After he snapped the second, smaller bone underneath, of course, but it seemed cruel to mention.
Tooth-gouged leather was spat aside. ‘Chop the cursed thing off.’
Beowyn rocked back on his heels. His voice was hoarse. ‘Orik.’ It was one thing to hack into an enemy–another to do the same to a loved one.
‘Do it.’ Éorik choked a sob into the bend of his elbow. His thin breaths whistled, his chest heaved. ‘You have a gentle touch, such as I have never known, Owyn, but gods help me, I cannot take more. You tried your best the savage way. I won’t bleed out. Now do it the civilised way, or so help me, the next time you are hot and hard in my mouth, I shall gnaw on you.’
Dropping the bloodied knife, Beowyn stood. His mind blanked. He unsheathed his sword and swung it high.
He did it the civilised way.
Thorik didn’t hurt anymore.
The pain in his side had made him weep then it had eased to a steady throb.
Now he felt little.
Fumbling for his pocket, he gripped the prayer totem his mother had given him before he’d left the den. It was a thumb-sized lump of wood carved with warding sigils for health and protection.
He remembered his mother’s round, lined face as she pressed it to his palm, her white hair smelling of flowers and her skin of the herbs she cooked with as told him she’d be waiting for him to come home. She’d been so proud, so scared as she’d watched him mount his volcykle to join the rest of his squad.
He wished he could say he did not fear death, but that would be a lie and truth was precious to a Verak and law to a Paladin.
Thorik smiled, thinking how his family and his cousin in particular would be proud of him. The quiet, studious male with a too-big smile and booming laugh was the highest ranked male in their House, and Thorik had wanted to be just like him when he was a cub. He had applied to join the People’s Guard, but his intelligence scores were too low compared to his physical aptitude. He’d been transferred to the legion. His reassignment was not unexpected. Verak were a mighty people and often bred warriors instead of intellectuals, which is why being becoming a Guard was a high honour he’d craved and coveted. The concession had pleased his house. For him it had been a bitter failure. His cousin had never looked down on him, however, but had instead encouraged him to be the best Paladin he could be. He offered guidance when he visited, which was often, as he saw Thorik as a younger brother rather than as a tiresome distant relation.
Thorik came from a humble House close to becoming unranked and common. He knew he was but one leaf in a larger forest, but he’d grown so very proud of his contribution to society, even if he would not be filling his Vault to the satisfaction of his high reaching uncles. He’d had a purpose, a noble cause to guide his actions. It had filled his days with a sense of deep satisfaction, something those who help others feel at the end of each rotation.
That did not mean he was infallible.
He’d been frightened to go into the storm. It was his duty, but this knowledge had not bolstered him when his own morality failed. Only hearing the Great One himself had left the safety of the palace to help his people spurred him to risk his own life for the greater good. It had given him the courage to save a family. Nothing and nobody could take that away from him.
He, Thorik, had saved them, and they would live on and remember him in their joyful moments.
He would have liked to have seen Teki again. Maybe he could have coaxed her to reward him with some of her sweet kisses. Her mouth was heaven, and her six tongues worked magic when wrapped around his staff. She would not agree to be his concubine, but she had been his lover for near a solar, and he thought she cared for him deeply. He hoped she did not grieve him for too long and found happiness wherever life took her. Perhaps she’d find a life mate.
The realisation he would not made him cough and splutter through a harsh series of desolate sobs.
His One would never know him.
Darkness slithered across his vision, and he grew scared. He blinked hard, but lost focus and drifted, numb, until he snapped back into his right mind as a surge of pain sliced from his bleeding side. His chest rose and fell in jerks as he panted in the heat. Fear choked him. He didn’t want to die alone and burning. If the wound didn’t take him soon he’d suffocate when the air burned away.
Maybe he could find somewhere dark and hidden, so that he couldn’t see the end coming. He could close his eyes, pretend to sleep and eventually he would not wake. That seemed better than being slow roasted by the sun.
He turned his head to see if he could find a place to crawl to. His claws scrabbled against the dirt. He didn’t feel as if he had the energy, and trying would hurt, but he was scared to die out in the open, exposed and forgotten.
A feeble gasp passed his lips. He extended an arm and managed a short flap of his mangled hand, attempting to draw attention to himself.
Down the road the Great One shuffled along with the High Commander leaning heavily against him. There must have been a mishap for them to be alone and injured. They were far from the palace. Too far. They would die like him if they did not get under the cover of a dome barrier soon.
A glimmer of thought teased the edges of his mind. So he wouldn’t be crawling to a dark, safe place. It seemed the Boar God had a last task for him to complete. Dying at the Great One’s side would not be a hardship.
Surely he would stay to see Thorik travel to the afterlife before he and the Commander used his volcykle to flee?
When Thorik had helped the family from under a fallen archway, a collision between two gliders had sent a spear of metal into his side. He’d commanded the family to go, knowing time for them to find a barrier with enough capacity to accept them was limited. He had ignored his wound, dismissing it as minor for he was strong and healthy, and decided to get on his volcykle and return to his post at the palace where the onsite healers could fix him up. Taking a step, he’d grown dizzy. Blinked. The next time he’d opened his eyes he was alone, the street was empty, he was flat on his back surrounded by destruction, and it felt as if a planet sat on his chest.
Distracted by the memory, wishing he’d accepted the family’s offer of aid, Thorik jolted when he recalled what he’d been doing. He wanted them to take his volcykle. Perhaps they would be kind and give a message to his mother. She would be so sad without him.
His misty gaze sought out the Great One and High Commander.
They headed towards a side street and were nearly out of sight.
He croaked a denial, shifting against the pressure that pressed him into the ground. He tried to call out. The meagre breath pulled into his lungs escaped as a dry puff of air. His eyes swivelled frantically searching for a solution when he noticed a chip of rock within snatching distance.
He could not say why this particular piece of stone amongst all the other rubble drew his eyes, but it did, and he fixated on it with a relieved sigh. He could throw it at them. He’d always been good at Volant. Heart a flutter in his chest, his claw twitched and accidentally pushed the stone.
It skittered across the ground.
Chuckling inwardly at his optimism, a tear rolled down his cheek.
He was a lonely leaf.
He breathed out and was still.
Being upright and on the move heightened the pain. He used it, letting the agony revive him enough to stagger on, leaning on the male he loved above all others, would commit any crime to protect. Éorik felt a rumble beneath his boot. He stilled. ‘Did you feel that?’
Beowyn grunted. ‘Are we to play that game when I can barely see?’
Éorik gripped his shoulder. Hard. ‘I heard–Move!’
The tower of rubble they’d travelled adjacent to imploded. Chunks of building and squashed lumps of metal thudded into their path as they dove for cover under a nearby door arch that in reality was as dangerous as the debris plummeting from the sky.
The archway was half collapsed, but it was something, and they curled togeth
er, arms over their heads to avoid being knocked unconscious.
It ended. A cloud of gritty dust had them coughing and spluttering, eyelids blinking to try and clear the micro-particles floating over their sight.
‘Look.’ Beowyn pointed at a volcykle parked on the curb. Miraculously, it had been untouched by the chaos around it and seemed fit for flight. ‘About time we had some luck.’
They lumbered onto their feet, grabbed hold of each other and stumbled towards it.
Beowyn tripped.
He caught himself on the next step and spat a curse. He jerked to a stop and fell silent, the hot breeze lifting his hair into a dark cloud around them.
Éorik tore his gaze from their salvation to see what had stolen his attention. His heart twisted. He closed his eyes long enough to brace himself for what came next.
Expression wreathed in anguish, Beowyn dropped to a knee. He brushed a trembling hand over the waxy face of a young Verak half buried under a mound of stone. His eyes were all black, pupils closed, mouth slack. Half his face was burned black and red, his reddish mane burned away leaving him bald. A length of metal pierced his side at the vulnerable joint of his battlesuit. The wound was an unlucky one. He lay in a drying patch of his own blood and sweeping marks against the earth near his arms and head told of tale of him trying to crawl free.
Beowyn wiped at the dirt covered glyphs on his breastplate. ‘His name was Thorik.’
‘Did you know him?’
He shook his head, back hunching. ‘Why is he alone? Do you think he was separated from his squad?’ His breathing hitched and coarsened. ‘Do you think they abandoned him to save themselves?’
Éorik had no answers. ‘It no longer matters.’
‘Why can you not at least pretend to care?’
Éorik had known Beowyn to mourn the deaths of his people even when they were strangers, and he took it hard when young lives were ended. He had not known Thorik, but to his liege, the young male embodied each life lost during the storm that he couldn’t save. Now was not the time for it. Lingering might get them killed. ‘We have to go.’
‘Perhaps we can move some of this and carry his body home with us.’
‘There is no time.’ He made his voice hard and uncompromising, hating himself for it. He longed to be soft but that would solve nothing. ‘He is dead, Owyn. There is nothing left to save. We must go. The storm nears its peak.’
‘His body will burn. He will be lost to his House.’
‘He is with his Ancestors now.’ Movement in his periphery vision had him thumping Beowyn on the shoulder and drawing his knife. He eyed the new threat. ‘We have company.’
Beowyn glanced over his shoulder.
He came from behind a kiosk, a limping gait, clothes torn and face distended with swollen, bruised flesh until the harsh Verakan lines of his profile were disfigured into puffy lumps.
He clutched a gangly cub to his chest.
She stared unseeing into the distance. Her head lolled, the side of it caved in as if struck with a heavy blow, her arms and legs smacking limply together in a macabre simulation of life.
Éorik focused on her chest. It was still. Grief for the lost life and anger at the ambush warred for supremacy.
Cold pragmatism had him calculating what needed to be done to remove the latest threat to his liege.
The Verak male lifted the blaster gripped in his shaking fist. ‘I need a-a healer.’ He quivered. His face was the colour of bleached bone, a messy cut over his eye leaving the shaved fur on his cheek tacky with blood. ‘She needs…this.’ He swayed. ‘A healer. She is hurt.’ His shoulder-length black hair stuck to his face and neck in sweaty clumps. The left of his dark brown horns had snapped at the middle curve.
Verak horns and spurs were hard, designed to be weapons, so able to bear significant pressure. They split when too dry or cracked when hit at a bad angle.
Once broken they were singularly painful.
The man had to be in agony yet he was on his feet trying to get his cub to safety, so lost in his panic he could not see she was already gone.
‘Calm.’ Beowyn held his broad palms aloft, open, showing he was unarmed. He motioned to the blaster. ‘There is no need for this. I understand.’
‘I know who you are.’ The male’s eyes darted. His tongue ran over his chapped lips. ‘I know what this means–what you can do to me. But I must get her out of here.’ His eyes bulged in their sockets, his pupils pinpricks in a misty charcoal swamp, the colour leached of their glossy blackness from stress and fear. ‘I promised my One I would save her. She means everything to us.’ He aimed the blaster with competent skill. It was a bigger threat than the wild waving of a weapon could ever be. His eyes gleamed wetly. ‘I lost my One. I will not lose my cub. Step away.’
‘Of course. You and your young must get to safety.’ Beowyn eased them backwards. ‘We will leave. Take the volcykle and go. Head towards the palace. You will receive the best care.’
Éorik felt his body and face turn rigid. He understood how Beowyn’s mind worked. It was his nature to protect and one of his people was suffering. Sacrificing the life of two warriors for a civilian was weighed as fair in his mind. To Éorik’s less giving one, sacrificing his Great Alpha and One for a male who verged insanity and would keep them from returning to their female and living cub was in no way fair.
‘She is dead,’ he said flatly.
Beowyn made a furious noise and shoved as if to force him to hobble on.
Éorik jerked free. He balanced on his leg, thrusting out an arm to push Beowyn back. ‘Look at your cub. Look at her. She is gone.’ Feeling sick at his own cruelty, he stopped trying to hold Beowyn back when the male fell into utter stillness, his eyes wide and fixed on his daughter’s lifeless face.
He dropped to his knees. ‘No, no, no.’ A wail tore from his throat. It carried on as a hollow keening as he cuddled her broken body into his larger, shuddering one. His chest bucked as he moaned wordless sobs.
He returned Beowyn’s disgusted gaze with a cool one of his own. ‘Now is not the time for sentiment. I will not be shamed for doing my duty as Defender.’ He wobbled then regained his balance. His whole body ached when he lifted an arm to point. ‘Get on the volcykle.’ He inwardly cursed when Beowyn didn’t move. ‘Now, Owyn.’
Out the corner of his eye he watched the male lower his cub to the ground. His face twisted into a snarl, senseless grief latching onto a convenient target.
‘He can make it to the place,’ Beowyn pressed.
Éorik slowly shook his head. ‘He is not going anywhere. Not anymore.’
The strangled scream as the male launched himself at them would have been warning enough had Éorik not foreseen what was going to happen.
Elbowing Beowyn in the side, setting him off balance, his knife was out of its sheath, forearm lifting to hit his attacker in the throat. Stronger, even injured and crippled as he was, he brought the male to a dead stop. He inhaled, and then he acted as he’d been trained to.
He embedded the blade in a wildly rolling eye. The metal sank past soft tissue and buried to the hilt, the force of his thrust swift and steady, the kill quick and clean, as it needed to be.
Far too late, Beowyn choked a command for him to stop.
Éorik lowered his arm. The knife dripped. It wasn’t his worst kill but it came close. ‘As I said.’ His voice was an icy abyss, low and gritty. ‘He’s not going anywhere.’ He met a gaze that burned hotter than the suns, its abhorrence almost as blinding as the bright night sky. Éorik felt hollow to the core. ‘Now get on the volcykle.’
Chapter 37
The last thing I remembered was Patrick yelling into the room they’d been spotted. I’d shoved the fragrant bowl of fish stew I’d been spoon feeding a wrinkled Verak female into Anja’s hands before bolting after him. My heart wedged in my throat, my eyes blinded to all else but my destination.
They were safe. They’d come back to me. We’d finally be a family. I’d get to say all the
things I’d been too afraid to say. My booted feet flew across the stone tiles, and I raced across the Great Hall and into the Atrium grinning like a mad person and on the verge of bursting into tears of exultant relief.
Patrick caught me around the middle with an outreached arm, keeping me from rushing headlong into the translucent barrier stretched across the pavilioned courtyard. ‘Steady on, lass.’
‘What are we waiting for?’ I was breathless and flushed. I patted my hands against his armoured forearm. ‘What’s happening? Why are they…?’
My manic smile died. I squinted, leaning over Patrick’s arm.
Something was wrong.
Éorik hobbled on one leg, yes, and they were some distance from the shield, true, but neither of these things was insurmountable, yet they staggered aimlessly twenty feet or so from the entrance bridge that led them directly to the main gate and directly to me.
My chest constricted the closer they shambled to the verge either side of the bridge, coming so close as to dislodge pebbles that skittered down the ravine.
I pushed my cousin’s arm aside and walked right up to the barrier to get a better look. ‘Come on. I’m right here.’ There was no point in shouting for their attention. The domes kept sound from escaping and leaked in a fraction of the noise from its outer side.
Patrick laced grimy fingers at the back of his head, hair dark and damp with sweat. ‘What are they doing?’
‘Waiting for someone else?’ Wulfyn sounded firm. His guarded expression betrayed his uncertainty.
Fiercely’s head moved in the fluid manner common to his species. The gold ring piercing his septum glinted. ‘They cannot see where to go.’
My heart fell still in my chest before drumming allegro. It was difficult to see them in the harsh sunlight, but I could see. The barrier reflected enough solar radiation to make that possible. Out there everything would be an indistinct smudge, smell of caustic burning, and sound like the constant boom of thunder or the shrillness of a wind cyclone. It was a miracle they made it so far. They needed a guide to bring them the last crucial steps. Outside where they were, the temperature was scorching. The world burned, and the air itself seemed ready to catch fire.
ThunderClaw: Science Fiction Romance (Alien Warrior Book 2) Page 45