The Cumerian Unraveling Trilogy (Scars of Ambition, Vendetta Clause, Cycles of Power)

by Jason Letts

  “I’ve always loved Taylor, but you’ve been a splinter under my fingernail since the day I met you. If this is what it costs to be rid of you, I consider it a bargain,” he said, ending the call before she could reply.

  He’d had no idea what he had said. Nothing was worth the loss of his family’s entire fortune, and that was why he’d married her in the first place during the wire wars. Now Melody and the rest of the Hockleys had increased their net worth by ten times in one fell swoop. Lowell tried to tell himself it was a coincidence and that they hadn’t been planning this from the beginning, but nothing was beyond belief at the moment.

  And then there was the realization that Sierra would now be completely at the mercy of Carlisle and the ‘no confidence’ vote. Lowell had nearly smashed a window when she’d told him about it.

  Glickon strolled forward. He had a kindly face, like that of someone on a beach somewhere who had only a swimsuit and a cold beer to his name.

  “I’ve lost it all,” Lowell admitted. “My money, my career, my wife, my ex-wife, my life, my family’s legacy.”

  Using his dull practice blade to tap the edge of Lowell’s sword, Glickon smiled and raised an eyebrow.

  “It sounds like you’re ready to be a swordsman. Maybe it’s time to start a new legacy.”

  Lowell looked him dead in the eye, wrapped his hand around the grip, and got to his feet. He pulled away the scabbard and gazed again at the smooth steel blade. The guard had those claw marks etched into it, a reminder of his home and where his family had come from.

  “Then this will be Legacy, and it’ll protect the Brackens and devastate our enemies until I end up in After.”

  More certain about himself and more dedicated to the single-mindedness of what remained, Lowell leapt forward at Glickon with his sword held high.

  CHAPTER 15

  The headlights stretched out on an endless dirt road. Taylor sat in the back of the gas-powered van full of Ma Ha’dere members dressed in form-fitting black suits. Unlike the rest of them, Taylor had on the light armored pads he’d kept from his Youth Guard days. He also had a wired explosive and a detonator strapped to one arm.

  “It’s really great you’re doing this,” Nissa said, touching his wrist. The van hit a bump and Nissa put her hand back in her lap.

  Taylor wasn’t nearly so sure about how great this was, but he believed it had a purpose. It was late in the cycle when he should’ve been sleeping, and he had a test tomorrow. They’d already been driving for a couple of hours, passing the bridge over the great Nagahosset River and cruising closer to the FarmFields. Even if things went as planned and they returned on time, he’d barely make it in time for the test.

  Nearly a dozen of them were packed into the vehicle, though Nissa was the only one who ever did any talking. The group leader that had pretended to be her ex-boyfriend drove through the endless night, passing stretches of thick crabgrass and the occasional cow or horse pasture.

  Just when the monotony of it started to get to Taylor and he thought he’d nod off, murmurs arose from the group as the vehicle came around the side of a hill and pulled into full view of a stretch of plowed and planted fields that stretched all the way to the horizon. This was where the majority of Cumeria’s food came from.

  The driver flipped off the headlights, dropping the vehicle’s speed to a crawl, and leaned closer to the windshield in order to follow the road by moonlight. The rest of them peered out the windows at the sprawling estate in the center of the fields. The estate’s mansion formed a ring around a courtyard dominated by a colossal stone statue that stood hundreds of feed high. Even in the dark, the moonlight shining off the stone was enough to illuminate the figure of a man, arms crossed, standing on a mountain of assorted vegetables.

  “This is where we’re headed? The Illiams’ estate?” Taylor gasped. It was one thing for a group of nobodies to raid the place at night, but something entirely different for a Bracken to show up wired with explosives. The catastrophe it would set off if he were caught would be unimaginable. So this was why they wouldn’t tell him their destination.

  “You’re not unhappy, are you?” Nissa asked, a sly look in her eyes. “Because we know a good way to help you with that.”

  “Legend has it that a great mountain sat here until the Illiams had their workers chip it all away, leaving only the statue,” the driver said.

  Taylor couldn’t get caught. He’d trained too hard and he was too good to let any of these farmers get their hands on him. Besides, none but the members of the Illiam family could recognize him, but even so he still wished he had a mask instead of the hood.

  The van came to a stop by the hillside right before a long decline and a sharp curve in the road that led to a tall gate. A chain-link fence ran along the bottom of the hill, separating it from the field. Taylor knew there’d be guards at the mansion a few miles in, but it didn’t seem like anyone was patrolling the fence, probably because it was electrified.

  When they got out, Taylor expected to hear more detailed instructions about what to do, but once the driver pulled out a device with a clip designed to short-circuit the fence, the rest of the group raced down the hill. Taylor watched them go, wondering why he was putting his life in their hands. He didn’t expect them to live up to Guard standards, but they seemed reckless and naïve about what they were doing. If any of them got caught, the Illiams would kill them immediately.

  “Come on, let’s go this way!” Nissa said, tugging Taylor toward the gate. It was clear she got a charge out of all of this. She bounced on her toes down the path and flashed furtive grins at Taylor. Even in the dim light she made a striking figure, and the way the fabric hugged her curvy ass was more than enough to perk Taylor up.

  The fence beside the thick gate was about twice Taylor’s height, and once he made sure it was safe he quickly scaled it and dropped onto the other side. No doubt the Illiams’ security forces were stationed at the mansion, with small groups patrolling the seemingly never-ending fences, but at the moment they had miles of space to themselves.

  A few garages, one of them big enough to hold at least a dozen vehicles, stretched along the road on the inside of the gate. Nissa had it in mind to go over to them, leaving Taylor with little choice but to follow. She’d barely entered the building before grabbing a crowbar leaning against a wall and using it to smash a windshield.

  “What are you doing?” Taylor asked once the jarring crack had subsided.

  “Relax and let the anger out,” Nissa urged him, swinging for a headlight.

  But what got Taylor’s attention was how big some of these vehicles were. Accepting that anyone within miles would’ve heard Nissa’s demolition work and sounded the alarm, Taylor pulled out a flashlight and inspected the trucks. Some were obviously for hauling produce, but others had massively thick wheels and front ends that could knock over trees.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say these are military vehicles,” he said. “Why would the Illiams need these if all they have to do is move tomatoes?”

  Nissa tried to open the driver’s side door of one of the trucks but found it locked. Gritting her teeth and growling, she kicked it.

  “It’s time to go,” she said, but Taylor wasn’t finished looking over the armored truck. He knelt down to look underneath and then circled it.

  “Where’s the gas tank?” he grumbled. As far as Taylor knew, every vehicle ran on the gas that his family produced, either in big balloons on cheaper vehicles or in tanks underneath on heavier ones. All this one had was a large metal barrel in the back bed with a tube running out of the bottom to the engine. Looking around, Taylor spotted at least a dozen of these barrels stacked against the walls. “What’s this about?”

  Climbing onto the truck bed, he sized up the thick barrel, put his hands on it, and shoved it off the truck. Nissa laughed as it clanged against the ground and its lid popped off, spilling dark ooze all over the garage floor. Taylor cringed when the smell hit him.

 
“Is that some kind of liquefied corn? How can a car run on corn?” He didn’t know what it meant that the Illiams weren’t using Bracken gas in their vehicles, but he took it as a personal affront.

  “What do you expect from farm folk?” Nissa asked before skipping off toward the fields in the direction of the estate.

  The mansion was several stories high, but it quickly got lost behind towering rows of tomato plants, cornstalks, and cucumber trellises. Taylor and Nissa hacked through, but they’d have miles to cross before they made it to their destination. On the way, Nissa bit into every vegetable she could get her hands on, leaving a trail of dropped veggies in their wake. Taylor gritted his teeth but let it go. As long as they didn’t screw around inside they’d be fine.

  It took them a while to make it to the mansion, which had tall columns and a walkway circling the heavily-windowed exterior. From their spot near the edge, Taylor glimpsed a few guards patrolling the exterior, some on the roof and at least one inside. The ones outside had curved blades strapped to their backs and held projectile launchers in their hands.

  “What are we going to do?” Nissa whispered, crouching beside Taylor. There was no telling where the others had gone or how they planned to get in, but the front door wouldn’t be an option.

  “Let’s go around toward those servants’ quarters,” Taylor advised. Before they’d made it more than two feet, a flash caught Taylor’s attention and he jerked his head to see one of the Ma Ha’dere sprinting through the floodlights not ten feet behind one of the patrolling guards. Taylor’s stomach lurched, but the runner snuck behind the guard, made it to a bay of windows, and with a blue glow pulled one of them open as if the Illiams had left it unlocked just for him. Nissa smiled.

  “When you channel your spirit energy, anything is possible,” she said.

  “Then why don’t you help us stroll in?” Taylor asked.

  “Because it’s your initiation,” she replied.

  Continuing along the last row of crops, they came to a few shacks behind another tall chain fence. Scaling it without making a sound wasn’t easy, but they made it to the other side and snuck past shabby structures full of the people who would be called after them if someone were spotted. Scanning the mansion’s exterior for an entrance, Taylor tried a servant door, windows, and a vent, but found them all impassible.

  Taylor nodded when he realized that a garbage chute that emptied into a large dumpster would be their entrance. Peeking over the top, he recoiled when the rancid smell of rotten, moldy vegetables attacked his nose. It formed a soup in the bottom of the dumpster that couldn’t have been more disgusting if it had contained nothing but piss and shit.

  Nissa pinched his ass to urge him in. The filth only went up to mid-shin, but the garbage chute was covered in it.

  “Come here,” he said to Nissa, trying not to breathe. He helped her climb into the chute that must’ve led to the second floor. She dripped all over him and left a huge glob on his shoulder as she climbed in.

  The tube was barely big enough for Taylor to fit into, but he managed to leap up, catch the ledge, and then shimmy in without thumping against the sides too much. If the tube’s incline had been any greater he wouldn’t have been able to slide up—the filth Nissa smeared against it didn’t help—but Taylor eventually spilled out of the chute and onto the floor of a dark kitchen.

  When he got up, Nissa opened her mouth to say something, but he clamped her jaw shut, smearing her face with rotten produce. Rather than get upset, she grinned. Either way, they couldn’t say a word because the entire Illiam family, not to mention the servants and guards, were all over this place.

  And they’d have to move fast; the awful stink would be a dead giveaway that something was wrong.

  Fortunately the guards had a habit of keeping some of the lights on, and they’d usually say something to each other, making them easy to track. Taylor and Nissa crept through the hallways, passing fancy artwork and sculptures as they descended an elegant stone staircase, working toward the building’s center.

  On the ground floor, the guards carried nothing more than a few knives, but their eyes were the real danger. Some light penetrated into the center courtyard, and Taylor would need a couple of minutes out there to deposit his gear.

  Safely away from the guards, Taylor nudged open a doorway and slunk through the fading light toward the towering stone statue.

  It seemed like they were the first ones there, but hidden in the shadows was the entire rest of their group. As hard as it was, Taylor began to accept they had something that even Youth Guard training hadn’t given him.

  “Nice of you to join us,” whispered the group leader.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Taylor said, unstrapping the detonator from his sleeve. The packs the other members had carried, most of which contained fertilizer, were already set against the edge of the statue. He’d blow a chunk out of the bottom that would send the whole thing toppling over, flattening a portion of the mansion and even squashing some of the fields.

  There was no doubt in his mind that someone would die because of this, either because they were too close to the blast or couldn’t anticipate where the statue would fall from inside the building. Taylor had to think hard about what he was doing this for. Youth Guards didn’t take killing lightly, and this was a high price to pay for revenge.

  Taylor set the timer, hiding the red numbers behind one of the other sacks.

  “We’ve got ten minutes,” Taylor said, knowing if he gave himself more time there was a good chance someone might notice they were there and dismantle the bomb, making the whole endeavor a waste.

  “Meet you back at the van,” the leader said. They’d barely make it halfway through the fields in ten minutes, and that was if they hurried.

  Exactly as they had at the start, the entire group dispersed as they raced toward the side of the mansion separating them from the fields, the hill, and the van. Taylor ran next to Nissa, who spurted laughter and had trouble keeping her stride.

  “Would you stop?” Taylor asked, but her giggling continued. They reached the courtyard door, reentered the house, and snuck toward the front. A window would have to be their exit point, but one way or another they had to get out soon.

  Taylor held her back when they turned a corner and came up behind a guard, who meandered toward the mansion’s main entryway with a couple of other guards. The sound of dice rattling across a table echoed through the hallways, and a pungent smell gave away that someone was smoking.

  Backing away slowly, Taylor let the guard wander away from him as he ducked into an open room adjoining the hall. He crept around a trio of sofas toward a perfect set of windows, ones with golden latches on top for easy opening, and a wall to the left that would provide plenty of cover from the main entryway. Outside there wasn’t a guard in sight, and Taylor psyched himself up for the long race once he hit the ground.

  He silently slid open a window and gestured to Nissa to go first. When she didn’t respond, he looked back to discover that she was nowhere to be found.

  In disbelief, Taylor slunk along the wall and peeked into the entryway, discovering that she’d somehow snuck up one side of the dual staircase and started down the other on the far side. Now Nissa stood at a post in the railing that supported a large ceramic flowerpot. Right below her were the guards playing dice.

  Taylor felt like he was about to leap out of his skin. He’d had a friend in the Guard who had blown off his hand playing with explosives. Now was the exact wrong time to be messing around. When Nissa noticed him, he tried to convey one last entreaty to refrain from being completely psychotic.

  She pushed the pot off of the post.

  It smashed through the table and shattered against the floor amid shouts from the guards, all of who had their blades out.

  “I’ve been waiting all night for this!” one of them shouted, which did not sound good.

  From where he was at the edge of the wall near the hallway, it was quicker to go fo
r the front door than back to the windows. By the time he made it to the entryway, Nissa had already raced down the stairs and opened it.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he huffed, knocking the heavy door fully open.

  “Can you feel it?” she yelled. Taylor gawked at the look of rapture on her face until he noticed a pair of guards carrying pipe launchers blocking them from the fields and the dirt roads. The ones inside were coming, leaving no option but to engage the two guards outside.

  One of the launchers aimed at him, Taylor curved right while Nissa raced straight for the other guard. A jerk of the pipe signaled incoming fire to Taylor, who slid to the ground and rolled. He had thought the pipes fired potatoes or something, but a grenade zipped over him and smashed through a window. The rest of them shattered when an explosion sent shrapnel flying in every direction.

  The sound of more launcher fire made Taylor glance to his left, where Nissa was wrestling with the other guard. She’d pulled the trigger, firing the weapon at the guards coming through the entryway. They dove into some bushes as the grenade lacerated the entrance and set the door on fire.

  Wasting no time, Taylor scrambled to his feet to engage the guard rushing at him, who had a knife in hand but took an ill-timed swing, allowing Taylor to get in underneath and drill his chin, knocking him flat onto the ground and the knife from his hand. The surging adrenaline made it seem to Taylor like his body was acting on its own. Blocking a kick, grabbing a flailing hand, twisting his opponent onto his stomach, Taylor settled into the familiar fighting rhythm he’d learned at the Youth Guard. When he pulled the man’s arm behind his back, he heard a satisfying pop.

  It wasn’t the man’s scream that rocked him back to his senses. Footsteps echoed through the entryway, where a woman in a robe shuffled forward. Except for her blonde hair, which was matted on one side, she had a regal air about her. It wasn’t hard for him to guess who it was: Portia Illiam, the matriarch of the FarmFields.

  Another guard dropped from the walkway above the columns right near Taylor, who picked up the discarded knife and tried to use it to defend against a longer curved blade. By chance, when he leaned way back to avoid a swing for his upper torso, his hood fell back.