Knight

by Timothy Zahn

  “Damn it,” she snarled under her breath as she regained her balance. Resettling her grip on the trident, she again leaned forward and charged.

  The result was the same. Again, Bungie caught her trident on his with a muffled clank. Again, he held her in place, then slowly pushed her back. This time, though, instead of letting herself be forced into a retreat, Nicole held her ground a second longer and ended up falling backward onto her rear.

  “Ow,” she bit out. She scrambled to her feet, grabbing the trident with one hand and rubbing her butt with the other. With her eyes narrowed in supposed pain, she watched Bungie’s face closely.

  There it was, exactly as she’d expected and hoped: a small, superior, sadistic smile. He’d shown her his strength, he’d proved she couldn’t win, and he’d made her look foolish.

  Now, finally, she was ready.

  She got her other hand on the trident, once again leaning forward and bracing herself for a new charge, clenching her teeth as she glared at Bungie. He gave her an amused smile in return and leaned forward again into his own stance. Revenge against Jeff was still in the cards, but humiliating Nicole was satisfying in its own way and he was in no hurry for this part of the fun to end.

  Taking a deep breath, leaning even farther forward, Nicole charged.

  Bungie leaned forward in anticipation, his rear foot pressed against the ground. Once again, their tridents smashed together with a thud.

  But this time, instead of continuing to push forward, Nicole let go of the trident and threw herself forward, ducking and twisting around as she went.

  Bungie was caught completely off guard. With his full weight already leaning forward, the sudden loss of pressure against his trident sent him stumbling helplessly toward her. He swung his trident down, but Nicole was already past the shaft.

  And with a half rotation that put her back to him, she slammed full force into his legs.

  There might have been a soft crack as she knocked his legs out from under him. If so, it was swallowed up in his bellowed curse and the crash of small branches as he fell over her to land flat on his face on the ground.

  Nicole didn’t wait to see any more. She scrambled back to her feet, ducked around the trees, and ran through the undergrowth toward the beach. Heart thudding, she cleared the last line of trees and came into view of the battle line.

  To her relief, there was no sign yet of the Koffren. The Ponngs and Thii were still standing ready in the positions Jeff had assigned them in the open area past the reeds.

  But while their bodies might be facing the beach, all six of the aliens were peering over their shoulders back toward her. Maybe her brief fight with Bungie hadn’t been quite as quiet as she’d thought. Jeff himself, she noted uneasily as she slowed to a trot, was nowhere to be seen. Still gathering up the tridents?

  If so, he’d better hurry. The Koffren were still on the beach; but where they’d been crouched down earlier examining Bennett’s body one was now standing and the other was in the process of pulling the sword out of the dead man’s chest. Another few seconds, and they would be heading upslope.

  There was a rustle of reeds behind Nicole. She half turned, expecting to see Jeff—

  And twisted away barely in time as something hurled past her side.

  She stumbled, falling to one knee in the reeds, wincing as her back and knee spasmed in pain from the sudden wrenching movement. Through the trees Bungie appeared, his face contorted with fury and pain, a trident held close to his side like a crutch. “Yeah, run, bitch,” he bit out as he limped toward her. “Run, and keep running, because you’re dead. You’re dead.”

  Nicole looked at the beach. The Koffren were both standing now, watching the drama. Not attacking, not charging, but just standing there, looking up the slope.

  Waiting to see what Nicole would do.

  She looked back at Bungie. She could fight, she knew. The Shipmasters had already seen her and Jeff fighting in the Q4 arena, and they’d already heard the brain-damage story she’d spun for them. The rest of the humans were still doped up, unlikely to even know what was going on, let alone come to her aid. She could fight without endangering anyone else.

  But she couldn’t win. She’d had one trick, and she’d already used it. If she waited for Bungie to get to her, she would die.

  But if she ran, would the Ponngs and Thii still be willing to fight? Moile and Teika had pledged themselves to her, and only her, and the Thii seemed to be likewise under the Maven’s orders to obey her. If Nicole left, would they, too?

  She took a deep breath. Maybe the Ponngs and Thii understood the concept of martyrs. Maybe they honored them. Maybe they didn’t.

  But she didn’t doubt for a moment that they understood the concept of cowards.

  She would do her best to survive Bungie’s attack. But whether or not she succeeded, here was where she would stay.

  Bungie was halfway to her now, still limping but showing no sign of slowing down. Nicole glanced behind her at the trident he’d thrown, wondering if she had time to run and get it. But he’d thrown it hard, and even at his reduced speed she knew she’d never reach it in time.

  She turned back, eyeing the trident in his hand, trying to plan out her move. Assuming he stopped when he got within range and lifted it up for an attack, she would rush forward and try to duck past the prongs and grab the shaft. If she succeeded, she would throw herself against him and hope that his knees and shins had been injured enough that she could bowl him over onto his back. If she got that far—

  There was the sound of a scratched record. “Stop.”

  A Thii voice? Frowning, Nicole looked at the battle line.

  The Thii were no longer facing the beach and the Koffren. Instead, all four had turned to face Bungie.

  And all four were holding their bows, the strings pulled back with arrows ready to fly.

  She felt her muscles tense. A brave move; except that she knew the arrows were all but useless. Their pointed tips would hurt, but they would barely penetrate Bungie’s skin. They certainly wouldn’t slow him down.

  Only he was slowing down, she saw as she turned back. He slowed to a cautious halt, his face and his burning rage now directed at this new threat. “Back off, bugs,” he snarled. “You shoot those things and I’ll pull your damn legs off.”

  And only then did the truth belatedly hit her. The Thii arrows were indeed useless.

  But Bungie didn’t know that.

  “I wouldn’t push them if I were you,” she warned, putting as much scornful confidence into her voice as she could. “I assume you haven’t forgotten the last time you had to have an arrow dug out of you?”

  Bungie turned his glare back on Nicole.

  But there was some fear there now behind the rage and pain. He remembered, all right.

  And as he stood there, hating everything and everyone, out of the corner of Nicole’s eye she saw Jeff burst into view through the trees. He got two steps into his sprint before his brain caught the whole scene and its significance, and he switched abruptly to a slower and much quieter jog.

  Bungie, with his full memory tied up with the arrow Sam had dug out of his leg and his full attention tied up with the four arrows currently pointed at him, never even heard Jeff coming.

  Nicole waited until Jeff was two steps away. “They’re watching,” she warned quietly.

  Bungie had just enough time to turn a puzzled look on her before Jeff reached around him from behind, wrapped both arms around his chest, and twisted him to the side and onto the ground.

  Nicole ran toward them. She’d been worried that Jeff would use some fancy Marine move on Bungie, like the kind he’d used to knock him out earlier, something the Koffren might recognize as military. But Jeff had apparently anticipated that risk and had instead gone with a simple bear hug to take him down.

  Of course, the downside of that was that Bungie was alive, alert, and still mad as hell. Right now, Jeff’s arms wrapped around him was all that kept him from trying to ki
ll everyone.

  Or maybe not. Even as Nicole reached them Bungie suddenly went limp in Jeff’s arms. “You okay?” Jeff grunted as he shoved Bungie away from him.

  “We’re fine,” Nicole assured him. “What did you do to him?”

  “Don’t worry, there’s no permanent damage,” Jeff said as he got to his feet. “Damn it. I should have been here.”

  “It’s okay,” Nicole said. “It worked out. Thanks to them,” she added, turning to the Thii and lowering her head in a small bow. “Thank you.”

  “It was our privilege, Sibyl,” Misgk said, bowing in return.

  And only then did it occur to Nicole that, while Bungie hadn’t known the Thii were bluffing, the Thii themselves had been perfectly aware of it.

  Challenging Nicole’s attacker had been courageous in and of itself. Challenging him knowing they might die if he called their bluff was a whole step more so.

  She still didn’t know if the aliens understood the concepts of martyrs and cowards. But she knew now they absolutely understood the concept of heroes.

  “Here they come,” Jeff grunted. “Everyone, get ready.”

  Nicole looked at the beach. With the sideshow over, the Koffren were on the move, their swords swinging idly in their hands as they walked briskly toward Nicole and the battle line. “What about Bungie?” she asked, looking down.

  “I’ve got it,” Jeff said. He’d rolled Bungie over onto his stomach and was tying his wrists together with pieces from one of the nets. “And watch it. The only way he could have gotten free was with help.”

  “One of the green team?”

  “Or one of the Shipmasters,” Jeff said grimly. “The netting was cut, and as far as I know we don’t have any tools here that could have done that.”

  Nicole nodded and stepped to the left end of the battle line beside Moile. “Everyone ready?” she asked, looking them over. Ponngs on the ends, tridents in hand. Thii in the middle, bows and arrows ready. A four-foot gap between each of the aliens, allowing them room for action and maneuver while preventing the Koffren from taking out two with a single sword slash.

  “The Ponngs are ready,” Moile said.

  “The Thii are ready,” Misgk added. “Do you still wish us to begin with arrow flights?”

  “Yes,” Nicole said, fighting to get the words out through a mouth that had suddenly gone dry. This was it. “Make sure to fire some at their helmets—we want them to know for sure that the arrows can’t get though the holes.”

  “And the rest of the flights to their bodies?”

  Nicole nodded. “We want them to know they’ve got nothing to fear from you.”

  “But only from them?” Moile asked.

  Nicole winced. A good point. Once the Koffren realized the Thii weren’t a threat, they would presumably shift their focus to the Ponngs at the ends of the lines. “If we do this right, it won’t come to that,” she said.

  The Koffren were still walking casually, making no effort to hurry. Extreme confidence, or else giving themselves additional time to observe their enemies.

  Either was all right with Nicole. The delay gave Jeff time to finish with Bungie and take his place at the far end of the line beside Teika, Bungie’s trident now in his hand.

  Nicole had no idea whether or not his presence would make a difference. Given the attackers’ size, she sort of doubted it. Just the same, she felt better just knowing he was there.

  The Koffren reached the range she and Jeff had decided on … and it was time. “Archers: fire,” Nicole ordered.

  The words were barely out of her mouth, which put the translation still a fraction of a second away, when the four Thii sent their first volley on its way: two arrows into each of the Koffren, one chest, one helmet.

  The attackers didn’t even break stride. One of the arrows lodged briefly in the spokesman’s upper chest; a quick swipe of his hand brushed it away. Both of the arrows that hit the helmets, as Nicole had expected, bounced harmlessly off the metal.

  The first volley had barely gone spinning off into the sand when the second was in the air. The arrows sped into their targets with the same lack of effect. Nicole couldn’t see the faces inside the helmets, but she had the sense that the casual Koffren stride was now taking on a note of arrogance. They had nothing to fear from the defenders, and they knew it.

  They kept coming, ignoring the arrows that continued to rain uselessly on them. They were thirty feet away … twenty feet … ten …

  “Now!” Nicole snapped.

  The four Thii tossed their bows aside and spun around to put their backs to the Koffren. They dropped into low crouches, balancing on their lower arms—

  And digging their upper arms and feet into the ground, they began throwing sand behind them.

  Back in the Q3 arena, Nicole had been amazed at how fast they could go through the ground. But that had been packed soil, and without any particular urgency driving the action. Now, dealing with dry, loose sand and facing enemies who intended their deaths, it was like someone had opened four fire hydrants filled with pressurized grit.

  The Koffren were caught completely by surprise. They staggered back as bucketfuls of sand streamed into their helmets, passing through the holes with ease, blasting straight into eyes and noses and mouths. For a moment their forward movement turned into a confused halt as they twisted to their sides, swinging their swords uselessly against the onslaught, trying to turn their faces away from the blasts.

  But the move gained them nothing. As they twisted away, and as Nise and Iyulik kept up the barrage from their original positions, Sofkat and Misgk scampered around to the sides to where the Koffren were now facing and restarted their attack.

  Again, the Koffren tried to turn away. Again, the two Thii switched positions to compensate.

  Some enemies, half blind and half smothered, would probably have retreated. But she’d seen the Koffren spokesman’s attitude, and heard his words, and seen his casually cruel actions. These creatures were far too arrogant to ever admit even temporary defeat in front of an enemy they knew to be inferior.

  Given enough time, they would overcome the Thii attack. Nicole had no intention of giving them that time. “Ponngs: prepare!” she shouted, watching the Koffren closely as she backed up toward the trees.

  The Koffren might not be able to see, but they could clearly still hear. Spinning toward her voice, ignoring the continuing flood of sand into their faces, they raised their swords and charged.

  The Ponngs were ready. They gave way before the aliens’ charge, staying between the attackers and Nicole. Nise and Iyulik likewise ended their sand barrage, dodging to the sides to get out of the way as the Koffren ran through the spots where they’d just been digging. “Ponngs: prepare!” Nicole shouted again, noting the small shift in direction as the Koffren again homed in on her voice. Blind, all right, relying entirely on sound. “Ponngs: prepare!” The Koffren stumbled a bit as they left the sand of the beach and came up onto solid ground. They regained their footing and continued on.

  And in perfect coordination Moile and Teika stopped their retreat, dug the blunt ends of their tridents into the ground behind them, and dropped the prong ends to about a foot above the ground facing the charging Koffren. The attackers’ legs slammed into the tridents between the prongs, wedging them against the prongs’ bases.

  Once again, the attackers were taken completely by surprise. With one leg abruptly jammed to a halt, they fell in the same unison as the Ponngs’ attack, toppling forward to land flat on their faces with painful-sounding thuds and the crushing of reeds and grass. One managed to get one hand beneath him in time to partially break his fall; the other didn’t even get that far.

  For a moment they lay there, probably dazed, certainly with the breath knocked out of them. But Moile and Teika weren’t finished. The two Ponngs had danced out of the way as the Koffren fell, disengaging their tridents from the attackers’ ankles as the creatures slammed into the ground. Now, dodging around to the sides, the Pon
ngs lifted their tridents high and jabbed them downward, catching the attackers’ sword-arm wrists between the prongs. The prongs dug about halfway into the ground; holding on to the shafts, the Ponngs jumped up into the air and landed on the base of the prongs, burying them the rest of the way into the ground and trapping the Koffren’s wrists. Even as the aliens bellowed again, Jeff stepped up to the one at his end of the line and pinned down the alien’s other wrist.

  “Sibyl!”

  Nicole looked up. Misgk, with the Thii part of the battle over, had run over and retrieved the trident Bungie had thrown at her earlier. He threw it to her, putting the full weight of his slender body behind the toss. She caught the weapon and stepped over to the other fallen Koffren. It was the spokesman, she saw, Bennett’s blood still red on his sword.

  For a stretched-out second she gazed down at him, lying helpless on the ground before her. Nearly as helpless as Bennett had been.

  The plan had called for the defenders to merely immobilize the Koffren. But there was no reason that plan couldn’t be changed.

  It wouldn’t be murder. It would be justice.

  Justice.

  Nicole wanted to kill this creature. She wanted desperately to kill it. She was the Fyrantha’s Protector. She could make decisions like this.

  But it wasn’t what her grandmother would do. It wasn’t what Jeff would do.

  It was what Bungie would do.

  Snarling under her breath, she lifted the trident high and jammed it into the ground around the Koffren’s other wrist. She jumped on the base twice, making sure to bury the prongs completely. For another moment she gazed down at her enemy, feeling her hands starting to shake with reaction, then looked up.

  Jeff was standing silently to the side, watching her. A relieved smile touched his lips, and he gave her a small nod. “What now, Protector?”

  Nicole took a deep breath. Protector. “Fievj!” she called toward the sky. “Fievj, answer me!”