And each bolt he powered so brightly drained him, exhausting him more quickly. She had seen her father shoot seven, even eight bolts before lagging. But that was in his practice. In reality, he rarely needed more than two or three.
In this reality, with this rock, it was going to take more. Maybe a lot more.
After the fourth shot she saw the slowing, the lag before he reached for the next bolt, the slight delay before it began to glow, and the longer hum before the flashbow was ready. The weapon was inseparable from its master, and useless without him. It drew its energy from him, and each firing left the warrior a little weaker.
He would need recovery time after he got them through this, she thought. It was not something she’d seen herself, but she had heard often enough the tale of his rescue of Denpar, and how he had, in fact, died from firing so many times, and was brought back only by the power of the bow itself.
The very thought made her shiver. Yes, the chance of dying left no room for petty anger.
After the fifth shot the pause was longer, and she saw he was breathing heavily. Finally he reached for the next bolt, fumbling slightly.
It struck her then, with the sharpness of a blow—what he’d wanted to spare her and what she might yet spare him.
“Here,” she said, shoving the flarelight at Lyon.
She darted forward, tugged the bolt free of his boot. The instant she touched it it began to glow, more quickly than with her father, since her energy was fresh.
She felt him go still.
“Will it work?”
“I . . . don’t know.”
So he didn’t know if bolts charged by one warrior would fire for another.
“Worth trying,” she said. “As long as it doesn’t get in a fume and blow us all up.”
“I was more afraid of that from you,” he said, steadier now.
She met his gaze then. “Not now,” she said. And handed him the glowing bolt.
For a split second her father’s jade green eyes stayed on her. The eyes that were yet another legacy from him.
And then he lifted the bow. It hummed. And he fired.
Again she charged the next bolt. He seemed to be moving faster again, as if not having to charge the bolt saved more for the firing. But the rock was so dense he was gaining only about two feet per shot. At that rate, it would take two more to get through. And that was if Rina’s calculation was exact. But then, she always was.
She could feel the drain herself, just from charging the bolts. She could only imagine what he must be feeling.
He fired again. Wobbled. And then again. This time he staggered, and Shaina jumped to steady him. She hesitated before grabbing the eighth bolt. He needed rest.
“Do it,” he rasped out.
Reluctantly, she took the next bolt. When it was glowing, she slid it into the groove of the flashbow herself. Notched the string. Flipped the lever. Left only the firing to him, hoping it would save him enough.
“Wait!”
Lyon’s shout rang out, startling them both. And suddenly the flarelight went out, leaving them in pitch blackness.
Almost.
With a gasp, Shaina noticed the tiny prick of light just above the target zone.
Light. From outside.
They were through.
Lyon ran past them, dug at the area around the light. The pinhole grew larger. He crouched and grabbed a heavy, pointed stone and began to hammer at the hole. It began to crumble. And then a full beam of light shot through into the cave, highlighting her father as if aimed.
“It’s done,” she said to her father. He was still dazed. She could see now the hollow look of his eyes, the sweat on his face, the paleness of his usually golden skin. She realized she had never had any idea of the true cost of who and what he was.
He sank slowly to his knees, his breathing heavy, harsh. The flashbow clattered to the stone floor as he toppled over. With a cry Shaina knelt beside him.
Lyon ran back. “Is he all right?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her chest so tight she was nearly gasping as her father was. “He needs to rest.”
For a moment Lyon looked at them. “Stay with him. I’ll scout what’s outside.”
“Lyon—”
“You need to be with him. I’ll be back.”
She nodded then. Lyon kissed her, fleetingly, but it was full of more promise than she’d ever imagined. Then he was gone, through the opening they had made.
Gradually her father’s breathing slowed. She put her arms around him as if she could transfer her own strength. Who knew what really was possible between flashbow warriors? She gave him water from her own pack, and he drank without questioning, without even seeming to realize what was happening.
After a few minutes, she saw awareness come back into his eyes. “Shaina?”
“It’s all right. Just rest.”
He closed his eyes. She looked at him, thought of her mother, watching him fire the bow unto death, and thought that although she had always loved and admired them both, she had never quite respected enough what they had gone through. They had been through worse than this, then fought their way across a galaxy to get home, and then fought for Trios ever since. And now again they were looking at war, and again they had risen to the challenge.
She wondered if her mother could sense his weakness, if she somehow knew. She always seemed to—
A scrape across stone interrupted her thoughts. Lyon, back so soon? She turned toward the new opening.
She smothered a sound of dread. A dark, cloaked shadow stood silhouetted by the light. She could see nothing of his face. But she knew.
Mordred.
Chapter 49
“AH-AH-AH.” THE man who had nearly destroyed her world said it cheerfully, wiggling his disrupter at the downed Dax as Shaina made a move toward her own weapon. She stopped. Her father was still groggy, barely aware.
“And the gods smile at last,” Mordred said, booming it out as if he were giving a sermon. He walked toward them, a slow, arrogant strut. Yet she saw a slight limp, saw the blackened spots on his clothing and his skin, saw even more of his lank hair singed. And there was a sort of a burned smell around him that made her nose curl. From throwing himself futilely at the screen, she guessed.
“Both of you,” Mordred said with a smile so pleased it made Shaina’s stomach churn. “And the famous warrior down already. I shall be the toast of the system. Of all systems!”
Shaina sucked in a breath. Both? Only two? Lyon had gotten clear, then. Out of reach before this rabid flymouse had dropped in on them.
“I wouldn’t drink that toast too soon,” she said, crouching in front of her father.
“How touching,” Mordred drawled. He waved the disrupter again. “Back away.”
“Go to Hades.”
He laughed. It was an awful, cackling sound.
“Do it, or I’ll shoot him right now.”
She opened her mouth to repeat her words. He fired. Her father’s body jerked, and he made a low sound. The sleeve of his shirt was blackened, his left shoulder bleeding.
“Next one will take out his heart,” Mordred promised. “Now back away.”
She had no choice. Slowly she moved backward, her eyes darting around, her mind racing, looking for a way out of this.
“You can’t escape me. I can’t wait to see you as a collared slave. It’s always a pleasure to see the spirited ones broken.”
“At least I’m safe from you. You prey on little girls, isn’t that right, you twisted piece of—”
He shot her father again. This time in the ribs, and the pain jolted him to awareness. She saw his eyes open, then close again.
She also saw Mordred nudge the power lever on the disruptor up to the red zo
ne. If he fired again, it would be lethal. Distracting him with taunts had obviously not been the right course. But she had to do something.
Mordred moved closer, peering at her father with interest, but angling so that he could watch her, too.
“So it is true, what I’ve heard,” he murmured. “Using that thing drains him. How convenient for me.”
She had to get him away from her father.
“How did you get here?” she asked, hoping his pride would make him answer. Anything to keep him from firing that last shot. “How did you get past the screen?”
“Past it? It is still here, we are still within it. Quite remarkable. The Coalition must have the technology. I simply went over the mountain,” he said.
She didn’t miss the smugness in his voice, even as she pondered what he’d said. The screen went all the way up and over, protecting the other side of the mountain as well? Had whoever put it there anticipated one day the tunnel would be completed and the other end would need to be screened as well?
And if Mordred had climbed over that peak and made it down unscathed, in his charred condition, smug or not, she would do well not to underestimate him.
She tensed as Mordred bent over her father. She heard him draw in a sharp breath. He was staring downward, at the tunnel floor.
The flashbow.
It lay on the ground where it had dropped from her father’s numbed fingers. Still charged, ready to fire as it had been when Lyon had spotted the light from outside. The glow of the ready bolt must have drawn Mordred’s attention.
He reached down to it with his free hand. Shaina held her breath. Do it, she urged silently. Try and take it.
He touched it.
And screamed.
Recoiling wildly, Mordred staggered backward. He clutched his singed hand to his chest. In the same instant, her father moved. She wasn’t surprised; she’d sensed he was more alert than he was letting Mordred see. But what he did shocked her.
He threw her the flashbow.
She caught it instinctively. Expected it to sear her, as it had Mordred. No one could touch an armed flashbow except the warrior.
Instead, it felt alive in her hands. An extension of her, part of her, ready, obedient. And when Mordred moved, clutching the disrupter in his uninjured hand, it snapped into targeting position on her mere thought.
“You think to scare me?” Mordred said. “The entire galaxy knows no one can fire that thing but him.”
“And yet I am holding it, as you could not.”
Something Lyon had said flashed through her mind.
. . . he has prepared you for this, every day of your life, even if he kept from you your true destiny . . .
She knew her education had been different. All were required to learn at least rudimentary fighting, for self-defense and in case of future attack, but her training, along with Lyon’s, had been much more intense. She had always assumed it was simply that she had been raised with the prince, and was taught what he was taught simply because they were inseparable. But now, suddenly, and belatedly, she realized her father had been in fact preparing her all along, without telling her, for the future he had concealed from her. He had made sure she knew what she needed to know; it was merely the final, irrevocable knowledge he’d withheld.
Who would know better what you are facing? The rest of us know only the glory, he knows the danger, the blood, the pain, the weariness. What father would not want to protect his child from that as long as possible?
Lyon’s words had only irritated her before. She had still been too angry to hear any defense, any justification.
Now, as she faced the man who had helped nearly destroy her world, she finally understood. He hadn’t wanted the choice forced on her before she was ready to choose.
“Put it down,” Mordred ordered.
“I think not.”
He aimed the disrupter at her father. “Put it down or I will kill him right now.”
The energy in the bow seemed to course through her and back into the gleaming silver weapon, as if it were some natural circuit completed at last. Her gaze flicked to her father. He was weak, she could see that, from the firing and the disrupter hits. But he was up on one elbow, looking at her. In the eyes that were the original of her own, something new glowed. Acknowledgment. Encouragement. Pride. Acceptance.
And love.
And she knew, in some newly awakened part of her, what he was telling her. She could fire it.
“The likes of you to take out the greatest flashbow warrior in history? I think not,” she said again.
“I said put it—”
“For Trios,” she whispered. And fired.
A surge of almost unbearable power shot through her. The clap of thunder and the explosion echoed around the tunnel.
Mordred vanished. Vaporized.
She lowered the weapon, for a moment just staring at the blackened spot where the man who had helped nearly destroy her world had once stood. She wondered vaguely if she was truly stunned, or if it was just by comparison to that incredible surge.
And then she ran to her father.
Chapter 50
“THE FUSION CANNONS are in position. Manned by those who at least remember how to fire them.” Tark’s voice was brisk as he laid it out for them. “We have a troop ready to head for the pass, a larger one to go through the tunnel and come up behind the main Coalition force.”
Dax nodded. Standing beside him, Rina looked him up and down once more. He was bloodied, charred in spots, and looked a bit worse for wear, but he was upright and coherent. She would rather he got some rest, but they’d gotten word the Coalition was moving again, not waiting for nightfall this time.
She wasn’t sure of the details of what had happened up on the mountain, but knew when Lyon had flown the fighter back and Shaina had brought her father back in the rover that it had been anything but routine.
“Mordred,” was all Lyon said, telling her he didn’t know much more, since neither Shaina nor Dax were talking just yet.
“He’s dead?” she asked him.
“Very.”
And the moment she saw Dax and Shaina together, she knew that whatever anger had been left was gone. She had helped him out of the rover almost tenderly, and he had let her, Rina guessed, not so much because he needed the help but because it was his daughter come back to him and he would not easily let her go again.
And yet, Rina thought now, let her go he must. For the Coalition was returning, in even fuller force this time, on two fronts, and this time the war would end in victory for one side. Galatin, and thus Arellia, would fall back under the yoke of their tyranny, or would hold fast and drive them out once more.
And upon that outcome hinged the fate of Trios.
They had to stop them here. While she knew Trios to be much more prepared, if the Coalition triumphed here, they would not bother to fight Trios, they would simply destroy her. Likely from a safe distance. They would count the loss of her resources as the price for making sure she would never inspire another rebellion.
“The pass isn’t covered by the cannons, so they will likely send fighters in there,” Tark said.
“I’ll handle that,” Dax said.
“You are well enough to fly?” Tark asked him.
Rina knew Ardek had treated his wounds, but they had to still pain him. But she also knew better than anyone how strong willed this man was, and ignoring pain was something he had learned long ago.
“I’ll fly, my friend,” Dax said with a grin as Tark studied him assessingly. “Odd having it reversed, isn’t it?”
Rina smiled, guessing he was referring to the time when it had been he himself assessing the young Tark’s fitness to fight.
“All right, then,” Tark said. “Dax will provide air cover.”
If anyone thought it preposterous that one man in a single fighter would hold off who knew how many Coalition aircraft, they said nothing. Such was the reputation of Dax here. And it had only been enhanced by the fact that the new statue stood pristine and untouched while every building around it had taken damage.
“If you’re going to use that invisibility function, make sure we have your ID frequency so we don’t shoot you down by accident,” Tark said.
Dax laughed. “Now that would be an ignominious ending.”
“Kateri?” Tark asked. “Are the watchers ready?”
“We will take the pass, to hold them as long as possible. We are one hundred strong now, known fighters all.” The woman might not be as young as she’d been, but she was tough, and strong, Rina thought. She would do.
“I scouted the pass on my way back,” Lyon said. “There is a point just here”—he pointed to the spot on the holo projection—“that, with a bit of explosive help, could become a choke point.”
Tark nodded. “I know this spot. You plan to take the rock face down?”
Lyon looked at Kateri, inclining his head respectfully. “If you will accept my assistance.”
The woman looked surprised, and then smiled. “You are a true prince, Your Highness.”
“I am but Lyon,” he said.
Rina smiled. He had his father’s charm and charisma indeed. She stole a glance at Shaina, who was watching him with an expression Rina had never seen on her face before. Dax was watching them both. He’d worked it out. When he felt her gaze and turned, she saw in his face that he, too, was happy with the future of Trios he saw before him.
“Will Dare be pleased?” she whispered to him.
“Yes,” he answered. “He knew it just as I did.”
“I will go with you,” Shaina said to Lyon.
Tark glanced at Dax, who nodded. “I had something else in mind for you.”
Shaina looked curiously at her father, but then turned to look at Tark. “Sir?” she said, as respectfully as Lyon had spoken to Kateri. Rina was proud of them both.
Rebel Prince (The Coalition Rebellion Novels Book 3) Page 35