Hell to Pay: Book Two of the Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  In the one corner with a mostly intact ceiling, Phineas was directing a particularly heavy stream of deadly lead (or whatever Enochians used in their bullets) at Golga’s troops from behind a large pile of rubble.

  Jarek got a grip on the thick slab in front of him and heaved. The thing was heavy, but he managed.

  He was wondering if Haldin couldn’t have moved the slab himself when it toppled away from the wall to reveal the Enochian had been busy with other matters.

  Haldin was hunkered down beside Alaric. Nelken was wedged against the wall beside them, trapped by rubble all around, including the small mountain of debris inexplicably floating over his head.

  The instant Jarek’s slab fell off them and cleared the way, the floating pile shifted and toppled clear after it, and Haldin slumped back against the wall.

  Jarek rushed forward to help Alaric pull Nelken out from under the looming pile.

  Nelken roused as they handled him, reaching up to clutch at Jarek’s arm and trying to cough something out of lungs that were probably half full of dust. They only moved him a few inches before it became clear his legs were still pinned, and it looked like they were going to have to move some serious weight to get him out.

  Jarek bent to grab the slab that looked to be the primary culprit.

  “Behind you!” Haldin snapped.

  Something landed right near Jarek’s vulnerable ass with a thump and a shifting of rubble.

  Haldin sprung into motion before Jarek could stabilize his slab enough to aim a mule kick backward. A second later, there was a sound of crushing stone and a furious roar.

  Apparently the raknoth had joined the party.

  Amid the dwindling gunfire, he heard the thuds of multiple impacts around the room. More raknoth? Or Golga’s soldiers moving in?

  Either way, not good.

  He set his feet and heaved the slab higher, lifting and then pushing until the slab passed the tipping point and fell aside to the floor with a heavy boom. Below, Nelken grunted in alarm or pain. Yanking him out like this without understanding what was pinned where was probably a monumentally bad idea, but they didn’t have time to do it right, and an injured leg was better than a dead commander.

  Jarek scrambled to clear a few more easy pieces then reached for the next large piece obstructing Nelken.

  Alton appeared to beat him to it and yanked the heavy slab aside to reveal two more Resistance fighters, a man and a woman, huddled together beneath, looking harrowed but relatively unharmed.

  For a split second, their expressions shifted to profound relief. Then they caught sight of Alton, whose eyes had gone red somewhere between his exertions and the bullets slamming into his back, and their expressions twisted to pure terror.

  The woman produced a pistol and pumped four rounds into Alton’s chest before Alaric hurled himself over to pull her gun arm down.

  “He’s trying to help, you dimwits!”

  Before either of them could respond, a second pair of fiery-red eyes dropped down behind Alton, and a pair of scaly green arms clamped around his torso and chucked him across the room, where he smashed into the opposite wall like a sack of bricks.

  The enemy raknoth turned back to them just in time to catch Jarek’s front kick full-on in the chest.

  The kick launched the raknoth across the room, bouncing from one pile of rubble to the next.

  Alaric was waving the two stunned Resistance troops to action. “Wipe those dumb looks off and help me get your commander out of here!”

  They snapped to and complied, and Jarek turned to follow his raknoth foe, reaching for the Whacker as he went.

  He hadn’t drawn his blade—hadn’t even made it two steps—when what might have been a six-hundred-pound gorilla came down on him from behind. He did his best to tuck and roll with the thing’s considerable momentum, but there was only so much he could do with his attacker stubbornly riding him all the way down.

  They bounced across the uneven ground in a series of messy rolls that ended with Jarek on his side and strong, scaly arms trying to wrap their way around his torso and neck.

  He threw a pair of vicious elbow strikes back at his faceless opponent and was rewarded with a wet cracking sound and a low growl. A violent backward headbutt changed the growl to a screech, but the impact left Jarek’s own head ringing. He bucked against the raknoth’s steely grip all the same and managed to slip free in the distraction.

  In a single second, he was on his feet and aiming a hard stomp at the raknoth’s head.

  Not fast enough.

  A second raknoth—the one he’d kicked he realized—came out of nowhere to catch him in a low shoulder tackle, and he didn’t stop there. The raknoth pumped his powerful legs, driving Jarek back, back, back, until they slammed into the wall they’d excavated Nelken from. Luckily, Alaric and his helpers had shuttled Nelken out of harm’s way by then.

  Lucky. Right. Because now all Jarek had to contend with was the raknoth pinning him to the wall and his buddy who was rising from the rubble to come help tear Jarek’s head off.

  Across the room, Alton was tangling with a new raknoth now. To the left, Haldin stood over his fallen raknoth opponent with a pair of long, simple daggers in hand, one of which was coated with dark raknoth blood.

  A hard punch to the stomach drove out what little air remained in Jarek’s lungs and yanked his attention thoroughly back to the raknoth at hand. He replied with a hard knee of his own and brought his closed fist down on top of the raknoth’s thick skull.

  It was about as pleasant as punching a vault door, but Jarek gritted his teeth and threw another punch into the side of that reptilian head, and then another. He got in two more good punches before the raknoth he’d failed to stomp to its end lunged over, caught Jarek’s raised fist, and slammed his arm to the wall.

  For a few seconds, the three of them struggled furiously.

  Then another raknoth dropped into the room, and everything seemed to freeze.

  When he got a look at the newcomer, Jarek realized why.

  Even if he hadn’t been carrying that obscenely large club of his, Jarek would’ve recognized the raknoth by the dark green of his hide and by the sheer animosity that radiated off him like a deadly miasma.

  Zar’Golga had arrived.

  Twenty-Nine

  “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me,” Jarek muttered.

  The two raknoth holding him thrust him harder into the wall as if demanding silence, and across the room, Zar’Golga showed him that bone-chillingly murderous raknoth grin of his.

  Fighting Golga one-on-one had been bad enough. And somehow, Jarek didn’t think things would work out better with an entire army and god knew how many raknoth at Golga’s back.

  Golga appeared to feel similarly as he pointed his club toward Jarek. “This time, there will be no esca—”

  Half a dozen shots rang out from the right, and Golga jerked back, spattering the wall behind him with dark ichor. Jarek followed the shots to Alaric and Phineas, who were both sporting sleek Enochian rifles. Then all hell broke loose.

  Raknoth roared. Golga’s forces renewed their fire on anyone who wasn’t in close proximity to the raknoth below. Haldin sprang across the room and drove a hard boot into the side of Golga’s head.

  Jarek needed to get free and help Haldin. The Enochian was good, he’d give him that, but he doubted Haldin fully appreciated what he was getting himself into fighting Golga one-on-one.

  Jarek bucked against his captors, kicking and stomping. He broke his left hand free just in time to catch a clawed hand on its way to his exposed face.

  Ahead, Haldin twisted and turned past a rain of Golga’s blows with grace and speed that should have been well outside the limits of a human being. He moved as if he knew what would happen before it did, like a machine built for the sole purpose of dancing smoothly around a rampaging raknoth.

  While Jarek struggled to keep one raknoth from gouging his eyes out, the other came to the realization that Jarek’s hand
s were tied and his neck vulnerable.

  A strong hand clamped over his armored throat and tugged him forward only to slam him back into the wall. And then again.

  Jarek’s vision swam with oddly-colored spots from the impact, and he was fighting a losing battle for breath. But at least the raknoth’s new hold freed up one of his legs.

  He kicked the raknoth’s right knee before he could give Jarek another slam. There was a gristly crunch, and the raknoth hobbled back but didn’t fall. Instead, he gave an angry roar and started forward again, ready to end Jarek.

  His buddy held Jarek in place, content to let his kin have the honor.

  Or did, at least, until Phineas came charging in and planted an earth-shaking punch right on the side of the raknoth’s head.

  The punch should’ve broken Phineas’ hand. Only it wasn’t his hand, Jarek realized, but a prosthetic.

  Jarek’s captor stumbled aside from the hit and released his grip on Jarek to aim an angry backhand at Phineas. The blow caught the big guy in the chest and sent him sprawling into the wall, but Phineas’ distraction wasn’t wasted.

  Jarek threw a shove into the raknoth’s chest, hard enough to buy himself a moment as the raknoth with the bum knee closed in on him from the left.

  In one continuous motion, Jarek tore his sword free and stepped in a high to low sweep. The giant blade caught the incoming raknoth at the left knee joint and ripped through, tearing more than cutting.

  The raknoth fell with a screech, and Jarek pivoted straight into his next strike, maintaining the blade’s considerable momentum and steering it into a rising sweep at the spot where the second raknoth would probably be lunging straight for his exposed back.

  Claws ripped at his left shoulder armor as he completed his turn, and then the raknoth came into view and Jarek’s blade connected with his upper arm. Between the angle and the raknoth’s proximity, the strike didn’t have the power to remove the arm, but judging by the sound and the feel of the impact in Jarek’s hands, it at least broke something.

  Jarek darted back just in time to avoid a wild backhand. The raknoth lunged after him. He spun, dropping his left hand from the hilt, and brought the Whacker around in a high horizontal sweep.

  The sword kicked in his hands, and the raknoth fell to Jarek’s side, the top half of his head torn open. Jarek caught a glimpse of something wriggling in the dark fluids oozing from the open head wound, and his stomach turned. Then a roar to his left wrenched his attention away.

  Across the room, Haldin’s daggers shot up to meet a tremendous blow of Zar’Golga’s club. Jarek tried to cry out. Too late.

  What was the crazy bastard thinking, trying to catch that thing with those tiny—

  The club smashed off thin air as if it had hit an invisible, immovable post a few feet from Haldin’s daggers. Jarek’s horror turned to shocked admiration as the force and leverage of the impact proved sufficient to jolt the weapon free from Golga’s grip.

  Haldin, apparently expecting the large weapon to come spinning out of Golga’s hand, had already ducked to the side to avoid its wild trajectory. What he hadn’t expected was how seamlessly Golga reacted.

  The raknoth abandoned the club as if throwing it away had been his intention all along and whirled to catch Haldin by the throat. Haldin dropped his daggers and managed to catch Golga’s hand with both of his and avoid getting his throat torn out, but he couldn’t do a thing to keep Golga from driving him down to his knees and yanking him in for the killing blow.

  Jarek sprang forward, aiming an overhand strike at Golga’s left elbow. The raknoth saw him coming and leapt backward, releasing Haldin to avoid Jarek’s attack. Jarek planted his feet and turned, raising his sword as he tracked Golga.

  There was a gasp of air and a choking cough from behind, and then Haldin stepped to Jarek’s side, daggers at the ready.

  Behind Golga, Alton stood wearily from an unmoving foe and began to skirt the edge of the room toward them.

  Two raknoth dropped down from above to bar his way—Toady and Slender Face, Jarek registered.

  Another pair of raknoth dropped down behind Jarek and Haldin, low growls emanating from their throats. Jarek didn’t realize how silent the battle had gone around them until shouts and gunshots picked up from somewhere down the hallway behind them.

  Jarek waited until Golga himself turned to inspect the racket, then he took a quick glance. He cursed at what he saw.

  Rusty-hided Al’Krogoth emerged from the hallway, not ripping and tearing his way through the Resistance troops there but merely pushing through them as if treading through a field of tall wild grass. One of the stunned troops pointed his pistol at Krogoth and pulled the trigger, and the raknoth simply swatted him aside.

  Behind him came Drogan, another raknoth, and … Johnny? And Rachel, Elise, Daniels, and another dozen Resistance soldiers.

  Jarek traded a confused look with Haldin, expecting any one of the several raknoth in the room to spring at them at any moment. He followed Haldin’s gaze around the lip of the common room pit and realized most of Golga’s soldiers were watching the scene in eerie silence, their weapons lowered to their sides.

  What the hell was going on?

  “Stop them,” Krogoth said.

  Jarek tensed as the raknoth beside Krogoth prepared to spring, but he leapt well over them and Golga and landed squarely on Toady’s stout form.

  Roars erupted from every direction.

  “Traitors!” Golga bellowed.

  He lunged at Jarek and Haldin.

  They split apart. Jarek aimed a swipe at Golga’s leg as he streaked in between them, but the raknoth stepped aside from the attack.

  The two raknoth who’d dropped down behind Jarek and Haldin were moving in to help their master, but Drogan and Elise cut them off.

  Golga rounded on Jarek and charged, deigning to leave Haldin unchecked at his back.

  Jarek pedaled backward, sweeping his sword around, and used his last step to leverage a heavy diagonal cut at the oncoming raknoth.

  Golga went aerial and spun in parallel with the strike, and Jarek nearly shat himself when the raknoth’s scaly hand shot out and clamped onto the dull back edge of the Whacker.

  Golga touched down from his aerial maneuver and pulled, and between Jarek’s surprise and the raknoth’s unbelievable strength, Jarek stumbled forward, off balance. Golga roared in Jarek’s face and smacked the base of the blade with his free hand hard enough to tear the hilt from Jarek’s hands.

  Jarek let out his own battle cry, lowered his head, and drove into Golga as hard as he could.

  Golga was already scrambling to gain control over Jarek when they hit the ground. Jarek wrestled with the raknoth, throwing knees and elbows where he could. Golga made a grab for Jarek’s vulnerable face, and Jarek grabbed the raknoth’s wrist. Too late.

  He growled a curse as hot lines of pain lanced across his face. He clamped down harder on Golga’s wrist and struggled against the raknoth’s superior strength as warm blood ran down his face, forcing his left eye shut.

  Then Golga flew backward as if struck by an invisible cannon ball.

  Jarek spit blood from his mouth, pushed down his body’s pleas to slump to the floor and never move again, and kipped to his feet.

  Rachel was there at his side, staff raised in the direction of Golga’s flight. Haldin faced them from Golga’s flank.

  Golga leapt back to his feet and started forward. Only something was off. The raknoth moved like he was trapped in a pool of thick syrup—or thick concrete maybe, given how freakishly strong he was.

  “We’ve got him,” Rachel said beside him, her voice tight.

  Across from them, Haldin’s expression was just as strained.

  No time like the present, then. Jarek darted forward and threw a hard kick into the side of Golga’s head. The raknoth spun and crashed to the ground. He struggled against his telekinetic shackles to push himself up toward Haldin. Jarek snaked his arms under Golga’s armpits, locked his ha
nds behind the raknoth’s skull, and hauled him to his feet.

  Golga struggled against his hold, but Jarek had the leverage now. A moment later, the raknoth’s arms were both tugged straight out to his sides and held immobile by unseen hands. Rachel and Haldin again, Jarek assumed.

  Haldin appeared at Jarek’s side, grabbed the back of Golga’s head in one hand, and planted the tip of a dagger in front of the raknoth’s eye with the other.

  Behind him, Rachel slammed her staff to the ground, and a low, thrumming boom swept through the room, drawing all eyes to them.

  “That’s all she wrote, folks,” Jarek cried, the taste of his own blood only adding to his frantic battle high. “Now if you’d kindly lay down your weapons and claws and get the fuck out of here, we have some stern words to exchange with this club-happy ass-hat.”

  “Surrender,” Haldin said to Golga, his expression grim and his dagger hand steady.

  Golga ignored him.

  Krogoth stalked across the room toward them. Haldin’s dagger hand stayed perfectly stable as he glanced back at the rusty-hided raknoth. Finally, he gave a small nod and took a step to the side, allowing Krogoth to approach Golga directly.

  “Traitor,” Golga said, his voice a low rumble. He wasn’t struggling anymore. “You would join these pathetic meat sacks? Rebel against the masters?”

  “I would fight for my life,” Krogoth said, “rather than lay down to the masters’ fury like a sheep to the slaughter.” The scarlet fire in his eyes dimmed in a manner that seemed almost remorseful. “You will not stand beside us?”

  “Fool. I will tear you to pieces myself if you—”

  Krogoth clutched wordlessly at Golga’s throat and wrenched with a clawed hand. Jarek’s stomach turned at the horrible wet sound and the airy screech that pierced through it.

  Twin voices demanded at equal intensities in Jarek’s mind that he stop Krogoth and that he stand aside and do nothing. The latter won by default.

  In front of him, Haldin and Rachel looked like they were experiencing a similar moral paralysis.