by Cynthia Sax
“Cyborgs have souls. You’ll fight in the Great Battle.” She pulled two misshapen forms out of a compartment, tossed one of them to him. It appeared to be dried meat. “If your body is prepared properly, allowing your soul to escape, you will participate.” The sparkle in her eyes dimmed. “That’s not always done for every fallen warrior.”
Vengeance doubted any of his brethren’s bodies had been prepared properly for the Great Battle. He added that offense to his long list of reasons he hated the humans.
His gaze slid to his female. Almost all humans.
“Don’t look so sad, male.” She bit into the meat form and chewed vigorously. “You’ll fight in the Great Battle. I’ll prepare your body properly when I kill you.”
“You’re too slow to kill me.” That she cared to prepare his body properly warmed his chest. He tore a piece off the meat form, popped it into his mouth, and grimaced. It tasted the way rotting flesh smelled—putrid and foul.
His female laughed. “It has a unique flavor, but it will give you the energy of a thousand warriors. You’ll get used to it.”
He wasn’t staying on the planet long enough to do that. “What is it?” He looked at the meat form. “The flesh of your enemies? I saw that mound of corpses, your—”
“What mound of corpses?” His female set her meat form and the beverage aside, her eyes flashing with interest. “Where did you see them?”
He took a swig of the beverage, trying to wash the vile taste from his mouth, while his processors spun. The corpses meant something to his female.
“Stop eating and drinking, male.” She grabbed his beverage container and meat form and set them beside hers. “Tell me.” His female grabbed his arms and shook him. “I have to find these bodies.”
“One of the explosions dislodged the soil covering the bodies.” Being a cyborg, he could recall the exact location. “The corpses look to be about six or seven solar cycles old, human or humanoid, different sizes of skulls from very small to normal size for your kind.”
“Children and babies,” she whispered, covering her mouth with trembling hands.
You’ve killed children and babies. Why are you hesitating to kill me? She’d asked him when they first met. Fraggin’ hole. Those weren’t nameless corpses in that pit. The bodies belonged to her clan, were beings killed by his brethren, under orders from the Humanoid Alliance.
“I can take you to the site.” He could do that for her.
“Yes, take me there.” She grasped his right hand, tried to pull him toward the door.
He pulled back. Her body collided with his. He hooked his arms around his struggling female. “Before we leave, I want to know if this is a trick.” His gut said it wasn’t, but he had to be certain. “You vowed to kill me after we ate.”
“Killing you can wait.” She scowled up at him, her expression heartbreakingly fierce. “This is more important than you and me, Vengeance.”
Vengeance. He liked the way she said his name, all passion and fire. “What’s more important than ending lifespans and revenge?” What kind of situation was he walking into?
“If the bodies belong to who I hope they do, we’ll be granting my loved ones their passage to the Great Battle, reuniting them with our fallen clan.” Her eyes shone. “Give me that and I’ll give you your life.”
His female was a skilled warrior, but she was human. He was a cyborg. She didn’t have the ability to end his lifespan. “If I can give you that, I will.”
Because every fallen warrior deserved to fight in the Great Battle, and because he wanted to grant his female that closure.
Chapter Six
Vengeance might have located her family’s bodies. Astrid exchanged her long gun for a battle-ax, excitement bubbling inside her. The warrior clasped her free hand, linking their fingers together.
It was the most secure way to hold a hand, but it felt intimate, reassuring. She didn’t protest because her thoughts were on his find.
And because his grip on her felt right. But she didn’t have the time or the inclination to examine that. They might be freeing her loved ones’ souls this planet rotation, allowing them to fight in the Great Battle.
A tremendous wrong could be redressed.
The cyborg led her through the woods, his tread silent, sure. Light from Second Buoir’s solitary sun shone through the branches. Dewdrops glistened on the vegetation. The air smelled clean, fresh.
As they moved, the scent changed. The putrid aroma of death clung to the breeze. The planet’s unique soil slowed decomposition, partially mummifying bodies. That was why preparation was key. It allowed souls to leave bodies quickly.
Vengeance slowed as they neared the site. Astrid’s hands trembled. He squeezed her fingers, thankfully not commenting on that shameful show of weakness.
The terrain had sunk, creating a giant hole in the ground.
She looked over the edge.
Saw her mother’s preserved face. Her eyes were gone. Her skin was stretched tight over bone only. But her identity was unmistakable.
“Mamma.” She scrambled down the incline and fell to her knees beside the corpse.
Her mother’s skin resembled leather, the scar on her forehead still vivid. Her hair was thin and fragile, twined into the fighting braids of her clan. The predator tooth from her mother’s first kill still hung around her neck.
Her mother never took that off. Astrid had played with the tooth while seated on her lap as a child. Train harder and you’ll earn your own soon, her mother had promised her.
She had trained harder and had eventually earned her own tooth. Both of her parents had been so proud, beaming at her, their warrior daughter.
Now they were lost to her. So was her tooth, the item disappearing in battle solar cycles ago. A wave of sorrow swept over Astrid, as fresh, as acute as the planet rotation her loved ones died.
Mourning the fallen was an act of selfishness. They would be moving to the next place, fighting in the Great Battle. That should a cause for celebration, not sadness.
She clutched her mother’s bony hand, struggling to control her emotions, to hold back her tears.
Vengeance gazed at her with a blank expression, one she’d seen on many cyborgs’ countenances during combat. He didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything, simply stood beside her.
His proximity was enough. He calmed her, giving her strength, allowing her to contain her grief.
Once her anguish dissipated, and her rational thought returned, she looked around them. There were other bodies. She spotted one of her brothers, her father, an aunt. Had they located all of her family? Could Siv, her baby sister, be buried there too?
“We should lay out the corpses.” She waved at a bare patch of ground, her voice husky with unexpressed sentiment. “We can prepare them quicker that way.” And she could note which members of her clan they’d found.
“Pass them to me.” Vengeance held out his arms. “I’ll lay them out.”
“This is my mamma.” She carefully gathered the remains, and transferred her mother to his hold, trusting him to handle her beloved parent. “There wasn’t a human in the universe who could defeat her in a dagger fight.”
“Cyborgs aren’t human.” He gently set her mother’s body on the ground.
“That’s why she’s dead, why they’re all dead.” She gripped her eldest brother’s corpse. “My kinfolk were the fiercest human fighters in the universe.” She transferred her brother to Vengeance. “When they refused to side with the Humanoid Alliance, the Humanoid Alliance sent the only warriors who could defeat them.”
“They sent my brethren.” He placed her brother next to her mother. “That’s why you hate us.”
That’s why she should hate him. “If a warrior’s soul isn’t properly released from her body, she is trapped on the planet, forced to remain close to her corpse.” She conveyed her father’s body to the cyborg. “That’s who led you here, my family’s ghosts.”
She’d been searching for their
remains since she arrived on the planet. He’d been on the surface for mere planet rotations.
Yet her loved ones had chosen him as their conduit.
They wouldn’t have led an enemy, a warrior they reviled, to the site where their bodies laid. Her loved ones had trusted Vengeance to correct the wrong done to them, had selected him to help give them peace.
Their message was clear. They had forgiven the cyborg and his brethren for killing them, for trapping them in this world.
She should do the same thing. It was time to set her hate aside and end her private war against Vengeance’s kind.
“I didn’t see any ghosts.” The warrior’s honesty was irritating yet admirable. “I was triggering all of your traps, trying to prevent you from ending your lifespan.”
“I was attempting to end your lifespan.” Her cheeks heated. “My death would have been an unfortunate repercussion of doing that.”
“You can’t end my lifespan.” His lips curled upward. “You’re too slow.”
“Projectiles are fast.” But she no longer wished to kill him. “This is my father’s sister. She once defeated four male warriors in one bout.”
Their fingers touched as she slid her aunt’s body into his outstretched arms. A spark traveled through her from her fingertips to her toes.
Without her hate to shield her, her awareness, her need for the male had intensified. That was dangerous because he still viewed her as his enemy, vowing to capture her.
“I recently defeated four cyborg warriors in a training bout.” Vengeance set her aunt beside her father. “They were D Models.”
“They were superior models, and you defeated them,” she taunted. “That’s impressive.”
“C Models have no superiors in battle.” He scowled.
“You have no superiors among cyborgs.” She clutched a cousin’s body close to her chest. “This is my Aunt’s eldest son. I saw him down a cyborg before I lost consciousness.”
“That cyborg wasn’t a C Model.” Vengeance grasped her cousin’s corpse. “And he wasn’t me.”
“No, he wasn’t you.” She admitted. There was no other warrior like him. “He was more advanced—an E Model.”
They exchanged gibes as they worked. She shared tidbits about the beings they handled, most of her information revolving around their battle skills. Vengeance relayed stories about how he’d used those skills during fights.
The conversation helped her control her grief.
Until they uncovered the last corpse. It was half buried in the soil.
Astrid swallowed hard, tilted her face upward to contain her tears, swallowed again. They’d found Siv.
“Children and babies.” Vengeance’s voice was soft.
“I can’t.” She stood, her arms and legs shaking, her eyes stinging. “I—”
“I’ll do it, my female.” The warrior gathered Siv’s tiny body in his huge arms, cradling her next to his chest, his careful handling of her baby sister’s remains almost undoing Astrid. He set her on the other side of her mother.
She wouldn’t be alone during the ritual.
Astrid clasped her battle-ax. She should explain the next step. Not understanding the logic behind it, he might view it as barbaric, harsh, unfeeling. But she couldn’t speak the words, her throat clogged with sorrow.
She started with her cousin. “Fight well.” She slammed the battle-ax down on his chest again and again, slicing through mummified skin, cracking ribs, her muscles straining with the effort.
Her cousin’s soul was now free. He would rise into the sky, fight in the Great Battle.
She was conscious of her cyborg’s gaze on her, couldn’t look at him. Sadness swelled within her.
She moved to her uncle. “Fight well.” She did the same with that body, ensuring the chest was cleaved open, his soul exposed. Each strike of the blade drew more pain from her, her grief, her loss funneled into the destruction.
As she performed the ritual on the bodies, her tears fell, and the words became a battle cry, her heartache turning into a raging flow of heated emotion. Her heart ached, her muscles tired, and her voice grew hoarse.
Despair gripped her. She had to complete the rituals, couldn’t delay her loved ones’ ascent one more moment. The warriors had been trapped within their decaying bodies for too long already, alone, separated from their clan.
But there were so many corpses, and only one being to perform the ritual.
As she positioned herself by her youngest brother’s body, warmth pressed against her back. Vengeance’s fingers covered hers, his arms wrapping around her form, a hard wall of muscle supporting her weight.
“Fight well.” His voice rang out, strong and true.
She echoed the words. He helped her lift the battle-ax, guided it as it fell.
Relief rushed through her. With his assistance, she could do this, she could give all of her loved ones peace, reunite them for the Great Battle.
She leaned on the cyborg more and more, relying on the firmness in his physique, the strength in his form. Her chest heaved with sobs. Her eyes burned with tears.
Siv’s was final body. Her mother, father, and brothers would be waiting for her baby sister on the battlefield. Knowing Mamma, she’d have Siv’s little weapons sharpened and ready.
“Fight well.” Astrid could barely choke the words out.
Vengeance helped her raise the battle-ax. Her arms were a quivery mass of mush. Siv’s body was so small; it only took two strikes to free her soul.
Her baby sister was gone. Astrid released a wail, the pain unbearable.
The cyborg took the battle-ax from her, tossed it to the side, turned her within the circle of his arms.
“Don’t.” She pounded her fists against his chest. “Don’t look at me.” She didn’t want him to see her this way, overcome with sadness, weak and tearstained.
“Shhh…” He pressed her face against him. “I’m not looking at you, my female.”
That kindness from him, her former enemy, made her weep harder. She cried and cried, wetting his gray skin, her shoulders shaking with the force of her loss.
She was truly alone on this damn planet now. All of the ghosts were gone. It was only her.
And him, her cyborg. He stroked her hair, holding her.
Her grief didn’t dissipate, but it quieted, settling deep in her soul. She sniffled. “You must think I’m insane.”
“We’ve verified your kinfolk are dead.”
“That wasn’t the purpose of the ritual.” She frowned, his comment distracting her from her sorrow. “Our souls reside in the center of our bodies. To set them free, we must open our loved ones’ chests. Their souls can then escape, and they join their kinfolk in the Great Battle.”
Not every warrior knew the importance of freeing the fallen’s souls. She’d discovered that on the battlefield, when she’d split open dead friends’ chests. Others had looked at her with horror.
They didn’t know, hadn’t been raised in a warrior culture, as she had been.
“The Humanoid Alliance, when they decommissioned my brethren, sliced open their chests.” Vengeance shared, his voice quiet.
The Humanoid Alliance were terrible beings, but at least they killed the cyborgs correctly. “Then your brethren are fighting in the Great Battle, alongside their kinfolk.”
“I question the logic of the Great—”
She covered his lips with her fingers. “Belief doesn’t require logic.”
Lines appeared between his eyebrows.
“Some things you simply feel. Here.” She moved her hands to his chest, positioning them over his heart. “As a warrior, you should know that. You must have sensed danger, been unable to explain why.”
“A cyborg’s senses are highly advanced.” He placed his hands over hers, his palms rough, warm. “We detect small details humans don’t.”
She gazed up at him. “Do you have an explanation for everything?”
“No, not everything.” His eyes glowed.
Only him.
“You cared deeply for the small warrior.” He rubbed his thumbs over her cheeks, easing the tightness in her skin. “Was she your offspring?”
“Siv was my sister, and she had only four solar cycles.” She lowered her gaze to his chin, remembering how her sister would toddle toward her, her chubby arms outstretched, a wooden dagger clutched in one hand, a smile on her baby face. “I was to train her, had started the process when we were invaded.”
“Cyborgs are fully mature after one solar cycle.” Vengeance traced the length of her nose, navigating the bumps there. “Our training is…harsh. We are decommissioned for any failure. Some of my brethren didn’t survive it.”
She winced. “Our training is severe, but not that harsh. I was teaching Siv to hold her daggers.” And not suck on the tips. “She had a strong grip, would have become the consummate warrior, brought honor to our clan.”
“Like her older sister.” His voice warmed.
She swallowed, her emotion threatening to overcome her again. “When your brethren attacked, Siv joined us in that battle.”
She had wanted to hide her sister away in the woods, protect her from the approaching enemy, but Siv was a member of the Buoir clan, as she was. They were both warriors. Astrid couldn’t deny her the opportunity to fight with her kinfolk.
“She met them with real daggers in her hands. Her battle cry was adorable. She—” Her voice broke.
“She faced her enemy with courage.” Vengeance cupped her chin, lifting her gaze to his.
“Your brethren killed her quickly.” She saw the first projectile hit her sister, right between her eyes. “She would have felt little pain.”
The cyborgs had followed orders, but hadn’t reveled in the deaths. She looked up at him.
And he, a cyborg, had found their bodies, allowed her to free their souls.
He pressed his lips to her forehead. “She is now fighting in the Great Battle alongside your kinfolk.”
“You don’t believe in the Great Battle.” She wrinkled her forehead. Was he humoring her?