War-Dancer (Tales of the Commonwealth Book 4)

by Noel-Morgan, Tom

  For almost a full minute, they watched one another in an analysis of each other’s form and posture. The cunning Fu’Ryah purposefully misled the foreman by keeping her boarding-talons pointed at his eyes from mid-guard. This ensured that she gave him neither an assessment of their length nor an indication of her next move. He on the other hand overtly assumed a guarded posture, which indicated he would respond to a blow, rather than initiate one.

  Fu’Ryah smiled an unseen smile at his intent, and decided on what to do next. The unsavoury spectators standing all around them ached in anticipation, until their suspense was broken by the blindingly fast charge of the war-dancer. She shot herself forward at her opponent, feinting to the right to attract his strike.

  Unable to read her body language accurately, the foreman fell for her trap and struck the empty air, while she hit him twice on his left flank and moved away. The hits were palpable, but the foreman laughed scornfully. As for Fu’Ryah, though her blows had evidently landed accurately, and though they had ripped at the foreman’s suit, the reactive properties of the bioroid’s outfit had absorbed much of her power. He disdainfully brushed his side with fingers extended from his dagger’s handle as she backed away.

  Undiminished, the captain gazed at the impressive bioroid towering before her, and saw an opportunity to strike again. She thrust her slender body forth, ducking out of a clumsy slash of his dagger, and taking impulse on his left leg to soar briefly over the raging foreman. In response, the foreman snapped his whip to meet her, but she evaded it impossibly, just as she trapped his facemask with one of her hooks, twisting it out of the foreman’s face.

  As the apparatus was yanked out of the bioroid’s head, she bypassed him to reappear at his rearguard. The fearsome foreman turned hastily to face Fu’Ryah – his ugly phizog scraped from chin to forehead by her sharp hook – but as he did, the captain twirled her body to sink a talon into his exposed left side.

  The foreman recoiled with a yell and swung his off-hand at her in response. She dodged out of the foreman’s lumbering strike, retrieving her weapon from his side, and rolling away in one fluid motion. Nevertheless, while she recovered from her evasion, the aggrieved bioroid rushed to lash out at her with his sparkling whip. The hit merely grazed her, but the graze was enough for a jolt to surge through her body, and she screamed in pain. The surge drained her momentarily, and she dropped as if dead.

  The foreman followed up with a new crack of his whip, and Fu’Ryah avoided the assault by rolling away in the midst of lively sparks. She then threw her legs in the air to rise to her feet in one swift jump, whereupon the bleeding foreman reached out with a new slash. As soon as she landed, she instinctively crouched out of the way of the foreman’s voracious blade. Yet the bioroid switched his stance and managed to land a heel kick on her stomach.

  Though the inelegant blow was partly absorbed by Fu’Ryah’s reactive void-suit, the superhuman strength of the foreman was sufficient to throw her spinning away. She rolled to a stop near the edge of their improvised arena. Had she been made of lesser stuff, the transhuman may not have survived the blow. As it was, she got up.

  “That will teach you some manners,” grumbled the bioroid as he made toward his breathing apparatus. He was gasping and wheezing for air, and the thin atmosphere was already exerting a toll on him. Yet, before he could reach the contraption that had been painfully wrenched out from him, Fu’Ryah darted ahead of the foreman with a dive, and hooked the thing with one of her boarding-talons, catapulting it away beyond their improvised arena, as she got up again beyond his reach. If he was having trouble breathing the thin air, she wanted him to stay that way.

  The foreman snarled at the deed and summoned a berserk rage. He rushed recklessly toward the war-dancer, clobbering at her with whip, blade and fists, trying to get at her in any way that he could before he succumbed to the lack of oxygen. Fu’Ryah continued to evade the aggressive foreman’s attacks, voiding his blows and somersaulting out of his reach, until the hulking fiend growled in frustration and committed to one final all out strike.

  He delivered a new blow, at an ascending angle, that could have yanked her head off her shoulders, but she cross-parried it with the weapon on her right hand, so to strike back at the foreman with its twin. Fu’Ryah used her parry to spin her body over the balls of her feet, channelling the strapping bioroid’s own extraordinary strength against him. She added a whipping of her arm to the rotation, and the impact of her attack was such, that the rib-cage of the Black Rose foreman cracked inside his suit, and he collapsed at once, exhaling what little air he still had in his lungs.

  Fu’Ryah was stunned but she could tell that the foreman was already half dead with internal bleeding and more. She had seen it happen before a hundred times. He was no-longer a threat. Fu’Ryah’s audience, on the other hand, was exhilarated at the sight of her victory. The bioroid pirates in her crew wanted her to keep him alive and make him a slave, for the fierce foreman had slain several of their numbers during the raid and they wanted revenge. The transhuman portion of the throng witnessing the deadly duel started to shout and cheer Fu’Ryah, enticing her to take the foreman’s head as a trophy.

  She steadied herself and looked about and into the faces of her shipmates. Already she noticed that some were missing. Rejoicing in their thunderous display of admiration for her, she considered whether to spare the fierce foreman from a lifetime of torture or spare his life. She waited out of respect until he rose to his knees, and then – as blindingly fast as a bolt of lightning – she struck a downward mercy blow with the spike of a boarding-talon. As she retrieved her weapon from the base of his neck, her foe’s blood spurted out of the deep wound inflicted straight into his prodigious heart. The warm petrol-blue fluid embalmed the foreman’s dark-green suit and began to freeze almost instantly.

  Fu’Ryah then approached one of the war-dancers, took a breach-satchel from his harness, and ignited the body of the fallen foreman. The frozen corpse was instantaneously vaporized by the potent device, and all the spectators were silenced by the sight of it.

  “The show is over,” declared the ferocious Fu’Ryah. “We have work to do. Round up the slaves and load them into the barge.” As she barked-out her orders, she pointed at the damaged gateway to the mines with her bloodied weapon, and the crew witnessed the landed barge-module beyond. Ma’Gwa, Thorn and Zanzibar were already standing next to the lowered loading ramp, leading the first of the slaves inside.

  As the Scimitar’s crew disbanded and began to go about the business of freeing the slaves from their cells, Razor stood next to the foreman’s body, upset that Fu’Ryah’s duel had overshadowed his own cunning deeds during the raid. At this point, he hadn’t even stopped to consider his error of judgement that had almost cost them the enterprise. He chose instead to inopportunely mock Fu’Ryah’s gesture of clemency toward the Black Rose foreman for all to hear. “Shall we now build a pyre for all our fallen Black Rose foes and sing them hymns, captain?”

  An offence of this importance could not go unanswered, but the impressive Fu’Ryah had had enough bloodshed for one day. She withdrew the wild beast in her, lifted her facemask to reveal an even visage, and spoke to the perplexed Razor. “That there was a brave warrior,” she declared emphatically. “Any who dispute my decision may challenge me now, of forever hold his tongue.” She eyed Razor intently and the midshipman recoiled from her. He was spiteful, but he was not stupid.

  Fu’Ryah then picked up the foreman’s facemask, cleansed it of the blood staining it, and displayed it to everyone around her. “I will take his mask as my trophy, so as to remind myself that there are bold warriors even among our adversaries. Let it be known that they that fight with honour, will be treated honourably, and they that fight dishonourably, will be left to rot.” The skipper’s words echoed in their broken surroundings. They were met with sepulchral silence at first, but in an unexpected turn of events, the muffled sound of fists striking their combat gorgets signalled the universal approv
al of all the Blood Bond raiders.

  Then, while Zanzibar, Spiter and Ma’Gwa handled the loading of the prisoners into the barge, and while Razor greedily led a party to loot what they could from the Black Rose compound, Fu’Ryah retreated to her air-skiff escorted only by the first-mate. The two of them led their surviving vehicles – loaded with their wounded and the belongings of their dead – back to their extraction point, where the Scimitar waited to collect them.

  Zanzibar, Spiter and Ma’Gwa could handle the freeing of the Black Rose slaves on their own, and the looting that was already under way would run its course of its own accord. They day belonged to the crew of the Scimitar.

  Still, as they speeded over the frozen landscape of Titania, Fu’Ryah suddenly realised how costly their raid had been to them, and she regretted it. The transhuman captain threw away the trinket she had collected from the battlefield, for she wanted no memento of that day.

  *******

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  Brief Letter from the Author

  This piece is an excerpt from the novel entitled “The Fate of Libertatia” (ISBN-13: 978-1495990236), and I sincerely hope that you have enjoyed it. If you did, I invite you to get a copy of the entire narrative, so you can follow-up on the adventures of Captain Furyah and her crew of misfits. Also, don’t forget to rate this work and to share it with your friends. Your kind appraisal and comments will be greatly appreciated.

  Very truly:

  Tom Noel-Morgan

  *******

  Look for Other Titles

  The Fate of Libertatia – Get ready for action, blood and treachery! In the far reaches of the Solar System, escaped slaves & dissident pirates fight for their very lives against their own ancient brotherhood of cutthroats. What’s more: the mighty Commonwealth Legion is at their heels with all the strength of their warships. Having sold their souls for their freedom, the desperate lot of them has nothing else with which to bargain. With only cunning and determination on their side, they must best a galaxy that hunts them and endure the hardships of space travel if they mean to survive, but will that be enough? Treason lurks within the crew of the commandeered Corsair Scimitar. Captain Fu’Ryah and her quartermaster must quickly discover the insidious plot or face ignominy and death in the blood-stained arenas of Libertatia. This science fiction thriller by Tom Noel-Morgan will bring you to a time far into the future to savour the life of a space-pirate. ISBN-13: 978-1495990236

  The Deathworld Chronicles – Imagine a place so lethal that life-expectancy in the wilderness is no-longer than a day. Imagine a place riddled with earthquakes and killer storms, toxic fumes and poisonous spores. Imagine a place where every living, breathing thing is either a potential predator or a virulent parasite. Now imagine that place being wrought with unimaginable beauty. Deathworld Chronicles will take you to a paradise where we’re the aliens. There, where the wanting, the oppressed and the unwanted seek a fresh start and a new life away from the scrutiny of the stark Tudor Regime, the Intergalactic Hunter’s Club is the only thing that stands between man-eating predators and the settlers from Earth. To those who have braved the nine-year crossing to make Terra Nova their home, the lush paradise planet is nicknamed “Deathworld”. But there is more than meets the eye on Terra Nova and the jungles and caves of the lonely continent of Pangaea hide secrets the new denizens of the planet were not meant to learn. In the brutal planetary ecosystem, nothing is exactly what it seems. ISBN-13: 978-1494972585

  Time of Heroes: Age of Rebirth – It all happened once upon a time of heroes, a time when mankind was young again. The Goyan people rose from the ashes of the Great Sorrow, when the light of civilisation flickered and was almost extinguished. Technology, science and history were all turned to dust, along with Man’s mightiest empires. Those that endured through those troubled times did so at great cost. Civilisation itself crumbled and was all but lost in the purge that nearly ended the Race of Man, until a time immemorial – a time of myth and legend – came to pass. It was the Age of Rebirth, when mankind gathered in communities powered by wind, steam and commerce. Alas not all wickedness turned to ashes. Evil endured and thrived in exile. Ancient Goyan prophecy spoke of the day when false gods and false prophets would descend upon the land from the skies above, not to foster hope, but to divide, enslave and destroy. The prophecy foretold the coming of the mighty Slayers and their flying ships. It foresaw the destruction they would visit upon the land. What the prophecy did not foretell was the cunning of three young barbarians, their will to survive against all odds, and the strength of their desire to avenge their murdered people. ISBN-13: 978-1494255695

  MoaZR: Final Raid – Since the Zombie Riots and the Rot Syndrome exodus, nature has recovered from the abuses of mankind and there is no more war. The world nations are at peace with one another. They have bigger fish to fry, believe you me! 70 years after the Zombie Riots, the surviving nations of the world have all migrated to the Polar Regions, where the mutants can’t survive. Between latitudes 55º north and 55º south, there is a region known as the “Red Zone”, where hordes of zombies inhabit ghost cities in the hundreds of thousands. But you should know that there are worse things than zombies out there. Mutant creatures have evolved that prey and thrive on the flesh of ghouls. To these monstrous creatures, a regular bloke like you or me is as appetising a meal as any stinking zombie. Under the UN charter for re-colonisation of the Red Zone, independent adventurer-capitalists like myself and the crew of the freighter Forlorn Glory venture into the forbidden regions of the globe to seize resources and salvage equipment invaluable to the survival of mankind. We are known as “Zone Raiders”. In Book 1 of my memoirs, I’ll describe the last and most trying adventure that I had ever had in my career as a surveyor in the Red Zone, the journey that made me give up the trade. ISBN-13: 978-1494252700

  MoaZR: Revenge of the Raiders – Since the Zombie Riots and the Rot Syndrome holocaust, the world nations are at peace with one another, united in the mission to recover the world that was lost to us. But have you ever stopped to think of how improbable the chain of events that led to this outcome really was? I mean, everything between latitudes 55º north and 55º south is now off-limits to regular folk because it’s been taken over by zombies and the man-eating mutant monsters that feed on them. That’s mind boggling, is what it is, and so is the truth behind it all. You should know that the events recounted in Book 2 of my memoirs are the result of the events described in my first account “Final Raid”. You should also know that I’m no-longer bound by a non-disclosure agreement, so that I am free to discharge my mind about certain facts that I’ve stumbled upon. Be that as it may, like before, the incidents described herein are based on firsthand knowledge of these events and have been related to the best of my recollection. Unlike before, while the episodes herein portrayed continue to be of inherent “sensitive nature”, and while I was urged not to disclose them in full, I’ve decided that they are of public interest and cannot stay hidden. I guarantee to you that the disclosure of what you are about to read still entails great personal risk, for which reason you should not take what’s in this book lightly. ISBN-13: 978-1494253035

  MoaZR: First Raid – Since the Zombie Riots and the Rot Syndrome holocaust, nature has recovered from the abuses of mankind and there is no more war. The world nations are at peace with one another. Sounds like heaven, I know, but it really is not, for the price we paid was the end of the world as we knew it. In my previous books, “Final Raid” and “Revenge of the Raiders”, I’ve told you the tale of the botched-up trip that made me quit the zone raider trade, and I’ve then entailed to you the payback expedition that opened my eyes to the truth about Rot Syndrome. By this token, I imagine that I’ve given the reader enough subsidies not to take on the challenge of venturing between latitudes 55º north and 55º south, in the region known as the “Red Zone. However I feel this is not entirely fair, given that I fell in love with this very valuable profession, tattooed the zoner Jolly Rog
er on my left shoulder, and stayed a zone raider for more than 10 years before I got disillusioned with all of it. For this reason, in Book 3 of my memoirs, I’ll relate to you the tale of the trip that got me hooked on being a zone raider. It’s a tale of adventure and discovery, as I had never ventured into the Red Zone before that time. It’s also a tale about placing yourself where you’ll able to make a difference, and then actually making it happen, with all the tough choices that it often entails. Perhaps this will do justice to this very worthy and worthwhile career. ISBN-13: 978-1494253257

  MoaZR: South Africa – Since the Zombie Riots and the Rot Syndrome holocaust, nature has recovered from the abuses of mankind and the world’s nations are at peace with one another. They have bigger fish to fry, believe you me, if they intend to recover the portion of the globe that’s been lost to mankind. I’ve collected within these pages certain accounts that have transpired whilst I was a zone raider in the employ of Captain Diego Armando Aragón, working in the quality of surveyor, as part of the salvage team of the ZRS Gaya’s Pride, a refurbished offshore patrol vessel licensed to sail into the Red Zone for salvage and rescue operations, under the United Nations Red Zone charter and the RSM protocols. You’ll find herein the chronicles of my first expedition into Africa, which turned out to be the last trip I’d make alongside the crew and company of the Gaya. If you’ve read any of my previous memoirs, then you may recall that I often mentioned man-eating mutant African beasts as the most vicious ones in the entire region between latitudes 55º north and 55º south, which we all affectionately know as the Red Zone. You’ll also remember that I’ve claimed that some of the worst fiends I’ve ever met were not beasts, but regular folk like you and me. In this book you’ll see why. ISBN-13: 978-1502366689