Hero's End (The Black Wing Chronicles Book 2)

by JC Cassels

  “What are you going to do?”

  “You will see,” Tahar said, covering Blade’s eyes with a gnarled hand. “Close your eyes and relax. Feel the warm stone beneath you...above you, the endless black. There is energy moving in the nothing.”

  The old man’s voice droned on, weaving a warm cocoon of words around Blade. He spoke of the Prenaha, seen only with the eyes of the Sentaro. Relaxing against the unyielding flagstone, Blade began to doze off. Tahar’s voice became a distant buzzing hum that flooded his senses.

  Beneath him, Blade felt the familiar vibrations of a powerful hovercycle straining against the braking mechanism, poised to take flight, skimming the ground at breakneck speeds. His fingers tightened reflexively over the handlebars.

  “Are you ready?” The voice cracked with youth, somewhere between boy and man.

  Blade opened his eyes in surprise.

  The whine from the hovercycle engines bounced off the ruins, amplifying the noise to deafening levels. Tearing his gaze from the rubble that used to be a sports arena, Blade looked to the boy at his side, and his heart twisted in his chest.

  Niall!

  Though he’d turned his head away from Blade, there was no mistaking that too-long, light-brown hair with a hint of curl. Niall – his younger brother — turned back to him, his blue eyes aglow with anticipation and a hint of mischief. He was awkward and gangly with youth, tall and lean. He was blessedly, impossibly, alive.

  Glancing down at the hovercycle, Blade frowned. “That’s my bike.”

  “It’s mine now,” Niall said cheerfully. “You traded me for that, remember?” He pointed at Blade’s hand.

  Blade glanced down at the bag of ghila grass clenched in his fist.

  “Put that stuff away, Dev,” Chase said. “If they find it on you again, they’re going to kick you out. We’re old enough that they can do that. I, for one, am not ready to leave the home yet.”

  Blade stared at his brothers for a long moment. “I remember this…,” he said softly.

  “What do you remember?” Tahar’s voice broke through the deafening whine of the hovercycles.

  Chase and Niall roared off, leaving him behind.

  “I’d rolled a cigarette with the ghila already,” he said. “I started smoking it, but they didn’t wait.”

  Blade stared after them a moment, taking a long drag on the cigarette. The ghila had no effect on him. Frowning to himself, he tossed it aside and leaned over the controls of the hovercycle, tearing after his brothers at a reckless rate of speed.

  “I didn’t see what happened,” Blade said. “I heard it.”

  Ahead of him around the bend, a powerful hovercycle engine changed pitch, followed by metal screeching as the impact altered its shape.

  “I don’t remember that…” Blade canted his head, his eyes narrowed. “That sounded like it flipped, but that’s not possible.”

  “These are your memories,” Tahar said. “They do not lie.”

  Leaning over the handlebars of the cycle, Blade accelerated. “There’s only one way that cycle could have flipped there.” He rounded the bend and the wreck site filled his awareness. Chase was already off his cycle and picking his way through the debris towards Niall, who looked like a broken doll tossed haphazardly among the rubble.

  “Take a step back,” Tahar said. “Don’t focus on your brother. Use your Predator training and look at everything around you.”

  Blade nodded. With steely determination, he compartmentalized his feelings, studying the scene with professional detachment. He made his way through the wreckage towards the main body of the cycle. Kneeling down beside it, he immediately saw what it was that had bothered him about Niall’s crash for so many years.

  “The stabilizers collapsed,” he said. “The same thing that went wrong with the Catarrh.” He touched the barely perceptible additions to the engine. “Somebody put a vapor lock on the throttle and rigged the stabilizers.” Bracing his arm across his knee, he turned his gaze to Chase who knelt over Niall’s broken body. “My bike. They were trying to kill me and got Niall instead – all over a bag of grass.”

  A shadow moved at the top of the ruin. Blade squinted against the brilliant sky and shaded his eyes with his hand. A female figure unfolded from a crouch and turned, picking her way down the rubble on the other side.

  “I don’t remember anyone else being there.”

  “Your memories say otherwise,” Tahar said.

  Coming to his feet, Blade picked his way over to his brothers. He dropped to his knees beside Niall. He assessed his injuries. The medical report indicated that he’d sustained too many internal injuries and broken bones to survive. He was hemorrhaging internally. Even if Blade had been a trained medic at the time, there was nothing he could have done to save his younger brother. A part of him had always known that.

  He looked up and met Chase’s terrified stare.

  “Go get help,” Blade said. “I’ll stay here with ’im.”

  Unable to speak, Chase nodded. He bolted for his cycle as if relieved to be absolved of the responsibility of staying with Niall.

  Blade watched him go. He gathered Niall carefully into his arms, just as he’d done ten years earlier. He’d seemed so thin and frail. Blade cradled his younger brother against his chest. “It’s gonna be okay,” he said, falling into the speech patterns of his youth. “Chase is gonna bring help and we’ll getcha patched up.”

  Pink-tinged spittle gathered at the corner of Niall’s mouth as he coughed and gasped for breath. A tear slipped free from his eyes and traced a path down his dirt-stained face.

  “S-sorry about…your…bike.” Niall struggled to speak, fear and pain contorting his young features.

  “Shh…it’s just a bike.” Blade wiped the dirt from his brother’s face with a shaking hand.

  “Dev?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I’m scared.”

  Blade’s mouth worked as he struggled to smile. Tears blurred his vision. “It’s okay. You’re gonna be fine,” he said. His own voice sounded thin and frightened. “Chase is gonna bring help back. They’re gonna patch you up and when you get better, I’m gonna kick your ass for bustin’ up my bike.”

  His chuckle broke in a sob he couldn’t completely swallow. Clenching his jaw so tightly he felt a muscle twitch, Blade tightened his hold on his brother.

  “You stay with me, Niall,” he said through clenched teeth. “D’you hear me? Stay with me!”

  With one last sigh, the last spark of life faded from Niall’s eyes and his body went slack. His blue eyes stared unseeing at Blade.

  “Niall?” Blade gave him a little shake. “Niall!”

  Tahar’s hand closed over his shoulder. “You must let him go.”

  Blade looked up at the wizened old man.

  “You have what you came for. Your brother’s death was not your fault. He was murdered in your place. Your destiny was not to die that day. His death served the purpose of driving you where you needed to go. The Maker has a plan for you. It is up to you to honor his death by fulfilling that plan. You are no longer prisoner of this place.”

  With all the force of crossing the threshold from realspace into hyperspace, the ruins dissolved into infinity before fading into blackness. Feeling like a drowning man, Blade clawed for the light, lunging upward with a deep breath and a mighty effort.

  Sitting upright, he broke through the surface of his consciousness. The pain in his right leg throbbed anew. The crackling fire beside him licked and undulated for the purple sky, just beginning to lighten with the coming dawn.

  “That was no dream.” His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears. The cool breeze caressed the damp skin of his face. With one hand, he tentatively touched his cheek, finding it wet with tears. “What…?”

  “Do you remember?” Tahar asked, settling himself across the fire from Blade once more.

  Blade’s brow furrowed. It had started as a guided meditation, but had somehow ended in something far differen
t. “Some kind of dream quest?”

  Tahar nodded.

  “Were you really there?”

  The old man poked the fire and avoided looking at him.

  “Are you a telepath?”

  Tahar’s lips quirked in an enigmatic smile. “The Lahtrecki discipline is not of the mind, but of the spirit,” he said. He looked up and met Blade’s stare. “You do not believe in that stuff.”

  “What was it then?”

  “It is a learned discipline that uses the strength of the mind to harness the power of spirit,” Tahar said. “It is the balance between the Sentaro and the Prenaha. When the two are in harmony, the natural energies of the universe flow effortlessly around you. You have only to reach for them and they will carry you where you need to go and show you what you need to see.”

  “It’s a second sight?”

  Tahar nodded. “After a fashion, but it is so much more. There is a natural ebb and flow to the universe. Like the waves on the shore. If you study them, you can see the pattern. The disruption in the pattern is how I knew to send Middo for you.”

  Blade considered that for a long moment.

  “You say it’s learned?”

  Tahar nodded.

  “Can I learn it?”

  Tahar smiled. “You are destined to learn it. It will save you from those who seek to destroy you.”

  Blade cleared his throat and shifted into a more comfortable position. “When can we start?”

  “We have already begun.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Bo’s amber eyes narrowed as she pulled her gamecard from the randomizing field on the table.

  “I’ll see you,” she said, tossing a stack of local currency into the pot. “And I’ll raise you fifty.”

  Bracing her booted foot against the edge of the table, she leaned her chair back onto two legs, balancing easily while she tucked the gamecard into her hand; a near-perfect Five-Point.

  Her gaze settled on Rex, the only other player. It had taken time to find him. She’d spent weeks following whatever leads Sundance could drum up. Royce had been right to warn her to be cautious. The thing sitting across from her was nothing short of a monster, in every meaning of the word.

  She tried to ignore the feeding tubes that looped over his neckline like some hi-tech collar. The fluids that extended his life expectancy well-beyond nature’s intentions surged through in a gruesome show of wealth and excess. His pallid, corpselike flesh reflected far too much of the dim light that shone down on the Five Point table. If the rumors were true, this Rex was a third-generation clone of the original. He was the stuff of legend, and not the good kind.

  Rex’s rheumy eyes glittered in the low light as he studied her in turn. Bo was under no illusions why he had agreed to join her for this friendly Five Point game.

  He collected the morbid, the macabre, vestiges of power and badges of office. Unsuspecting sentients had a way of disappearing around Rex, only to have their biological material show up in one of those tubes, feeding his insane hunger for immortality. In his unnaturally long lifetime, he’d amassed power and wealth enough to defy the local authorities. He was wily enough not to run afoul of any authority with the resources to shut him down.

  Word was he had her father. If Barron biomatter was feeding that nightmare on wheels, there would be no fourth-generation Rex clone. Bo wouldn’t leave enough genetic material unscorched for any more clones.

  “Let’s make this game interesting.” The tinny tenor of his voice cut through the heavy silence with the precision of a medical laser.

  Bo kept her expression carefully bland. “What did you have in mind?”

  “I know why you sought me out, Barron,” he said. “You want your father’s stasis pod.”

  “Do I?”

  “You do.” His cracked and lipless mouth curved in a travesty of a smile. “Let’s dispense with the pretense that you’re here because of my winning personality.”

  With a thump, Bo let her chair fall forward onto all four legs. “Fine. Let’s.”

  “One last wager, all or nothing on this hand,” he practically purred.

  It was no secret that Rex cheated. Bo knew he had a perfect Five-Point in his hand. It was the only thing that would beat her. She leaned forward bracing her elbows on her knees.

  “My father’s stasis pod in exchange for what?”

  “You don’t have much to offer me, being an unfortunate exile.”

  Her lips twitched. “Oh, I have something to offer you, otherwise you wouldn’t have consented to play me. What do you want, Rex?”

  “What do you have to offer?”

  She shook her head. “You have something in mind,” she said. “I’m not making an offer. What’s the price to see your cards?”

  “You are not as innocent as you look.”

  “That’s what they said at my trial.”

  A wheezing sound, which passed for laughter, hissed partly from Rex and partly from the mechanics in his motorized chair. The effect was unsettling.

  “Very simple, Barron,” he said. “To see my cards, you must place a Capre X2S Mergent Arms blaster on the table.”

  Bo’s hand dipped to the handle of the weapon sitting snugly on her hip in its custom quick-draw rig. “You know that’s not the only weapon I’m carrying, right?”

  “I would be disappointed in you if it were,” he said. “But the Capre is the only one I’m interested in. That weapon has been passed down from Barron to Barron for centuries.”

  Bo rubbed the palm of her hand against the weapon’s grip, never taking her eyes off her gruesome opponent. Timing was everything. She couldn’t accept too quickly, or he’d smell a setup. She couldn’t take too long or she’d lose him. Play the mark, not the cards. Royce’s words echoed in her mind. Bo watched Rex, waiting for the tell-tale signal that the timing was right.

  His smile widened ever-so-slightly in victory.

  There it was.

  Bo slowly pulled the weapon from its holster and thumbed the catch release. The power cell dropped onto the table in front of her. She tossed the Capre onto the pile of money in the center of the table and leaned back in her seat once more.

  “I call your stasis pod,” she said.

  Reaching out with a skeletal finger, Rex switched off the randomizing field. Its hum faded. Bo fanned out her gamecards on the table’s blue surface. “Five-Point,” she said.

  She donned a superior smile, waiting for him to come back with the perfect Five-Point. He didn’t disappoint her. Spreading his own cards on the table, he wheezed with laughter again.

  “I’m afraid you lose, Commander. The field is fickle and favors me today.”

  Knowing he was watching her expressions carefully, Bo’s smile faded and she looked up at him in feigned alarm. “That’s not possible…”

  “I am truly sorry.”

  “I’ll bet you are…”

  His expression brightened. “Another wager?”

  Bo pressed her lips tightly together and rose. With deliberately angry, jerky movements, she retrieved her power pack and the stack of winnings and thrust them into her pockets. Once she’d packed her things away, she headed for the door. When it slid open, she paused and turned.

  “This isn’t over,” she said.

  She itched to smack the smug look from his cadaverous face. No longer feigning anger, Bo turned and slipped out of the back gaming room. If this gamble didn’t work, she was screwed.

  Bo made a show of leaving the club on foot.

  Czern sat far enough from its sun that this time of year brought only a dim twilight to it. She used that, hugging the shadows and skimming back alleys to circle back to the groundcruiser she’d stashed. Hoisting the heavy door, she dropped into the seat and let the door swing shut with a substantial thunk. She wasted no time switching on the climate controls.

  Cool, moist air trickled into the cabin. Bo shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around her. She glared at the air vents, silently urging them to do their jo
b properly. It would take a few moments for the air coming through the ducts to warm up and dry out. She understood that, but she didn’t have to like it.

  The Gallis Highlands of Mondhuoun where she’d grown up were hardly known for balmy weather, but even the cold of the Highlands was nothing compared to this. Czern’s chill carried a dank wetness that managed to cling to everything. The planet’s heavy ozone layer trapped carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, keeping the surface temps above freezing, but made the air thick and oppressive. Add to that a slightly heavier gravity and her persistent nausea, and all of it combined to make Bo want to curl up in a corner and sleep.

  Bo reached into the bag on the passenger seat and pulled out a scanner. With fingers made clumsy and numb from the cold, she turned it over in her hand and switched it on, keying it for the right frequency. The display flashed as it booted up, then cleared and settled into a pattern. Bo set the scanner on the dashboard and settled in to wait.

  The minute sensor she’d hidden in the grip of her Capre sprang to life and began transmitting data. Flexing her fingers, Bo cupped her hands and blew into them, then rubbed them together. She had to keep the blood flowing. This was the hard part, especially when she was uncomfortable. She had to wait patiently for Rex to move.

  Word was he lived in a cliff top fortress somewhere outside the city. Of course it had to be a cliff top fortress. These guys always had to have isolated lairs shrouded in secrecy and heavily defended. Just once, she’d like to come across a crime boss with a nice apartment that boasted a flashing welcome sign in a civilized city. Unfortunately, that was too much to ask.

  Bo stretched her cold hands out towards the air vents. Warm, dry air puffed valiantly out amongst waves of cold. Blowing into her cupped hands once more she shook her head. Her teeth chattered.

  She hated trying to do this alone. She was smart enough to know she couldn’t be completely objective about this operation. Royce would have chided her for being too reckless already. It was his own damn fault. He’d gotten himself tangled up in a drug and gun operation with the New Front somewhere. He’d gone silent just when she’d needed him. As for Blade… Bo wasn’t sure she wanted to call him in. Her pride still stung. If he didn’t want her on Kah Lahtrec, she didn’t want him on Czern.