by Matt Forbeck
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Once Dural ‘Mdama and his vanguard of Servants made it through the portal, the defiance drained out of Asum. Dural felt grateful for that, as he had lost too many warriors on this endeavor already. He didn’t need to waste more of them watching over his brother when they needed to have their eyes scanning the horizon. Cowed and weaponless as Asum was, Dural had his brother walk next to him so the others could do their jobs.
“Where are we?” Asum asked.
“Not too far removed from the human city, but far enough. I would have gone directly back to our base, but the portal there is still open to the one that we came through earlier. We will have to walk from here.”
The portal the Huragok had sent them to was outside the gated perimeter the humans had staked out around their tiny bit of territory inside the shield world. The frame of the glowing gate was set inside a series of hollowed-out cupolas, the purpose of which Dural could not identify, although they were heavily adorned with Forerunner script. He only knew that this portal served his purposes well for the moment.
“Is it far?” Asum asked.
“You have grown soft, brother.”
“Is it soft to wonder how long I have left to live?”
Dural clacked his mandibles at Asum as they struck off in the direction the Huragok had said would take them to their base. “Most certainly,” Dural said, as the remains of his vanguard fell into step behind the two of them.
“None of us have as much time as we would like,” Asum began, his eyes set in a blank stare. “Have you heard the news about our uncle?”
“He is no concern of mine. The Servants and the Covenant have no more dealings, especially that impostor version of the Covenant our uncle led.”
“He was our father, Dural.”
The Pale Blade said nothing in response. The two of them were far enough from the others that Dural was sure none of them had heard.
Asum peered up at him, instantly suspicious. “You knew.”
“It makes no difference. He abandoned us both—and our mother as well—to pursue his own ends.”
“Well, then this should be of no consequence to you . . . Jul was killed on Kamchatka a few days ago.”
That hit Dural with far greater force than he had suspected. This was real: Our father is dead. He will never come back, and there will never be any reconciliation between us. It took Dural a moment to gather his thoughts enough to ask, “By the Arbiter?”
“No. A team of Spartans.”
“It is the same.” Dural spat on the ground. “I suppose it is too much to hope he took some of the demons with him.”
Asum shrugged. “It would not change things.”
“Sometimes revenge is all you can hope for.”
“After his death, the remains of his Covenant rallied on Sanghelios in the spire city of Sunaion. The Arbiter led the Swords of Sanghelios directly into the temple there and proceeded to destroy them all.”
“So, the Covenant . . . it is no more?”
Asum grunted. “No more than a bad memory.”
Dural glanced around at his warriors. “Then the Servants of the Abiding Truth is one of the last refuges for those who still walk the Path. I did not appreciate Jul ‘Mdama’s choices or his tactics, but I still prayed that he might take vengeance on the Arbiter.”
“For what crime? For freeing our people from the influence of the Prophets? For helping put an end to a forever war in which we were nothing but pawns?”
Dural bristled at Asum’s complaints. “For murdering our mother. Is that not enough?”
The two walked in silence after that in the warm and sunny evening. Dural could still hear the sounds of battle rattling in the remote distance. The city must still have been in chaos. From somewhere else he heard animals calling to one another, howling and growling in unfamiliar tones.
The ongoing din of battle must have drawn the animals’ attention. Dural hoped that they were not agitated predators that might become hostile to anyone roaming within their territory. Given the creatures they had already encountered on this world, such a thing did not seem unlikely.
Dural looked back and saw one of his warriors, a subcommander named Arkit, knocking the Huragok around, attempting to restrain it. Dural slowed down so they could catch up with him.
“Keep your hands off it,” Dural said sternly. “This Huragok has become an ally. Do you think we could have escaped without its help?”
“It is the only way to keep such a stubborn beast in line, Pale Blade,” Arkit said. “It keeps manipulating its slate when it believes that I am not looking.”
Dural stared at Arkit for a moment, sizing him up. Enough of the vanguard was becoming insolent with Dural that he wondered if he would have to make an example of one of them soon. Had Avu Med ‘Telcam experienced such trials when he was young? And if he had, how might he have dealt with such issues?
Perhaps this recurring impudence arose simply because leadership had been foisted onto Dural’s shoulders so soon, which meant his lot for the next several years would consist of constantly cutting down those who thought it wise to question his youth. Even still, he would have been a fool to ignore any problem with this captive Huragok.
Dural drew his energy sword and leveled it at the creature. “Show me your slate.”
He had thought the Huragok would simply hand him the device, but perhaps it was too firmly attached to its flesh. Instead, it rolled over on its side, exposing its stomach to Dural. There, he could read the display, on which the creature had keyed in something.
All he could see were a set of coordinates, ones that Dural could only imagine indicated the location at which they currently stood.
“Who are you communicating with?” he demanded. The power had been drained from every sophisticated device the Servants owned. The Huragok themselves—and what they could fix—might have been an exception to the Guardian’s attack, but who else was? How could the creature have reached anyone?
“Answer me.” Dural brought the blade of his sword dangerously near the Huragok’s flesh. “Now!”
The creature swiped the slate and produced a response. “Spartan Lucy-B091.”
“A demon?” Dural shouted at the Huragok. “You have summoned a demon to rescue you?”
Dural balled his free hand and slammed it into the slate. The front shattered immediately, and the rest of it erupted into sparks. Dural took care not to hit so hard that he might permanently damage the Huragok—but not so much that he wouldn’t at least hurt it.
The Huragok deflated in fear and cowered into the ground.
“Go ahead and call for help! Call as loud as you like! You think a demon can save you out here? What happened to the last one that came to your aid?”
The creature could not answer him at all now. It could only whimper in its own ridiculous tongue.
“This is your fault,” Ruk said, coming up behind Dural. “You separated us from the rest of our forces, and then you let the Huragok take us even farther away.” A howl from some sort of beast echoed out of a nearby wood, as if to put a fine point on this claim. It made the scales on the back of Dural’s neck rise.
“The field master put me in charge. Are you questioning his judgment?”
“I do not think he believed he would die so soon,” Ruk snorted. “You are too young, too brash, and too untrained to handle a force of this size. You are going to get us all killed.”
Dural had failed to put his energy sword away yet. He drew it back and took a mighty swing at Ruk’s neck.
The Sangheili saw the attack coming and ducked under the blade easily. As Ruk stood to his full height, he produced his own energy sword. He had intentionally provoked Dural to give himself an excuse to seize the mantle of leadership, and Dural cursed himself for giving into it.
“Do not be a fool,” Dural told him. “We have more pressing concerns than this.” As the words left his lips, he knew he had wasted his breath on them.
“Speak for yourself, Pale
Blade. You are but a shallow reflection of the field master, and I will reclaim the Servants from you to reverse the mistake he made by putting his trust in you.”
It pained Dural that Ruk would fall from grace, when Ruk had been such a fruitful ally early on in this mission, but that would not stay Dural’s hand. The Pale Blade threw himself at Ruk, his sword held high, and he brought the edge down with both hands. Ruk got his own blade up just in time save his life, but not fast enough to keep his face from being scorched by the edge of Dural’s weapon.
The wounded Sangheili howled in anger as the pain took hold, shoving Dural back. The strike had caught him across his eye, blinding him. Ruk came at Dural, swinging wild and wide. The Pale Blade ducked underneath the clumsy attempt and slashed Ruk across the chest.
Ruk fell back, and Dural pressed his advantage. He hammered at Ruk mercilessly, letting his anger fuel his strength. After a while, Dural felt as if his arms might give out, but he managed to outlast Ruk. Just as Dural thought he might have spent himself too fast, his last blow knocked Ruk’s sword from his hands.
Ruk hesitated, and Dural wondered if he might fall to his knees and beg the Pale Blade to take his life immediately and cover his shame. Instead, Ruk charged straight at Dural and tried to take him bare-handed.
Foolish as it was, the Pale Blade admired him for that. Ruk refused to give up, not for anything.
In return, Dural slashed Ruk across his throat, granting him the quick death he had been too proud to demand. He collapsed at Dural’s feet.
“Anyone else care to question my judgment?” Dural said to the rest of his vanguard as he extinguished his sword with confidence. None of them even dared look him in the eye.
CHAPTER 32
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Molly didn’t think they would have ever caught up with the Servants if the Sangheili hadn’t stopped to fight with each other. It was challenging enough that the Servants were faster than the three of them—which was no surprise given how much stronger and taller Sangheili were—but the Servants also had the advantage of knowing where they were going. Molly, Gudam, and Kareem only had distant glimpses of the Servants and their hostages and, eventually, the muffled sounds of a battle to keep them on track.
As the three rounded a dense corridor of foliage, Gudam spotted something, and she held out her oversized hand in front of Molly and Kareem. Yet another pair of monsters, things Molly had never seen before, were lurking in the edges of the gathering shadows as dusk fell across the land.
These were strong, four-legged, pantherlike creatures, not much smaller than a rafakrit and covered with a thick layer of dark green fur that helped them blend in with their grassy surroundings. Their large jaws were lined with long, feline teeth, and they looked as though they had been bred to hunt and kill. The pair of beasts were slowly edging forward on their bellies, creeping toward the Servants’ position and readying an attack. If the creatures had not already been hunting the Servants, Molly, Gudam, and Kareem might have been targeted by them as well.
Molly felt grateful to be armed, even with a Covenant weapon, but she wondered what good it could do against such animals. Molly had never shot a living thing in her life, but the adrenaline pumping in her body had heightened her senses and made her keenly aware that her actions—including being willing to use her weapon—could make the difference between her surviving and dying that day.
Keeping a careful eye on the predators as Molly led the way did not work as well as she would have liked. As she attempted to circumnavigate the creatures and come at the Servants from the side, she realized too late that their movements had put the creatures downwind. The animals that had been hunting the cluster of Sangheili in the brush swiftly picked up the scent of the three youths and began following them instead. Molly started to tremble, but steadied her hands.
The animals kept their distance at first, staying roughly two hundred meters away. They were curious and not yet ready to commit themselves to an attack—but whether they had been spotted did not matter to them. These animals would win the fight against the three of them either way.
Molly wanted to move forward and concentrate on getting back Bakar and Prone. Yet, she knew that if Kareem, Gudam, and she let their guard down, the animals would be on them in a second.
She breathed a measured sigh of relief when they finally approached a pair of glowing energy swords clashing with each other, roughly a hundred meters ahead. She didn’t know what had set two of the Servants brawling, but they had given up their position and Molly hoped the three of them would be able to keep up with the Servants from there.
“Are those things back there hunting us?” Gudam said in a whisper. “I wouldn’t ask, but it seems like they are, and if they are, then that might mean something for an idea I have.”
“It looked like they were tracking the Servants first.” Kareem gave the creatures a sidelong look. “But now that you’ve said that . . .”
“What’s your idea?” Molly asked.
“We just need to get on the other side of the Servants. Between them and wherever they’re going. If we can do that, we might be able to use those beasts to solve our Servants problem, if you know what I mean,” Gudam said, with hope in her eyes.
“You’re gonna try to attract those things into the Servants’ path?” Kareem said with a worried look. “And then see what happens? That sounds really risky.”
Gudam nodded and then—without another word—took off in a clambering sprint using her forelimbs. She headed in a wide arc around the Servants’ current position, circling about the flat hill they’d stopped upon. Molly and Kareem followed as quickly and quietly as possible, glancing back at the animals in their wake. The grasses were tall enough to almost entirely hide the Unggoy, and the encroaching darkness gave her additional cover as well—but both Molly and Kareem were fairly exposed to the creatures’ view.
Molly and Kareem were about halfway around the Servants when she realized that Gudam’s plan had a flaw. “What’s going to happen when the creatures are done with the Sangheili?” she asked, peering at them over Kareem’s shoulder. “Won’t they just turn on us?”
“Probably,” Kareem said with a shrug.
Despite her reservations about the plan, Molly realized they’d run out of time. Evidently, the two predators had become bored with the pursuit and were now moving toward them faster. They had fixed their feline eyes on Molly and Kareem, and they would not be denied any longer.
The creatures sped up as they approached from a hundred meters, their strong, muscular legs pumping like those of the great cats Molly had seen on Earth. Her heart began to thud in her chest as she lifted her weapon alongside that of Kareem.
One hundred meters became eighty.
The creatures got closer with every beat of her heart. When she fired, she knew it would alert the Sangheili, and then she and Kareem would be trapped between the Servants of the Abiding Truth and a pair of massive animals that seemed to be evolved to kill.
Fifty meters became thirty.
Molly opened fire.
Her plasma rifle pulsed in her hand, sending superheated energy into the face of the nearest creature. The blast stitched a line of burns across the snout of the front-runner, and the beast skidded to a halt, howling in pain. Its companion stopped right beside it, unharmed but now wary.
The creatures were now roughly twenty meters away. The one Molly shot dragged its enormous paw across its face, as if it could wipe away the burns. She wondered if it was the first time the thing had actually felt pain and it simply didn’t recognize the sensation.
“Good work,” Kareem said, catching his breath. “But we’ve got company.”
She glanced over to where he was pointing and saw a handful of Sangheili stomping toward them, twice the distance away as the large cats.
One of the warriors shouted something in Sangheili.
“Surrender, fledglings!” Dural’s voice came from beyond them, evidently demanding their su
rrender in Sangheili. As he approached, he stopped where he was and kept his energy sword on Bakar. One slight move, and he could cleave the young Sangheili’s head right off.
The handful of warriors who approached leveled their rifles at the two of them, and Molly knew that they were about to die right there, in the middle of nowhere. She considered fighting them—if she was going to die, it’d be pumping plasma into their chests—but Kareem took that decision away from her. He lowered the barrel of his rifle and pressed his hand on Molly’s until it was pointed toward the ground as well.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
With their weapons down, Kareem sidled away from the warriors—and sent an eye back at the creatures, whom the Sangheili hadn’t seen yet. “Just trying to figure all the angles,” he said in a hushed voice.
“Is giving up one of them?” Molly asked.
The Sangheili kept their weapons trained on them as they drew closer.
“Patience,” Kareem whispered. “Just hold still. When you hear the signal, follow me.”
“Signal?”
The Sangheili warriors approached with a mixture of curiosity and abandon. They didn’t want to relinquish their cavalier attitude for a couple children, but yet they didn’t quite know what to make of them. Molly and Kareem were half their size—but they bore weapons too.
“You should not have followed us,” Bakar called out to them. “Leave me to my fate!”
The closest of the warriors pointed his storm rifle at Molly’s head. With Kareem’s hand still on her weapon, she stopped arguing and finally let it fall limp in her hands.
She gave Kareem a sidelong glare. “Go ahead with that signal anytime now.”
“It’s not mine to give,” he said with a knowing smile.
Molly stood there confused for just an instant, but when she realized what he meant, her eyes went wide. “Seriously?”
Precisely then the signal sounded.
From somewhere on the other side of the Sangheili, Gudam screeched at the top of her lungs. The warriors coming for Molly and Kareem spun around to see what was making the deafening sound. When they did, Kareem grabbed Molly by the arm and hauled her into the tall grass at a breakneck pace.
