Paladins of the Storm Lord

by Barbara Ann Wright

  He was going to kill her, no fucking around. Time for Plan B.

  The yafanai frowned, and Carmichael made herself slump again, thinking about how her life was over, how this was it, but her hand snaked down for her gun. The Storm Lord dove to the side as she aimed for him, but her first shot clipped his arm, sending a little spray of blood after him as he disappeared behind some crates.

  Her mind snapped back to sharp as the telepath scrambled for cover. Carmichael ducked down an alley, but the end was blocked with debris. She leaned around the corner and squeezed off a couple more shots at their cover. Maybe she could run faster than they could follow. Whatever she did, she had to keep the telepath out of the game.

  She dashed for another hiding place, shooting as she went, the sound cracking through the street. Maybe someone would hear it and come, unless everyone had already gone to the damn marketplace, and then there’d be no one to witness this. Good, if she managed to kill the Storm Lord, she could blame it on the boggins, stab him as he’d stabbed Paul. But if he managed to kill her, no one would see.

  Then it would be time for Plan C.

  She risked a glance back, saw no one, and started forward. The ringing started again, and she knew the telepath was reaching for her. She tried to fight, but her thoughts skewed slightly, as if the telepath was trying to convince her she was going the wrong way, and it was damn hard not to believe it. The woman was good. Maybe once the corrupting influence of the Storm Lord was gone, she could be saved.

  Carmichael tripped over a piece of debris, should have been paying more attention. She couldn’t afford to be sloppy while…

  Blue white light filled her vision, and the ground was ripped from beneath her feet as she flew sideways. The armor absorbed the impact as she knocked into a wall, but the displays on her visor went dead.

  She’d planned for this, she told herself. She had to move, to reach back and jettison her overloaded battery. Her teeth were chattering, and she bet every hair on her body was trying to stand on end.

  She dropped the battery and crawled forward, flopping for cover. Without power, the visor was only useful as a sunshade. It had popped open slightly, and she slid her thumbs into the gap and forced it the rest of the way up. She’d kept hold of her gun, but she supposed she would have even if he’d electrocuted her. Her hand would have curled around it and never let go.

  Even with the armor, her muscles were jumping. If they’d had the larger suits from the paladin vids and not the more formal, showy suits, she bet she wouldn’t even have stumbled, but her ancestors hadn’t anticipated their use on the target colony. They would have packed much differently if they’d been able to see the future as the prophets could.

  Carmichael shook these thoughts away, knew they were the telepath trying to distract her, but she was rattled. She pushed up against a wall, trying to listen, waiting for footfalls. At last she heard a crunch. She stuck her sidearm out, keeping cover behind the building and risking a look.

  The telepath stared, and there seemed to be two of her for a moment. Carmichael blinked, trying to clear her vision.

  “Captain.”

  She whirled and fired, but the bullet dug into a door. He was bent low, ducking for cover. Her vision went white again, her body flying. The bastard had sneaked through the house she was taking cover behind, clever as a fucking boggin.

  When she landed, the impact rattled all the way through her. She tried to bring her gun up, but her muscles wouldn’t obey, and a deep ache spread through her chest, her vision going in and out. She could only breathe in coughs, as if she had the worst cold of her life, and her pulse beat in a crazy non-rhythm.

  The Storm Lord stood over her, Mr. Smug incarnate. “A pain in the ass until the end.”

  She tried to tell him to go screw himself, tried to make the most obscene gesture she could think of, but nothing was working, damn it. She screamed in her mind, hoping the telepath was getting a head full.

  “Maybe I’ll tell everyone you died bravely, saving my life. No one will dig too deeply into the death of a hero.”

  He put a finger to her forehead, and everything in her cried out to move, but she couldn’t. As the world became one giant flash inside her mind, she saw Liam again, four years old, grinning from under her helmet.

  *

  Liam bounced little Paul in his arms, making the boy laugh. Horace and Shiv stood to either side of him, both with anxious looks. He’d told them to relax, that his mother always had a plan, but some people were just natural worriers.

  And Shiv had plenty of reasons to worry. Until Cordelia returned, she wouldn’t know the fate of her mother or her people. She clung to the tree she’d gathered from outside the palisade, the one that entwined its small branches around her neck. They kept to the back of the crowd because of that tree, thinking it might freak people out.

  When Liam had first seen it move, he’d been plenty alarmed until it clung to his finger like a baby’s hand. Shiv had said it liked him because she liked him, and that had been enough for him. But everyone might not be so understanding.

  “What’s taking so long?” Horace muttered.

  All around the square, people were growing impatient, muttering, wondering where the mayor was. Liam thought that was what his mother’s announcement would be about, though why she needed Horace, he didn’t know. Horace had asked him why he wasn’t more curious, and he’d said he learned long ago not to pry into his mother’s business.

  The Storm Lord strode from an alley mouth, a woman at his side. He climbed up on top of a cart, a makeshift stage. He had a bloody bandage about one arm, but he gestured at the crowd to be calm.

  Horace grabbed Liam’s arm and hid behind him. “Something’s wrong. She can’t know I’m here.”

  Liam stayed put, shielding him. “A yafanai?”

  “Captain Carmichael said—”

  “People of Gale,” the Storm Lord said, “I am overjoyed to see so many of you alive and well. We were sorely tested last night, but we survived. Your strength and perseverance are awe-inspiring, and your god stands humbled and proud before you.”

  He bowed, and murmurs swept the crowd before applause overtook them, many people putting their hands over their hearts and calling out their love.

  The Storm Lord paused, head bowed, hand on his own chest. He took a deep breath and seemed the picture of sadness. “It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you of two deaths, two among so many, but two that will be felt by all of us.” Another deep breath, and silence descended on the massive square. “Our beloved mayor, Paul Ross, has fallen.”

  Gasps spread through the crowd. Liam frowned. Fallen made it seem as if he died during the boggin attack, but he was murdered long before that. Unless the Storm Lord was suggesting a boggin had killed the mayor before the fighting even started.

  “Damn,” Horace said. “Where is she?”

  The Storm Lord held up his hands. “Alas, that is not the end of our sadness. The brave Captain Carmichael, leader of the paladins…”

  “No,” Liam said.

  “…died…”

  “No.”

  “…defending me from the boggin threat.”

  All Liam could think was no, but before he could say it again, louder this time, Horace gripped his arm, and a calming wave flowed over him, driving back the buzzing in his ears.

  “Be quiet, you fool. They’ll hear you.”

  It was a mistake; that was all. Liam just had to find his mother, tell the people that she was alive, and they’d laugh about it. Easy.

  “We have to get out of here,” Horace said. “There are too many telepaths.”

  “Right.”

  “What is happening?” Shiv asked. “Is that not your mother he was speaking of?”

  “Nope. It was someone else.” Liam led them around the edge of the crowd, toward the route his mother had taken, the roundabout one.

  Horace was right about one thing; there were too many people in the square watching them, too many peo
ple wondering where they might be going, and his mother needed Horace to be safe. He turned to Shiv. “Can you take Horace somewhere? Outside the palisade to watch for Cordelia and your mother?”

  She sucked her teeth and searched his face. “Will you not tell me what is the matter?”

  “It’s a mistake.” He smiled at her, but so many emotions were bubbling. He didn’t know what he’d do when Horace was gone. “I just need to prove it, and then my mother and I will join you.”

  Horace looked back over his shoulder. “We need to move.”

  “As quickly as you can.” Liam passed the child to Horace and kissed Shiv softly. “Please.”

  “Come.” Shiv gestured to Horace. “Let us take the quickest way out of this place.”

  “Good luck,” Horace said over his shoulder as he and Shiv hurried away, taking calmness with them.

  Liam tried to fight the dread that twisted his stomach into knots. He walked quickly, then started running, not caring who saw him.

  Even when he saw the armored body lying there, he told himself it was a mistake. The Storm Lord probably wouldn’t know his mother from any other paladin.

  A boggin body lay across her, a spear near its outstretched arm just as her gun was near hers. There was a bloody spot on her forehead, as if she’d opened her visor, and the boggin had stabbed her just as one had stabbed him.

  There was only one problem. She’d been alive after the battle was done. Maybe the Storm Lord was going to say this one had been hiding just for her.

  He shifted the boggin away. She had a snarl on her lips, her dead eyes glaring, an anger that not even death could quench. He laid a hand against her chest, but even if she’d had a pulse, he wouldn’t have been able to feel it.

  “Mom?” His voice broke, but he didn’t want to cry. She wouldn’t have wanted that. He took her shoulders and gave her a shake. “What did you do?”

  Her helmeted head thumped against the ground, and he leapt back. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Mom?” He snarled at his own childish behavior, shaking a dead person as if she was just having a nap. “What do I do?”

  Someone had closed Cordelia’s uncle’s eyes. Liam eased his mother’s helmet off and laid one hand against her forehead before smoothing her eyes closed, but one slipped open just a bit, and his stomach turned over. He stumbled to the alley and retched, trying not to think of how ashamed she’d be. When he turned back, he spied something sticking out of the open helmet, something she’d been hiding.

  He almost didn’t want to touch it, hoping it was nothing personal, that it was just notes she didn’t want to forget. But it was a card covered in her untidy script.

  “If I’m dead,” it read, “the Storm Lord killed me. He killed Paul Ross. He was responsible for the boggins. He’s human, not a god. Ask my son for the right yafanai, and tell him I…” There it ended, with a ghost of a mark as if she’d drawn her pen across it while trying to think of what to say next.

  Tears did fall then. He rested another hand on her chest and tried to soak up her anger, to let it fill him as if he was the corpse and had all the room in the world. He drew his sidearm and turned back toward the square.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Lazlo watched from the edge of the square as Dillon lied. He sensed the wound in Dillon’s arm, but more than that, he sensed the triumph that had replaced despair in Dillon’s mind. He’d been hurt by Lazlo’s proclamation about leaving; he’d been sorry and dejected, and a great many emotions that would have touched Lazlo before.

  But now something had happened to bring the old Dillon raging back, something other than the jot of hope Lazlo had sensed earlier that morning. As Dillon climbed down from his makeshift stage and came to the edge of the crowd, Lazlo moved to intercept him.

  “What did you do now?”

  Dillon gave him a boyish smile. “Took care of something.”

  Lazlo didn’t want to think too hard on that. He was leaving; he just had to remember that. A few more hours, a sweep of the town to see to any wounded souls, and then nothing that happened here would be his problem anymore.

  Dillon had a word in one of the yafanai’s ears and then started down a side street alone. Lazlo kept on his heels even as he damned himself for doing so. Why couldn’t he let anything go? “Dillon, I’m serious. What—”

  Ahead of them, someone screamed. Dillon shoved Lazlo to the ground as six shots cracked through the street, echoing off the buildings. Dillon jerked with each one, staggering backward and falling after the last. Lazlo darted up to catch him as he slumped to the ground, six pumping holes in his chest.

  An armored paladin advanced on them, tears streaming down his cheeks. His face was familiar. He’d been at the mayor’s house, might have known what had happened there. Why else would he have opened fire?

  Dillon was dying, his organs shredded like paper, but the muzzle of the paladin’s gun loomed in Lazlo’s vision. His power froze as he stared at that small black hole that dealt death so easily. Dillon’s life bled away slowly, counting down in Lazlo’s head. He tried to get a hold of himself, a hold of his power, but he couldn’t heal Dillon until the paladin left, or they’d both be killed.

  “Who are you?” the paladin asked. So, he didn’t remember, but maybe he hadn’t taken a good look.

  “No one.”

  “Friend of his?”

  “Yes.” It would always be partly true.

  “Sorry.” He turned and walked away.

  Lazlo didn’t breathe again until the paladin turned a corner, and then his power flowed over Dillon, skimming through the body he knew so well. He could never let Dillon die, no matter what pain it caused. Love didn’t just stop, even when it was past time for it to do so.

  *

  The tree set Cordelia down just outside the palisade. They were drawing a small crowd from Gale, curious onlookers who’d come to see the fabulous moving tree. Pool had debated about whether or not to take it out of the swamp, but in the end, she’d thought it safer for everyone to stay together.

  Cordelia hadn’t argued. She was too tired, even with the armor, to do anything more than ride. She told a few Galeans what had happened in the swamp and asked them to spread the word that the drushka were here to help. She was hoping everyone would know that by the day’s end, that there wouldn’t be any stray fights. They’d told her snatches of what had happened with the boggins, and that both the mayor and Captain Carmichael were dead.

  The last pained her almost as much as the first, though she was shocked that anything could beat through her fatigue. When Liam came toward them from the gate, his face a mask of grief, she went to him, crushing their armored bodies together. She kept thinking of her uncle and seeing Carmichael in his place. She clutched Liam tighter when he said, “Mom, Mom,” over and over. All the relatives they had between them were dead, and it hurt so much even though their childhoods had ended long ago. Around them, the drushka hummed some kind of dirge, and many humans wept, everyone giving over to sadness.

  When murmurs started around them, Cordelia risked a look to see the Storm Lord marching their way. Wanting to join in their grief? Why not? It’d been a night to make even God weep, though he didn’t look so godlike with dark circles under his eyes and the front of his robe stained with blood. Not his own, or he wouldn’t be striding with such purpose. Maybe he’d killed someone else. Maybe Carmichael, if she stood in his way.

  Or maybe he was coming to punish Cordelia for her lack of faith, for running to aid the drushka when Gale needed her. Well, she was guilty of that. She deserved something, though calmly going along with any punishment rankled. She thought of what Carmichael might do, what Paul would have thought. If the Storm Lord killed her in front of everyone, they would see him as the monster she suspected he was.

  The Storm Lord raised his hands, and Cordelia pushed Liam out of the way. Her vision filled with a blue-white glow. She expected pain but felt lighter than air. The ground fell away, or maybe she flew. Her insides felt too big for her outsid
e, and she thought she might pop, but as the glow in her vision intensified, something tore within her, and her body opened like a door. The pressure eased, and light and noise ceased, giving way to darkness.

  No, not darkness. There were stars, thousands of them, millions maybe, the naked universe laid out before her in all its splendor. She looked down to see a green planet spinning below her or maybe above. She had no feet, no body to tell her which way she pointed. But the planet was Calamity. It had to be, but what the hell was she doing above it? She couldn’t breathe but didn’t need to. She didn’t feel the cold, but she did feel something sharing this space with her, invisible as she was, but so much larger. The consciousness surrounded her like a giant’s hand.

  “And what is this?” A woman’s voice split into a thousand whispers.

  “I’m not sure.” Cordelia wasn’t even sure she spoke the words so much as thought them. “I’m very confused.”

  “You’re a wandering bee, buzzing around my ears.”

  “Am I dead?”

  “Hard to say. Many of the people I speak with are dead.”

  “Who are you?”

  The power was silent a moment. “I was a copilot. Now I might be everything. I hate it sometimes, the broke, bleeding lot of it. Would you like to see?”

  Pressure built around Cordelia again as if someone was trying to push her through a pinhole. She cried out and became aware of every molecule within her and the people on the planet below. All their thoughts and emotions beat inside her brain along with the noises of the stars and the planets, the sun and the moon.

  “Go farther.”

  She heard the whispers of other people on other planets, other races. They cascaded past her vision, filling her mind with their noise, and past all of them, at the end of a long journey, spun a planet of green and blue.

  “Home,” the voice said. “Earth. Never to be seen with our eyes again, but always in memory.”