A Warrior's Sacrifice

by Ross Winkler

  Tearing the useless helmet from Its head, Kavin stalked forward, drawing Its sword to make sure that the Maharatha was dead.

  In darkness, Corwin dreamed. He was back, almost fifteen years earlier and a continent away from that snowy plain where he lay. He was in a thick forest, the sun setting to dusk. The crickets were waking up, the other daytime insects not yet asleep, and birds chirped and flitted overhead. Corwin watched from where his aunt held him, the faces of his other family members, Warriors all, wary as they eyed the Choxen across the battle ring.

  The swords rang in the summer air as they danced and parried. His mother twisted within the combat circle, whirling, baiting, enticing the Choxen leader to strike and open Itself up to counterattack. But the clone counter baited, attempting to lure just the same, each of them parrying with body positions along with their swords when one or the other made a mistake – or not. His mother was about to win!

  Then the killing started.

  Rifles spat death from the forest, rending Human and Choxen flesh alike. Corwin's aunt fell dead atop him, and he had to push and shove her off, his chest and shirt slick and hot with familial blood. His family fired back, but surprise wasn't on their side, and they died even as his mother and the Choxen leader fought on, oblivious, in the center.

  Corwin was free, crawling on hands and knees as bullets cracked overhead like peels of thunder. Somehow he found his brother crawling among the dead and the dying, and together they fled towards the safety of the trees. Corwin looked back over his shoulder in time to see his mother win, slicing a half-circle on the clone's face from forehead to chin, the Choxen stumbling to Its knees.

  She became aware of the battle cries then, the chaos that swirled around her in storms of death. Her focus broken, she did not force the Choxen to yield, and, seizing the opportunity, It struck upward, lopping her in half.

  That was all Corwin had seen before his brother pulled him up to his feet and they ran into the forest. They fell together onto the rough roots of a tree and pressed themselves into the burrow beneath.

  Corwin knew what should have come next: his brother's face would appear above him, blocking out the tree's leaves, telling him to "Get up! Run!" Then he'd pull his knife, and an armored hand would snatch him away.

  But that was not what happened. A different face appeared, an older face, scarred, sneering, and above It, not trees but long winding swirls of blue-green aurora light that covered the dome of sky, casting itself onto the snowladen world below.

  "You are awake," the face said. "I have the pleasure of Subjugating you myself, Human."

  Corwin struggled for his pistol, but Kavin had already kicked it away, his sword following it into the night.

  Kavin raised Its sword, point aimed down at Corwin's chest.

  Corwin welcomed it: the end. He relaxed, let go of everything: his hate, his fear, the guilt that had ridden him like a demanding taskmaster for his entire life inside the Republic. He was weightless now.

  As those layers came free, something deep down and buried sprang to life. It was more than the urge to survive. It was right to life that he had denied himself for all this time.

  In that moment, too, as his bindings came loose, time slowed down. Corwin looked at his killer, the Choxen that would — that had — set him free. Corwin's eyes traced the scars of the alien face, a face like all the others, but different, given character and personality by Its scars.

  Its scars.

  Pieces of a puzzle — long ago started but never finished — clicked into place. That half-moon scar, a wound given by a female Quisling long ago. Corwin realized now what he had when he first started this chase, when the reptile part of his brain had driven him to abandon his post and the only friends he had: this Choxen had started it all.

  The blade flashed down.

  Corwin was ready. He rolled sideways and twisted, sitting up and out of the way, screaming in pain as broken ribs punctured skin. The blade slammed up to the hilt in the snowy earth. Corwin wrapped his feet into Kavin's — pulling with one, pushing with the other — to lock the Choxen's knee.

  Kavin stumbled, releasing the sword to avoid breaking Its leg. Corwin was on his feet, diving forward to catch Kavin in the armored stomach with his own armored shoulder. Kavin's armor cracked under the assault, and they tumbled to the ground, rolling and throwing snow into the air.

  They punched, kicked, screamed as they struggled, each jockeying for position over the other. A lucky blow landed on Kavin's chin, Its head snapping to the side, Its eyes rolling to give Corwin time for a second strike, then a third.

  Kavin crumpled sideways, barely conscious, and Corwin let the Choxen fall. He returned to the sight of his own freedom and slid the sword from the ground. Kavin had begun to collect Itself, one arm pulled up under Its body in a feeble attempt to rise.

  Corwin kicked the arm out from under It, and the Choxen fell back to the ground with a grunt.

  Taking the sword in a reverse grip, Corwin stepped onto the Choxen's arms, pinning It in place. He lowered the tip of the blade into the chink of the alien's armor where arm met torso, and slid the blade in.

  He twisted the blade.

  Kavin's eyes sprang open, air hissing between broken and bloody teeth as Its shoulder separated. There was pain, agony, but there was a bit of pleasure, too, a growing sense of finality for the Choxen that perhaps It had finally met Its match. It had engaged in ritual, and here, now, at long last It was about to lose. Kavin smiled as best It could through spasms of orgasmic pain.

  "You…" Corwin said.

  "Ma-Maharatha," Kavin said, blood bubbling from split lips.

  "You did this to me. You started this, all of this," Corwin said. The freedom he'd felt earlier was gone, replaced by a hardness of soul. "Do you know who I am?"

  "Human," said the Choxen.

  "No." Corwin withdrew his sword and placed it at the same location on the opposite shoulder. He fell, dropping to his knees and driving the sword up to the hilt, everything, including the earth, giving way.

  Their faces hovered centimeters from each other now, two monsters separated only by a monstrous mask. A mental command withdrew Corwin's black visor. Cold air rushed into the void. "Do you recognize me now?"

  "Just … Human," Kavin said again. It was getting hard to think; the pain and pleasure were equal parts unbearable.

  "Remember the duel you fought for a little Quisling boy? A battle where you earned that scar?" Corwin traced an armored finger along Its marred flesh.

  Kavin understood now too. This is what It had sensed within the Śeṣanāga, this moment of impending Schism or Accession. "You are that boy … Corwin." It elongated the first syllable of his name; it sounded like wind blowing through a graveyard.

  "Yes, you wickt!" Corwin screamed in Kavin's face. He reached down and took hold of the Choxen's armor, pulled It upward, though one shoulder was still pinned in place. "Why couldn't you have left me alone?"

  "I saw greatness in you." Kavin's eyes rolled. Corwin shook It. Kavin groaned. "I wanted you for myself. To twist you. To make you Choxen."

  Corwin let go. Kavin hit the ground with a pained grunt and bloody gurgle. Corwin withdrew the sword from its bloody sheath, aimed the point at Kavin's throat. "You did this to me. It's been you all along. You took everything from me … my family … you took Phae."

  Kavin smiled. "I have made you into the perfect Choxen."

  "I am nothing like the Choxen."

  "I see it in your eyes, Corwin. I taste it in the air around you. You are dead inside. You have done things, terrible things. You are callous and uncaring. You are perfect."

  "Wh-what? No, I…" Corwin trailed off as memories surfaced again from the depths. Near ones first: his careless burial of Phae, of the woman he loved; cutting up that child; alienation; fighting, killing, maiming. Back farther, too, when he'd first been brought to the Republic crèches, he'd hurt other children then, beaten them to show that they were weak and he was strong.

&nb
sp; Corwin was lost again, memories long repressed taking him unaware and obscuring reality. He was distracted, and so he missed the ripple in the air that foretold danger.

  Kavin saw it, watched the ripple descend from the inky heavens, warping and twisting the spectral colors of the auroral lights above.

  With a giant's hand, a shockwave slapped the earth. Snow and rocks and ice flew outward, tumbling together with two partially alive Sentients as they sailed through the air.

  An alien ship appeared in the night. It changed depending on which way one observed it, from one direction massive, from another no more than two meters high. It was not of sleek design, either. It bristled like a porcupine under threat, yet those quills were at the same time sharp and squared like the ends of quartz crystals. The angles were wrong, outward slopes meeting to create inward vertices.

  It hovered above the land, shifting, sliding, yet not moving and four thin — thick? — legs protruded to settle the lumbering ship, the svelte vessel, to the ground. A serpentine walkway distended, hard and straight, down to the snow-dusted earth, and from a circular door with square edges, a monster stepped.

  Kavin rolled groggy eyes skyward and beheld the glorious ship and the physical form of a Creator. The ground gave way beneath Its thunderous footsteps. It wore no clothing, no armor, for It was Itself armored and protected by layers of chitinous plates interwoven and hammered hard by battle and the Subjugation ritual with others of Its species. Each of the four arms that jutted from Its massive torso were capped with a hand consisting of three serrated pincers.

  Its neck was nonexistent, a hollow space ringed around by gnarled, intergrown spikes that looked like an inverted crown. The head seemed disproportionately small compared with the rest of Its body, the result of the Siloth's adaptation abilities. This Siloth was a Warrior, and what need did a Warrior have of brains when the Thinkers and their massive craniums controlled everything from up above?

  Tusks protruding from either side of the Siloth's mouth curved so they pointed outward, stained brown with the blood of the gored. The mouth, small as it was, resembled a squid's sharp beak, the entire mouthpiece moving as it tasted the air, licked at battle. The top of Its head was dome-like, and Its three eyes, no more than slits in Its solid armor, seemed to glow with umber light.

  The Creator spoke, thunderous. "Where are you, servant?"

  Kavin struggled to Its feet. "Here!" It slogged forward through the debris field, each step agony as Its arms flapped useless at Its side. It ran forward, throwing Itself on the ground before the mighty.

  "I taste battle, blood," It said with the sound of imploding stars.

  "It is so, Creator. Your humble servant fought and defeated an enemy of the Creators: a Maharatha."

  The Siloth clacked Its beak, struck Its chest with uppermost arms. "Find It."

  Kavin lurched to Its feet again, jogged across the blasted field until the darkness of unconsciousness encroached on Its vision. It found Corwin at last, just one arm protruding from the ground like a stunted tree.

  "Here! Here, Creator!"

  The Siloth approached, unhurried, to where Kavin had once again pressed Itself into the snow. The Siloth reached down and lifted Corwin into the air with one of Its lower arms, snuffed again, Its mouth working in quick clacks. "A heart yet beats inside this shell. It shall accompany us on our flight: I tire of lifeless rations."

  The Siloth turned, lowering the arm that held Corwin until he dragged on the rocky ground like a rag doll towed behind a heedless child.

  "Come, servant. Bring yourself and the Śeṣanāga."

  Corwin came to, aware that he was moving, aware also of the grating pain in his side and the roughness of the ground beneath him. He could fight, struggle in vain against this titan's grip, but he knew it would be no use. Without a sword or any other weapon, Corwin could not break free. And truly, now, as he faced certain death, he didn't care to. Blood loss had stripped him of his strength, and his own psyche had cut away what remained of his Humanity.

  The Siloth stopped, two meters from that straight and twisting walkway into the ship. It snuffed the air, head turning, swinging Its tusks and beak side to side. "There are more. More heartbeats."

  Corwin sensed it too, dyzued familiar presences about him just moments before chaos erupted at the base of the alien ship. The arm that clutched Corwin's leg exploded at the elbow joint, spraying gore and viscera, pelting Corwin's exposed face with shards of chitin armor. He fell to the ground, blacking out as his broken ribs ground together again.

  The Siloth rounded, screaming out black holes that shook the earth. Flailing Its amputated arm, It raised a foot, talons flashing, to crush what little life remained in Corwin. Heat shimmered through the frozen air as a charging bear of a Variant lowered his shoulder and rammed into the Siloth's side.

  Kai's sword was out, and as he pushed with his shoulder, he stabbed and sliced, puncturing the three-meter tall Siloth's stomach armor. On one foot, the Siloth could not correct Itself in time, and It lifted into the air, both Sentients tumbling to the ground with earth-shaking force.

  Kavin groped for a weapon of Its own, and finding none, bolted towards the ship with the vain thought that perhaps It could fly away to safety.

  Two hundred meters away, a wraith with a sniper rifle took careful aim for her second shot. Her suit's computer adjusted for wind, gravity, and the upward slope of the ship's ramp. She exhaled, held her breath, sighted through the maelstrom of moving bodies. Chahal listened to her heartbeat.

  She fired in the calm space between.

  Three entire heartbeats it took for the bullet to sail through the air, but it found its mark at the base of the Choxen's skull.

  She stood from her prone position and jogged towards the still-raging battle. She took her time; she was confident that it would be over well before she arrived.

  As a headless body fell up the ramp, a heat shadow jumped onto it from the side and ducked into the ship.

  Hadil was ready for close quarters combat, her sword in one hand, pistol in the other. Despite its outward appearance, the vessel was quite small, no more than thirty meters nose to stern, twenty meters tall and twenty wide. This was a light recon ship, designed for stealth and missions behind enemy lines.

  There wasn't a crew inside the ship per se; a pseudo-sentient sat at a chair near the forward controls. It was a small creature, no more than forty-five centimeters tall, and all of its muscles had atrophied. It stared out of two bulging fish eyes, but it did not see; several wires attached to feeds on its temples provided all the sensory information that the Siloth overlords deemed it needed. Feeding and excrement tubes snaked into and out of the nigh lifeless body.

  This was the true pilot of the ship, a living computer in a biological casing. Hadil's lips curled in disgust. Of course the Siloth would engineer an entire race of beings just so they wouldn't need to fly their own ships. With a swipe of her sword, she cut the creature's head in two and swept the gelatinous mess from the chair.

  Sitting down, she stared at the long bank of cuneiform symbols, trying to dredge up what she'd learned about flying enemy craft at the Academy.

  Outside, Kai struggled. Their plan had changed once they'd picked up the presence of the Siloth ship; add to that the fact that Corwin was still alive, and Kai only had one recourse.

  Kai deflected a blow, slicing another arm. The Siloth lunged forward, razor tusks reaching out to impale him. Kai jumped back, sweeping his sword forward, and the tusks went flying, blood spurting into the air after.

  The Siloth reared back, and Kai threw himself into the space, narrowly escaping the arms that crashed together where he'd stood. He took his sword with both hands and drove it upward. The Droth metal sword pierced the Siloth's breastplate and slid upward into the creature's head and out the top.

  The Siloth gargled a scream and clapped one of Its remaining hands to Its head. As It convulsed, Its other arm swept Kai off his feet and flung him ten meters away. Kai found himself
on his back, sword still in hand. He stared into the sky, where the aurora had slackened to bare wisps of color, and behind, a thin sliver of moon arose amid a field of stars.

  Groaning, Kai climbed to his feet, ready for another round, and relaxed. The Siloth still flailed, but there was no mind behind the movements. It stumbled and attacked nothing, the body not yet aware that it was dead.

  Kai jogged back, pausing only to pick up one of the severed tusks as proof of what they'd done. The Siloth fought on, attacking the night, stomping away into the cold darkness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The three remaining Maharatha gathered above their unconscious comrade. Corwin lay still as his blood and life ebbed away.

  "So," Kai asked the others, "what do we do about him?" He nudged Corwin with an armored toe.

  "We can't leave him to die," Chahal said.

  "We sure as wickt can," Hadil said. "He left us unguarded for hours before we woke up. He tried to kill us."

  Kai nodded in agreement.

  "No. No. He didn't try to kill us, he made a bad call. There's a difference." Chahal frowned down at her Void Commander. "Though he was a wickt for making it. Besides, our suits have registered his life signs. The Techs can pull that information out later."

  "There are ways around that," Hadil said.

  "If we take him, we need to put in to have him demoted," Kai said. The two Humans looked at him, nodded. Kai shrugged. "If he did it once, he'll do it again."

  Hadil turned. "You've known him longer. It's up to you two. Either way you go, I'll back you, and sure as wickt I'm going to put in for a transfer away from you three." She stomped up the ramp into the ship.

  "Kai, we need to save him."

  Kai folded his arms. "We don't need to do any such thing. He abandoned us out there, Chahal. Why are you showing him such loyalty when he didn't give us the same?"

  She shrugged. "I agree, he showed us no loyalty, and we need to have him demoted, get him out of a leadership position for our sake and the next Maharatha down the line. But…" She took Kai by the arm and led him away from Corwin's unconscious body.