It didn’t matter. Her cloak might stop her attacker. The girl. The girl was all that mattered right then. She had to stop them, had to help her.
Too late, she realized like a knife in the chest as she reached out to telekinetically yank the girl out of harm’s way and the leading berserker raised his club. She was too late.
Then Alton Parker sprang in and plowed the two nearest berserkers aside. The third, he swatted away almost as an afterthought, then he scooped up the girl and leapt back toward the overturned truck, where he handed her trembling form to a battered but steady-looking Pryce. And not a moment too soon.
The instant after Alton had handed over the girl and stepped back to the battle, a green-hided raknoth caught him in a tackle that drove both of them clean through the wall of the adjacent apartment building.
Relief for the girl. Surprisingly genuine worry for Alton. Rachel barely had time for a flicker of each before a strong arm slipped around her throat and yanked.
She coughed and struggled wildly, panic gripping her chest. He clamped a rough hand over her face, nails digging painfully in.
Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t …
The mass on her back gave a violent jerk, and then it was shifting, rolling off her, leaving her mercifully free to gasp for air and scramble to her feet.
“You okay?” someone asked.
A touch on her shoulder nearly made her jump and swing her staff.
The berserker who’d had her throat flailed weakly on the pavement. The young Resistance soldier who’d clubbed him off her back was watching her with uncertainty in his eyes.
Rachel looked around, the world coming back into some manner of reason—minus the utter chaos all around them, of course. She spotted Pryce beside his overturned truck, posted defensively in front of the cowering girl, hefting a heavy-duty stun rod, and turned back to the waiting soldier.
“I’m … I’m good. Thanks for the hand.”
He looked a little confused by her words, almost as if he wasn’t quite sure it had actually been him who’d helped her and not the other way around.
She didn’t have time to dwell on it as she remembered what she’d been doing before the scream. That was when she caught sight of Jarek on the rooftop above.
He was moving fast, charging along from one rooftop to the next, bound straight for green-gray Zar’Taga and—
Shit.
He was also about to be outnumbered—two of Taga’s clan racing to intersect Jarek before he could reach their Zar.
Rachel’s mind was doing its own racing trying to figure how to get up there in time to help when she noticed Drogan rising to the occasion. Literally.
The raknoth leapt from the chaos below and crested the rooftop just in time to snag Jarek’s lead pursuer by the collar and trip the other with a well-timed kick. The rear raknoth stumbled into his partner, and, with a violent jerk, Drogan hurled the pair of them to the street below.
Rachel paid little attention to their furious roars and started forward to get in range to help as Jarek closed on Zar’Taga.
It was over before she could.
Jarek was maybe twenty feet from concluding his headlong charge at Taga when he tripped. Rachel’s stomach lurched with him as his hands shot wide for balance, his sword angled uselessly toward the ground, his stutter-step recovery too little, too late.
Taga struck like a cunning viper, lunging for Jarek at the exact moment he was planting his weight, anchoring himself like a bright red bullseye in his attempt to regain control.
Except Jarek didn’t plant his weight. He extended his rear leg and launched into a rolling dive, skirting just clear of Taga’s claws, out of Rachel’s sight.
And leaving the way clear for a dive-bombing Drogan.
Rachel hadn’t noticed the raknoth leap from where he’d detoured Jarek’s pursuers. Apparently, neither had Zar’Taga.
Drogan plummeted at Taga like a two-footed wrecking ball.
It didn’t appear to make physical sense, the way Drogan drew to a sudden, smacking halt when they met, each raknoth so tremendously strong that Drogan simply froze on Taga’s raised arms as if they were two rigid metal statues rather than living bodies. Rachel was half-surprised the impact didn’t collapse the roof in.
Zar’Taga roared at Drogan, a terrible, voluminous roar that silenced half the battlefield below as everyone looked to see what manner of creature was capable of producing such a sound.
So it was that hundreds were watching as Drogan dismounted with a tight flip and Jarek appeared on Taga’s flank.
Somewhere, a raknoth shrieked what might’ve been a warning.
Taga whirled.
Jarek struck.
A quick swipe and a flash of azure, and then Taga’s body was falling limply to the rooftop, and Drogan was catching the raknoth’s toppling head and thrusting it skyward with a roar nearly as mighty as Taga’s had been.
The remaining sounds of fighting dimmed with surprising suddenness as the fallen Zar’s clan turned their collective attention to Drogan’s dominant display and realized what had happened.
“I think we have their attention,” came Jarek’s quiet voice in Rachel’s earpiece. Above, he was looking down on the crowd, sword rested over his shoulder. “Think you can catch my armored ass? I always wanted to make a dramatic entrance.”
Rachel ran through a rough estimate as she closed within a more manageable range to his rooftop perch. Catching a man from that high would be unpleasant. Add the exo, and she was looking at shaky knees at the very least. But this standstill was infinitely preferable to the madness that had preceded it, and she assumed Jarek had a plan for prolonging it—maybe even putting a stop to the fight altogether.
Or she wanted to assume, at least.
“I’ll do you one better,” she said quietly, drawing to a halt roughly below him.
“That’s my Goldilocks.”
And with that, Jarek hopped off the four story rooftop as casually as if he were merely skipping a last step.
Rachel braced herself and focused.
It wasn’t the easiest of conversions to hold intact in one’s mind, especially not with Jarek’s trust—not to mention his plummeting physical bulk—looming over her, but she held tight and, in the moment before he touched down, opened the channel.
From what valuable lessons he’d learned from his extensive cinematic studies over the years, Jarek was relatively certain frightened cries were not to be found on the features list of dramatic entrances, yet that’s nearly what escaped him as the hard pavement raced up to meet him without any noticeable hesitation.
Part of him couldn’t help but tense in preparation to try to salvage the fall—not to mention his femurs and other assorted, currently intact pieces—with a haphazard roll.
He refrained, trusting in Rachel, who was watching him just below with a deeply furrowed brow.
Mercifully, in the final second of the fall, he felt it—the telekinetic support harness that was simply there one moment and yanking up on his tightly clenched, armored backside like giant air brakes the next.
Of notable impressiveness was the way he was able to land beside Rachel from the four story drop with barely a bend to his knees. Of exceptional badassery was the sonorous boom that split the air around them as he did so, easily on par with a good thunderclap.
Rachel had promised one better than simply catching him, and she’d delivered.
A second later, Drogan completed the theatrics when he slammed down beside them with a sound of pulverized pavement Jarek felt through his own feet and knees. The raknoth was still holding Taga’s head.
Dramatic entrance achieved, then.
Jarek stood slowly, brandished his deactivated sword through a pair of tight arcs, and strapped it to his back, looking around at the silent armies of Resistance troops and disturbingly still civilians that surrounded them. The sprawling crowd seemed caught between breaths, the Resistance troops watching them intently, waiting to see wh
at they’d do, and the all-too-recently violent civilians simply gazing distantly, like robots awaiting further direction from their remaining raknoth overlords, who mostly lurked on the high ground, watching Drogan, Rachel, and Jarek with burning red eyes.
“Right then …” Jarek said, speaking loudly enough to be heard for some distance in the tense silence gripping the street. “Now, normally, this would be the part where I’d be tempted to ask why we can’t all just get along here.”
Judging from the immediate rustles and the outpouring of verbal discontent, that idea was about as popular as scrotum-kick Sundays on both sides.
“But!” Jarek cried, employing Fela’s speakers to boost his voice to loudspeaker status. He raised his hands for peace in the momentary lull in outraged noises. “But, I think it’s safe to say that’s abso-fucking-lutely out of the picture for this crowd right now.”
“Goddamn right it is!” one of the Resistance women shouted, to several hearty agreements and hell yeahs.
Jarek hooked a thumb in their direction, mind searching frantically for the right words. “Right. So the question I’ll ask you all instead is …”
Is what?
The three raknoth he could see in the crowd shifted impatiently, red eyes hungry. To his left, several Resistance troops made similar movements.
This armistice would break at any moment.
Christ, what had he been thinking, throwing himself down between two armies, expecting to just talk them all out of a crisis? When had he ever talked anyone out of anything?
He glanced back and found Alaric watching him with an unreadable expression, probably wondering the same damn thing. Nevertheless, the wiry commander cocked his head and gave a roll of his fingers, suggesting Jarek figure it out all the same—and sooner than later.
So Jarek raised his hands to the crowd in a querying gesture and went with the question in his mind.
“Do you all wanna die? Or just most of you?”
Growls and mutters from left and right promptly indicated that the only person the crowd might unanimously wish death for at the moment was Jarek himself.
Beside him, Drogan directed a low but impressive growl at his kin that sounded more or less like raknoth speak for shut the hell up.
“We all know what’s coming after Kul’Gada,” Jarek called. “And even if we survive today, we know what’s in store for us when they get here, whether you’re mortal or not.” He turned more directly toward the nearest enemy raknoth and pointed at Taga’s severed head, still hanging from Drogan’s hand. “Whatever this guy told you, I’m betting most of you realize that somewhere deep down in your scaly little hearts.”
For a long moment, silence prevailed.
Then the raknoth Jarek had addressed snarled and stepped forward, looking around at his kin. “Cursed void, are any of you truly listening to a human where the masters are concer—”
Taga’s severed head struck the speaker square in the temple. He shook his head and looked down at the morbid missile in shock, then rounded back toward them with a furious roar.
Drogan’s counter roar was louder and, if Jarek’s judgment was reliable, several notches higher on the pants-wetting scale.
“These two humans have survived direct combat with one of the Kul,” Drogan called. “As have I. And I tell you all now, regardless of what Kul’Gada has promised, the masters will not forgive our deception. They will not stop until every sentient life on this planet has been obliterated.”
The raknoth looked at each other uncertainly. Considering?
“They’re only coming here because of you!”
The shout came from the Resistance ranks, a sharp stomp to the inkling of hope that had teased at Jarek’s chest. Several more followed it, emboldened by their fellow soldier’s courage.
“You brought this shit to our doorstep!”
“—ruined our planet!”
“—killed my family!”
“Why the fuck should we trust you?”
It spread like a flash fire of malicious will, weapon grips and trigger fingers tightening throughout the Resistance ranks, soldiers shifting for a fight, some taking aim.
Across from them, raknoth growls rumbled through the street, and several of the enthralled civilians were tensing out of their vacant stupors, baring teeth and wild eyes.
“Hey!” Jarek called, raising hands for order.
But no one was listening now. The violence was back in the air, simmering, ready to boil over. Jarek looked to Alaric in desperation.
The commander met his gaze, the slightest arch creeping over Alaric’s brow, as if to say, Well? What’s next, genius?
Jarek knew better than to think this was some kind of game to the Resistance commander. There was only so far Alaric could yank the crowd sentiment with his authority. His hands were tied, or more tied than Jarek’s at least.
We need leaders, Alaric had said on that night in medical. Ones who can inspire by example, who look before they leap and actually give half a rat’s ass about the men and women fighting beside them.
So maybe looking before he leapt wasn’t Jarek’s strong suit. That was clear enough. And maybe he didn’t know any of these men and women well enough to give that rat’s ass about them in any meaningful way beyond a general desire to see them make it through this mess.
But he could be an example—could show them just how desperately they were already clinging to the fringes of survival, standing here fighting amongst themselves while Gada marched to destroy their only real allies.
“Fine,” Jarek said, more to himself than anyone else.
He glanced between the two groups, a light stone’s throw from erupting back into full-on battle. He waited to recognize his harebrained inspiration for the blatantly obvious insanity it was.
But there was nothing else. No more time.
“Fine!”
Jarek yelled the word this time, loud enough to buy a moment’s attention.
Now or never.
They could accept that they were all in this together, lower their weapons, and start marching for the real enemy side-by-side, or they could all die—maybe not today, but soon. Those were the only options.
Together, they had a fighting chance.
Fighting amongst themselves, they were already dead.
So, with a careful thought, he sent Fela the command to convince them all the only way he could think to.
“Sir …” Al said quietly, no doubt sensing his intention.
He said nothing, only held the command in mind.
And with a series of pops, clicks, and whirs, Fela snapped open, and Jarek stepped out onto the battlefield, butt-ass naked.
Judging by the sea of surprised murmurs and poorly covered laughs rippling through the Resistance army, and the single cry of, “What the fuck, dude?” that was one way to hold a crowd’s attention. Even some of the raknoth looked surprised, and a couple amused.
Jarek’s idea of keeping his hands clutched protectively over his manhood lasted all of two seconds before it struck him that any show of humility or decency was probably well beyond concern at that point. So he raised his hands high and bared it all for anyone who cared to look.
“There you go!” he cried. “No more suit.” He gestured to the Resistance. “You wanna shoot my stupid ass?” Then to the raknoth. “You wanna tear my throat out and drink the blood of this presumptuous raknoth killer?”
He thrust his hands and face skyward. “DO IT, MOTHERFUCKERS!”
It took all of his willpower to stand there like that, eyes closed, utterly vulnerable and unable to see any of the thousand potential threats coming. Some corner of his mind pointed out that Fela was still nearby and that Rachel would probably protect him if anyone took him up on his generous offer, but neither of those things really offset the feeling of dangling loose right between two pissed off armies.
When he tilted his head back down and allowed himself to look again, though, they were watching him, some curious, some clearly
of the mind that he’d lost every iota of sanity he’d ever been graced with.
He nodded, feeding on their disbelief, willing them to see his conviction. “That’s right! Put me out of my misery now, because I’m willing to bet my life on the fact that if we don’t get our shit together and get up to Camp Krogoth right now, we’re all gonna be dead within the week anyway.”
The raknoth watched in silent stillness, whatever surprise and amusement had been on their reptilian features fading to neutral thoughtfulness.
On the other side, Jarek saw some of that thoughtfulness mirrored in the Resistance ranks, albeit with a good deal more skepticism.
“How are we ever supposed to trust them after this shit?” someone finally called from the Resistance line. “After everything they’ve done?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?
He should’ve taken heart that, for the first time in the tense standstill, someone at least seemed to be asking it with a genuine tone rather than a rhetorical one—that clearly neither side truly wanted this fight.
But what answer could he possibly give?
If survival wasn’t enough, what else was there?
If he’d known the answer to that question, he and Rachel wouldn’t have ended up in rough waters in the first place.
But apparently that was Rachel’s cue, because, before Jarek could even try to keep the momentum going, she was standing there next to his pasty nakedness, and some of those expectant eyes were starting to shift from him to her.
“We’ll trust them by remembering the actions of their people aren’t always their own,” she called.
The sound of crumbling brick caught the assembly’s attention. Jarek turned to see Alton Parker hop down to the street from a large hole in the wall of a nearby building, an odd limp in his step and a wary look in his eyes as he glanced at the equally battered raknoth who emerged beside him.
The minute nod Alton gave Rachel was odd enough, but Jarek was shocked when she solemnly returned the gesture.
Apparently he’d missed something between the two of them.
“We’ll trust them by understanding that none of this violence was bred in a vacuum,” Rachel continued. “That we humans took our shots too before all of this, before the Catastrophe.”
Reaping Day: Book Three of the Harvesters Series Page 26