by Dante King
I closed the distance quickly, and as I did, their eyes grew bigger and bigger. When I was close enough, I smacked the first one on the side of his helmet with the flat of my blade, and he fell to the ground unconscious.
“Do not kill the Jacob!” the king screamed at his guards. “Must live and fight for new king!”
The second enemy turned to run, but he was still close enough for me to crack him on the top of his helmet. The loud gong from the impact probably deafened him. He went down hard, right on his face. He’d have a mouth full of dirt and weeds when he woke up but at least he’d live to see tomorrow.
A few feet to my right, Beatrix clobbered a guard hard enough to dent his helmet. I wasn’t sure if he’d make it out of the fight or not, but her hammer wasn’t glowing, so she was giving our enemies a chance to live. Her second opponent fired his rifle and winged her in the hip. That earned him a not-so-soft kick to the groin, and he squealed before passing out.
“You okay?” I asked.
“It’s just a scratch,” she assured me before she dove to one side to avoid another energy bolt.
Skrew had found a big stick somewhere and was standing in front of Yaltu, brandishing it like he was ready to clobber someone. Not for the first time, I was grateful I’d rescued him from slavery and certain death. The little bastard had spirit.
“Capture the Jacob!” the would-be king bellowed as he pointed at me.
He wasn’t paying attention to Reaver, who was battering her way through his troops with two helmets, one in each hand. Every swing of her arm resulted in the sharp, metallic noise of helmets crashing together at high velocity. Guards staggered left and right, and every time they brought a weapon up, she batted it aside before giving them another whack to the brain-bucket.
Four of her opponents ran for it but made the mistake of fleeing toward me. One fired a shot in my general direction. When Ebon intercepted the angry hyphen of energy, the bolt disappeared, absorbed by the Void-tech weapon. A vrak tried to run past me, but I caught him by his nose, picked him up by his face, and slammed him into the ground. He started snoring almost immediately.
The second guard tried to slam on the brakes, slipped, and ended up at my feet. He smiled sheepishly, and I smiled back before I slapped the side of his helmet and knocked him out cold.
I heard Yaltu yelp and turned to see two vrak closing in on her and Skrew. The vrak were unarmed, but they were strong, and I wasn’t sure Skrew, a stick, and the gentle dragon-tamer with a glorified firepoker could fight them off.
I quickly searched the ground, selected a fist-sized rock, took aim, and chucked. The projectile arced through the air, hit the first guard slightly left of center on his helmet, ricocheted, and hit the other right below his pointed ear.
The first guard went to his knees but didn’t go all the way down until Skrew jumped on his head and started pommeling him with tiny fists.
“Take that!” he said as he punched. “And that!”
Skrew continued to pepper the vrak, who I was sure had been unconscious from the moment my rock had struck him.
With all the guards down, the last opponent I needed to deal with was the king.
The fat vrak cowered into the back of the rickshaw as if he could somehow force his way through the fabric and metal and disappear from sight.
“Look at me!” I growled. The king tried to cower even deeper but only managed to curl himself a little further into the fetal position.
“I said look at me!”
He did, with one watery eye. “Please no kill. Please, no.”
“He can kill dumb not-king,” Skrew added helpfully. “He kill Dummytrios. Kill him dead. I say he kill you too. Maybe he pull legs off and eat. Maybe he like vrak-meat.” Skrew crossed his arms, satisfied with his own logic.
I leaned in toward the shivering king. “What is your name?”
“Is called Graggle,” he said.
“And why do you think you’re the king?”
Graggle shrugged. “Nobody else king. Demetrios dead. Someone to be king. So, Graggle say he king now.” He paused and squinted at me. “But maybe Graggle not king?”
“Maybe not,” I agreed, doing my best to keep an angry expression on my face. I wasn’t sure if the alien knew what an angry human looked like, but he seemed to. He was just a charlatan who’d managed to convince over 20 vrak to serve him—he wasn’t doing too badly, all things considered.
“Maybe you king, strong human?” Graggle asked me. “You kill Demetrios, so you king now?”
I considered the question. I didn’t want to be king; I wanted to find the rest of my crew and my Marines. But I didn’t want to leave a power vacuum for some warlord to exploit either.
“Graggle heard how king die,” Graggle continued, “but Graggle did not see. Graggle was in prison.”
I glanced down at the vrak’s round belly. “You’re awfully round for being in prison. How long were you there?”
“Seven horrible long cycles,” the vrak said.
“And what did you do to get thrown in prison?”
Graggle let out a deep, shuddering sigh. “Did sell Ish-Nul and Kakul slaves for king. But not all sold.”
He closed his eyes in shame, and I tried to keep my fury at bay. Hearing that he was a slaver made me want to jettison my plan in favor of a swift execution.
“What do you mean you didn’t sell all of them?” I managed to say through gritted teeth.
He kept his eyes closed and raised a hand as if to ward off the lethal blow he was certain was incoming.
“Did set some free,” he whimpered. “Not like to make slave. Not like to sell. But need eat, yes? Did set free and make big lie. Said slave died, but they not.”
I wanted to send my fist through his head and out the other side. I wanted to roll him up in a ball and toss him into the middle of the lake. I wanted him dead, and I wanted it badly.
It was difficult, but I refocused my attention on the present situation. My head was filled with the image of a woman in chains—Enra, the woman I’d rescued from a vrak slaver named Cobble. The image swirling through my mind only fanned my battle-lust.
“If you didn’t like slavery, why didn’t you find something else to do?” I asked.
“Not can do else.”
Graggle pointed to his feet. They were hidden inside soft-looking gray slippers. I stared at them for a moment and wondered if he was trying to tell me he was too soft and pampered to do anything other than sit on his ass. He quickly pulled one of his slippers off, and I understood.
Where his feet should have been, were pink, bulbous scars. Either his feet had been cut off, or, more likely given the shape of the scars, they’d been chewed off by some kind of creature.
He was right. There wasn’t a lot he could do other than talk and use his mind. Not without someone to build him some artificial feet, and I hadn’t met many altruistic folks on this planet.
But it was clear as day what I had to do. I needed to get to the Ish-Nul. I needed to see if Enra was okay.
Guilt and worry warred for dominance inside my heart. But I still had to handle Graggle. He said he was king, and he seemed to have the other vrak under his sway. If he was truly capable of leading a large group of vrak soldiers, maybe he could also lead the others who lived in Brazud.
Except I didn’t want to feed his ambitions. Making him a king would only serve to fertilize the germinating seed of corruption within him.
“You were right,” I said to Graggle, “I am the new king of Brazud.”
I looked at Yaltu, expecting her to protest, but she was smiling. Her father had been the leader of Brazud before Demetrios, and her lineage meant she was the rightful ruler. The look on her face confirmed my suspicion that she had no interest in ruling.
I returned my attention to the cowering vrak. “Go back to my city and tell the others that King Jacob has assigned you as his sheriff. Do you know what a sheriff is?”
Graggle nodded.
“These vrak
will be your deputies.” I gestured at the aliens in various states of unconsciousness on the ground. “You will bring peace to the city by enacting and enforcing my laws. The most important law is that there are to be no more slaves. All slaves are to be set free. And there will be no more executions until I return and appoint judges. Hire workers to rebuild the wall and the buildings. Pay them a fair wage out of the king’s treasury.” I paused. “I have a treasury, don’t I?”
Graggle nodded.
“And make statue to Jacob!” Skrew shook a finger in Graggle’s face. “And bowl of fruit—purple, not red—for to eat. Red is not for eat. Purple is for eat. Red is bad. And cheese. And shiny, new hammer for to make birdhouse! And—”
I cut Skrew off with a hard glance. He pressed his lips together tightly.
I noticed a few of the guards beginning to stir. They looked around in confusion, then fear, then confusion again. They were probably wondering why they were still alive.
Graggle nodded. “If the people not listen?”
I sighed. I hoped it wouldn't come to that, but if it did…
“Then, you make them listen.”
I understood that sometimes force was necessary to rule. I didn’t have to be entirely comfortable with it, but I took pride in my grasp of the reality of politics.
“No kill Graggle?” he asked.
“No kill Graggle,” I confirmed. “You are my sheriff now. Do you understand?”
He nodded and slowly uncurled from the fetal position as I took a step back and turned away from him.
“Oh, just one thing,” I said as I turned back around. “If you betray me—if you treat the people like Demetrios treated them, or if you don’t free every single slave in the city—I’ll cut your head off and use your skull as a soup bowl. My personal soup bowl. Do you understand?”
I didn’t know vrak could blanche until Graggle did.
He nodded vigorously. “Graggle will do. Graggle will free. Graggle honored.”
He bowed his head, and the guards behind him whispered among themselves. Most of them were standing. They looked at their opponents—warriors who had spared their lives—to their king, and back again, unsure of what they should do next.
“Hail!” Graggle bellowed. “King Jacob! King of Brazud!”
The guards stared at me for several seconds before one of them kneeled. A second later, the rest followed suit.
“Do not kneel,” I told them. “You’re not slaves anymore. You are free.” I stopped when I realized I’d just made myself the ruler of a monarchy, and kneeling was the kind of thing subjects did to a king. But I wasn’t really King, nor did I want to rule Brazud, so I decided to let it slide.
The guards stood and gave each other haunted looks. Deep down they probably thought they weren’t really free. And they didn’t seem sure what to do with their freedom.
“Fill them in,” I said to Graggle. “I have somewhere to be. And the city had better be in good shape when I get back.”
“Graggle will obey.” He offered me another bow.
Then, he began counting items on his fingers: “Graggle will fix town. Make pretty. Free slaves. Find fruit. Make statue. Many cheese.”
I opened my mouth to protest the last few items he ticked off… but I did love some good cheese.
Chapter Two
The woods began to thin as we traveled further north toward the Ish-Nul village. Enra and her people had been through a lot. With all the trouble I’d caused recently, I wanted to ensure they weren’t the beneficiaries of the revenge I expected.
The culture of slavery had become integral to the entire population of Druma, even for those who didn’t support it. And the Ish-Nul, the most noble of all the people I’d met, had been subjected to more than their fair share of hostility.
Where the landscape had become rocky during winter, colorful saplings were sprouting from cracks in rocks and even seemed to grow from thin air.
The seasons shifted rapidly on this planet, and one that approximated spring had awoken.
What I’d thought were the airborne seeds of something analogous to dandelions became distinctly different when I attempted to brush one away from my face. The thing flexed, fluttered, and worked hard to escape. It curled and twisted through the air before it was captured by a breeze and vanished from sight.
The same breeze brought dozens more across my path. I didn’t see any fangs, stingers, or other indication they might be a threat, but they were new to me, as were the strange flowers. Some flowers hummed when I got close. Others curled into woody spheres and rolled a few inches before sprouting again as they tried to avoid being stepped on.
A few moments later, when another swarm of the fluffy not-seed things drifted past, Yaltu made it clear they weren’t a threat by batting them away from her face. Skrew confirmed it by picking them out of the air and eating them. He ate a lot of things I wasn’t interested in trying.
Beatrix, Reaver, and I had no problem with the altitude, but Yaltu and Skrew struggled. Both were unable to keep up with our rapid pace, so we slowed a bit. We ate what Reaver and I killed, but our diet was mostly seeds, bird eggs, and wrinkled animals Yaltu called shiggits.
Shiggits weren’t much to look at. They resembled rabbits, if you crossed them with an old man’s saggy ass, added fur, an extra eye on one side, and fangs where cute carrot-nibbling teeth should have been. On top of that, they didn’t have much meat. But what they did have tasted good. Skrew, never the picky eater, gobbled them up like he’d been eating them all his life. He ate the parts the rest of us rejected, too.
Their fur was soft and smelled of fresh hay. Yaltu spoiled Reaver’s dreams of turning the furs into clothing, though, by informing her that it was far too thin and went bad too quickly to make anything out of it.
As we progressed through the spring landscape, I thought of Enra and her people. The last time I’d visited them, my first impression was of power. They had caught a fish the size of a Marine barracks back home on Mars. If properly preserved, I was certain it would last the village a year, probably longer.
“I didn’t know there were humans here until I was forced into the arena,” Reaver said as we marched north. “I’ve never heard of the Ish-Nul. How many are there?”
“I’m not sure, and not just because some of them have been taken. I’d say at least 60, though. It’s a small village, but they’re efficient. You have to be when you live on rocky ground that’s difficult to farm. The ground up here is probably frozen most of the year and though there’s plenty of meat, vegetables are in short supply.”
“You seem to know a lot about them.”
“The first kind face I met on Druma was an Ish-Nul woman. She brought me back to her people and showed me their ways.”
“Skrew first kind face,” Skrew interjected.
“Like I said, the woman I saved was the first kind face I encountered.” I gave Skrew a playful shove, and he skittered along the ground before glaring at me.
“They don’t see the outside world much,” I continued. “They trade when they need to but pretty much keep to themselves. I think if they had a choice, they’d rather live where the ground is better for farming. But up here, they get their privacy, they aren’t as easy to attack, and bandits have a hard time reaching them.”
The landscape began to look more familiar. I wasn’t completely certain we were heading directly for the Ish-Nul, but I knew we were on the right path. I also knew that if we had to, we could walk along the beach and be sure not to miss the village.
“Took you long enough,” a deep voice suddenly said from the darkness of the woods to our right.
I drew Ebon, cursing myself for allowing an opponent to get so close unnoticed. Beatrix took a position behind me, while Reaver pulled Yaltu and Skrew into the center of our defensive formation.
A movement to my right drew my attention, and I watched carefully as a tall, hairy shape emerged into the moonlight. It resembled a bear, but its fur was multi-colored and appear
ed to be multi-textured as well.
I sheathed Ebon and grinned. The women surrounding me didn’t put away their weapons until I gripped the man’s hand and hugged him.
“Timo-Ran,” I said after we parted. “It’s good to see you. You do realize you didn’t surprise me.”
The hairy man laughed. “You were surprised,” he said from somewhere deep within the fur.
“Nope,” I said as the women looked on with confused expressions. “But if you took a bath once in a while, maybe you could sneak up on something, like a rock… or a tree, maybe.”
I paused while the big man roared with laughter.
“How are you, friend?” I asked.
Enra’s large cousin leaned back, a stern look in his eye. “I think what you really want to know is how Enra’s doing.”
A hint of a smile showed itself through his long beard. His furs made him look as large as a bear, but even while wearing nothing but a leather tunic, he dwarfed every other man I’d ever seen.
I smiled. “Well? Is she here?”
My heart stopped for a moment when I considered what answer he might give. Had she been taken again?
Thankfully, Timo-Ran nodded. “She’s good.” He frowned. “But not all of us are.”
His gaze darted to several spots behind me. I turned and introduced him to Reaver, Beatrix, Yaltu, and Skrew.
Timo-Ran leaned in close. “You travel with a slaver?” he whispered in my ear. “Are you slaves? I could kill him now.”
“No,” I said. “His name is Skrew, and as far as I know, he was never a slaver.”
“No, never never,” Skrew said.
Timo-Ran sneered at the vrak. “The Ish-Nul will have a difficult time accepting him into the village,” he warned. “Your words will convince them, but they may never trust… Skrew. We were attacked soon after you left.”
“By who?” I asked, feeling my anger boil.
“We were felling trees in the forest when a party of vrak raiders stole several of our people and took them away. Thank the Dark Ones that we found some of them soon after. The evildoers suffered greatly for their sins.”
