Raider

by Justine Davis

  He couldn’t do it. He wasn’t Drake. Oh, he’d fought beside him, he’d carried out missions on the edge of crazy, but he was no leader. Not in the way Drake was, inspiring all, bringing out the best in them, and single-handedly keeping the Coalition endlessly on guard.

  “Swear to me.”

  The words were barely audible, and Brander knew talking was weakening him.

  “You are . . . the only one . . . I trust to do it. Swear it.”

  Brander met Drake’s gaze and did the only thing he could.

  “I swear.”

  Drake let out a long, weary breath of obvious relief. Brander understood. Knew that Drake knew it would have been easy for him to promise just to ease his passing, but that he would never say it unless he meant it. For all his sins, and they were many, Brander Kalon was a man of his word.

  He thought Drake had drifted off, and caught himself checking to make sure he still breathed. And then, softly, he heard, “Eirlys.”

  Brander’s own breath caught in his throat. “I will see to her. Always.”

  Drake’s eyes opened then, and he saw the understanding there. His brother in all but blood knew. He drew in a breath, let it out slowly, and then admitted it out loud for the first time. “Yes,” he said, answering what had not been asked.

  Drake’s nod was barely perceptible. “My . . . blessing.” Something shifted, and for an instant, the old Drake, the Raider, was looking back at him. “As if you’d require it.”

  “No,” Brander admitted. “But I will treasure it.”

  And, that simply, the bond between them was renewed, brothers by their own choosing. That it was likely the last time they would acknowledge it made it a bittersweet thing, both unwanted and necessary.

  Drake’s eyes closed again, and this time he did not stir again. The sound of his breathing was like a rasp over raw nerves, painful, hated. The only thing Brander dreaded hearing more would be the moment when it stopped.

  He couldn’t just sit here and wait for that damned, eternal silence. Nor did he want to watch Eirlys and Kye sit here, waiting helplessly for the death of the man they loved. Or watch Mahko hover, regretting that his healing skills were not enough. The fact that no healer’s skills were enough wouldn’t matter to the gentle man.

  No healer’s skills were enough.

  For a long moment Brander didn’t move. He barely breathed. And then he leapt to his feet.

  “Hang on, Drake.” He said it as if he’d already assumed the mantle of command. “You just hang on.”

  Then he turned and headed for the door.

  Chapter 47

  EIRLYS STARED AS Brander slipped on his coat and slung the long gun over his shoulder.

  “You can’t leave. Brander, he’s dying.”

  He picked up his pack as if she’d said nothing, but she saw his jaw go rigid.

  “He’s your best friend, and he’s dying,” she whispered.

  He whirled then. “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I can’t see the darkness in his eyes, and the knowledge in his face. I know he’s dying. He knows he’s dying.”

  “Then how can you leave him?”

  He looked at her for a long, silent moment. In his face, she could see some kind of battle was raging inside him. Brander, the ever nonchalant, ever joking, Brander looked dark, haunted . . . and deadly. Whatever his reasons for this choice that dumbfounded her, the decision had not been easy.

  Twice he began to speak, then stopped. As if he wanted to tell her something and had to remind himself why he could not. And then, before she could do more than cry out his name in a final protest, he was gone. Leaving her to deal with the debris of the end.

  And the imminent death of her beloved brother.

  HE’D DONE THE right thing.

  He couldn’t tell her. She had accepted Drake’s approaching death, with a bitter submission that was unspeakable in one so young. He could not bear to be the one to raise hope in her when even he knew it was most likely futile. Yet he had to try. While there was the slightest, faintest possibility, he had to try. For Drake was not only the heart and soul of their fight, as Kye had said, he was his brother in all but blood.

  And the brother in blood of the girl whose distraught gaze seared him to his soul.

  He’d done the right thing.

  He repeated the words with every step for the first hour after he left the rover at the highest point he could take it without becoming a target. After that, the climb had grown difficult enough that he dared not spare the attention to any thought save staying upright.

  But he’d reached the Edge. From here on, there was no cover, nothing to mask him from any eyes turned this way, including the Coalition. He wasn’t even sure where to go from here; he knew only that the stories said that she dwelt beyond the Edge.

  And that she knew if anyone dared trespass there.

  He barely made it a blaster’s shot past the last tree when he was stopped cold by a voice that seemed to come from both above and behind him.

  “No further, son of Kalon.”

  It wasn’t the Spirit, unless she had a booming bass voice.

  But whoever it was apparently knew who he was. Coalition? Were they guarding even the Edge? But whoever it was hadn’t killed him on sight. Not that he would mind overmuch at this point.

  He held his hands out from his sides, to show they were empty of weapons. Then, slowly, he turned around. “I seek the Spirit.”

  “As do most who dare venture into her realm. Most die.”

  He still couldn’t see the speaker, but by turning, he could now guess about where he was, and how the rocks ahead were echoing that booming voice all around him.

  “That is what I wish to prevent. A death. A death that could doom all of Ziem forever.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then, “And what death could be so important?”

  Decision time, Brander thought. If this was a Coalition trap, his answer would spring it. His mission would fail and Drake would die. That he would as well was merely an afterthought.

  The Raider was dying anyway, Brander told himself. And if he dies, the rebellion dies with him. For no matter how much Drake might think the mask mattered more than the man behind it, Brander knew he was wrong.

  “How do you face it? Knowing they want you dead more than anything else? Knowing they hunt you every day, all of them?”

  “Simple, my friend. I think of myself as already dead.”

  That conversation had been months ago, when the latest Coalition effort at a “wanted” placard—with a drawing as inaccurate as the rest had been and a staggering reward amount—had gone up on every wall left standing in Zelos. And the flat, unemotional tone of the words told Brander that they were in fact truth. And he saw the sense of it; you could not be mortally afraid if you thought yourself already dead and were waiting only for your body to receive the message.

  And now it had.

  Brander thought of what Drake had suffered—the broken body, the agony, and the mental torture of knowing his death was imminent. Of knowing he would be leaving his family alone in a hellish world. Of knowing now that the woman he loved had risked her life to save him, only to learn he was going to die anyway. Compared to all that, a quick death by blaster if this was indeed a trap, would be Eos-sent. And his death would mean little.

  But Drake’s . . .

  What death could be so important?

  “The Raider,” he finally answered.

  The only sound was the wind whistling through the barren rocks. For a moment, Brander thought he was alone again.

  “Please,” he said, not above begging for this. Surely she would help, if she could? Had she not been helping the Raider all along? “It already hovers too close; it will soon be too late. If it is not already.”


  There was another long moment of silence. Bleak despair began to settle into his soul. This had been folly, useless folly. He would not be there for his best friend’s last moments, and for nothing. He—

  “Follow.”

  Before the command had faded away, a huge shadow loomed up, followed by the man who cast it. Tall, lean, but broad-shouldered, the man’s powerful build belied the slight limp Brander noticed. He said nothing more, but turned and headed up the mountain.

  Whatever impairment the man had, it did nothing to limit his speed as they climbed. He clearly needed no guidance on the path Brander could not even see, and so he trusted the man’s obvious knowledge and simply followed as best he could in his wake.

  It seemed an age before the man slowed. He had never looked back to see if he was followed; either he assumed Brander would keep up, or did not care if he did not.

  A few paces later, the man stopped before an exposed section of the mountain’s stone, weathered and clear of any growth because of its vertical face.

  “I suggest you close your eyes,” the man said, not even looking over his shoulder.

  In his puzzlement over the words, Brander could think of nothing to say. And in the next instant he had no one to say it to; the big man stepped forward . . . and vanished.

  For a moment, he just stood there, gaping. Logic argued with the illogic of coming here in the first place, looking for some sort of magic. If he could believe in the Spirit and her powers, why should he not believe this?

  Follow.

  He closed his eyes. And stepped forward.

  He felt nothing. The ground seemed solid, stable under his feet. He realized with an inward grimace he was wary of opening his eyes. That prodded him into doing just that.

  It was a cave, tall and narrow. And oddly warm, a comfort after the cold damp of the mountain. A bare arm’s reach away stood the man who had led him here.

  “You took less time than most,” he observed, his voice tempered now, as if he reined it in here in this place. Before Brander could decide if that had been a compliment, the big man pointed to a large, flat rock to his left. “Your weapons.”

  Every instinct he had rebelled, but Brander realized the long gun at least would be useless in these close quarters. He laid it down on the rock. He disliked giving up his blaster, but accepted it as necessary for the moment. He placed it beside the long gun and straightened.

  The big man didn’t move. Brander frowned. Then realized. His fingers danced over the hilt of his dagger. He rarely took it off, and even when sleeping, it was close at hand, his last line of personal defense. But that thought only reminded him of all the sparring bouts he and Drake had had, practicing with the lethally sharp blades. In fact, one of those, many months ago, had been the last time he’d seen Drake laugh. And now he would probably never see that again.

  He’d gambled by coming here, and now he must play by the house rules. He pulled the dagger out of the sheath, the one Eirlys had made for him, and put it on the rock beside the blaster.

  The big man turned and headed deeper into the cave. He was walking toward what looked like another blank wall, and Brander wondered if he would again vanish in that impossible way. But this time he veered right, and Brander realized the wall stopped a few feet short of the side wall of the cave. The man stopped there, looked back and commanded, “Wait.”

  It chafed, when time was so crucial, but Brander didn’t see that he had any choice. He looked around, but in the dim light it looked like nothing but an ordinary cave. An oddly warm cave, yes, but just a cave.

  “Come forward.”

  He hadn’t expected the command so quickly, but was grateful. He walked to where the man stood, then walked past him as the man gestured him onward.

  He stepped into what appeared to be a living area, with weavings hanging on the walls and thick cushions for seating. It was even warmer in here, warm enough he knew he would be comfortable without his coat. It was also well lit, although he wasn’t sure of the source. The walls glowed faintly, from what he couldn’t tell.

  Then one of the weavings he had thought against a stone wall moved. A feminine hand gripped the edge of it, pushing it back. A woman emerged from behind it. Dressed in a simple gown of pale blue, she was tall, slender, and had long, vividly red hair.

  Brander’s breath caught. And then the woman stepped into the full light of the room and he knew. He stared, beyond gaping. Utterly astounded.

  For, before him, some years older and marked with scars, yet still beautiful, stood the long-dead Iolana Davorin.

  Chapter 48

  DRAKE HAD NEVER realized how long it could take to die. His life lately had been full of instantaneous death—comrades blown to pieces, or less than pieces as his father had been. He’d always feared a long, lingering death, had wished to go as his father had, in an instant with perhaps not even enough time to realize what was happening.

  But now, the fate he’d feared was here. And as he drifted in and out of awareness, he realized he’d never accepted that he might have no control in the matter. He couldn’t even lift a hand to his blade, to end this agony himself. He doubted he would anyway, not now. If he was still in Jakel’s hands, he would not hesitate, but Kye, his precious Kye had risked her life to free him.

  And thanks to her, he would die a free man. He would thank her for that, if he could hang on long enough.

  “Hang on, Drake. You just hang on.”

  He remembered hearing the words, but he had not responded, not only because it was beyond him at that moment, but because he thought Brander had understood the inevitability, and he had not the strength to convince his stubborn friend if he did not.

  The aware times were both heaven and hades. Being awake meant the pain was close, searing, digging, until he felt as if his flesh was peeling off his bones and his organs turning to scalding liquid inside him. But it also meant seeing Eirlys one more time.

  Seeing Kye one more time.

  A different kind of agony stabbed through him. Their moments together had been far too few, and he wondered if it might not have been better for both of them now had they never given in to the fierce need. But the thought of never having had that brief time, of never knowing what a true connection of mind and body was like, of dying without knowing, was a thousandfold worse. It was too much, and he tried to focus on his sister instead. She understood. He could see it in her face.

  He knew that for sure in the next minute, when she brought in the twins. The pair were pale, and quiet as he had never seen them before. He wasn’t sure they should see him, like this, but Eirlys stared him down even now. “They have the right,” she said. “And they’ll not believe it otherwise.”

  It took all of what little strength he still had to hold out a hand to them. They each grasped it, the jolt from the broken bones Jakel had left him with barely registering above the constant thrum of pain. He didn’t, couldn’t react. He just looked at the pair that had been the bane—and the bemused joy—of his life for more than a dozen years.

  “Watch out . . . for your sister,” he said to Nyx. The boy nodded, but his jaw was set. This was going to be hard on him. But they had each other; he had to believe they would get through.

  Drake looked at Lux, whose cheeks were streaked with tears. “Don’t get him into . . . too much trouble doing that.”

  “Don’t,” she whispered. “Please don’t.”

  He was filled with an ache that somehow arced above the physical pain of his body. An ache that he would not see them grow up, would not see the adults they would become, not see where Lux’s clever mind would take her, and what things Nyx’s ingenious methods would produce.

  “Love you . . . both.”

  The fog, deeper and darker than anything Ziem had ever produced, began to swirl around him. He wandered, lost, the tiny part of his mind still
prodded by the pain, thinking for the first time of what he would leave behind, of the hole he would leave. Better now than when he’d begun this, when his sister had been yet a child and the twins even younger.

  He felt the fog descend, and wondered if it was for the last time. And almost hoped not to wake up this time.

  “FOR ALL THEIR clashes, they will be lost without him,” Eirlys whispered as she looked at the twins, huddled by the fire. Kye could barely look at them herself; seeing the irrepressible pair brought low at last was too much.

  “He is their anchor, their base, the safe place they always knew they had,” Kye said. “He is the reason they are as brave—and reckless—as they are.”

  Eirlys shifted her gaze to Kye. “He has ever been that to all of us, hasn’t he?”

  Kye met her gaze. She who always hid her emotions did not even try to hide the tears. The pain was so great it was pointless to even try.

  “It is so wrong that he, of us all, should have to pay this ultimate price.”

  “I never wanted him to—”

  Kye hushed her before she could even get the words out, pulling her into a fierce hug. “You think I do not know that? You must not blame yourself, or what he did will be for nothing. You would never have asked him to give himself up for you. But he is the man he is.”

  “I would rather have died myself,” Eirlys said, and Kye hugged her tighter.

  “As I would die in his place now, were it possible.” And she meant it with everything in her.

  “I know.”

  “It is he we cannot do without. Despite what he says, he is the soul of Ziem, and . . . and . . .” She simply could not go on.

  Eirlys said softly, “I so wanted you and Drake to be pledged, so that you would really be my sister.”

  Kye’s breath caught in her throat. “For so long, we’ve not thought of anything beyond the next fight, or the next chance to strike at the Coalition. But I wish we had said to hades with our fears and all the reasons not to.”