Raider

by Justine Davis

  “I do not. If you die, the fight ends. It will take the heart, the stomach for battle out of everyone.”

  “They will regain it. A new leader will step up.”

  She glared at him then. “Only someone willfully blind, or just stupid would believe that. Since I know you are not stupid, it must be willful blindness.”

  “And you,” he said, “have managed to once more steer this from you to me.”

  For an instant, she thought she saw a hint of amusement in his eyes. He so rarely let anything like that show it nearly took her breath away. A memory, some distant image, sparked in her mind, but it was gone before she could pin it down. She tried to marshal her thoughts.

  “Is not the final judge of risk whether or not it succeeds?”

  “You’re quoting Torstan Davorin again.”

  “And why not? Is he not the father of this fight?”

  His eyes closed for a brief moment. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes, he is. He is also dead.”

  “And I am not,” she said, thinking she’d won it now. “No one saw me, and we now have a copy of the guard rotations for the next month.”

  “That is not the point.”

  “If you did not want me to take the initiative, you should not have made me your third.”

  “You know I value the ability to think for yourself. Do you really think this is because you didn’t clear it with me first?”

  “No,” she admitted. “You’re not that way. But I don’t see why you’re so wound up about it.”

  When he looked at her then, it was the steely commander who would brook no further argument. His sentences were short, sharp, and rang with authority. “It is a matter of risk versus gain. In this case, the risk far outweighed the gain. You could have been killed. Or badly wounded, with no help. Or captured. Tortured for the information you hold. Would you wish others to die trying to save you?”

  “No,” she said, chastened. He rarely spoke to her like this, and it stabbed deeply. “It is of no use, then?”

  “I did not say that. Just not worth the risk you took.”

  She drew herself up straight. She would not cower before him. But she would give him the respect he deserved, having earned it a hundred times over. She bowed her head and spoke quietly. “Yes, sir.”

  For a moment he was silent, as if he hadn’t expected that. But then he said, “And it would be an aggravation to have to find a new third with your skills.”

  Her gaze shot back to his face. That bedamned helmet hid so much. Too much. And she could read nothing in his eyes at this moment.

  But as she left the quarters, the words that echoed in her mind were not his last ones.

  I don’t want to die; I want to live to fight.

  She had not thought of it in exactly that way. But she would, from now on. If she had done so this night—and hadn’t been so on edge about Drake—she would not have taken the risk.

  And while she had often thought about why he was so able to inspire his Sentinels, she had never dwelt upon the fundamentals of it, the constant weighing of risk against gain, and the cost to him of sending people into situations where they could easily die.

  She knew that deep down, he would far rather die himself than send another to their death. But perhaps everyone sensed that, and it was why the Raider was the commander they would all follow into hades, and he would not have to ask.

  And yet he did it, because he must.

  She had never been more aware of the crushing weight of command than she was in that moment. And her already considerable respect for him grew even stronger.

  Almost strong enough to quash the longing she felt. She wanted only to help him carry this load, and instead, she had added to it.

  She had learned much in the six months she had been a Sentinel.

  But she had much more to learn. And learn it she would. Quickly. For he needed that, and it was the only thing she could give him.

  The only thing he would allow her to give him.

  Chapter 4

  “DO YOU THINK it’s true?”

  Drake shrugged, not looking at his sister. He was more tired than he’d ever been, his leg was still aching, and he was having trouble hiding it. Despite his relief that she’d apparently gotten over her anger at him, he’d almost dozed off during her recounting of the old legend.

  “That was decidedly non-informative.”

  The very formal words were said in a matching tone he knew was meant to shake him out of whatever mood he was in. Usually she was successful; she was too smart for her own good, and dangerously clever as well. But this time he did not respond.

  “Let me ask a different way,” Eirlys said. “Is it possible?”

  “Which part?” he asked, wearily accepting that they were going to have this discussion, that the time was coming when she could be put off no longer.

  “Any of it,” she demanded.

  He stalled, stoking the fire, adding another log to keep it burning through the night. It was a constant battle now that the Coalition had confiscated most of the dryers for their own use. And rationed the power so strictly they couldn’t run them if they had them. The thick mist had turned to rain, and if he didn’t keep the fire going, the dampness would permeate everything. And make the pain in his leg even worse. He wished the damn thing would heal faster.

  At last he turned to face her. She was watching him steadily, her dark-blue eyes assessing. Her sunny golden hair might have come down from their grandmother, but those eyes looked at him with the same steady regard as their mother’s once had. Iolana Davorin had had a gaze that intimidated many a mortal man, and not simply because they feared what she might see with that mystical foresight. It had taken a man of the strength of their father to equal her.

  And in the end, when Torstan Davorin died, he had in effect taken her with him, for there had been no heart left in her.

  “Well?”

  “Do you still believe in the tales of blazers who live above the Edge?” he asked, knowing the answer—his little sister had started scoffing at the classic children’s tales of flying, scaled creatures that breathed fire at a much younger age than he himself had.

  But then, the world had gone to hades much earlier in her life than his.

  “Of course not, but—”

  “And now, do you watch for the Spirit of the mountain to come and help us?”

  She didn’t answer that, which was an answer in itself. So she did hope the tales that had begun to circulate some years ago, of the mysterious healer who also lived above the Edge, were true. He almost rolled his eyes.

  He gentled his tone. “You know Trios is a myth, too, do you not? As are the tales of her fighting king? And his son after him?’”

  “Myths have to start somewhere, don’t they? With something?”

  He amended his earlier thought. She was too smart for his own good. He tried what usually never failed, hoping to divert her. “Maybe you just like the idea that that prince turned king fell in love with that fighter pilot and made her his queen?”

  She snorted then, her typical response to such romantic drivel.

  “Still don’t believe in love, eh?”

  He waited for her response to that, which was usually something along the lines of “Love is for fools and the mentally damaged.” She’d never seen real love between two people, not really. She’d been too young to see and understand the undying love that had existed between their parents. Then their father had been assassinated by the Coalition, and their mother had become distant, too wounded by his death to pay them much mind. Until she had broken completely.

  But instead of snapping back at him, Eirlys looked at him steadily, and shocked him when she said quietly, “I love you.”

  He shifted, uneasy about this uncharacteristic display of
emotion from his cool, usually brusque sister. “What brings this on? Feeling guilty for losing your temper with me?”

  “I’m worried about you,” she said in that same tone. “You look so tired all the time, as if you’ve not slept for an age.”

  I haven’t, he admitted inwardly. And barely resisted hunching over to rub at his leg, where the throb had spread now from knee to hip.

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry. You won’t be responsible for those little horrors just yet.”

  Eirlys grimaced; their younger siblings were indeed that. If the twins were awake, they were into mischief, or worse. Lux was the one who thought up most of their mayhem, while her brother Nyx was the one who engineered carrying it out. Between them, they were enough to drive anyone mad, and Drake had often thought it would take a force of a dozen to keep them in line, if it could be done at all.

  But Eirlys didn’t take the bait. At least, not the bait he’d hoped she would.

  “‘Yet,’ you said. You mean I will be.”

  Damn.

  Definitely too smart for his own good. He would do well to remember that.

  “I am ten years older than you, so yes, someday, likely,” he said, in the most casual tone he could manage.

  “If we don’t all end up in a Coalition dungeon first.”

  It prodded him, that grimness from someone so young, who should be thinking of nothing more complex than the animals she loved, who loved her in turn and followed her everywhere.

  “I won’t let that happen,” he said.

  She scoffed. “That’s what father said. And you saw what happened to him.”

  Oh, yes, he’d seen. Too well. He had been there that day, when his father had been provoked out of control by yet another Coalition outrage, a regulation essentially outlawing the selling of planium to anyone but them, and at prices barely above the cost of mining the stuff.

  The result had been his most passionate speech about the very spine of Ziem’s culture and history, as well as its main source of revenue. The only source, in many cases. A speech given not from the dais as the leading member of the council, but from atop the ramparts of the wall the invading Coalition had built around their compound, drawing hundreds before he was through, inspiring them all to a fiery pitch of rebellion.

  In the riot that had ensued, his father had been the first to fall, taken out by a blast from the coil gun that arrived to back up the outnumbered and for once losing Coalition troops. It had been like using the fusion cannon to kill a flutterbug, and there had been nothing left to bury after the Coalition had triumphantly grabbed his head and stuck it on a pike in the town square. And all pretense of them being a legitimate purchaser of the precious material was gone forever.

  The images of that day that would be forever burned into his memory. The only good thing about it was that he had been the only one of them there to see it. Eirlys had been too young, and the twins barely walking when it had happened. He was the one left with the ugly memory, with the tangled emotions of loving, hating, damning, and admiring his father, all at the same time.

  Of course, then their mother had abandoned them too, and by choice.

  “You’re old enough now to watch over them, Drake. So I must do . . . what I must do. I must go.”

  He’d never realized when she said that nine years ago, she’d meant forever. That she’d meant she could no longer go on without his father. That she’d meant what love she had for them was not enough to hold her to this life.

  Not enough to keep her from throwing herself to her death down the sheer face of Halfhead Scarp.

  Leaving him to finish the raising of three children, any one of which would be a handful for an adult, let alone the boy he’d been. The twins a double, inseparable handful.

  “But,” Eirlys prompted now, scattering the memories, “wouldn’t those defeats in that sector explain why the Coalition has so tightened control here? Why would they do that, unless they’re afraid?”

  “Because it is who they are?” he suggested sourly. “Besides, the why of it doesn’t really matter anymore.”

  “‘We slept our comfortable sleep too long, and this is the price.’”

  It seemed strange, to hear their father’s words quoted in her voice. She had been but six then, but the illicit recordings from that last fiery speech had been widespread in the years immediately after his assassination. Drake suspected she had memorized every word. Probably of every speech, every writing, every impassioned plea their father had made to the people of Ziem, begging them to wake up and see what was happening. She had adored him and at the same time hated him for leaving them.

  “Yes,” he said, and even he wasn’t certain whether he was assenting to the cost or agreeing that they’d not fought hard enough, soon enough.

  “And no one in Zelos will fight them.” Her tone had turned to a bitter, angry thing, all the more harsh for her youth and the sweet femininity of her face.

  “They know they cannot win. Should they fight just for the sake of fighting?”

  “And so they roll over like a barkhound in the mud, presenting their throats for the slashing.”

  That, he thought, hadn’t come from their father. His words had been high-minded, elegant, and intellectual. Eirlys’s came from deep in her gut, fired with anger and spiced with loathing for her fellow Ziemites. He could not blame her, from her view.

  “I’ll never give up!”

  The anger was still there, but now laced with determination and the sort of dedication he knew her too well to underestimate. Eirlys might be only seventeen, but she had the spirit of a warrior. He would have to keep an even closer eye on her, although with what extra time and energy he knew not.

  “There have to be more,” she exclaimed. “Others who won’t surrender, because it is just not in them. Others who won’t give up, who don’t welcome the conquering, as some have, as Barcon did.”

  “He didn’t just welcome it,” Drake said sourly at the mention of Barcon Ordam, the civilian administrator of all Ziem. “He engineered it.”

  “And for that he should die.”

  Her fierceness was impressive, and anyone of any age or gender would be wise to take her seriously, Drake thought. She would make an amazing secret weapon, with that sweet, innocent face that so many never looked past to see the fire in her eyes. And she would dearly love to become that weapon. Yes, more vigilance was going to be necessary.

  He smothered a weary sigh. I am not up to this, he silently told his departed mother, although he had long ago given up any thoughts of an afterworld where her spirit might dwell. Such ideas were long gone, buried in the rubble left by Coalition destruction.

  He chose cold logic.

  “The Coalition has coil guns, rail guns, star fighters, and for Eos’s sake, the fusion cannon that could wipe out what’s left of Zelos in a single shot.”

  “And look at what the Raider has done anyway, in three short years, with only brilliance and trickery.”

  And there it was, at last. Her favorite subject.

  “The Raider,” he said grimly and with utter honesty, “is a fool.”

  That did it. She leapt to her feet.

  “How can you be like this? It’s bad enough that Brander has become nothing more than a self-indulgent gambler, but how can my own brother be such a . . . a . . .”

  “Coward?” he suggested, knowing that was what she was trying not to say.

  “But you’re not! At least, you weren’t. I remember you, when I was barely more than a babe, driving mother to distraction with the risks you took. Jumping off the roof of the meeting house, going through the Racelock Rapids in that homemade boat of yours, nearly blowing up father’s office to show him you understood what he’d said about the properties of planium.”

  He smiled despite himself, remembering that day.r />
  “You put me in a conundrum, my son. How can I be so angry and yet so proud?”

  “When they first came, you fought.” His sister’s voice had gone soft. “And after father was killed, you stepped up to lead, young as you were. The people of Zelos rallied around you, and all of Ziem would have followed you.”

  “That,” he said flatly, “was before our mother left me to be head of the family, with the responsibility to keep you all safe.”

  She stared at him, and he could almost see her trying to find the balance between the screaming of her emotions and the cold fact of what he’d said.

  Welcome to my reality.

  “If that’s what having children means, giving up everything you believe in, then I shall never do it.”

  She turned on her heel and fled, up the narrow ladder to the sleeping loft. A moment later, he heard the slam of her door as she closed herself into the small room he’d walled off for her when she’d begun to complain about the utter lack of privacy in their small abode. The twins were still relegated to the open space of the loft; there was no way was he putting anything between those two and his watchful eyes and ears.

  In the silence that seemed to echo, at last he was able to turn to his leg. He found the tube of salve. He rubbed it into the aching muscles that were violently protesting keeping up the pretense that nothing was wrong. Eventually it brought the pain down to a level where he thought he could ignore it. If he kept off it the rest of the night, perhaps tomorrow might be better.

  And maybe fewer people would be angry at him.

  And Trios might really exist, and Darian, the fighting king, might actually have thrown the Coalition off his world, with his son repeating the triumph on his mother’s world for good measure.

  His mouth tightened as he leaned back in the padded chair that had been his father’s, and eased his leg up to rest on the stool before him. The old joke ran through his mind with bitter irony.

  What’s worse than dying in a Coalition invasion?

  Surviving it.

  Chapter 5

  KYE LOOKED AT the man trudging up the mountain trail beside her. The Sentinel was steep, but the lower paths were fairly wide and smooth. Which was a good thing, down here in the perpetual mist, where a misstep could be fatal. Especially for those who had not run the mountain since childhood as they had.