Paladins of the Storm Lord

by Barbara Ann Wright

  *

  Carmichael stared at where the transmitter was hidden. The Storm Lord had already told her to handle his mess, and he’d probably tell her the same now, even after his scheme had gone cockeyed, and everyone associated with it was dead.

  No. She’d gotten those people together. She’d ordered them not to tell their families where they were going. She’d given them permission to contact the old drushka without informing the drushkan ambassador, and she’d passed them information and boxes of tech from the Storm Lord. She’d known it was too dangerous. And it hadn’t been faith that made her do it. Her thoughts had been filled with the promise of metal and everything else a slew of augmented boggin servants could get them.

  Anger stung her temples, and she went from pacing to stalking the room like a cage. She lifted the false wall. She could bash the transmitter to pieces, never take orders from that bastard again, but what hell would that bring down on their heads?

  “Fuck!” She slammed the false wall back into place.

  Running footsteps paused outside her door, and she waited for a knock, anything to turn her wrath on, but the steps bled away again.

  Now the boggins had escaped, and humanity had one new enemy, maybe two, if the old drushka had been leading them into a trap the whole time. Maybe three enemies, if their drushkan allies decided they’d been betrayed.

  Carmichael sat at her desk and pulled out some parchment. Deal with it? Well, he could bet his ass she was going to deal with it, her way. She’d put it right.

  She listed her soldiers, dividing them into squads. Cordelia Ross would lead one. A good soldier, and the troops liked her. If Carmichael had her way, Ross would be her successor to the captaincy. She jotted down Brown and Lea at the heads of their own squads, even as she wished she could replace them with her son.

  But Liam couldn’t lead a squad. She’d raised him after his father ran for the hills, and she knew everything he wasn’t capable of. She’d wanted him to follow in her footsteps, wanted to be the first captain in Calamity’s history to pass her position to her child. But no, he fucked up as often as he could and then smirked about it. She should have tossed him out on his ass long ago but couldn’t make herself do it. What would become of him? A long slide into alcohol and sex until he became a waste of oxygen?

  Not while she drew breath. As tough as she’d been on him, maybe she hadn’t been tough enough. When he swaggered into her office a half hour late and tipsy, she wondered when he’d lost his fear of her. “You’re disgusting, Lieutenant.”

  He paused, halfway to sitting, then eased down. “That has occurred to me.”

  “Why can’t you do as you’re told, boy?”

  “And what have I done wrong now, O Captain?”

  Carmichael slammed the desk and surged out of her seat. He leaned back, and she kept her angry mask, happy she could still scare him.

  “You only obey when you want to. I’m surprised you met Ross at the swamp instead of drinking yourself into a stupor.”

  “I care about her, and I wanted to find out what happened at the research station.”

  Hope bloomed in her that he might be taking an interest. “Ross said you met some of the drushka.”

  “Two of them, briefly.”

  “Thoughts? Impressions?”

  “They were very…attractive.”

  Hope sank to the pit of her stomach. “Are you serious?”

  “Well—”

  “The aliens weren’t put here to be one of your conquests!”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “Oh, you don’t have to explain how you fuck everything that moves, how you’re looking to leave a swath of bastards in your wake just as your father did. Do you need the company?”

  He didn’t speak, only stared with nostrils flaring.

  “You’re on cleaning detail for the rest of your life. Get out of my office.”

  He left without a word, and Carmichael barely resisted throwing something at the closed door. She went back to her list and put her son under Lieutenant Ross’s command. It seemed the only place for him.

  *

  Cordelia stumbled down the street, leaning on Liam as he leaned on her. It had gotten dark while they’d been in the Pickled Prog, later than she’d thought. After Liam had returned from the captain’s office, Cordelia had thought it best to get as drunk as they could as fast as they could. As the pinched, angry look had slipped from Liam’s face, replaced by drunken bliss, she’d known she’d made the right decision.

  There were still lights flickering in the Prog, not quite closing time, but their loud rants about “barrels of piss” had gotten them tossed out on their ears.

  Liam mumbled snatches of a song in Cordelia’s ear. She’d already gone through the bliss stage, and now the haze was beginning to clear. A headache built in her temples, and her face hurt. The streets had gone dark with shadows, and every hard edge reminded her of the prog’s teeth, making her hands twitch.

  “And I will always be yours,” Liam sang, “and you’ll be mine.” He looked at her, song failing as he peered at her in the glow of the streetlamps. “Ooh, someone is angry.”

  “Shut up.” She left him to stumble along on his own, but he caught up with her quickly.

  “You’re mad because…because…” He blinked slowly. “Because you couldn’t get laid in the swamp!”

  “Shut your face, Liam. I mean it.”

  “If that’s not it, tell me why. Tell me. Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me—”

  “Fuck off!” Her head swam, and she had to take a deep breath. “All this crap with the drushka, and no one will say what’s going on.” She rolled her shaky hands into fists. “Fucking tree grabbed me.” But she wasn’t supposed to be talking about that. “Fucking prog tried to eat me. Goddamned parents died.”

  He squeezed her shoulders. “You can’t die because I love you.” He held her at arm’s length, and she didn’t know which of them was swaying. “Please, please, please don’t die.”

  “Okay.”

  Tears swam in his eyes. “I mean it. If you die, I’ll burn this fucking town to ashes!”

  “No, you won’t. Shut up.” She pulled him to her, and they staggered along again.

  “Why am I crying? We should celebrate!” He looked around. “I know what we should do. We have to find someone.”

  “Stop it.” But her pulse quickened. There was one cure for black moods that was better than any drink, but they hadn’t done it in years.

  “I know what Cordelia wants,” he said in a singsong.

  “No!” But by the Storm Lord, she wanted it bad. She couldn’t encourage him, though. That wasn’t how this game was played.

  A group of voices echoed up the empty street. Liam picked up speed. A group of people, drovers by their dress, gathered under a streetlamp, their laughter bouncing off dark storefronts. Cordelia tried to catch Liam, but he’d already spotted them. Her pounding heart drove away visions of the prog, Pool’s roots, or her parents. The song of battle always cleaned out the corners of her mind.

  “Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes!” Liam said.

  “Don’t.” But it sounded halfhearted, even to her.

  “Hey, you hoshpi fuckers!” Liam shouted to the drovers.

  They turned as a pack and glanced at one another.

  “Get the hell off my street!”

  Cordelia took a deep breath. It could still be stopped, and if it could, it should. Those were the rules. “He’s drunk,” she yelled.

  “Shit, no. I’m just reeling from the fumes coming off these dirty bastards.” Liam threw a grin over his shoulder and kept walking. He wanted this as much as her. The drinks might dull his mother’s words, but this could erase them.

  One of the drovers stepped up, hand out. He said something soothing to the drover pack, and then called, “We don’t want any trouble.” Ah, the Peacekeeper.

  Liam pointed at him. “I want you animal-smelling fuckers to get out of my sight and go back where you
belong, on your knees behind your animals, pumping away.”

  Brows darkened further, casting faces with more shadows. Cordelia expected someone to step around the Peacekeeper and take on the role of the Puncher, but as sometimes happened, the Peacekeeper’s face contorted into rage, and the Puncher was born.

  Liam took the first hit in the chin, rocking back on his heels. He shook his head. “Not in the face, please. Your daddy likes my pretty smile.”

  The Puncher hit him again, right in the gut. One of the others kneed him in the groin, sending him to the ground. The rest laughed.

  Cordelia couldn’t move, not yet. He’d insulted them, and they’d delivered a couple of hits. He’d been expecting that. Well, maybe not the shot to the nuts. But now he was down, and they could walk away, but if they chose not to…

  The drovers teetered and swayed, calling insults. It seemed as if they might leave, but the Puncher turned back, and the others egged him on. He lifted Liam by the shirtfront, free hand curling into a fist. Cordelia’s feet began to move.

  Liam coughed a laugh. “Oh, my new friend, you have done it now!”

  Cordelia hit the drover hard, sending him flying. The others leapt for her, the one who’d kneed Liam throwing an arm around her neck, but a quick elbow to the gut threw him off.

  The others seemed to move through sap, so clumsy in the face of her training. All she knew about combat came boiling out in an explosive rush, so terrible and joyful to be used. A grin stretched her face, making it hurt in a different way. Liam rocketed to his feet, always a good one for taking a punch.

  One of the drovers launched a haymaker. She ducked and came up with an open palm to his jaw. He fell, but someone else kicked her in the crotch from behind.

  The ache spread through her core. “Son of a bitch!” She spun, grabbed a drover—the same one that had kicked Liam—and pulled him closer.

  “Lemme go, lemme go,” he squealed.

  “Let’s see.” She kneed him in the groin. “How you.” And again. “Like it!” One final time, and his face squeezed so far shut he looked like a wrinkled fruit. She tossed him away and caught another coming for her, the Puncher. She slammed her forehead against his nose, feeling it crumple and spread blood across her hairline. He fell like a rag doll.

  Cordelia punched another drover as she ran past. When she staggered and tried to swing back, Cordelia hit her again. The rest were lying still or long gone. All were breathing, no one with a broken bone except for a nose. It would have been easy to snap fingers or destroy knees, but where was the fun in that?

  “Are you all right?” she asked Liam as they turned for home again.

  “Just bruised.”

  “I hate it when you do that.”

  “Liar, liar. We both need this.”

  “Blow me.”

  “As you wish, so shall I provide.” He made as if to drop to his knees.

  She pushed him to keep walking. “Not even if I really wanted it. I got kicked, too.”

  “So? You don’t have balls.”

  “Still hurts, asshole.”

  “I bet if drushka girl were here, you’d let her downstairs.”

  She snorted a laugh. “She could come around that corner with gifts of candied fruit and fully charged armor, and I would shut the door in her face.”

  “Wow. That must really hurt.”

  “Damn straight.” She hugged him from the side, planted a kiss on his temple, and steered them toward the keep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Usk tracked the chanuka through the swamp, watching them from the high branches. The ninth queen, the mighty Shi, had told him that the creatures had become smarter. As he watched them chatter and rut, the host of smaller ones flocking around the large, they seemed the same disgusting, mud-eating chanuka they had always been, born below the branches and meant to stay there.

  But they seemed more alert, as the queen said. He had gathered them for the humans, at the queen’s order, and the humans had done something to them. Now their journey through the swamp, revisiting the place where the humans had imprisoned them, seemed to have some purpose. Maybe they mourned where so many of their kind had died. Maybe they celebrated their escape from the brittle cages. Maybe they plotted. Only the Shi knew.

  The wind shifted, and the chanuka fell quiet. Usk knew they’d scented him and his band. If they were the same as they had been, they would have fled. Instead, these smarter chanuka gathered in large circles, the better to see in every direction. Before, they had been somewhat clever, hunting in packs, using broken branches as spears, but now they seemed to have…purpose. They took up their spears and howled, a beastly noise that might flush prey from hiding.

  But he was not prey. He signaled to his band to stay where they were and handed his weapon to Nata, his second. “Be ready.”

  She had her own weapon out, eyes on the chanuka. Usk stepped into the open and clapped his hands. Several chanuka hurled spears, and he leaned out of the way. They had learned to throw their weapons. Clever. The largest female chanuka bellowed at the others, and they held their spears in front of them. It seemed they had also learned to obey.

  The Shi had warned Usk they might attack, but that he must find a way to communicate. He held his palms up to show he had no weapon. The large female growled at her fellows, and no more spears flew. Usk descended slowly, warily, but they let him climb down unharmed.

  He reached the female’s branch and held his hands up again. She shuffled forward, snarling but waiting. He opened his belt-pouch with painstaking slowness and took out the sticks the Shi had shaped for him. He knelt and arranged them on the branch: a circle for a head, a long stick for a body, smaller ones for arms and legs.

  The chanuka cocked her head, eyestalks white around their bases as she strained. She grunted, and those behind her shifted, snuffling. She waved at them, and they quieted. Her stare at Usk seemed to say, “And? What now?”

  Usk took a final item from his pouch, a piece of metal pilfered from the human settlement in the swamp. He placed it over the figure’s body, and the chanuka took a half-step forward and licked her lips.

  He laid a bit of dried grass over the figure and showed the chanuka his fire lighters: two sticks, one slotted. He rubbed them just so until the grass ignited. The fire consumed the stick figure in moments, even under the metal that protected it.

  The chanuka watched with unblinking eyes. She prodded the blackened spot with her spear before looking to Usk again.

  He swept the remains of the fire into the water and laid the fire lighters on the limb. With one final show of his unarmed hands, Usk backed away and climbed high, whistling for his tribe.

  *

  B46 peered at the sticks, at the blackened spot. She sniffed where the hard, foul-smelling stuff had been, the same substance that some tall creatures draped over their bodies like shining skin. Her spear couldn’t hurt it before, but now she knew how to get inside.

  She’d known fire in the before times. Her people had learned to fear it as it streaked from the sky, blasting trees to pieces and eating and eating until water killed it. But this tall creature had taken fire from these sticks, fire enough to eat wood, even inside the shining skin.

  Her mates gathered around her. If she moved her hands as the tall creature had, she could make fire, control it. She rumbled deep inside, her happiest sound, and heard it spread to her mates and children. Oh, this was good.

  But the tall creatures would not wait and watch fire be born. Those who lived inside the swamp could kill it with water. Best to save it for those who lived outside the trees, those her mates had followed. They gathered far from the water, made their nest far from the trees.

  Perhaps the creatures who’d given her fire wanted her to leave the swamp, but she was not finished here. She thought of the roots that had stolen her prey before. There were still many creatures to kill there, more that gathered far from the bothersome roots. Better for the children to cut their teeth in their home, no matter what these
creatures wanted her to do.

  She would make a plan for the other nest, the place of the shining skin. And she would need more children. They would need room to breed, and perhaps they could find other creatures in the swamp to aid them.

  *

  Lydia sat up in bed, gasping. She hadn’t followed random futures in her sleep since she was a novice, still trying to master her power, but the many minds she’d touched in her dreams had all carried a common future that towed her along. All of them, one by one, had been engulfed in flames that roared through Gale like a winter wind.

  The dreams were already fading, faces gone, details drifting away. She closed her eyes and told herself it could have been a simple dream.

  Beside her, Freddie shifted, and Lydia eased from the bed. Dim light peeked around the shutters, dawn or just before. If fire was in Gale’s future, the dreams would keep happening. She could run through the town, warning everyone, but it wouldn’t do any good. The future couldn’t be changed. A great fire would take who it would, and nothing she could do would stop it.

  Freddie curled on her side, a tiny smile on her full lips. Lydia could follow her future, but changing it would still be impossible. If she decided they should run from Gale, then she would see them running. If Freddie refused to go, Lydia would see that, too, and whatever she saw would be the way that it happened.

  And if she saw Freddie die? Lydia shuddered. She’d be forced to march toward that fate, waiting for it, letting it color everything that happened to them before then. She crept back into bed, curled around Freddie, and kissed her forehead. Better not to know.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Dillon watched the planet again, and it felt as if the whole station was waiting, but for what he didn’t know. It had been nearly three weeks since Marie had turned the others against him, but things still hadn’t gone back to normal. Hurried conversations turned to whispers or petered out when he entered a room, and when the breachies had to share the mess hall with him, their glances were almost predatory.

  Lazlo had told him of Dué’s odd behavior, but when was she not odd? More unnerving, Marie had visited the botanical habitat since then, and she didn’t need cell regeneration yet. She’d said she’d come to check on Lazlo, though she’d never done so before. Dillon knew she was snooping, but Lazlo’s work seemed undisturbed. It didn’t matter. Even if Marie found out about the swamp creatures or the yafanai, what could she do?