Outcaste

by Fletcher DeLancey

  Two days later, she was lying on her bed reading when a shout rang out upstairs, followed immediately by disruptor fire.

  It was as if her body had been waiting all this time for disaster to strike. She was off the bed and running down the basement stairs before her brain caught up.

  By the time she reached the bottom, footsteps were thumping across the floor above her head. There was a warrior in pursuit and she had no time to make it across the open basement floor to the power panel. She would be shot halfway across.

  She pulled the ever-present stave grip from her belt, extended it, and waited just out of sight of the bottom step. The deep boom of an explosion ripped through the house above her, followed immediately by a more distant sound of unceasing disruptor fire. It sounded as if an entire unit of warriors had descended on them.

  Light spilled down the stairs as the closet door was opened. “Colonel! Down here!” a male voice shouted.

  The tall warrior who rushed down wore the uniform of a Lancer’s Guard. He was firing at her before he could possibly have seen her in the darkness.

  She dodged, her blood freezing at the realization that a high empath was after her. Pure terror gave her speed and strength, and she knocked him into a stack of crates with her stave. He went down in a heap, the crates crashing on and around him.

  She holstered her stave and grabbed the disruptor from his limp hand. Turning toward the tunnel, she stopped upon seeing the shadow of another warrior at the top of the stairs.

  Her shot hit the door frame, sending debris in all directions.

  Instead of retreating, the warrior fell halfway down the stairs. She fired as he fell, but he was fast for his size. He managed to get all the way down in one piece, then took cover in the space beneath the stairs. Her attempts to neutralize him only succeeded in blowing apart the steps over his head.

  He was protected. She was out in the open.

  She ran.

  “Gehrain!” the warrior shouted.

  Disruptor fire sizzled past her head. She stopped and fired back at a moving shape she could barely see.

  The warrior dodged, and she resumed her dash. More disruptor fire heated the air as it flashed by her.

  She was not going to win a running firefight, especially not in this dimly lit basement. Her only hope was to reach the power panel, slam down the detonation switch, and get through that door.

  Desperation drove her on. She ran a zigzag pattern to make it harder for him to hit her.

  It never occurred to her that he would hit the power panel instead.

  Just before she reached it, the panel blew apart in a dazzling shower of sparks. Metal shrapnel whizzed past her as she skidded to a stop and ducked.

  She had no protection from the molten shards that embedded themselves in her shoulder and thigh.

  Shouting in rage and pain, she turned to fire at the warrior who had, in a single shot, ended her mission and condemned her to failure.

  He was in a crouch and dived to the side in an attempt to avoid her fire. She held down the trigger and poured out the weapon’s energy, chasing him as he rolled, until his movement abruptly ceased.

  She was through the door a piptick later.

  In all of her practice runs through this tunnel, she had not taken into account that she might be doing it with shrapnel buried in her thigh. Every limping step was an agony, but she had no choice. It was not just her own life at stake.

  The disruptor’s readout indicated four shots remaining in the charge cap. She could not outrun any pursuers, and there was nowhere to hide. If anyone came down this tunnel after her, she would have to make three of those shots count.

  The fourth was for her. She would rather die than be taken into custody and put under empathic force.

  She had struggled halfway down the length of the tunnel when the ominous sound reached her. They had opened the blast door. The curving design of the tunnel kept her well out of sight, but they knew she was here.

  She would never make it to the end in time. Steeling herself, she turned and raised the disruptor, her heart pounding as she waited.

  There was a long pause, a faint murmur of voices . . . and the door shut again with a hollow boom.

  No matter how she strained, she heard nothing but silence. Even a stealthy warrior could not avoid crunching the hard, dry pebbles of dirt that formed the tunnel floor. She counted her breaths, trying to hear over the rush of blood in her ears. After twenty breaths with no sound of pursuit, she tucked the disruptor into her waistband and resumed her painful trek.

  The shock and blood loss were making it hard to think. She didn’t know why the Lancer’s Guards hadn’t chased her down, nor did she care. All she cared about now was getting out of this tunnel and warning Shantu.

  It took half an eternity to drag herself the rest of the way. Her trouser leg was soaked with blood and she was on the verge of collapsing when she saw the crack of light around the exit. With new strength borne of hope, she covered the final distance and stepped through the door just in time to hear the receding roar of a large transport, heading east.

  Fresh air had never tasted so fine. She gulped it in, listening to the breeze rustle through the dark forest, and thanked Fahla for her foresight in leaving the skimmer right next to the door.

  The last three steps to the skimmer were harder than the previous twenty in the tunnel. She turned her back to the seat and let herself fall into it, then clenched her jaw as she lifted in her injured leg. Once she was all the way in, she tapped the console and brought up the overhead light.

  Her thigh wound was deep, with gaping edges, and the blood still flowed at an alarming rate. Her shoulder wound was in much better shape, the skin still tight around the protruding shard.

  The skimmer’s medical kit was not sufficient for this damage. All she could do was take a paincounter, tie a strap around her thigh, and hope she made it to the nearest healing center before passing out.

  She called Shantu while maneuvering through the forest to the road, four lengths away.

  “Rahel? Is everything all right?”

  “No. No, you have to get out. Get out now.”

  “Shek. What happened?”

  “The Lancer’s Guards found us. They had everything planned. Explosives, an entire unit of warriors providing cover fire—there were warriors in the house before the first shot was fired.”

  High empaths, she realized. Every one of them had probably been empathically hiding themselves to escape detection. Had she hired a few high empaths of her own, she might have had a chance. Just one more example of how her fears were compromising her.

  “I don’t know if they got Herot Opah. Probably they did. I tried to blow the house, but one of them shot out the power panel before I could get to it.”

  “Are you injured?”

  She almost wept at the question. She had failed, she had put the future of Alsea in jeopardy, and Shantu was asking after her health.

  “Shrapnel in my shoulder and leg. I’ll be fine. But you have to get out. There are probably AIF warriors on their way to your house right now.”

  “I’m going. Rahel, don’t worry. I was ready for this. It doesn’t change the outcome, only the path I take to get to it. Tal won’t be Lancer much longer. Once she’s out, I can bring you in from the dark. In the meantime, get to a healing center.”

  A door slammed and his breathing grew uneven, as if he were running.

  “Oh, and Rahel—don’t use the Periso ID. Shekking Parser exposed you. He released footage from the Napoline transit station. You’re on it, escorting Herot Opah. If I’d known the little blindworm had planned that, I would have stopped him.”

  “He can’t be trusted,” she warned.

  Shantu gave a breathless chuckle. “I never trusted him. There are AIF warriors on their way to his house, too, but he doesn’t have a loyal warrior warning him to get out. Parser is through. He’s served his purpose and I have no more use for him.”

  Another door thum
ped shut. “I’m in my transport and getting ready to fly out. Don’t worry about me. Get yourself healed so you can serve me as the Lancer’s Chief Guardian.”

  When he closed the call, she let out a disbelieving laugh. She had failed, but he wanted her to be his Chief Guardian. She would never again walk in the shadows with that rank. She would be one of the most famous warriors on Alsea.

  The thought hit so suddenly that she slammed on the brakes, blowing up a cloud of dead leaves as she came to a halt.

  Chief Guardian. Lancer Tal’s Chief Guardian was Colonel Micah. The warrior she had buried beneath the crates had called out for a colonel. Great goddess above, she had killed Colonel Micah.

  With fingers made slick from her blood, she pulled out her Periso caste ID.

  “Sorry, Mouse,” she said. “I always meant to honor you with this.”

  She dropped it out the window, then dug through her medical kit for the colorizer control. A single tap neutralized the false colors of her hair and eyes.

  With a last look at the bloody ID lying in the leaves, she shook her head and drove away. She meant to survive this night, but Hedron Periso was dead.

  47

  RITUAL CHALLENGE OF COMBAT

  By the time Rahel reached the healing center, she was dizzy from blood loss. But she still had enough presence of mind to park her skimmer, leave her stave and ID inside, and stumble into the center on foot.

  She had to think like an outcaste. The AIF would not connect Hedron Periso with Rahel Sayana, but she could easily destroy herself by appearing in healing center records as a warrior with shrapnel injuries on this night and in this area.

  Bless all healers for their conviction that everyone deserved care. They descended on her the moment she limped through the door, tsking over the damage and catching her when the last of her strength gave out.

  “What happened?” one of them asked.

  “I’m . . . a sculptor,” she mumbled. “Cutting torch power source blew up.”

  “I swear, crafters and their tools,” said another healer. “They’re almost as bad as warriors. You’re going into surgery right now.”

  More words were said, but Rahel had lost the ability to understand them. She was unconscious before they moved her from the lobby.

  She spent two days in the healing center. The healers said that her blood loss had been severe and her injuries difficult to repair. Had she been a little later in getting to them, they could not have saved her.

  “Next time, call for help instead of walking here,” one of them scolded. “For the love of Fahla, what were you thinking?”

  When they released her that evening, she used the shower facilities in her room and dressed in the temporary clothing they offered, then drove into the forest and changed into one of her spare sets of clothes.

  She passed through three more towns before deciding she had gone far enough to rest for the night. In the next town, she chose the largest inn and entered through the attached tavern. There was a good crowd inside, making her nicely anonymous, and she stopped to watch the news being discussed on the large vidscreen.

  Parser was in AIF custody. No surprise there.

  A warrant was out for Shantu’s arrest. That was also not a surprise, and while she didn’t know what possible plan Shantu could have for turning this to his advantage, she believed in him.

  An emergency Council session was scheduled for tomorrow morning. If Rahel knew Shantu at all, he would be there for that. Her exile would end after tonight.

  The most shocking news, based on the response of the tavern crowd, was that Lancer Tal had chosen a Bondlancer. She really had been courting Salomen Opah.

  “Good luck with your dokker of a bondbrother,” Rahel muttered, turning toward the lobby.

  Colonel Micah was not dead.

  She stumbled to an ungraceful halt and stared at the vidscreen, where the announcer explained that Colonel Micah had been moved from Redmoon to Blacksun and was currently in stable condition.

  It was an odd thing to wish an enemy well, especially one who had tried to kill her. But the colonel had an honorable reputation, and it was only the vicissitudes of fate that had put them on opposite sides.

  Her shoulders felt lighter as she walked through the tavern doorway into the inn’s lobby. She had not killed a good man.

  “A producer Bondlancer, isn’t that something?” the innkeeper asked when she checked in. “Hasn’t been one of those for sixteen generations, they say. Can only be love, is what I say. There certainly isn’t any political advantage.”

  Rahel mused on that as she walked up the stairs to her room. How strange, to think of the politician she was fighting against as a woman in love.

  Well. Even the Betrayer had probably loved someone. That hadn’t stopped him from committing the worst crimes any Alsean had ever been guilty of, crimes so severe that his name was stripped from the caste rolls and his legacy lost to history.

  Lancer Tal hadn’t committed crimes, at least that Rahel knew of. But she would go down in history as the woman who had nearly destroyed Alsea.

  Shantu would be recorded as the man who saved it. Perhaps Rahel’s name would be in those history books as well.

  “Chief Guardian to the Lancer,” she said, just to test the sound of it.

  It sounded good.

  The next morning, Rahel sat in the tavern with the rest of the inn’s guests, taking a late mornmeal and waiting for the special Council session to be aired. Her body thrummed with excitement, making it difficult to swallow her food. This was the day everything would change.

  Lancer Tal was in full formal dress when she opened the session, looking every bit the wise and powerful governor of their world. Her blonde hair contrasted sharply with the high-collared crimson jacket, and her icy blue eyes seemed to look right through the vidscreen as she listed Parser’s crimes and announced his confession.

  Rahel shuddered. The only way Parser would have confessed was under empathic force. He was corrupt and greedy, but no one deserved that.

  When the Lancer began listing Shantu’s alleged crimes, Rahel began to worry. “Cold-blooded, premeditated murder for the worst of reasons” sounded very different from anything Shantu had said.

  “When we have finished presenting the evidence to you,” Lancer Tal continued, “I will ask the warrior and merchant castes to consider the only realistic judgment they can make. I will ask them to strip former Prime Warrior Shantu and former Prime Merchant Parser of their castes.”

  Everyone in the tavern gasped.

  “Outcastes,” said a woman nearby. “Great Mother, what a fate.”

  Rahel felt physically ill, the leftover scents of mornmeal roiling her stomach. No, that wasn’t possible. They couldn’t make Shantu an outcaste. He was a hero. He had commanded the Pallea forces and saved thousands from the Voloth. He had spent his entire career working to defend those who needed protection. Even now, he was working to defend Alsea.

  They couldn’t do it.

  But the vidcams panned over many warrior Councilors who were grimly nodding, as if they had already decided. As if Shantu were the foulest warrior since the Betrayer.

  The tavern’s occupants gasped again when the Council chamber doors were thrown open and Shantu entered in dress uniform, complete with full cape. Rahel sat back in her chair, relieved beyond measure that he was there to set things right.

  He spoke in ringing tones, full of righteousness and honor. But he did not say what he had said to Rahel. He did not speak of Lancer Tal’s dealings with the Protectorate, or the danger she posed to Alsea’s future. He spoke only of defending his name and honor—and then he invoked the ancient right to a ritual challenge of combat.

  The tavern erupted into a cacophony of outraged shouts and shocked cries, mirroring the response of the Councilors and those in the guest galleries. Rahel sat stunned while the Council debated whether to allow a fight to the death on the chamber floor.

  Shantu was gambling his life, her life,
and the future of Alsea on a sword fight. Of course he would win. He had been a competition fighter in his younger days whereas Lancer Tal, though skilled, had never reached the level of competition. Still, Rahel could not fathom how he could lay the future of Alsea on the edge of a blade. Surely there were better arguments? He had made them to her; why wasn’t he making them to the Council?

  She had thought he would instigate a caste coup, right there during the emergency session. It was what they had worked toward for ten moons. She thought he had supporters who were waiting for the right moment. None of this made sense.

  Lancer Tal accepted the challenge, to be fought in one hantick. The tavern erupted once again, this time with people making and taking bets on who would win.

  Rahel could barely stand to be in the same room with these people who were gambling on life and death. But she couldn’t leave. Her table had a good view of the vidscreen, and she would not give it up when her whole life hung on the outcome of this fight.

  She ordered a bottle of spirits and sipped it over the next hantick, listening to inn guests arguing about who was the better sword fighter, or the better fighter overall, or deserved to win more. Shantu was generally accepted as superior with a sword, but there was a great deal of unwarranted faith in Lancer Tal’s abilities. The locals seemed to believe she would win simply because they wanted her to. Her role in the Battle of Alsea, in forging a treaty with aliens, and particularly in accepting a challenge from a producer—now to be her bondmate, a fact exclaimed over and over again—had cemented her as a mythical figure who could not lose.

  The roar of conversations, arguments, and late bets sank into silence when Lancer Tal stepped onto the Council chamber dais in a black fighting suit. Below, on the polished wooden floor of the chamber, Shantu was warming up in a red suit.

  Lancer Tal waited until he saluted her and then descended the stairs to the floor. They spoke with each other, but the vidcams were out on the periphery and no one could hear their words.

  “What are they saying?” asked a man by the bar.