A House United

by Caleb Wachter

  Again he activated his anti-grav chute, and again it lowered him safely down far quicker than he could have rappelled via rope.

  Upon reaching the floor of the chasm, he set his anti-grav chute to emergency-only mode to conserve power. A lone tunnel stretched into the darkness, but the temperature here was very nearly high enough to thaw frozen water. He switched the safety off his blaster pistol, seeing significantly more tracks here than above, and moved down the narrow tunnel—which was clearly man-made by tools no higher-tech than those of Tracto.

  Soon he passed the threshold where water could no longer remain frozen. The walls were slick with moisture, and bore patches of thick red moss which grew in density and thickness the further he went. After moving down two miles of the downward-sloping tunnel, the temperature was warm enough that a man would no longer die from exposure—and then he heard voices.

  Human voices.

  Nikomedes thumbed the safety switch off on his blaster pistol while resting his gauntleted thumb against the activation switch for the vibro-knife—which he reversed in his grip in anticipation of some sort of skirmish—a skirmish he would no doubt end in a handful of seconds using surprise, technique, and most importantly of all, overwhelming firepower.

  The voices were speaking a foreign dialect which he only vaguely recognized as belonging to the Germanic family of human languages. His own native tongue was apparently part of the Greek language family, and to his ears this brand of Germanic speech sounded harsh, guttural, and only barely human.

  Still, he had learned the basics of a dozen languages since setting foot on the so-called River of Stars, and recognized the subject being discussed as something to do with the 'new king' and his strict, but reasonable laws. He tried to muddle his way through the interpretation on his own, but eventually switched over to his suit's built-in translator as he eavesdropped on the three conversing men while quietly moving toward them.

  “The new King is wise, it's true, but he is not one of us,” insisted the first.

  “Where he hails from matters not,” the second retorted. “His wisdom and leadership are all that matter to us—the vents cool with each passing day, and the other tribes encircle us waiting for the opportune moment to strike.”

  “All the more reason to kill him,” snapped the first. “Do you think the Rock Grinders or the Moss Burners will look kindly on an off-worlder sitting on the Throne of Skulls? Each of us has direct ties to that Throne, Karl—do you want to see an off-worlder reap the credit for three hundred years of our struggles?”

  “Of course not,” the second voice, Karl, said flatly.

  “And what of Men?” challenged the third. “Or does fear of the divine's wrath—let alone piety and adherence to the will of the only god left to us—have no place left in the future you two discuss?”

  “You worry too much about gods and prophecies, Sven,” the first voice said. “Lykurgos was lost to the lava vents centuries ago, but Men's promise was that he would be our King forever—or at least until the ice melted above.” He spat loudly on the stones nearby, “Any god that breaks its word to the people who follow it is unworthy of devotion or fear.”

  “I worry about the future, Lief,” Sven retorted evenly.

  “We worry about the present, Sven,” Karl said grimly. “And the newcomer has provided us ample advantage over our rivals. I think we should give him more time.”

  “And I think you are a fool,” Lief barked. “If you are too cowardly to face him, just say so and be done with this womanly bickering over petty details!”

  Nikomedes had come near enough to them that he could now see a faint, bluish glow outlining their hunched figures. They were shorter than him—easily a head shorter, perhaps even two—but their bodies were proportionately thicker than most of Nikomedes' fellow Tracto-ans. Their arms seemed slightly longer than they should have been, while their legs slightly shorter, but neither was outside the realm of what Nikomedes had encountered in the physical cream of Tracto's crop.

  “I will suffer no man to call me a coward—or a woman!” Karl growled, drawing a small, obsidian blade from his belt while Lief did likewise.

  “If only your spine was stiff enough to face the usurper,” Lief sneered, and Nikomedes decided now was the time to make his entrance.

  The bluish light was originating from what looked like torches, but what were actually glass bottles placed atop slender metal rods. Inside those glass bottles were what looked like small bio-luminescent grubs, and Nikomedes took aim at two of them with his blaster pistol and vaporized the majority of their contents with a pair of precise shots.

  The lone source of illumination left was Sven's 'torch,' and Nikomedes saw all three of the previously-hunched-over figures straighten and turn in his direction with their blades drawn. Their movements were quick—perhaps even quicker than most Tracto-an warriors—and they immediately spread out, putting about five meters between them in the natural cavern which the tunnel adjoined. Nikomedes strode purposefully into the cavern before activating his suit's self-illumination strips.

  “Oh great,” Lief spat, “another one.”

  The man's sarcasm seemed to confirm Nikomedes' main suspicion regarding this 'usurper' having come to this world the same way he had: by starship.

  “I have one request. Oblige me, and I will let you live,” Nikomedes said, his voice amplified and translated by his suit's speakers. Their silence was as much acquiescence as he could hope to elicit, but he allowed it to linger for a few long, pointed seconds before popping his face plate and saying, in his own broken Germanic, “Take me to your leader.”

  Speaking scarcely three connected words during the ensuing hour, the trio of men—whose hair was black, but their skin was paler than the palest Tracto-an's—led him through a labyrinth of tunnels until they finally arrived at a vast cavern which was, in its own way, rather impressive.

  Mighty columns of stone stretched from the floor to the ceiling of the hundred meter wide chamber, with the tallest of those mighty structures spanning forty meters in height and three meters in girth. Not a single stalagmite adorned the floor of the chamber that did not become a full column, but hundreds of stalactites hung from the ceiling like the teeth of an ancient, hungry beast too long between meals.

  Patches of blue-green moss covered at least half of the cavern's inner surfaces, providing a surprising amount of bio-luminescent light. But he counted three hundred of the glass 'torches' in all and they, too, combined to create far more light than Nikomedes would have thought possible for small animals to produce.

  “He is there,” Lief gestured to the mightiest stone column, situated roughly at the chamber's center, and Nikomedes saw an armored figure—far larger than any of the others assembled—sitting on what looked like a throne made entirely of human skulls. “But he does not often speak, or move, since his claiming of the Throne.”

  Nikomedes wordlessly moved toward the column, wending his way through the press of what looked like a largely impassive crowd of onlooker which had gathered before the unexpectedly elegant-looking throne. Rather than that throne being presented as some kind of ghastly structure intended to evoke fear, it was almost as though the reverence for each skull—all of which still bore their jaws, with those jaws bearing most of their original teeth—was the object of the arrangement.

  This was not a seat made of victims' skulls. It was a throne made of the skulls of those who had sat upon it, and whose honor it was to become part of it in death.

  The crowd parted with reverent silence as he approached the large throne. Sitting there was a power-armored warrior whose battle suit had clearly seen better days, but which still looked to be in fighting order. A blaster rifle of Imperial make was propped up beside the warrior, whose armored chin-guard rested against his knuckles in a pose generally reserved for contemplative statues of philosopher kings.

  Nikomedes came to stand before the throne and popped his visor up, and for a moment he thought he saw a familiar bit of her
aldry on the other warrior's left greave. But before he could recall where he had seen it, his blood was turned as cold as the world above upon hearing the voice of that suit's owner.

  “You...” the deep, grinding voice accused. That voice rightly belonged to the glacier above, not a man, but it was instantly recognized by Nikomedes. The warrior's visor popped open, revealing a one-eyed, craggy face that bespoke a long life of battle—a long life of victory. “YOU!” the warrior boomed, his un-amplified voice filling the chamber and causing the crowd to shrink away as he raised the blaster rifle previously propped against the throne.

  “Kratos—“ Nikomedes began in surprise, barely bringing his face shield down a tenth of a second before a blaster bolt struck it right between his eyes. He instinctively returned fire, but had no idea whether or not his shot hit the mark since his HUD was temporarily offline following the direct hit to his helmet.

  He leapt to the side, using his power armor's servo assist to easily clear the heads of the huddled—and wisely-ducking—congregation around him. After clearing the throng, he rolled to relative safety behind the base of a smallish stone column. Blaster bolts soon hammered into the stone, sending chunks of ancient mineral formations flying with each successive shot, but each shot that failed to strike him bought him precious seconds to mount a counterattack.

  “You want a war, old man?” Nikomedes growled, priming a pair of micro-grenades as he knelt behind the rapidly-disintegrating column. He tossed the grenades toward Kratos' position and ducked behind what little remained of the stone column before those grenades exploded, sending shards of skull flying in all directions after impacting directly against the throne. He smirked, feeling more alive—and more purposeful—than he had ever felt in his adult life, “I will give you one!”

  For the first time he could remember since truly becoming a man, his mind was his own, his plans were his own, his actions were his own, and—most importantly—his life was his own. No god pulled his strings, no childish notions of 'honor' clouded his judgment, and no living creature held sway over him. He was truly free, and for the first time in his life he felt liberated and aware in ways he could not fully understand, let alone explain.

  He ducked out from behind his withering cover, firing his blaster pistol as he sprinted toward Kratos' enraged form, knowing one would stand and the other would fall—but Nikomedes refused to die before he could gain revenge against the so-called gods who once thought him their plaything. Nothing would stand between him and that goal.

  Not even a cherished mentor.

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  Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for Book Nine in the Middleton's Pride series!