “If you weren’t such a coward, Wolba, we might have allowed you to live. You would’ve spent your life buried in a box, and, since life seems to be all you desire, I’m sure it would’ve been sufficient.”
“Okay.” Rhode clicked back into Snofrid’s mind. “Cid’s en route. He’s packing a Hematic and something called a Steelrunner.”
“The Hematic is my brother, Desya.”
“Whatever.” Rhode pinched an eye shut. “Get focused. I’m moving the Coyote right now.”
“Okay.” She slid one foot out in front, preparing to sprint. “Ready when you are.”
A shot fired, striking the snow at Coyote’s feet. The Hunters dispersed to the edges of the glade while Coyote leapt out of the line of fire, landing a few feet from Snofrid. Lunging forward, she broke from her two guards and rammed him. He spun around and elbowed her in the windpipe and brought his knee up to her gut. The air fled her lungs. Choking, she staggered back into the arms of the Hunters.
“Tell me you didn’t just utterly fail,” Rhode exclaimed.
She coughed, straining for air. “I didn’t utterly fail.”
Rhode checked Coyote’s empty belt. “Okay, okay. But that’s just the first step, girl. Never celebrate until the fight is over.”
“Yeah, right,” she wheezed. “You were the one cheering twenty minutes ago.”
Coyote, now ducking behind the boulder, sent five Hunters into the forest. “Kill the shooter.”
“No,” Jekel intervened. “Your men have proved their worthlessness one time too many.” She summoned two of her Vanquishers and ordered them to kill Rhode.
“Never going to happen,” Rhode laughed, shifting his scope on a Hunter. “No one can find me with this muzzle brake.”
As the Vanquishers dashed into the trees, swinging their hook swords, Jekel put two more on Snofrid. “Don’t let her move again.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
Snofrid felt like a dwarf in comparison to the two women that moved toward her. The male Hunters restraining her pedaled back as the Vanquishers placed their large hands on her shoulders. Right away, she started to dread the moment when she’d make her next move.
“We need to hurry,” she said to Rhode, seeing that the welx had finished feeding. “As long as the welx is alive, the coordinates will be readable. Clear me a path and I’ll toss the grenade.”
“Not so fast.” Rhode looked up, and a tree branch fell over his face. “Even with my sharp shooting, chances are, you’re going to get shot.” He adjusted the branch, fitting it back on his head. “The hard part is going to be getting away. If you get nabbed again, I’m not going to save you.”
She nodded, fingering the pin of the grenade in her sleeve. Her blood was rushing so fast, she felt lightheaded. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered that she was about to destroy the only way back to Armador. This weighed her down with the strongest guilt she’d ever felt. How many families would she separate for all time? How many people would be abandoned to a life of slavery because of what she was about to do? Yes,
she knew destroying all ties to the portal was her only choice, but it still felt wrong. It still felt like a crime.
Duty over fear, she told herself. It was the single thought that kept her from dropping the grenade. “Make the shot,” she said.
“Calculating distance,” Rhode announced. “The Vanquisher on your left is about to give up wearing tall heels.” He pulled the trigger, sending a bullet flying at the woman’s ankle. The ankle blew apart as the bullet struck, and the woman toppled over, hissing.
“Now,” Rhode ordered, firing a shot at the other Vanquisher’s hand. “Throw it now.”
Snofrid’s adrenaline heaved as she pulled the clip. Dropping to her knees, she skidded across the ice and chucked the grenade through the welx’s gaping ribcage.
“She just threw a live one!” Nethers gasped. He bolted out from behind his tree cover. “Get it out. Get it out!”
A dozen hunters stampeded the welx, knocking into one another. They slid to a halt and stuck their arms in the welx’s ribcage, sorting through its innards in search of the grenade.
“Where the hell is it?” Coyote said shakily. “Where the hell is it?”
Snofrid felt the Vanquisher who’d taken a hand-shot seize her by the shoulders with her uninjured hand. The woman’s cold fingers squeezed her nape, before threads of icy-hot pain stunned her skull. “Rhode, get her off me!”
“I don’t have a clear shot. Move,” Rhode urged. “Move, or you’re going to get melted.”
Snofrid couldn’t move under the Vanquisher’s grip. Welts formed on her skin, bubbling into blisters.
“My bullet took her hand clean off,” Rhode yelled, “Punch the wound.”
Snofrid started panting hard, so hard she began to hyperventilate. She wasn’t going to be beaten. Not again.
“Run!”
An intense current of resistance built inside of her, sucking the energy from every part of her body, and filtering it to her core. She shuddered, feeling like she was going to explode. And she did. The current yawned in her chest. It flared out down her arms and pooled in her wrists, jerking her spine in a whiplash motion. The shackles jangled as she was lifted upright. She splayed her hands out in front of her, screaming, before an eruption of energy bloomed around her. A white shield spilled from her hands and wrapped her in an impenetrable sphere. The Vanquisher was thrust backward; she struck a tree and was skewered on a branch.
Rhode rose to his knees. “Whoa. Where is that coming from?”
“I-I don’t know,” Snofrid gasped, maintaining the shield in place. An instant later, a crack erupted in the glade and the welx exploded.
“Bull’s-eye!” Rhode cheered.
Snofrid stared, wide-eyed, as Hunters were thrown into the tree line; a great spot of red marked where the welx had been while bits of beast flesh and innards rained down about the glade. Jekel let out a furious roar; Coyote scrambled to his knees, desperately scraping the blood into a puddle, hoping to see the coordinates; Nethers and Darling were beside him, motionless with despair. The Hunters and Vanquishers recovered and charged Snofrid with their weapons drawn.
“You better hold that deflection shield in place,” Rhode advised. “Drop it and you’re going to be decorating the forest.”
Snofrid broke into a cold sweat as the Hunters cordoned her off. Bullets rained down on her shield, each one sapping a portion of her strength. They ricocheted off her shield’s surface, and, like boomerangs, returned to the men who’d fired them, wounding, and even killing them. Tears of exhaustion and fear spilled from her eyes. She willed herself to sustain the power, but her body felt drained; she might’ve collapsed from fatigue, if her body wasn’t repeatedly regenerating itself.
“Cease fire,” Jekel ordered. She strode away from the welx’s remains, shoving her Shotel blade in her scabbard, and vomited a pillar of magic at Snofrid’s shield. Green and vicious, it issued from her open mouth like a molten tornado. Snofrid’s arms quaked, threatening to snap as if they were corn stalks.
“Rhode,” she cried. “I don’t think I can hold it.”
“Think like that and you won’t,” he said. “Just focus, and tell yourself you can do it, girl.”
Snofrid summoned all her strength. She gritted her teeth and splayed her hands wider, until the shackles bit into her wrists.
“That’s it,” Rhode encouraged, banging a fist on his rifle. “Keep doing that.”
Tilting her head upward, she stared at the blinding shell of energy sizzling around her. A rush of hope flowed through her, reinforcing her endurance. Jekel’s magic continued to rage across the shield, zigzagging through the cracks, seeking a way inside. Digging her heels in the snow, Snofrid wrenched her hands farther apart, breaking her shackles; the shield expanded and rippled across the glade. Hunters staggered back, toppling over, scattering like straw in a strong wind.
Jekel’s magic veered sideways into the forest and set the trees aflame. With a snarl, she snapped her teeth shut, breaking the flow.
“Whohoo!” Rhode cheered in excitement. “You totally owned her!”
“Pack up,” Jekel growled. “We need to be at the aircraft before the Legion attacks.” She wiped spittle from her chin, her beast eye fluttering wildly. “Five of you will remain. As soon as the girl releases the shield, bury her alive.”
“It will be done, mistress.”
Five Hunters situated themselves at the tree line with rifles. A giant Hunter, roughly six foot seven, grasped Hadrian’s ankles and dragged him from the glade, leaving a streak of blood in the snow; Coyote, Nethers and Darling gathered up chunks of the welx and stuffed them into leather rucksacks; the Vanquishers took formation behind Jekel while other Hunters helped the wounded to their feet.
“Where is the shooter?” Jekel demanded, scanning the trees. “We can’t leave until both witnesses are accounted for.”
“Then you’ll never leave,” Rhode chuckled. “And when I run out of bullets, Cid the Insidious will dominate you all.”
“I’ll find him,” Coyote assured. Tossing his rucksack to Nethers, he jogged into the trees.
Snofrid watched after him with a nervous feeling. Coyote had excellent hearing to have been able to detect laser wire. “Rhode, maybe you should change your position.”
“Bourkan can’t find me,” he guaranteed, patting the muzzle of his rifle. “This muzzle brake is designed to keep the shooter’s location hidden.”
“Still, it might be a good idea to move.”
Rhode sighed. “Girls. They always worry. That’s why only a few make good soldiers.”
Peripherally, Snofrid noticed Jekel staring at her. The woman’s eyes were slanted again, baring the whites.
“Why do you look so pleased?” Jekel inquired. “There are other ways to locate the portal.”
Snofrid saw her bluff as clearly as if it were dressed in red. “If there are other ways, then you shouldn’t look so disappointed.”
“Your stunt here was a setback that I didn’t intend, but revolutions are never simple.” Jekel’s voice grew lighter, more optimistic. “Unrest is growing in our kind like a sickness. Within ten years, the unrest will drive them to attack the Lord Office. The Lords will fall. It’s only a question of time.”
“You’ll free yourselves from five tyrants, only to enslave yourselves to one,” Snofrid pointed out. “You think Invidia will give you some kind of utopian existence, but how is that possible when all her power is capable of is destruction?”
Jekel’s beast eye glinted. Her voice latched into Snofrid’s mind, reverberating as a harsh whisper. “Yes, Invidia will destroy,” she granted. “But it will be Inborn men. In Invidia’s new world, men will serve womankind.” Her twisted eyes swept across the lines of male Hunters. “They’ll be kept alive for only one purpose: breeding.”
Rhode snorted. “This lady’s brain is in her foot if she thinks that’s Invidia’s plan.”
Snofrid didn’t have time to respond: she noticed the Coyote making a break for Rhode’s hideout. �
�Rhode, watch out,” she warned.
“Clam down, girl,” Rhode said, taking aim at Coyote. “I’ve got him at point-blank range.”
Coyote, still tearing toward Rhode, cracked one of his lighting whips. The whip sent out a burst of heat, melting Rhode’s bullet like a flake of snow.
“Shit.” Rhode threw his rifle and darted into the trees, panting loudly, shedding branches from his forest suit.
When Rhode glanced over his shoulder, Snofrid saw Coyote unwinding a Longxu hook from his belt and panicked. “Run, Rhode! He can hit you at ten meters.”
Coyote swung the Longxu rope in a wide arc, sending the hook hurtling toward Rhode’s feet; it coiled around his ankles and then jerked tight. Rhode stumbled, tried to brace his fall, and then crashed into the snow.
Snofrid’s heart staggered. “Oh my hell.” She took a step forward, nearly releasing her deflection shield. “Get up, Rhode. Get up!”
Rhode flipped onto his back, groaning. His jaw clenched in anger, and he shouted, “You’ll regret this, Bourkan!”
Coyote aimed his rifle at the boy’s chest with a quiet laugh. “Not likely.”
Rhode propped himself on his elbows, his eyes watering. “ALL turncoats get their due.”
“This isn’t a video game, Vortigern.” Coyote stepped on the boy’s chest, slamming him into the ground. “In the real world, fairness doesn’t exist. If it did, the Five Lords would be corpses, Inborns would be free from the oppression of the Lord Office, and we’d all return home.”
Rhode tried to wrestle Coyote’s boot off him, and tears sprang from his eyes. “Armador stopped being our home the minute we left.”
“Wrong,” Coyote corrected. “Armador stopped being your home the minute you cozied up to earth. We don’t belong here; we never will.” He cocked his rifle. “But it sounds like you’ll be happy to die here.”
Coyote fired two shots into the boy’s chest. Rhode slumped onto his back with his legs bent under him and his eyes wide open.
Snofrid screamed. Her body jerked upright in horror before a violent rage ripped through her, all the way to the marrow of her bones. Everything around her diminished, so that all she could make out were grey spots clouding over Rhode’s vision. Before it faded, Coyote tossed the rope to the ground and said, “Shooter down. All units move out.”
Hatred Day Page 35
