Her gambit failed. The Corona remained inside the laser wall. Her hand instinctively moved to the quiver, whipped out a bolt, and stabbed it into the Corona rider’s cuirass in one swift motion. The rider grunted, but it hadn’t penetrated deep. His response came without a beat. The whip flail coursed across the distance between them and slammed into her nose. Something cracked. She cried out as a blast of pain screamed in her cheekbones and forehead and through her face. She’d never broken her nose, but in that moment it was undeniable: the damn thing had split. And it hurt like hell.
With eyes squeezed shut, her bloodied free hand reached down for her whip flail and slung it in an arc over her head, aiming blindly at the Corona. It rang against armor and caused a suppressed grunt. Cristiana flickered her eyes open to find the Corona rider in mid-swing with his own whip flail, the blade coming in from behind. She twisted in her saddle, let the blade retract back into the hilt, and held it on both ends toward the incoming strike. The Corona’s blade sliced halfway into the hilt and lodged in place. Perfect. Cristiana rolled the hilt to wrap the cord around it, then yanked with all her might. The Corona rider came with it but caught himself with one hand against the armor plate over Starflash’s haunches.
Without prodding, the horse pulled away, back upslope. The Corona rider fell out of his saddle and onto the obsidian ground, but held on to his whip flail, burdening Cristiana with his weight as he skidded across the rocks. She leaned far backward, the wound at the back of her ribcage blazing, as she struggled to keep a grasp on her hilt. Her spine strained, her fingers slipped, her knees rubbed backwards in the saddle. And then the hilt escaped her hand.
The Corona rider rolled to a chaotic stop, still holding both his and Cristiana’s whip flails. Three other riders approached from behind, quickly closing the gap with the Corona. She wouldn’t have enough time to go back for it. Especially if she wanted to catch up to Larkin. No—her last weapon was lost. She rode on unarmed.
The pain of the bolt bit into her hip as she adjusted her position in the saddle. Moved by a bout of frustration, she grabbed it and jerked it out. A splitting pain accompanied the sudden blood loss. She didn’t care. She could lose blood. It was better than trying to ride with that damn piece of metal in her flesh. It still hurt—worse than before—but now she felt free, no longer hindered in her movements.
The laser-lined track coiled in a spiral up the volcano. Cristiana felt the constant wash of heat building on the left side of her face from the aperture at the peak. Then the heat shifted to attack her from the front as the track turned up a steep climb to the crater. Starflash thrust her hooves into the ground, muscles protruding as she worked, every step a struggle. She snorted as a hoof slid. A shimmering vent to their right belched a strand of bright orange semi-liquid.
Cristiana leaned forward, placed a hand under the armor on Starflash’s muscle-corded neck. “Almost there, girl. Push!”
As soon as she passed onto relatively level ground, a blast of blistering heat splashed against her. Her skin burned and eyes dried instantly, but she kept them open in narrow slits to survey the path ahead. A hazy, smoldering glow beamed from somewhere down a chasm. Charred rock rose up in spikes on the left and arched from the right over a thick, nanomesh bridge. An ultra-strong, high-melting-point metal alloy, meshed into a slender platform spanning a gulf between one side of the crater and the other. Larkin had already made it halfway across, holding his reigns with one hand and covering the eyeholes of his helmet with the other.
As Starflash clopped onto the bridge, Cristiana made the mistake of glancing down. Maybe fifty meters below, encircled in darkness, a lake of slowly swirling lava bubbled and growled in a terrifyingly loud roar. Like the sound of fire burning a million tons of rock. Most of the lake was crusted black with veins of red bleeding through, but the central core radiated pure, yellow-orange light through a nebulous shroud of smoke. All revolved around the molten pool in the center, the inner edges of dark rock melting into it like the eye of a tornado.
Cristiana buried her face in the crook of her elbow, only peeking over it every few seconds. Starflash pressed on valiantly, keeping to the middle of the bridge, seemingly driven faster by the sight of gray sky on the far side of the crater.
At the far side of the bridge, Larkin pulled his beastly horse to a stop and turned sideways. Cristiana gasped at the glint of his crossbow as it curled over his shoulder and pointed down the bridge. There wasn’t enough room to swerve without fear of falling off, and surging straight at him wouldn’t give her much time to twitch away. He could shoot at Starflash’s head head and be almost assured of a hit. Cristiana’s heart raged in her chest, hammering against her ribcage. But across the burning, undulating air, she saw something in Larkin’s eyes. A hesitation. They remained hard and fixed, but also reluctant.
His pause lasted only seconds before he adjusted his aim a degree and fired. Cristiana flinched the other way, but it was needless. The bolt sang by her ear, just beside where her head would’ve been. It would’ve missed even if she hadn’t moved.
Cristiana glanced behind her as the Trifid rider approached the bridge, only to be met by a bolt to the neck. He recoiled from the hit, lost his balance, and fell from his horse, the bulk of his body landing half on, half off the nanomesh platform. His horse stopped and turned sideways on the bridge to look back at his master. The next rider into the crater pulled back the reigns to stop his horse just short of the bridge to prevent a collision.
When Cristiana looked forward again, Larkin had already disappeared over the far side of the crater. She didn’t know why he’d spared her, but she would take the chance to continue on, especially if it meant staying out of that lava lake. A grateful breath escaped her warmed lungs when she reached the end of the bridge and heard hooves clopping on igneous rock again.
Over the edge of the crater, the laser walls lined a slope of smoothed, fine-grained gravel leading straight to the finish line in the distance. A banner screen arched between two metal scaffolding towers, and projectors beamed a red line across the ground under it. Surrounding the finish line floated a half-dozen hovercraft packed with viewers in fine garments. Some donning their manor’s colors, others merely sporting the latest fashions. Music echoed from speakers in the hovercraft and scaffolding towers. The announcer’s voice boomed across the arid plains.
Larkin had a good head start down the hill.
“Yah!” Cristiana slapped the reigns and heeled Starflash on, feeling her stomach rise as they went over the edge. They plummeted down at a terrifying angle, Starflash’s legs blurring with speed and kicking up a spray of pebbles. Cristiana rocked back in the saddle but kept both hands clasped to the horn. She was going too fast. She wasn’t in control. They wouldn’t be able to stop or even slow down. Boulders whizzed by them as if they were a hovercraft blazing across the desert. One faltering step and both rider and horse could be tumbling down the volcano. Colliding with one of those boulders without armor was a formula for a hundred broken bones.
In her vague, shaky vision, Cristiana saw fissures venting steam into the air. One directly in her path. She pulled the reigns to one side, but Starflash didn’t veer that direction. The horse could barely stay on all fours. The cloud of boiling steam grew bigger, closer. Cristiana raised her elbow to hide her face from its heat, but then she felt Starflash jump. The horse was smart enough to see the danger and formulate her own plan to avoid it. Instead of veering in mid-sprint, she leaped just to the side of the steam cloud and landed on all four hooves at once, skidding across gravel to slow her pace enough to continue running.
Cristiana laughed in relief and patted her horse’s shoulder piece. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. “Yes! Nowrun! Run, girl!Yah!”
Starflash moved her legs at full, mind-blowing speed, sprinting across the straight and flat avenue toward the finish line, her head bobbing up and down as she pushed hard. Larkin and his beast had thirty meters on them, but Cristiana now had the advantage—a wide open space
with plenty of room to dodge bolts, less weight in body mass and armor, and one of the fastest creatures ever engineered by humankind. Faster than any Belgian draft horse, that was for damn sure.
But that thirty meter lead wouldn’t be easy to overcome. The finish line loomed a few hundred meters ahead, closer every second. Starflash wasn’t closing the gap with Larkin fast enough. Cristiana needed to shed weight.
Larkin was on her right, so she grabbed a bolt from her quiver and cut the leather ties at the back of her left thigh. When the last strap snapped, the cuisse fell away and skittered across the ground. She moved to the greave and did the same. It fell off like the skin of a molting insect. She quivered the bolt and twisted off her elbow cop. It popped loose from the rerebrace over her biceps and triceps and fell away. She pulled off her left vambrace, then rerebrace, then pauldron, and her left side became completely exposed.
It wasn’t enough. Cristiana grabbed the bolt again and cut away the armor over Starflash’s left haunches and ribs and shoulder. A handful of hovercams buzzed all around her, capturing every angle.
“—appears to be removing armor from both herself and her horse!” came the announcer’s dramatic voice.
It prompted Larkin to glance over his shoulder at her. She’d gained on him, maybe fifteen meters behind now. The Fox warrior pushed his silver helmet up over his jaw and off his head, letting it fall. His sandy brown, medium-length locks fluttered in the wind. Then he reached to his back and pulled off the crossbow. Cristiana swallowed, watching him close, waiting to dodge. But instead, he tossed the weapon over his shoulder, then looked back at her and winked. A wink that said,I don’t need that to beat you.
“Larkin hasdroppedhis crossbow!” the announcer exclaimed in astonishment. “Daring move by the young Fox!”
Cristiana set her jaw and hunched forward. “Show them your speed, Star. Everything you’ve got!”
The horse heaved breaths and pushed her muscles to their limit, a furious, blurring, uncontrollable speed. The majestic beast ran with all the power of her ancestors, their greatest traits flowing through her like water through a funnel. The perfected genes of a thousand generations of Scottish Clydesdale and Arab thoroughbred and American quarter combined into one noble creature. She moved like the currents of the wind.
Less than ten meters from Larkin now. And less than a hundred to the finish line. Hovercams swarmed overhead and to both sides. The cheering of the crowds blended into one cacophonous roar. The music tempo rose. Cristiana’s heartbeat rose along with it. She was gaining on Larkin. Five meters behind now. She would surpass him before the finish line, she could feel it.
Then, after a glance over his shoulder, Larkin suddenly swerved his horse to the left, straight in front of Cristiana and to her other side—her utterly unprotected side. He lost enough ground in the maneuver to be within striking distance. Predictably, his hand produced his whip flail, lashed out the blade, and swung it over his head. Cristiana jerked Starflash away, but Larkin followed. The blade swooshed around, and Cristiana had to shift right in the saddle to avoid it. He swung again, high enough to duck away from. But Larkin didn’t slow his whirling blade. One swing bled directly into the next, this one coming lower. On impulse, Cristiana pulled out a bolt just in time to block it, but the bolt slipped out of her gloved hand and allowed Larkin’s blade to slice through her side, fracturing a rib.
Cristiana cried out and doubled over, holding her side with one hand and steering Starflash away from Larkin with the other. Her horse snorted, panicking at her master’s pain and being unable to see it. That panic slowed her pace.
The Fox stole the opportunity, holstered his whip flail, and heeled his horse on.
Cristiana steered Starflash straight toward the finish line, now perhaps forty meters out, but wasn’t able to hold her body in good riding posture.
“Go, Starflash!” she shouted. “Run!”
Both horses went into full sprint. Larkin had picked up another five meter lead. Cristiana tried to block the pain, tried to concentrate. Everything blurred except the square portal to victory ahead. She felt herself going lightheaded, losing focus, things getting fuzzy. Had to concentrate. Had to stay in the moment. So close. The end wasso close.
Starflash gained back a few meters, pulled up a meter behind the Fox horse’s head. The air rumbled in a storm of beating hoof steps. The finish line’s towers and banner expanded before them, the speakers blaring their siren song. Thirty meters. Twenty. Fifteen. Starflash huffed in exhaustion but pressed on, almost neck and neck with the Fox.
But the projected red line was coming too quick. Her horse was too fatigued, too drained. Those precious centimeters refused to give.
They crossed the finish line to a swell in the audience’s cheers. Instantly, a new, triumphant tune rang through the air. Both horses slowed, having expended all energy in the final sprint. They trotted into a fenced corral, where Eagle and Fox servants rushed out of pens toward their masters. Cristiana placed a forearm on the horn of the saddle and rested her weight on it. A hovercam zoomed in front of her for a closeup.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer’s voice resounded with pride and precision. “The winner of the Royal Paladin Race . . .”
Cristiana heard the words in her head—the words she’d repeated to herself so many times as she trained, as she studied, as she drifted to sleep at night:The first maiden winner of a Royal Tournament in history. And also, those other sweet words that accompanied them:The first female Champion of Triumph. How lovely they sounded. How powerfully they had pushed her through the mud and muck and tribulation of the warrior ranks.
Then the announcer spoke over the words in her head. “Larkin of Fox!”
The crowds erupted again, one hovercraft in particular. More craft soared in from other sections of the racetrack.
Cristiana was too tired, too lightheaded, too pained from the collective damage across her body to feel anything. Her head swam in ripples of fog. Her vision softened into dim, hazy swathes of light. Fully spent, ready to give in to the darkness, she slouched forward and fell out of the saddle.
Chapter Eight
Orion Arm of the Milky Way, on the planet Agora . . .
Jimmy Powers loosened his tie and leaned back in his desk chair. The air in the Golding office suite hung quiet and still, everyone gone home for the evening but him. Accent lights around the edges of the room and the lamp hanging above his desk were the only lights left to illuminate the murky room. His workstation screens still glared their lists of emails and vmails waiting to be answered, having been neglected all day for phone calls and meetings.
Jimmy could ignore the messages, put them off for another day. But the next day would have its share of phone calls and meetings, schmoozing and networking. Especially if he wanted to make partner someday.
Not everyone had the gumption to rise to the top in this biz. Not everyone got the sheer, orgasmic rush of closing a deal. Not everyone had the mental edge and stamina to rake in the better part of a million sharebucks a year. But Jimmy did. Oh, yes, and he was just fine with it, even if it meant a late evening at the office every week or so.
As he looked out the wide window at the pale orange sun setting over the waves beyond Virgin Beach, he thought of what he might do with the absurd amount of money piling up in his bank accounts. Maybe buy a space yacht, host some parties in orbit. But no, that was too cliche. Everybody with money did that. Jimmy heard about at least one zero-gee yacht party every weekend. Maybe he’d buy a penthouse condo above a classy nightclub downtown. But that seemed like it would get old pretty quick.
The familiar click and swish of the front door resonated in the empty space. Jimmy swiveled around in his chair. A tall, handsome fellow, maybe forty, walked into the foyer nook and looked around. Wearing an open, gray trench coat, pressed black pants, and a casual expression on his tan face, the guy looked like he’d strolled right out of a cologne commercial and into the Golding office.
“Hey, b
uddy,” Jimmy said. “We actually closed about—” He glanced at the digital clock in his desk screen. “Two hours ago.”
The Armani model cracked a smile and spread his hands around at his surroundings. “I gathered from the lights. But I’m looking for somebody. You might be able to help me.”
Probably just lost and too air-brained to use the directory. Jimmy glanced back at his desk screens. Still so much to do. He concealed a sigh. “What’s the name?”
The guy walked toward Davin, a casual gait. “His name is Jimmy Powers. Works in this office, I believe.”
Jimmy didn’t recognize him. Another spacecraft broker, maybe?
“You’re talking to him,” Jimmy said. “What can I do for you?”
“Ah, wonderful,” the guy said with a jovial grin, still approaching. “You know, there’s three ‘Golding’ consulting companies in this city. You can imagine how many I’ve already been to trying to find you.”
“Two, I’m guessing?” Jimmy didn’t have the time or patience for this. “May I ask what your business is, Mister, uh—”
“Adrian,” the man said in one abrupt note, weaving through desks. “I’m here because of a friend of yours, actually.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jimmy asked. “What friend?”
“Davin de la Fossa,” Adrian said. “You know him, right?”
Jimmy soured at the thought of Davin. He could’ve bought both the downtown condoanda space yacht with the money from that Sierra Falco deal. Instead he gotnada. “Yeah, I know him,” he said, then muttered: “Not exactly my favorite person right now.”
Horns of the Ram (Dominion Book 2) Page 5