Paladins of the Storm Lord

by Barbara Ann Wright

  When no one answered a second time, she pressed her ear to the door and heard nothing. So? Doors were thick, weren’t they? She’d just have to be louder. She pounded. She screamed. She clawed at the temple doors and wondered if she could find some nearby building to scale, maybe get to the temple roof, and then find a way down. She could bring someone out to Freddie, someone waiting just inside. Someone deaf or asleep or busy.

  Lydia sagged to the ground, sobbing, aching in mind and body. Time played out, and she watched herself rise and cross to the rickshaw.

  “No!” She snapped back to the present, and Freddie cried out weakly. Her breath bubbled inside her chest now, a horrid sound, an inevitable sound. Lydia pulled herself up and stumbled to the rickshaw to take Freddie’s hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  Freddie’s eyes had glazed over, her face pale and shining with sweat. Lydia clamped down hard on her power to keep it still. She knew what was coming, and nothing in the world would make her watch it twice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Carmichael watched the bucket brigades toting water from the city’s wells to the blazing warehouse district. She and the other armors had already evacuated survivors and pulled down several smaller buildings to create a firebreak. She’d gotten particular satisfaction from ripping beams out of walls and kicking down supports. It almost made her forget that after all this was over, she’d have to tell the population that their mayor was dead, but there were so many dead. She stepped over a boggin body. Maybe the people would think Paul had been killed by a boggin, but she knew better, and Lieutenant Ross knew better. They still had a murderer to find.

  Lieutenant Brown jogged by, pushing a cart full of wounded away from the smoke and drifting embers. The fire seemed contained for now, but one strong gust of wind could pick it up again and spread it faster than they could fight it. They were soaking the nearby buildings as best they could, and everyone, armored or otherwise, sported greasy soot stains on their clothes and faces.

  Brown yanked the cart away from an alley, and the people inside cried out. A fifteen-foot prog barreled past them, snapping at the retreating cart but not stopping, running from the leathers that chased it. Brown pulled her sidearm, but the prog’s flicking tail flung her down.

  Carmichael whipped out her sidearm and planted her feet as the prog rushed her. She let the world go quiet, and with a gentle squeeze, put two bullets in the monster’s head. It fell on its chin and slid across the slick ground, tongue protruding. She sidestepped its carcass, not even watching where it came to a stop.

  “Brown,” Carmichael called, “might want to get out of the way before you shoot.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Cap. Nice shot.”

  “Where the fuck are these things coming from?”

  “Dunno. I’m almost out of ammo.”

  Carmichael clucked her tongue and handed over her spare clip.

  “I’ve shot a few, Cap. I just got to the fire a little bit ago. There are boggins in the city, too, you know.”

  “Where the hell are the yafanai? They were taking care of the boggins when we left the palisade.” It had started sprinkling—the Storm Lord’s contribution to firefighting—but Carmichael had been hoping for a deluge. Maybe the yafanai were still fighting boggins at the palisade, and there were just too many, more than had been in the field when she’d left. Maybe the yafanai lines had been overrun, and then maybe the progs were attracted by the smell of the boggin corpses.

  She looked to the fire. Or this was all someone’s plan. “Shit!”

  “What is it?”

  “This fucking fire started right before we saw these progs, and now there are boggins, too? Fucking boggins started the fire!”

  Brown’s mouth hung open. “That’s really smart.”

  “Yeah, we’ve been told that again and again, but have we listened?”

  “We thought we’d gotten them all,” Brown said. “First in the swamp and then just now in the fields.”

  “And a smart enemy would make us think that, wouldn’t they? And they probably got these progs in here, too.” She slashed a hand through the air. “Forget what the Storm Lord says. We’re breaking out the big guns.”

  “The railguns?” Brown’s face lit in a smile. “Yes, Cap!”

  The Storm Lord had charged the heavy artillery when he’d come to the keep, but they hadn’t had a use for them yet. The large bullets the railguns fired only survived until now because they were an amalgam of metal and ceramics, not enough metal to bother with breaking them up, just enough for the magnetic guns to work.

  “Where should we deploy?” Brown asked.

  “All through the city. Get the first three armors you can find and station them and yourself to sweep the four quarters; kill everything that isn’t human.”

  “Yes, Cap!” She was off like a shot, and someone else took charge of the cart full of wounded people.

  A boom shook the right of the square, and Carmichael swung that way, hoping the fire hadn’t reached the mead distilleries. A group of robed people stared at a pile of smoldering debris and moved it farther from the fire as if pushing it with an invisible hand.

  The fucking yafanai, at last. The rain picked up a bit, and Carmichael spotted the Storm Lord among the other robes. That was a shame. If their line had broken on the palisade, he might have been killed. She supposed he was better for fighting the fire, but he had to be tired if this weak weather was all he could muster.

  Whatever he could do now was better than anything she had. Now the soldiers could clean up the rest of this mess. “Paladins, form up!”

  The cry passed around the square, and Carmichael divided her soldiers into squads, the better to sweep the city clean.

  *

  As the yafanai fought the fire, Dillon watched for any trouble coming from the shadows. Boggins and progs had flooded the city, and he’d figured out that it hadn’t been the Sun-Moon worshipers who’d started this fire but the boggins themselves. Little fucking bastards. He was almost proud of them, though he didn’t like being fooled. The last thing he needed was to look incompetent, not that anyone would point that out.

  Now all he had to do was wipe out the invaders and find out just who’d peeked into his head at the temple. Christian and Marlowe might not have been responsible for the fire, but with Caroline distracted, they might have been able to scan his thoughts.

  Not that it would do them any good.

  A prog wandered into the square, limping, its tongue lolling. He pumped it full of lightning until it stopped wriggling, though it seemed on its last legs anyway. Even the monsters were getting tired. It had been a long night, never mind that it wasn’t that late. Dillon resisted the urge to lean on his knees. The rain was falling in earnest after he’d tugged on it for hours, so between the rain and Carmichael’s efforts, the fire couldn’t spread, though it was just because of the powered armor that she’d beaten him here. That was okay. It had given him more time to save people as the boggins caught up to them.

  He looked to the yafanai just as a macro collapsed. The others gathered around her and tried to help her up. They’d have to save themselves soon, never mind other people. Where the fuck was Lazlo? That question had been running through his head for hours. Lazlo could have fixed them all and not broken a sweat, but he was still nowhere to be found, even after someone had gone to fetch the healers. Dillon fought images of a prog sneaking through the darkness as Lazlo bent over a wounded soul. He’d never hear it coming, and he wasn’t fast enough to stop his own throat being torn out.

  No, much more likely that he was on his way with the others, safe in a group. He wouldn’t need to be the fastest then, just not the slowest. Still, someone should be searching for him.

  As he took another weary look around the square, Dillon nodded. The fire was under control with the few nudges the yafanai had done and the townspeople still working steadily. Carmichael was a pain in the ass, but she seemed good at organizing people. He left his one pyrokinetic at the fire
and turned back toward the temple. They’d meet the healers, get their energy back, and take on the boggins.

  They were a sad, shuffling group, all but Natalya, who stared at Dillon with a half-crazed smile that made her look as if she wasn’t used to smiling and didn’t quite know how to do it. He supposed she might be awe-stricken or trying to come on to him. She was good-looking, a bit angular, but the weird smile put her out of the running of potential bed partners. He gave her a confident nod, hoping that would make her look elsewhere, but she kept staring.

  He nudged Caroline. “What’s the story with her?”

  “Natalya?”

  “I know she’s one of the augmented, but is she just weird?”

  Caroline looked her way and frowned. “I can’t get anything from her, not even surface thoughts.”

  “Because of her shields.”

  “Stronger than that. It’s as if she’s not even there.”

  Creepy. The augmentation must have given her very strong shields. He tried to ignore her and offered comforting words to the others instead.

  *

  Lazlo couldn’t believe his eyes. It was a ballista. He never thought he’d see anything like it in person, though he also hadn’t believed he’d ever see a twenty-foot alien alligator scale a wall.

  “It’s not mine,” Lieutenant Lea said as he invited Lazlo and Samira to take cover with him. Several leather-clad paladins and a handful of others squatted behind the barricade they’d built on each side of the large weapon. “I borrowed it from a friend.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if he’d just taken someone’s hairbrush. “It’s come in pretty handy. We lure the progs down this street and shoot them.” The pile of pointy, bloody debris stacked up to the side backed him up nicely.

  From the top of a nearby building someone called, “Ready!”

  Lea tilted the ballista up, aiming it down the street. “Here we go.”

  “A prog,” the lookout called. “And a pack of boggins behind.”

  “You’re a yafanai, right?” Lea asked.

  “A macro,” Samira said. “Simon is a healer.”

  Lea nodded. “You can take the boggins?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. I’ll hit the prog.”

  Samira leaned close to Lazlo’s ear. “Sounds as if he’s planning a regular day.”

  Lazlo would have chuckled, but the roar of the prog made his teeth clamp together. He shuddered, remembering the other being so close.

  When the prog rounded the corner, Lea fired, and a makeshift spear punched into its shoulder just in front of its left leg. Lazlo sensed the severed tendons and the broken ribs behind, one puncturing a lung. The prog staggered and fell, flopping but trying to push forward.

  Samira lifted the nearest boggins and hurled them into the others. Five broke away, rushing the barricade. The leathers and the townspeople readied truncheons and whatever else they had to hand. Lea pulled his gun. Samira got one boggin before they were out of sight, crouched on the other side of the barricade.

  “The prog is still coming!” someone said.

  Samira grunted as she tried to shove the heavy creature. Two boggins leapt the barricade. Lea shot one from the air, and a leather hit the other. When it fell, the townspeople gathered around it, weapons rising and falling until it stilled. Another boggin leapt while everyone was distracted, teeth glinting in the dim light. Lazlo paralyzed it, and it fell limply into the crowd of people. One man screamed and pushed it away before he hammered it over and over.

  “It’s dead.” Lazlo tried to catch his arm. “You killed it. You can stop.”

  “Simon!”

  He turned as a boggin reached over the barricade and tore into someone’s shoulder. She dropped, shrieking, blood fountaining from the wound. Lea shot the creature, and it fell back, claws catching on the barricade so that it hung like a macabre ornament. Lazlo darted for the injured woman and healed her, but she clung to him, sobbing.

  He turned to Samira, his panic rising. “What should I do? I can’t put her to sleep out here.” He calmed her with his power, but she wasn’t annoyed; she was traumatized, and he could only make her sleepy.

  “Forget her,” someone said. “Where’s the last one?”

  They quieted, listening. Samira bent close to the injured woman’s ear and whispered something soothing, muffling her breathy sobs.

  “Can you sense it?” Lea asked.

  Lazlo let his senses wander, looking for anything that didn’t belong. “On the other side of the barricade. Close.” He tried to get hold of it, but there were too many people around, and he couldn’t see it. The woman in his arms shifted to latch on to Samira.

  A leather peeked over the barricade and was rewarded with a claw across his cheek. He yelped and fell back. Lazlo healed him, and everyone waved at him to be quiet.

  “To hell with this.” Lea vaulted over the barricade. “Come here, you little shit.”

  Lazlo grimaced at the screech of claws trying to tear metal and then the wet, thudding sounds of a boggin being beaten to a pulp.

  “That’s done it,” someone said.

  Lazlo sagged against the barricade, and Samira squeezed his arm. Everything around him was clear, every sight and sound, the scent of blood. He could almost taste the fear, the heightened senses that kept hijacking his power by their presence. He was terrified, and he wondered how he should react to that, if he should be like the frightened woman and collapse in Samira’s arms. He’d been scared all his life, but never like this. What the hell had he been so afraid of? What could be as scary as this?

  Dillon? Not even by half. But this was all Dillon’s fault. And his own, his inner voice whispered. He’d turned these creatures into killers on Dillon’s command. He wished that he had been afraid of Dillon. He could confess then, claim he’d done it because he feared Dillon would hurt him or someone he cared about. They’d be angry, but they’d understand.

  But if he tried to say he’d done it out of love? Who would understand that? Who would create something so terrible because of love? And if he stayed with Dillon, he’d do something like this again. Natalya and Horace were proof of that. He’d do all this again.

  “Simon?” Samira whispered. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded, even though the future was more terrifying than the present. He would leave Dillon. He had to. If he survived the night, if any of them did, he had to get as far from Dillon as possible, or history would just keep repeating itself. He’d had this thought before, on the Atlas, but it had been impossible then, a comforting lie, but now he had to make it the truth, a fact more terrifying than a thousand boggins.

  Funny, he’d never thought fear could make him feel lighter.

  *

  When Private Jacobs held up a hand, Horace stopped with the others. Jacobs was supposed to be taking them toward the fire, but they’d taken countless detours, threading around wreckage and destruction and angling toward cries for help.

  Horace had healed injury after injury, had soothed the nerves of countless people, including his fellow healers. And he’d eased their fatigue when they’d overused their powers. Kessy had started calling him their little healing battery. His reserves seemed inexhaustible, and the thought made him giddy, even a little fearful, though he couldn’t quite say why.

  He thought on something Simon had said, about how he had to be careful not to harm instead of heal, that his powers could be flipped to attack the same systems he bolstered. The idea made his stomach squirm, but so far, Jacobs had kept them out of combat, leading them in when the fighting was done.

  Now Jacobs crept forward, and Horace followed, the rest of them trailing in his wake. In the next street, Captain Carmichael and a large group of soldiers stood amidst a trail of boggin bodies.

  “Captain?” Jacobs called.

  The soldiers swung their weapons toward the dark alley, but Carmichael put up a hand. “Easy,” she said. “A group of boggins wouldn’t call me captain. Come on out.”

  Horac
e stepped out before Jacobs could speak again. “Is anyone hurt?”

  “The yafanai medics,” Carmichael said. “At last.”

  Kessy held her chin up. “We’ve had a lot to do.”

  “I bet. Anyone who’s hurt, sound off.”

  The healers moved through the group, fixing them, soothing them. Horace gave Carmichael an energy boost, cleansing her fatigue.

  She breathed deep. “You’re the real thing, yafanai.”

  “Horace. We heard there was a fire?”

  “Dealt with, but there are still wounded.” She split some of her soldiers up and sent Will and Kessy with them toward the warehouse district. She gestured for Horace to follow her and sent Leila with another group.

  She didn’t tell Horace where she was going or what they would do when they got there, but he supposed she was used to only explaining when she needed to. He stayed on her heels. He hadn’t seen Lieutenant Ross, but maybe they would find her on their way. He hoped she hadn’t been killed. Who else could he tell his secret to? Simon seemed too caught up in the Storm Lord, but the idea that he couldn’t be trusted sounded wrong in Horace’s head.

  He stared at Carmichael. He didn’t know her, but he’d heard stories about how much of a hardass she was. Did she know people talked about her like that? Would she even care? A true hardass might even be pleased. And she wasn’t protecting the Storm Lord at the moment, not that a god needed her help. But maybe she didn’t want to protect him.

  “Have you seen the Storm Lord?” he asked softly.

  “Back at the fire.”

  “Oh, that’s why it’s dealt with? Because he took care of it?”

  She snorted and gave him a look, as if wondering what he was trying to prove, but that snort said volumes. She wasn’t giving the Storm Lord any credit. Still, he waited through two more skirmishes that she waded through easily. He didn’t have much to do until Jacobs took a spear to the gut from a boggin she thought already dead.

  No one else was near as Jacobs fell back with a cry. She was halfway into an alley, deep in shadow. The boggin twisted the spear inside her, and he couldn’t heal her until it was free. And it wouldn’t be free until the boggin was dead.