“That cannot be true, Sha.”
“Of course it can. Accept it.”
Petr glanced at his own radar and magscan, couldn’t see a thing; were they damaged or had he found an effective hiding spot?
“You are fond of that phrase.”
“Yes. Accept. Admit. Inevitable. Inexorable. We are Clan warriors. For us such words come naturally, quiaff? The Inner Sphere must accept we are superior. We must accept that responsibility, just as inexorable death must be accepted. Life is full of such absolutes. Today has such absolutes and no amount of skill can upset them.”
“You talk too much, Sha.”
“Is that the best you can do, Petr? After all I have heard about and from you, that is the best you can do? This is the best you can do?”
“I may have made an error before, but you will not goad me again, surat. Come find me and I will show you my best.”
“I already have seen your best, ovKhan Kalasa, and I find it terribly lacking.”
A metal grim reaper rising from the bowels of Hell blocked out the sun; the Sphinx topped the rise above Petr’s hiding place.
Petr immediately tried to swivel the remaining arm to bring lasers to bear.
“Terribly lacking indeed,” Sha said as he unleashed the full fury of his ’Mech.
Seven lances of coherent light shafted into the Tiburon, boiling away the remaining armor, stabbing deep to destroy innumerable internal systems. One beam flayed the already damaged head; terrible, horrifying heat cascaded across Petr’s skin, filling his nostrils with the stench of burning hair and flesh.
I knew I would die with her…
14
Beta Aimag Encampment, Halifax
Vanderfox, Adhafera
Prefecture VII, The Republic
15 July 3134
The old woman sprawled; her jumble of worn and mismatched treasures heaped around her kept people at bay as much as the filth and stench (especially the stench!). She was covered in a colorless dress that might’ve been the height of fashion a half century ago; its numerous rips and tears gave anyone peering too close brief flashes of rash-covered skin, itself almost unrecognizable under the glaze of caked dirt and old sweat. For those who looked a little too close, the veritable army of fleas that marched apparently unnoticed across this flesh turned away the most discerning eyes in horror. A giant hat—its ribbons, bows and single feather long since faded and drooping—sat astride her head, a once-proud crest that showed the inexorable march of long decades; it hid her features well in the double shadows of the brim and the parasail (sporting more holes than the dress) propped against an ancient dowry chest and a meaty thigh. The slight rocking and disharmonious singing only increased the size of her personal space; a ’Mech would have had a hard time penetrating the defenses she set up two days after Beta Aimag made landfall.
The security personnel of Beta Aimag assumed the hag to be a permanent fixture of Halifax. After all, she stayed through torrential rains, precipitous cold and brief flashes of wan sunlight. Of course, if they had bothered to ask any local, they would have had that impression quickly corrected. Then again, she expected such Clan arrogance, planned on it.
Shifting beneath the rags she had poached from a burned-out residence some kilometers from Halifax (along with much of the garbage she guarded so jealously), Snow surreptitiously sank her right hand down to scratch at a rash a little too high on her inner thigh; she winced at the idea of it getting much higher.
“This better net me something, or someone’s going to pay,” Snow murmured
The Sea Fox guards standing some fifteen paces away had quickly grown accustomed to such inaudible mumblings amid the jarring attempts at singing; her mother had told her in no uncertain terms her singing voice could wake the dead and kill them anew. She chuckled (random hilarity when none but you are laughing worked miracles in convincing people you’re insane) at how she currently put such voice talent to use.
She gritted her teeth and cackled once more; she could practically feel a new series of bite marks as fleas nibbled flesh. “And I’ve got plenty to spare, no doubt about it.” She hitched her right shoulder, feeling only a slight echo of its usual pain. Hardly turning her head, her eyes roved relentlessly, searching every cranny, examining every event. More important, it allowed her to read the lips of almost anyone in her line of sight, including the Sea Fox guards. And boy, oh boy, were they talkative: no bowl-you-over-this-is-it statement, but enough to keep her there and allowing the insects to snack.
Hadn’t expected such loose lips from Clanners—then again, these were Foxes, half-Clanners at best.
Just then a giant of a man trundled around the far corner of the largest semipermanent tent in the compound, made his way toward the two guards. Admiring the mound of muscles and the almost liquid way they swam beneath the one-piece uniform, her eyes dipped low. Wonder if it’s all proportionate. ’Course she always wondered (as did most Inner Sphere women, she was confident) but had yet to test that theory. Perhaps this time around. She cackled wildly.
As the fleshy, ’Mech-sized man drew closer, he hailed the waiting men; she pulled a mound of moldy clothing close and shifted as she always did with a change of the guards (better to see lips moving).
“’Day, Kota, Sari,” the bear of a man said; even at this distance, she could almost feel the timbre of his deep voice vibrate through her; she smiled deliciously.
Yes, he just might do.
The other two turned toward the elemental, their words lost to distance and angle.
“Acceptable.” He laughed loudly, as though enjoying the brief sunshine. “Though I believe I am ready to depart this gravity well.”
Sari turned back around, glancing this way and that, but Kota’s response remained hidden.
The giant laughed. “If you feel that way, then let us draw a circle and see who is lazy and who is not. I simply prefer the beauty of weightlessness, as do most who have been assigned downside, I would wager.”
A pause as the elemental drew next to them, clasped quick hands and stood companionable. He continued after another hidden response. “Yes, the Rituals of Combat do make up for everything else, especially after besting Delta Aimag. That is worth a gravity and a half pressing my frame.”
That laugh. Did he always laugh like that? Always bear a smile that revealed enough white to blind her even at this distance?
Kota finally turned to an angle she could read.
“Do you hate them?”
“Who, Delta Aimag? Why in the world would I hate them?”
Kota shrugged, cocked his head, while his eyes still tracked their circuit. Though she gave them kudos for paying constant attention when the residents of this piss-poor backwater world would wet themselves before actually doing something against the Clanners, she noticed his eyes never once acknowledged her. His downfall.
“I do not know, Corin”—so that was his name; nice—“just a feeling I get now and then from our Aimag.”
“That is called competition. It is healthy. They defeated us last time and we return the favor this time around. No, though the competition might be fierce, especially between our ovKhans”—all three chuckled—“they are still a part of Spina Khanate. They are family.”
“Perhaps the feeling, then, is not for Delta Aimag, but for another Aimag outside our Khanate. Or another Khanate.”
A semiserious looked twisted Corin’s face into an ugly semblance of its normal joviality; she liked him better smiling. And laughing.
“Have you drunk too many fusionnaires so early?”
“Come on, Corin. It is an open secret that ovKhan Clarke has questioned why Spina Khanate continually reaps the greatest honors and glory, then meekly hands them off to other Khanates. To the ilKhanate.”
Corin’s shrug would’ve lifted Snow right out of her current bundle of clothing; he wouldn’t have noticed.
“Again, healthy competition. Come, we are Clan Sea Fox. We have known for centuries words can be more da
ngerous than a Star of ’Mechs. ovKhan Clarke is simply pushing for advantages.”
Snow cackled to keep from growling, bit at her fingernails (slime, scum and all, she gnawed at them right there); the bastard Kota turned away. Corin’s reaction told her she needed to know what Kota just said. Needed to know yesterday.
For just a moment (she couldn’t tell for sure, but felt confident Kota missed it), the killer’s look tweaked Corin’s features: a slight flattening of the brow; a hardening of the eyes; thinning of lips; smoothing of muscles along the throat—for an instant Corin debated whether to kill the soldiers. And just as quickly discarded the idea: too messy, too public.
An eyeblink later his features settled into their accustomed expression of levity and he laughed long and hard, perhaps a little too long. He finally straightened himself. “That is truly humorous. Have you been taking lessons from Jina? You do not honestly believe that, do you? Especially with the Jade Falcons?”
What about the Jade Falcons? Snow almost asked the question out loud in her frustration.
Kota shrugged, slowly shook his head, turned to look at Sari, but found no support there; she’d been ignoring the conversation.
Corin slapped Kota sharply on the back. Another guffaw. “You are off duty. Go finish that fusionnaire you obviously sipped earlier. Relax. Remember it is all fun and friendly competition. Forget such rumors.”
Another shrug and a handshake, and Kota moved away, though he glanced over his shoulder four separate times before he was out of sight. Corin stood and gazed forward, his comrades apparently forgotten; but the set of his shoulders, the placement of his feet: she recognized from her own assassin training that this went beyond a soldier ready to kill for a mission. Kota would be relieved of his life all too soon.
Over what? Snow resettled herself (almost hissed; the rash had indeed gotten higher), slowly began to sing, swayed. She knew all about their Rituals of Combat, but she also felt a strange vibe between these two Aimags during the last several days, a mood she couldn’t put her finger on. Not to mention the Clans were known for their waste-not-want-not mentality, especially the tightfisted, advantage-conscious Sea Fox; she couldn’t remember the last time she heard of a Clanner assassinating another. Talk about dishonorable. She chuckled despite herself. When would these Clanners realize honor didn’t mean spit when it came to a blade in the dark?
She stopped abruptly, as she remembered the last part of the conversation. How in the world did the Jade Falcons fit in? Were they a factor? Or could she concentrate on maneuvering the Fox Clansmen into interfering with the Marik invasion?
Her eyes slowly tracked through a rent in the hat’s brim, rested on the hulking flesh of a man.
Time to uncover some secrets.
15
Overlord-C–class DropShip Breaker of Waves
Near Orbit, Adhafera
Prefecture VII, The Republic
15 July 3134
Gacrux and its mining concerns. Ryde and its chemical industry. Konstance and natural gas. More came to mind as easily as letting fly a salvo of missiles.
Sha Clarke floated a hairbreadth above his perch on the wall of the Ritual Chamber. Gazed at the map of the Inner Sphere. Pinpointed worlds on which his Aimag had secured glory for Clan Sea Fox; ignored those where failure had occurred. His cool eyes roved over hundreds of light-years. Tracking, cataloging, evaluating. He knew any ovKhan who looked at the Inner Sphere displayed in the Ritual Chamber did the same, could not help it.
Yet unlike his fellow leaders, in the apparently random position of victories and losses, he saw a pattern a decade and more in the building. A grand design that would benefit Beta Aimag and Spina Khanate—not simply benefit, elevate—them to their rightful place, allow them to bask in the praise and glory they gained, not have it siphoned off to benefit those Khanates that could not carry their own weight.
Sha felt a rumble build within his belly, ignored the familiar ache generated by the day’s fasting. He clenched his stomach muscles to disrupt the sound before it carried to the other three occupants of the chamber; it would be …unseemly.
Refocusing his eyes on the sides of the chamber deck, he studied the final two Trial of Bloodright contestants. His cold smile barely moved his lips; both were from Beta Aimag. The fourth occupant of the chamber, Jet Sennet, stood on his own platform, but the Oathmaster did not officiate for the final pairing. Petr’s absence created a presence all its own.
Sha slowly shook his head, furrowed his brows. Why did Petr have to be so rash? There could be no doubt the man was brilliant. He had taken Delta Aimag from relative obscurity among Spina Khanate’s Aimags to a level where it competed regularly with Beta for the most glory. Yet the man who singlehandedly accomplished that task could still be too rash. Still held to antiquated loyalties that bound him, bound them all. If only he could be made to see the possibilities outside such boundaries, Sha knew he and Petr would be unstoppable, a combination that by negotiations or force of arms would shake the Inner Sphere to its core, reshape it to their vision.
The Bloodmaster entered, pulling the senses like blood in the water.
The Bloodmaster stood gracefully just inside a hatch reserved for her entrance alone, her accoutrements strapped with casual familiarity around her person. Though she wore the same single-suit as the others, her features were hidden by a remnant of another age—a ceremonial mask made from the head of a sea fox, its teeth bared and snarling. The mask jutted into the chamber, bringing the essence of their totem to this most sacred ceremony.
Rocking forward onto her toes to break her magnetic slips’ hold on the deck, she flexed her leg muscles and took flight toward the center of the dome. As the Bloodmaster reached the central platform, she elegantly grasped a column, slid into the spot previously occupied by the water funnel and tucked her feet under a holding bar. With the ease of long years, she began to assemble the tools of her trade.
Though Sha had witnessed the final pairing of a Trial of Bloodright several times, it never ceased to fascinate him. He found exquisite beauty in the perfection of her craft. Mastering the ritual took most of her life and cost the Bloodmaster her name and identity, but allowed a scientist to reach the vaunted position of officiating to the warriors of Clan Sea Fox. Though she was not a warrior or merchant, Sha gave her his deepest respect by bowing like the Sea Fox as she entered, his suit pulling taunt across the smooth muscles of his body.
Such dedication deserved nothing less.
The Bloodmaster first pulled out a malleable gourd taken from the shores of Doken on Twycross, filled with the waters where the sea fox thrived, and left it hanging in the air, slightly to her right.
Next, from a back pouch she pulled out a clear polymer funnel, a meter and a half long, with the open end less than a half meter and the tapered end just large enough to allow the Bloodright coin to pass through; she set it spinning rapidly directly in front of her.
Finally, she pulled out a half-meter-long opaque beaker, with a large bottom surface and a throat opening slightly larger than that of the funnel end; she set it spinning to her left, opening aligned with the funnel end.
With everything in place the Bloodmaster turned, and a keening voice boomed out across the chamber; the voice of the sea fox calling across the oceans of Twycross; across the oceans of the void; across the oceans of time and distance to demand only the finest, only the worthiest warriors present themselves.
Sha watched with satisfaction as the two Beta Aimag warriors immediately arrowed toward the dome’s center. With equal skill and alacrity, they arrived at the platform as one, grasped poles for support and tucked feet under their own holding bars; the three formed a tripod, with the spinning objects in the center.
Another savage cry tore through the chamber, setting off echoes that bounced and soared; no words were spoken here, for these warriors no longer needed to prove their worthiness to occupy their positions—those claims were made plain by their previous four wins. Both warriors extended
their arms beneath the spinning funnel, presenting their Bloodright coins.
The Bloodmaster plucked each coin from their exposed palms like a striking viper. Grasping a coin between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, she held them up for all to see—as though showing the universe at large their worthiness—before drawing her hands palm down toward her chest. She then flipped her hands from palm down to up and released the coins. As the coins floated into the large funnel opening, her hands were already moving toward the gourd. The coins entered the funnel and began to strike the sides and ricochet within, and the Bloodmaster squeezed the gourd, at the same time setting it spinning in place.
With a speed and grace only a sea fox might surpass, the Bloodmaster moved without any apparent use of her magnetic slips to stand at the end of the funnel. The water from the gourd shot in a single, pure stream into the funnel, where the coins already had spun down more than a meter within; their movements increased, becoming more frantic as they reached the narrowing end. The stream of water jetted past, snagging both coins, sending them tumbling toward the funnel end. The stream shot out the back of the funnel toward the waiting beaker. At almost the exact instant the water began to enter the beaker, the first coin emerged. In a move Sha likened to the blurred strike of a particle projector cannon, the Bloodmaster snagged the first coin from the stream in her right hand without redirecting a single drop of water; a moment later her left hand snagged the other coin in similar fashion.
As the stream of water from the gourd terminated and the last of it began the journey through the funnel to its ultimate resting place in the beaker, the Bloodmaster turned to the waiting warriors, held their coins out for them to see.
Jard, on the left, immediately spoke up. “I will fight unaugmented, Bloodmaster.”
Without any hesitation, Bek responded, “I choose to fight here, now.”
Both bowed deeply to the Bloodmaster, who in turn dipped her head in acknowledgment; with the efficiency she’d shown throughout the entire ceremony, she contained the last of the liquid (as far as Sha could tell from this distance, not a drop went uncounted for) and stowed her articles.
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