“Of course, I expect you all to deny your involvement with this insurgency,” he boomed. “So, the question becomes, how do I parcel out who is telling me the truth and who is lying to me? How can I pick the traitor or traitors out of this group with any certainty?”
We all exchanged looks and shrugs. How could we prove we weren't part of this insurgency? I knew I wasn't – and I was relatively certain nobody else was either – but how could I make this man believe me? How could I prove my innocence?
“The answer, of course,” Gravus said after a minute, “is that you can't. There is no way I can believe any of you. I have no doubt you scraps would lie to my face.”
The knot in my stomach cinched itself down even tighter. I did not like the way this was going. I was growing terrified of where it was going, in fact. I didn't see a good outcome for any of us. And the cruel little smile on his face told me that I was right to be scared.
“So, let me tell you what is going to happen,” Gravus intoned. “Under the authority granted to me by the Unduthian government, I am charging all eight of you with treason and sedition. Those are offenses that carry a death sentence – a sentence I will be carrying out immediately.”
A stream of angry voices came from behind us – the men in our factory. The men from our village. Our family. Our friends. Gravus nodded to the man on his left who stepped behind us and raised his weapon. I couldn't bear to watch, but I heard him fire his weapon several times – which was quickly followed by an eerie silence that descended over the crowd behind us.
“Let that be a warning to you,” Gravus said. “Disrupt or interfere again and you too will be charged with treason and sedition and will be executed on the spot.”
I snuck a look over my shoulder and at the men of our village. Their heads were lowered, their eyes downcast. Everyone looked defeated – which snuffed out any small shred of hope left in my heart.
I was going to die.
And I knelt there, in the dirt of the factory yard, unable to move. Barely able to breathe. I couldn't comprehend what was happening. Couldn't understand how I'd gotten caught up in this mess. I wasn't part of any insurgency. I wasn't responsible in any way, shape, or form for bombings inside Kinray. I'd never even been into the city before.
I needed to stand up. I needed to say something. I needed to declare my innocence. I hadn't done anything, I didn't deserve to die. I tried to move but found that I couldn't. I couldn't speak. All I could do was look up at the man who was ordering my death and blink stupidly.
“Now, if nobody else has any objections – or an expressed desire to join the condemned – I will discharge my duty. By the authority of the Unduthian government, you are all sentenced to death for treason and sedition.”
Time seemed to move in slow motion. Gravus nodded to the armored and armed men behind us. I heard them all take a step forward, listened to the sound of their weapons charging. It would be a matter of moments before my life was snuffed out. What was going to happen to my mother? To Gynta? To Hopa? How would they survive without me there to care for them?
The air around us was charged and tense. I was in the final moments of my life and I knew it. I lowered my head and closed my eyes, unable to muster up the strength to fight my fate. It seemed that all I was capable of doing was to simply accept it.
“Take aim,” Gravus commanded.
I gritted my teeth and ducked my head – as if that was going to make any difference. The sound of shouting, scared voices filled the air around me. A moment later, I was blown forward, landing on my face. The smell of smoke and something I couldn't identify filled the air around me. The world was suddenly filled with shouting, screaming, and gunfire.
I was lightheaded and my forehead pained me. Putting my hand to my head, I came away with something warm and sticky on it. Looking at my hand, I saw the dark blue of blood – my blood. What was happening?
I struggled to get to my knees and looked around. The world looked like it was on fire. Smoke billowed from a crater behind the line of Gravus' men – most of whom were lying motionless on the ground, their armor torn to shreds. Dead. They were all dead.
I looked around, dizzy, my vision blurry and a high-pitched ringing in my head. All around me, men from the factory were running, terror stamped upon their faces. I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaking me. Looking up, I found myself staring into Tryn's face, not knowing what was happening.
“Byr,” he called, his voice sounding as if it were miles away. “We have to go. Now. Get up. We have to go.”
My head was fuzzy and I didn't know what was happening. There was part of my brain that told me I needed to get up. I needed to run. But another part was telling me I just needed to lie down and sleep for a while. That everything would be okay.
Tryn hauled me to my feet and helped me out of the factory yard. He led me through the village and to the forest beyond it. Not knowing what else to do, I let him take me there. We walked for what felt like hours, but in my state, it may have been mere minutes, who was to say? Eventually, he sat me down beside a small brook and then dropped onto the grass next to me. He lay back, his breathing ragged and labored.
“Take some water,” he said.
I nodded absently and leaned over the bank, scooping the cold water into my mouth, letting it soothe my parched throat. I used both of my hands to splash water on my face and rub it on the back of my neck. Slowly, that ringing in my ears stopped and the dizziness I'd been experiencing began to abate. I sat back on the grass and let my head continue to clear up.
“You okay?” Tryn asked me.
I nodded my head. “I think so,” I replied. “Thanks for pulling me out of there.”
“You would have done the same for me.”
I ran my hand over my face, wincing at the pain from the cut on my forehead. “What happened?”
Tryn rolled over and scooped some of the water from the brook into his mouth. He drank for a little while, looking as if he hadn't had liquid in quite some time. Finally, he splashed some water on his face and sat up on the grass beside me.
“Right before those soldiers executed us, a bomb went off,” Tryn explained.
“A bomb? Where did a bomb come from?”
He shook his head. “I don't know. I didn't even see it, but somebody threw a bag that landed just behind those soldiers,” he said. “When it exploded, they took the brunt of it. Not sure any of them survived. A couple of the guys they had on the ground with us didn't.”
I rubbed the sides of my head, feeling a terrible ache coming on. I was still trying to piece everything together in my own mind. If somebody had thrown a bomb, that meant that some of the men in the factory – the men in our village – did belong to this insurgency Gravus spoke of.
“Did that General Gravus survive the blast?” I asked.
“I think so,” Tryn replied. “But I don't know for sure.”
Thoughts were beginning to take shape in my mind now that I was able to think a little more clearly. If Gravus was alive – and believed that the insurgency was within our village, that meant –
“Tryn, we have to get home,” my heart thundered and panic colored my voice.
He looked at me, confused. “What's the matter?”
“They already know who we are,” I said. “If he thinks we're part of this insurgency and he's alive, who do you think he's going to target next?”
He looked at me, his expression blank, as if he wasn't understanding what I was worried about. Perhaps he still wasn't thinking clearly after the bomb blast.
“Our families, Tryn,” I said. “If they can't get us directly, they'll take or kill our families.”
His eyes widened in surprise and I watched as the color in his face blanched, while his eye markings glowed bright with his anxiety.
We jumped to our feet and hurried back toward the village. I was still a little bit woozy, but was running as fast as I could. Hoping against all hope that I was wrong and that Gravus wouldn't turn his attention t
o our families.
Chapter Eight
Gravus
I touched my cheek and looked down at my fingers. The dark blue of my blood stained the tips of my gloves. I felt my anger simmering, threatening to explode into a full-blown rage. When the bomb went off, I'd taken a piece of shrapnel across the cheek and it had sliced me open.
I'd been lucky. It could have been worse. Much worse.
Tok tended to my wound, using a sonic suture to close the wound. He applied a little salve to it when he was finished.
“You shouldn't even have a scar once it finishes healing, General.”
“Thank you, Tok,” I replied. “Were you wounded?”
He shook his head. “No, I was fortunate to avoid the shrapnel.”
I nodded. “That's good,” I replied. “I'm glad you were unhurt.”
“Thank you, General.”
The transport glided along at a quick pace. After the bombing, all of the factory workers had scattered. And because so many of my men had been killed in the blast, there wasn't much I could do to stop them. I'd called for reinforcements and now it was time to take the gloves off.
I'd underestimated the scraps. I thought they had neither the spine nor the fortitude to actually be part of this burgeoning insurgency. I'd clearly been wrong about that. I would have to send a team to investigate the bombing at the factory later, but I had a feeling that the explosives used to kill my men would prove to be the same that were used in the Kinray bombings.
I didn't like being wrong about something like that. I didn't like that at all. But there was nothing I could do about that now. All that was left to do was take the fight to those who'd killed my men.
“We're at the village proper,” Tok reported.
“Very well,” I replied. “Make sure the troops receive their instructions as well as the list of targets. Let's move out.”
“Yes, sir.”
I turned to the ramp as it descended while Tok relayed all of the information to the visors in the helmets of the men. I wanted this operation to be swift and smooth. And any resistance was going to be met with brutal force.
I was done playing around.
By the time I'd made my way down the ramp, my men were already fanned out and were kicking in doors. If I couldn't get the insurgents themselves, I was going to take their families. Perhaps then, they'd see the gravity of the situation and turn themselves in – unless they wanted to see their loved ones hang.
“You can't do this,” an older man screamed as he was being hauled toward me. “You can't do this. I have rights. You can't do this.”
The two guards dropped him to his knees in front of me. He looked at me with wide eyes, his eye markings glowing bright with his anxiety.
“Please, I have rights,” he said. “You can't do this to me. You can't do this to any of us.”
I gave him a dry, rueful laugh. “You and those here in your village are scraps,” I said. “You have no rights. I can do anything I wish to any of you. And there is nobody that is going to speak up for you.”
The sound of women crying and children shouting filled the air. It was a cacophony that was making my head ache and I wanted to be out of there was quickly as I could. I hated being among such squalor. It just somehow made me feel unclean myself. I was looking forward to being done there so I could return home and take a scalding hot shower to get the stink of these scraps off of me.
The man looked at me and I could see the hatred burning in his eyes.
“Your son is named Tryn, is it not?” I asked.
His eyes grew wide. “What do you want with my boy? He's done nothing.”
“That's actually not true, I'm afraid,” I said. “Your son was involved in a bombing at the factory not half an hour ago. A bombing that killed many of my men.”
He shook his head. “Impossible. My boy wouldn't be involved with anything like –”
“Furthermore,” I interrupted the older man, “your son is involved with an insurgency responsible for a series of bombings in Kinray.”
“No, not poss –”
“Where is your son?” I demanded.
“He's not here.”
I leaned down, closer to the man's face. “Where is he?”
He shook his head. “I don't know. Please. I don't know.”
I stood up again and sighed. I watched as my men loaded the targeted family members into transports and slammed the doors shut, awaiting my word.
I looked back at the man on the ground. “One more time,” I said. “Where is your son?”
He looked back at me and I could see the fear mixed with the hatred in his eyes. “I do not know where he is.”
I sighed. “And if you did know,” I asked. “Would you tell me?”
“No,” he answered without hesitation.
“I thought not.”
I pulled the gun from the holster on my belt, put the barrel against his forehead, and pulled the trigger. The laser burned straight through the man's head in the blink of an eye, leaving a smoking hole in the front, and a blast of blue blood and dark matter behind him. The man's lifeless body slumped backward, his eyes wide open and fixed on the sky above.
“Load up the rest of the scraps,” I said. “And get them out of here.”
“Right away.”
When the scraps had all been loaded, I climbed back into my own transport and ordered the driver to head back for Kinray. The insurgents would come for their families. And when they did, we would be ready. I would not underestimate them again.
Chapter Nine
Byr
We got to the edge of the village in time to see Gravus' transports lifting off and heading back to Kinray. When they'd gone, we stepped out of the forest and into the village. All around us, people were huddled together, sobbing uncontrollably.
I was shell-shocked. Gravus' men had taken a lot of people out of our village. They'd hurt quite a few more. All around me, I saw the pain in people's faces. Saw the blood smeared on their clothing and running down their faces. They'd been beaten badly by a group of thugs.
I felt horribly selfish, but in the face of so much agony and loss, all I could think of was my own family. I knew my mother wasn't well enough to survive a beating like some of these people had taken. Gynta and Hopa? They were too young and frail to have survived.
I felt nauseous just thinking about what I was going to find when I got home.
“Forgive me, Tryn,” I said. “I need to go see to my mother and siblings.”
He nodded, seemingly numbed by everything we were seeing. I squeeze his shoulder and forced him to look me in the eye.
“Go see to your family, Tryn,” I said. “Go to them.”
He nodded again, seeming to snap back to the present. “Right,” he said.
“I'll meet you back out here soon,” I told him. “And we'll figure out what to do next.”
He gave me a tight smile and a short nod. I turned and sprinted off for my home, my heart thundering and my every nerve ending feeling like it was on fire. I reached my house and slammed my way through the front door.
“Mother?” I called. “Gynta? Hopa?”
I was met with nothing but silence. I looked around the main room and saw the signs of a struggle. The table had been overturned. The fire was out and the pot hanging over it had been dumped out on the floor. Chairs had been broken. Dishes had been smashed. It looked like everything had been gone through and tossed on the floor.
With a growing sense of dread over what I might find, I made my way back to my mother's room. As I pushed the door open, I tried to steel myself, expecting to see the worst. What I found though, was an empty bed. Everything in my mother's room had been ransacked, of course, but she was not there.
While that, in and of itself was a relief, I was still filled with trepidation. I moved down the hallway to the kids' room and pushed the door open.
“Gynta?” I said softly. “Hopa? Are you two in there?”
Silence. The curtain ov
er the window kept out most of the light and cast the room in murky shadow. But even without natural light flooding the room, I could see that it had been torn to pieces. And that my siblings were not there.
Feeling my gorge rising, I ran outside and fell to my hands and knees, throwing up all over the ground. Tears rolled down my face and I sobbed unabashedly for some long moments. Eventually, I came back to myself. I scrubbed the tears from my cheeks and stood up.
Though the worst of my nausea had passed, my legs still felt weak. Rubbery. As I moved, I felt like I was walking through a dream state, my head hazy and unfocused. Stepping around to the front of the house, I saw that many of the people in my village looked the same way.
“They took 'em, Byr,” said Lyn, an older woman who lived nearby as I passed her house.
I stopped and looked at her. A cut had been opened on her cheek and dark blue blood stained her white shirt. Tears rolled down her face and her eyes were red and puffy.
“Where were they taken?” I asked numbly.
“To the camps, I assume,” she said, her voice weak.
“Did you see my mother? The kids?” I asked. “Were they taken?”
Lyn nodded miserably. “Yeah, them too,” she said. “Your mother was having some trouble. They were a little rough with her.”
I felt sick all over again and the anger in the pit of my belly grew darker, more urgent.
“Somebody needs to see about that wound on your cheek, Lyn.”
She nodded and I walked on, taking in the destruction that had been wrought in my village. Up ahead, I saw Tryn. He was knelt down in the middle of the road, his back to me. I saw his shoulders heaving and knew that he was sobbing.
Running to him, I dropped down onto my knees. He was cradling his father's head in his lap, the tears streaming down his face. His father was dead, a hole in his forehead, and from what I could tell, an even larger one in the back. His sightless eyes were fixed on the sky in that permanently frozen look of death we'd all come to know too well.
Tryn looked at me, his face etched deep with agony. “They killed him, Byr,” he wailed. “They killed him.”
Tears welled in my own eyes as I looked at the pain in my friend's face. I reached down and closed his father's eyes.
Rocor (Dragons of Kratak Book 5) Page 55
