Except the throbbing in his knee. That hurt like hell—mini-explosions going off around the kneecap multiple times a second. The elbow he’d used to smack the metal man’s face stung, too. Blood ran down the his arm from it. And then there was his swollen pinky finger, which hung at a weird angle and refused to move. Also broken.
He almost wished the fall would’ve just killed him. But then he wouldn’t have had the pleasure of seeing Swan conquer this pathetic planet, or the pure joy of hunting down and butchering the bitch who killed Guerlain. He only hoped no one had beaten him to it.
The roar of engines swooped over the cliff far above, angling down into the river valley. One of those foreign spaceplanes, followed by three Swan shuttles, raining rounds after it, hitting it only sparsely. The nimble, foreign plane barrel rolled and tilted left and right to avoid the rain of fire—successfully, for the most part. The plane took a sudden dip and hurtled past Guarin, meters above the river, whipping a spray of water against the embankment. Rounds peppered the river in its wake, and the white shuttles roared by in pursuit.
Lukewarm river water mixed with Guarin’s sweat on his forehead. He wiped his brow with his good hand and shook it off.
A short, limping walk ahead, Guarin heard a subtler sound. It came from behind a boulder on the level path snaking alongside the river. He quieted his steps. The sound became clearer—faint, muffled sobs.
Guarin edged around the boulder to find a gruesome scene. Ten or more bloodied bodies, lying in awkward positions, carpeted the area. Some of them had been ripped apart so completely that only a hand or foot was recognizable. In the center of the macabre display, a scrawny, bearded man of perhaps fifty knelt over a woman’s corpse, rocking back and forth. Stifled, scared sobs escaped him as he mumbled a name Guarin couldn’t make out. Over and over again he mumbled the name, inaudible from behind his breather mask. The ravaged woman, Guarin supposed. His lifemate. The woman who birthed his children, perhaps.
Past them, a dirt path led up a slope to a stone doorway—an entrance to the city. Suddenly, the poor sod’s plight seemed only an annoyance.
A black combat rifle leaned against the boulder a few meters away. Guarin placed a stabilizing hand against the rock and limped toward it. The old commoner heard the shuffling of feet, wiped his eyes, and gasped as he saw Guarin. He reached across his woman’s corpse for a gun, but Guarin moved faster. As the old man hefted the gun, Guarin aimed his own across the back of his off hand and fired a burst. It plowed through the man’s scraggy chest, splattering crimson against rocks and corpses behind him. He flopped across his lifemate’s body. The two became one in death.
Guarin lowered his weapon, feeling satisfied. He’d done the fellow a favor, really. He’d put a wounded animal out of its misery.
He continued onward, maneuvering around bodies toward the sloping path. He had more work to do. More killing.
The Champion
Chapter Seventy-Two
Kastor woke to the sound of rhythmic, confined breathing. Wheezing inhale, strained exhale. In and out, in and out, again and again. Eventually, he realized it was himself. He was breathing. Still inside his suit, then. And still alive. Good.
A thick haze slowed his thoughts, numbed his senses. Weakness and exhaustion held him in stasis.
In the silence, a diaphanous voice trickled into his mind from impossibly far away. A delicate voice. Skittish. If he concentrated on it, the words went away, so he relaxed his mind and sank into it like listening to a heartbeat against someone’s chest.
You don’t ever worry, do you? You should. Perhaps the queen will send me to a faraway planet. Perhaps I’ll die in the line of service.
Her words echoed cruel and sweet in his head, teasing more profoundly now than they did then. A forlorn reminiscence of a bygone life. Alright, I’ll say it first . . . I missed you. Like chimes tinkling in the breeze from a distance. Careful, cradlemate. Don’t let the castle life make you too magnanimous . . . You’d need a lord’s title for an epithet . . . The one we were born for . . . If you’ve made your choice, then get on with it . . . Take what is yours . . .
The woman’s voice seemed to speak over itself, coming to a crescendo in Kastor’s mind.
Take it!
Pollaena. Yes. It took him too long to realize that. Mind so sluggish.
And like that, her voice disappeared into the ether, as if just thinking Pollaena’s name banished her from his presence. A newfound quiet engulfed him, a silence so searching and so complete that it crushed him under its weight. Kastor wanted to weep. His heart throbbed in the same inescapable pain he felt the moment his blade pierced Pollaena’s chest.
Then an alarm beeped in his ears and red lights flashed on his visor, making him flinch. His arms moved, floating lightly through darkness, but his legs wouldn’t budge. Memories flooded back into his brain: grabbing the husk door, burning through the atmosphere, falling toward the canyon, crashing into the river. He flicked on his helmet lights. Dark stalks of mossy seaweed drifted up diagonally from the bumpy riverbed, all tilting the same way like grass driven by the wind. Brown creatures with beady eyes and rippling flaps on their sides swam away from the newfound light—probably more than they ever saw down here.
Kastor craned his head to look up at the distorted film of the surface thirty or forty meters above. Then down at the dusty crater he’d made when he plowed into the sediment. He was buried up to his belly in pebbles and mud.
Kastor let out an impulsive laugh. He’d survived a fall from orbit. That seemed to merit a little levity.
Then, with the specter of Pollaena still lingering in the vault of his mind, watching over his shoulder, he started digging.
The Commoner
Chapter Seventy-Three
Abelard felt the vibrations of Swan boots crawling around his tunnels. They closed in on the surviving Upraadis like a coiling python, squeezing tighter and tigher.
Seraphina took his hand as the flow of fighters turned out of the stairwell shaft and into a sloping corridor. His thigh burned, and his good leg ached from compensating, but he kept on without a word. None of his brethren spoke. The tacit knowledge of their defeat was enough to sap everyone of speech. A stench wafted behind the retreating lot, a mixture of sweat and death.
At the far end of the corridor, whitesuits ran into view, as startled by the Upraadis as the Upraadis were by them. Gunfire erupted. Fire streaked up and down. Lights blew out. The foremost Upraadi fighters fell in a wave, bodies chopped into bloody sacks. The whitesuits took more hits before going down.
Seraphina pulled Abelard along as they retreated, everyone backtracking to the stairwell. A thousand feet stamped the ground as men shouted and guns blared through the tunnels. Bodies pushed and elbowed against each other as the Upraadis fled down another level. The shaft only went down to the lowest level of the palace, where there was no escape to the nether region. They had to find a way out before that.
“Here,” Seraphina said, stopping by a service door marked with a label only the palace servants understood. She tapped at keys on the touchscreen. The first code failed, so she rubbed her forehead and thought of another one to try. “I used to go in here to hide from my nanny as a girl.” When she typed in the second code, something inside the door clunked. She opened it to reveal a long, dim, tube-lined passageway.
“Where does it lead?” Abelard asked.
“Away from here,” Seraphina said. She looked at the crowd rushing by. “This way! Brothers and sisters, follow me!”
Some eyed her as they passed, but none stopped. None stepped out of the flow of bodies.
“Friends, this way leads to safety!” Seraphina shouted. “Follow me!”
A bulky, shirtless man slowed his pace and snarled at them. “We tried following you two. Look where it got us.” He spat at Seraphina’s feet and kept on.
Abelard touched her forearm. “It’s fine. Let’s just go.”
But before they moved, Gable barreled down the stone hallway
and stopped when he saw them. Five of his men stopped with him. The rest went on. He nodded at Abelard, not happy but not ready to abandon loyalties either. “Lead the way.”
Seraphina guided their small contingent through the cool, dank air of the service passage. She paused at each split in the tunnels, recalling which way led where.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” Abelard asked, quiet enough to prevent Gable and the others from hearing.
“Anywhere’s better than out there, right?”
“That isn’t reassuring,” Abelard said.
They passed into a long stretch without any light, only the pale reflection from behind and a glow from far ahead. Abelard’s feet splashed in cold puddles formed from leaky pipes. When they finally emerged into light again, he spotted a door down the corridor.
“See, Abby?” Seraphina said. “You had nothing to worry about.”
“I always worry about you, sister,” Abelard muttered.
“You shouldn’t.”
“As if there was some switch I could turn off.” Abelard glanced over his shoulder to see if others heard. Seemed they hadn’t.
“Don’t get sentimental,” Seraphina said. “It’s not the time.”
The door opened into a well-furnished foyer, lit at first only by small emergency lights. Once the main lights sensed their movement and powered on, the full grandeur of the reception area became clear. Glossy fauxwood tables and potted succulents sat atop plush, ornate rugs. Through a vaulted entrance, the palatial Great Hall sprawled inside a huge, natural cavern. Swathes of ground had been smoothed for long tables and cushioned chairs. Between them, tightly packed stalagmites, some taller than Abelard, rose up in sectioned-off clusters. Chandeliers hung down amid stalactites. At the far end, the lumisian table sat perpendicular to the others on a dais.
Three massive tapestries, each depicting the crossed axes of the Lagoon royal lineage, hung from the ceiling on one wall. Lining the other side of the hall, wide windows built into the rock looked out on the drifting river about twenty meters below.
None of the commoners had ventured down here to see the Great Hall since the nobility had been ousted, and they certainly hadn’t seen it before that. They gazed around the wondrous chamber with callow eyes. Abelard marveled at the intricacy of an iron and crystal chandelier as he passed under it, following Seraphina.
Sudden gunfire echoed in the hall, startling him and making him crouch instinctively. A splitting crack from above preceded Gable yelling at his men to move. The hulking chandelier plummeted from the ceiling and crashed onto four of his fighters. It made a horrible, wrenching, screeching sound. Four lives ended in an instant under the wrought iron’s weight. Crystals the size of a man’s palm smashed into the ground and clinked across the smooth walkways.
Before Abelard fully grasped what had just happened, more gunfire opened up from the side of the chamber, under the huge tapestries. Gable’s last man yelped as spurts of blood shot from his ribs. Gable turned and fired, holding off their mysterious attacker. He crouched behind a table and connected eyes with Abelard.
“Go!” Gable yelled. “I’ll hold him off!”
But the moment he peeked his head over the table again, a shot shaved off the brim of his skull. Blood streaked down his face from a newfound trench where hair used to be. His body stayed upright a moment, teeth grinding behind curled lips, hands shaking. Then he gave in to the inevitable. The gun slipped from his hands, and his body slumped over.
Abelard stayed frozen in shock. Six souls had just perished in as many seconds. He pushed himself up against a stalagmite and unholstered the long-barreled pistol from his thigh. It trembled in his hands. He heard Seraphina breathing behind the cluster of stalagmites.
Footsteps padded across the chamber from where the shots had come. One step fast and one slow. Between the legs of chairs and tables, Abelard saw feet emerge from a kitchen entrance. They shuffled along, one leg limping. Abelard aimed for the good leg, but they moved too fast, too much fauxwood in the way. He was afraid to pull the trigger. A miss, and he might be dead in seconds.
Behind him, Abelard heard the rasping slide of a pistol unholstering and feet scraping to stand. Seraphina rose above the stalagmites, aiming her pistol. She seemed to fire at the same exact moment the attacker did. Abelard saw the spark of a gunshot, but a split second later, blood blasted out the back of Seraphina’s shoulder, and her gun dropped. She screamed and gripped her shoulder, kneeling behind the stalagmites.
“Sera!” Abelard gasped, realizing he’d given himself away.
He aimed his pistol at the feet and fired, but they seemed to anticipate his shot and dashed out of the way. The bullet ripped through fauxwood and dinged off the rocky wall. Abelard panicked and rushed to reload.
The attacker hastened around the tables and stopped on the far side of the chandelier. Abelard shoved another round into the chamber and reset the hammer. Aimed.
As fast as he could flinch, his gun was blown out of his hands. Its splintered remains skidded across the ground away from him. The attacker had shot it specifically—not Abelard, just his gun.
He heard the limping feet continue across the chamber, circling around toward Seraphina. She whimpered, trying to make as little noise as possible. It was in vain. Their attacker knew right where they were. The path of his footsteps made that obvious.
Abelard searched himself for another weapon. Anything. He had a small knife, the blade only as long as his little finger. It was better than nothing. He turned it around in his hand so that his fingers pinched the blade, ready to throw. The footsteps weaved through the tables, coming close now. This was it—his last chance to save Seraphina. Abelard took a few quick breaths.
He planted his mechanical leg and pushed himself up, targeted the attacker, and hurled the knife. The man batted the twirling knife away with his glossy combat rifle—the same kind of gun the offworlders had brought. The blade clattered onto a table behind the attacker. Abelard’s gambit had failed. The battered and bruised attacker grinned, and Abelard immediately recognized him. He had seen this fellow with Kastor. He had sat across from him in Radovan’s throne room. Seraphina said she had put a bullet through the brain of his lifemate—through him, too.
And now that same man stood before them.
Abelard breathed the name. “Guarin.”
The Swan warrior relaxed until sheer, self-satisfied delight emanated from him like a halo. “Hello, Abelard. Pleasure to see you again.” His eyes dropped to Seraphina. “And sweet Seraphina.” His grin turned grisly, teeth clenched. “Just the person I was looking for.”
Chapter Seventy-Four
“I’m so very, very glad to see you both.”
Guarin limped forward a few steps, only meters from Seraphina now.
The blood blazed in Abelard’s veins. He glanced left and right, looking for a way to fight back, a way he could get to Seraphina. The stalagmites between them were too thick and tall to traverse, and if he tried to run around them, the Swan warrior would have ample time to cut him down.
“Seraphina and I have some unfinished business to attend to,” Guarin said, taking another step toward her.
She gritted her teeth, growled, and lurched up at him with her unhurt shoulder. Guarin reacted fast, swiveling his gun around and ramming her squarely in the face. Seraphina’s nose erupted with blood. She fell onto her back, hand over her broken nose and open mouth, too agonized to cry out.
Abelard gripped the rounded tops of two stalagmites in rage, burning to jump over them, if only he could. “Don’t touch her!”
Guarin looked up at Abelard, feigning concern. “Oh, you don’t want me to hurt her? Is that it? You certainly wouldn’t want her to end up like Guerlain, would you? You remember Guerlain, yes?”
Abelard shook in a primal concoction of fury and fear. His fingernails dug into the calcified stone. “I am responsible for this rebellion and every life lost in it. You must hold me accountable for your lifemate, not her.�
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Guarin laughed. “You display an impressive intellectual versatility for a commoner. But intellect always loses against firepower.” He patted his bulky, black gun, pinky finger hanging unnaturally awry. “What are you going to do? Leap through the air and tear this gun from my hands? We both know that won’t happen. So instead, you’re going to stand right there. You’re going to watch. And you’re going to listen.”
Abelard flinched to the side to take a step, but Guarin fired a burst through the stalagmites in that direction, probably ten centimeters from Abelard’s skin. It froze Abelard in place. He wouldn’t even get a step away before taking Guarin’s rounds. He was trapped.
“I said you’re going to stand right there.” Guarin glared. “By that I meant, ‘Stand there and don’t fucking move.’”
Abelard clamped his jaw shut and stared back helplessly.
“You know, Abelard of Upraad, you’re a pathetic little rat-fucking son of a whore, and it would bring me more pleasure than you can imagine to kill you today. Right after I kill this bitch.” He pointed his gun at Seraphina. “I’d certainly be doing your people a favor, seeing as how you’ve only managed to end most of their lives and leave the others wounded and widowed. But at the end of the day, I don’t give a shit about you or your people or your ‘freedom.’ I care about Guerlain. And now that she’s gone, I care about bringing her justice.”
Abelard put a hand against his chest. “If you want to bring her justice—”
Guarin fired another burst into the stalagmites. “Shut your damn mouth! I’m getting to your place in this. Yes, I do hold you responsible—partly. You created the conditions that led to Guerlain’s death, that robbed me of my lifemate and forced me to live without her. There’s only one way to make that right, to balance the scales.”
The Swan warrior leaned forward, grabbed Seraphina, and hauled her to her feet against him. One arm wrapped tight around her neck while the other angled his combat rifle at her head. Abelard’s heart jumped in his chest. His pulse raced.
Sacred Planet: Book One of the Dominion Series Page 35
