by Dante King
I’d had enough.
I caught the kakul’s hand, spun him around and dragged the blade across his throat. His blood poured between my fingers and over my hand. When he stopped struggling and gurgling a few seconds later, I dropped his lifeless corpse to the grass.
“Anyone else?” I asked.
One of the politicians screamed, which sent the others into a headlong panic. They ran in every direction except toward my team. One tried to climb a tree, decided that wasn’t a good place to hide, and sprinted down a dirt path away from us toward the tower.
Another two took temporary shelter behind a gazebo, realized it didn’t provide any cover or concealment at all, and sprinted toward an outside wall. When they reached it, one of them found a small button, pressed it, and a door slid to the side, revealing a small office. Both ran inside and closed the door behind them.
Well, at least they were out of the way.
“Uh-oh,” Nyna said.
I was about to ask what that meant when the question was answered. Panels on the high ceiling began to open up, and from them, metal shapes began to extend, unfold, and take shape. So Tortengar had an automatic security system. One of the guests must have triggered an alarm. I counted no less than 20 dual-barreled guns pointed in my team’s direction. They weren’t energy weapons. I could see their muzzles. They were good, old-fashioned, magnetic slug-throwers.
The rest of the politicians had vanished, probably into their offices within the exterior walls of the dome. They weren’t my immediate problem. I could always deal with them after the city was freed. What I had to deal with at the moment was 20 rapid-fire gauss cannons aimed in my direction.
“Almost got it,” Nyna murmured under her breath. I wasn’t sure what she was up to, but I hoped she would hurry.
I couldn’t order my team to run while I tried to draw fire. There were too many guns for that, and since they appeared to be automatically controlled, I doubted they’d fall for it. Not only that, but even if they moved fast enough to get into the antechamber and get the door closed in time, they wouldn’t all fit. At least two, maybe three, would have to stay in the dome and try to avoid being killed. I’d stay, but I wasn’t sure I could order any of them to risk death with me.
Gauss cannons were capable of launching steel or alloy slugs at incredible speeds. There were some the Martian Navy used that could catapult a 40-pound rod of titanium at one twentieth the speed of light. Though I didn’t think the ones pointed in my direction were capable of that, it couldn’t hurt to assume they could. In any case, it was likely they could fire a heavy enough volume that I wouldn't have a chance to block them all with Ebon. There would be no absorbing the heavy slugs.
I gritted my teeth and quickly drew my sword when the first gun made a sound, then a second, and a puff of smoke erupted from near its rear. Then, bursting like popcorn, the rest of the guns did the same thing. My team and I held our collective breath for several seconds before Nyna coughed dramatically.
“Well,” she said, looking at me, “you can relax now. But do you want the good news or the bad news first? ”
I kept one eye on the nearest gun and sheathed Ebon. “Let’s start with the good news.”
“Well, you see, I tried to tell the guns to go back in their little gun-holdy things, you know? But they said no. So, I insisted, sort of. They said no again. Then, I gave them a really tough problem to solve, you know, just to keep them busy. While they were thinking about it, well, not really them, but the computer that told them to shoot us, I started poking around. Then, I found the power system, so I tried to shut them down. It didn’t work. So, I tried to shut the big computer down. That didn’t work either. So, I told the power system that I was the server, and I tripled the voltage going to the guns. That worked, I think we can all agree. Did you see the smoke? That’s never a good thing for electronics, you know?”
“That’s good,” I said, waiting for the other shoe to fall.
Nyna sighed. “Right. The other thing. The guns are on the same circuit as the fountains. Those are gone, too. They were so pretty, weren’t they?”
Skrew laughed.
Nyna shot him an angry look.
Skrew stopped laughing.
I sighed in relief. It was time to move on to our objective. Tortengar was trapped in the dome with us, and, as far as I knew, he had no way to escape—almost all of it thanks to Nyna.
“It’s time to remove the Vizier from his throne,” I announced. “His reign has come to an end. Let’s get the bastard before he can do any more harm.”
The team cheered. Their voices were amplified by the shape of the dome, and it made me proud. I had no doubt Tortengar knew we were there. He probably had tiny cameras hidden all over the place. He’d seen what I was willing to do and what my team could do. But I hadn't shown him my best tricks yet.
I took a step toward the tower and froze in place. I sensed something. The air felt different. It smelled different. The wind wasn’t quite right, and in the stillness of the room, I thought I could hear breathing coming from all directions.
We were being stalked.
Chapter Eleven
The enemy was close. I could sense them even though I couldn’t see them. I felt their hunger, their excitement, and a little bit of fear. It was why they hadn’t attacked yet. They were building up the courage. They were forming a plan.
But there was only silence. It felt like my heartbeat was echoing off the walls, amplified by the shape of Tortengar’s dome.
The lights were dim. The lights in the trees twinkled merrily as if saying, No problem here, all is well.
All was not well. Not even close.
The politicians, bureaucrats, and administrators had all taken cover. That was fine. Though I wouldn’t have shed a tear if a few got eaten, I didn’t want to be the one to kill them. Most people were salvageable. Maybe they weren’t, but you never knew.
The five creatures—I could sense the five distinct mixes of emotions around us—knew who I was. Something about them being Void-touched allowed me to connect with them. I knew them, somehow. They knew where I was, though I sensed they couldn’t see anything at all, at least not in the normal sense of the word. They knew me as if we’d been raised together.
Reaver made her way to me with her eyes glued to the top of the tower. “Are you sensing what I’m sensing?”
“Yeah,” I said, “I think so. It’s strange, isn’t it?”
“They’re Void-touched, like us.”
“Go to smash?” Skrew asked. “Make Turdendumb into slippery spot on floor?”
“Yeah,” I said over my shoulder. “In just a minute.”
As I turned my head back, I caught a glimpse of Beatrix. She was crouched low, holding her rifle up to her shoulder as she searched for targets.
“Should we make the first move?” Reaver asked. “Get it all over with?”
“Um, guys?” Nyna piped up. “I think we have a problem.”
She was still wearing Spirit-Watcher. She was staring toward the tower, then she looked around. “Yeah,” she continued as she took a step back. “We definitely have a problem. I’m counting five problems, to be exact. Five unfriendly-looking problems, you know what I mean?”
“I know,” I said with a smile and a nod.
“On three?” Reaver whispered.
“Three!”
Reaver raised her rifle to her shoulder and began to fire rapidly into a thick copse of trees about halfway between us and the tower. I drew Ebon and charged toward the nearest presence. I found the creature hiding in a nearby stream. It was as black as my blade, the size of a small bear, and it slashed at me as I jumped over it.
The rest of the team erupted into motion, even Skrew.
When I landed, skidded to a halt, and turned around to face the dark creature, Timo-Ran was standing behind it with his big ax raised in both hands. The creature must have heard him because it arched its back and slashed the man’s leg, knocking him off his feet. I charg
ed in before it could make another strike, but the thing was fast and blocked Ebon with a single black claw. I slashed again, and it blocked again. I tried again, this time harder, but missed when the creature ducked the strike and lashed out.
I dodged and kicked, catching the thing on the hairy spot where its nose should have been. Whatever I hit, it was sensitive. The thing wailed and covered it with both hands, affording me an opportunity to slash again. I made impact but didn’t cut it in half like I was used to. Instead, the creature flailed and burst from the water, then ran back toward the tower.
“It’s a fadeen,” Timo-Ran said as he held his leg and tried to stem the flow of blood. “They’re spirit-creatures. Bringers of death. To even see one means you’ll die. They have to be killed, or everything you know, everyone you love… they’ll kill them all.”
Superstitions or not, the creatures were real. They were also tough.
Nyna ran up to us, took a moment to inspect Timo-Ran’s wound, and removed her backpack.
“I can fix a lot more than just tech and tools,” she said. “I’ll keep him alive.”
Good, I thought. Because I have three critters to kill. Then, I planned on taking one apart to find out why I could sense them. After I’d killed Tortengar, of course.
I found Beatrix fully engaged with one of the creatures, and I charged into battle to join her.
Every strike she made was being deflected. She was a spinning, twirling whirlwind of sparking red destruction, but the fadeen was unimpressed. At a distance, I was able to get a better look at its kind.
It resembled a human, except its arms, legs, and torso were too short. The hair that covered its body was matted and stuck to its narrow form like it had just climbed out of another creature’s giant ass. It had eyes, but they were set on the sides of its head rather than being in front. By the way it held its head, I wasn’t even sure if it needed them, or if it used another kind of perception to understand and track what was in its environment.
I came in behind the creature and stabbed at it. When it batted my blade away, I reversed my strike the same moment Beatrix reversed hers, but it blocked them both. We began walking around it as we attacked, forcing it to adjust with every strike. It was tiring quickly, and I knew it was only a matter of time before it made a mistake.
That’s when Skrew finally decided to join the fight. He pointed his arm toward the tower where one of the fadeen, the one I’d sliced, was tending to its wound, and opened his minigun.
BRRRRRT! BRRRRRT!
“Eat many bullets, ugly, furry stinky-head!” Skrew bellowed.
The beast evaporated into a cloud of dark-red mist and nasty black fur. Its presence—the aura of anger, hunger, and fear—vanished with it. They were tough, but they weren’t invincible.
“Ha!” Skrew laughed. “Made skinny baddy go poof and gross! Did Jacob see? Was like squashing nasty old fruit really hard, like how find under pile of other nasty fruit.”
“Yeah, good job, Skrew,” I said. “Now, kill another one!”
I was busy with my own fadeen, but Skrew was apparently too impressed with his own work to notice.
I took a position behind the creature, but it knew I was there and slashed at me. Beatrix punished the fadeen by bashing its paw away with her hammer. The creature wailed.
I stepped forward as I stabbed toward its throat, doing my best to advertise my intentions. It saw me and moved to block. At the last moment, though, I flicked Ebon’s point down and peeled a thick layer of flesh from its forearm. Beatrix finished it off with a hard smash from her hammer to its head.
The third had Reaver cornered, but she was giving it hell with her rifle. The energy weapons seemed to have limited effect on the creature, though. Smoke poured from the many impact points, but it continued to fight, though it did appear to be growing weak.
When it got too close, Reaver was forced to use her rifle to block the strikes. Although Beatrix and I were too far away to help, we were sprinting to her aid.
“Catch!” Beatrix said and threw her hammer toward Reaver, who caught it, ducked a slash aimed at her face, and delivered a power-hammer uppercut that knocked the creature to its back. She hit it one more time in the face for good measure.
“Was that a fadeen?” Neb-Ka asked me.
I nodded. “That’s what Timo-Ran said.”
“Where is Timo-Ran?” Tila asked.
“He’s over there,” I said, pointing to where I’d left him. “He was injured. Nyna is caring for him.”
Neb-Ka and Tila ran his direction. I stayed and checked on the rest of the team. Neither were injured, but they were a bit shaken. We walked back toward Timo-Ran.
“I have never fought a creature like a fadeen,” Beatrix admitted. “It was strong. It knew me. It could sense what I was thinking and what I would do. It felt like it was in my head.”
“Yeah,” Reaver said, “I got that too. Why would the Lakunae make them? They were primal, primitive. They weren’t the types of creatures the Lakunae could use to complete their mission. Not even close. They were clever, but they were also stupid. Glorified guard dogs.”
“What do you think?” Reaver asked me.
I thought about it for a while. We were close enough to see Timo-Ran standing on his own, showing the other Ish-Nul the spot on his leg where he’d been injured.
“I think there are a lot of mysteries when it comes to the Lakunae,” I said. “I also think we’re not as uncommon as we think we are.”
“Look here!” Timo-Ran said when we reached him.
His leather pants were torn where the fadeen had sliced him. They were bloody, as was his shoe and a big spot on the ground. But there was no wound. It was as though it had never happened.
I turned to Nyna, who was standing with her hands behind her back with pursed lips, doing her best to look cute. And boy was she nailing it.
“Did you do this?” I asked.
She nodded and showed me a small rod about twelve inches long and one inch thick. It was as black as Ebon but didn’t have any other distinguishing features.
“I call it my fix-o-stick,” she said proudly. “I discovered how it worked when the guards at the powerplant had me fixing a lock on a box they’d broke. I cut my finger pretty bad.
“I was pretty sure it was going to turn green and fall off just before it killed me. Oh yeah, of course they just sent me back to my room without even glancing at my gory finger. I lay there on the nasty hard thing they thought looked like a bed thinking about dying and fell asleep. When I woke up, I was all better. See? Not even a little discoloration left!
“So, I experimented. It sounds gross, but I gave myself a little cut. Then, I experimented with all the Void-tech in the room. It took a while, but I found it.” She started ticking things off on her fingers. “I guess that means I’m the Nyna, the medic, and…” she leaned close, and whispered in my ear, “your best lover.”
I kissed her neck and felt her shiver. “Later,” I whispered.
“All right you two,” Reaver scolded playfully, “we don’t have time for that right now. Tortengar still needs to die.”
“Too bad,” I said and Reaver, Beatrix, and Nyna giggled. “Let’s go kill Tortengar first. Then, we’ll talk about exactly how we’ll be celebrating later.”
I set us up in a diamond formation with myself at the leading point. It would provide protection from all sides. The fadeen were dead, but we didn’t know what other surprises Tortengar had in store for us. None of us could sense any, but our medic needed to stay in the middle, where she’d be protected.
The tower’s entrance glittered with shiny baubles and gold. An electronic keypad, also framed in gold, was mounted to the wall next to the entrance.
The tower itself was made of some kind of stone I didn’t think I’d seen before. It was gray like the walls but definitely wasn’t regular concrete. It had a reddish tinge to it and was warm to the touch.
“Damn,” Nyna said.
I turned and found
her hanging upside down from the mech’s arm, legs hooked over a conduit running across its shoulder. She was wearing Spirit-Watcher and held an unusual-looking tool in one hand.
“If you move again, I’m going to pull your power coupler,” she growled. “Then, you’ll have to stand there and wait as you slowly run out of air. Or you can stop moving and let me fix you!”
The vast room and all those present went silent as if the universe was holding its breath, worried what Skrew’s next move would be. A moment later, Nyna nodded her head in satisfaction and continued to work.
“Skrew is scared,” a whispered voice said over the comms. “Crazy Nyna lady make Skrew dead. Afraid to breathe.”
I stifled a laugh and said, “Then quit moving.”
“But Skrew has itchy spot what needs scratching!”
That time, I did laugh, and so did Reaver. Though I couldn’t see Skrew’s face through his canopy at that angle, I was pretty sure he wasn’t participating in the festivities.
“Is he going to be able to continue?” I asked Nyna.
“Yeah,” she grunted, “but his minigun isn’t going to last long. It’s taken some pretty bad damage. Plus, this thing looks like it was built from spare parts by a cross-eyed flint-knapper with one leg. I’m surprised it’s lasted this long. I had no idea how bad it was until parts started falling off. Overall, though, he’s in good shape. By he, I mean the mech. Skrew’s, well, Skrew, you know? So, if that’s normal for him, then yeah, he’s… stop moving!”
The mech flinched before returning to its motionless, frightened state, mimicking the mood of its pilot.
“Gimme a few minutes,” Nyna continued. “I’ve almost got this last part back on.”
A few minutes would give me long enough to decide what I was going to do next. No doubt Tortengar would be at the highest point in the tower. With any luck, we’d be able to sneak up on him. He’d probably be busy trying to figure out how to unlock his escape hatch so that he could run away.
“Done,” Nyna said before she climbed off Skrew. “You can move now, but you’d better be careful with your gun. I’m not sure how long it’ll hold, and I don’t have the tools or time to make you a new one. Use that thing only if there’s no other choice. Got it?”
