by F. C. Reed
Larue fumbled for the holstered powergun, but the speed at which she launched herself was impossible to counter. She planted her shoulder into his gut before the barrel even cleared the leather holster. The others positioned behind Larue were also caught in the massive woman’s aerial assault shoulder tackle on the lieutenant. That last ditch effort was truly her last, however. Before she stood, they subdued her.
Several men attended to the wounded lieutenant. By her medically trained eye, he had at least a chestful of bruised ribs, a broken arm, and a dislocated hip. She was satisfied with that. As the soldiers shoved her out of the area, she could not help but think of how she would have to keep herself from pulling him apart if they ever crossed paths again.
Chapter Forty-Two
Marchand’s training hall ached with silence. He had sent the last of the student soldiers on their way early, having decided that they should not be a part of what was to come. The hall was quiet, just as he liked it. He picked up the pruning shears and snipped a brown leaf off of the small plant in the pot next to the door as he waited.
Voices rose in protest as the military contingency pushed through the streets. People yelled and screamed and ran away. Others stood just out of the way, hoping to see a dozen peacekeepers ruin someone’s day.
The boots of the soldiers thumped heavily on the wooden steps. Within seconds, the training hall’s entrance brimmed with soldiers. They separated as Major Ursin made his way to the front of the crowd.
His sharp, green eyes rolled around the entrails of the training hall, as if scanning a field of battle. He flicked his tongue across his thin lips as he gazed at the room’s attendance. Moonlight bounced from the major’s links of chained mail over the leather padding, the reflected light casting strange hues of shadow and shine on the lacquered wooden walls and floor. A small breeze crept through the windows, disturbing the long red cape that lapped at his boots.
Marchand stood alone in the hall, his back facing them.
“Master Marchand Gadot,” he said finally. The tension mounted instantly as the group of soldiers behind him shifted with anticipation.
“Jameson Ursin,” Marchand responded without turning. There was a hint of irritation at the intrusion, but the intrusion was not unexpected. “The red cloak of the commander general is a bit big for you, I’m afraid.”
“And you would put that same cloak over the shoulders of a child,” he said shaking his head. “A clone, in fact.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Marchand said with a smirk.
That statement halted Ursin’s thoughts. “And just what do you mean by that?”
Marchand sighed. “Still the foolish little orphan boy. I thought you were better than all of this, bluejay. I sure as hells raised you better.”
Ursin flinched at the childhood nickname Marchand had given him long ago. He shook his head just as seeds of doubt and guilt entered the soils of his brain, loosening anything that might take root there. “You are under arrest for treason and conspiring against the realm.”
“Is that so?” Marchand turned. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and eyed Ursin with something that looked like pity.
“I see no reason to make this difficult,” Ursin said.
“Then go away,” replied Marchand with a shrug.
“I am the commander of the Crimson Bloodguard now. I am also not one to be argued with or tested.”
Marchand stood his ground. “Or what?” he taunted. “If you are the commander of the Bloodguard, then why are they not at your side right now? You’re commanding peacekeepers? That, my dear boy, is pathetic.”
Ursin flinched.
“Ah. I see,” said Marchand. “Difficult to inspire is the man who takes his own general into custody. Even if that general is labeled a traitor. And so they owe you no loyalty, nor do you have it from them. Quite a rough start, it seems.” He focused on the soldiers’ positioning and their movements. Some hesitant, while others bold and anxious. “Neither does this lot owe you anything,” he said, gesturing at the peacekeepers. He registered every twitch of eye and limb, and he surmised vulnerability and weakness. Within a handful of seconds, he was sure of who would want to prove themselves, and who would cower when the fighting started.
Ursin’s presence seemed to fade. He did not intimidate the old man, and it simultaneously irritated him and frightened him. No one threatens the Armsmaster of the Shadow Vale and expects to have to carry out the threat. They both knew his gambit failed. He flicked his hand to signal his soldiers to surround the old man. “There are twelve of us,” he said, hoping to deter a struggle.
Marchand grinned. “Outmanned, but not outmatched.” He arched his back in a series of pops meant to straighten out his spine. “Twelve, you say? You’d make thirteen if your fear didn’t keep you rooted at the door.” One soldier behind Marchand mumbled something to himself and advanced, his brow furrowed in anger. That prompted the others to close in behind him.
Ursin huffed. “I wouldn’t need to—
Then he stiffened.
“Soldier, stand down!” The order came too late, however. There were too many new soldiers inducted into Sky Marshal Sesanji’s coup that tried too hard to impress their superiors for the rapid and numerous promotions that were doled out daily. They were green, inexperienced to the point of hard-headedness and foolish bravado, all for another stripe on the sleeve and authority to boss a handful of others around. These soldiers were a part of the fools and hard-heads.
Marchand wasted no time in his own defense. He raised his hands, palms up, to his shoulders, then slowly rotated and thrust them downward. The force of aether splintered the floor, throwing the soldiers off balance. They wobbled this way and that, crashing into one another. Undeterred, they still closed in on him.
Marchand flew at them with a surprising speed, aided by the aether he pulled from the earth. His fist split the breastplate of one soldier. His elbow split the breastplate of another. A third toppled over his back as he dodged, and he lunged at the fourth, ripping his helmet from his head as he flipped over the startled soldier’s shoulder. His foot found another chin, and another.
He danced expertly about the soldiers, incapacitating one after the other. His attacks were perfect, precise, and painful. In a few brief moments, only he and Ursin stood across from one another. All the soldiers lay bruised and bloodied between them, some unconscious, while others moaned in pain, too battered to stand. Others clawed the ground in an attempt to distance themselves from such a powerful fighter. Still others nursed their egos as they helped their fallen brethren, dragging or carrying them outside and out of harm’s way.
“Is that all?” Marchand asked with a lighthearted laugh. “I’m not even winded.”
Ursin grimaced and flexed his aethermechanical arm. “I still need you to surrender yourself,” he said, his voice heavy.
“Well then, it looks like it’s your turn, son.” Marchand got himself as ready to fight as he ever did, by holding his hands behind his back. But he also noticed Ursin’s hesitation. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid. I’d be disappointed at that, bluejay.”
Ursin frowned and raised his metal arm. He twisted a portion on the forearm, and the wrist and fingers made a clacking sound, as if the parts were moving inside. Following a final click, it whirred softly. “I’m no fool,” he said. “We both know I’m no match for you.”
Marchand frowned at that. “No one is. But you damn well should be, boy. That is, if you didn’t go soft about the head. I taught you everything I know.”
“Except how to lose,” said Ursin. His aethermechanical arm hissed angrily and then fell silent. “And although I’m sure I’m about to find out, it won’t be for a lack of trying.” He reached up over his shoulder and unsnapped a buckle, and the arm slid away and clunked on the ground. He set his footing and assumed his fighting stance, holding out his right arm in front of him. The neatly bandaged stump of his left arm, amputated just above the elbow following a wound from
a long ago conflict, steadied next to the right.
Marchand’s hands came undone and found their way to his hips. “What in green hells are you doing? Don’t you need that blasted thing? You probably can’t wipe your own arse without it.” He shook his head. “Go on. Pick it up and stick it back on that gods awful stump.”
Ursin frowned at the slight. “It’s my greatest asset, but also my greatest weakness. You taught me that. It will be the first thing you take from me in this fight, so I will do without and save us both the trouble.” He reset his stance.
Marchand nodded, slightly impressed. “Hmm. You’re right. I would have bashed the wretched thing first off. Then again, you don’t need it as much as you think you do.” He took several steps forward, and Ursin visibly tensed, his brow furrowed.
Marchand extended his wrists, palms up, as his gray eyes softened on Ursin. He almost didn’t know what to think. That either Ursin was crazy to challenge him single-handedly (no pun intended) or he was losing his own sanity.
“I am beaten. Words I have not uttered in well over a century.” A gracious smile parted Marchand’s lips slightly. “Take me away, sir. And make it quick before I change my mind.”
“Wh-what?” Ursin took a step back. “Just like that, you’re giving up?”
“Of course I’m not, you dimwitted mop handle.” Marchand corrected. “How else will I find out where you are keeping General Strann? This saves time.” Ursin raised his eyebrows as Marchand picked up his cane and headed for the door.
“Come on, then. Let’s go. If you’re not going to shackle me, then so be it. And don’t leave your gods-be-damned back scratcher on my floor.” Then he glanced around himself, a look of disgust on his face. “Oh, yes. When I come back, all this blood, snot, and vomit I beat out of your men better be cleaned up too, or I’m coming to find you.”
Ursin gathered his arm. “You do know the penalty for treason.”
“I do,” replied Marchand. “Unless they’ve commuted it to a hot oil foot rub in the time I’ve been away from the council, we have little time.”
They exited the training hall into the cool evening air. Ursin worked at affixing his aethermechanical arm in place. “You say ‘we’ as if I am going to help you or something or other.”
“You are, my dear boy.” Marchand replied with a grin. “You most certainly are.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Amalia ached after all the climbing, especially with her hands bound. She guessed they had to be somewhere near the top of the spire of the Reach. Now they walked along the same level, not traveling down or up.
Kharius kept uncomfortably close beside her and guided her forward by her arm. From the corner of her eye, she could see the powergun in his hand, swinging at his side. The walk was casual, and she guessed they were either ahead of schedule or Kharius just wasn’t particularly in a hurry. Although Kharius remained silent the entire time, Amalia felt compelled to say something, but didn’t know where to begin.
“Nice weather we’re having, huh?” she tried with a nervous laugh. Kharius still said nothing. Instead, his grip tightened on her elbow. Amalia sighed audibly, which apparently annoyed Kharius. “Seriously, where are we going?” She had to ask after having passed every lift and personal transport dock for the last ten floors.
“Just keep walking and stay quiet,” he said after a moment.
“And if I yelled, I doubt anyone would hear,” she mumbled.
Kharius snorted. “I’m not worried about that,” he said. “You’re just annoying the hells out of me.”
“Well, pardon me for being an unruly captive, you asshole.” That got her a shove. She stumbled to the ground. When she stood to face him, Kharius had the powergun leveled at her. His normally emotionless face held a nasty grimace.
“You have no idea how much I’d love to just shoot you in the forehead and be done with this,” he said.
Amalia stood cautiously now, trying to figure out how to talk him down. Moments before her attempt, someone beat her to it.
“Kharius. Let her go.” They both spun. At the far end of the hallway stood Zerosa. “This won’t end well for anyone if she’s dead,” she said.
“I will destroy her if I have to. I can make another,” he said, the powergun quivering in his hand.
“You won’t do that because we don’t have another fifteen years,” she said, taking confident strides toward them. “And she has the infinity particle. If you kill her, it will be lost.”
“If,” Kharius emphasized.
Amalia crouched against the corridor’s wall, trying to make herself smaller. The powergun followed her. He mumbled quickly, as if discussing something with himself. Amalia could not make out what he was saying, despite her proximity.
“I can’t give her to you. She’s too valuable.” He reached down and snatched Amalia up by her arm.
“Why not?”
“Because your band of liberators and misfits will destroy this entire plane of existence,” Kharius replied.
“And yours will save it? I doubt that very seriously. Bastille is on his way. We both know the danger this realm is in. She’s coming with me.” Zerosa picked up her step. Then she bolted at him in a hard sprint.
Kharius growled, backing away and dragging Amalia with him. She struggled in his grip as he thumbed the safety off and fired several quick shots.
The crack-hiss echoed through the hallway as it streaked towards Zerosa. Fire-like aether slugs split the dim hallway into orange and black. Zerosa dodged the shots with ease by shifting in and out of the plane. Her awareness spiked on an unusual sensation as she shifted through aethereal singularities. Someone was coming. That was not as important as getting Amalia to safety.
Kharius grabbed at his tekronomicon dangling at his side, flung it open, and raised his hand. The surrounding air rapidly dropped in temperature. He made a sweeping gesture with his hand and the corridor blazed in a blue sheen prior to a shimmering force field snapping into existence, but he was a second short.
Zerosa threw a shatterdisk at that precise time, and now it hung in the sheet of ice, the red activation light blinking. The blue force field, which popped and crackled as it transformed into a thick sheet of ice, bucked violently as the shatterdisk detonated, creating a series of expanding cracks across the ice barrier.
Zerosa charged through the ice wall with her shoulder, shattering it into shards and fragments. She jumped and executed a spinning kick, catching Kharius square in the chin, just under his nose. His head snapped back, and he sprawled across the floor farther down the corridor. The techronomicon spun off in one direction and the powergun in another. Stunned, he struggled with his orientation. With much effort, he tried to right himself and stand, but the blood beating in his ears, and a swirling, spinning corridor pinned him to the ground.
Zerosa dashed over to Amalia, who was wide eyed at the display of agility and use of aether. She held a finger to the chains of Amalia’s cuffs. “Pull your hands apart,” she said.
Amalia felt the heat penetrate the metal binding her wrists. She yanked at them, and they gave way with a pop, clattering to the ground. What little she continued to believe of the world of science and physics before that moment had just been thoroughly obliterated. As she rose to her feet, Zerosa was snatched from her line of vision and slammed against the wall, the metal crumpling on impact.
Amalia immediately tensed at the sight of the golden curly locks that dangled in front of her.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Mirell’s voice held more ice than usual. She straightened herself and faced Amalia.
Amalia contemplated her options, of which there were few. “This about Thanial?” she asked as she held out her hands.
Mirell laughed. “Don’t be silly. I’ve got him. He just doesn’t know it yet. But I want you to run, of course. I like the chase. Besides, it will make the ass kicking I’m about to give you much more satisfying.”
She took a step. Amalia backed up.
Amalia felt her body stiffen at her own response. “I don’t know how to give it to you.”
“And you wouldn’t even if you could.” Mirell cocked an eyebrow over her twisted grin. “I sorta kinda gotta rip it out of your chest, so there’s that.” She put a hand to her chin. “I thought they’d give it to that clown, Thanial, but if he’s offspring to the primus, then he’s cursed with the red terror. Wouldn’t have made sense.” She poked the air in Amalia’s direction as she stepped toward her. “You were a complete surprise. An unforeseen contingency. I should have figured from the moment I met you.”
Mirell reached out just before she was tackled. She and her assailant rolled down the corridor, arms and legs entangled as Amalia backed away. Once they gained their footing, they began attacking one another in a flurry of punches and kicks.
Amalia watched, amazed and in horror. Zerosa was not doing well judging by how her shoulders slumped, and it seemed difficult for her to keep her fists up. Her breath labored into short, hyper gasps, and her legs shook with exhaustion. Weakness crept over her body and Mirell’s fists crashed into her ribs and face in rapid succession.
Mirell took full advantage of her opponent’s weakness. After a time, she danced around Zerosa like she was standing still, while Zerosa tried unsuccessfully to fend off her attacks. Mirell used a special technique of attacking nerve centers through pokes and jabs to specific areas over the body. Before long, Zerosa could tolerate no more. She slumped to her knees, unable to even raise her hands or head.
Mirell cocked her head at the crumpled and broken Zerosa, paralyzed into a motionless heap. “Hmm. Tanzo pressure point attacks do work on the darkfallen. I always wondered.”
Zerosa stirred at her comments.