Jarek pointed at him. “That’s not any less vague, for the record.”
“We’ve answered many of your questions,” Alton said. “I think the time has come for you to return the favor and tell us how you learned of the rakul.”
The waning flames in her chest flicked back to life at his tone.
Return the favor? As if they owed this bastard anything after—
Jarek laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “We’ll tell you what we know as long as you explain what’s going on,” he said. “Right, Rache?”
She shrugged his hand off. “Fine.” She looked at Alton. “Do you know about the nest?”
The tightness in Alton’s expression answered for him.
“Right,” Jarek said. “Well, we had a bit of a disagreement with a lovely fellow who calls himself the Red King, and long story short, the thing went kablooey.”
Haldin turned a grave look on Alton. “Does that mean…?”
Alton didn’t seem to hear him at first. He just stood there looking like someone had just told him his house had burnt down with his family inside.
“Alton?” Haldin said.
“Too late,” Alton finally mumbled. “Too late. We’re too late.” He looked at Jarek and Rachel. “How did this happen? You were there? What was a nest doing anywhere near…” He shook his head, apparently at a loss.
Jarek shot Rachel an uncertain look. “One of our friends captured the nest from the Red King. No one knew what it was, and the King wasn’t exactly helping matters what with trying to kill us and everything.”
“How long?” Alton asked. “Since the nest burst.”
“A couple days,” Jarek said.
“Our friend was standing right next to it when it happened,” Rachel said. “He hasn’t woken up since.”
If Alton had heard her, he made no sign of it, lost as he seemed to be in his own thoughts.
“We need to know how to help him,” Rachel added. “It’s important.”
Alton snapped out of his funk. “Important? A single life? If a nest has burst, we’re talking about the annihilation of every sentient being on this planet.”
Rachel had almost been on the verge of feeling like she might have been overreacting to blow Alton through a wall—until he said that.
“This life is important,” she said through clenched teeth.
The freaking stones on this guy. Or maybe it wasn’t him. Probably, this was just how the raknoth saw humans—numbers and meals, not important, valuable people.
Alton looked at Haldin. “We need to call the others back. If they’re coming… We need to visit the Zars and the other clans. We’ll save Golga for last. He won’t be—”
He broke off and cocked his head as if listening for something. Beside Rachel, Jarek did the same, looking off to the west.
Company?
Rachel was about to ask when Jarek said, “Same crew as before?”
“I believe so,” Alton said.
What were they talking abou—
There. The rushing hum of a ship approaching in the distance. No, ships.
Jarek started back toward the building where Alaric and Lea were still watching from above.
“Time to go!” he shouted just as three ships crested the line of houses back by the main road, bound straight for them.
14
They didn’t have time for this. Jarek waved up to Lea a second time. “Just trust me!”
Lea took one last look at the approaching ships, nodded stiffly, and jumped from the hole Rachel had blown Alton’s scaly ass through. Jarek caught her, plopped her to her feet, and waved Alaric on next.
“We can’t trust these two,” Rachel murmured in his ear. “This might have been a trap all along.”
She wasn’t wrong, but they also only had about thirty seconds before they were drowning in Overlord troops, and Jarek’s finely-tuned bullshit detector had been quiet enough through their interactions with Haldin and Alton that giving them the benefit of the doubt seemed the least of evils at the moment.
“Ship first,” he said. “Trust talk later.”
The fact that he said it quietly wouldn’t matter. Alton would hear both of them with his freaky raknoth senses anyway.
Alaric was preparing to jump and looking none too pleased about it when he instead simply lifted from the ledge and floated smoothly down to join them on the ground below. He shot Rachel a wide-eyed look that still somehow managed to be surly.
“Let’s go!” Jarek said.
No one argued. They set off across the paved lot for the front lawn, Haldin and Alton bringing up the rear.
“Al, be a dear,” Jarek said.
Across the lawn, the ship’s boarding ramp began to lower as Al powered up the ship.
It would be a tight one, but they should be able to squeeze out of there before the approaching ships landed any troops or boxed them in. He glanced at the group around him, running along as fast as their fleshy little legs could carry them. It was maddening to move this slow with enemies incoming. Alton probably could have matched his pace, but there wasn’t much to do about the others.
Ahead, Al lifted the ship a couple feet from the ground, preparing to meet them halfway. Before he’d moved more than a few inches, the churning rush of what sounded like a jet engine swooped in from their right flank. The jet sound passed by overhead and was summarily drowned out by the chest-rattling roar of what Jarek could only assume was a freaking dragon of yore.
He followed the sound just in time to see a dark green figure crash down on Alton from above.
They punched into the soft earth with a low thud Jarek felt in his legs, and Alton’s attacker raised a clawed hand to strike.
“Traitor!” he boomed.
Jarek jolted to a halt, reaching for his sword. Too late. He was too far to help.
The dark raknoth swiped for Alton’s throat.
An invisible train of force plowed him off Alton just before his claws landed. The raknoth was quick, though. He managed to hook onto Alton with his claws and feet and drag him along for the ride.
Haldin produced a pair of long, straight daggers from inside his jacket and stepped after them.
“Jarek!” Rachel hissed from just behind.
Jarek didn’t need to look to know what she was thinking.
They could still get away. They didn’t know these people. Didn’t owe them. One of them was a raknoth, for Christ sake.
Jarek drew his sword anyway.
He didn’t trust Haldin, and certainly not Alton, but they couldn’t very well run and leave them to die. A glance at the bitter resignation on Rachel’s face told him she knew he was right.
Haldin, daggers in hand, pointed a finger and clubbed the dark raknoth with another invisible strike. The blow gave Alton enough of an opening to wriggle out of his hold and roll to his feet just as Toady and Slender Face thumped down to the ground behind the dark raknoth.
So much for making it out ahead of the crowd.
There was a soft whoosh of metal on leather to Jarek’s right, then a pair of thunder-cracks. The two new arrivals staggered back as Alaric’s first two shots found each of their foreheads. The small bullets didn’t do much serious damage, but it never hurt to try, right?
Alton stumbled back to join Haldin as the dark raknoth rose to his feet, red eyes ablaze. Just behind the three raknoth, the three ships—no, four now—floated overhead, descending to bring the rest of the troops, which Jarek knew would include Mosen and Rusty or Al’Krogoth or whatever the hell his name was. One raknoth had been bad enough, but now four? Five?
“Are you guys multiplying or what?” Jarek asked. A glance told him Al had brought the ship close enough, but somehow he didn’t think the three raknoth facing off with them would stand idly by while they shuffled aboard and made their escape. “How does that work, even?” he added, poking his two forefingers together. “Do you guys just…?”
The three raknoth ignored him, all staring at Alton.
&nb
sp; “Zar’Golga,” Alton said, tense and ready beside Haldin.
“Coward,” said the dark raknoth—Zar’Golga, apparently—in a low, rumbling voice. “You dare speak to me?”
“You know what?” Jarek said. “He raises a valid point, Alton. It’s clearly shameful.” He swept the Whacker through a dramatic salute. “We’ll just be on our way then, Mr. Zar, sir.”
Zar’Golga finally spared Jarek a glance, his reptilian brow furrowed. Behind him, Rusty Al’Krogoth dropped down from the nearest ship, followed by Mosen.
“You will die,” Zar’Golga said, his tone matter-of-fact.
“We will all die if the tidings are true and the twelve truly come,” Alton said. “You know this, brother.”
Zar’Golga bared glistening fangs. “You are no brother to me, traitor.” To his posse, he added, “Leave the arcanist alive for questioning. Kill the rest.”
The enemy raknoth all sprang forward without hesitation. Al’Krogoth, apparently eager to make good on his earlier threat, leapt straight for Jarek.
With little room for lateral movement and little desire to back up and let Al’Krogoth break their line, Jarek stepped forward to meet the raknoth with a diagonal sweep aimed at the neck. Al’Krogoth maneuvered under the strike with inhuman speed, the blade missing him by a hair’s breadth as he charged on.
Jarek twisted out of the raknoth’s way in time to avoid the worst of his sweeping claws, but at least a couple of them grazed the left side of Fela’s torso with a cringe-worthy screech.
Jarek swept around, stepping after Al’Krogoth and into an overhead swing. Given how handily the raknoth had evaded his first swipe, he wasn’t surprised when Al’Krogoth ducked under this one and turned into a neat roll. In fact, he was expecting it, which was why he was ready to nail the bastard with a one-legged mule kick as the raknoth came back to his feet.
“Score!” Jarek cried as his foot met what felt like a steel post. Luckily, he had Fela’s strength behind him.
The kick sent Al’Krogoth flying over to crash into his dark green pal, Zar’Golga, who was busy trying to remove Alton’s head from his shoulders.
If Al’Krogoth was a steel post, Zar’Golga must’ve been a lead one. The dark green raknoth barely budged when his rusty comrade slammed into him. Instead, he thrust Al’Krogoth aside with a rough elbow and plunged after Alton.
Next to them, Slender Face and Toady were having at Haldin and Rachel, but the arcanists weren’t so easily had. Rachel smashed her staff into Slender Face’s side baseball-style and must’ve added a little something extra judging by the way the raknoth went sailing halfway to the paved lot they’d come from. Haldin took a much subtler approach, twisting gracefully aside from Toady’s grab and slamming the raknoth on the back of the head with a dagger pommel as he passed.
Jarek stalked after Al’Krogoth as the raknoth picked himself up. Sporadic gunfire barked to the right as what enemy troops had piled out began taking what shots they could.
It wasn’t like they had to worry that much about hitting their bulletproof raknoth commanders, although Mosen was—
Shit, where was Mosen?
A cry from Lea answered that question.
Mosen was wrestling her into submission next to their ship’s boarding ramp, where her and Alaric had taken cover. Alaric slammed the butt of his revolver into Mosen’s back, which earned him little but the moment it took Mosen to release Lea and shove Alaric into the side of the ship like a paper doll. Jarek had to—
“Incoming, sir!”
Jarek spun around, sweeping his sword low. A rust-colored hand caught his leading arm. He ducked the incoming swipe aimed at his head and drove his left shoulder into Al’Krogoth’s bulk, switching the Whacker into a reverse grip as he went.
Al’Krogoth got his feet planted and pushed back, their foreheads nearly touching. The raknoth bared gleaming fangs, crimson fire blazing in his eyes, and rumbled out a battle roar.
Jarek cocked his helmeted head back and slammed it into Al’Krogoth’s snout before following up with another shove.
Al’Krogoth snorted and stumbled back a step, shaking his head. Jarek took advantage of the space for a rising reverse-grip sweep of his sword. It probably wasn’t a strong enough blow to cleave a raknoth limb, but it managed to take a couple of Al’Krogoth’s fingers as the raknoth tried to twist away.
At the top of the swing, Jarek switched his grip and whipped the sword around and back down, aiming for the rest of the arm. Most people would have been sufficiently distracted by losing a few fingers to sit there and get cut down like a good boy, but Al’Krogoth jerked back in time.
Straight into a telekinetic grand slam from Rachel’s staff.
There was a low thrum of power, and Al’Krogoth took flight toward the Overlord’s troops, most of whom were closer than Jarek had realized, apparently deciding to join the melee instead of watching from the sidelines and hoping to score a lucky shot.
And there were a lot of them.
Shit. Between the raknoth and that many men, even Jarek and Alton would be easily swarmed down. If Alton even had the chance to be. He’d gone full raknoth, his skin shifted to a light green hide and his facial features elongated under his red eyes. More importantly, he was also getting his ass handed to him. As Jarek glanced over, Zar’Golga caught Alton with a one-two jab and stepped forward with a heavy haymaker only to be bowled off balance by a telekinetic shove from Haldin.
That done, Haldin evaded a grab from Toady and stepped straight into the path of Slender Face rushing in to tackle him from behind. Somehow, Haldin saw it coming, leapt a good ten feet in the air, and turned a neat backflip over the incoming raknoth.
“Help those two,” Jarek said to Rachel. Not that Haldin particularly needed it, apparently.
Jarek turned for the ship in time to see Mosen slam Lea into the bulkhead at the top of the boarding ramp, one strong hand at her throat.
“Mosen!” Jarek cried, darting forward to stop him.
Thunder cracked from beside the ship, and Mosen buckled down to one knee and cried out in pain. Alaric stepped around from behind the ship, smoke still rising from the barrel of his revolver. Despite everything, Jarek felt a pang of sympathy for Mosen as he turned a shocked expression back toward his father and Alaric clubbed him across the temple with the butt of his gun.
Mosen sagged, not quite going limp, and Alaric clubbed him again. Mosen hit the deck. Alaric wasted no time in grabbing him by the collar and dragging him laboriously up the boarding ramp. An understandably rattled Lea pulled herself together enough to help him.
Satisfied, Jarek whirled to find Al’Krogoth stalking toward the ship. Off to the left, Alton was on his back again, desperately defending against Zar’Golga’s attempts at his throat. Haldin was dancing circles around Toady and Slender Face, trying to come to Alton’s aid, and Rachel was busy holding off the incoming troops, a visible pile of spent lead already piling up a few feet ahead of her.
They needed to get out of here.
“Foot soldiers on your six, sir,” Al said.
They really needed to get out of here.
Jarek spun, indiscriminately sweeping his sword through a wide arc that cut clean through one man’s neck and another’s head.
“Back it up, motherfuckers!” he cried, a rare kind of panic clutching at him at the mass of bodies pressing in on him.
He was plenty used to being outnumbered, but not like this.
How many would it take to hold Fela down? Ten? Twenty? Whatever the number was, they had it. What he needed to do was pull his head out of his ass and start moving.
Something hit him from behind like a high-speed bulldozer before he could. He managed to land on his side and avoid impaling himself on his own sword, but strong, rust-red arms clamped around him like steel bands and kept him from doing more.
He clenched his jaw and threw his head back once, twice, three times, cracking the back of Fela’s helmet into Al’Krogoth’s snout with savage force. The raknoth�
�s steel-band arms slackened just enough for Jarek to graduate to elbow strikes. He clawed his way loose and rolled free only for half a dozen men to throw themselves down on him.
More promptly followed, heavy, dark-clad bodies falling in on him from every direction until the sky was blocked from view and his world was reduced to claustrophobic darkness and a sea of strained grunts and constricting arms on every inch of his body.
Discipline broke. Panic took him, and a wild yell erupted from his throat as he punched, kicked, and kneed soldiers off, fighting his way toward freedom. Only there were more men to replace those. And more after that. And then there was Krogoth descending back down on him.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
A low, resounding horn blared somewhere above the pileup. For a moment, everyone on top of him was focused elsewhere.
Jarek exploded at the chance, kicking two distracted troops hard enough to send them bowling over a half dozen more men behind them, punching and elbowing his way into a sitting position. He grabbed the Whacker at his side, rolled backward, sprang to his feet, and beat a hasty retreat.
He glanced back at a second blaring horn, still backpedaling. The dark purplish form of the alien ship was lurching down to the lawn beside Jarek’s ship. Two figures were already barreling down the ship’s odd stairs: a girl with raven dark hair and a dark staff, and a guy with flaming red hair and enough firepower strapped to his person to level a few city blocks. As those two came, two more leaned out from the port above and opened fire on the swarming mass of Overlord forces. The soldiers responded in kind, and soon the air was full of gunfire.
Jarek whirled back to face Al’Krogoth as the raknoth plunged after him with an enraged roar. He kept backpedaling, dodging a few attacks and catching another on his sword.
When he’d nearly made it back to the ship, Jarek rapidly reversed direction and shouldered into Al’Krogoth, catching the raknoth by surprise. He followed up with a horizontal sword sweep that caught Krogoth across the chest, rending hide and drawing a violent shriek from the raknoth.
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 36