Warden's Fury

by Tony James Slater

  “Gimmie that,” she said, pointing at his neckline. Tris grasped her meaning and pulled his pendant over his head, handing it to her. She took it delicately, not feeling any of its dampening effects on her Gift, and passed it off to Kreon. “Sorry old man,” she told him, “you get to be a spectator.”

  Tristan’s face came alive with wonder, a shudder rippling his shoulders as the world outside came in. Kyra couldn’t figure out why he still wore the pendant; to her it would be like wearing blinkers, or an eye-patch over a perfectly good eye. But now wasn’t the time to ponder the mystery that was Tristan. Most likely he just didn’t want her reading the adolescent fantasies from his mind.

  Whatever. She felt Tristan’s presence like a computer coming online. Beyond him, she reached out for their attacker… and saw her own face reflected in his thoughts.

  Shit! She ducked just in time as a bullet whistled through the air above her. Another followed slightly lower, the sniper having learned from his last attempt. Damn it! This asshole was good.

  “Run!” she said, taking off into the trees at an oblique angle.

  He’s following us, Tris warned her, as they pelted through the forest.

  I know.

  He’s herding us toward his mates up ahead.

  What? She broke her link with Tris to stretch out as far as she could. If there were more of Sera’s troops out there, they were too far away for her to sense them.

  Of course, Tristan’s talent far outstripped hers.

  If she ever got a few quiet months to train him up, he’d be unbeatable.

  You sure kid?

  Positive.

  She ducked a low-hanging branch and risked a look back at him. How many?

  Not sure. I can only sense six.

  Six? Sydon’s balls! She slid to a halt, letting the others catch up. “Okay, new plan,” she panted. “Kreon, find a place to lie in wait for this fucker. Tris, how do you feel about scouting the ones ahead? They must be a good distance away. Don’t get too close. Check out their strategy and get a feel for them.” She levelled a finger at him. “Don’t get shot.”

  “You know that splitting up is always the worst idea at times like this?” he said.

  “Only when you’re being hunted,” she shot back.

  “Aren’t we?”

  She gave him a grin, and uncoiled the swords from her waist. “No-one is ever hunting me,” she told him. “They only think they are.”

  Kreon was already moving off, keeping to the route they’d been taking. Tris jogged towards the enemies that only he could sense, taking the knife-stick from his back as he went. Kyra watched him go. Hopefully he was clever enough to circle around a bit and stay clear of their kill-zone. She felt a little bad about sending him off alone, but he had to learn. And right now she could do without the company.

  She set off away from the others, taking a third direction. Their pursuer would have to choose one of them to follow, and judging by his choice of ammunition it would be Kreon.

  That would be a mistake.

  Then again, the sniper was experienced in this kind of scenario. He was at ease in his surroundings, with his weapons, and in his mission. A career mercenary, she was sure of it; how many targets he’d tracked through jungles and forests she didn’t care to know, but he considered himself an expert at it. The ego pouring off the man was like a hot stink. If even half of it was justified, he’d anticipate her actions.

  With a thought, she turned her hair black with the trademark red streaks.

  He could anticipate all he wanted. It wouldn’t do him any good.

  5

  Tris stalked his targets as cautiously as he could.

  The forest wasn’t his natural environment; he was an urban man, used to relying on straight edges and hard surfaces to get him around. Here the ground was spongy and uneven underfoot; smells of damp earth and moss tickled his nostrils.

  He calmed his breathing and tried to focus. The torrent of thoughts and images from the six men was overwhelming, bleeding out into the world around him. One would speak and Tris would spin, convinced the man was behind him. Their presence was so potent he was almost drowning in it, a thousand details flashing through his mind every second as the men focussed on the trees around them, the bugs, their weapons and each other. He saw a knife, knew that one man coveted it, and was nearly blinded by the sunlight winking off its tip.

  “Cover that up!” a third man hissed from beside him, and it was all Tris could do not to swing his glaive into the apparition.

  He massaged his temples with his free hand. His abilities were getting stronger over time, and he wasn’t devoting nearly enough time to figuring out how to control them. It didn’t feel like something he could ever control, a river of overlapping sounds and emotions, colours and movement and points of interaction. How the hell was a single person meant to separate all that crap out? Kyra called this psychic sense the Gift, but Tris was starting to wish it was something he could return for a refund.

  For a second he thought he was seeing himself through one of the men’s crosshairs, and flinched away — only to realise the man was looking at a picture of him, captured from a cctv camera somewhere. Probably on Homeguard. The man swiped through a series of images on his wrist-screen; Kyra was there, and Kreon. Even Blas; Sera wouldn’t know the big man was dead, of course.

  Tris felt a momentary pang of loss. He’d have felt a whole lot better if Blas had been there. Six trained mercenaries would have been little more than a speed-bump to him.

  Loader would also have been able to handle this situation. Bullet proof and utterly deadly, the talos was made for this kind of conflict.

  Or had been…

  Tris tried not to think of the possibilities. Loader was tough.

  Just like Blas had been.

  He tightened his grip on the glaive, causing it to extend a few inches. Blas’ death was Sera’s fault. And Loader, wherever he was and whatever state he was in, she was responsible for that too. Sera scared the shit out of him, but if Tris got the slightest chance to kill her, he’d take it.

  His awareness of Kyra was like a tiny candle flame in the back of his mind. She’d obviously mastered the art of not deluging a contact with every detail she saw. Tris knew only that she was tense as a bowstring as she stalked her quarry. She could make out the man just ahead of her, sighting through his rifle over a fallen tree.

  No! It’s a decoy! Tris shrieked.

  Then a gun roared, sending a hail of bullets right at him. Or her? Tris fell back, no longer sure who was under attack.

  He got his answer a second later, when his back slammed into a tree, cracking branches.

  “Hey! Hear that?” one of the mercenaries said.

  “I got a target,” another replied.

  And in a flash of deja-vu, Tris threw himself backwards as their rifles cracked.

  He was up again and running, but his focus was gone. Noise poured in again, along with the smell of burning from the men’s weapons and the rush of elation as they closed in for the kill.

  Was Kyra hurt? He couldn’t spare a thought to find out, couldn’t fight his way through the barrage of data assaulting his senses. It was like he had six extra people living in his head, all feeding their thoughts and sensory input directly into his brain. He raced away from them, running flat out, until a tree root tripped him and he hit the ground hard.

  Too close, damn it! I got too close!

  And now he was the target.

  He scrambled to his feet, the glaive in his hand. It was useless in a firefight, but if any of them came within arm’s reach…

  They’d blow his brains out.

  Stupid! Why hadn’t he at least worn a pistol, like Kreon and Kyra? The truth was, guns of any kind still scared him a bit, and he was more afraid of blowing his foot off by accident than he was of being caught without one. Until now.

  He started moving again, more cautiously this time. He stretched out with the Gift, trying to sift through what he was
seeing. Two of the mercenaries seemed closer, though his panic had jumbled their separate presences into a cloud of impending death.

  There! One man was coming for him, less than a minute behind. Another was—

  CLICK.

  Another was standing right in front of him, rifle pointed at Tris’ head.

  Somehow, one of them had gotten ahead of him.

  “Drop it!” the man ordered, his tone harsh. The merc was tall and bearded, pouches of spare ammunition hanging from his camo-patterned armour. “Got the kid,” he said, tilting his head slightly as he used a collar-mounted comm. But he kept his eyes on Tris. “Drop it!” he repeated. “Last chance.”

  Down! came the warning.

  Tris dropped, landing prone and rolling sideways.

  A bullet whined through the air and thwacked into a tree as the mercenary readjusted his aim—

  And with a wet crunch, it was all over.

  Kreon stood behind the mercenary, his grav-staff embedded in what was left of the man’s skull. He withdrew it, blood shedding easily from the dull metal orb, and the man’s body collapsed to the ground.

  “I thought you were staying clear of them,” the Warden remarked.

  “I thought you were hiding,” Tris retorted.

  Kreon glowered at him. “What, in our relationship so far, suggests to you that I would hide?”

  “Fair point.” Tris pushed himself up, dusting off his jumpsuit…

  And felt the sick thrill that came with the knowledge of a certain kill. “Kreon!” he yelled.

  The Warden turned to follow his gaze — but too slowly.

  Tristan’s arm snapped up and out, sending the glaive tumbling end over end. It flew through the air in slow motion, slicing past Kreon close enough to nick his trench coat—

  —And embedded itself in the chest of the man who’d emerged behind him.

  The mercenary slumped to the ground, a reflexive volley from his rifle stitching holes in the nearest tree.

  Tris gaped, as Kreon moved to stand over the body. The Warden knelt, pulling the dead man’s comm unit free of his collar. Then he pulled the glaive free and held it out to Tris. “There are times,” he said, “when I am extremely glad I recruited you.”

  Tris nodded, still a bit shocked.

  “Did Kyra teach you that?”

  “No,” Tris admitted. “But it always works on TV.”

  They moved off together, as a scatter of gunfire rang out behind them. Tris felt a wave of frustration from the remaining men, and knew they were firing to spook him rather than because they had a clean shot. Kreon led him directly away, which meant roughly back towards the clearing as far as Tris could tell. He knew why a few seconds later.

  Knock knock.

  He came to a halt and spun sideways.

  Kyra was slumped against a tree trunk a few metres away. Blood matted her hair and soaked the front of her jumpsuit. Tris ran over, noticing as he did that her face was a mask of gore.

  “Shit! Kyra? Are you okay?”

  She looked up at him, then pushed herself to her feet. “Mostly. You?”

  “Mostly? Kyra, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  She hissed in annoyance. “No, but… look at me! This was my second-best jumpsuit.”

  Tris took a step back, not quite sure how to respond. “So… you’re not injured?”

  Kyra snorted, then made a pained face as she touched her hair. She flicked her fingers, splattering the undergrowth with drops. “Just my feminine allure. I got blood in my mouth, for Sydon’s sake!”

  Kreon had been surveying the route behind them. Now he approached Kyra. “Your opponent is accounted for?”

  She looked down at herself. “Kreon, I’m wearing him. This ship of yours had better have a shower.”

  “Excellent. We have narrowed the odds. How many do you sense, Tristan?”

  Tris concentrated for a second, sifting the anger and aggression into three distinct packages. “Just the three so far. Ha! I reckon that means we’ve got them outnumbered!”

  “That would be true, if not for one extenuating factor,” Kreon said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Sera. If she is here on this planet, we may yet have to face her.”

  They ran again, hoping to leave the rest of the mercenaries behind.

  Kreon led, orienting himself with some trick of triangulation involving his transponder. The forest began to thin out, and the whine of jets overhead told them the freighter was still searching for them. They stopped atop a rocky outcrop that rose up from the forest floor. Tree cover had grown sparse, and a stretch of more barren, open ground unfolded on the far side. There was a distant stripe of forest beyond it, but they would have to risk exposure to the sky for as long as it took them to get across.

  “A topographical scan of the area would be handy about now,” Kyra said, looking pointedly at Tris.

  His shoulders fell. He dug in his thigh pocket and held up two halves of the picture frame that gave him remote access to the Folly. “It broke in the crash. Maybe we can fix it, but…” he trailed off. The remote was one of the few items he’d inherited from his dad — this one literally over his dead body — and he was feeling the loss keenly.

  “We must cross this plain,” Kreon said. “The cave where my ship is located is less than an hour’s march in that direction.”

  Kyra glanced upwards. “Last time I heard the ship, it sounded like it was headed back to the crash site.”

  “Those mercs are still on our tail though,” Tris pointed out, “and getting closer by the minute.”

  Kreon looked at him. “It is decided then. We make for—”

  And he froze, his eyes losing focus.

  Tris had time to exchange a puzzled look with Kyra before the Warden straightened up, clenching a fist in triumph.

  “Loader has entered transponder range!” he crowed. “In this terrain, he cannot be more than a kilometre away. He is closing with our position, but notes that his form is unsuitable for a stealthy approach.”

  “Meaning, he’ll lead them right to us,” Tris filled in.

  Kyra scanned the forest behind them, searching for the first signs of the talos. “Loader can handle unwanted attention.”

  A few tense minutes later, the rumbling ground and crunching undergrowth announced his arrival.

  At first glance Loader seemed unchanged; he’d always been a battered old cube of a thing, his armour plating pitted and scored from decades of combat damage. But as he turned to negotiate the rocky ridge, Tris noticed the back left corner of his structure had been crushed, as though from a violent impact. He winced; obviously that was the bit Loader had landed on, after being forcibly ejected from their shuttle.

  Nevertheless, the talos seemed functional. Even if the new blemish was bothering him, he’d never mention it. Loader’s treads clanked to a halt, and Tris wrapped his arms around the battle-scarred machine. “Thank God you’re okay! We were coming back to look for you, but these guys have machine guns…”

  “My housing is extremely durable,” Loader rumbled. “Yours is not.”

  As appraisals went, it was succinct but accurate. Tris let go of the talos feeling better already, realising that he understood.

  “Welcome back old friend,” Kreon said. “I trust your armoury is stocked?”

  In reply, a hatch on Loader’s side slid back, revealing a rack of slender rifles. Kreon took one, passing it to Kyra, then gave a second rifle to Tris. Tris held his up to check; it was fully-charged and ready to go. Kreon took a third rifle, leaving the fourth — presumably intended for Blas — in the rack.

  “Very well then.” Kreon looked around, checking their weapons were ready. “Let’s go to war.”

  Now armed, they crossed the ridge confidently. Loader rolled along behind them, providing cover from the mercenaries who Tris knew would show up any minute. With less of them in range, the deluge of sensory information had slowed, but it still threatened to overwhelm him if he tried to listen
. Seeking advice, he sidled up to Kyra. “This Gift?” he started. “It’s… it’s too much. I don’t want it.”

  He felt a wave of exasperation coming off her.

  “Look, if we get out of this, we’ll do some exercises.”

  “Exercises? My brain feels like it’s about to leak out of my ears. How long did it take you to control this?”

  “Years. But you’ve got an advantage.”

  “I do?”

  She looked at him and flashed a grin. “Yeah. You’ve got me.” She swung her rifle to check their flank before getting back to him. “You can squint your eyes, right? So squint your mind. Look out of it in a slit. Focus on the thing you’re looking for and let the rest bounce off. That’s all we can do for now, but exposure is the best thing. You’re only suffering like this ‘cause your mind was penned up for so long.”

  “Squint? That’s your advice?”

  “If we don’t die in the next couple of hours, I’ll dig out my notes.”

  Tris figured that was fair enough. Time to concentrate; he knew the men trailing them had reached the start of the rocky ground behind them. The need to track their quarry had slowed them, but with Loader’s arrival they had a trail even an idiot couldn’t miss.

  The rocky spur sloped down to a wide meadow, scrubby yellow grass dominating an area punctuated by boulders. Trees rose again on the far side, with more dramatic rock formations rearing to form an imposing wall above them.

  “There,” Kreon said, stabbing a finger at the looming cliffs. “The Wayfinder is hidden in a cave at the base.”

  “Wayfinder? Another one?” Tris squinted at the rocks, which had to be a good few miles distant.

  “This one is the original,” Kreon said, “the first ship I ever owned.”

  “What kind of ship?” Kyra asked, a note of suspicion in her voice. “It’s been here what, a century already? How long have you had it?”

  “All my life,” Kreon admitted. “But the ship is a Phoenix Mark II — one of the finest spacecraft ever designed.”