It was obvious to him that with Brody-1 leading his mother’s Battle Group, there was no way they could be surprised as he had been. He could not see how any old rag-tag collection of Outsiders and Ergot bubbles could beat her.
His Mother’s attack was not in danger.
Hunter Curtis’ white-hot anger started to eat at him halfway up the stairs, fueled by the memory of the bubbles bursting the hallway door down, trapping him underneath. The fact that Kimraig ordered him to take the protected spot in the middle of the column—questioned his ability—stoked his anger. That swinging door had overpowered him; who expected bubbles anyway? As far as he was concerned this was not inattention to duty at all, just superior force by an army.
It was for him to lead, not that old, decrepit Hunter. His mother, Leader Breen, was in command of this entire building. It mattered little that she had assigned him to Kimraig’s command. He was born to lead. She had told him so.
The elevators where this dumb plan had started were well behind them. One last bit of memory stirred up his anger. Kimraig had not bothered to come to him with the order; he had sent the two Crossers. Well, as soon as he got to his mother, he would make sure they all suffered for these slights.
As they slid to a stop at the second set of stairs where Leader Breen had begun her assault, two spear points forced him against the wall.
“Move quietly up the stairs boy,” the one called Marta hissed in his right ear.
“One outburst and we will spit you, and roast you,” Luna whispered in his other ear.
We will see who roasts who when we get to Leader Breen.
He only nodded his understanding.
“Now up you go. Point man always gets killed first.”
They shared a private grunt as he jerked the stairwell door open and started up. As the steel slab closed, he had trouble focusing his night vision. Memory would guide him until the blue lights chose to join him. All Troopers trained on stairs in every available building. Overall, stairs were much the same.
Training helped shut out his anger. Blue squiggles of his night vision clicked in.
His armor and long shield led the way. Now he understood; they would use him to blunt any attack in the narrow confines of the stairwell. Their short spears and small fiber shields would protect his exposed ribs as he thrust with his longer spear and blocked with his shield. Smart, they had done this before.
Half way up the first set of treads, the din of battle filtered down the stairs. Picking up speed, he turned the corner and bubbles smothered over him. Startled, he missed half a step and two clamping hands kept him upright.
“Easy, you are not dead so they will not feed on you.”
Was that Marta?
“Stab forward with your spear. Make sure they are not covering for an attack by Outsiders.”
The other one, Luna, he thought.
Satisfied they were not food, the bubbles flowed back up the stairs.
Hunter Curtis charged up the cleared steps to the next landing where three Outsiders were jammed in the doorway. They must have run down the steps. He managed to spear the last one, forcing his body to block the closing door. Marta and Luna were through the doorway in pursuit of the other two.
The froth of bubbles poured down once again, sucking then tearing at the rags. In seconds, they flowed out the open door into the hallway, giving chase to Marta and Luna. Only rags remained at his feet.
He shuddered and then glanced up the stairs. Wait! Wait for their support. The two Crossers quickly joined him. Fresh blood dripped from their short spears. He looked past them waiting for those things to return.
“Do not give them a thought. They took the elevator,” the two of them grunted together.
That must be their creepy laugh.
He started to question them about that, and then decided there was no need for an answer. The sound of the continuing battle above forced him rapidly up the two flights of stairs to the next landing. Carnage met his entrance.
With her huge shoulder jammed against the open hallway door, Brody-1 lay in a heap half on the bottom tread of the stair leading up to the next floor. In front of and around her were several piles of rags and a like number of useless spears. Midway up the stairs were two splayed piles of Trooper’s uniforms. Almost as if each person had discarded them on the way to a quick dip in a pond.
“Hallway is empty, just a couple piles of rags. Big female must have stuck them bad and they crawled out there.”
Luna paused a minute then nodded toward Brody-1. “Want help getting her comfortable?”
“She will be fine just like that. We must get to Leader Breen.”
He started up the stairs and then stopped. No, Brody-1 would have led going up the stairs. Her position here on the landing meant she was attacking down the stairwell not protecting someone going up. A trap had cut their force in half. How did that old Hunter know?
“Marta, check that hallway again, both ways. The rest of her Troopers must be down their somewhere. I am going up...” Before he could start Luna was halfway to the second level.
“She meant no offense young Hunter. You are bigger, she is faster,” Marta smiled as she turned out the door to the hallway.
Since they were taking point, he would make sure Brody-1 had a little comfort. No one had salvaged the small device at the bottom of the door that could hold it open. He hit the slide with his toe and wedged the panel against the wall.
She was dead weight. Somehow, he managed to get her flat with an empty uniform blouse supporting her wounded head. As always, the froth of bubbles had sealed the deep wound in her forehead and the extra deep gash along her right side. Then, work to do.
From the stairs, he retrieved spears, short swords and knives from the piles of Trooper uniforms. He did the same in the hallway where Marta had disappeared. The spears were stacked against the wall closest to the stairwell leading down. The knives and short swords were near Brody-1.
He was ready to defend the stairwell landing. Spears or knifes could be thrown up, or down the stairs from here. The hallway would be another matter. He could shut the door but then he would have to rely on his blue light to see in the dark, and he could not hear Marta’s return. What you have is always enough, he remembered that command from his training ground. He would remember it again in the future and recall hearing it on this landing.
“Kimraig is coming down the long hallway to us,” Luna shouted down the stairwell. “It will take a couple of minutes. He is not moving very fast.”
She was just as quickly gone.
Hunter Curtis smiled, served the old Hunter right. He hoped the pain lasted a very long time.
Not two minutes later, he heard Marta shouting from the far hallway.
“Hunter Curtis, Marta coming your way.”
Good thinking on her part, she would not want to run into range of these spears. Now he was a little more impressed with these Crossers, more so than this morning.
“Marta coming through the door,” and she edged around the doorframe.
“What did you find,” he asked.
“No sign of the remainder of Brody-1’s battle group. I did find Breen down the far end of the building near the other set of stairs. Looks like that Outsider Bradley tried to carry her away.”
Marta edged over to the stairs and sat, breathing hard.
“I will go get her.” He started out the door.
“Wait. Need a stretcher to move her. That Bradley is dead. Breathed his last when I ran up, she cut his throat good.”
After all the talk, Marta took several deep breaths.
“We must get to her, now.” No, that cannot be coming from me. I know better.
Whether he liked it or not, he had to give Kimraig his due. He had guessed—known somehow—what would happen to his mother in this stairwell. Both of them waiting here was good defense. Protect the whole. His first decision would leave their flank open and prove he was not ready to lead.
“That will not work
. Marta, you know where Leader Breen is, please return and stay with her. She must be safe.”
Please? Had I just said please? First time for everything, he guessed.
“Kimraig’s troops are on the floor above. Luna will bring them to us. I will hold this stairwell and the hallway.”
“Good choice,” Marta said as she looked around the defensive position the kid had prepared. “Keep that big woman safe, good fit for you.”
He listened to the dark flooding the stairs below him. He did not know why he felt secure, but he knew there was nothing down there he had not seen before. What had happened in the last few hours? He checked his Brody, still out yet breathing normally.
That first time he had called her by her childhood name, without adding her building number, remained a fond memory.
“Brody,” he had said as she was in the process of using his body for her own pleasure. She had pulled back and aimed a roundhouse blow to his head. He had grabbed her fist with his opposite hand and pulled hard. Off balance, she tipped too far and he hunched up, rolled them, and pinned her on her back. Now he was in the dominate position.
She fought. He did not defend, the angle was wrong for her blows to be effective. He did bite. That tender part of one breast. Sucking her into his mouth with steady even pressure then his teeth, just a nudge, warning what could happen if she continued to resist. He had remained locked inside her and slowly started the sideways jamming motion she habitually used on him. He had always made good use of his stomach muscles to withdraw most of the pressure so she would have to work harder. This time he jammed his pelvis against her for maximum contact.
The blows continued. Fists became open hand slaps, then ineffectual fingertip bats—blunt fingernails feebly clawed into his shoulders.
He did not roll away; he took her there twice more. Each time he whispered her birth name, “Brody.”
The last time she had looked into his eyes and tenderly held his head in her overlarge hands. “Idiot,” she said and pulled him in for his first kiss.
Luna’s second yell from the top of the stairs brought him back to his fortified landing.
“Luna and others coming down the stairs,” she barked a second time.
“Come,” He answered.
“They need your size up there to help. I will hold here,” she nudged him up the stairs.
“Why me, they have half an army up there.”
“Kimraig asked for you, is why.” No nudge this time, she pushed.
Hunter Curtis did not remember running up the stairs, only the first sight of Kimraig supported between Rat and another Trooper. He suppressed the pleasure that first sight brought him and joined them.
* * *
Marta was there, at the edge of his dream, treating Breen’s inert form. Hunter Curtis observed anxiously. Where am I, and he remembered being carried down the stairs to the next floor and along a hallway to join badly wounded Breen.
Kimraig tried to push formless hands from his face, wiping his tender mouth with water—their precious water. There would be reservoirs in this building, why worry?
“You knew this would happen when you did not swallow those leaves.”
LaJay slapped at his hands as he tried to push hers away.
“I am finished, done; you might survive this dose of stupid. Next time...?”
She shrugged leaving her half-formed question unanswered.
Her eyes followed his trembling arm as he struggled to point to Breen.
“She will live,” LaJay shrugged again; the condition of the other woman of little interest.
“What?” Kimraig retrieved his arm to rub at his sore mouth. The other arm did not respond to his command.
“Your mouth is sore from me digging out those leaves,” a wicked smile washed brightly across him as she spoke.
“No,” he mumbled. He was unable to form more words, so he lifted his arm again towards Breen. She knew exactly what he wanted but chose to be obtuse.
“Oh, of course, how did she get here?”
LaJay had taken a long time to form her thoughts into words. Females had a habit of doing this when they wanted males to wait. Usually, that pissed Kimraig off. Not so much lately since he was beginning to understand she was all about teasing him out of his normal steady command of every situation. She saw wonderful things, where he saw only duty. He had tried to join her several times. Funny, it did not seem to hurt.
It took every ounce of strength to point his arm again. She had to know he was interested only in how Breen’s condition affected any decisions he would make in the next few hours.
“Well, seems like those piles of rags around her are what is left of Outsiders.” She paused for emphasis. “They must have linked up with the bubbles or baby Ergots...whatever...for the attack aimed at Breen. Someone stuck them good enough to kill, only rags left just like all the other times. I still smell them here.”
“Breen was the main objective for that guy named Bradley. Tried to throw her over his shoulder and run off with her. I think the old boy bit off more than he could chew. Cut his throat, she did.”
LaJay scuttled the few feet to Breen and retrieved a slim object from her open hand.
She returned to his side holding up a long thin knife. “Filleting knife, an old one, used to cut meat from fish bones, makes a nice clean slit.”
A battle commander would not carry a knife like that around, no good in combat.
LaJay chose not to pass that one. He would have to make that decision himself, since he knew her.
“Who found her?” Kimraig asked.
LaJay did not answer instead she went to retrieve Marta.
When Marta scuttled over to his side he had one awful thought, I hope LaJay can maintain control and not throttle Breen.
Marta crouched beside him blocking his view, just as his leering black woman mimed a chocking action with thumbs extended—very funny girl that LaJay.
“Please repeat how you found Breen,” he asked Marta gently, remembering she was a Crosser soldier, his peer.
Since this Hunter was so like her own commander Colt, Marta did not recite by rote what she had told Hunter Curtis. She visualized the scene from hallway to hallway and lived it for him with vivid oral description.
“You did not see this, you guessed...,” he cut that thought off and began again. “You analyzed all the facts available and came to that decision?”
“Only one available,” she grinned as she finished. Marta saw why LaJay was so hot for him. Here was a male who had used tact for the first time and did not bother to apologize. Hell, any male in this world who attempted to change was worth chasing just to uncover all the layers. Builders were different she knew, but still. She preferred Luna; they had been together a long time.
“The bubbles came when you returned to the stairs to inform Hunter Curtis.”
Marta understood he was thinking in words and waited, nodding to him at end of each section. She watched him trying to judge her thoughts by her body language.
“You returned to Breen and found her clothes pulled from her healed wounds. That pile of rags had been Bradley.”
“The rags and that skuzzy lower leg with black swollen foot.” Marta was impatient but she had to wait a little longer. “Bubbles do not eat everything.”
“I cannot see any other explanation here, so we will put this kill in Breen’s basket.” He thought for one more second and continued. “A certain woman on the stairwell is waiting for relief. Go on, battle is over for now, take some time for yourselves.”
Marta bent over him and spoke softly. He smiled. She was gone.
LaJay fumed—again.
The curious hole those leafs had gnawed in him, seemed to have dissipated into a mere pinprick. His head felt somewhat better. That did not carry over to his wide chest and its constant dull throb, chomping at his nerves. Strong enough, so maybe roll over, wedge an elbow under, and attempt to push.
Nope, not so good on first try, once more then.
“Wait old man, let me help.” LaJay was behind him, lifting gently by shoulder and waist—mouth chipping constantly—gently helping him to the wall.
“Even I know better than to get involved with a male. A male Builder yet, what is next?”
“Are we involved?” Kimraig groaned, as he finally sat erect.
“No, no, no.” She was silent for a moment. Then anger, anger directed inward. “If I ever want to be with a male, I certainly will be bright enough to pick one who does not strip every woman he sees with his eyes, and him ready to jump her bones, and then makes that crude action into some kind of game thrown right in her face, while she is doing exactly what he told her to do and then not even bother to thank her; damn men are the same here as they are at home...”
“LaJay,” he stopped her. “Take a breath.”
Kimraig had trained in the art of hiding his emotions, yet this abrupt message was not lost on him. It was refreshing, so much like Char when she had first brought him out of his shell. That memory carried a certain amount of guilt that he could not put a name to. He had not thought of her, and he knew that was wrong.
“Please explain. I am at a loss trying to figure out what this is about,”
“Marta,” LaJay gestured in the vague direction the Crosser soldier had disappeared. “She was going to meet you later, alone.”
“No, she was thanking me for sending her back to her lover, Luna,”
Kimraig lied, not wanting to reveal the concern Marta had shown; no sense in explaining her warning to be careful with LaJay’s heart. This side of females was still just out of his grasp.
“Oh...oh… oh... that is why they were always touching here and at home.”
Kimraig flinched, she understood but she was not going to let her snit get away.
“What about her?” LaJay flung one loose arm in Breen’s direction.
“I am her Hunter for now. She owns me until she tires of putting up with my attitude. Then I belong to the Wicca, our government. They decide who owns me next.”
The 6th of Six (The Legend of Kimraig Llu) Page 25