“I said stop,” she grated, stepping around the corpse. “You are both prisoners of the Twilight Order.”
The big man came up, a blaster pistol in hand.
Maya had been expecting another crossbow, which was hardly dangerous with her panoply up. A blaster was another matter. She threw out her hand, sending a focused wave of flame crashing over the smuggler, but it wasn’t fast enough. Bolts of blue-white energy cracked across the cavern, slamming into the walls with explosive concussions.
One of the shots caught Maya in the chest, and she felt herself picked up and tossed backward as her panoply flared. The power drain was horrific, as though her entire body had been plunged into a pool full of ice, and her vision darkened. She fought desperately to stay conscious, tucking her body into a ball and turning her skid across the ground into a roll. She came to a halt against the wall of the cavern, white-hot chunks of rock landing all around her. Dimly, she could see a figure in flames rolling wildly on the ground.
The third smuggler, the woman in the coat, stood untouched amid the guttering fire. She was smiling. There was something off in her face, as though one side of it were distended, and her right eye was deep purple and bulged like a grape. Dhakim.
“Fucking Twilight Order,” she said. “Do you know how many people I’m going to have to kill when I’m done with you? Someone’s been talking.” She glanced at the cages. “I thought we had plenty of insurance, but apparently not.”
Maya staggered to her feet. Deiat was still flowing, and her haken still burned, but it was a near thing. Taking a blaster shot head-on was enough to almost exhaust her reserves.
“I don’t suppose you want to lie down and die?” the woman said. “It would make this much easier.”
“You. Are a prisoner. Of the Order.” Maya gritted her teeth. “Give it up.”
The dhakim laughed. “Small chance of that.” She gave a high, piercing whistle.
Twisted shapes circled the pile of crates. A half dozen dog-sized plaguespawn, bodies rippling with skinless red muscle, exposed bones sharpened to rake and tear. Remade jaws dripped slaver that sizzled when it hit the floor, and long limbs twisted unnaturally. The dhakim was grinning wider, and she whistled again, a low, short command. The plaguespawn charged.
Keep moving. It was Jaedia’s voice in her head. Remember, plaguespawn are not truly animals. For a moment Maya felt detached, distant, watching the scene from afar as her mentor lectured her. Then her heart began to trip-hammer, her pulse a roar in her ears, and she was yanked back into her body. Jaedia’s voice faded to a barely audible drone. They can never hunt as a pack. It is always every creature for itself.
Maya didn’t know whether that applied to plaguespawn under the direct control of a dhakim. But it’s the best chance I’ve got.
She went straight at them.
There were three on each side of the crates. Maya charged one group, and the leader stood its ground, rearing up on telescoping hind legs until it was nearly as tall as she was. The two creatures behind it, though, couldn’t push past, and Maya speared the lead monster through the chest, leaving her haken in place for a moment until its flesh started to bubble and smoke. Then she spun away as the plaguespawn collapsed, the two behind it leaping over the body. The three from the other side had closed the distance, but one was faster than the others, and Maya intercepted it with a downward sweep that severed its misshapen head in a gout of steam and black blood.
Four left. Unfortunately, if the creatures lacked the pack instinct of natural hunters, they also lacked their fear. Even without a dhakim to drive them, plaguespawn had no sense of self-preservation. They would attack until they were dead or she was.
And then they’d take me apart. She imagined her own eye staring out from the folds of skinless flesh, her hand twitching at the end of some composite limb. It made her bile rise. The Thing seemed to be red-hot in her chest, pain shooting through her ribs with every ragged breath. Her connection to deiat was as unstable as a stumbling drunk, and she dared not draw any excess power.
Not exactly my finest hour.
But there were children in cages, and four plaguespawn still standing.
Two of them came at her together. She dodged left, evading a pair of snapping wolf jaws, but the other creature’s face split into a nest of writhing tendrils, and two of them whipped along her side with bladed tips. The flare of the panoply field from even this minor wound was enough that she nearly passed out on the spot, and the flame of her haken flickered. Desperately, Maya wrenched the stream of deiat away from the panoply belt, deactivating it. Her skin tingled, unprotected, and the Thing pulsed again.
Behind the monsters, the dhakim woman was sitting on a crate, like the audience at a theater. Her swollen eye flicked from side to side, taking in the action, and she smiled at Maya’s obvious exhaustion. She had one hand on the hilt of a sword but seemed content to watch.
Fine with me. Giving ground, Maya veered away from the tentacled horror and baited the wolflike one into another lunge. That was easier to avoid, and her desperate chop took off a front leg and most of its face. It was still moving, blood spewing across the earth, but slowly enough that she could afford to ignore it. The tentacled creature came at her again, and Maya stood her ground, aiming a slice right through the nest of whirling blades. Her sleeve shredded, and multiple cuts blossomed along her arm without the panoply field to protect it, but she chopped the thing nearly in half, and it went down with a gout of foul-smelling smoke.
Two. Blood dripped down her arm, sheathing it in red, wet and sticky on her fingers. With a frown, the dhakim got down from her crate and drew her sword. It had the iridescent gleam of unmetal, the short, flat style that was standard in the Legion. Maya swallowed hard as the two plaguespawn separated, letting the woman approach, then padded forward at her side.
“Always wanted to kill a centarch,” she said. “But they can be hard to come by. They say that the ability to touch deiat is in the soul and not the flesh, but I’ve always wondered if you couldn’t find it if you diced things fine enough.” Her engorged eye stared at Maya, unblinking. “I guess we’ll find out.”
She attacked, and immaterial haken clashed with unmetal, deiat thrashing and sparking against the Elder blade. Maya held her block for a moment, blood dripping from her elbow, but it was clear the dhakim was stronger. She danced away instead, evading the next cut, aiming a riposte at the woman’s face that was easily countered. The plaguespawn kept pace with the duel as Maya gave ground, slowly circling the pile of crates. The dhakim’s mental control of the thing was better than Maya had given her credit for, and the creatures acted as extensions of her will, darting in to nip and slash at Maya when she was distracted and jumping away before she could cut them down.
Fuck. The fact that she wasn’t going to win this fight hit Maya like a revelation. Fuck fuck fuck. She had to think of something else—not because she needed to do well to impress the Council, to help Jaedia, even to save the children, but because if she didn’t, she was going to fucking die here, her guts spilled by an unmetal blade.
The dhakim came at her with a fast series of brutally strong blows, and when she went to parry, Maya was hammered to her knees. One of the plaguespawn darted in, jaws closing on the meat of her calf, and a scream tore its way out of her throat. Her opponent raised her blade, smiling in triumph—
And a bolt of blue-white energy tore across the room, hitting the plaguespawn and detonating in a burst of pulverized flesh and bone. The whole back half of the creature was blown away. The second monster spun with a gurgling growl, but another bolt caught it and blasted its head and shoulders completely apart.
“Maya!” Beq stood in the tunnel entrance, hair covered in dirt, blaster pistol held in a solid two-handed grip. She fired again, but the dhakim ducked, and the blast hit the far wall in a spray of dirt.
“Interfering plaguepit—” the dhakim growled. She sprinted toward Beq, dodging another blaster bolt. Beq scrambled back, far too slowly.
No. Maya, still on her knees, raised her haken and sighted along it. She called up every bit of power she had left and let it flow through the haken as a lance of white-hot fire.
Somehow, the dhakim sensed it coming. She spun and raised her sword, the unmetal catching the beam and splintering it in a dozen directions. Sparks sprayed across the woman, scorching holes in her clothes, but she gritted her teeth and kept her Elder weapon between them. Even unmetal would melt, eventually, but Maya didn’t have the strength. She felt herself faltering, the beam flickering out, and darkness clawed at the edges of her vision.
Beq, though, didn’t wait that long. She brought her blaster up and fired, and the dhakim’s head came apart like rotten fruit.
When Maya opened her eyes, the cavern was full of people.
Beq knelt by her side. Maya’s right arm was stretched out on a cloth, and Beq was applying something green and vaguely astringent from a tin. The wound in her calf was already wrapped up, and Maya recognized the numbing sting of quickheal. Beyond her, there were quite a few voices speaking at once, mixed with children crying.
“Maya?” Beq leaned over. “Are you awake?”
Maya gave a cautious nod.
“Thank the Chosen,” Beq said. “I’d hoped it was just power exhaustion that had knocked you out, but I couldn’t be sure. How do you feel?”
“Not… bad.” Maya swallowed. In truth, she felt oddly better than she had in some past scrapes; letting the panoply draw power until the last minute left her connection to deiat scraped raw, and she’d avoided that, at least. “Arm hurts, obviously.”
“Right. Let me finish up.” Beq went back to applying the ointment, twisting a dial on her spectacles. Lenses clicked. “You got cut up pretty good, but not too deep. With some quickheal it’ll be all right in a few days.”
“Right.” Maya lifted her head for a moment to look around, but the effort was too much, and she quickly lay back down. “What happened?”
“After, you mean? Of course you mean after. You remember what happened before.” Beq looked over, eyes made huge by the lenses’ magnification. “You do remember, don’t you?”
“I think so. You shot the dhakim.”
For a moment Beq went still, and then she gave a quick nod and looked away. “Tanax and Varo turned up not long after. That girl—”
“Streza?”
“Right. She came to Kaiura’s house, screaming her head off, but Tanax was in the middle of an interview and wanted her to wait. I argued with him and—” Her face flushed slightly. “When he wouldn’t listen, I just walked out and followed Streza. Varo convinced him to come along eventually.”
“You…” Maya swallowed again. Her chest ached, the flesh around the Thing tender. “You saved my ass.”
“I did? I mean, I guess I did. You probably had things under control. I just thought—”
“Nope.” Maya turned her head to look at Beq, who was blushing further. “I was definitely going to die.”
“Oh.” Beq went quiet for a moment. “Then I’m glad I rushed.”
“Me too.”
There was another silence. Beq pulled a roll of bandage out of her pack and started wrapping up Maya’s arm.
“So what’s happening now?” Maya said.
“Kaiura and a bunch of the villagers followed Tanax,” Beq said. “I’m not sure what they’re fighting about now.” She lowered her voice. “Tanax is really angry with you.”
Maya sighed. “Of course he is.”
A few minutes later, she had the strength to sit up, and Beq helped her wobble to her feet. A small crowd of villagers stood by the cages, all open now. Maya recognized Kaiura in their midst and caught a glimpse of Streza clinging to a bent-backed old woman and a filthy, sobbing younger boy in a fierce hug. Some of the rest were also comforting the rescued children, while a small circle around Kaiura spoke to each other in low tones, occasionally glancing up at Maya and the others.
Tanax and Varo, meanwhile, had pried the lids off a few of the crates and were carefully examining the contents. Small jars were packed neatly in straw, beside boxes stacked with waxy tablets wrapped in oiled paper.
“Up and about already, Maya?” Varo said.
“Didn’t want to get lazy,” Maya said. “Were all the kids okay?”
“Well enough,” Varo said. “Just scared and dirty. They were only here for a few days.”
“According to Kaiura, they were taken after someone discovered the smugglers moving goods into the cavern.” Tanax nodded to the entrance, where the wooden barricade had been. They’d removed it, and Maya could see out to the bank of the river. “Best guess is they use this as a depot before moving the stuff overland. Apparently they grabbed the children as hostages.”
“Thank the Chosen we got here, then,” Maya said.
“Indeed.” Tanax frowned. “It might have been a great success, if you’d exercised better judgment.”
Maya stood frozen for a moment, trying to digest that. Beq stepped forward, hands raised.
“We don’t have to get into that now,” she said. “Maya’s still—”
“What do you mean, better judgment?” Maya said. “And how is this not a success?”
“All three smugglers are dead,” Tanax snapped. “Two of them at your hands, I might add. We have no opportunity to interrogate them, which might have led us to the rest of their organization.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to take prisoners,” Maya said. “I was a little busy trying not to get killed myself. One of them was a dhakim, if you haven’t noticed.”
“I understand your difficulties,” Tanax said, and his air of condescension made Maya want to scream. “But you wouldn’t have been in such a dangerous situation if you’d gone for backup immediately.”
“You were the one who told me I was wasting my time pulling cats out of trees.”
“That doesn’t excuse charging in on your own,” Tanax snapped.
“The children were hostages. If I’d waited, and the smugglers figured out we were onto them, they might have killed them all and run for it.”
“Possible. Not likely with all this product at stake.”
Maya fixed him with a glare. “It wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.”
“Which will certainly be included in my report.” Tanax glared back. “A centarch must be capable of making hard choices for the greater good. Saving a few lives here might condemn more later, if the rest of the smugglers remain undetected. This is what Pragmatics like you and your master never understand.”
“I…” Maya forced herself to keep silent. I can’t fight him, not here. “I think I should get some rest.”
“By all means.” Tanax nodded to Beq. “Take her back to our headquarters. Varo and I will handle things here.”
“What needs to be handled?” Maya said. “The smugglers are dead.”
“The complicity of the villagers still needs to be examined.”
“Their children were taken hostage!” Maya said.
“So they claim. We’ll see.” He gave a thin smile. “I still plan to do a thorough investigation.”
Maya didn’t say much on the journey back to Kaiura’s house, which seemed ten times as long in her exhausted state. Beq walked beside her, watching in case she stumbled, but Maya kept her eyes ahead and her back straight.
A thorough investigation. She wanted to scream. These poor people have been through the plague already, and he wants to keep pushing. It was no wonder the villagers she saw as they made their way across the valley gave her frightened looks. If this is how centarchs usually behave, no wonder Jaedia had us in disguise.
When they reached the house, Beq led her upstairs to a second-floor bedroom. It clearly belonged to a young girl—there were hand-carved toys scattered across the floor, mostly swords and horses, and enthusiastic if incompetent paintings pinned to the walls—but a bedroll had already been rolled out beside the small bed, with Beq’s large pack and Maya’s smaller one sittin
g beside it.
“There’s no inn in town, so Kaiura offered to put us up,” Beq said in answer to Maya’s questioning look. “Her girls are sleeping in her room.”
Maya had every confidence that Kaiura had “volunteered” the lodgings as easily as she’d given up her home to Tanax’s investigation. Might as well be generous, since we have the legal authority to take what we want, not to mention enough power to reduce the town to ash. Another coal of anger, added to the already-smoldering fire. It’s not right. She and Jaedia had stayed with villagers plenty of times, of course, but they’d always paid for their beds, either in money or in chores.
“You can have the bed,” Beq went on. “Go ahead, lie down. I’ll get you some water.”
Maya nodded, suddenly feeling the weight of her exhaustion. She sat down on the bed, yawned, and blinked sleepily.
When she next opened her eyes, the sky outside was dark. The pain in her arm and leg had subsided to a dull ache. She lay in the bed, under a thin summer sheet, stripped of her boots and outer clothes. On the floor, Beq lay sprawled across her bedroll, her own sheet kicked to the side.
The moon was high, and its soft light silvered everything. Maya stared at the childish drawings on the walls without really seeing them.
I won. She glanced down at Beq and found herself smiling. We won, I suppose. I would have died if she hadn’t gotten there when she did. The memory of that moment of realization brought a twist to her stomach. But she did get there, and we beat the dhakim and rescued the children.
So why do I feel so bad?
She probed her emotions cautiously, like she was poking a rotten tooth with her tongue. Her mind replayed the fight, the first smuggler going down with a smoking wound carved across him, the second burning alive in her flames even as he blasted her. Is that it? Killing those men?
There was a twinge, but it was less than she expected. They were trying to kill me. And they were keeping children in cages. Sometimes centarchs might have to make hard choices, but this hadn’t been one of them.
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