by Matt Forbeck
Molly recognized their leader. He wore the same light blue armor that the Sangheili Director Mendez had shown her and her friends on the day the rafakrit ran rampant through the Repository. It was Dural ‘Mdama, also known as the Pale Blade.
Bakar’s brother.
Bakar stared at the image, astonished. “How has he tracked me here?”
“The Sangheili warriors are not here for you,” Prone to Drift said. “They have been fighting in the streets of Paxopolis. I thought I avoided them as I came here on my regular rounds, but it seems that a group of them spotted me and tracked me here. They would like to use me for their own purposes.”
“If they’re looking for you, then you must turn yourself over to them,” Bakar said. “Otherwise, they will kill everyone in that room. And then they will go on to slaughter every living thing in the entire school.”
“No!” Molly stepped between Prone to Drift and the door. “If Prone’s what they want—what they’re willing to kill everyone here for—it’s the last thing we should give them. If getting their hands on a Huragok is that important to them, we have to stop that from happening, no matter the cost.”
Bakar shook his head at her. “Some costs are too high to bear.” He glanced at the door. “We do not have time for this. Dural has no patience at all, and the others will be butchered unless you give up the Engineer.”
Molly hesitated. Bakar had a point. If they really gave Dural what he wanted, that could save lives or at least buy some time. And what was Prone’s life compared to that of every single person in the school?
But then maybe Dural would just kill them all anyhow, whether he had Prone or not.
Molly spread her arms in front of Prone. “We can’t.”
Bakar growled in frustration. “But I can.” He spun on his heels and fled.
Molly chased him out into the corridor, but he was far too fast for her. By the time she reached the doorway, he was already halfway to the dining hall.
“Wait!” Molly shouted, but he ignored her.
She charged back into the operations room, cursing the entire way. “He’s going to get himself killed.”
“Maybe he has a point.” Kareem pointed at the screen.
A Sangheili warrior stood next to Dural ‘Mdama, and he had Karl in his arms. The bully struggled, but the warrior’s hands held him like shackles. Then, at a word spat from Dural, the warrior snapped one of Karl’s arms.
Molly could hear the wailing all the way down the hall again, but this time, it was a lone voice crying out in anguish.
Gudam broke out in quiet tears. “He’s going to kill everyone.”
Molly didn’t like Karl at all, but at that moment she didn’t care. She couldn’t just stand by and let the Servants of the Abiding Truth murder him. But what could they do to stop them? What could anyone do?
The warrior let go of Karl’s useless arm, which now hung limp from his side, and then moved to grasp his neck. Kasha spoke to Dural and tried to get him to stop, to listen to reason, to do anything but what they all feared most.
Molly could tell Kasha was going to fail. No words could put an end to this insanity.
And then Bakar entered the room.
“Stop!” he shouted in Sangheili.
Molly couldn’t understand him, but the translator built into the school’s surveillance systems displayed a real-time subtitle across the bottom of the display.
As Bakar strode into the dining hall, the students there parted before him. He stood there, exposed before Dural, pointed straight at him, and shouted, “Put that boy down!”
Every person in the dining hall froze, waiting to see what would happen next. Even the Sangheili warriors Dural had brought with him stood stock-still.
“Brother!” Dural said. “I knew you from the moment I saw you on that hill outside the hangar. Even after all this time.”
Kasha gaped at them both. “You do not have to do this, Bakar.”
“Quiet, female!” Dural thundered. “This is between Asum and me.”
The room filled with soft murmurs from those who knew Sangheili, the students confused by the mention of a different name. Dural stood there confused for a moment before the truth dawned on him. “They have no idea who you really are. . . .”
“I am no longer Asum ‘Mdama. I left that life behind long ago.”
Dural scowled at Bakar. “You abandoned your people to side with the Arbiter, you mean, the great traitor himself. And now you stand by and watch as these people defile the instruments of the gods in an effort to use them to utterly destroy our people.”
“You mean to protect them from malcontents like you and your Abiding Truth. The people working here are archaeologists and researchers. They seek to uncover the past so they can preserve a future for us all.”
Dural shook his head in a sad rhythm. “Asum, I cannot believe the Arbiter and his filthy talk of peace has so twisted your mind. Were you so bent with grief over our mother’s death that you could not see straight?”
Bakar stepped toward his brother. The time had finally come for this confrontation, and he would not flinch from it. “I did grieve for our mother. For all our people. Even for you.
“Dural, we spent so many years fighting humans because of the lies the Prophets told us. They set us against each other for nothing more than their own twisted purposes. And we paid for it in so many ways.
“When we finally realized it, and the Great Schism took form in response to their betrayal, those Sangheili who saw the San’Shyuum for who they really were hoped that we might now be free. Instead, brother, we turned against each other. Sangheili against Sangheili. And for that, our mother paid the ultimate price.”
Dural scoffed at Bakar. “So, to make up for our mother’s death, you take up with humans?” Dural spat the last word as if it tasted foul in his mouth.
“She didn’t die at the hands of humans. She was cut down by our own kind.”
“By the forces of the Arbiter, no less! With whom you have sided!”
“Because he has showed us the collar the Prophets put on us, one that we wore not with shame but pride for many centuries. Can you not see, brother?” Here, Bakar addressed everyone in the room who could understand his native tongue. “The greatest lie the Prophets told us was not that they were our connection to the gods, but that we were their chosen warriors. The very ones who would carry the entire Covenant into the presence of the gods.
“They played not only on our fears, but our hopes. They told us what we were so desperate to believe: that our purpose was tied up with theirs and that both our peoples would one day be divine, like the Forerunners before us.”
Bakar focused back on Dural and his warriors. “And the thought that this might not be true was so traumatic to some that they refused to admit it . . . even to this day.”
Dural stormed toward Bakar and belted his brother across the face. The blow cracked so hard it made Molly flinch several rooms away. If she had been hit like that, she’d have been knocked completely unconscious.
Bakar, though, rolled with the slap by arcing his long neck in the direction of the blow. Rather than coming up fighting, he simply stood his ground and spat dark blue blood out onto the floor.
“You presume too much!” Dural shouted in Bakar’s face. “I will not have you blaspheme our people and our legacy!”
“Yes.” Bakar’s voice was filled with barely restrained menace. He might have been keeping his cool, but not by much. “We’ve already had plenty of that.”
Dural decided the conversation was over. He turned and pointed toward two of his warriors. “Put him in restraints.”
“And if I refuse?”
Dural gestured at the warrior still holding Karl by the neck. The Sangheili gave a sharp flex of his wrist, and there was a sickening snap. Karl tumbled into a heap on the ground, dead.
“Then he will be the first of many,” Dural said.
Those in the dining hall choked in fear and then fell silent. Molly saw
tears rolling down a few faces. Karl’s brother Zeb did his best to muffle his weeping out of terror if nothing else. She spotted their friend Andres, who glared at Dural as if he could set him on fire with his eyes.
Kasha rushed forward, raging at Dural, “You animal!”
Dural nodded at her, and one of the warriors shot her with a carbine. She fell over backward, clutching at the smoking hole that had appeared in her chest.
Bakar took a step toward his brother and quickly had several weapons leveled at him. He hauled up short.
“We can execute you here if you like, right now,” Dural said. “Although I would prefer to make an example out of you in front of my entire force. It is what you deserve.”
“Will you leave then, and not harm anyone else?” Bakar said, gritting his mandibles as he looked down at the dying Kasha.
Dural snorted. “Do you not understand, Asum? I do not care about you, brother. You are only collateral. I want the Huragok, and I will keep killing these pathetic creatures until I have it.”
That’s when Molly saw Prone to Drift enter the dining hall from the far side. She cursed out loud.
CHAPTER 29
* * *
* * *
The Pale Blade was so filled with rage over his altercation with Asum that he was about to begin slaughtering everyone in the dining hall, right up until the moment the Huragok floated into the room. “Finally,” Dural ‘Mdama said. “A creature intelligent enough to show some sense.”
The Huragok seemed to have fashioned itself a makeshift communicator by means of a slate it had fixed to its underside. It tapped at it with one of its tentacles, and the slate spoke for it. Dural was impressed with this innovation, and he decided that he should have Even Keel implement such a system too.
Through the slate, the Huragok said in perfect Sangheili, “I will leave with you peacefully if you promise not to kill anyone else.”
Dural gestured at one of his warriors, and he shot a random human fledgling. The Huragok squealed in horror.
“You are not in a position to demand anything,” Dural told it.
It glanced back toward the door it had just come through, as if it had just realized it had made a terrible miscalculation. It must have understood that it had no chance. “You desire my services. I desire for them to be safe. If you injure anyone else, I will overload my collar and terminate myself. Do you understand?”
Dural wasn’t sure if a Huragok could even do that. Dural had been told that, during the war, the Covenant had locked some of them into explosive vests, but that had been less to control them than to make sure that they did not wind up in human hands. Dural wondered, Does this Huragok value its own life so little that it will put an end to itself rather than watch me slaughter fledglings?
This close to capturing the prize, Dural chose not to risk it. He could always come back and kill the rest later. “Fine. I am a warrior of my word. Come with us now, and we shall leave in peace.”
The Huragok floated toward Dural, and he had two of his warriors grab it by its tentacles to secure it. He snorted at it and at the weaklings in the room. “Your compassion for each other will be your end.”
With the Huragok secured and Asum in tow, Dural motioned for his warriors to head out. He had accomplished all that he desired for the day. Now he only needed to link back up with his main force and depart through the portal. Only then would Dural decide if the Servants should continue to rampage through the human city or call a strategic withdrawal back to the Cathedral.
Then weapons began firing outside the school. The rattle of a lone assault rifle was met by a barrage of plasma fire. Humans, Dural mouthed with disdain.
The fledglings in the room began screaming, and many of them fled the room. The adults tried to keep them calm, but they were fighting a losing battle. Most of the human rodents could think only of survival, scattering at the first opportunity to hide.
A moment later, Ruk barged into the dining hall through the shattered doors, his plasma rifle steaming hot. “A demon!” he shouted. “It has killed the others!”
As Dural cursed their luck, his remaining warriors snapped into position without needing any orders. They brought up their weapons and moved to cover every entrance to the room. The Pale Blade swelled with pride at their alacrity.
“How many are there?” he demanded of Ruk.
“Isn’t one demon enough?” Ruk, burning with shame at his retreat, refused to look Dural in the eyes. Though the Spartans were fierce warriors, his behavior was not warranted. Dural shouldered him aside as he headed for the door Ruk had just come through.
“We need to leave here now,” Dural said. “The longer we let this demon pin us down, the more likely others will show up.” He barked at the others, “Get ready to move out!”
“What about the hostages?” Ruk pointed to the handful of teachers and fledglings who remained huddled in a far corner of the room.
“Leave them!” Dural pointed toward Asum and the Huragok. “We have what we came for. It’s time to move!”
Dural grabbed Asum and wrestled his brother in front of him, using Asum’s body as a shield. Then he put his energy blade’s deactivated hilt to his brother’s throat. “If you try to escape, I will remove your head.”
To his credit, Asum did not cower at the threat. “Just stop the killing!”
Dural guided him toward the broken doorway. “That is up to the demon now.”
The Servants emerged from the dining hall and spotted the Spartan standing in the recreation yard, waiting for them. Dural realized that the human had no desire to charge into a room full of fledglings and start firing. The Spartan would have no doubt preferred a clean target, but Dural was not about to present him with that. He kept Asum firmly between the two of them instead.
“It’s all right, Bakar,” the Spartan said. “Help is on the way.”
“Stay where you are, demon,” Dural said, knowing that the Spartan’s armor had translation capabilities much like his did. “We are taking this one and the Huragok with us.”
The Huragok emerged from the building behind Dural. Ruk now held one of the creature’s tentacles in one fist, and he had his plasma rifle pressed up against its side with the other.
“I can’t let you do that,” the Spartan said.
“If you try to stop us, we will kill them both,” Dural said. “Then we will continue with as many of your people as we can here until you bring us down. If you can manage such a thing.”
The Spartan hesitated.
“Think well on this matter,” Dural said. “These two for the lives of dozens of fledglings. Is it really a difficult choice, demon?”
The Spartan cursed.
“Tom,” Asum said, using the profane human tongue. “We already agreed to this. Let them have us.”
“You’re just a kid, Bakar. You don’t get to make that decision.”
“But I have. They have already killed a couple of students. And they have shot Kasha as well.”
“She is dying,” Dural told the Spartan. “You might be able to save her—if you let us go now.”
The Spartan stood dead-still, his rifle leveled at Dural’s skull. After a long moment, he stepped to the side, but kept his weapon trained on Dural the entire time.
“All right. Go. Now.”
Dural led the way across the yard, and his warriors followed behind him. Ruk kept the Huragok under control, while Dural forced Asum to remain between him and the Spartan until they were well out of the demon’s sight.
The moment that happened, Dural called to his warriors to move faster. They raced toward the Forerunner city and the portal through which they had come.
As they moved deeper into the city, though, Dural saw that the carnage he previously ordered had turned into a battle. Smoke rose from the Forerunner structure where the portal was, and the sound of weapons fire—from human ballistics, not plasma blasts—echoed throughout the city.
“Pale Blade,” Ruk said. “It is not safe to
go this way.” Ruk had enlisted three other warriors to help him haul the Huragok along. It resisted them every step of the way.
“We have no time to go around, Ruk. We either make our way through here, or we die!” Dural said.
“We may survive it.” Ruk nodded at the Huragok. “But what of our prize?”
Dural snarled at Ruk. He did not need to be reminded that they had other priorities than their own lives. Dural shouted at the Huragok, “If you do not cease fighting us, I will kill Asum right here!”
The Huragok spoke in flawless Sangheili, “Threatening our lives if we do not move toward certain death is not an effective coercion technique.” As much of a fight as it was putting up with Dural’s warriors, its electronic voice showed no strain.
“He is correct,” Asum said.
In a fit of rage, Dural struck his brother on the side of his head.
Then Dural called a halt and glared at the creature. He turned and looked back out at the battle heating up in front of them. Lines of his warriors were streaming back toward the structure and escaping into the portal there. They were following Dural’s orders, but he could already see that he would not be able to join them, due to the encroaching waves of human soldiers. Even if he managed to bore through the human lines, the Huragok would likely be killed.
There has to be a better way.
Then he realized that there was.
Dural signaled for his warriors to follow him as he swung the vanguard about and headed in a different direction, toward a dense patch of foliage that girded the nearby lake. “We will head for the hangar in which we first spotted this creature,” Dural said.
“The Repository?” the Huragok asked. It had ceased pulling back against Dural’s warriors now that he had changed plans.
“There is no need to kill ourselves by trying to leave here via the same route as the rest of my warriors when you can activate the portal system for us someplace else.”