Drowned by Fire (Tales of a Dying Star Book 4)

by David Kristoph

  Now that they were in the inner city Rob refused to walk in the middle of the streets; bomb blasts were constant, some only a few blocks away, and sticking close to the buildings at least provided some cover. Unless the buildings collapse on us. Other civilians did the same throughout the afternoon, so Pavani's group would not stick out as suspicious, she hoped. Rob paused at each cross-street, peering around the corner of a building--and, in some cases, piles of rubble--before hurrying across.

  The Emperor bounced in the Shieldwarden's arms during their travel. He was still unconscious from the drug, but groaned as they ran. Urine ran down Pavani's wrists as he soiled his fresh clothes. Dead bodies lined the road, but most were covered in blood, so not worth stopping to switch clothes. Urine was moderately better than blood, she decided.

  Caution slowed their pace. By the time Saria began to set, spreading shades of orange and purple across the smoky sky, they were only halfway to the Terminal in the center of the city. Nightfall gave no respite from the warzone: light from fires throughout the city reflected off the clouds and smoke, creating a menacing, ever-present glow. And although the explosions had ceased, the sound of aircraft--Riverhawks and Goshawks, Pavani thought--still roared out of sight, with more gunfire occasionally cutting through the clouds at them.

  Through the spreading darkness they pressed on. Pavani's forearms burned and ached and eventually grew numb. Her toes curled painfully in the too-small shoes. The air held a chill that cut through her clothes. But the Flameguards made no complaints as they moved from building to building, so Pavani held her tongue. She wished she'd thought to grab more stimulants from her plate armor before switching clothes.

  They neared a square Pavani recognized: an ornate fountain sprayed in the middle of the street, on the other side of the burning remains of a Riverhawk. That meant the hospital was two blocks away. The hospital was normally an hour's walk from the Terminal, which meant two hours at Rob's pace.

  A green flash from the rooftop ahead. For a moment Pavani's brain would not register what it meant. Rob threw her into a doorway as the laser fire exploded across the pavement.

  She landed on the ground with her back against a door, facing the street. Lasers burst all around where she had just been standing, sending bits of rock and dust into the air. Their small alcove only provided a few feet of cover, barely enough for the four of them. Rob crouched with Pavani and put a gentle hand on her neck.

  Jorda pressed herself against the alcove wall. The lasers eventually stopped. Slowly, Jorda leaned around the edge into the street. She jerked back inside as more gunfire screeched, illuminating the street.

  "Two blocks away," she said, "at the top of a ten story building on our side of the street. I saw two silhouettes, but there could be more."

  Pavani leaned forward. The wreckage of the Riverhawk burned maybe thirty feet away, with the fountain just as far beyond that. "It's risky," she said, "but we have enough cover to get across the street, if we run."

  "That's a heavy laser shooting at us," Rob said, "meant to punch through armored craft. We won't have any cover behind that wreckage."

  A single laser fired down at the middle of the street, briefly illuminating everything and throwing shadows across the buildings. Lighting the area, looking for targets.

  "Do we know for sure they're enemies?" Jorda asked. "They might be steadfasts, who think we're Children."

  "Doubtful," Rob said. "We've seen too many bodies along the way. The battle has already been here. The front lines are still far ahead, judging from the sounds. That rooftop gun is positioned to keep steadfast aircraft from venturing too far."

  Jorda stepped over Pavani to test the building's door, holding up her palm to the scanner. It beeped negatively and remained closed. "So what do we do?" she asked.

  They both looked at Pavani.

  It felt good to sit down, with the weight of the Emperor in Pavani's lap and not her arms. She wanted to kick off her shoes and crawl into a warm corner, just to close her eyes for a few minutes. She was jealous of His Luminance, twitching and rasping in sleep. Stars, I'm tired, she thought. The Flameguards looked exhausted too.

  A shadow moved on the other side of the street, jerking Pavani back to alertness. The look in her eyes made the others spin around. Several figures moved in a dark alley across the street, hidden from the light.

  Pavani froze. Although she was protected from the rooftop gun, she realized their little alcove was completely exposed to anyone in the street. She watched helplessly as the figures emerged from the alley.

  The man leading the way wore a pilot's uniform, its whiteness easily absorbing what little light glowed from the burning Riverhawk. He held a rifle across his chest. He paused to look out before stepping carefully over piles of rubble, moving into the open street. His head darted around, looking for threats. Pavani tensed, waiting for him to spot them.

  A line of young boys and girls followed.

  They wore similar uniforms, though their size gave away their age. They kept their heads down, following loyally. Students from the pilot's Academy, and their Instructor, Pavani realized. Rob rose from his crouched position and called out a warning. Alarmed by the sound, the man and his students froze in the middle of the street.

  The rooftop gun fired.

  Two students were cut down first, crumpling to the pavement. The Instructor instinctively dove behind the burning wreckage, but the other fifteen or twenty children scattered like birds. Some disappeared back in the alley, but more advanced farther into the street, both toward the gunfire and away. Lasers pummeled the ground, a steady rain of green.

  The instructor called out directions, unheard through the high-pitched beams and cries of children. Finally, desperately, he jumped from behind cover to return fire. He jogged sideways toward their alcove while shooting up the street, screaming at the students to follow. Somehow he remained uninjured.

  He whirled as he neared, suddenly reminded of their presence. Rob and Jorda held up their hands, but he cried out in surprise, raising his rifle to them.

  The door behind Pavani opened. She and the Emperor fell backwards into darkness.

  Someone dragged Pavani backward into the building, the Emperor still laying across her lap. She made no move to resist. Young students leapt over her into safety, calling out to one-another by name.

  "This way, Cairne."

  "Jon, they shot her..."

  "Where's Ori?"

  The students, Pavani thought. Their voices and youthful vigor were disarming. We're safe, for now.

  The person dragging Pavani let go. She sat up as her eyes began adjusting. Rows of shelves were arranged in the center of the room, extending back out of sight. She smelled soil, and a crisp plant-like scent. A soil nursery?

  Jorda bent over her, helping lay the Emperor up against the wall. He moaned softly, but did not wake. Pavani stood and took a closer look around. The commissary, she realized. The supply building where steadfasts collected food and supplies. Behind her ran a row of tubers and vegetables. Buckets of grains were in the next aisle. Confectionery beyond that, and then rows of refrigerators. The lights remained off, including those inside the refrigerators' glass. The power must be out. Only a single computer screen on the wall gave light to the room. It played a computerized message on repeat.

  "...stay where you are. Remain calm--this is only a drill. The Emperor's blessings upon all of you..."

  Rob stood by the doorway speaking to the students' instructor. Pavani was about to go to them when another woman appeared at her side, rifle half-aimed. She wore a pilot's uniform too, though with the same insignia on the breast marking her an instructor. She looked from the Emperor to Pavani and back again before presumably deciding they weren't a threat. "Sorry we didn't let you in sooner," she said cautiously. "When you arrived in the doorway we weren't sure if you were one of them."

  Pavani waved off the apology. "What made you change your mind?"

  "Instructor Thol came across the stree
t with the other students. It was either let all of you in, or leave him to the Children's rooftop gun. Plus, a woman carrying her injured grandfather isn't terribly threatening." She extended a hand. "I'm Karrana."

  Chapter 13

  After a moment's hesitation Pavani shook Karrana's hand and introduced herself, leaving off the Shieldwarden title. Revealing who they were would not be wise, not yet. "I'm afraid I know very little," Pavani said, gesturing to the Emperor. "We have been caring for my sickly father. What has happened in the city?"

  Karrana explained how the attacks began in the morning, after the students had arrived at the new Academy building. They remained there while the Children attacked the south-west walls. "It was an army of them," she said, "emerging from the crop fields across the river. The Gold Wing was there somehow, and helped fight them for a while, but they didn't have the numbers."

  Pavani listened quietly, happy to hear someone's voice other than the Flameguards'. Once the Wall was taken, the inner city became chaos. Many of the Academy instructors fled, but Karrana and Thol stayed with the students. "We hunkered down inside the Academy to wait. We could hear the explosions, so we didn't want to let the students out into the city. Most of them were too afraid, anyways."

  Pavani looked around. Some of the students were teenagers, but more were young, probably no older than ten years. A few looked as young as four or five.

  "The first wave of Children swept over us quickly. They came inside; there was nothing we could do to stop them. But they just made sure we had no weapons and moved on. They were in a hurry to reach the palace, one said. Then those other groups starting taking the rooftops, moving large gun batteries forward from building to building. They're more... bored. Taking sport at shooting anything that moves."

  The palace, Pavani thought. Julian had been correct: the Children wanted to take the palace and reveal the Emperor's non-existent heir as a fraud. What would they do when they didn't find him there? Pavani said, "The Academy was several blocks back. What made you leave?"

  "Thol realized the Chain was tilting, falling to the west. We don't know what will happen, or how long it will take, but we knew we needed to get out of its path." She looked around. "We stopped here to rest, and get some food."

  Pavani glanced at her wrist-computer. "About six more hours until the Chain crashes. And yes, you'll want to be far away from it when it does."

  Karrana tilted her head. "Six hours? How do you know that?"

  "I heard a man say so. An engineer, on the way here. He's dead now."

  "Well it doesn't surprise me. You can't see the Chain very well at night, but at dusk it was already at a steep angle." Karrana looked around the room. "We're going to rest for a few hours and then continue deeper into the city, toward whatever safety remains. Possibly the palace. It would be the most guarded section of the city, and we'd be safe under His Luminance's care."

  She turned, pulling back her hair to reveal her neck. "I also activated my tracking chip, in case anyone is looking for us. The Children might use it against us, but they're likely to find us either way." She sized up Pavani. "You're welcome to come with us when we leave. It would be nice having a few more eyes to watch the students."

  Pavani looked at the children scattered throughout the room. Some ate food, while others were curled in balls trying to sleep. They were so young, so innocent. And all their hopes were on the frail man resting against the wall, still unconscious, too weak to even walk.

  "You don't have to decide now," Karrana said. "I'll let you know when we get ready to leave." She walked over to the other instructor, who was wiping blood off of his face with a rag.

  Pavani sat next to her God, resting her back against the shelf of potatoes with her long legs extended out. He wheezed while he breathed, a thin, pathetic sound. I can never tell them who we are. It would crush them to see His Luminance like this. Suddenly it made sense why the Emperor had kept his ailment a secret, becoming a recluse who rarely left the palace.

  But what did it say about the Empire that its stability rested so precariously on the shoulders of one man? Because that's all he was just then: only a man, shriveled and weak. If he could not reproduce then he was not immortal, and if he was not immortal... doubt swept into Pavani's mind like a gale, the doubt she'd been trying so desperately to keep at bay. Doubt at His Luminance, doubt at the Empire, doubt at her life's work protecting him. Stars help me, I abandoned my father to protect this man. The doubt strengthened until it became certainty. She'd wasted her life. In another context protecting a ruler might have still been honorable, but the duty paled in comparison to what she thought she'd been doing: protecting a God. My father is stronger than this man, she realized. There would have been more honor in protecting him on the Olitau.

  The guilt rose up in the back of her throat again. Eyes forward, she told herself, but this time the words had little strength. She folded her legs until her knees touched her chin, and quietly began to weep.

  Jorda joined them some time later with an armful of food: soft bread and raw carrot stalks, with a large jug of water. She did not acknowledge that the Shieldwarden had been crying, politely ignoring as Pavani wiped her face with the soiled sleeve of her stolen dress. Oh, the smell of food. Pavani had not realized how famished she was until that moment. She ate eagerly, biting off lengths of carrot while bread was still in her mouth. It didn't matter that the food was uncooked; it tasted better than any meal she'd ever had.

  Rob joined them and they all ate quickly. Jorda got up and returned with another armful of bread. When that was gone Pavani sighed and leaned back against the shelf, feeling full and slightly more content. "What do you think we should do?" she asked quietly.

  "It would be safer traveling with a group of students," Rob said.

  Jorda snorted. "Didn't seem very safe for them out in the street."

  "They'll shoot at anyone from a distance," Rob said, "but up close, if we're captured, we stand a better chance with them. The fanatics want to convert people, not kill them, and children are easier targets to convert."

  "A larger group is more likely to be captured," Jorda pointed out. "We can be stealthy by ourselves, slipping into friendly territory unseen."

  "We've no chance to be stealthy with him," Rob said, jerking his head to the Emperor. "Pavani moves slowly with the load, and grows more exhausted with every step."

  "I'm fine," Pavani began, but they ignored her protests.

  "I don't like it," Jorda said. "I don't want to be traipsing through the city with a group of toddlers. This is a war zone."

  "Be smart," Rob snapped. "We're the same as civilians right now. We have no weapons, no protection."

  "All the more reason to travel in a small group, as quietly as possible."

  "Enough," Pavani said. They both looked at her. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "His Luminance's presence puts everyone in danger, even if they don't realize it. What if we're all captured and one of the fanatics discovers His identity? What do you think they would do to Karrana and the students?"

  Neither Flameguard answered.

  "We cannot put others at risk. We must travel alone."

  "Our duty is to defend Him," Rob insisted.

  "And I intend to do so," Pavani said. Anger boiled up, pushing aside whatever guilt she'd felt. "But I will not sacrifice the safety of others anymore. How many have died for Him? How many have thrown their lives at His feet, so that he may live another month? No. I will die for this man, as my oaths command, but I will not allow others to do so. We will head north until we are out of the Chain's path, and then we will hide until this conflict is resolved."

  "We need to reach the palace," Jorda whispered. "His Luminance grows worse every day. We must be near His son, His heir, to assist in His soul passing from one fleshly vessel to the next, as our oaths command."

  "I am in charge, and I have decided what our plan will be."

  "But His son..."

  "There is no son," Pavani hissed.

&
nbsp; Both Flameguards stared at her, mouths open. When Rob spoke his whisper was full of anger. "You dare speak such blasphemy, here with His Luminance dying next to you..."

  There was nothing else to do but tell them. She explained the facts: He had no heir, no vessel into which his soul could pass. Pavani did not tell them what she believed, that it proved His Luminance was nothing more than a mortal human, but the Flameguards realized the implication with wide eyes.

  "But the boy in the palace..."

  "A fake," Pavani said. "He bears no blood relation to the Emperor. Some of the geneticists insisted they continue the farce even after the Emperor's death, but His Luminance would not hear it. When he dies, the Empire dies with him."

  They turned away from Pavani, speaking softly to one-another. They would not look in the Emperor's direction. Eventually Rob began to shake with silent sobs. Pavani closed her eyes, allowing them to grieve together with what little privacy they could.

  The computer screen on the wall flickered, the emergency broadcast cutting off. A man's face appeared. He was bald, with wide blue-grey eyes behind a hooked nose. Ash smeared his face. Behind him Pavani could see a river, and domed crop fields beyond. It was still light outside. A prerecording? Pavani wondered. The man leaned forward slightly, looking like a bird perched on a branch. His smile was wide and wicked, and his voice boomed loudly.

  "The Emperor, the false god you worship, is dead."

  Every head in the room whipped toward the screen.

  "He fled like a coward. Fled from his enemies, into the Chain used for millennia to ease man's journey into space, allowing the Empire's corrupt grasp to extend across the skies. Allowing men and material to flee the loving embrace of Mother Saria.

  "No longer. Our Mother has judged the false god, and She has judged him a usurper. She struck him down where he fled, drowning the Chain with Her fire. Destroying him with Her fury!"