“Hold on, Rusty,” Jarek said.
Krogoth seemed to debate responding to the nickname, then he turned to stare crimson at him.
“Gada,” Jarek said. “Ashida. Where are the bastards?”
“Kul’Gada has fled by ship,” Krogoth said. “I wager he waits in orbit for his kin.”
As Krogoth spoke, a ship swooped down overhead and settled to an easy landing close by.
“The traitor Nan’Ashida, on the other hand,” Krogoth said, eyes pulsing brighter, “has been spotted fleeing northeast. I go to repay his transgressions presently.”
Jarek traded a glance with Rachel, who turned to Alaric with grim determination in her eyes.
“May we?” she asked.
Alaric glanced back at Mosen again, then looked from Rachel to Jarek.
“Make sure you give him a hard boot up the ass from me?”
Jarek was opening his mouth to give an affirmative when Rachel cut in.
“I’m thinking we have better tools at our disposal,” she said, thumping her staff against the earth a few times.
Alaric tipped an imaginary hat in her direction, looking satisfied if not humored. “Have fun, then. Find me when you’re back.”
With that he stalked off in Daniels’ direction.
Jarek turned back to Krogoth. “So, need a hand then, comrade?”
“Hardly,” Krogoth said, turning for his ship. Without turning back, he added, “But you may join if you wish.”
“Let’s get the bastard,” Rachel said, with entirely more animosity than he was used to hearing from her.
Understandable enough, given what the bastard had done here today—not to mention that Ashida had sounded like an unbearable asshat to begin with.
So he nodded, and they followed Krogoth onto his ship. Two more raknoth boarded after them—Al’Brandt and one of Krogoth’s clan—and then they were off.
They caught up to Ashida’s forces a couple minutes and several miles later. The retreating convoy of ground vehicles couldn’t hope to outrun a ship. Ashida himself, on the other hand, might have stood half a chance.
He certainly tried.
No more than five seconds after the convoy drew into plain view of their ship, a dark figure with burning red eyes sprung out of the lead vehicle and took off northwest, bounding away from the convoy in a series of inhuman leaps.
Krogoth growled orders for the pilot to follow Ashida and for the other two raknoth to drop down and deal with Ashida’s convoy.
“No,” Rachel said to the latter order. “Enough people have died today. Those men are Ashida’s slaves, nothing more.”
Krogoth looked at her as if she’d just asked him to swear off human blood, but after a long moment, he tilted his head. “I care not what happens to that traitor’s puppets so long as Nan’Ashida meets his justice this day.”
And from the looks of it, that traitor was about to.
Like the rest of the raknoth, Ashida was fast, covering several dozen yards with each rapid bounce across the ruined city. Even with Fela, Jarek would’ve been hard pressed to run him down. With a ship, though, it was inevitable.
When they drew over him, Krogoth opened the ship’s side hatch, took careful aim, and dove. The ship bucked violently from the power of Krogoth’s exit. Below, Ashida touched down from a bounce and looked up just in time to take Krogoth’s tackle full on.
They slammed to the ground hard enough to crack the pavement beneath Ashida. The darker raknoth fought, but Krogoth swatted aside his blows, pulled him into the air, and threw him through the wall of an adjacent building before leaping out of sight to follow with a chest-rattling roar.
Jarek traded a wide-eyed look with Rachel. Once the pilot had brought them down to comfortable jumping height, he hopped out behind their two raknoth allies. Rachel landed beside him just as Ashida came flying out of the building like a dark missile.
He hit the ground like a skipping stone, headed in their direction. Jarek reached for his sword, but the two raknoth were already closing on Ashida. They grabbed him by the arms and hauled him to his feet, kicking and snarling.
“Fools!” he hissed. “You know the power of the Masters. You’ve seen what it costs to resist them.”
“And yet resist we did,” Krogoth’s voice drifted out of the dark building he’d ejected Ashida from. Krogoth emerged from the shadows and stalked toward them. “Kul’Armin is dead, slain by the hands of raknoth and humans alike.”
Ashida spat. “By blind luck and”—he glared at Rachel—“vile sorcery did you manage to stumble into victory against the Kul. It is folly to think it will happen even once more, and they are still eleven.”
Krogoth drew up to Ashida and leaned in dangerously close. “Kul’Gada would have joined his brother in the void this day had your forces not interfered. You, young Nan, have overplayed your hand for the last time. You will answer for your crimes.”
“Incoming, sir,” Al said in Jarek’s earpiece.
Wonderful.
Jarek looked around and saw that Ashida’s convoy was indeed arriving on the scene now. One of the raknoth holding Ashida murmured a similar warning to Krogoth, though Jarek couldn’t imagine the raknoth didn’t already sense the incoming threat.
The vehicles drew to a halt a good forty yards away, and a couple dozen armed men piled out of cars and troop transports, lining up and training weapons their way.
“If any one man fires his weapon,” Krogoth called, not bothering to even look their direction. “I will personally tear out each and every one of your throats.”
For a long few seconds, tense fingers lingered on triggers. Then Rachel fiddled with her comm and stepped closer to Ashida, and it was as if a couple dozen strings had suddenly been cut. A few of Ashida’s men held steady, but most relaxed their weapons, traded uncertain looks, and glanced back at their vehicles, their body language universally seething, Hey, not worth it.
“Neat trick,” Rachel said, watching Ashida without a trace of compassion. “Guess that’s what happens when you don’t bother giving your men half a reason to give a shit about you.”
Ashida spat again, this time at Rachel, and with impressive velocity.
She seemed to have been expecting it. The glob of greenish spit slowed in mid-air, then hovered back to soak into Ashida’s chest, where it hissed and smoked against his shirt and flesh.
“Filthy—”
Ashida struggled furiously then, but Brandt and the other raknoth held him tight.
“Filthy animal!” he screamed.
Krogoth watched Ashida all the while, his features dispassionate, save for the fire blazing in his eyes. When he spoke, his tone was formal.
“We will no longer suffer your existence to taint the name of raknoth kind. Do you wish any last words, Nan’Ashida, oath-breaker, traitor to your own people?”
Weak struggles and curses in Krogoth’s direction were the only replies the Nan had to give.
And so ended Nan’Ashida.
It was the second time Jarek had watched Krogoth tear off a raknoth’s head, and it wasn’t even remotely less disturbing than the first time.
Afterward, Krogoth tossed Ashida’s head forty yards to the assembled soldiers and told them to be on their way—to help the wounded or clear out and never show their faces here again, he cared not.
The men didn’t seem to have any qualms about leaving their late leader’s body behind as they loaded into their vehicles and sped away.
“Well.” Jarek said when they were gone. “What a lovely tea party that was.”
Krogoth gave him a look that made him want to close his faceplate.
“Come on, Rusty. At least that’s two problems off the list.”
The forced lightness in his tone wasn’t fooling anyone. They knew all too well just how many items were left on that list, and just how few resources they had left to deal with them.
“When will the rest come?” Rachel asked.
Krogoth looked skyward. “Impossible t
o know if they do not wish it so. But soon, I fear. Far sooner than we can hope to prepare for.”
“Would time really matter?” Jarek asked. “Seems to me we need a better plan before we worry about not having enough time.”
Krogoth’s glowing gaze remained skyward. “And do you have a better plan, Jarek Slater?”
“I was kinda hoping the warrior with a few millennia of field experience might have a trick or two up his sleeve.”
Krogoth sighed and dropped his gaze to the ground. “The only trick we have ever managed to pull on the Masters was to convince them we had met the void. Now that that has failed …” He shook his head. “Gada will likely wait for his brothers this time around. The harvesters will come. They will come in terrible force, and we will fight. There is no plan beyond that.”
With that, Krogoth turned and headed for the ship.
“He’s got the head-ripping down pat,” Jarek said. “Now if he could just bring the same intensity to pep talks …”
Not that he’d been expecting an impromptu master plan from the raknoth. The rakul were a problem without a clear solution—maybe without any solution at all. The prospect of fighting Gada alongside ten creatures of similar power was terrifying, and there didn’t seem to be a single thing any of them could do about it other than to say, Hey, I guess we’ll try our best and fight it out to the end.
At present, though, he couldn’t see how that end could be anywhere but the grave for all of them.
They needed something the rakul wouldn’t see coming—something that could turn the tide and throw them the advantage before the rakul even realized what hit them. They needed a nuclear option, so to speak. Or maybe even literally. He made a note to ask Krogoth about the possibility, though he was almost certain there couldn’t be many functional nuclear weapons that hadn’t been either used or destroyed in the Catastrophe.
“We should get back and check on the others,” Rachel said, breaking into his thoughts. “Elise was in pretty bad shape.”
She was right. He hadn’t had a good look himself, but after listening to Rachel’s recounting of the cut Elise had taken, Jarek wasn’t so sure she’d manage to pull through, even with raknoth healing juice on her side. Of course, saying as much wasn’t going to help anyone. Rachel knew as well as he did that the fight had taken a toll on all of them and that there’d be plenty more to pay before this was over. Assuming any of them lived to see the other side at all.
So he simply went with, “Aye aye, Goldilocks,” and set off for the ship beside her, sincerely hoping that they weren’t about to add another name to the far-too-long list of the day’s casualties.
Twenty-Eight
With the recent exception—and nightmare—of having let tears fly in front of Jarek on his ship, as a general rule, Rachel didn’t cry. Not when there were people around to see, at least. But when they crept onto the Enochians’ ship …
Seeing Elise, watching the way Haldin, Franco, and the others all hovered beside her, so clearly raw and torn …
That nearly brought on the tears.
Rachel couldn’t claim to know Elise well. The girl had only been on Earth for a couple weeks, after all. What she did know, though, was that the girl was fierce.
No, not the girl. The woman.
Because, young as she might be, Elise was certainly not a kid anymore. She’d seen too many fights, felt too much pain. Elise and her fellow Enochians had all been through hell and back again, and once they’d returned, they’d decided to fly across the galaxy and risk their necks again anyway. And now it had cost her dearly.
Oddly enough, though, Elise seemed less upset by the news of her paralysis than anyone else in the room. Instead, she looked calm—resolved, even. Her eyes flicked at regular intervals between Haldin, who was kneeling beside her cot, and Alton, who’d propped his legless body up against the wall.
When Rachel tuned in, she realized Elise was sharing some telepathic communication with the two of them.
Rachel couldn’t hear what was said, but whatever it was had Alton clearly uncomfortable, Haldin nearly manic, and Elise oddly at peace.
Jarek, unable to sniff out the telepathic communication, stepped into the silent room and unknowingly interrupted it. “Hey, guys.”
Some finality passed between Haldin, Elise, and Alton as Jarek and Rachel stepped into the room, the two Enochians looking in agreement and the raknoth looking decidedly unhappy about it.
“Everything under control out there?” Johnny asked.
Jarek nodded. “Ashida’s dead. Fighting’s over. Just a holy hell of a mess to clean up.”
“Yeah …” Johnny said, the mood in the room absorbing the news right into a big fat reminder of the damage lying right in front of them.
Rachel swallowed. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
It felt like a stupid question, considering, but she had to say something.
“We appreciate your support,” Franco said with well-practiced politeness, “but I think the best thing right now is for us to—”
“Oh, sweet Alpha.” Elise sighed. “I’m not dead yet, Dad. Not yet. I’m paralyzed. And we can fix it.”
“Elise …” Franco crooned, stroking her hair.
“Don’t Elise me.” She turned her head toward Rachel and Jarek. “You mention that maybe hosting a raknoth to heal you up might not be the worst thing in the world, and suddenly everyone thinks you’ve lost the will to live.”
Suddenly, the looks that had been passing between Alton, Haldin, and Elise made a lot more sense. That must’ve been what they were holding silent court about. But to host a raknoth … And what raknoth would be willing to …
Rachel met Alton’s eyes. “You’re …”
Alton crossed his arms and gave Elise and Haldin what was an impressively level look for a legless guy leaning against a wall. “Not agreeing to anything before we’ve had ample time to properly discuss the implications.”
“Not even if we find a raknoth whose host is beyond repair?” Haldin asked in a tone that suggested this wasn’t the first time they’d had this discussion.
“Annnd here we go again,” Johnny said. He cocked his head thoughtfully. “Though, now that I’m thinking about it, that Lietha dude was in pretty bad shape last I saw him.”
Jarek’s finger shot up as if he had something to say about that, but he seemed to think better of it at some look from Alton.
Only … No. It wasn’t that Alton had silenced him.
They were listening, both of their heads slightly perked—to what, Rachel couldn’t say. But judging from the soft crimson glow that woke in Alton’s eyes, it wasn’t anything good.
“What is it?” Haldin asked, looking between them.
And that’s when Rachel felt the familiar, wispy presence pressing in at the edge of her cloak.
The look in Haldin’s eyes as he met her gaze told her he felt it to.
“No,” Rachel whispered.
Not now.
Jarek had already whirled on his heel and was heading for the ship’s hatch. “Something’s happening out there,” he called over his shoulder.
She could hear it now, on top of the pervasive presence shimmering around them—some shift in the buzz of voices outside. And there, in the air itself now, the subtle yellow glow that had crept into the room seemingly out of nowhere, barely perceptible but for its gentle, nebulous swirling.
Messengers.
Which meant—
“No,” Haldin said. He’d gone rigid, his eyes flicking around the room.
“It can’t be,” Alton said, his gaze distant and skyward.
The voices were building outside, twisting from the dull buzz of conversation to sounds of anger and violence. A cry went up, only vaguely recognizable as human. A gunshot cracked in the distance. Then another.
Shouts. Sounds of fighting.
Jarek was already stepping through the hatch when Rachel turned around.
“We’ll check it out,” she said.
<
br /> Then she took off after Jarek.
“Wait!” Haldin shouted behind her, but she was already halfway to the hatch.
She followed Jarek out of the ship and into utter chaos.
After the shitstorm they’d seen down in Newark, she thought she’d seen it all.
This was worse.
Madness had erupted across the body-strewn battlefield. Everywhere, people were attacking each other. Krogoth’s forces, Ashida’s, the Resistance—it made no difference.
Soldiers tore indiscriminately at one another, some with weapons, others with bare hands. Some even remembered how to use their firearms.
Those men and women who were properly cloaked against telepathic influence or nestled within the generator fields tried to band together, to hold against the frenzied tide, but there were too many.
More were flooding in from outside the battlefield, civilians from the surrounding areas who’d been caught up in the furor and driven here to the killing field. The furor must’ve been enormous to bring so many.
And through it all, that soft yellow light flowed, shifting and undulating like something living.
Rachel watched, frozen in place, unsure what to do, how to help.
A new sound joined the chaos, spreading through the frenzied hordes like a thousand tiny disjointed klaxons blaring their alarms.
Her stunned brain didn’t put it together until her own comm buzzed against her wrist and informed her with its own grainy blare.
Retreat.
Daniels, Alaric … It didn’t really matter who.
The commanders were calling for a full retreat.
“Rachel Cross!” a voice roared in her mind.
She followed the tendril of thought and spotted Drogan sprinting toward them through the masses of raving humans, a bloody Lietha clutched in his arms. He plowed through waves of wild berserkers, his own eyes burning with frantic desperation.
“Get back!” his voice hissed in her mind.
“I don’t know, Al,” Jarek was snapping. “Just bring the ship and get Alaric and anyone else you can out of there.”
“Jarek …” Rachel said slowly, trying to slow her thoughts enough to process any of it.
Reaping Day: Book Three of the Harvesters Series Page 31
