The Stars Like Ice (The Star Sojourner Series Book 8)

by Jean Kilczer

  Slattie voices, harsh and hollow as they echoed down the shaft, brought chills to my mind with their brutal intent.

  I paused to listen.

  “You know what this is?” a Slattie growled.

  “I do not,” the Cleocean mumbled. I caught his words more through tel than by sound. “I do not wish to know.”

  “Then for the last time, will you guide us to the sunken vessel?”

  “I cannot, though I would avoid further pain.”

  As I drew closer, I realized how choked was his voice.

  “Why not?” the Cultist asked.

  “I have sworn an oath to all our people killed by your savagery,” he sobbed, “that we will not assist the enemy with golden bars that will buy more weapons for more killing. Pru pai!”

  “We're not your enemy.” The Cultist's voice smoothened out to ironed silk. “We only did what was required of us in the service of the Ten Gods. You understand.”

  I came around a turn and saw the Cleocean, his legs bound, his face bruised, as he lay on the ground. Three Cultists, by their blue armbands, stood around him. A lantern lit the small cave, where dark entrances showed other passages.

  “In what way,” the Cleocean asked, “are you serving our loving gods with torture and murder?”

  One Cultist sat on his haunches near the Cleocean. “The gods have decreed that our mission is to cleanse Kresthaven of all infidels and non-believers.” He gently touched the Cleocean's side, then stroked it. “It is a daunting task, cousin, but we have dedicated ourselves to its fulfillment. Will you help us?”

  The Cleocean rolled away from him. “Not if the gods themselves rose up to beseech me. I have taken an oath. I do not collaborate with the enemy.”

  “Oh, just kill him!” one Cultist said. “We'll find another of his kind who is more obedient, Vutin.”

  Vutin shifted on his haunches. “You will collaborate with us, heathen, or you will collaborate with death.”

  “Death comes to all.” The Cleocean closed all his eyes that I could see.

  Vutin stood and took his stingler from a shoulder holster.

  No, I thought.

  The Cleocean quivered. His clawed feet slowly curled against his body. “Pru pa,” he whispered. “Great Gods, I come.”

  The Cultist spun his stingler's ring to hot. I heard it click into place.

  No. I drew my weapon, pushed off from the wall, and ran into the cave. “No!” I shouted. “Drop it. Now.” I fired at a wall to show my gun was set for hot. A small waterfall ran and puddled.

  Vutin dropped his stingler. “You again.”

  “Back up,” I ordered, “all of you, against the wall. I want to see forepaws.”

  As they did, I yanked open the knot on the Cleocean's tied legs and on the cord around his body and stubby hands. “C'mon,” I said softly, “you're OK now.”

  “You two,” I told the other Cultists, "drop your weapons and your comlinks. When they did, I collected them and stuffed them into my pockets.

  “What's your name?” I asked the Cleocean and helped him up, with an eye on the Cultists.

  He was shaking badly, but he got to his feet and braced himself against the wall. “Blitz.” He batted his eyes. Two were puffy and his left cheek was swollen. “And yours, my savior?”

  “Jules.” I didn't mention the litany of names I was called.

  He blinked all the eyes that I could see. I had a feeling it was a smile. His smell of kelp, his downy white fur lifting in the heat of the lantern, his eyes that opened and closed as though sending signals from his round head, were pleasant after all. “Can you walk, Blitz?”

  He nodded.

  “You three,” I told the Cultists, picked up the lantern, and waved toward the shaft I'd come through, “into that tunnel.”

  A clatter of claws echoed from the shaft as the Cultists entered it.

  Huff came skidding through. “I have come to help,” he announced, and crashed into Vutin, who was standing on his hind legs. Vutin slammed into the other two behind him. They fell against me.

  My gun was knocked from my hand, the lantern, too. They both slid across the ice floor.

  So did I.

  Vutin got to his four feet and charged me. I stayed on my back and kicked him as he leaped. He slid into a wall.

  I went after my stingler, but so did Vutin. He reached it first. As he turned to aim at me, I yanked a stingler from my pocket and fired first. It burned a hole into his forehead. He fell back and lay twitching. I pulled the weapon from his dead hand.

  Huff was battling a Cultist with teeth and claws, like two Polar bears fighting on ice.

  I swung on the third Cultist, who was springing at me. Blitz threw himself against the Cultist's flank and they both went down and slid.

  “That's enough!” I backed up and aimed at both Cultists. “Game's over, scuds. You lose.”

  Huff rose up to his impressive seven-foot height. “I am happy in my liver that I came with the right time to help.”

  Blitz looked at me with all his eyes, I think.

  “Yeah, Huff,” I said, “I don't know what I would've done without you.”

  * * *

  “A Trojan Horse,” I told Joe and Sarge, and gestured at the two Cultists, bound forepaws and feet with their own cords in the Cleocean village.

  “I thought that was a condom.” Sarge threw me a kiss.

  Sophia glared at him and came to stand between us. “You're just one fun tag, aren't you?”

  “I try,” Sarge answered.

  “Watch out, Sarge.” Chancey chuckled. “Last time you got near her Babe, she gut-punched you.”

  “You mean the Trojan Horse in the Iliad?” Bat scratched under his cap.

  “I am sorry to not agree,” Huff said, “but there are no Earth horses on Kresthaven, not Trojan, or Jules cub's Ara Bean, or–”

  “Jules,” Joe said, “are you talking about a way into Aburra's stronghold?”

  “Yeah, Joe, and letting in Sarge's mercs.” I watched Cleocean children kick pieces of ice at the two Cultists. “We'd better get those scuds aboard our boat before the Cleoceans forget they're a peace-loving people.”

  The wind had died with the afternoon sun, and the day was almost pleasant. Sophia had brought up the gold bullion and Joe had hidden it aboard our boat.

  * * *

  We sat around the cabin table with cups of hot earthbrew.

  Sarge pulled thoughtfully on his beard. “So why would those two scuds,” he gestured toward the Cultists, bound and lying on the floor, “agree to let us into Aburra's compound?”

  “Because their lives will depend on their cooperation,” I said. “I'm thinking that we go in with their jeep, sitting in the back as prisoners. They tell their buddies that the mercs have left because after Sarge was captured, they wouldn't get any more creds.”

  “I will never deceive my own brethren,” one of the mercs declared.

  Sarge unholstered his gun, went to him and shoved the barrel against his snout. “Not even if I send you to The Pit and use your silent brethren over there instead?” He grabbed a handful of face fur and nudged the Cultist's nose with the gun's barrel.

  The Cultist got cross-eyed trying to watch the barrel.

  “I didn't think so.” Sarge came to the table, holstered his gun and sat down. “Now where were we?”

  “Meanwhile,” I told Sarge, “you have a few of your tags take off in your hovair, buzz Aburra's compound in a farewell salute, and head into space toward your orbiting starship.”

  Joe tapped his cup. “And while the Cultists are celebrating their victory…”

  “We open the gates,” Chancey said.

  “We, Chance?” I asked. “It only needs two, in case something happens to one of us.”

  “Want to flip a coin?” Chancey dug into his pocket and pulled out a silver coin.

  But this time he lost.

  I saw the disappointed look on Sophia's face and put my arm around her shoulder. “It worked for O
dysseus,” I said.

  “Yes,” she answered, “but he had Athena on her side.”

  I kissed her cheek. “I've got you on my side.”

  “So while the Cultist are celebrating their victory,” Joe said, “you two open the gates and let in the mercs.”

  “Classic!” Sarge said.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Actually, it is classic.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  When Sarge drove into his camp, with me beside him in the stolen Cultist's jeep, the mercs dropped what they were doing and strolled over. Word got out and we were surrounded with fur jackets, leather pants, buckskin boots with rawhide straps, and tattoos. Some of the mercs sported unruly manes of hair. They would've done Genghis Khan proud, but behind the fierce images, I knew that Big Sarge had picked his men for their skills, their competence, and their cool heads during battle. And Khan would've been baffled by the array of high-tech weaponry they carried. I hoped the furs weren't real, but that was not my call to make.

  “How many on this mission?” I asked Sarge.

  “Started off with an even two hundred, but we lost three during the Cultist attack of the Rebel camp.” He smiled and shook hands as his men gathered around him. “Three more recuperating from wounds.”

  “We're going to be badly outnumbered,” I said.

  “Maybe in bodies, tag, but not in brains, fighting ability, and tech. stuff.”

  “You OK, Sarge?” Attila squeezed through the crowd and asked him. I knew the tag from the mission to close down the slave mine on New Lithnia. He'd been introduced to me by Sarge as the master of the fine art of killing without weapons.

  Attila came around the jeep and we shook hands. “Hey, Superstar.” His cheekbones are sharp enough to cut ice. His hair is so black, the highlights are blue, over deepest eyes that seem to glow, and give new meaning to the term, the inscrutable east.

  “Good to see you again,” he grinned, “alive, anyway.”

  “You too, Attila. Kung Fu'd any scuds lately?”

  He took a karate stance, his hands stiff. “Hi!”

  “Hi.” I lifted an arm. “Save it for Aburra.”

  “There's plenty more where that came from.”

  I smiled as I watched Apache John Crossbow move toward the jeep. Short, compact, muscular, tan-skinned, John never spoke much. I knew him, too, from New Lithnia. An expert in guerrilla warfare, he let his actions speak louder. He was a good man.

  “Hey, compadre!” He pumped my hand. “Has your woman cut off your balls yet?”

  “Naw, I run faster than her. Anyway, she wants kids.”

  “Lucky for you.” He grinned.

  “Good to see you, John.”

  “Same here, white man.”

  Sarge stood on the jeep's seat as more men gathered. “Listen, you flea-bitten pack of motherless bottom feeders, this here's Jules Rammis.” He took my arm. “Get up, cupcake.”

  I did.

  “He's the tag paid the bill for the gig on New Lithnia,” Sarge scanned the men. Others were trotting over to join the crowd. “Treat him like one of ours.” Sarge reached back and squeezed my butt.

  “Damn you, Sarge!” I swung to hit his chest, but he ducked low and I fell into the rear seat.

  He laughed and extended a hand. I smiled, took it, and yanked. He flew over the driver's seat. I protected my sore ribs as he landed on top of me.

  “Now ain't this cozy?” He pursed his lips.

  Apache John shook his head as I crawled out from under Sarge and went over the door. It was then I realized the mercs were grinning and chuckling as they returned to cook fires and to cleaning their weapons. A hovair sat on a pad of ice behind rows of hypalon tents.

  Sarge got out of the jeep and I saw his features turn grim. The men parted to make him a path as he headed for three gravestone crosses.

  “Are those the tags you lost in the battle at the Rebel camp?” I asked Apache John.

  He just nodded.

  As Sarge walked through the crowd, the remaining mercs patted his butt.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked John, “the national mercenary greeting?”

  “Soldiers of fortune, if you don't mind.” He winked at me. “Only for the tags who belong to the Brothers of Fortune.” As I walked by, he patted my butt.

  There were a few women in the camp, not nearly as fierce-looking as their men. If they had children, they had wisely left them back on Earth.

  I thought of my daughter Lisa. Every time I saw her, between missions, she was a little taller, her features a little more mature. I tried to bring her presents from the worlds I'd visited, but anything I brought her from Kresthaven would probably melt.

  Big Sarge stood quietly over the three graves. The men gave him a wide berth and were silent as they passed. I saw him wipe his eyes and cross himself, then he turned and strode toward a tent marked with a red cross. The three wounded mercs would be comforted to see their leader's concern for them.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Inside the abattoir, Brinn, a young Cultist, his stubby, webbed fingers dripping blood, forced flesh and fur through the iron teeth of a saw that screamed as it cut, and spewed out pieces of bone.

  The work was hard. He squinted in the dim light of the few hanging bulbs. His back ached with a searing pain between his shoulder blades. Sweat dripped into his eyes. When he tried to wipe them, his blood-soaked forepaws made his fur stick to his skin. The heat, the rancid odor of carcasses, was overwhelming. Often he found himself holding his breath. He longed for the cold feel and briny smell of the open sea. The sea that would wash the blood from his fur and his conscience.

  His twenty brethren worked in silence. Probably just as resigned as myself, he thought, to these wretched conditions.

  He stepped back to fling the haunch of a Druid into a bin, and felt his feet catch on the sticky floor. A piece of bone stuck between the pads of his right foot. He grimaced and scraped it off.

  The wooden floor planks, overfed with gore, were swollen and twisted. Blood pooled in hollows.

  When Brinn threw the white-furred head of a Rebel Slattie into the overflowing bin, the half-closed sunken eye seemed to watch him with an accusing stare.

  “What are you looking at, Rebel? This is the devil's own work!” he muttered.

  “Did you say something?” a Cultist at a machine asked.

  Brinn gasped in a breath and suddenly felt cold. “No, nothing, brother. My back aches. That's all.”

  The Cultist studied him. “For a breath, I thought you said we are doing the devil's work.”

  “Oh, no, brother. The Ten Gods preserve me from such a thought.”

  The Cultist turned back to his work and Brinn picked up a Druid shank. His hands shook as he fed it through the saw.

  Chapter Twenty

  As Granbor approached the dark building, his family followed. Thin wooden walls vibrated with the shriek of saws and the dull thud of axes splitting bone. He lifted himself to peer through a window and drew in a breath. Bile rose in the back of his throat. “Barbarians!” He swung to face his people. “Demons, from the lowest level of the Pit. Show them no mercy, my sons and daughters.” He waved a fin at the building. “There are no words…”

  The family waited, their amber eyes alert for his orders.

  “When I give the signal,” Granbor called above the din of machinery, “bury the savages in their own Well of the Pit.”

  Flair came to his side and stroked him. “I'm all right,” he whispered. He studied the faces of his children. How precious each child. How terrible to lose one more. “To your positions,” he ordered, “and our beloved gods be with you.”

  The family spread out around the building, lifted to their tails, and braced themselves against the walls. Some topped thirty feet, but Granbor, the tallest, towered at close to forty feet with his tail dug deep into the snow.

  He gazed at the galaxy's flow of stars, the ashen moon drifting without support, and wondered again at the great mysteries beyond the nar
row confines of his world. Were there really gods who stood between his people and the vast indifference above them? “Ten Gods,” he murmured, his pectoral fins hard against the vibrating wall, “if I am not praying into a void, keep my family safe in your love.”

  “Keep our children safe,” Flair intoned.

  The wall creaked with Granbor's weight. He raised his head, took a breath, and trumpeted the signal to attack.

  The family trumpeted back, and together, they heaved themselves against the walls, forcing wood to bow inward.

  Granbor's wall cracked, and crashed down. Snow and dust lifted to swirl above the gutted building. The roof tilted but held. Cries from within replaced the machinery as it wound down, cut off from its source of power.

  Screaming Cultists lunged through the ruins, only to fall under the Druids' sharp tusks that lifted and slashed down on their backs, lifted and slashed, while the dying Cultists begged for mercy and tried to crawl away.

  Another wall caved in. The roof slid down, plowing through snow that settled like a shroud on the flattened building.

  “Watch out!” Granbor warned as the remaining wall leaned outward and fell.

  When the bloody work was done, Brinn dragged himself out from under splintered wood. “Please,” he mumbled, “by the grace of the gods, please don't kill me.” He crawled to Granbor. “I think you are the father, Granbor.”

  Granbor nodded and lifted his head while Brinn dragged his body under Granbor's tusks in supplication.

  “Lord Aburra forced me to do this bloody work,” Brinn cried. “I never killed a Druid or a Rebel Slattie. Spare me, Great Father.”

  Granbor lowered his head. “Go back to your lord. Tell him of our work here tonight.”

  “I will. I will!” Brinn responded.

  “Tell him that if one more Druid dies at the hands of the demon Cultists, we will hunt you all, in the sea and on the land not born of water. You will not sleep for fear of being slashed to death.”

  “I will tell him, great sire.” Brinn rose shakily to his four feet.

  “Go!” Granbor ordered. “Let the sea wipe the blood from your paws. You sicken me with your smell and your deeds. Go!”