Bitter Wind (Death's Handmaiden Book 2)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘The big question,’ Skylar said, ‘is what does Nava prefer? I’m going for… a duvet with camouflage pattern cover.’

  Lydia shook her head. ‘Black. She’s a Greyling now, so it has to be ninja-black.’

  ‘Floral with lacy pillowcases,’ Moritz ventured. ‘I think she plays entirely against type.’

  ‘I’m saying nothing,’ Melissa said, ‘because I’ve been in her apartment, so I know.’

  ‘I’m saying nothing because I find this conversation unseemly,’ Barrington said, adding a sniff for good measure.

  ‘I have also been in Nava’s apartment,’ Mitsuko said, ‘so it would be inappropriate for me to offer a guess. However, you’re all neglecting a fundamental aspect of Nava’s personality which I’d have thought you’d have picked up on after the last couple of days.’

  Rochester nodded. ‘Agreed. This speculation is pointless.’

  ‘Are you agreeing with Suki or Barrington?’ Melissa asked.

  ‘Both, in a way, I suppose.’

  ‘What aspect?’ Moritz asked.

  ‘I don’t care,’ Nava supplied. ‘I do not care what I’m sleeping under or on. I make do with what I’ve got. As it happens, I grew up with sheets and blankets, but I have no particular preference for them.’

  ‘And now we know,’ Barrington said. ‘Perhaps we could pick a less bedroom-oriented topic.’

  ‘Such as?’ Skylar asked.

  ‘Well… Are those people?’

  ‘That’s kind of specific.’ Still, Skylar and everyone else turned to look in the direction Barrington was facing because he had to have seen something.

  Nava got to her feet, narrowing her eyes. There was definitely movement among the trees, but she could not make out anything specific yet. Then again, given Shinden’s biosphere, it was unlikely that her classmate had seen anything other than humans. Had the school sent a party in to find them? A figure moved into view from between the trees and it took a second to resolve what she was seeing. A man, probably, in fatigues and a helmet. A soldier. There was a rifle slung across his chest which seemed odd for a rescue team, especially from the school. Then the man was dropping to one knee and lifting his rifle.

  ‘Everyone down!’ Nava snapped. Instead of dropping herself, she pulled one of her pistols.

  Mitsuko, Melissa, and Rochester threw themselves into the leaf litter as soon as they heard Nava’s voice. The others reacted less quickly or not at all. Lydia looked confused. Barrington looked surprised. Skylar was moving after maybe a second as she realised what was going on, and that was about the reaction most of the combat students ended up with.

  Moritz raised his hand as though preparing a spell. The bullet hit him in the chest a second later and he let out a shriek of pain. He was still standing, however, until Skylar grabbed one of his pack straps and pulled him to the ground. He let out another shriek and, from the grimace he was wearing, it seemed like the bullet had hit a bunch of nerves or something similar.

  Nava squeezed the trigger on her SAH-301 and a pulse of light left the front of it where a barrel would have been if it actually had a barrel. Through the sight, she could see the man more clearly. He was wearing full combat gear: hard, clamshell body armour protecting his chest and stomach with a suit not unlike the one she was wearing to back that up. He was eighty-five metres away and, under normal circumstances, the Magic Burst penetrator would have probably had trouble going through that level of protection at that range. With her pistol…

  The rifleman was aiming for Nava, but he never got to pull the trigger. His chest was literally torn apart by the detonation of quintessence inside it. His internal organs were reduced to their component atoms. Light blazed from the neck opening of his clamshell breastplate as the armour worked against him to contain some of the explosion within it. What fell onto the forest floor was barely recognisable as a human, but he was not alone. There were other men out there with guns…

  ‘Mel. Wall,’ Nava ordered. ‘Everyone find cover. Hoshi, help Moritz.’

  Hoshi was, in fact, already sliding through the leaf litter to where Skylar was trying her best to stop the bleeding from Moritz’s bullet wound. A translucent wall appeared between the group and the gunmen and, a second later, another appeared behind it just as Hoshi surrounded herself, Moritz, and Skylar with a Force Dome. It was big enough for them but getting everyone inside it would have been tough. Melissa kept stacking up walls, each two metres high and twelve metres in length, knowing that any bullets coming their way would take one of them down.

  Putting her hand on Moritz’s chest, Hoshi focused on a First Aid spell. There was a glimmer of light from the wound and the bleeding stopped immediately, but the fallen combat student still seemed to be in a lot of pain. ‘Hold still, Moritz Evered,’ Hoshi said. ‘I’ve stopped the bleeding. Nava can–’

  ‘Where is Nava?’ Skylar asked, looking up and around.

  Hoshi turned to where Nava had been. ‘She’s… Where is she?’

  Now kneeling between her fallen classmate and the gunmen, Mitsuko pointed north. ‘She’s out there, taking care of business.’

  ‘She went alone?’

  ‘Oh, we’re better off keeping out of her way,’ Melissa said. She had five walls up. One had been taken down by a bullet but there were still five. And there was the sound of automatic gunfire now, but none of the slugs seemed to be coming their way. ‘When she gets like this…’

  Something exploded back where the soldiers were, and Rochester winced. His eyes were closed and his senses were out at the battle site, but he could still provide some commentary. ‘He really shouldn’t have tried a grenade.’

  ‘Who?’ Lydia asked.

  ‘He can’t hear you,’ Melissa said. ‘Chess’s hearing is eighty or ninety metres up that way.’

  There was another burst of gunfire. It sounded like someone was firing in all directions at once with their rifle set to full auto. Panicked fire. Then it stopped and a very final sounding silence descended upon the soggy forest.

  Rochester opened his eyes. ‘It’s done. They’re all down.’

  ‘We’re not really equipped to handle prisoners,’ Hoshi said. She collapsed her dome and got to her feet. ‘Should I go over and–’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother,’ Mitsuko said.

  ‘Nava doesn’t really do prisoners,’ Melissa added.

  ‘There are no survivors,’ Rochester said, just to make it absolutely clear.

  ‘Oh,’ Hoshi said. ‘Then I’ll just… stand here feeling superfluous.’

  Mitsuko gave a shrug. ‘Welcome to the “We’ve Fought with Nava” club.’

  ~~~

  ‘You’re going to want to open up your suit, Moritz,’ Nava said.

  ‘Why?’ Moritz asked through gritted teeth.

  ‘Because when the bullet pushes out, you don’t want it ending up inside your suit. And, Mel, you should turn around.’

  ‘Right!’ Mel said. She did an abrupt about-face and began carefully contemplating some bushes a few dozen metres away.

  Moritz undid the closure at the neck of his suit and then unzipped the front. There was still a pucker mark where the bullet had hit him, just missing the floating rib on his right side. The wound had not closed entirely, but it was no longer bleeding thanks to Hoshi’s spell. Nava knelt down and put her hand on Moritz’s chest. A second later, the bullet pushed out through the hole it had made, which then sealed closed behind it.

  Nava caught the projectile and held it out to a suddenly relaxed Moritz. ‘There you go, a souvenir. You can now say you’ve been wounded in battle, even if you won’t be able to show off the scar.’

  Moritz took his souvenir and peered at it. ‘What’s that? Five or six mil?’

  ‘It’ll be a five point five six by forty-five millimetre. They were all armed with AR seven oh fives. Mercs, from the looks of them. Well, eight mercenaries and a couple of people who looked like they were scientists of some kind. If I had to guess, from their gear they were out here document
ing the damage.’

  ‘But why did they shoot at us?’ Hoshi asked.

  ‘No idea. Maybe because they shouldn’t be out here for some reason. Another guess, but they seemed to be under orders to not let anyone leave here after seeing them. Even the scientist types pulled pistols to try to kill me.’

  Moritz was getting to his feet and zipping up his suit. ‘Uh, thanks for the spell. That hurt like a mother and now it’s like it never happened. But… you stole their gravcart?’

  Nava looked around at the small, floating platform she had acquired from the soldiers. It had been carrying various bits of scientific gear, but now it was empty. ‘Well, they aren’t using it.’

  ‘I thought we weren’t allowed anything like that. You know, given this is a survival field trip and all.’

  ‘Ah, but that was bringing one with us. This is found along the way. Everyone, get your gear on the cart. We’ll take turns pushing it.’

  ‘Excellent idea,’ Hoshi said. ‘Without our packs we’ll move much faster. Also, excellent use of field scrounging. Even if you did have to kill the original owners.’

  Nava gave a shrug. ‘It’s kind of what I do.’

  ~~~

  It was dark when they reached the northern edge of the forest, but they had been too close to getting out to give up when the sun set. Nava and Hoshi had taken it in turns to summon up light to see by and there had been no real problems. It was a bit spooky; the silence of the forest seemed more profound with such a hard delineation between where they could see and where they could not. Beyond the uneven ring of light provided by the spells, Jukai was a pitch-black mystery which could have easily been hiding monsters.

  It was with some relief that everyone piled onto the transport which came to pick them up. As soon as they were aboard the contragrav, their ketcoms connected to the vehicle’s internal network, registered them with the planetary network, and chimed as messages which had been waiting for days were delivered.

  Nava ignored her messaging app’s pleas for attention and placed a voice-only call as soon as she was sitting down. She lifted her ketcom to her ear rather than using the speaker. It was not exactly private, but it was better than nothing.

  ‘Nava?’ Fawn Tyrell sounded a little surprised to be getting the call. ‘Aren’t you in the middle of Jukai?’

  ‘We cut the trip short because of the storm, First Lieutenant,’ Nava replied. ‘I’m sending you some coordinates. On the way out, we ran into some opposition.’

  ‘Opposition? Someone attacked you? Who?’

  ‘I thought you could determine that. Probably mercs escorting a couple of scientists. For some reason, they viewed us as a threat and opened fire as soon as they spotted us.’

  ‘Any casualties?’

  ‘We had one student wounded, but he’s back to being his relatively obnoxious self.’

  ‘Hey!’ Moritz exclaimed from one of the seats behind Nava.

  ‘The mercs didn’t fair too well.’

  ‘Somehow, that’s not a surprise,’ Fawn replied. There was a short pause. ‘I have the location. I’ll get a team out there as soon as it gets light. If there’s a mercenary company conducting any sort of covert op on Shinden, we’ll want to know about it.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. I’ll leave it to you. Good night, First Lieutenant.’

  ‘That was the ASF?’ Hoshi asked. She was leaning over the back of her own seat and wobbling a little as the transport took to the air. ‘I should really have reported–’

  ‘Indeed, Miss Hoshi Horne, please make a report on the incident when we get back to the school. Also, please indicate that First Lieutenant Fawn Tyrell Hamilton is handling the investigation. The ASF won’t have a problem with that.’

  Hoshi frowned, but she also nodded. ‘Okay. I’d imagine the ASF will want to speak to all of us.’

  ‘I just bet they will,’ Moritz said. ‘Are we okay saying that Nava slaughtered those mercs without breaking a sweat? I mean, it was justified, but do you want them knowing about it?’

  ‘Thank you for your consideration, Moritz,’ Nava replied. ‘The ASF won’t have a problem with that either.’

  ‘I bet they’d have liked one or two of them alive to question,’ Skylar suggested.

  ‘Probably. But you can’t always get what you want, and this was one of those times when they’ll have to make do with what they have.’

  Shinden Alliance School of Sorcery, 235/10/30.

  ‘Did I get you out of bed?’ Fawn asked.

  ‘No,’ Nava replied. The call was voice-only again, but this time it was over the speaker. Nava and Mitsuko were getting dressed, so Nava’s ketcom was operating in hands-free mode. ‘On the other hand, Suki only let me out of bed because we’re meeting Mel and Chess for lunch.’

  ‘Hey!’ Mitsuko responded.

  ‘Morning… No, afternoon, Mitsuko,’ Fawn said, a grin in her voice.

  ‘Hello to you, Fawn. I assume you’re calling to apprise Nava of what you found?’

  ‘I am, and it’s not much.’

  ‘You weren’t able to figure out who they were?’

  ‘We weren’t able to find them. We got to the location and there were no bodies. It wasn’t exactly a perfect cover-up. We found a couple of shell casings and there was evidence of a grenade explosion. We found bullet holes in some trees and extracted the bullets. But someone went in there last night and cleaned the place.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Nava said.

  ‘Very. Unfortunately, we’ve got next to nothing to work with as far as figuring out what they were doing and why. We’ll dig further, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for a resolution.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to, First Lieutenant. Once I’d killed them, they were your problem. Unless you want to make them my problem.’

  ‘No, you can leave that to us. I take it they decided not to put you back into lessons after coming back early.’

  ‘There are still groups out,’ Mitsuko said, ‘so there are still teachers unavailable. It’s autumn break next week anyway.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Fawn replied. ‘You’re spending a couple of days with the Greylings next week, right, Nava?’

  ‘Wednesday and Thursday,’ Nava said. ‘If Suki lets me out of bed to go.’

  Mitsuko threw a pillow, which was dodged. ‘I am not that bad!’

  Castle Grey, 235/10/35.

  From the air, Castle Grey looked like a country estate. A modernised country estate since the buildings were clearly fairly modern and had no allusions to older styles of architecture. Some were clearly built on purely functional aesthetics, but there was a large, central structure which owed more to buildings like the Trenton mansion than, say, an army base.

  Around that central building, which was probably accommodations, were grounds which could not have been called gardens. There were open fields and forested areas and a couple of concrete platforms. The latter were for some purpose Nava could not determine, but the other sections were mostly for training. One grassed area was clearly a firing range and she could see people moving through a treed area, sticking to the cover of bushes. Castle Grey was a training ground and Nava wondered what she might learn there.

  ‘What do you think?’ Rhianna asked. She was in the seat next to Nava on the tiltrotor they were using as transport. It was an armed tiltrotor and the interior was laid out for an assault team to use complete with racks for weapons.

  ‘I’ll let you know when I’ve had a proper look,’ Nava replied. ‘It certainly seems extensive.’

  ‘There’s more than you can see.’

  ‘Well, of course there is.’

  The tiltrotor came into a landing on one of the concrete areas – so that explained at least some of the reason for those – and Nava disembarked behind Rhianna a moment later. At ground level, the ‘mansion’ was obscured by a curtain of trees which Rhianna started for immediately.

  ‘We’ll get you settled into a room,’ Rhianna said. ‘Some of us have permanent rooms here, but it’
s mostly handled as a sharing system.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Nava responded.

  ‘All the rooms are the same, so it doesn’t– Actually, I lie. There are some superior rooms for the higher-ranking members of the family, but most of them don’t live here, so they’re not massively superior. Every room has a shower room and a small kitchen. Access to high-speed, very secure networking. Uh… You know, the usual facilities. Our main data-handling facility is here, and this is the only place you can get access to that. We’ll get you set up with access to the less-secure mirrors while you’re here. Obviously, you’ll need to handle access to those carefully.’

  ‘I had data security drilled into me when I was three.’

  ‘Well, we only give lessons to people who haven’t, but we’ll make you read the rules anyway.’

  ‘As I’d expect. Will I be seeing Nobuyuki while I’m here?’

  Rhianna nodded. ‘You will. Actually, he’ll be evaluating your unarmed combat skills this afternoon.’

  ‘Evaluating… You mean he’s going to try to beat me up and see if I can stop him?’

  ‘It’s more like he will beat you up and he’ll see how you take it.’

  ‘Well, it sounds like I’m going to have a really fun afternoon.’

  ~~~

  Castle Grey was a wonderland of intensive training facilities. Dojos, shooting ranges, simulated combat arenas, various outdoor areas devoted to combat practice in different terrains. The place had it all. Practical skills were emphasised over more academic ones, but there were a couple of lecture theatres under the mansion for the teaching of tactics and strategy.

  The one thing it lacked was a duelling arena. Duels, Rhianna explained, were discouraged strongly among members of the family. If you felt that you had been wronged so badly that a duel was necessary, you had to explain the situation to the satisfaction of the family’s leaders. Then a duel would be arranged in one of the combat practice areas. To the death. You needed justification such that a death duel was required, or permission would not be given. Nava found that attitude very acceptable.