Her barrack cheered and she smiled with them. “Each and every one of you have shown your worth and strength as a soldier. Those who are not here, soldiers who were injured and who gave their lives, deserve our thanks and our honor. They remain with us, with those who they gave so much to protect.”
She looked around, trying not to linger on how many faces were missing, how many had been among the casualties. One struck her, though. Where was Fidelity? She should have been here. Dahlia smiled slowly. She didn’t see Genji either.
She continued addressing the barrack members around her. “I will not say things will go back to normal now. As soldiers we are closer to pain and death than most. However, we will become stronger and we will return to hold these walls against anyone who would test us.” She paused and allowed them to savour their victory for a moment.
“Double our guards for tonight, then we can rest. If you had a chance to rest after the battles last night and this morning volunteer for someone who did not and catch a nap before the sun sets. I will rest tomorrow, when I am sure we have seen the last of our attackers,” she offered. She knew that every one of her soldiers who had not been injured in the first battle had supported Borreal’s efforts in the second. If they saw their captain standing guard with them then they would more readily shrug of their own desire for rest to fulfill their duties.
With a nod she left them with Sabir and Arreal to work out the guards. She trusted Sabir would ensure an adequate number of people would volunteer. She made her way to her room then removed her sheath and collapsed back in her bed, setting a mental alarm to only rest a couple hours.
Chapter Forty Two
Dahlia awoke to a sunset and distant cheers. That was a first. It seemed her body overrode her decision to take just a quick nap. She heard more noise around her. The news from the other captains had been greeted with celebration. She wasn’t surprised. Besides the soldiers standing guard many would be enjoying their victory. She suspected even those on guard would be indulging a bit. She pulled herself upright once more and collected her sheath and axes. She noticed more of the noise came from the direction of Kenny’s barrack than from Borreal’s, but not by a lot.
She made her way back to the main area of her barrack and found some soldiers not on guard duty strone about with drinks and a couple small fires. She imagined more had gone to join Kenny or Borreal’s men. She made her way inside to find Sabir with a cup of spirits himself. She dropped down next to him.
“Not on guard duty tonight?” she asked him, surprised. He certainly deserved the night off but she hadn’t imagined she could convince him to take it.
He smiled at her and pushed a bottle towards her, “I thought one cup wouldn’t hurt.”
“Fair point,” she said and grabbed a stray cup to pour herself a small measure. She took a sip and nodded in approval.
“You must have been hiding this,” she said, taking another sip. “It would have been gone in an instant if anyone else knew about it.”
Sabir laughed, a rich, pleasant sound. “You’ve caught me, Captain. I put it behind one of the meditation books you gave me.”
Dahlia snorted. “We need more barrack members with dominante psychic abilities so someone will take my meditation training more seriously.”
“You’re too nice.” Sabir leaned back and drummed his fingers on his cup. “I suggest that once everyone has recovered you push past their shields in training and give them a little scare.”
“If that’s what it takes,” Dahlia said as she raised her cup in a mock toast. Outside the sun’s final burnt orange rays crept below the horizon.
Sabir drained the last of his cup and stood up. “I’m leading the first shift. Arreal lost a coin toss and has the second.”
“You go on ahead, I have something I’d like to do first. Then I’ll catch up with you all,” Dahlia told him.
As Sabir left, Dahlia nursed her cup and mulled over in her mind how much to tell Borreal. He was one of the few people she’d ever taken into her labyrinth with her. The amount of trust and self-control it required from both her and the other person made it a challenge not worth pursuing with many other soldiers. It meant that he understood how the interior of her mind created representations of the physical world so that much was easy. What was less easy was the emotional side of what she’d experienced. It was hard for her to talk about her worries, about her hated title, and it made her nervous to tell even the one person she trusted completely about the savagery she’d started to find in herself. She certainly wouldn’t tell him how it had reflected in Kenny. The madness and uncontrollable hungers it had brought out in her for blood, combat, and...well, sex. She couldn’t talk to him about Kenny, she’d have to skirt around that part of it. The power and the uncomfortable new part of her psyche she should confide in her mentor-now-friend. A captain who had dealt with the turmoil of combat for far longer than she had, Borreal would be able to understand the delicate balance a soldier walked between savior and savage. He knew enough about her to understand why it was riskier for her to be seen leaning towards savage.
She lingered a while longer, realizing she was putting it off. She imagined she was using this to put off talking to Traedon but that self-analysis got a little too deep for her taste. One thing at a time. She pulled herself up, focused for a moment, located Borreal, and headed in that direction. She may have checked to make sure Traedon wasn’t with his captain, but she wasn’t going to admit that.
She found herself heading into the trees. Odd that he’d be there, but sometimes Borreal liked his own company. All the better for her. She didn’t want to have to think of an excuse to pull him away from any of his men.
The further into the dark trees she walked the more she started to second guess her decision. Did she really need to tell him after all? He had told her his ability, did she owe him this much trust? She did want to hear more about him, though.
As she debated this with herself she felt him close by. A moment before she came upon him she heard voices and a familiar laugh. She stopped and moved quietly towards a spot she knew Borreal liked. A small clearing with flat stones and flowers that were lovely in the moonlight. Feeling guilty but curious, Dahlia stayed in the shadows.
She fought back a shocked gasp. Borreal was sitting cross-legged against one of the stones, running his hands through the pink hair of the woman whose head lay in his lap. Fidelity giggled as he murmured something to her and Borreal leaned down to press his lips against hers.
Dahlia was frozen for a moment before she regained her senses enough to softly back away from the couple. When she was sufficiently out of earshot she covered her mouth and muffled her giggles. Who would have thought? Her serene, gentle captain and the “pink-haired monster”, as he’d called her. No wonder he’d stopped by for breakfast and Fidelity had left shortly after. She silently wished Captain Dacaar luck if he thought he had a chance.
So if Fidelity was with Borreal, where was Genji?
The night exploded around her and she fell to the ground covering her head. Energy seared through her mind. As the pain slowly dissipated she forced her eyes open. There was no sign of damage. What she’d experienced must have been purely psychic, but she’d never heard of anything like that. It couldn’t have been targeted at her. It had been too big, too widespread. She’d felt it ripple around her like an explosion. Her shield was still firmly intact.
She raced back towards Borreal and Fidelity. When she reached the clearing she found Fidelity balled up holding her head and Borreal looking scared, trying to ascertain what had happened.
“Borreal,” she said and he snapped towards her, “you didn’t feel anything?”
“No,” he said, “what’s happening to her?”
“Psychic energy. A lot. Like nothing I’ve ever even heard of before.” She knelt down and rubbed a hand across Fidelity’s head, dispelling some of the lingering energy. “It must only be affecting people sensitive to it. She’ll be alright in a moment.”
A voice blared through the announcement system, “A breach in the perimeter, Barrack Nine.”
“Shit, Kenny!” Dahlia stood up and took off.
“A blast has taken out a significant section of the wall, all soldiers report immediately,” the announcement continued.
“No!” Dahlia screamed, frantically reaching out her senses for him. She felt him, uninjured, before she felt another mind brush against hers.
“Genji!” She’d felt him worn and in extreme pain in the direction of Barrack One. “No, damn it!”
Kenny was fine. He was the commander of the combat division and could take care of himself. Even in the unlikely event that the rest of his barrack went down she’d seen enough to know he would likely be alright on his own. Genji was her responsibility and no one else was coming to aid him. She turned towards Barrack One and ran as fast as she could, focusing on Genji’s presence.
How the hell had he been able to reach her? Had his psychic abilities been latent? She’d heard of latent abilities being amplified during extreme duress. As she ran up the paths she had to dodge soldiers running in the opposite direction, slowing her down.
“Damn it, Genji, I’m coming, hold on.”
The number of soldiers she encountered dwindled as she reached Barrack One. She felt Genji’s presence pulling her towards the research division. What the hell? She went in to find it deserted. All of the researchers would have gone to aid the defense. They were all trained to fight as well.
She ran into a dead end down one of the halls and snarled. She could feel the direction he was in but that didn’t mean she knew how to get there. She ran through the mess and chaos created by the announcement, circling where Genji’s presence called to her.
She stumbled into a library and knocked over a bookshelf. Frustrated, she turned to go on to the next room but a staircase caught her eye. It was slightly hidden by another bookcase that had fallen over. She pushed it out of the way and descended down, reaching out her senses. She felt Genji growing closer.
She could tell she was heading far underneath the building, into the ground. She had never thought to consider if anything lay beneath the research building before. What the hell could Genji be doing down here? Her instinct screamed at her that something was wrong. She quieted it and stayed close to the wall as she descended. Obviously something was wrong if Genji was hurt and being held underground but there was nothing else she could do. She couldn’t leave him and go back for help. Help wouldn’t be there anyways, not with the current attack. She’d just have to be cautious and ready to fight. She pulled energy to her and felt her hands tingle as it built up.
Deep under the ground she finally saw light at the end of the staircase. She could feel Genji and another familiar presence, but it was masked and she couldn’t make out who it was. They probably knew she was coming. Throwing her shoulders back and drawing her blades she did the only thing she could and walked into the lighted room at the end of the stairs.
Chapter Forty Three
Around her stood storage units spreading from ceiling to floor with research tables and labs set up throughout. At the end of the room stood a man next to the huddled form of her third ranked officer.
“Horan,” she said coldly and sent a blast fueled by rage.
“Dahlia,” he greeted her, grunting as he swept up a hand and caught the blast, redirecting it to the side. He wore a strange glove studded with a metal that resembled the disk she’d been incapacitated with during one of the first attacks.
Dahlia threw a scatter shot at him, vertical so she wouldn’t hit Genji. He caught one but two more hit him. His eyes glazed as he stumbled.
“Try to block that, jackass,” she said as she walked towards him, getting off another shot.
Horan staggered but she felt a sudden pressure behind her as a cold band of metal wrapped around her throat.
“Fuck,” she screamed as the band bit into her. She felt her shield collapse but she swung a fast strike behind her, catching cloth from the jacket of the man who had just snapped the band around her neck.
She wrenched at the metal but it stayed in place.
“Hello Ahriman, looking for me?” she greeted the swallow, thin man who had backed quickly away from her. She darted towards him and swung. If he thought he’d left her defenseless then he was severely mistaken.
Before she could reach him he pulled out a thin, curved blade and caught her swing against it. She felt something cut into her wounded arm and her vision swam, giving him time to bring the hilt of his sword towards her temple. She shot her arm up and it crashed into her forearm, the chains wrapped around her shielding her from the blow.
“That hurt, bitch.” She heard Horan snarl behind her. She threw herself to the side as air compressed into the span of a blade sheared by her.
Her roll carried her back to her feet and she turned to face her attackers. Ahriman looked on at her, expressionless, holding the curved sword. Horan looked pissed. Good. She hoped he had a nasty headache.
She knew she couldn’t hold both of them off. So far Ahriman was an unknown. As the leader of research he must have been strong, but she knew Horan had a ranged attack. Eventually he’d hit her hard enough to deal serious damage. She took the best bet she could and went after him. She’d have to take him down quickly.
She threw her ax at him as she darted to his side, trying to put him between her and Ahriman. Horan threw up a hand and the ax was deflected by a sharp push of wind. Dahlia pulled it back to her and threw an all-or-nothing attack as she came in reach. She swept her second ax at his throat then let the momentum power a sweeping kick.
He brought his sword up to block the ax but his eyes widened in surprise as her shin connected with his ribs, sending him backwards. Dahlia followed him, taking a hastily aimed shot from him that sliced into her own ribcage. She went for a two handed attack. She might take damage, but he couldn’t block both blades and attack so she had a better chance of taking him out.
A small metal object landed between them and suddenly a light flashed all around her. The brightness was so intense and painful she had to drop her attack and shield her eyes. She heard Horan fall back in surprise as well.
A blow to the head made her vision swim and dropped her to her knees as the light vanished and she saw Ahriman standing over her. She grinned, the pain feeding her fire, and turned her drop into a tackle, bulling her shoulder into his shins. He dropped but managed to twist and connect his knee with her clenched jaw as he came down. She saw stars.
“Damn it girl, go down,” said a voice from her nightmares. Ahriman’s. Then she felt Horan’s presence above her. She threw a wild swing but he moved easily out of the way and dropped her with another blow to her head.
Chapter Forty Four
She came to cuffed to a table in an alcove of the large room. The band was still wrapped around her neck and her head felt like it was splitting open. There were unfamiliar constructs around her. She craned her neck back looking for Genji. He was still on the floor, he hadn’t moved.
“Awake then?” she heard Horan’s voice to her other side, “Good, I was hoping you’d be able to witness this.”
“Traitor,” she spat out at him and strained against the cuffs. “What do you think is going to happen? You’re in the middle of the force. Once the breach is stopped someone is going to notice.”
Horan laughed nastily, “Wrong, they’re all going to be dead and we’re going to walk out, taking you with us. That obnoxious subordinate of yours can stay here and rot.”
“That will never happen, we’re too strong. Jackass. They’ll win and then you’re going to rot in a cold, damp cell. If you even survive. I’ll tear you apart myself if Genji’s not alright.”
Horan leaned his face down into hers and sneered, stroking back a lock of her hair that had fallen in her face. “No, see, that’s why you’re here, you’re going to kill them for u
s.”
Dahlia laughed in his face, “You’ve lost it. Anything you do to me is a mere scratch compared to what I’ve experienced. You could never break me.”
Horan’s sneer broadened into a grin, “We don’t need your help, just your body.”
“Excuse me?” she snapped. “You really have lost it.”
“Quit toying with her Horan,” said a voice like a blade on a gravestone. Ahriman appeared holding more constructs. “I don’t blame you, girl. You’re just too limited to understand your own abilities.”
“I think I know them pretty well, thanks.”
“You know what they do but not why,” he said tonelessly, setting up the constructs around her. “Everyone focuses on the manifestations: your ‘puppets’, your ability to enter minds--yours and others. No one pays attention to why you have these abilities. You’ve even discounted your ability to amplify emotions as a minor ability, often a nuisance.”
Dahlia remembered the research journal. It had focused on that ability, but why?
“You look confused, don’t worry, it took me a while to make the connection, too. You have strong psychic abilities, nothing extraordinary on their own. I theorized that your strongest ability is actually the one that amplifies your emotions. It amplifies your psychic abilities as well. There are other people who have a similar ability, just much less so. I’ve been able to use them to amplify energy and create impressive results. The hole in the wall your comrades are currently defending was the result of that work. If they ever make it outside they’ll find a couple dozen bodies of the men and women my team used to amplify enough energy to break through that impressive wall. I imagine you sensed that amplification earlier, it would have given you a small shock.”
Dahlia: A Novel of Dark Desire Page 28