The Red King watched him, eyes burning brighter than before as a slow smile stretched his lips. The structure of the raknoth’s entire face seemed to be changing before his eyes. His mouth began to protrude like a small snout, and his skin grew darker, its scaly texture deepening.
“Uh, I think you’ve got something on your face, buddy.”
The Red King tilted his head back and made an alternating growl-hiss Jarek took for laughter. Mosen looked back and forth between them, his own eyes tinged with red now.
“You are a peculiar one amongst your kind, human,” the King said. “I think I would have preferred not to kill you.”
Jarek stalked to the center of the room, sword at the ready and senses alert. “Hey, offer still stands.”
The raknoth waved Mosen back. “I hope you will at least offer a satisfactory fight. It has been far too long.”
Jarek touched the tip of his sword to his helmet in a mocking salute. The Red King’s smile widened, a low growl building in his throat.
The raknoth lunged forward.
Jarek was ready. He sidestepped, whipping his blade around in one hand and then bringing it down with both on the King’s outstretched upper arm. The sword jarred in his hands as if the blade had struck something like concrete or steel. Seemingly unaffected, the King pivoted to take a swipe at him.
He ducked past the blow and spun to land another sword strike against the raknoth’s left trapezius. Again, the result was underwhelming. The King dropped his weight and launched himself backward, slamming into him back first like the world’s most savage tortoise. Jarek got his hands up against the odd attack, but that didn’t keep him from sliding across the floor until they slammed to a halt against Pryce’s worktable.
He ducked the King’s follow-up elbow strike and stabbed his sword up and forward as the raknoth completed his rotation. The sword didn’t have the best stabbing tip in the world, but it was decent enough to dig into the Red King’s gut by at least a couple of inches with the Fela-powered stab.
The King’s eyes widened in surprise, and a small shriek escaped him as Jarek threw his strength behind the sword again. The blade sank deeper, but not as easily as it should have. It was like pushing through a thick wall of sand—super-dense, super-hard sand that also happened to be trying to kill him.
With a furious snarl, the Red King clamped a hand over one of Jarek’s and threw a low punch with the other. Jarek was dropping his elbow and shoulder to push into the blow when he realized it wasn’t aimed at him. Instead, the King’s fist slammed into the broad face of the sword blade just as his other hand wrenched down on Jarek’s like a nuclear-powered vise grip, holding it firmly in place.
The blade snapped with a sharp crack. Jarek stared in shock at what now amounted to a short dagger. The King bared gleaming fangs in Jarek’s face and clamped onto Jarek’s free arm. Jarek flipped the jagged, broken blade into a reverse grip and made a stab for the raknoth, but the King turned, whipping him into a brutal throw.
The world spun in a confusing blur. Jarek had a fraction of a second to note that it was a small miracle the raknoth hadn’t torn Fela’s (or his own) arm off. Then something hard and unyielding slammed into his ribs on the right, breaking his momentum. He fell to the ground in a crouch next to Pryce’s shelf of raw metals.
“Sir!” Al cried.
“I’m fine.” He tasted blood. Hopefully, he’d just bitten his lip.
Mosen and the other Reds had gathered by the staircase and were watching him with an array of sneers. Pryce stood on the other side of the staircase now, his eyes wide and intense. Pryce took a few steps toward him, but one of the Reds cut him off.
The Red King was occupied by the worktable, laboriously pulling the broken blade from his gut. It sucked free, and he threw it aside with a roar.
Jarek swallowed and stood, still clutching the broken sword. The King started toward him with menacing purpose, only to freeze and tilt his head as if he’d seen or heard something.
“The comms, sir,” Al said.
He focused. Fela’s auditory sensors worked their magic, homing in on a message coming from multiple earpieces, judging from the reactions of everyone in the room.
“—ed at Port Newark. Repeat: Resistance activity sighted at Port Newark. Multiple vehicles and at least a dozen troops gathering by the warehouses. Please advise.”
Had they decided to make a move for the nest so soon? If so, then Alaric must be with them. Probably Michael too, and maybe—Jarek’s stomach fell—maybe Rachel as well.
And judging from way the Red King’s eyes flared, they were about to have a whole lot of Reds coming down on them.
“Try to warn them, Al,” he said quietly. “Local broadcast, if you can’t find a direct way.”
“Of course, sir.”
The fire in the Red King’s eyes looked hungrier as he regarded Jarek. “Time to leave. Kill them both.”
After that, things got hairy fast.
Jarek darted for Pryce, but strong, scaly green arms made a grab for him from behind. He dropped his hips back and threw a wild stab over his shoulder with the broken sword. He was rewarded with a high, ugly screech as the remnant of the blade found some soft target and the arms retreated.
Mosen had already turned his gun on Pryce.
He ripped the broken hilt free from the King and hurled it at Mosen. He was shocked to hear a pained cry, and a spot of blood appeared as the blade sank into Mosen’s chest. Mosen staggered into the Reds behind him.
Jarek reached for his pistols. The Red King’s arms clamped around him and squeezed until he thought his ribs or arms might break.
“No!” he cried as the next Red in line raised his rifle toward Pryce. “No!”
Pryce backed away, too stunned to do anything more than raise his hands.
Jarek bucked against the Red King’s steel grip, stomping at the raknoth’s foot-like appendages. It was no good.
He watched in sick, helpless horror as the Red drew a line on Pryce and pulled the trigger.
25
The shots that rang out might as well have been aimed at Jarek for the way they stabbed into his being. He forgot the pain of the Red King’s death lock. Pryce wore an expression of utter shock, his hands still raised in surrender.
Fear and helpless rage shifted to confusion.
Pryce was fine.
Three lead slugs floated in midair a foot away from his chest.
He could have laughed with relief. Then the Red King snarled something and hurled him into a shelf. This shelf didn’t stop him like the other one had; it just toppled over with him.
For a handful of seconds, his existence became a jumbled mess of jolting impacts and jarring crashes. The few tiny spots on his body that weren’t already in pain found their way there. There were shouts and gunshots and pounding footfalls. A loud thud punctuated the cacophony, followed by the sound of crumbling stone.
He pulled himself from the ruins of the shelves, and several things hit him at once. Pryce was okay. There was a large hole in the wall, through which he could see the retreating forms of the Reds. And Rachel was striding across the room toward him in all of her tiny arcanist glory, flanked by Michael and Lea, who both kept their weapons trained on the Reds’ impromptu escape route.
“Was he missing an eye?” Michael asked Lea.
“I think so,” she said.
Huh. Maybe Jarek had actually done some damage to the King with that backward stab. Talk about blind luck. He allowed himself a small grin and sank back into the scrap pile. It actually made a pretty comfortable nest. But maybe he was just tired.
“Asshole,” Rachel’s voice came to him. A few seconds later, her dirty-blond waves came into view at the edge of his vision. She scowled down at him. “What did you learn about running off to fight the big bad raknoth on your own?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to keep from groaning as he shifted his weight and commanded his faceplate open with a thought. “I
had ’em right where I wanted ’em.”
She snorted and offered her hand.
He got a hand beneath himself and stood without her aid, in part out of principle but also because his weight and Fela’s combined approached four hundred pounds.
She didn’t move back to give him space.
He met her gaze until Al pointedly cleared his throat.
“They’re gone, Al?” he asked, still looking at Rachel.
“Affirmative, sir.” Al spoke through Fela’s speakers so the others could hear. “Returning to the Red Fortress, judging by their exit vector.”
He looked over to Pryce. “You okay, old man?”
“Alive,” Pryce said, his face a few shades paler than normal. “And enlightened.”
“Hallelujah.”
Michael and Lea were busy double-checking the downed Reds. Michael looked up and met his eyes with a wary expression.
“You skipped out on your big mission to the port?” Jarek asked.
“I, uh . . .” Michael scratched at his dark hair. “This was more important.”
Jarek stared at him for a pensive beat, anger and irritation and gratitude all warring for dominance. “Well doesn’t that just warm the c—”
“How’d you know about the port?” Rachel asked.
Shit. They didn’t know.
“Reds spotted the Resistance team there. Heard it on the comms.”
“What?” Michael said.
“You thought you guys scared them off just now?”
Rachel exchanged a tense look with Michael.
“We need to get over there,” Michael said.
“Probably not a good idea,” Jarek said. “You know, unless by ‘good,’ you mean ‘suicidal.’ Then it’s probably a great idea. You kids have fun with that.”
“Seriously?” Rachel said. “This coming from the same Jarek Slater who got himself imprisoned in the Red Fortress just to have a chat with my brother? From the same guy who didn’t think twice about taking on a bunch of armed marauders to save some random-ass people in the mountains? Soldier of Charity, my ass.”
He jabbed a finger at Michael violently enough that Michael twitched despite being far out of his reach. “They stole my suit. This little bastard had the nerve to let me run my ass around looking for it when he knew damn well they’d had it for weeks. And, in case anyone forgot, motherfuckers shot at me for taking it back. Like thirty minutes ago—again, in case anyone forgot.”
“Come on,” she said. “You weren’t exactly being gentle on your way out.”
“If Jarek held grudges at everyone who’d ever taken a few shots at him,” Pryce said, surprising all of them, “he wouldn’t have any friends at all.”
Brimming anger flashed red hot. “I don’t have any friends,” Jarek snapped.
It wasn’t just anger. It was a sense of betrayal—that old hot weight of embarrassment at having allowed himself to trust, even just a little bit. It was something he’d never planned to feel again.
“Whose side are you on anyway, ya old bastard?” he added to Pryce, feeling slightly guilty about his previous comment.
Pryce held up his hands in peace. Jarek looked back at Rachel. “Look, I appreciate you saving Pryce’s bacon—”
“And yours,” she said.
He turned to Michael. “There might even be a splash of gratitude in here for you too, Mikey, underneath all the voices telling me to kick your ass. But I didn’t sign up for this. I held my end of the deal. I’ve got Fela. Pryce is safe.” He splayed his hands. “Game over.”
“And what about Alaric and all the other men and women at the port?” Michael said. “You’re okay with them dying when you might be able to do something about it?”
“They all made their choices. People die, Mikey. I can’t protect every crazy bastard out there.”
“And the nest,” Michael said. “You can’t just be okay with the Red King getting his hands on—”
“On what? A giant egg that might as well be his favorite lawn ornament for all we know about it? Not worth dying for. Not my fight.”
Michael took a step closer. “How can you—”
“Michael,” Rachel said. “You two go get the skipper ready.”
Michael clearly struggled with the argument brimming on his lips, but he nodded to Pryce, gestured to Lea, and left.
Pryce called his thanks after them. He gave an uncertain glance at Rachel and Jarek, then crossed to the small sea of fallen tools and began the considerable task of clearing the chaos, making an effort to look as busy as possible.
Jarek held Rachel’s stern gaze for several seconds before she said, “So nothing matters, and the world is all hopeless shit. Fine. But here you are, duking it out with a small army to save one man.”
“Yeah, but—”
“You talk a good game, dude, but all signs point to the terrifying fact that you might give half a fuck.”
“Who said I didn’t?”
There was a flicker of frustration or maybe even hurt in her eyes. “You didn’t have to come here alone.”
“And you don’t have to go to the ports,” he said, waving an armored hand at her. “It’s gonna be a death trap over there, and what’s the freaking point? You brought your brother home safe. You’ve done enough.”
“That doesn’t do much good to the people who are about to die out there. I don’t know about you, but it seems like the past fifteen years have been a pretty good lesson that doing enough isn’t really enough anymore.”
“We can’t trust the Resistance to be the answer,” he said. “Clearly, they can’t be trusted. None of them can. And we don’t need them. We can find people who need help, and we can help them.”
“And what the hell does it look like I’m doing right now?”
He bit back the retort on his tongue. Her eyes softened, and he realized he was reaching to sweep a rogue strand of wavy, dirty-blond hair from the side of her face. She caught his hand before it got there, a small, tired smile in her eyes.
“Don’t go,” he said. “The Red King is too strong.”
She gently pushed his hand away. “We make our own choices, and we live with them. I don’t need Jarek Slater to save me.”
He searched her face. “You’re . . .”
She watched him, one eyebrow slightly arched in expectation.
He didn’t even know what he was trying to say. Where was this doubt coming from?
“. . . just so pretty when you’re serious.”
Her eyes fell along with the rest of her face. Nice one, asshole.
It hurt to watch.
She glanced at Pryce, who was only marginally keeping up the charade of reordering his tools.
“Goodbye, Jarek.”
He watched her go, clenching and unclenching his jaw, reminding himself to despise the Resistance—to remember that Michael had betrayed him and that he didn’t owe Rachel or Alaric a damn thing.
Fela’s auditory sensors relayed the sounds from outside as their ride powered up, lifted off, and faded away into the night. A distant clap of thunder rumbled through the silence it left behind. A few seconds later, rain began to patter down, easily audible through the impromptu doorway the Red King had gifted to Pryce’s wall.
He walked over in silence to help Pryce start cleaning up.
This wasn’t his fight. He wasn’t sure there was even a reason it should be anyone else’s. But it absolutely wasn’t his.
But maybe, if he was being honest, those were his friends—the closest thing he had to friends outside of Pryce and Al, at least.
They’d set their mission aside to come help him and Pryce, hadn’t they? And Rachel . . . She hadn’t faltered for a second when he’d asked her for help.
And he’d just let her walk away without a peep.
Shit.
He’d meant what he said: he couldn’t trust the Resistance. He’d never make that kind of mistake again.
But maybe this wasn’t about trusting the Resistance. Maybe this wa
s about trusting Rachel. Maybe it was about setting aside his grievances with the Resistance (and with organized outfits of all shapes and sizes, for that matter) to do what he could to make sure a few good people made it through the night.
“Fuck.” He began to chuckle.
“Sir?”
Pryce was watching him, the concern in his eyes brightening into amusement as Jarek’s chuckle strengthened.
“What a crock of shit,” Jarek said, looking out through the hole the Red King had rammed through the wall. The rain was picking up now. “Of course they need Jarek Slater to save them.”
The ghost of a smile touched Pryce’s lips. “Feeling charitable, are we?”
Al settled the ship just outside of the Red King’s improvised door in silent invitation.
Jarek shook his head and grinned despite himself as he started toward the ship. “I really need to get myself a new nickname.”
26
The only thing worse than a tense skipper ride toward serious danger was a tense skipper ride toward serious danger in the rain. Rachel huddled down behind Lea, who huddled behind Michael, who in turn huddled over the handlebars behind the small windshield as best he could. It didn’t do any of them much good. Drops of rain pelted their exposed skin like pellets, and by the time they were nearing the port, they were all worried, afraid, and soaked to the bone.
What Rachel wouldn’t have given for a warm bed and a few hours of sleep right then. It was, what, three in the morning now? She’d barely had a moment to breathe since she’d stepped into that dingy pub two days ago. To say she was on her last legs was putting it mildly.
Through the darkness ahead, she could just make out the shapes of warehouses and abandoned shipping containers. She clung to Lea and leaned into the turn as Michael slowed the skipper and veered away from the main road into the graveyard of rusted metal shells. The containers loomed on either side, row after row of them, a dull monotony of unwanted scrap that faded into the darkness at the edges of the skipper’s lights.
She’d half expected to arrive at the scene to find a raging battle in progress, but other than the hum of motors and the patter of rain, the night was quiet. They passed the field of shipping containers and rounded the corner into the wide lane that separated the two rows of buildings beyond.
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 21