“It was her dream, from tender years. The sunbird I painted was her choice. ’Twas her diminutive name.”
Shaina had fallen silent, just listening to them talk. She saw the pleasure in Cub’s face as he questioned and Theon answered, saw his delight in this unexpected view into his mother’s past. That alone made this journey worth it.
And this was treasure enough for her.
Chapter 13
HE STARED AT the bodies of the men who had gone to retrieve his objective and failed yet again. But it would be their last failure. The big man had been the last to go down, but go down he had, on top of the bodies of his men. They were now simply a pile of rotting debris.
They had been thus even before he had killed them, he thought with a sniff of disgust. Four of them to take one, and they could not do it.
He would have to do this himself. No more trusting underlings. He had the most at stake—his entire future—so he would do it himself. He should have known better than to rely on Arellians anyway. Had they not been infected by that Triotian evil, and been the first to succumb?
He kicked aside the cudgel one man had dropped when he fell. Such crude weaponry should have been a warning of their inefficiency. He’d been too far removed from the early necessities of victory. It had been too long since he’d had to get his own hands dirty. But he would overcome that. He must.
He had come to Arellia searching for a chance, any chance, to regain his losses. He had no plan beyond that, had hoped merely for an opportunity to present itself, an opportunity to be of such aid to what was coming that they could no longer deny they needed him. Needed him back in his position of power.
And he had had this opportunity handed to him. It was a sign, it had to be, that he was to act upon it. Then perhaps even his old position might be beneath his status, if he was successful in this.
And so he must be. Everything hinged on it. So he must do it himself. Personally. Twice now hirelings had failed him. Yes, he must take matters into his own hands.
The more he thought about his new plan, the better the outcome became. To have done this, alone, and personally . . . they could not ignore that.
There could surely be no better way to assure his regained status in the Coalition than to hand Legion Command the son of the man who had defeated them.
“HAD I KNOWN you planned on crossing the continent, I would have rented an air rover,” Rina said sourly.
“Tired, little one?” Tark asked, his tone mocking.
“No, just annoyed. You trek a couple of leagues out here into the countryside and expect me to simply follow, with no explanation.”
“I need to get something.”
“Out here?”
She looked around them. Arellia, she realized, was much less scarred than Trios. Arellia they had merely wanted to conquer. Trios they had wanted to rape and then destroy, along with her people. She wondered who among the cold-blooded Coalition had realized the true threat Trios or any of her survivors would be?
“Patience,” he said.
“I can’t believe I’m hearing that from you,” she retorted.
He ignored that one, although she thought she saw one corner of his mouth twitch. “Why are you here so early? The anniversary celebration is not until week’s end.”
“A favor for Dax. A personal one. Where are we going?”
“Here,” he said, gesturing ahead of them.
She looked. Frowned. Only when they had moved forward another few steps did she see the straight-line shape of a small roof, moss covered. It appeared to be on a small, ramshackle lean-to, not even a shed, built of wood so old and weathered it faded into near invisibility against the hillside. She could easily see walking right past it unless you knew it was here. And certainly anyone going by in an air rover or speeder would never even see it.
It also looked as if it would fall down at the slightest breeze.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” Tark said when they reached it.
Rina barely managed to stifle a gasp. It looked no better, in fact even worse, up close. Surely he didn’t mean it, the hero of the Battle of Galatin could not truly live in this dilapidated structure that couldn’t be called a shelter even in its finest hour? Only three walls, offering little protection at all from wind or winter. And there was no sign anyone at all lived here, not even a place to sit, surely he didn’t—
He stepped past a fallen board, and around a leaning timber that had apparently once been for support. Still stunned, Rina followed him into the shack. The thing was deeper than she’d expected, deeper than it looked from the outside. She looked back toward the outside, frowning as she confirmed they had come further than should be possible. She didn’t doubt her assessment. It was what she did, after all, as an exact navigator. This was not that much different than looking at the distance and relationship between the stars in a system she’d committed to memory, and knowing if something was off.
She turned back to ask Tark another question he likely wouldn’t answer.
He had disappeared.
For an instant she simply stared at the empty space where he had been standing beside the back wall of the structure, unable to comprehend what had happened.
She shook her head sharply, shaking off the impossible, so that she could begin to address the possible.
He’d been there, and now he wasn’t. She looked down. The floor was dirt, packed hard. The wall to the left was blocked by rotting timbers, leaning perilously close to collapse. The wall to the right looked stronger, but only for now, as the pressure shifted by the pull to the left.
The third wall, the back wall, looked more solid. In fact, oddly solid, with boards that weren’t eaten away into a network of empty holes held together only by the bits of wood that remained.
She moved closer, her eyes going over each board. And then she stepped back, staring at it from there, letting her eyes go slightly unfocused, as she did when committing a star pattern to memory.
And she saw it. It was subtle, even beyond subtle, but there was a pattern of breaks, of seams, that formed a vaguely rectangular shape.
A door.
It took her a moment longer to find the entry point, a spot on the upper right with the slightest of sheens to it, as if it had been touched often.
She reached up and pressed it.
Soundlessly it swung outward, stopping when the opening was less than two feet wide. She stepped through. Tark was standing on the other side. He reached up and pressed a spot on the opposite edge of the door. It swung shut, as soundlessly as it had opened.
She folded her arms across her chest. “Playing games?”
“Just seeing if you were still as smart as you used to be. Clearly, you are.”
“Or perhaps you’re not as smart as you think you are,” she said sweetly.
He laughed. A real laugh this time, genuine and full. “That,” he said, “is without a doubt true.”
She found herself smiling, she couldn’t help herself. And for a moment they were those young warriors again, barely more than children—wild, reckless, and heedless of their own mortality.
They had to be inside the hill itself, she thought, although it was too dark to see. A natural cave, or had he dug it out himself? And still the question persisted . . . why?
She heard his steps as he crossed the floor, and then light flooded the room. For an instant she stared at the source, a huntlight fastened high on the wall.
“How do you power that, way out here?”
Yet again he laughed, probably at the fact that of all things, that was her first question. And then he shook his head, as if surprised at his own laughter.
“There’s a stream, not far up the hill. It spins a small turbine I . . . adapted.”
Memories came flooding back, of battles fought not
too far from here. Whatever was needed, from a clever, unexpected tactic to any mechanical device, it had been Tark they had turned to. Because he consistently came up with ideas no one else could or did. His brain was agile, and refused to be confined within the boundaries of mundane thought. And so many of the things he came up with others had scoffed at, saying they would never work.
Until he built them, and they did work.
It was silly, she told herself, but still she seized upon this evidence that the Tark she knew was still there, if buried beneath a façade of abrasiveness. And sillier still was the hope that flared within her. Hope for what?
She quelled it ruthlessly, turning to look around at last.
It was indeed a cave. A fairly large one, tall enough for even Tark to easily stand upright with room to spare. And a natural one, although she could see marks where he had altered things, widened a spot here, carved out a niche there. One clearly served as a hearth, embers glowed there even now. How did he vent that? she wondered. She would have to ask.
She turned slowly, seeing that there were two alcoves further back, on opposite sides of the main space. One looked to be for cooking, and one was masked off by a hanging drape. Sleeping area?
Out here, there was a rather oddly shaped curve of rock that rose up from the floor and was covered with cushions. She wondered if he’d dug it out, or had simply carved around it when he’d realized the shape of the rock would serve as a place to sit. The table before it looked solid enough, although a bit rough, as if he’d built it himself out of a tree chopped down with a hand ax.
It was quite habitable, she thought. Almost comfortable. Dry—and the fire no doubt would keep it so, in addition to providing warmth. And if his stream dried up in the summer so the huntlight was not powered, the fire would provide at least some light.
But most of all, she wanted to ask why he felt the need to hide where he lived. That dilapidated lean-to could be for nothing else but concealment. No casual observer, seeing that, would look any further.
At last she turned to face him. “You live here.”
“Not the royal palace of Trios, is it?” A bit of that edge was back in his voice.
“The royal palace was not what it once was for some time,” she answered mildly. “It was the last building to be rebuilt in Triotia.”
“Your king’s doing?”
“Our queen’s choice. The king agreed. The people first.”
He studied her for a long moment. The huntlight threw his face into sharp relief, and cast the injured side of his face into shadow. She could picture, then, what he would look like without the patch, and the scar. If he had come through unscathed, would his life be different? Or was it his own attitude that set him apart? Not that he didn’t have every reason, but did his brusque manner keep people at a distance? Was that even, perhaps, his intent? Or was he simply a blatant reminder they could not ignore of a time they would all much prefer to forget?
She heard a faint beep, and Tark looked down at his left hand. She noticed then what he held, a small device with a gauge. It was giving some kind of readout, although she could not see what. But he began to move it, always watching that readout. The way he did it made her realize it had to be some sort of scanner.
And he was scanning her.
Her first instinct was to be irritated, but she reminded herself that Tark always had a good reason for what he did, even if it was clear to no one else at the time. And so she simply stood, waiting for him to be finished. Although she did cross her arms over her chest, letting her body language speak what her mouth was not. She knew he would not miss it, vision halved or not.
“You’re clean,” he finally said. He pressed a button, and the readout screen went blank.
“I assume,” she said, her voice chilly, “you’re not referring to the fact that I bathed this morning.”
For an instant his face changed, and she almost expected him to make some teasing innuendo-laden comment. Instead he shrugged and turned away.
“You came via commercial transport, did you not?” he said, returning the scanning device to a shelf in a niche on the nearest wall.
“A cargo vessel, yes. It was the first departure.”
“Not all who crew such vessels are of the same mind.”
She drew back, her brow furrowed. “Meaning?”
“Some do not share our hatred of the Coalition,” he said.
“We’re aware some were left behind when the Coalition finally broke and ran. But that was long ago, surely they’ve all . . . either settled in now, or made their way back to the loving arms of Legion Command.”
He seemed to hesitate for a moment before saying, “Or have come back with a new goal.”
She blinked. “What?”
He turned back to face her then—this time standing so his face was in full light, the eye patch and scar fully revealed. Intentionally? she wondered.
Of course, she answered herself. This was Tark, after all.
“What?” she repeated, her voice soft as she sensed he was on the edge of either trusting her and explaining at last, or deciding he could never trust her as he once had.
Finally he spoke. “Of all people, you are most likely to see it.”
“See what?”
“Sit,” he said, gesturing at the stone bench. It did not seem wise to dispute him just now, when he was apparently going to talk, so she sat. And found the cushions surprisingly comfortable. Feathers?
“Picture our system,” he said. “As you do for navigating.”
She had no idea what he was getting at, but if it kept him talking she would humor him. She sat back, let her eyes go slightly unfocused, and brought up in her mind the three-dimensional chart she knew so well. It was the image of the holographic representation she was most familiar with. Not that she needed it, she knew this system so well, but if he wanted her to look before he would go on, then look she would.
“And?” she said, once the image was before her mind’s eye, floating as if the actual holograph was being projected.
“Where do we know the closest Coalition outpost to be?”
“Sector Gamma 10,” she said, without losing focus. “At least, the last I heard.”
“And the next closest?”
“Clarion.”
“And the third?”
She fought down irritation, wishing he would just get to the point.
“Beyond Zenox, we think.”
“Yes. Now plot a course from each of those three, as if you were still flying with Dax. As if secrecy was paramount, and not running into anyone was crucial.”
“Ice planet to asteroid to dead world, that kind of course, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“A course to where?”
“Just make it as straight and direct as possible, with those parameters, into the center of our system.”
“Our system?” Her voice rose incredulously. “They would not.”
“Please, Rina. Just do it, and see where those three paths would all cross.”
With a smothered sigh she did so. While in the closer view the paths she came up with, darting from uninhabited ice planets to asteroids large enough to hide behind, were far from straight, when viewed from the perspective of the entire system they were more direct. She set the first one in her memory, then turned to the second. She set that one, then went to the third.
And only then did she get the first inkling of why he was making her do this.
The paths from all the outposts crossed on the far side of Arellia’s outer moon.
She snapped back to the room, to Tark watching her, the image of the star system vanishing from her mind’s eye.
He spoke softly. “There are unmarked ships, gathering there. What kind we do not know.”
“Then
they could be freighters, transports.”
“Yes,” he agreed, but went on. “What is the biggest prize in the galaxy, the one the Coalition counted as its greatest gain, and in the end its greatest loss?”
“Trios,” she said, her breath catching.
“And were you the Coalition, wanting to regain your glory and empire, what would be the ultimate symbol of triumph?”
“Retaking Trios,” she said, staring at him now.
“And what would be the perfect platform, the perfect place from which to launch that effort? A place much easier to retake than Trios, with Dax and Dare to guard her?”
“Arellia,” she whispered.
Chapter 14
IT WAS, HE THOUGHT, outrageous that he was forced to do this himself. Trekking through the mountains as if he were nothing more than a mere foot soldier. He who was once the pride of the Coalition, agreed by everyone to be the most likely to take the place of General Corling when he was promoted to Legion Command, as everyone was sure he would be, after his triumph on Trios.
And instead, the old man had turned fool, allowed himself to be outmaneuvered by a girl and a slave, and it had all slipped through his fingers. And Corling had taken his entire staff down with him. He himself had been forced to watch the general’s execution, bloody, painful affair that it was. The man he had once admired so much had cried like an infant, turning into a begging, cowardly creature. It was a scene those he had conquered would no doubt love to have watched.
He allowed himself to dwell pleasurably for a moment on those many he had conquered. Those successes alone gave the lie to those who said that only his familial connection to the ground force supreme commander had saved his own life.
He continued climbing, hating how he stumbled gracelessly over stones in his path, and how the rough terrain was scraping his boots. He was certain he had been climbing for several hours, to the point of considering his timepiece broken when it had logged less than two. After a particularly bad lurch, he nearly smashed it upon the rock that had somehow gotten in his way.
“Eos damn them,” he muttered again as the trail—if you could even call it that—made another turn and he saw that there was still no one in sight up ahead. How far ahead could they possibly be?
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