by Alma Boykin
Prince Daetak, for all his promises, could give his followers nothing but the chance to be slaughtered, while Shar represented peace and order, and in the end the average reptile wanted the security of a stable Pack more than self-rule. At least for now Rada reminded herself one night. She was looking at the images of an estate in the foothills on her portable display set and gritted her teeth. Lord Selsii had given his oath of loyalty the previous sixt, but her private sources suggested that he was not entirely forthcoming about his contacts and loyalties. There had been a few too many vehicles coming and going from the estate for Rada’s comfort and she didn’t trust Selsii’s words and temperament. She and her picked troops were overnighting six kliqs from Selsii’s main residence, enjoying something other than field rations for once courtesy of the noble’s kitchen staff. Ah well, she didn’t have proof and in his place she would have been reticent as well.
She turned off the display and reached for her water bottle. As she started taking a swig, she spat it out, took the cap off and sniffed the contents. There was a sour under-scent in the water. “Corporal Teelak?” she called quietly.
The reptile appeared in the doorway of the Lord Defender’s shelter. “Yes, Lord Mammal?”
“Where did you fill my water bottles?”
The soldier replied quickly, “From the casks we got at the manor house, Lord Mammal.”
“Find all of them and empty them onto the ground, now,” she ordered, getting to her feet and reaching for her helmet. “And get my guards and Lieutenant Tsree.” Teelak bobbed his head and ran off as Rada carried the bottle to the Healer’s section of the camp.
Healer Schalsee sniffed the container and recoiled. “Jadestem, Lord Mammal,” she reported, her tail thrashing angrily.
“Get ready to treat a lot of the command for poisoning,” Rada informed the medics and Healers. “I assume this is in every water cask we got from Selsii, and possibly in the food as well.” She spun on her heel and stalked out to where her personal guards waited. “Selsii lied,” the furious Wanderer stated quietly. Her ears lay flat against her head and her claws tapped against the armor on her thigh as her bottle brush tail thrashed in the darkness.
Tsree ran up, a bit out of breath. “You called, Lord Mammal?”
“Treachery from the manor, Lieutenant. Selsii or someone among his people poisoned the supplies he gave us. See to the camp while I sort out the oath-breaker,” and she gestured to her guards to follow.
It was very dark, the new of the moons that night, but Rada did not intend to let whoever had tried to kill her men get away. Two armored vehicles rolled up to the gate of Hillfoot manor, then rolled through the unblocked wood and iron doors. They had barely stopped moving when the command hatch on the lead vehicle popped open and Lord Ni Drako jumped out. “Get me Selsii,” and heavily armored reptiles surged from the transports, taking the manor guards by surprise. The little resistance they encountered stopped very quickly and the manor servants and others made themselves scarce while the Defenders searched for the manor lord and ransacked his communication suite. In the main courtyard, two of Rada’s bodymen lit ancient wood and sap torches and red flares. The Lord Defender waited in their crimson and black shadows, a figure out of Azdhagi Hell.
Within minutes two of the Defenders dragged Selsii into the torchlight. “What’s going on? Who are you?” The noble demanded, snarling and fighting as best he could.
“You know fucking well who I am, you oath-breaking furbearer,” Rada hissed, drawing her sword and emerging from the darkness. She lowered her shields and reached for Selsii’s mind, reading his emotions. Anger, confusion and... “Why do you think I’m here?”
“Because you’re an idiot who can’t tell friend from foe and who sops up every crumb of power you can touch, fur-covered alien bastard,” the lithe reptile snarled. “Daetak was...” and he stopped as he realized what he’d almost said.
“Daetak was what, Lord Selsii,” she inquired quietly, playing the tip of her blade against his throat while leaning on his mind.
He spat, “He was right about you and the fool you pretend to serve. I should have killed you the first time you set talon on my estate, you hair-covered mixed-breed female!” Then he screamed as the mammal’s blade sliced down, partly disemboweling him.
“If you had challenged me, I would have accepted it and let your people go no matter the outcome,” she informed the writhing form as she lopped off one foreleg at the first joint, neatly dodging the spray of brown blood. Two brave souls shot at the Lord Defender, missed in the flickering torchlight, and died instantly in the barrage of returned fire. “But you choose murder and treachery, o altar-less fewmet from an unmarked lineage,” Rada concluded in a quiet, deadly voice. Selsii screamed a curse as she removed his other foreleg, this time at the shoulder. “Drop it,” and her bodymen released the dying Azdhag. “Load up and pull out.”
As soon as the two vehicles had cleared the danger zone, Rada activated her comm system. “Ground One to Air One, fire zone clear, fire when ready.” The Defender aerial units had been airborne and on the way as soon as she and her men had left their camp en route to the traitor’s manor.
A voice hissed back from the darkness, “Fire when ready, Air One.”
“Shelter up,” one of the guards called and everyone ducked into the vehicles, locking down hatches and turning off the ventilation systems and night vision gear. They heard a whooshing whine, then a loud “whoomp!” and the light armored personnel carriers rocked from the blast two kliqs away.
“Move out,” a cold voice ordered within one of the dark vehicles and the pair trundled back toward the Defenders’ camp. Behind them, fire and melted stone marked where Hillfoot Manor had once stood. Above the scene, the stars of the Royal Highway marched silently across the clear sky, as distant and cold as the Lord Defender’s justice.
“Only two dead, Lord Mammal,” Lieutenant Tsree reported the next morning. “They had both drunk two canteens full before we emptied the casks and purged them.” Rada nodded and swallowed a last mouthful of dried field meat. She’d arrived in time to light the pyres. “Eight sickened, but Healer Shalsee and her assistants saved them. Two won’t be coming back, but the rest should fully recover.” Jadestem was a neurotoxin, Rada had learned that night, paralyzing the body while causing hallucinations and other effects. Eventually the victim suffocated, chest muscles and diaphragm locked as nightmares played through the mind. The Healers had given the worst affected reptiles heavy doses of sedative, so they would not be awake for the end.
“Very well. Prepare to go...” and her earpiece crackled, interrupting the order.
“Lord Mammal, Prince Heest on the Imperial channel,” a voice stated.
Rada gave the hand sign for “wait for me” and walked away from the vehicles. “Go ahead,” she ordered. “Security confirmation ‘hairball’.”
“Security confirmation ‘mustang’,” a new voice replied. “Lord Defender Ni Drako, return to the Palace immediately. Daetak has emerged and wants to talk.” Heest sounded smug as he informed her that, “It seems that the actions at Zhangki City persuaded him to see reason.”
Rada cringed at the prince’s words. Zhangki City had been a disaster, at least as far as order and future stability were concerned. The “Justice Council” had refused to step down and instead had threatened to call up their supporters and destroy the harbor facilities if the Defenders tried to enforce the King-Emperor’s commands. Apparently, the majority of the city residents did not care to see their livelihoods eliminated and they took the King-Emperor at his word. The result was street fighting, fires, and the slaughter of as many of those who had murdered the oligarchs and their families as the mob could catch. Captain Doitae had held the Defenders out of the fray until a clear victor emerged, then marched in, executed the worst of the killers on both sides and locked the city down with the help of Lord Kirlin’s and Lord Blee’s personal bodymen.
“I will return as quickly as possible,” Ni Drako con
firmed, then waited until the prince signed off before calling for air transport. By the Debt Collector’s black heart, now I know why Col. Adamski never, ever accepted a contract to clean up a civil war. It was one thing to fight off an invader or to support one side only. But trying to stop slaughter, revenge and reprisals was another matter entirely. The Defenders had taken casualties, losing ten soldiers in one ambush alone. That settlement no longer existed, except as a cautionary tale and a smoking hole. “Lt. Tsree, you have command,” Rada informed her local number two.
“I have command, Lord Defender,” he replied. “Start moving,” the green reptile ordered the rest of the ad-hoc unit, and Rada and her two bodymen watched as the group headed down the valley toward the next patrol area. She loosened her helmet’s chinstrap and lifted the heavy cerametal enough so she could rub under her blind eye, easing the itch of the taut scar tissue. For the first time ever she wondered if it was not such a bad thing that Anna would never know what her “mum” had done. Any rational creature should be ill from what the mammal was involved in, and even knowing that she operated under orders and that peace was quickly returning to Drakon IV did not help Rada’s increasingly bleak mood. She was exhausted, sick at heart, and angry at both Daetak and Shar, and at fate in general.
But this was neither the time nor the place, she reminded herself firmly, pulling herself together. “So, Sergeant, how far away do you think the half-hover will land this time?”
The stocky reptile considered the sky, the terrain, and his commanding officer. “Only a kliq this time, Lord Mammal. But I’m an incurable optimist,” and he rumpled his tail in a shrug. “Probably try to land in that damn tiny clearing back there,” and he pointed with a hind foot, “instead of this nice clear meadow.”
“And then complain about our not being there, Sarge,” Rada’s other guard added meditatively.
“Unhuh,” the first reptile grunted. Rada bared her fangs and watched the horizon. Was there any species that fielded a military or warrior force whose members didn’t bitch about their support troops? Probably not, since that was one of the universal constants that defined “military,” she decided.
The transport landed at the edge of the big meadow, to the sergeant’s disappointment. But it arrived twenty minutes late, allowing his opinion of “sky climbers” to remain unchanged.
Two hours later, Rada and her guards dismounted the half-hover and made their way into the Palace-Capitol. There had been no briefing materials on board, so she had caught up on some sorely needed sleep. As they walked into the military wing of the sprawling complex, it became apparent that at least some of Shar’s hopes for how the Azdhagi would view matters were coming true. The few servants the three soldiers encountered did their best to avoid even looking at the Lord Defender, and one or two made discrete warding signs toward the alien. Their rejection hurt more than Rada had expected it would and sent her bleak mood plunging even further. They fear me and probably hate me as well. Which is more or less what was supposed to happen. I’m the evil enforcer, the Emperor’s Sword, and Shar is the benevolent, merciful and caring ruler.
Anger spiked in the woman’s heart and she snarled, her ears flattening. Shi-dan wouldn’t have done this to me. Shi-dan would have done his own damn wet work! Except Shi-dan had not, not on the one occasion when he probably should have. Once more Rada buried her feelings, knowing that she would pay for it later. “You are dismissed,” she told her two guards as they entered the Defenders’ barracks. Then she went and got cleaned up so as to be presentable when she reported to the Imperial Council.
Fifteen large reptiles sat around the curving table, watching intently as the Lord Defender limped into the council chamber. She recognized all of them, of course, even if she had not worked with many given that her interests lay solely with the defense of the throneworld. Commander Rada Ni Drako stopped, knelt to the monarch, and waited in silence.
Shar watched the mammal closely, noting his return to “his” uniform color of gray accented with his House color, and noting as well that he still wore his body armor and carried his blaster even within the Palace. It seemed to the King-Emperor that he could smell smoke on the alien. “You may rise, Lord Defender,” Shar announced to his servant and Ni Drako used a cane to lever himself back onto his feet. The Councilors rustled a little, but Lord Ni Drako stood motionless, not even the tip of his tail moving as it usually did. He might have been a statue of durasteel for all the life or emotion he showed, the reptile observed, and wondered why. After all, Ni Drako had been following orders and had not done anything extraordinarily harsh or brutal.
“You know why the Council has summoned you?” Vizier Klee began.
“No, honored Councilor.”
A rustle whispered around the Council tables. Klee continued, “Daetak has emerged from hiding, his supporters are surrendering or dead, and he wants to speak with his Imperial-Majesty personally.” When the pale mammal made no response the vizier looked to Shar, who nodded for him to elaborate. “His graciousness will meet with the traitor, of course, but not alone.” He fell silent, waiting for Ni Drako to put the pieces together.
“Is he surrendering?” Rada asked, voice flat and colorless.
Minister of Defense Tseer made a gesture of negation with his foreleg and tail. “He has not said, although rumor suggests that he wishes to challenge the King-Emperor to single combat.”
“Which cannot be permitted as there is no heir at present,” the Minister of Finance added. Shar’s neck spines twitched, as did Rada’s eyebrow. What about Heest? And there are at least two cousins that I remember from five year-turns ago. Oh well.
Now Shar spoke, his voice grave. “We will meet with the traitor, but We also expect treachery and are planning accordingly. Thus Lord Ni Drako will stand as Our bodyman. Daetak has been given safe conduct to the Palace gate and will arrive at the nooning tomorrow. Prepare yourself, Lord Defender. You are dismissed.”
Rada’s eye widened and she started to protest the entire plan, then shut her mouth with a snap, bowed, backed, turned and left the Council chamber. She walked the back passages to the mid-rank courtiers’ section, closed her chamber door and threw herself onto the chair behind her desk. After several minutes of fuming, she couldn’t hold her temper in check any longer. “What damn fool, stupid, idiotic ngeedak came up with this disaster-in-waiting?” She demanded of the air, in Trader. “If someone knows where the slime-skull is, he should be terminated so he stops wasting precious oxygen! This is nothing but an engraved, formal invitation for an utter fuck-up.”
A low voice growled, “It was my idea, Ni Drako,” and Shar emerged from the Lord Defender’s private quarters, his spines stiff with anger, eyes snapping. “As was learning Trader,” he continued, circling around to face the woman now kneeling beside the desk. “You and I do not have the luxury of anger—not now, Ni Drako,” and his forefoot and tail lashed out, knocking her into the wall.
“Yes, Imperial Majesty,” she replied in quiet Azdhag.
He made himself comfortable on some of the cushions Rada kept in the public areas, while the mammal remained sprawled on the hard tiles where he had left her. “Be seated,” he ordered at last, and she heaved herself into a sitting position on the bare floor. “There is no choice, Ni Drako,” he started, anger draining quickly. “I must face Daetak myself and I do not trust him. While you were out in the field, the Imperials intercepted a shipment of off-planet weapons. Apparently a smaller lot of personal weapons was smuggled in first, and this was a probe to test security and to see if Daetak’s supporters had gained control of the military.” Shar’s eyes narrowed and he looked away from Rada, toward the bay window. “We have not yet caught the original smugglers, and at least some of whatever they brought reached Daetak before his followers began leaving him.” Shar fell silent and Rada considered the implications of his news.
“Imperial Majesty, do you think he will try a suicide strike?” she ventured at last.
“No,” and his tai
l slapped the cushions in emphasis, releasing a puff of tree fluff from the seam of an older pillow. “No, he will combat challenge Us, winner take all. And We cannot dignify the challenge by responding, nor can We simply execute him as he deserves, since we are blood bound.”
That sure as hell didn’t stop Shi-dan Rada growled, then stopped. Shi-dan had never executed his siblings, as far as she knew, and Shar was not Shi-dan. “And so the tradition of Royal Champion will be revived, as the Sword has been revived.”
“Correct. And you are still a match for Daetak, even half-blind.” Shar heaved himself to his feet and Rada knelt again, her bad leg protesting. “And you should know that We are proposing a change in the laws, so that in case of future ‘domestic disputes’ the settlement peacekeepers and watch will be brought under Our direct command and control, so that the Defenders never again have to act against Our subjects unless they are actively assisting an invader.”
“Thank you, Imperial Majesty,” Rada sighed with heartfelt relief.
“And you are off duty until tomorrow dawn,” and with that the King-Emperor left by the main door, slamming it shut with his hind foot. Rada started to get to her feet and the room swam.
Rada thumped back onto the floor. I think I’ll just sit down for a moment.
Not long after, one of the orderlies scratched on the door. Receiving no reply, he carefully eased the door open and looked inside. The Lord Defender lay on his flank on the floor, whistling softly in his sleep. The corporal decided that since it wasn’t an emergency, and since he liked being alive, he’d just tell Captain Taedar that the Lord Defender had been out. Which was true, even if not exactly in the way the officer would interpret it.