by Dan Decker
Smoke curled up from the wreckage of the nearest home, but it hadn’t caught fire. That was a small mercy. The streets weren’t as wide here, and the homes were closer together. If a fire were to start, it would be hard to keep from spreading.
When Adar realized that things were too quiet, he looked back at Kura and saw she had Lars’ head tucked under her coat. The babe’s eyes were open and looked out at the bleak world. The kid was old enough he might be able to walk and was probably just on the verge of learning to mimic words. Jorad had been a lot of fun at that age.
Adar made eye contact with Kura who gave him a tight smile. He nodded back. They made their way down the rest of the street in silence.
A scream came from up ahead, and Adar darted forward around a corner, blaster at the ready. He lowered his weapon when he saw it came from a woman who was hunched over the body of a man. Her hair and dress were drenched, her legs covered in mud. She probably started the day wearing two sandals, but she was missing one. It was difficult for Adar to determine her hair color as it was dirty, but by her face, he wouldn't have thought her much older than twenty-five.
The scene made him think of Nelion's last moments, and his mind went to his own son when he noticed several small children with the woman. The rain didn’t seem to bother her, but her children were shivering. The oldest child was red-eyed and wailing. The younger didn’t look like she was old enough to understand what was going on. She tugged on the pant leg of the dead man saying “Dadda” over and over again.
For a moment, Adar was no longer running through the rain down a street in Zecarani. Instead, he found himself in the Rarbon palace, kneeling over the body of his wife.
He was glad that Jorad didn't have the image of his mother's death as his final memory of her. The way Adar had found her body was grisly enough he had never been able to come to terms with it and had always kept the full details from Jorad.
Lightning flashed through the sky and brought him back to the present.
I’ll make Tere pay for all the years he took away from us, Adar thought. It grated on him that Tere could be talking with Jorad, spinning a story that obfuscated what had happened between them. That murderer is probably holding the tablet, trying to figure it out. It hadn't lit up for Tere in the same way it had for Adar. That might mean Tere would have a hard time getting it to work.
Taking a deep breath, Adar forced himself to think of Nelion in her old scribe outfit to push away the memory of the blood in her hair. His love for her replaced the horrid image as he took several steps towards the woman but stopped short as Kura came up behind him.
The dead man had taken a blaster hit to the lower neck and shoulder. His face was mangled badly enough the woman must have recognized him more by his clothing than anything else.
Adar hesitated, unsure what to do. He'd lost precious time emptying captives out of the cargo holds of the ships, fighting with turncoats, rescuing Kura, dealing with Erro and Neare, fighting more turncoats, and killing Isak’s men. This mother and her children may have been among those that he had liberated, they had a familiar look to them.
Because he knew what it was like to lose a spouse, he also knew that any words he might offer her would be cold comfort against the pain she was feeling. He turned away, ashamed of his decision but knowing that he needed to stop Tere from escaping with Derren's tablet to keep the people of Zecarani safe. If the Hunwei were to return, that woman and her children's best hope of survival depended on him having the tablet in hand to activate the tower.
Kura pushed past him. “Ma'am. You need to get your children out of the rain. They're going to get sick.”
The woman looked up at her. “Gone, gone! It happened so quick. Alive, then dead.” Her tears mingled with the rain as her eyes grew wider. “Then they dragged us away. I fought, but it did no good.”
“I know. Same thing happened to me. It's a terrible shame. Confounded bleeding shame. Your children are freezing, and the monsters aren't gone, you need to move. Come back to him when it's safer.”
“He wasn't the best, but he wasn't the worst either. Mostly it was bad only when he was drinking. Hit the kids some, me too for that matter. Not that we didn't sometimes deserve it, but he was what we had. What now? What now? All is lost.”
A firm line formed on Kura's face. “You're better off—”
Adar spoke over her. “Where's home for you?” He offered the weeping woman a hand up. After hesitating, she took it and pointed to a home, several buildings away. It was in bad need of a paint job, and there were shingles missing from the roof. The door was still intact. That was more than could be said for most of the buildings. He pulled her towards it while scooping up the smallest child, trusting the other to follow. When the woman wasn't looking, he shot Kura a look. She scowled in response but didn't finish what she'd been about to say.
At the porch of the home, Adar set down the girl and released the woman’s hand. He opened the door and showed them in.
“Myke, my poor Myke!” The woman sobbed. “I can't just leave him there.”
“We'll fetch him,” Adar said, “wait here.”
Kura made another face but handed Lars off to the woman and followed Adar back into the rain.
“She should be happy he's gone,” Kura said when they were out of earshot. “Drunk and abusive? We should be burning his body, not bringing him in so that he can have his final rites done.”
“Don't speak ill of the dead, at least not where she can hear. If you had finished what you were saying, she would have chased us away.”
“I'm not touching his body. You can drag him in by yourself.”
Adar bit off curse. “This woman will be out here again as soon as we leave. Her children too. Best we can do for them is to see that she stays in till this all blows over.”
“I don't like your lack of concern.” Kura hefted the blaster as if testing its weight. “You think a man has a right to hit his wife?”
Adar snorted. “Where I come from, any man foolish enough to do something like that would be lucky if the woman only responded in kind. Some women give as good as they get, most do better.”
Kura didn't have a response.
Adar crouched and picked up the legs of the dead man, and she took his arms. By the time that they were back to the house, the woman met them at the door with a blanket, having passed Lars off to her oldest child. Lars wriggled free when they entered and took several stumbling steps in the room, an uncertain look on his face.
The woman ushered them in, she directed them to put the body on the floor after she arranged the blanket. Adar and Kura left a trail of mud as they moved, but the woman didn't notice and only had eyes for the dead man.
Once that was done, Adar moved back to the door but stopped short when a group of men appeared from around the corner. It wasn't as great in number as the one he'd hid from earlier, but he recognized Isak as he retreated. The men weren’t looking Adar's way, but he brought up his blaster still the same.
Four men, he thought, I could put them all down before they know what’s happening.
He hesitated before he went back inside the home, a frown on his face. Once he was out of sight, he decided to leave the door open. It wouldn't be conspicuous when compared with the neighboring homes. If he had shut it, there was always the chance they might think it looked out of place and come to investigate.
After he'd given the men enough time to pass, he looked back out as Kura approached and looked over his shoulder. Lars was snuggled in a blanket Kura had gotten from the woman, his eyes stared out at the rain.
“There is Isak,” she said. “And Billy. If you had killed him when you had the chance, or let me do it, none of this would have happened. One flick of my wrist and we wouldn't be running for our lives. Other men would still be alive. I don't remember how many men Isak has working for him, but there's a bleeding lot more of them than us.”
“Don't remember?” The men seemed to be on the lookout for anything suspicious b
ut weren't making an effort to sweep the homes. They think I'm still running and have broken into groups to search for me. “How well do you know Isak anyway?”
Kura bit her lip before answering. “He courted me until I came to my senses.”
Now that was an interesting tidbit he wished he’d known sooner, not that it would have changed anything he’d done. It did put everything into a new light.
After the men had disappeared, Kura moved as if to go out the door, but he grabbed her arm and held her back. “Give it a minute.”
As they waited to make sure the way was clear, Neare and Erro appeared on the street heading in the opposite direction. Erro's face was taut, and his eyes were slits. He scowled at everything he saw. Adar hoped that Jorad was in the Arches. If his son were to run into Erro, Jorad would be forced to kill the lad. The last thing Jorad needed was another unnecessary death on his shoulders.
Adar shook his head. All this over a girl. Perhaps the reason for his irrational state was due to the guilt at what had come from his lie. Erro had lied, saying that he'd seen Jorad with Bram the night that he'd been killed. Despite the tension between the Rahids and the Palers, Neare and Erro were good men.
It bothered Adar that Jorad had been forced to kill decent men. He would have protected his son from having to experience that if he could. With Jorad going to make a claim and about to become a Radim general, Adar had known that one day Jorad would likely have to kill. It didn’t help that there seemed to be so many men that needed killing.
Kura moved as if to head out, but once again, Adar took hold of her arm.
“What now?” She asked. “Aren't those the men you saved earlier?”
Adar snorted. “It's best they don't know I'm here.”
“Hunwei. Men in Hunwei armor. Isak. Random men from out of town. Me. You've managed to piss off a lot of people.”
Adar didn't respond. She left out Tere, but she doesn't know about him. Yet. That'll change when we get to the Arches, and I kill him.
It wasn’t far now. They couldn’t be more than a block away from the Arches, and they were yet to have come across a living Hunwei. That was encouraging.
“We should go. They’re gone now.” Kura looked at him. “Unless there's somebody else you're running from.”
Chasing after is more accurate, Adar thought. He didn't answer as he took a final look at the bereaved woman, she was once again bent over the body of her husband. Her girls were on either side. At least they were now out of the rain. He was glad Kura had been here. She'd known that the woman had needed help. His focus had been elsewhere, and the need to get them out of the rain hadn't even crossed his mind.
Plunging back into the downpour at a run, Adar shivered at the shock of cold. Kura was right behind him, carrying Lars close to her chest. The moment she'd entered the rain, Lars burst into a tantrum, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Adar brought up his blaster, making sure his hand covered the button on the front of the weapon while keeping his finger close to the trigger. Just a few more minutes and they'd be in the safety of the Arches.
I was expecting an ambush because the Hunwei were all dead, but I forgot to take into account the fact that Tere had enough time to make it back to the Arches before the tower killed the Hunwei. He might not have known about what happened. Adar growled quietly. He had also forgotten that Tere was always more about saving his own skin than seeking revenge.
Once Tere was dead, and Adar had the tablet, he would call a council with the others.
The tablet meant there was no longer the urgent need for Jorad to return to Rarbon for the sole purpose of making a claim. While there weren't towers like Vigorock anywhere near Rarbon, there were undoubtedly other weapons hidden away. Perhaps Derren's tablet could access them as well. If that was the case, having Jorad make a claim so that he could begin the process of getting into Rarbon's Portal was not as critical.
In fact, it could be a waste of time if the Rarbon Council continued to be more concerned about the games they played amongst themselves, rather than opening their eyes to the true danger the Hunwei represented. It had been that way when Adar was there, and he'd gathered from the others things hadn't changed much.
Rarbon was full of secrets and Adar had never believed that entering through the Rarbon Portal was the only way to learn them. It was only the most readily available. He had once caught a glimpse into the Portal, and he wasn't convinced it was everything it was said to be. Unfortunately, he'd never felt that he could take the chance it wasn't what everybody believed.
He slid to a halt and leaned up against the rock wall of a home to catch his breath, wiping rain out of his eyes while his sides heaved. The hair on his arm stood on edge. It had been that way since the tower had done its thing, but he was only now recognizing it. He'd been so wrapped up in everything that had happened that he hadn't realized that the air had a tingle to it.
Well, isn’t that strange? Even with the rain. I wonder what it means. He dismissed it from his mind, assuming that it was an after effect of the tower and nothing to worry about.
Kura pulled up beside him. Lars was whimpering now, and she had pulled her coat up, so it covered his face. Between the rain and the coat, the sounds of Lars discomforts would be muffled enough that they should be able to move in relative silence.
“How much further?” Kura asked.
“Not far now. Ready?”
When she nodded, he took off at a run again.
The further they went, the more they ran into people, moving about as if it weren't raining. They hid from the first several groups, afraid they might have been more of Isak’s men, but after that, there had been too many to hide from them all.
Most of those they came across were calling out names. Others were wandering as if in a daze, uncertain what to make of the events that had transpired. Adar himself didn't even understand what had happened and he'd been the cause of it.
The towers raised many questions. The Hunwei had lit up and burned as if they were dry tinder on a hot day that had been placed too close to the fire. If their fathers had been able to do that, why hadn't they destroyed all of the Hunwei during the last invasion? Had the technology not been developed until after the Hunwei had left?
It was also remarkable that only the Hunwei had been affected. How did that work?
I’m just glad the tower didn’t destroy us too, he thought, I was certain I’d killed us all. He was glad now that he’d armed the tower, but for several minutes there he’d become convinced that his rash action was the stupidest thing he’d ever done and was about to result in the deaths of thousands of people. He was grateful the tower builders had the foresight to make it not harm humans.
They never expected the turncoats. Well, it’s no matter. If the towers can take care of the Hunwei, I can build an army to hunt down the bleeding turncoats.
Adar felt relief when he turned onto a street he recognized. He was beginning to wonder if he was somehow heading in the wrong direction. He'd been off in his guess about where they were before, but now he was certain the Arches were just the next street over. Looking behind to make sure that Kura was keeping up with him, he increased his speed
Chapter 12
Adar ran down the street with Kura and Lars bringing up the rear. If he was shivering from the cold and exposure to the rain, he could understand why Kura was having such a difficult time with Lars. It isn't coming down as strong as before, he thought, but we’re not getting any drier either.
He came across a dead Hunwei that hadn't been burned to the bone and did a double take. The beast had died from a blast to the chest. A puddle of blue blood had formed around the corpse and was being washed away by the rain.
This isn't a good sign. Adar lurched to a stop, spinning around with his blaster. He scanned the area, expecting to see Tere with a blaster pointed in his direction. When Kura stopped beside him, Adar put his finger up to his mouth. Lars—thank Melyah—was quiet. Adar checked to make sure that the bo
y was still alert and was glad to see Lars’ eyes moving. The rainstorm wasn't as loud as it had been before and didn't provide as much cover for Lars’ crying.
Adar's chest tightened, and he took his next several steps at a run until he forced himself to slow down so that he could think things through. Now was not the time to act rashly. They were too close to the Arches to continue to run as they had been before.
The further he'd gone from the tower, the more anxious he became that there might still be live groups of Hunwei about. This dead Hunwei seemed to confirm his fears.
Jorad and the others should have been back in the Arches long before the Hunwei invasion had gotten to this point. Xarda and Tarner should have seen to that. It was possible this was the work of Tere and Karn, but Adar wasn't willing to bet on it. Jorad would have held out for as long as possible, trying to save as many townsfolk as he could. Confound that boy’s willful spirit.
“What is it?” Kura asked, her voice low enough to be a whisper but still louder than Adar would have liked.
“This Hunwei was killed by a blaster and has been dead for some time.” She was going to find out about Tere anyway, it might as well be now. “This was either the work of my son or somebody else who is trying to kill me.”
The first time he'd killed a Hunwei, Adar had felt the skin of its neck afterward to see if the invisible shield was still there and had been surprised to learn that the temperature of the beast was roughly the same as Adar’s own. Given the mottled gray skin and the small horns on their heads, he'd believed that the Hunwei were more like cold-blooded lizards than humans.
He touched the neck of the Hunwei, ignoring the inquisitive glare he received from Kura.
