Valor's Trial

by Tanya Huff

  “Is it helping?”

  “How should I know?” But it looked as though some of the lines of pain had eased in her face.

  Ressk said, “Kyster, your feet . . .”

  “I’m fine.” Most of his weight was on his good foot, keeping the scars off the ground, but he was used to that. He tipped a little sideways, laid one hand against a sweat-damp wither, unsure if he’d be riding from here on in.

  The thought barely finished, the durlin reached down, grabbed the front of his uniform and swung him up onto her back. He shifted forward quickly, well up from the burns.

  One big hand closed around his ankle and lifted his bad foot. He could only see the side of her face and he had no idea what she was saying, but it looked like she was asking him something.

  “I’m fine.” His scars hurt, but he was used to that.

  She shook his foot gently, patted his leg, and took a careful step forward.

  The easy grace was gone. He could feel the stutter in her muscles, feel her heart racing like it hadn’t before, not even when she was running full out.

  Helic’tin said something quietly and tipped his head back, exposing his throat.

  The durlin snarled a response and began to run. Her new stride favored her injured leg and rocked him to the left. He shifted his weight, got a smack on the thigh, and managed to find a position that worked for them both.

  “Gunny?”

  “Private.”

  “What if there’s nothing at the landing site? No ship, no com board, nothing.”

  “You’re on a 10K run through a lava field, Kichar; you don’t think you have enough to worry about?”

  “Well, yeah, but . . .”

  “One thing at a time, Kichar. First we get there. Then we deal with what we find.” Torin could see claw marks scoring the rock heading up to the top of the first ridge and wasted a moment wishing her boots came with retractable pinions. She paused for a moment on the crest to get a look at the downhill path. Downhill was always trickier; visibility was worse, but the urge to speed up so that gravity could do part of the work was nearly irresistible. Accidents happened going downhill. Kichar, to her credit, kept her pace matched to Torin’s.

  Then her right heel landed hard in patch of scree. Torin slid about two meters, hit solid rock, went over a small boulder, and picked up the pace she’d been setting on the other side of the ridge.

  She heard Mike applaud, turned without stopping, and took a small bow. So far, except for the heat, she’d had worse runs on Corps-approved courses.

  “Single file here,” she called as they reached the first of the stone arches. “Stay up against the rock.”

  This was the closest they’d come to actual moving lava, and the heat was vicious. Torin could feel sweat running down her sides, and the back of her throat when she swallowed was painfully dry. Instead of the crackle and snap of fire that the heat and the red light suggested, the only sound was the slow gurgle of molten rock against the side of the fissure, the distant howl of the wind, and the rhythmic sound of boots hitting stone.

  “Firestorm while we’re in here would be a bitch,” she heard Mike mutter thoughtfully.

  Then the earth moved.

  Her left boot made contact about five centimeters before it should have, compacting her knee and hip. She stumbled, recovered, and slammed against the bottom of the arch as the path suddenly tilted about sixty degrees to the right. Caught on a bit of rough stone, her filter crushed her eyelashes for a moment before it pulled free.

  She heard one of the Druin cry out.

  “I’ve got her!” Mashona’s voice rose over the profanity.

  The quake was probably too minor to have been felt inside the prison, but minor inside and minor under a stone arch next to a lava flow was something else again. If the ground had pitched in the other direction . . .

  “Sound off by number!”

  They were all still up and moving.

  “There’s an open space up ahead. We’ll regroup there.”

  They’d barely gone three kilometers and the two di’Taykan didn’t look good. No point in asking if they were going to make it because they had no choice. Fortunately, for all their height, they were relatively light, and if it came to it, she could sling one over her shoulders and Mike could handle the other.

  Those parts of the Druin’s hairless scalp not covered by the filter were starting to pink up, but otherwise they were in no worse shape than the Humans. Merinim, the Druin who’d fallen during the quake, had a bleeding scrape on one hand.

  “And a bruise that matches that one’s fingers on my shoulder,” she muttered, nodding at Mashona.

  “Learn to walk and I wouldn’t have to haul you up off your ass,” Mashona answered, grinning.

  Torin glared Kichar to silence before she could butt into what was no more than good-natured bitching and the best sign she’d seen so far that their mismatched group had started to work as a unit.

  The next ridge was steep enough, the rock loose enough, that a couple of times, Torin used her hands for added security. The rock was hot, not uncomfortably so, but then she wasn’t holding on for any length of time. How hot would it be under the Polinas’ feet? Or the Artek’s? The big bugs looked fragile, but looks were deceptive—not only had experience taught her that they were a bitch to take out in hand-to-hand, but during her years in the Corps, she’d seen more than one blasted landscape where only the bugs had survived.

  Given the angle, it wasn’t a ridge she’d have chosen to drive a skimmer over—or more precisely up—but they emerged onto a sort of plateau still pointed pretty damned near directly at the landing site. Lengthening her stride, grateful for more-or-less level ground, she jumped two small fissures and realized there was a sizable fissure coming up they’d never get over.

  “Bridge, Gunny. To the right, about 100 degrees from Marine zero.”

  Given the amount of particulates in the air, Mashona’s ability to pick a black rock bridge out of a black rock background was nothing short of amazing.

  The path turned around a vaguely bovine-looking rock formation and paralleled the lava flow

  “Gunny . . .”

  “I see it, Kichar.”

  A piece of the far edge about a meter and a half long had a rough unfinished look, its angles not yet melted to curves.

  “Do you think they jumped, Gunny?”

  “Odds are good someone jumped.”

  “Do you think they made it? Should we look?”

  Torin remembered hearing once—probably before deployment onto Sart Hellaya, a planet young enough to still be seething with the aftereffects of becoming a planet—that the temperature of lava was around a thousand degrees centigrade, give or take a couple of hundred degrees. At those temperatures, flesh and bone were damned near instantaneously destroyed on contact. “We’ll find out soon enough if they made it. No one gets closer than necessary to the flow.”

  The bridge was a smaller version of the arch they’d crossed under. Natural. Not built. Smooth enough but no more than about a third of a meter wide. Their boots would see to it they had traction, but the two meters actually over the fissure were not going to be fun.

  Back inside the control room, they’d watched a bridge very like it collapse.

  “At least no one’s shooting at us,” Torin pointed out when Mashona made that point out loud. “When it’s your turn, take a deep breath on this side and do not breathe again until you’re across. Watch your feet if you have to, but do not look over the edge. One person on the bridge at a time and move as fast as you safely can.”

  “One at a time?” Freenim asked quietly, having moved up beside her as they came to the bridge. “Why? It looks like it could hold all ten of us.”

  “Someone freaks in the middle, I want to keep collateral damage to a minimum.”

  “You would rather they didn’t pull someone over with them?”

  “That’s what I said. Kichar?”

  “Gunny?”

 
“Go! She’s the youngest.” Torin answered Freenim’s unasked question as Kichar took a deep breath and ran. “Doesn’t prove a damned thing if you or I make it over. We could walk across on the lava if we wanted to.”

  Freenim snorted. “It seems the expectations of Gunnery Sergeants and Durlave Kans are almost the same.”

  “Almost?”

  “They might allow me to run. Everim. Go!”

  “Technical Sergeant Gucciard, if you could keep those two from continuing the war on the other side.”

  “Sanati.”

  “Mashona.”

  “Merinim.”

  “Watura.”

  Watura stumbled at the center. Recovered. Clearly disoriented, he turned to face back the way he’d come. His eyes were so pale a green they were nearly yellow and it was likely all the light receptors had slammed shut. He swayed.

  Torin raced up the nearer slope of the bridge, dropped her shoulder just far enough to catch the swaying di’Taykan in the stomach, heaved him up and over, got in four more long strides, hit solid ground, tripped on his dangling legs and rolled to protect him as she fell.

  Strong hands dragged them back from the edge.

  “Get some water down him,” Torin growled as she came up onto her feet watching as Darlys crossed with Freenim right behind her. “A wet filter’s better than a dead Marine.”

  “You saved him.” Stumbling forward, Darlys clutched at Torin’s combats, her eyes not quite as light as Watura’s, but it was close.

  “Part of the job,” Torin told her dryly as she mirrored her grip, swinging her away from the edge and lowering her onto a rock downwind of what little air flow there was. Overheated di’Taykan released significantly more pheromone than their maskers could handle. “Technical Sergeant?”

  To his credit, Mike knew exactly what she was asking. “With only basic environmental controls on line, that’s as cool as I can get them.”

  “What if there was a way to insulate their combats from the outside temperature?”

  “That would help, but . . .”

  Unfastening her vest, she shrugged it off her shoulders. “Mashona, we’ll need your combats as well.”

  “Gunny . . .”

  “You’re tall enough, Mike, but we need your brain functional when we arrive. Mashona and I only have to get there. Besides, women can handle heat better than men and we’re definitely more comfortable up close to the di’Taykan when they’re in this condition, particularly given that we’ll be running.

  “Not arguing with that,” Mike agreed, shifting uncomfortably.

  Freenim exchanged a speaking glance with Everim. “So the rumors are true.”

  “Why am I not surprised that those are the rumors the enemy has heard,” Torin sighed. “Sergeant, get a little distance between these two and everyone with external genitalia and fill the durlave in on some of the truth behind the rumors.” The rock was hot under her socks, so she got her boots back on as soon as possible and advanced on Darlys wearing, besides footgear, her underwear and her vest. “Mashona, you’re a little taller, so you and Sanati wrestle your combats on over Watura’s. Kichar and I will deal with Darlys.”

  Still disoriented, the di’Taykan weren’t a lot of help, but Darlys laid back and allowed herself to be handled, an almost contented smile on her face, while Watura seemed to want to do some handling of his own.

  “Gunny, if he grabs my boob again, can I deck him with my club?”

  “Only if you want to carry him.” Torin left Kichar to finish the seals at wrist and ankle and slip Darlys’ vest back on over the double layer of combats while she moved over to give the other two a hand.

  “If you deal with this all the time,” Sanati muttered, “I can see why you are so fierce when you fight.”

  Torin checked to be sure Watura’s masker was up as far as it would go. “Yeah, well, there’s nothing like a little sexual frustration to make you want to kick butt.” Her bare legs were already starting to prickle from the heat.

  It might have been the water, it might have been the rest, it might have been the double layer of combats, but both di’Taykan were looking better.

  “Get them up and get them moving, we’ve still got a good seven klicks to cover.”

  “What’s good about them, Gunny?” Mashona wondered as Torin tucked the salvage tag in under her vest.

  “People where I’m from pay to go places this warm.”

  Mashona stared at her like she’d grown another head. “Why?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  Moaning low in her throat, noises Kyster would have bet she wasn’t aware she was making, Durlin Vertic hobbled the last hundred meters to the landing site and let her upper body sag in against the wall, radiant heat unimportant next to the support it offered. Kyster slid off and moved around her flank until he could see the burns.

  Blood had seeped from the more damaged areas, staining sweat-darkened fur even darker, and all but the smallest of the blisters had broken. He pulled out the sealant and emptied the rest of the tube.

  The two males had allowed the durlin to arrive first—or had stayed behind her to catch her if she fell, who the hell knew—and now they started crowding in, making low keening sounds. Ressk threw himself flat on Helic’tin’s back as she took a swing at him, the blunt claws on her hands drawing a line of red against his jaw.

  “That sound like a get the fuk away from me, to you?” he asked as he dropped to the ground.

  “And damned convincing, too,” Werst growled remaining mounted as Bertecnic danced back millimeters ahead of a second swing. “Get the serley door open. Heat’s adding hurt. Kyster! Get the durlin to stand still, that’ll keep the sealant from cracking.”

  “How?”

  “How the hell should I know? Just do it.”

  Edging around on her good side, Kyster tucked up close by her front legs and lightly touched the damp fur at the edge of her uniform to get her attention. When she dropped her head and snarled at him, he showed his own teeth in return.

  “Yeah, that’ll help.”

  “Shut the fuk up.”

  “That’d be shut the fuk up, Corporal.”

  Kyster ignored him. Still stroking the durlin’s fur with one hand, he held the other up where she could see it in what he hoped was the universal sign for stop. Unfortunately, there was no universal sign for stop moving or you’ll crack the sealant and let the hot air back into your burns. There really needed to be.

  She stared at him for a long moment, then sighed and let the wall support a little more of her body weight.

  He held up the sealant tube, shook his finger at her, pretended to crack it, made a pained face and tapped his butt about where she’d been hit. He didn’t recognize the sound she made in response.

  “Is that pain?”

  “It’s laughter, kid.” Now Bertecnic had stilled, Werst slid to the ground. “Ressk?”

  “No the fukking door isn’t open yet, Corporal.”

  Since the durlin seemed likely to stay where she was and the two males were looking a little crazily overprotective, Kyster stepped back and took a look around.

  The landing site, like the prison, seemed to be mostly underground. Seemed like kind of a dumb idea to him, since it looked like most of the planet’s underground was liquid rock, but maybe he was missing something. There was a wall, an almost identical door, and some scary scorch marks. Scary because the nearest lava flow was about 300 meters away, and if a firestorm could extend this far . . .

  The three bugs were huddled just to the left of the door.

  “Are they dead?”

  Werst moved closer and poked one.

  The durlin barked a command an idiot could have translated. Don’t poke the bugs.

  Kyster limped up behind Werst, rolling onto the side of his bad foot to avoid the blisters, and peered over his shoulder. “Their gills are moving.”

  “Their what?” Werst demanded.

  “The feathery things on their sides are gills,” Ress
k grunted, shovingthe point of his knife under the cover on the door controls pounding the hilt with his fist. “It means they’re breathing. Shit!”

  Kyster ducked as a shard of obsidian whizzed by. “The knife broke?”

  “Give the kid a prize,” Ressk snarled, jiggling the three-centimeter piece still jammed in the cover.

  Rolling his eyes, Kyster returned to the durlin’s side, pointed to Bertecnic—only because the darker male was closer—and mimed claws ripping the cover off the panel. The durlin snorted, and barked a command.

  Bertecnic shoved Ressk out of the way and ripped the panel cover off the wall.

  “No really,” Werst snickered, “give the kid a prize.”

  “Shut up.” Ressk retrieved the point of his knife and peered up into the control panel. “Looks just like the other one.”

  “Good.”

  “Technical Sergeant Gucciard opened the other one.”

  “Less good.”

  Kyster watched, confused, as one of the bugs slowly toppled over. A second later the ground began to shake.

  “Gunny!”

  “I feel it!”

  And with no more warning, the skimmer path dropped around eight centimeters and angled about thirty degrees left. One off-balance stride later, it snapped back up two centimeters. Those who’d managed to remain standing during the first movement were thrown off their feet during the second.

  Nearly deafened by the crack of rock breaking behind them, Torin ignored the bleeding scrape down the length of her right leg and rolled up onto one knee. The blast of heat nearly flattened her again and she braced herself, one hand on the ground, as the landscape settled.

  “Fuk.”

  She took Mike’s offered hand and let him haul her to her feet. “You have a way with words, Technical Sergeant.”

  Six meters behind them, the path came to an abrupt end at the edge of a fissure already a meter across and still spreading, the rock groaning as the heat forced it apart. From the ruddy glow and the sudden rise in temperature, the lava flow was dangerously near the surface.

  “Good thing it’s behind us,” Kichar murmured, rising carefully to her feet.

  “The gods are on our side,” Everim agreed. His eyes narrowed as Kichar glanced over at him. “Our gods on our side. Not yours.”