by Matt Forbeck
In the years that followed, Dural searched the outer lands for his uncle and asked about Asum as he did, but he never found any trace of either. It was as if they had both been plucked from Sanghelios by the gods.
It was in those days, however, that Dural found his purpose: to join and fight alongside the Servants of the Abiding Truth.
While under the guidance of Field Master Avu Med ‘Telcam, learning the path of the warrior, Dural still kept an eye out for Jul ‘Mdama and for Asum. Jul did not resurface until years later, now at the head of what he referred to as his Covenant—a burgeoning reformation, but now without the San’Shyuum’s oversight. By this time, Dural had already been blooded in battle several times over, fighting on the front lines of the Servants’ inexorable push against the Swords of Sanghelios.
The rumors that flooded in from the field master’s sources indicated that Jul had spent a great deal of time on Hesduros, far from the eyes of the Arbiter, building up his resurgent Covenant one ship at a time. When Dural first noted this, he contacted Naxan, who then told Dural something his mother had never shared with him, something that would irrevocably shatter his world.
Dural was Jul ‘Mdama’s birth son. And not only that, but Jul already possessed this knowledge. Jul knew that Dural—whom he had left in Bekan—was his child.
In the Sangheili tradition, children were all raised together by the keep’s females, who never let the fathers know who their fledglings might be. This time-honored practice was meant to keep the parents from showing their children any bloodline favoritism, giving them an egalitarian society in which people had to earn any reward on their own merits rather than having anything granted. For the most part, it worked extremely well, but Raia had loved Jul so much that she had broken the taboo and shared the identity of his sons with him.
It was a foolish choice, and one that had wound up causing Dural great pain.
Yet, with this new light came new choices.
Should he abandon the Servants of the Abiding Truth and Avu Med ‘Telcam and set out for the redoubts his real father had built on Hesduros? Or should he remain loyal to the one Sangheili who had played the role of father to him during his most formative years?
It did not take long for Dural to measure the scales. . . .
Jul ‘Mdama had knowingly abandoned both Dural and Asum to rot in Bekan keep while he hid from the Arbiter’s wrath and dishonored Raia’s death. When Dural finally realized this, he became enraged. If he did set out to Hesduros, it would not be for reunion, but for revenge. Only the field master was able to persuade Dural to not hunt Jul down and demand blood satisfaction for his dereliction.
Instead, ‘Telcam placed Dural on the path to where they now stood: Onyx, the great refuge of the Forerunners.
Today had been the culmination of long years of pain and anger, and now—finally—Dural was here.
“Yes,” Dural repeated. “The Covenant left us. Do you think Jul ‘Mdama and his forces—which he foolishly refers to as the Covenant—would have had the vision or the resources to come here? They were on Hesduros for years, and yet they spent their days in hiding, fighting over scraps rather than returning here into the embrace of the Forerunners’ greatest treasure.”
Buran huffed to the side. “I still think there is wisdom in leaving well enough alone. Your uncle was the only one to have seen what was on the other side of this portal. Perhaps there was a good reason for him to have refused to return.”
“This shield world houses more Forerunner machines—both weapons and vehicles—than any other place in the galaxy,” Dural responded. Buran’s testing grated on him, although he had grown used to it. “You’ve read the script, Buran. Yes, the humans have infested it, and their numbers here grow daily. What better reason to act quickly? They are already desecrating all that the Forerunners left behind, many of them working alongside the Arbiter’s own clans to do it! And if they are not stopped, what do you think they might do with the machines they find here?”
Buran appeared bewildered at this. “Our people have a head start of centuries on their efforts. We have been exploring the majesty of the Forerunners for ages, before the humans even knew they existed.”
“Perhaps.” Dural approached Buran’s face to exert his authority. “According to what the field master himself learned before his death, the humans have gathered their best researchers here and unleashed them to this very end. They are pulling apart this world stone by stone, defiling the temples of the Forerunners in order to deliver the very weapons and ships of the gods into the hands of our enemies.”
“What heresy and blasphemy!” Ruk spat. “How much longer must we be forced to stomach such treachery? The Arbiter and his allies must die!”
Dural was about to voice his agreement when Even Keel finally came through the gate. With the Huragok now here, the Servants’ advance team was complete.
From what the field master had told Dural—which he had heard from contacts close to Jul ‘Mdama himself—the Forerunner temple they had accessed stood within twenty or so kilometers of the humans’ main base within the shield world. This intelligence, however, was from roughly five years ago.
Who knew what the humans have done since then?
In any case, this location lay far too close to the human base, not in the least because the humans might be monitoring the place at that very moment. As far as Dural was concerned, it had been a matter of sheer providence that no humans had been in this temple upon their arrival. The Servants needed to set up their own camp soon, but in a different area, somewhere from which they could safely stage their scouting efforts.
Dural beckoned the Huragok forward, and it floated to his side. The bizarre creature communicated natively with its sign language, but with the Servants it employed an older technology recovered from Covenant vessels, which simultaneously translated its signs. Via the circuits built into Dural’s armor, Even Keel could understand him, and he could interpret its sign language through the collar he wore.
“We need to set up a base on this shield world,” Dural said. “Can you alter the portal to have it bring us to a defensible site within the sphere, one far enough from the humans who have infested this place?”
“It is possible,” Even Keel’s surrogate voice chimed in Dural’s collar. “I must evaluate this side of the gate.”
“See to it, Huragok. I want to keep it within a safe striking distance, though, for when the time of our attack has come.”
Even Keel set to work immediately.
“I do not like this,” Buran said, nodding at the Huragok. “We are far too dependent on this single Engineer. What happens if he is injured?”
Or killed, Dural heard in Buran’s voice. Dural would have also added: Or betrays us. Either was a possibility in this place.
“Once we set up camp and ferry in the rest of our warriors, our singular goal is finding other Huragok within the sphere and taking them for our own. They are the key to the Forerunner prize we seek.”
“And what if the nishum already have those Huragok in their employ?” said Ruk, using the Sangheili invective for the human species. “If the humans have been here as long as you say, they must have captured some of the creatures and put them to work.”
“I hope for that to be true,” Dural said. “That would mean they likely have more than one together at a time, which makes them easier targets. Also, stealing their Huragok would not only help us, but would hurt them as well.”
Ruk made an affirmative grunt. A moment later, Even Keel indicated that it had found a safe location. It surprised even Buran, who seemed to be losing his grit in this place. It was likely too much for the old Sangheili to process.
As Dural approached, Keel gestured for him to enter the portal once more. Dural moved quickly toward it without hesitation, motioning for the others to follow. “You are in charge of the Huragok,” Dural said to Ruk, turning his back to Buran. “Stay here until I send someone to fetch you.”
“And if you do not
return?”
Dural barked a harsh laugh at him. “I do not plan for failure, Ruk. Stay vigilant.”
As Dural walked through the portal, the sensation this time was not nearly as unpleasant, perhaps because he was not traveling quite so far. It felt as if he were moving through a thick veil of webs, but the feeling quickly passed . . .
And Dural emerged inside another Forerunner facility. In many ways, it resembled the one he had just left but was far wider and taller, vaguely similar to some of the Forerunner structures back home, in the city of Ontom. It seemed to be a vast containment facility of some sort, but no doubt had spiritual significance. He sighed when he examined the portal and realized that this machine was also too small to transport his vehicles through. He would have to wait for that victory.
Then Dural heard a rumble: the muffled sounds of battle. This was not the comforting sound of elegant Sangheili weaponry launching blasts of superheated plasma, but the discordant rattle of automatic gunfire, the kind the humans produced in war.
Somewhere outside the large structure, humans shouted at each other in a tongue Dural recognized as one of their primary languages. He could not speak it, but the translator in his armor untangled their unseemly babble into something coherent.
Some of them shouted orders. Others cried out in terror and panic. For a moment, Dural worried that they had somehow detected the Servants’ arrival at the temple site and were headed to his warriors’ position, but the situation was not about him or the Servants who remained at the other site. It was about something entirely different.
Somewhere outside the structure—among the shouters and shooters—a massive creature bellowed in agony until its voice trailed off into nothingness. The warriors of Dural’s splinter team finished appearing behind him, and he signaled for each of them to take cover and keep silent.
If the humans were occupied with another foe—perhaps a native animal of some sort—then this presented the Servants with a prime opportunity to strike an unsuspecting enemy. The humans might never be so distracted again.
On the other hand, whatever the humans were fighting could also pose a problem. It might well be such a dangerous animal that Dural would be risking his entire scouting team. Despite his eagerness to engage the wretched human foes as soon as possible, he had no desire to bury his entire operation in the ground during their first hours here in the shield world.
After he quickly surveyed their surroundings, Dural noticed that, apart from the portal, the room had only one entrance. He signaled for his team to fan out to either side of it, a large aperture that was far enough away so that anyone coming down the long, wide corridor leading into the chamber could not see them.
At that very moment, Dural heard a pair of voices coming toward the far end of the hallway. Even without his translator, he could understand their tone and inflection because the field master had forced him to learn it, despite his natural aversion to their speech. These humans were clearly scared.
Avu Mel ‘Telcam had allied himself with humans in the past—faithless ones eager to betray the Arbiter—and he expected Dural to be able to do the same when ‘Telcam was gone. He had no love for the frail and sickly mammals, but communicating with them had ultimately proved a necessary evil. Dural had bucked against the learning of the language, but he knew enough to understand it, with the translation device filling in the gaps.
It would have been a far worse sin to avoid the humans and let the Arbiter and his allies triumph over all Sanghelios. Though, in the aftermath of ‘Telcam’s death, Dural often wondered if the field master had been mistaken about the necessity. After all, a demon—one of the soldiers the humans called Spartans—had finally hunted down and killed him.
“What the hell was that?” a female of the human band said. “Some kind of land-shark?”
How odd that the humans let their females fight beside them. How desperate for help must they be? Yet Dural had heard rumors of female Sangheili fighting within the Arbiter’s own ranks—another blasphemy the traitor had picked up from his human allies.
“It wasn’t friendly, whatever it was,” the male replied. “The creatures here were harvested from other planets across the galaxy. They could have come from anywhere.”
“Why don’t you give that coldhearted lecture to Trevor?” the female said. “Better yet, you can tell his wife and kids once we get back to Pax!”
Dural leaned in to listen closer. The humans spoke of families rather than forces, and Dural wondered exactly what kind of humans had been brought there to explore this world. Perhaps there were far more researchers than even he had considered . . . and far fewer warriors.
That might explain why these people had apparently struggled so hard to defeat the beast that had attacked them. It also meant his forces could make easy work of them.
“They knew the risks when they came here,” the male said, irritated. “We all did.”
“Risks?” The female let out a bitter laugh. “We came here to explore alien archaeology—not to get torn to pieces by a face full of razor-sharp teeth.”
“Nobody wanted Trevor to die. Sometimes when you’re wandering around a strange planet and not following protocol, really bad things happen. Inside a place like Onyx, that’s bound to be even more true.”
“That’s the best excuse you can come up with? ‘Things happen’? I can’t wait for you to try to sell that to your superior officer.”
Dural wondered if the male, at least, might be a soldier.
That would make more sense, even if Dural could not understand why he would bring a female along. They did not belong anywhere near the field of battle.
Dural’s mother served as hard proof of that. Raia should have stayed at the keep with him and his brother. If she had, she might still be alive.
“If you and the rest of your research team want to get out of here in a better condition than Trevor, I suggest you fall in line and head for the portal back to the Repository before that thing’s friends come back looking for it.”
“We’re not leaving Trevor’s body here for the animals,” another male voice called from farther back.
“Then you need to grab it fast,” the soldier said. “Those portals aren’t always stable for long, and the clock’s ticking on our window to get back.”
If the humans had come here via the portal, then Dural and the Servants clearly stood between them and their only means of escape. Dural motioned for his warriors to ready their weapons.
Buran put a hand on Dural’s shoulder and gave him a wary look. “No need to alert the humans to our presence quite yet,” he whispered. “We can be gone before they even know we are here.” Dural shrugged off the elder with a glare that told him the next time he presumed to put his hand on the Pale Blade, it would be returned broken.
The sound of footsteps coming down the corridor toward the Servants echoed into the chamber, and Dural nodded toward the others. When he judged the pair to be halfway toward the main contingent of their splinter group, he gave the signal to attack.
Dural gripped his carbine and led the charge down the corridor, firing upon the pair of humans, who had frozen in their tracks. They might have been wary of more monsters attacking them outside, but they had not suspected they might run into a troop of fully armed Sangheili warriors within the structure.
“Cut them down!” Dural shouted as one of his bolts struck true and felled the female weakling. Although he had briefly fought humans in the past, the bulk of his engagements had been against fellow Sangheili. Technically, she was the first human Dural had ever killed in battle, and he swore in that moment that he would always remember that.
She would not be the last on this campaign. Countless others would fall before him, but she would not be forgotten.
“Make sure no human escapes!” Dural shouted as his warriors mowed down the soldier and charged up the corridor to seek out any other prey. “Tonight marks the end of their dominion over this shield world. We shall take it for the Ser
vants of the Abiding Truth! We shall take it for the field master!”
CHAPTER 9
* * *
* * *
With Asha and Yong’s expertise on the mysterious Forerunner machines attached to Project: GOLIATH—whatever that was—the two were in high demand by ONI analysts. This meant Molly didn’t get to spend too much time adjusting to Onyx from the comfort of her new home. Within a few days after the family’s arrival, her Newparents sent her to the school, and she was bored enough by then that she decided not to fight it.
But boredom, she soon discovered, was the lesser of two evils. Molly almost immediately hated the school in Paxopolis, also known as the Pax Institute. This was not Aranuka by any stretch. For example, when she surveyed the dining hall, which one expected to be innocent enough given the overarching purpose of the city and its peaceful researchers, Molly instead found it packed with hundreds of angst-riddled, mercurial kids who seemed to be perpetually in unruly moods. Despite the allegedly idealistic purpose of Paxopolis, its school had all of the bad ingredients of a normal school on any other human planet—possibly even more so.
Then again, Molly didn’t care for most other schools she’d attended either. It wasn’t that she didn’t get good grades—she actually performed remarkably well—but she just couldn’t stand most of the teachers or the others. She could never connect with them, and that frustrated her to no end.
When Molly lived in Wisconsin, she was only seen as the refugee, the kid who’d survived the glassing of her planet. Everyone who found out about Paris IV would give her the same sad, pitiful look, as if the person knew her and her story. But Molly didn’t want special attention or sympathy. She just wanted to fit in, to blend in with the crowd, to be normal, whatever that meant.