Suddenly Dinnid swerved and came straight at Veriasse, battle arms thrust dangerously forward, his head tilted back so that his mandibles were extended down and out. It was the perfect posture for a ramming attack.
Veriasse dodged right early, and the dronon veered to intercept, then Veriasse dodged left at the last moment, grabbed for Dinnid’s sensor whip. Dinnid responded by smashing with his left battle arm, but Veriasse was already on the floor, rolling beneath the attack. He felt the cordlike sensor whip in his grasp, tugged it with all his might, hoping to pull it out.
Instead, the dronon flipped onto his back. At that angle of descent, Veriasse’s added weight was too much for the creature.
In that moment, Veriasse leapt and kicked Dinnid’s right front eye cluster with a cracking sound. Veriasse danced backward while the dronon scrambled to his feet.
Veriasse expected Dinnid to retreat, regroup for a moment, but apparently the creature went berserk. It leapt forward, thrashing blindly with its battle arms, trying to chop Veriasse in half. Veriasse staggered back to avoid its blows. Yet the vanquisher kept advancing.
Veriasse dodged right beneath the creature’s blind spot and struck the dronon full force in the right thigh of his rear leg, crushing the lord’s exoskeleton so that bits of carapace fell into its air holes.
Dinnid spun to attack, but Veriasse leapt under his blind spot and smashed the dronon’s left front eye cluster, then staggered back a step.
Orick shouted, “Get him! Kill him!” and Veriasse suddenly became aware of the noise around him. The dronons too were shouting, but he had been so focused during the fight, that he had blocked out all such mundane sounds.
Lord Dinnid was blinded in both front eye clusters. He responded by rushing forward, lashing out with roundhouse swipes of battle-arms. He twisted his head to the left and right, trying to spot Veriasse with his back eyes. After several seconds, he buzzed his wings, flew overhead.
Veriasse’s face burned painfully from the acid. He was sweating heavily, pouring salt into the wounds. He could feel the acid eating into his cheeks and neck like fiery ants.
Veriasse gasped for breath. The room was so damned hot, and his head began to spin. Lord Dinnid landed on the far side of the room, turned his back to Veriasse so that he could watch him, then Dinnid began the dronon equivalent of coughing. His right thigh convulsed rapidly, and bits of exoskeleton came flying from his air holes.
Veriasse considered rushing to attack, but he realized that Lord Dinnid would probably like him to try. The dronon would only fly away, forcing Veriasse to tire himself.
Veriasse began walking toward Dinnid. “Surrender now,” Veriasse offered. “I do not wish to destroy you!”
“I will not surrender to a soft creature like you,” the dronon answered. “You have been fortunate in this contest, and I have been incautious.”
The dronon vanquishers who circled the arena were still singing, their mouthfingers clicking softly. Dinnid shouted for silence, and they obeyed.
Dinnid turned, waved his sensor whip high, then stood tall on his hind legs. In such a position, he could not launch into flight, but he raised his battle arms overhead like vicious clubs. He stood silently, waiting for Veriasse to advance.
Veriasse watched the creature warily. The sensor whips collected information in three ways: they were chemoreceptors that the dronon used to smell with; they felt vibrations; and they acted as enormous ears. Time and again, the dronon proved to be more sensitive to sound than humans. Veriasse vowed not to be taken in by Dinnid’s apparent vulnerability.
Veriasse’s face felt as if it were on fire. He closed on Dinnid. Gallen and Maggie must have recognized the danger, and they began shouting loudly, “Get him! Kill him!” making as much noise as possible so that they could cover Veriasse’s approach. Dinnid twisted his head in frustration, slowed, then seemed to center on Veriasse and began stalking.
Veriasse waited. The air in the room was suffocating, and he had to focus, try to forget the pain in his face, the strangling air.
Lord Dinnid began coughing again, stopped to clear his air passages. Veriasse looked for a weakness. There were few places to attack. The dronon’s exoskeleton was so thick that even a heavy kick to the head would do no good. Veriasse considered the mouthfingers down beneath the mandibles. He might be able to crush its voice drum—which would have much the same effect as putting a hole in its lungs—but the mouthfingers were too close to those heavy mandibles.
There were only a few places he could strike with much effect. The air holes on the thighs were one target. The wings were another. The sensor whips were a third. Yet he looked at the huge lord, a consummate warrior, and he despaired of winning this battle. Dinnid was too powerful.
Veriasse backed away a step, gasping for air, and caught a sweet scent of flowers. He laughed as he realized that Everynne had opened the bottle of Hope he had received on Cyannesse. An adrenaline surge poured through him, filling him with light. And then Veriasse considered ways to use the dronon’s own power against it.
Dinnid stalked closer, and Veriasse jumped forward and shouted, causing the monster to swing both battle arms down, slamming into the metal floor. Veriasse leapt, kicked Dinnid’s voice drum. His foot connected with a sharp thud. Dinnid raised his battle arms protectively, hitting Veriasse in midair, knocking him away.
Even that minor touch was too much.
Veriasse hit the floor on his back. Some ribs cracked on impact. For a moment, he lay gasping in pain, unable to move. Dinnid swung his head from side to side, biting down with his mandibles in case Veriasse tried to kick his voice drum again.
Veriasse didn’t move, didn’t stir a muscle, forced himself to still his breathing. Lord Dinnid was so fond of pointing out the weaknesses of the human’s soft body that Veriasse decided to let the creature think he’d done some damage.
Dinnid shouted, “Human? Human?” His voice garbled. Of the dozens of voice fingers under Dinnid’s mandibles, half were crushed.
Veriasse didn’t answer, and the dronon decided that now was his opportunity to strike. He leapt forward, waving his sensor whip and chopping down with his right battle leg. In that moment, Veriasse leapt up, grabbed the sensor whip, and pulled it in front of the swinging leg.
The serrated chitin of the foreleg sliced through the whip. Dinnid groaned in pain, spun away so that his back eye was on Veriasse, then buzzed his wings, lifted off in flight.
Veriasse picked up the sensor whip. It was over two meters long and very heavy. Veriasse snapped it overhead as if it were a bullwhip, cracking the air. Everywhere, the dronon in the audience hummed in disapproval.
Veriasse imagined how he would feel if a dronon were to pull the leg off a human and use it as a weapon. He imagined how it would anger him and hoped that Dinnid too would be appalled. Perhaps it would break his concentration. Dinnid buzzed forward, hit the far wall and fell. He turned, leapt into the air again and rushed toward Veriasse. Veriasse cracked the sensor whip, and Dinnid veered toward him.
Veriasse crouched low, and Dinnid swooped over. Veriasse dodged and swung the whip with deadly ferocity, hoping to get the creature’s back leg. Instead, the whip cracked against the stub of Dinnid’s damaged sensor. The dronon flapped his wings so rapidly that they buzzed, creating a keening that was the equivalent of a dronon scream of pain. He doubled his speed and crashed into the far wall with a tremendous smack.
Dinnid fell to the ground, tried to get up, but his legs wobbled. He turned in a semicircle as if dazed, and Veriasse watched in horror. Dinnid’s skull had cracked. White ooze seeped from the wound.
Somehow, even though Veriasse had struggled from the outset for a clean kill, now that the moment was upon him, he was repulsed at the task.
He ran to Dinnid, and the dronon vanquisher wobbled about feebly, trying to prop his massive battle arms so that he could support his own weight. Dinnid was not thinking of fighting now, only of crawling to safety.
Veriasse leapt into th
e air, aimed a flying kick at the crack in the dronon’s skull. He hit with a thud, managed to open the crack a bit wider. Dinnid wobbled feebly on his front legs, and Veriasse leapt again, was forced to kick a third time. His foot entered the skull, and he pulled it away in disgust.
Lord Dinnid shuddered and fell. For a moment there was silence. Veriasse crawled back a pace and sat, gasping, horrified by what he had done.
All around him, the dronon began thrumming their mouthfingers against their voice drums loudly, creating a deafening roar.
Veriasse turned, looked across the room to the young queen of the hive. She was little more than a bloated sac for laying eggs. Her battle arms were small, unformed, and with her great egg-filled abdomen she could not fly, could hardly walk. Yet by dronon law she could defend herself against his attack.
Veriasse walked to the queen, panting. He was exhausted, ready to faint, and could not take any more of the hot air. “I do not want your death, Great Queen,” Veriasse said. “We came here seeking only the Right of Charn. We wish to pass through your land, so that we might do battle with your Golden.”
“You have earned Charn,” the queen said. “If you promise not to kill me, you may mark me. I will not resist.”
Veriasse could not escape this symbolic act, the maiming of the queen. He went to her side, made a fist and swung into her egg sac with all his might. The queen’s abdomen did not burst, nor did it break, but the metal studs in Veriasse’s gloves left a long gouge in her carapace.
A great hissing noise of displeasure rose from the dronon. All around the arena, dronon put their battle arms over their heads, crossing them in token of surrender. Yet they were not looking at Veriasse. Instead, they turned to face Everynne to do obeisance, their drumming voices crying out over the translator, “Behold the Golden! Behold our queen!”
Veriasse held his lungs, sucking air with great pain. The room seemed to spin, until he was forced to his knees.
Chapter 20
Maggie rushed to Veriasse. The skin of his face was red, burning away. She looked around desperately, then dabbed at his face with the hem of her robe and called to Everynne, “Help me, please!”
Everynne stood alone watching. The dronon were clattering their battle legs in token of surrender. She walked over to Veriasse, with Gallen and Orick in her wake, but Everynne said, “You have to clean him. They call me a Golden now. I cannot be seen doing work.” She looked into Maggie’s eyes, pleading. She could not jeopardize what she had gained thus far.
Gallen pulled a canteen from his backpack, bathed Veriasse’s face. Veriasse knelt on one knee, panting.
“How badly are you hurt?” Everynne asked. She had been surprised at the ferocity of the battle. With his upgraded nervous system, Veriasse was phenomenally quick. In two minutes she had seen him take apart a dronon Lord Escort, his fists and feet blurring. Yet he had done it at great cost. His face was terribly burned, and she’d heard something crack when he’d fallen.
Veriasse pulled the microphone away from his mouth. “My ribs,” he groaned. “I think some are broken.”
“What can we do for you?” Gallen asked.
Panic took Everynne. She could not think. She only knew that if Veriasse failed the next battle, she would die.
“Rest. I need to lie still for awhile. My nanodocs should be able to heal the wounds in a couple of hours.”
Everynne’s mantle told her that he was wrong. It would take days for his nanodocs to heal the breaks. She needed to get him away from here, take him somewhere so they could speak in private.
Everynne turned to the hive queen and said, “We have won the Right of Charn. We now demand that you alter the course of your hive city. Speed us on our way to Queen Tlitkani.”
The hive queen clicked her mouthfingers against her voice drum, and Everynne’s earpiece translated. “She is not on this world. She has moved her hive to another world, to facilitate her use of the human’s mechanical mind.”
“You mean she has taken up residence on the omni-mind?” Everynne asked.
“Yes,” the queen said.
“Where has she taken the omni-mind?”
“It is orbiting our sun.”
Everynne said, “Then take us to the nearest spaceship.”
The queen spoke to one of her Lord Technicians, then turned back to Everynne. “Our technicians will prepare a ship for you immediately. We will send a squadron of our Lord Vanquishers as an honor guard.”
The dronon queen watched Everynne for a moment. “We have received orders from our ruling dronon. She asks that we relieve you of the Terror you have been carrying.”
Everynne reluctantly pulled the ball from her pocket. It had been her insurance, and part of her was loath to give it up. But it had accomplished its purpose.
She held it out for the queen, but a trio of Lord Technicians rushed forward and carried the thing away, presumably to be destroyed. The dronon queen turned her back, began dragging her bloated egg sac away.
When they were alone again, Maggie touched Everynne’s arm. “We can’t leave yet. Veriasse needs time to heal.”
“Neither can we delay,” Veriasse said, pulling on Gallen’s arm as he staggered to his feet. “We have won Right of Charn, but according to dronon order, we must leave in all haste.”
Everynne doubted that Veriasse could fight another battle in his condition.
Gallen stood tall, his hands on his hips. “Veriasse, you’re in no shape to fight. It would be wrong to even try. You can’t take a chance with Everynne’s life this way. Let me fight the next battle.”
Veriasse looked up, his jaw firm. “I wore the mantle of a Lord Protector for six thousand years. You have worn it for less than three days. You are a good man, Gallen, but you’re not a Lord Protector yet. Even though I am injured, you couldn’t beat me. How could you then take my place?”
“I watched you fight,” Gallen said. “I know I could win! Veriasse, you’re all done in.”
“You can’t just take my place, Gallen,” Veriasse said. “I am Everynne’s Lord Escort. By dronon rules of conduct, she can only take another Lord Escort if I die.”
“I could switch clothes with you when we’re alone,” Gallen said. “The dronon would never know.”
Gallen turned to Everynne, pleading. “You decide between us. It’s your life.”
“And yours,” Everynne said. She looked at the two men. Gallen was probably correct. The dronon might never know if the two men switched places. Veriasse was gravely wounded, and Gallen still fresh. Yet Veriasse had proven himself in combat against a dronon.
“Will you, too, hold with my choice?” Everynne asked Veriasse.
He glared at her. His next words seemed to cost him more than the pain of drawing breath. “Gallen is right. You should have a say in this.” By those words alone, Everynne knew he was severely wounded. Veriasse would never relinquish his title if he thought he could still fight.
Everynne turned her back on them, looked out over the arena. Orick ran to the center of the arena, retrieved Veriasse’s goggles. A few meters away, the dronon had circled the corpse of Dinnid and were dismembering it, feeding it to the royal grubs. Everynne could not help but think that within a matter of hours, other dronon might be doing that to her.
She considered her options. Veriasse was sorely wounded, but his nanodocs would ease his discomfort. Within an hour, he should be feeling somewhat better. And Veriasse outweighed Gallen by thirty kilos. When he’d managed to break the carapace around Dinnid’s air holes, she’d found it hard to imagine a human with such strength. Everynne doubted that Gallen could equal the task.
Yet, even with all of Veriasse’s great accomplishments of the past, somehow at this moment, she trusted Gallen more. He was still healthy. And even though he didn’t have an upgraded nervous system, Gallen was fast. Veriasse had been astonished by his strength when they first met. She considered choosing Gallen and wondered at the wisdom of such a move.
Maggie put her arm aroun
d Everynne’s shoulder. “You can’t let Veriasse fight anymore!” she whispered. “It would be murder.”
Everynne looked into Maggie’s eyes. They were no longer the eyes of that innocent child she’d met on Tihrglas a few days before. Instead, her eyes were filled with wisdom, the kind of knowledge that comes only through pain.
“You love Gallen, don’t you?” Everynne said.
“Of course,” Maggie answered. And in her mind, Everynne heard Maggie’s accusation of a few days before: You took him, just because you could.
Everynne nodded. She had stolen something from Maggie once before. She determined not to do it again. Even if I die, Everynne thought, I will not steal from her again. She turned to face the two men. “I choose Veriasse as my champion.”
Gallen gasped in astonishment, obviously hurt, and Veriasse breathed deeply, tears of gratitude glistening in his eyes. “I will not disappoint you, my lady. Give me a few moments’ rest. I promise I will not disappoint you.”
The journey to the omni-mind seemed shorter than it was. The dronon technicians took only an hour to remove a spaceship from the bowels of their city, and another hour to alter accommodations so that humans could travel in it. The alterations were limited simply to removing some seats and installing a pallet for Veriasse to lie on.
The old warrior lay on the pallet, put himself in a meditative trance to slow his breathing as they traveled. The ship was light and fast. With its antigrav drives, it moved fluidly between worlds, its rapid acceleration apparent only as one looked out the windows and watched Dronon shrink to a tiny glowing ball, lost between the stars. Forty dronon fighter ships escorted them.
After two hours, they swooped low over the omni-mind, and Everynne got her first glimpse of the great machine. It glowed with a soft silver light. Trillions of computer crystals lay upon its surface, reflecting sunlight like a sea of molten glass. Here and there across the planet, vast tachyon communication towers rose above the plains, pointing like metallic daggers to the heavens. Beyond that, there was no hint of the monolithic processors built into the planet’s interior, no sign of its power supplies.
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