Drogan rammed into the Kul’s flank, ripping and tearing until a thick tentacle swept one of the raknoth’s legs out and slammed him to the ground.
Jarek spun to the side and whipped his blade down on the tentacles holding Drogan. Rachel and Haldin waited until the stroke fell to lash out with a telekinetic blast that sent Armin rolling several yards back. Krogoth, apparently sensing what came next, had the good sense to abort his own charge and dive clear as Rachel and Haldin called down a lance of lightning.
Armin shrieked and went rigid as the bolt struck him, his tentacles stiffening like a giant sea urchin, then he wobbled around and started shakily toward them.
They felt as shaky as the Kul looked, clinging onto their combined consciousness by mere threads.
They should hold off. Recover. Allow Jarek and the raknoth to buy them time to safely prepare another strike.
But there the wriggling bastard was. Shaky. Isolated.
They could feel his confidence eroding, could sense it in his movements.
They could end it right here, right now—take back some small semblance of justice for Elise and all the others who’d suffered today.
So, together, they called one last brilliant flash down from the sky.
When Rachel rose from the darkness and became aware of her surroundings once more, things felt oddly foreign. It took her a long moment to remember why.
She was on her own. No Haldin.
Rain washed over her, far more vivid now that she wasn’t lost in her extended senses—as was the lengthy list of pains parading through her body.
A flash of azure lit the falling rain to the right and ended with a soft, wet thunk.
Another. And another.
Rachel blinked and woozily shifted around to see Jarek’s blade descending on Armin for what was at least the fourth time but probably more like double digits if the Kul’s appearance was any indication.
Haldin was sitting beside her, watching the execution with a pale face and grim satisfaction.
The stench of burning and death clung to the air, only partially alleviated by the cleansing rain.
If Armin had been struggling at some point, he wasn’t now.
Drogan and Krogoth stood vigilantly by as Jarek continued to hack away, Drogan still holding one of the tentacles he’d ripped from the Kul’s body.
Not trusting herself to try to stand yet, Rachel watched, the wet thunk of each strike turning her stomach despite the part of her that cried out with savage glee.
After nearly a minute of Jarek’s hacking, she pulled herself to her feet by her staff. She turned to offer Haldin a hand, but he was already up. She followed his gaze and her stomach fell through the floor.
Kul’Gada was gone.
She turned wide eyes to Haldin. “Gada—”
“Bolted,” Jarek called from Armin’s motionless form. He’d finally stopped hacking and was doubled over, panting. He straightened to face them, his face plate sliding open. “He took off when you guys hit Cthulhu here with the Zeus juice.”
“The coward,” Krogoth growled.
“But a living coward,” Jarek added, looking none too pleased about it.
The sounds of fighting were dying down, coming mostly in small bursts here and there. The fact that they weren’t currently being overrun and that the sounds seemed to be fading into the distance made Rachel think the Resistance and Krogoth’s forces must have Ashida’s army in retreat.
The beginnings of hope fluttered in her chest but died quickly enough when she looked down at the butchered mess of Armin’s body and thought about their own wounded.
She gestured toward Armin with her staff. “Is he…?”
“Kul’Armin’s true body has been mortally wounded,” Drogan said. “Here lies the first in five thousand years to relinquish the title of Kul.”
“He will not be the last,” Krogoth said.
“Yeah. All hail the Whacker,” Jarek said weakly before strapping the weapon to his back and sinking down to the mud for a breather. “As much as I know you party animals wanna celebrate, though, I think we’d better hurry with the cleanup duty.”
Krogoth was already stalking off toward the battlements to do just that.
“Yup,” Jarek said, still breathing heavily. “That’s good. You creepily untiring bastards got it under control. Put her there, Stumps,” he added, extending a fist to Drogan.
Drogan ignored the offered fist in favor of patting Jarek on the head like a small toddler, then he stalked off to find Lietha.
Rachel turned to ask Haldin about Elise, but the Enochian was already gone.
Jarek was right. They had a whole hell of a lot to clean up—and then some.
She should go find Haldin and Elise—go do something to help someone, at least. But, for the moment, she couldn’t bring herself to do much more than sink down by Jarek’s side and lean against his bulky shoulder. She didn’t complain when he wrapped a muddy arm around her, or when he bent down to plant a warm kiss on her forehead.
She just rested her head against his shoulder, let out a long sigh, and, for a short while, allowed herself to think of nothing but the feel of the rain on her skin.
For now, at least, they were alive.
27
To say Jarek had been in his fair share of fights throughout the years seemed like a bit of an understatement. Hands down, though, the battle they’d just been through had utterly and completely dwarfed anything he’d ever been a part of—hell, anything he’d ever even heard of.
It had probably been the largest conflict the world had seen since the wise old world powers had been dismantled—or, rather, obliterated—in the Catastrophe.
Everyone was still trying to come to an accurate conclusion on how many lives had just been lost. Looking around at the carnage, Jarek decided it had to be well north of a thousand, maybe even closer to two.
Men, women, and raknoth lay dead in droves. The recently barren soil of Central Park would have drank their spilled blood hungrily, had the rain and fighting not left it so muddy and churned up. Hundreds of recovering combatants rushed here and there, helping the wounded, looking for friends, and, in a few cases, looting the ripe spoils of war.
“Jesus Christ,” Rachel whispered beside him.
“Yeah.” He didn’t know what else to say. He certainly didn’t have anything productive to tell her. Somehow, the enormity of the death and suffering all around them had sapped him of any desire to joke around.
At least the sun was poking out now.
Thank god for the little things, right?
Like how, with their crude battlements and home field advantage, the combined forces of Team Earth seemed to have at least come through with fewer losses than Gada and Ashida’s camp.
But fewer didn’t always mean few, did it?
The stretch behind their defenses was more than plenty littered with bodies, human and raknoth alike, and Jarek had felt the immediate urge to hurl upon looking out over the wall.
“We should check on Alaric,” Rachel said. “Looks like the medics are done with him.”
Jarek followed without argument, glad to have something else to think about. At least until they found him.
It wasn’t that Alaric was terribly wounded. Aside from some singed hair and some surface-level burns on the right side of his face, Alaric actually looked pretty good.
Except for the deep-set my wayward son (who hates me, by the way) just nearly died saving me guilt plastered across his face.
The wayward son in question sat with his impressively burnt back turned to Alaric, glaring daggers at the distant wall as one of Krogoth’s raknoth treated his wounds with the good ol’ spit shine.
“I know this doesn’t change anything, Seth,” Alaric was saying. “I just…” Alaric waved a helpless hand. “I wanted to say thank you. And that I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “Always sorry.”
Mosen said nothing—at least not until Alaric began to turn away with an unmissable slump in his s
houlders.
“Hey, Dad?”
The hesitant, almost vulnerable note in Mosen’s tone gave even Jarek pause.
Alaric, on the other hand, turned back with the air of a soldier who’d just stepped on something that could’ve been either a buried treasure chest or a landmine.
Mosen turned around far enough to meet his father’s eyes, an act that must’ve been excruciating given the state of his back. It wasn’t pain in Mosen’s glinting red eyes, though, but hatred.
“Go fuck yourself.”
And with that, Mosen turned back to glaring at the distant wall.
Alaric stared at him with unseeing eyes for a long moment, looking like he maybe wished that it had in fact been a landmine he’d stepped on after all, then he turned to head for where Commander Daniels was running her operational triage.
That Alaric caught sight of the pair of nosy onlookers named Jarek and Rachel as he turned was most unfortunate.
What Jarek would’ve given to have had some kind of optical camouflage on Fela right then…
Alaric looked like he might have been having similar thoughts, but he finally sighed and stepped over to join them.
“So what’s the deal, cowboy?” Jarek asked, tapping at the side of his face where Alaric was now sporting superficial burns. “Couldn’t stand not being a part of the band of badass facial scars?”
It was beyond a fool’s errand to try to wrestle a glint of amusement out of Alaric right now, so Jarek wasn’t surprised when Alaric ignored him and focused on Rachel instead.
“Anything to report? Damn medics had me tied up since they found us.” He spat on the ground. “As if it matters. Commander, my ass.”
Rachel hesitated, clearly unsure how to respond and behave after what they’d just seen. When Alaric’s stare shifted to aggressively expectant, though, she started spitting words out.
“Uh, no. Sir. Nothing to report. We just, uh…” She practically winced with discomfort. “. . . wanted to make sure you’re all right.”
Alaric blew out a humorless huff, glancing surreptitiously back at Mosen, who clenched his jaw but otherwise tried to pretend he hadn’t noticed.
“All right,” Alaric said. “Sure. Goddamn dandy. Why don’t you two—”
Something across the field caught his eye, and he straightened to attention. “Zar!”
Jarek followed his gaze to Krogoth, who paused on his route to wherever he was headed, frowned at them, and finally turned and stomped his way over.
“How bad?” Alaric asked quietly as Krogoth approached, apparently having caught on to their freakishly good hearing.
Krogoth waited until he’d reached them to answer.
“Roughly half. Both humans and my own kin as well.”
Jarek tried to wrap his head around the raknoth’s answer. He didn’t need a formal report to know they’d taken a serious hit, but half? Half of all of their forces? Close to a thousand humans and maybe a dozen raknoth. All dead.
And for what?
If this was the price for taking down a single Kul, they wouldn’t survive the coming war—not without a serious course correction.
Not that it would have greatly evened the odds, but he might have felt a shade less despair about it all if they’d managed to take down two rakul instead of one.
That shifty bastard Gada had picked his moment of retreat carefully, and he’d executed it with a ruthlessly complete lack of concern for his fellow Kul. Sure, they might’ve had Gada on the ropes for a few minutes at the end there, but it had cost them far too much. And Gada was cunning.
He’d be back, strong and dangerous as ever. And with ten of his friends.
Krogoth, seeing they were all busy registering the shock of the news, turned to continue on.
“Hold on, Rusty,” Jarek said.
Krogoth seemed to debate responding to the nickname, then he turned to stare crimson at him.
“Gada,” Jarek said. “Ashida. Where are the bastards?”
“Kul’Gada has fled by ship,” Krogoth said. “I wager he waits in orbit for his kin.”
As Krogoth spoke, a ship swooped down overhead and settled to an easy landing close by.
“The traitor Nan’Ashida, on the other hand,” Krogoth said, eyes pulsing brighter, “has been spotted fleeing northeast. I go to repay his transgressions presently.”
Jarek traded a glance with Rachel, who turned to Alaric with grim determination in her eyes.
“May we?” she asked.
Alaric glanced back at Mosen again, then looked from Rachel to Jarek.
“Make sure you give him a hard boot up the ass from me?”
Jarek was opening his mouth to give an affirmative when Rachel cut in.
“I’m thinking we have better tools at our disposal,” she said, thumping her staff against the earth a few times.
Alaric tipped an imaginary hat in her direction, looking satisfied if not humored. “Have fun, then. Find me when you’re back.”
With that he stalked off in Daniels’ direction.
Jarek turned back to Krogoth. “So, need a hand then, comrade?”
“Hardly,” Krogoth said, turning for his ship. Without turning back, he added, “But you may join if you wish.”
“Let’s get the bastard,” Rachel said, with entirely more animosity than he was used to hearing from her.
Understandable enough, given what the bastard had done here today—not to mention that Ashida had sounded like an unbearable asshat to begin with.
So he nodded, and they followed Krogoth onto his ship. Two more raknoth boarded after them—Al’Brandt and one of Krogoth’s clan—and then they were off.
They caught up to Ashida’s forces a couple minutes and several miles later. The retreating convoy of ground vehicles couldn’t hope to outrun a ship. Ashida himself, on the other hand, might have stood half a chance.
He certainly tried.
No more than five seconds after the convoy drew into plain view of their ship, a dark figure with burning red eyes sprung out of the lead vehicle and took off northwest, bounding away from the convoy in a series of inhuman leaps.
Krogoth growled orders for the pilot to follow Ashida and for the other two raknoth to drop down and deal with Ashida’s convoy.
“No,” Rachel said to the latter order. “Enough people have died today. Those men are Ashida’s slaves, nothing more.”
Krogoth looked at her as if she’d just asked him to swear off human blood, but after a long moment, he tilted his head. “I care not what happens to that traitor’s puppets so long as Nan’Ashida meets his justice this day.”
And from the looks of it, that traitor was about to.
Like the rest of the raknoth, Ashida was fast, covering several dozen yards with each rapid bounce across the ruined city. Even with Fela, Jarek would’ve been hard pressed to run him down. With a ship, though, it was inevitable.
When they drew over him, Krogoth opened the ship’s side hatch, took careful aim, and dove. The ship bucked violently from the power of Krogoth’s exit. Below, Ashida touched down from a bounce and looked up just in time to take Krogoth’s tackle full on.
They slammed to the ground hard enough to crack the pavement beneath Ashida. The darker raknoth fought, but Krogoth swatted aside his blows, pulled him into the air, and threw him through the wall of an adjacent building before leaping out of sight to follow with a chest-rattling roar.
Jarek traded a wide-eyed look with Rachel. Once the pilot had brought them down to comfortable jumping height, he hopped out behind their two raknoth allies. Rachel landed beside him just as Ashida came flying out of the building like a dark missile.
He hit the ground like a skipping stone, headed in their direction. Jarek reached for his sword, but the two raknoth were already closing on Ashida. They grabbed him by the arms and hauled him to his feet, kicking and snarling.
“Fools!” he hissed. “You know the power of the Masters. You’ve seen what it costs to resist them.”
“And yet resist we did,” Krogoth’s voice drifted out of the dark building he’d ejected Ashida from. Krogoth emerged from the shadows and stalked toward them. “Kul’Armin is dead, slain by the hands of raknoth and humans alike.”
Ashida spat. “By blind luck and”—he glared at Rachel—“vile sorcery did you manage to stumble into victory against the Kul. It is folly to think it will happen even once more, and they are still eleven.”
Krogoth drew up to Ashida and leaned in dangerously close. “Kul’Gada would have joined his brother in the void this day had your forces not interfered. You, young Nan, have overplayed your hand for the last time. You will answer for your crimes.”
“Incoming, sir,” Al said in Jarek’s earpiece.
Wonderful.
Jarek looked around and saw that Ashida’s convoy was indeed arriving on the scene now. One of the raknoth holding Ashida murmured a similar warning to Krogoth, though Jarek couldn’t imagine the raknoth didn’t already sense the incoming threat.
The vehicles drew to a halt a good forty yards away, and a couple dozen armed men piled out of cars and troop transports, lining up and training weapons their way.
“If any one man fires his weapon,” Krogoth called, not bothering to even look their direction. “I will personally tear out each and every one of your throats.”
For a long few seconds, tense fingers lingered on triggers. Then Rachel fiddled with her comm and stepped closer to Ashida, and it was as if a couple dozen strings had suddenly been cut. A few of Ashida’s men held steady, but most relaxed their weapons, traded uncertain looks, and glanced back at their vehicles, their body language universally seething, Hey, not worth it.
“Neat trick,” Rachel said, watching Ashida without a trace of compassion. “Guess that’s what happens when you don’t bother giving your men half a reason to give a shit about you.”
Ashida spat again, this time at Rachel, and with impressive velocity.
She seemed to have been expecting it. The glob of greenish spit slowed in mid-air, then hovered back to soak into Ashida’s chest, where it hissed and smoked against his shirt and flesh.
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 82