Paladins of the Storm Lord

by Barbara Ann Wright

“Both, from the large to the microscopic.” She sighed during the last word, not so subtly stressing that she was macro and micro bored, too.

  Horace thrust his hand out, and Cordelia shook it. “Lieutenant Cordelia Ross.”

  He squeezed before letting go, and as Natalya moved toward Sergeant Preston, Horace leaned close. “Don’t mind Natalya. She’s a little stiff, but once you get to know her, well, try not to let her annoy you.”

  “I’m not annoyed.”

  He smiled, and a little tickle passed over Cordelia’s scalp. “You can’t fool me.”

  She leaned forward, bending at the knees, and his eyes widened, but she put a hand on his shoulder so he couldn’t step away. “Think hard before poking around in my head, Mr. Adair. The swamp’s a big, dangerous place, easy to get lost in.” He paled, and she maneuvered him into line before she took her place at the head of the column.

  It took all morning before they were truly within the forest, not yet in the great swamp but among the large trees that heralded its presence. Cordelia kept them on the track the drushka called the Oosjani Road and wondered how long it would be before their hosts revealed themselves. All her pondering about meeting other drushka made her impatient to get it done. If they reached the true swamp and still had no escort, she’d be forced to turn around.

  The wind rustled the trees, making the branches clack together and shaking the leaves in a papery hiss. Some insect took up orbit around Cordelia’s head, and she tired of swatting at it. The squad muttered together as the morning wore on with the occasional bark from Sergeant Preston when they became too loud.

  When Jacobs muttered, “Did you see that?” Cordelia turned. Before she could ask, a boggin sprang from a clump of bushes, leading with a long, crude spear.

  Cordelia whipped out her blade and chopped through its neck. The squad cried out as more boggins rushed from the undergrowth, silent, all of them with spears. Damn. She’d never fought so many armed boggins at once.

  “Truncheons!” Cordelia called. “Form a circle.” But they had to struggle to stay together. There wasn’t even time to throw javelins before they were surrounded.

  Four boggins rushed Cordelia, all in a line. She braced her feet, but another boggin hurtled out of the melee to knock the other boggins prone. Before they could rise, an invisible force slammed them into a nearby tree, and they fell to the ground. The squad dispatched most of the others, but some fled into the forest, chased by flying debris.

  Natalya knelt among the leathers, gaze following the boggins, her entire body tense. When Cordelia offered her a hand up, she took it, a smirk on her face.

  “An ambush,” Sergeant Preston said. “Boggins putting together an ambush?”

  Or a test of their strength. Cordelia shuddered. “Throw the bodies away from the road.” Private Clemensky sat in the dirt, blood streaming down his arm. Cordelia knelt at his side while Horace stitched his shoulder with needle and thread. “All right, Clemensky?” When he nodded, Cordelia looked to Horace. “You’re a medic, too?”

  “Telepaths can tell where it hurts, and as a micro, I can deaden the pain a bit.” He tied off the line of stitches and cut the thread. “Of course, with our micro powers, Natalya and I can keep the wound closed while I stitch.”

  “Could you keep it together until it heals?”

  Natalya leaned over Horace’s shoulder. “No one could keep that kind of concentration for days. Horace is good at what he does. You should trust him.”

  She shrugged. Any trust came from the fact that Gale had strict laws against telepaths prying into heads whenever they pleased. She was just lucky she was sensitive enough to know when it was happening. She hauled Clemensky to his feet by his good arm. “You gonna make it, grunt?”

  “Point me at them, Lieutenant.”

  “Good man. Keep toward the middle. Let’s move out.”

  As the squad moved deeper into the swamp, solid ground grew rare. The squad followed long sandbars through mud and grime, wading from island to island. The world became a tangle of greens and browns punctuated by wandering shafts of sunlight that turned the pools of water into burnished gold. The surrounding trees had gone from large to massive, stretching up until the canopy was a blur overhead. The ropy branches tangled and became lost in one another, curling together in midair, connecting each tree to its fellows and making the swamp into one huge organism. Insects hummed everywhere, creating a background tempo for the clicks and whirrs of unseen animals. When the wind gusted, it carried the cries of thousands of birds that nested in the faraway canopy.

  It was beautiful, just as her parents had described it before it had killed them.

  Cordelia called a halt on a large piece of dense ground filled with underbrush. They’d lost the Oosjani, muddy as the way had already become, and the drushka hadn’t shown. She wondered who was going to have the fight with Reach, her or Carmichael? And what would Paul say?

  Something whistled from the trees, and Natalya and Horace dropped to the ground, unmoving.

  Cordelia whipped out her sidearm. “Circle the yafanai!” The squad hopped to obey. The swamp had fallen silent but for the faraway whoops of some animal and the sound of ragged breathing. Cordelia thought again of Community, how the only people who’d survived were those who’d managed to run fast enough. The drushka had pulled the houses down, scattered the stone walls. She was amazed they hadn’t salted the earth, but they liked growing things.

  “Anyone see anything?” A chorus of nos answered her. “Clemensky, check the yafanai. Be ready to—”

  “I do not trust humans,” a voice called, the accent even thicker than Reach’s, a throaty purr. “Without your mind throwers, we are on level ground.”

  Not unless they also had guns. “Fucking drushka,” Cordelia muttered. She cleared her throat. “You bring us out here to attack us?”

  “To talk. As equals.”

  “Funny way of showing it,” Sergeant Preston muttered.

  A clatter of branches, followed by a sharp yelp, came from the trees. Someone stumbled from the underbrush soon after, hands over his head. “Don’t shoot! I’m human. I’m coming out.” He gulped for air as he stumbled forward, wiping sweat from his bald head. “Higaroshi Adan. Sorry about the scare. I tried to hurry down, but I fell instead.” He smiled and stretched his back before reaching out a hand.

  Cordelia just blinked at him. He stared for a few seconds, smile failing. He glanced at Horace and Natalya, still lying unconscious before his arm dropped to his side. “I told her this was a bad idea. They’re not here to hurt you. Reach sent word. The hunt leader just doesn’t like yafanai.”

  “The who?”

  “Me, human,” a new voice said.

  Cordelia brought her gun up. A drushka crouched upon a branch behind Higaroshi, in plain sight, though Cordelia was certain she hadn’t been there before. Her hands curled over her leather-clad knees, giving Cordelia a good view of the poisonous middle claw, the only sure way to tell a female drushka from a male.

  The drushka sat on her heels, bare feet curled over the wood, the bark of the tree as dark as her brown skin, though just as lined with whorls. Her short, unkempt red hair looked as if it had been styled by the wind, and her lichen-colored eyes watched with unrestrained curiosity. Her leather shirt and trousers were unadorned, just lighter than her skin, meant to blend in.

  Cordelia kept her gun up, and the drushka grinned into it with sharp teeth. She wrinkled her narrow nose in affection. Cordelia lowered her gun a fraction, and the drushka leapt from the branch to land at Higaroshi’s side.

  “You always greet visitors this way?” Cordelia asked.

  “Ahya, if they are dangerous. Your mind throwers will recover soon. They were not struck hard.” Her hands rested on her hips, near two wooden knives that hung from a string around her waist.

  “You might have killed them.”

  The drushka spread her hands as if to say anything was possible. “Your people taught us the ways of the sling. Do you do
ubt your own teachings?”

  Cordelia tried to remember everything her uncle had taught her about diplomacy but came up short.

  Lucky for her, Sergeant Preston called, “Yafanai are coming around, Lieutenant.”

  She holstered her sidearm. The drushka smiled wider as if this whole predicament was the funniest thing in the goddamned world. It’d be a shame to have to shoot her.

  Higaroshi cleared his throat. “I’m guessing you’re Lieutenant Cordelia Sa Ross?”

  “That’s right.”

  He stuck out his hand again. “I’m pleased—”

  “Sa?” the drushka asked. “You have a drushkan name mingled with your human one? Who gave it to you?”

  “My mother. It’s been in my family since—”

  “Roshkikan, yes? The one you called Jania. The drushka have long memories.”

  Cordelia lifted her eyebrows. “Then maybe you can remember never to attack someone who only came to talk to you.”

  The drushka touched her forehead, an apology, if Cordelia remembered right. “Do you know what Sa means?”

  “Yeah. So, now we know who I am and who Higaroshi is, do you mind telling us who you are?” She kept her voice light, mockingly sweet, and several of the squad snorted.

  If the drushka noticed, she didn’t show it. She gestured toward one of the spinier plants that clustered around the base of a tree. “I am named for this.”

  It looked painful and irritating, a good choice. “Are you going to tell me what that’s called, or do I have to guess?”

  “Um,” Higaroshi said, “the drushka prefer to be called by the human words for their namesakes until one establishes trust. I’ve been calling her Nettle, and she seems to like it all right.”

  An eye roll would have felt so right at the moment, but Cordelia resisted again. Fucking diplomacy. “Sounds good to me.”

  Private Clemensky helped the yafanai to their feet. They steadied each other, and Horace muttered something about helping them both with his power.

  “And now they are well,” Nettle said.

  “No thanks to you.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “We saw the fight with the chanuka. We knew they would recover.”

  Higaroshi groaned, and Cordelia took another deep breath, fighting the urge to smash in the drushka’s narrow nose, spoil her nice-looking face. “Saw that, did you? Didn’t think about helping at all?”

  “Humans need drushkan help whenever they enter the swamp?”

  “Hunt leader—” Higaroshi started.

  Cordelia pushed past him. “It’d be nice, asshole. Are we supposed to be allies on this mission or not?”

  Private Carter whispered, “Movement to the left, Lieutenant.”

  Nettle touched two fingers to her cheek, and her gaze lingered a moment on Cordelia’s lips. “I have told them not to attack, even though we are standing so very close to one another now.” She smelled like new leaves with just a tiny hint of something floral.

  “I can take the two on the left,” Natalya said.

  “Muzzle that,” Cordelia said softly. “We’re still talking.”

  Nettle smiled again, her gaze traveling Cordelia’s face and showing something like approval. “Shall we go?”

  “Sure. Lead the way. The sooner we’re done, the sooner we can get the hell out of here.”

  Nettle spread her hands again and whistled into the trees.

  Higaroshi smiled. “That went well!”

  Cordelia wondered what he thought a situation looked like when it went poorly, but he’d probably seen Community’s ruins.

  More lean figures came out of hiding, ten in all, regarding the humans with what seemed like simple curiosity. As the squad gathered their packs again, a short drushka with a female’s claw strode toward them. Her green hair was shorter than any of the other drushka, most only a quarter inch from her scalp, though a longer stripe started from the center of her brow and continued over her head to her nape.

  “You are not like Higaroshi,” she said to Cordelia. “You are a warrior, a metal skin.”

  “Lieutenant Ross,” Higaroshi said, “this is—”

  The drushkan girl laid her index finger across his lips. “No. I want her to name me.”

  Cordelia looked from one to the other. “I’m going to need a hint.”

  The girl reached to her belt and pulled a small knife. The squad shuffled, but Cordelia held up a hand to still them. The girl was as tall as her chest and thinner than the other drushka. Cordelia was pretty sure she could chuck this one far into the swamp if necessary.

  The girl glared at her knife. Unlike Nettle’s weapons, this one wasn’t sleek or sharp-looking. No longer than her hand and scarred with nicks and gouges, it seemed a desperate weapon. “I made this myself,” she said. “The only weapon my mother would allow.” She slapped her thigh, frustrated. “I am named for it. Would you call it a knife?”

  “I’d call it a shiv.”

  The girl repeated the word several times before beaming. She wrinkled her nose away and turned to Nettle. “I like this name.”

  Nettle spread her hands and smiled. “Ahya, I can see. Now, we must have our mouths speak to our legs—”

  “And teach them to move,” Cordelia said loudly, remembering that phrase from Jania’s journal. “Some of us have been studying.”

  Nettle regarded her a moment, head tilted, before she signaled her people to move out. Cordelia ordered her squad to follow, all of them grumbling, and she didn’t blame them. The drushka led the way as the ground turned to liquid, and the humans clambered onto the huge branches that curled through the swamp like cables. The drushka leapt from limb to limb above their heads, effortlessly graceful. Cordelia stepped carefully, knowing that the sucking morass beneath her could pull her to her grave.

  As they passed farther into drushkan territory, Cordelia thought through her ancestor’s journal and tried to recall everything Paul had told her about drushkan ways, trying to figure out if she should have known the drushka would greet her squad so drastically. They seemed far from the threatening ambushers now, laughing and speaking to one another in their hissing language. They seemed very flexible, far more than a human could be, and Cordelia wondered if their bones or joints were just that different. Nettle seemed the most graceful of all, sometimes twisting in midair as she leapt.

  “They’re quite beautiful,” Horace said.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Why are you up here behind me?”

  “Preston thought it best to put me at front and Nat at the back. We could help if someone falls in the water.” He chuckled. “Though, please don’t take this the wrong way, Lieutenant, but there’s no way I could lift you. I could probably keep you afloat long enough for the others to pull you out.”

  “Probably?”

  “The Storm Lord knows there are no guarantees in life. Maybe I should switch places with Nat.”

  “She has to keep an eye on the whole column. That’s why Preston put her in back.”

  “But your armor alone…”

  “Isn’t worth lives, though some might disagree.” She looked back again, and he shrugged with a happy smile.

  “You are slow, humans!” one of the drushka called. “Can your mouths not teach your legs to move faster?”

  “We’re keeping up,” Cordelia said. “We don’t fancy a swim.”

  Nettle dropped down to walk in front of her, backward, fucking showoff. “If you leave your metal skin, you will go much faster.”

  “Thanks for the tip, but I think I’ll keep it.”

  “You are stubborn.”

  “One of my many admirable qualities.”

  She grinned. “Luck is with you. The way is not long to our first campsite.”

  “Then on to the research station?”

  “Where human and chanuka lived together.”

  “The humans were living with boggins?”

  Nettle spread her arms. “So it appeared.”

  “That doesn’t make any
sense.”

  “It is out of our territory. We hoped you could explain it.”

  Cordelia thought hard but came up with nothing. Carmichael could figure it out.

  The drushka led them to a small island among the mire, not much more than a bare patch of dirt, but after marching along the branches, it seemed like paradise. The drushka started a fire as night fell, and Sergeant Preston helped Cordelia out of her armor. She stretched and swung her arms, conscious of watching drushka.

  Shiv moved toward her slowly, gaze swinging between the humans and the drushka where they were parted by the fire. “I would like to wear your metal skin.”

  “It wouldn’t fit you.” And no way in hell would the captain ever okay it.

  Shiv narrowed her eyes before studying her own smaller, leaner body. “Ahya, so I see. I will survive without it.”

  “I’m sure. I like to have it around.” When Shiv continued to watch her, Cordelia cleared her throat. “It’s saved my life before.”

  She poked Cordelia with a non-poisonous finger. “You will not break so easily, I think.”

  “Thanks. You’re also…not very breakable.”

  Nettle stepped around the fire. “Are you having a bother from this girl?”

  Shiv whirled to face her. “I am not a bother, hunt leader! We are making ourselves excellent good friends.”

  Nettle’s eyes narrowed, and her hands curled into fists.

  Cordelia cleared her throat again. “It’s all right. I’m happy to talk.” She put on what she hoped was a convincing smile, but they fell into drushkan and ignored her. She shifted closer to her people, leaving them to it.

  “Drushka are weird,” Private Jacobs said.

  “Just let them get on with it.”

  Horace craned his neck, looking around her. “I wonder what the problem was.”

  “Maybe they’re a couple,” Natalya said, “and the bigger one thought the little one was coming on to you, Lieutenant.”

  The squad chuckled. Cordelia snorted but snuck a peek at the two, hoping they weren’t a couple. Shiv seemed far too young, but Nettle? Of all the women Cordelia had spent time with, the dangerous ones were always the most attractive, and her ancestor had written about having a drushkan lover.