by C. Gockel
The rough voice made her startle. She turned. Its owner was a young man, a rarity in Macula after the recent Regime occupation. He grinned, showing startlingly white teeth against sun-darkened skin. One of his hands rested on the hilt of a sinister-looking curved blade strapped under the drape of his robe.
And I purposefully dodged a well-trained soldier’s protection to come here.
Alone.
Her heart flattened under the thought.
What was I thinking?
“Where’s that Regime vulta ?” he asked.
That was a good question, although Tyron would disagree violently with being called a whore.
When it was clear Erelah would not answer, he yanked her to him savagely.
“That skew cut your tongue out when he bought you?” he asked, looking her up and down.
Bought me?
Wide-eyed, she shook her head. Then realized he did not know who she was. He had assumed she was some sort of slave or concubine. Although she’d be insulted under any other circumstances, she decided not to correct him. While Tristic might prefer to use her own private intelligence army and work in subterfuge, the Regime had done steady trade in the Known Worlds, with bounties for deserters like her brother and Tyron.
“I’m so glad that you found me,” she said haltingly in Commonspeak, swallowing her consonants. “Fates bless you for freeing me, sir.”
Erelah cringed. She knew what she sounded like when she attempted the language: a high-born, mocking a commoner’s accent. Thankfully, he was too impressed with himself to notice.
“Free you.” He jerked his chin in a nod. His self-congratulatory smile re-emerged. “Of course, sweetling.”
She did not need the Sight to tell the man was lying. The lupine glint in his eyes told her he might harbor other plans for her. Her experience with Maynard had paid off in that aspect.
“My friends are with that crester skew Veradin right now.” He turned them in the direction of the landing field. “Nice payday. Never seen a bounty like that. Even more, if we get that Regime whore…though I won’t weep if she ends up dead in the process.”
Erelah pointed over her shoulder toward the Temple of the Miseries. It now seemed so far away. This was not going at all as she had hoped. “Take me back to the temple. I’ll bring you to the Regime woman.”
He glanced around as he seemed to reconsider.
“She’s injured. Easy for a strong man like you to overpower,” she prodded.
He reached up, pushing the hood from her head. His fingers brushed along her face. Erelah felt the tremble build along her every nerve at once, straining against that tender barrier in her mind. The brief touch had been enough to get a taste of him. She felt something uncoil at the base of her skull. The Sight was awake and greedy with hunger.
She pushed out at him, just the briefest of efforts.
Take me back to the Temple.
Something flickered behind his eyes.
“Come on then, girl.”
Turning, he pulled her in the direction of the temple, his fingers digging painfully into her upper arm.
As the suns shifted in the sky to cast shadows, Sela moved to the relative shade of a small outbuilding directly across from the shrine.
Certainly, the Fates were bored of hearing from Erelah by now.
Jon, the things I do for you.
With a defeated sigh, she slid down the wall and pulled her knees up against her chest. Her head felt baked, and the skin on her forearms was starting to turn pink. Even her patience was beginning to evaporate. Regardless of her reluctance to be in such intimate surroundings with Erelah, she was considering going inside just to be out of the sun. Maybe if she were to silently stare at the back of the girl’s head, she would get the message that it was time to wrap it up. Perhaps the Fates would even be grateful to Sela for cutting off the prayer marathon.
Subdued giggling grabbed her attention.
Peeking out from a gap in the curtains were two Tasemarin children. Eyes wide under shaggy heads of hair, they regarded Sela with naked fascination. By the time she was their size, she could field strip a weapon and understand basic defense strategy. These two children knew nothing of that.
A woman, graying and hunched, suddenly appeared behind the children. She warbled admonishing commands in Tasemarin and herded the younglings back into the shrine. Her sharp-eyed gaze studied Sela before she followed them in.
Sela realized the woman knew her for what she was. The rest of Macula was filled with the elderly and children. There were more widows and orphans than young men and women of combat age. It was the mark of a place that had waged insurrection and paid for it in the death and conscription of their youth.
We have been foolish.
Despite the bustle and new-found activity of Macula, they were painfully conspicuous. The pilgrims coming and going from the temple might offer cover and distraction, but they did not mean safety. Sela might have shed her uniform, but she was not like them. She stood a full head taller. Despite their time on the run with meager supplies, she was well-fed in appearance. Her spine had never been bent under the yoke of hard labor. Her dark blonde hair was clipped short to regulation standard, regardless of how shaggy it might feel to her.
She was a Regime criminal who had lain siege to their town and desecrated their beloved temple. They did not know her name or her face, but they knew what Sela represented. For that, they would have gladly stoned her to death in the very street.
I have to get Erelah. Now.
She sprang to her feet and covered the distance to the shrine’s doorway with hurried strides.
“Erelah.” Sela pulled back the thick curtain. Brilliant sunlight pierced the dim interior. It was a tiny curved room lined with dozens of clay lanterns that illuminated frescos on the walls. The gray-haired Tasemarin woman frowned up from the floor where she knelt flanked by the two children.
And no Erelah.
“You’re looking for the pale lady with the pretty hair?”
Sela turned. It was the female child that had spoken.
“Aziza, be quiet,” the old woman snapped, wrapping a protective arm around the girl.
“You saw her?” Sela asked. “Where did she go?”
“Through there.” The girl pointed a chubby finger at a tapestry hanging from the wall.
She frowned. “There?”
The child nodded enthusiastically before being commanded to turn back to the altar.
Sela went to the tapestry and yanked it aside. A small wooden door, waist high, was set into the wall. She swung it open and exited on the opposite side of the courtyard.
“Damn it all.” She spat and set off in a sprint for the central temple.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The merc dragged Erelah into one of the lesser-used pathways between outbuildings and thrust her against the wall.
“What about the soldier? Don’t you want me to take you to her?” she asked.
“She can wait,” he said with a predatory grin. His free hand once more touched her bare skin as he held the blade against her neck.
She exhaled a long, quivering breath. The sensation of heat erupted down her back, pushing out toward her captor. She envisioned tendrils, great hooked and ravenous roots digging into his brain. He trembled, frozen in place like a man subjected to high voltage.
His mind splayed open in disjointed flashes: the dank innards of a tavern, a covenant of three mercenaries huddled around a table in conspiracy, the one in red seemed the leader, bloodthirsty, enough to evoke fear in his counterparts. The fugitive codex beacons displayed the image files: Wanted for desertion and treason, Jonvenlish Veradin, former captain. Known associate, Sela Tyron, former commander of the Regime. Bounties set at incredible sums. Enough to share.
Erelah pulled away like a diver surfacing for air. It had only been mere seconds but felt like an eternity.
The knife wavered. His whole body seemed to twitch in time with an unheard tune. His eyes locked,
unblinking. She knew what needed to be done.
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” she said.
Mid-stride Sela felt a sudden jolt. She changed direction abruptly, kicking up a spray of gravel, and headed for a smaller alley between buildings on the temple’s spinward side. She told herself it was something she had heard or even noticed subconsciously because the alternative made her uneasy.
It would have meant Erelah’s “gift” had something to do with it.
Taking the corner, she sprinted down the narrow alley, pausing long enough to unholster the A6. At first, she thought it was a bundle of rags in the passage. As she approached, Sela realized it was the body of a man, his back propped against the wall and his legs splayed.
Hot pinpricks marched down her scalp.
The man was not dead, as she had first assumed, but well on his way. His chest heaved. A ragged wet gurgling bubbled out of the hole in his neck. A blade protruded from his throat, his hand clutched around the hilt. She recognized him.
It was one of the young men she had questioned in her search for Lineao when they arrived on Tasemar.
Sela crouched over him. Beneath the wet rattle of his dying was the distinctive sound of static broken by a tiny voice. She searched his clothes, then found the collar mount of the throat mic slimy with blood. It was an outmoded Regime issue vox.
Mercs.
Sela stood. Erelah was in danger. She had to find her.
Behind her she heard the scrape of a shoe over stone. She pivoted, ready for an attack. But she realized, with a mix of annoyance and relief, that it was Erelah.
How could she go from being a raving lunatic to a stealth commando in such a short time?
Her expression pinched with distress and she spoke in a tangled, hectic rush: “It worked. I didn’t think it would work.”
“What worked ? What did you do?” Sela looked from Erelah to the dead man and back.
Wide-eyed but somehow still in control, she nodded. “I brought him here.”
“You did what ? Are you insane?” She grabbed a fistful of Erelah’s clothes. “They didn’t fix you. Tristic is still controlling you.”
“No! It’s not like that. It’s part of my plan.” She wrestled away.
“Your plan to get us all killed?”
“You refused to hear me out.”
“So you brought a merc here instead?” Sela pointed at the lifeless form. “You killed him?”
“No. I mean…I made him do it to himself,” Erelah quaked.
Sela took a wary step back, eyes narrowed. Her finger moved from the trigger guard on the A6.
Erelah held her hands up, covered in drying maroon. “Don’t look at me like that. It just…happened . It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
The vox dangled like a dead animal from Sela’s fist. A tiny voice called from it, words indiscernible.
“Well, your merc friend here wasn’t alone. He has partners. They’ll come looking. It’s not safe here,” Sela said.
“I know.” Erelah replied. “Three others were with him. They have Jon at the landing field. They’ve summoned Ravstar to collect your bounties.”
“What!” she erupted. “That should have been the first bloody thing you said!”
Erelah remained rooted in place, staring down at the body. “I didn’t think it would work.”
“We are leaving. Now!” Sela shouted. “Move!”
She herded Erelah through the narrow winding passages of the compound, urging her into a sprint when she slowed. At the edge of the courtyard, Sela pulled her back. “Hold.”
Something did not seem right. The street below the hill was now practically deserted. Only a few merchants with carts trundled past the walls.
“Where is everyone?” Erelah asked.
She was not entirely oblivious, Sela noted. There was hope for her yet.
“Hiding.” She studied the street.
“How do you know?”
She looked at Erelah, incredulous. “I just know .”
They couldn’t take the street downhill to the landing site of the Cass. In the baleful glow of daylight, their path would take them under too many higher vantages, exposing them to a lookout or a marksman. They needed to find another way off the temple mount, and they could not afford to wait for the cover of dark.
Erelah could have her “gift”; Sela had years of experience. These people knew what it was to live with war. She had seen it on a dozen worlds through as many campaigns. The local inhabitants were not lifeless buildings or rocks. They were a living, breathing component of the terrain and just as unpredictable as the enemy. Even though they might not all take up armaments, it was clear where their loyalties lay. They spoke to each other without words: a surreptitious nod here, a hooded glance there. Their actions and reactions were priceless intel.
Sela backed further into the shadows of the pagoda, hopeful they had not been spotted. Erelah followed.
“Just get me to the stryker,” Erelah said. “I can fix this. I can still salvage my plan.”
“Shut up about your stupid plan. First things first. Where’s Lineao?” Sela asked. If there were another way off the top of the hill without being seen, he would know. “We need him.”
“At prayer with the others.”
At the temple’s vestibule, Erelah wrenched free of Tyron’s grip. The soldier glared at her commandingly, then strode into the middle of the prayer chamber, unannounced. Over a dozen priests were posed in supplication, foreheads bent to the floor with their hoods drawn over their heads. With her weapon in hand, Tyron yanked away their hoods, shouting “Lineao!”
“Commander!” Lineao answered in a hushed voice. He rose from his spot farthest from the altar, near the station of the Unworthy.
Erelah pulled a tight, uncomfortable smile at the incredulous stares of the remaining members of the Order. Only a handful knew who they were. The rest saw their novice being led away by a crazed-looking Eugenes pilgrim wielding a weapon.
“Lovely service,” Erelah stammered, backing out the door.
“Come on!” Tyron growled. She herded them both into the pronaos , where the priests would don their cloaks.
Sela grabbed a cloak from a peg and threw it at Erelah. “Put this on,” Tyron commanded. “Cover your head.”
She turned to Lineao. “A bounty hunter has infiltrated the compound,” she told him. “The street is most likely under surveillance. We need to get back to our ship without being seen. Can you make that happen?”
Lineao glanced at the altar room before he replied. “Follow me.”
He led them through a passage that seemed dusty with disuse. Soon they reached a low-set door and went through it, into the monastery’s food larder. He moved to a long, heavy table set against the far wall and gestured for Tyron to go to its opposite side. Together, they maneuvered it away from the wall. Behind it, a darkened entrance, waist high, had been carved out of the mud walls. A damp draft came from the opening, smelling of age and mildew.
“Here. The passage runs below the hillside. It empties out near the small river below the landing field.”
Sela glowered at the priest. “My team could have used this. We could have gotten to the extraction site in half the time.”
“And you would have been greeted with a dozen armed men and your death,” Lineao replied.
“You were just stalling for her, weren’t you? Today in the courtyard, you were trying to distract me from watching her. Wasting my time,” Tyron demanded.
“Please, Commander,” Erelah said, trying to step between them. “I asked Brother Lineao to keep you occupied.”
“I did not consider it wasted time in trying to counsel a soul in turmoil,” he said, easing Erelah to his side.
“Turmoil?” Tyron grabbed a fist full of Lineao’s robe. “A world of hurt is going to rain down on this place if Ravstar comes here. Then you’ll see turmoil .”
Erelah placed a hand on Tyron’s arm. “Not if we move quick
ly. Once we are off-world, we can lure Tristic away from Tasemar.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Come on. Move it!” Sela prodded Erelah’s back.
The tunnel was narrow with little clearance, forcing them to move in a stooped scamper. Occasionally the chem light in their hands picked out sagging beams and sections that seemed near collapse. These obstacles slowed their pace further.
“Stop shoving me,” Erelah groused.
“Oh, you’ll know when I’m shoving you.”
Erelah uttered a curse in Commonspeak. To hear the gutter words stretched over the pretentious crester accent made Sela chuckle.
“Why are you laughing?”
“You need to practice cursing. No one will ever take you seriously.” Sela prodded her again.
“Quit!”
“Then move faster.”
Erelah’s forward motion slowed, then stopped altogether. “You go first.”
Sela stopped. “Are you afraid of the dark?”
“No. Yes.”
“Which one is it?”
The girl turned, her features etched in the green glow of the chem light in her hand. “I don’t expect you to understand. I’m not like you. I never got training like yours. Never got whatever mental conditioning you did to strengthen you if you’re held captive.”
“Is that what you think?” she scoffed.
It never ceased to amaze Sela, the colorful stories that circulated about breeders. Sometimes she wished half of it were true. If so, she would be immortal and nearly three meters tall.
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” Erelah asked.
“Veradin, when a breeder is held captive, we’re told not to expect a rescue. You’re on your own. They don’t ransom us like they do a crester. You’re just another casualty. Help isn’t coming.”
Sela squeezed past to take the lead, careful not to touch her.
“I guess that explains a lot.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” She whirled on her.
“Only why you are like that. Hard. All hard edges. All the soft spots buried really deep,” Erelah blurted. “I would have given anything for such strength.”
