Even from the distance at which he stood from Cree, Kahn could tell the Reaper was barely alive. There were welts and cuts on his once-handsome face and two Amazeen women were having to hold him erect to keep him from hanging himself.
Kahn swung his furious stare at the Prophetess-Mother. "Did you have to beat him first?"
"This was not our doing," someone said and the women parted as Hael Sejm walked forward. "Onar did that to him." She grinned at her son. "He allowed Konnor Rhye the pleasure. It will be our pleasure to hang him slowly as he watches his men burn to death before him."
Once more the women parted to reveal a round wire cage, the floor of which was covered with dried twigs and branches. A tall woman stood beside the cage's entry, a burning torch in her hand.
Kahn's eyes flared. "NO!" he bellowed, the thought of being burned alive brought a fear to end all fears. A red-hot fog of murderous rage closed in on Kahn and he leapt toward his mother with every intention of strangling her.
He went down under the fists of a dozen women before he ever reached her.
Hael Sejm looked out over the heads of the crowd and watched with satisfaction as the men were first surrounded, then beaten to the ground before being rendered unconscious. A few women were killed, some hurt seriously, but the men had stood no chance against the superior numbers and the savage glee with which the women had attacked them. Before many minutes had passed, all the men, except for Kahn and Cree, were locked into the wire cage. Kahn was dragged away by two muscled Diabolusian warrioresses and carried to the Titaness.
"Your son will be a very angry man when he comes to, Hael," the Prophetess-Mother predicted.
Hael nodded. "True, but he can be controlled."
"You have made a deadly enemy of him."
Hael shrugged. "It could not be helped." She looked toward the scaffold, her eyes gleaming.
"I have not forgotten," Cyle told her.
A commotion near the back of the crowd drew the women's attention. A young man was being pulled kicking and cursing toward them.
"We found him," the Guardess of the Gate announced.
"Good," Hael proclaimed. "Bring him here. I want him to see this." She looked around her. "Where is Kym?"
No one answered. The Chrystallusian woman had not been seen for several hours.
"It does not matter," said Hael. "I fear she has turned against us. Let her go her own way. We do not need her." She lifted her head. "Bring the bastard to me. It is time he atoned for the sin of his existence!"
ENSIGN RYLAN Wynth looked down as a request for transport came in on his console. He flicked on the Vid-Com to find a ravaged, bloody face staring back at him.
"Get me up there!" the man pleaded. "Hurry!"
Jittery as he already was, Wynth hit the transport button before he realized that the man he was beaming up to the docking station had not been with the original thirty-two that had gone down to Rysalia Prime. By the time the man materialized on the transporter pad, it was too late. Wynth headed toward him, with every intention of killing him. He hadn't counted on the man wanting to kill him.
A phaser aimed right at Wynth's heart, picked him up and threw him against the far wall where the Keeper Ensign landed with a loud thud. He slid sideways, careening into a jumble of dead bodies and lay still as his murderer ran for one of the runabouts docked at the station. As the engine of the runabout engaged, Wynth pushed himself up from the floor and staggered toward the Vid-Com.
After trying to raise Admiral Kahn and his men, Wynth did the only thing he could think to do before he died.
He radioed the Vortex.
SHE GRABBED a handful of his thick hair and jerked his head back until the cords in his neck stood out in sharp relief. The rope around his neck dragged painfully across his windpipe and became tighter still.
"I want you to watch this, Cree," Hael Sejm snarled. "Open your eyes and watch!" She pulled brutally on his hair, forcing him to pry his eyelids open, and anchoring his head so that he could not turn away from the sight to which she pointed him. When she was certain the Reaper was alert enough to understand what was happening, she looked toward the cage. "Burn them!"
Cree was panting for breath, trying to draw air into lungs that were badly bruised and aching from the restriction of the air allowed into them by the tight noose. He was barely conscious, but he heard the bellows of rage from the Reapers, the shrieks of agony from the Shepherds, the pleas for mercy from the Keepers, and his eyes shifted wearily to the place were the men with whom he had lived and trained and fought were being burned alive. Just as he had been unable to help his father, he was unable to help these men, some of them his own cousins. He watched helplessly as they scrambled over one another, trying to escape the encroaching flames. He saw fingers curled around the wire mesh of the cage and hands desperately pulled at the obstacle to freedom and life. He caught the first faint smells of crisping flesh and watched as Kullen, and then Coure burst into flames and staggered back.
"Oh, god," he whispered, slowly closing his eyes.
"You have no god, Reaper!" Hael Sejm spit. She flung his head away from her and took great delight in the gasp of pain that came from Cree's bloody lips. She turned and walked for the lever that would release the platform on which the Reaper stood.
The Amazeen women holding Kamerone Cree stepped back, making sure they were not on that portion of the wooden platform that would drop.
Cree sagged when the women released their hold on him, but he managed to force his knees to hold him erect to keep from being strangled. He staggered, felt the pull of the noose, and had almost made up his mind to bring his knees up quickly and get it over with. He knew this platform well for he'd been witness to many Tribunal executions. The infernal device was made to drop slowly, the trapdoor descending inch by inch. As the prisoner's feet slipped out from under him, the noose draped around his neck slowly tightening. Far more evil and brutal that the quick-release hanging platforms used on Terra that snapped the neck when activated, this instrument of torture ensured a slow, suffocating death that gave its victim time to know he was being executed. He didn't want to die that way. With one last look at the men who had come to rescue him, wondering if Kahn was one of those being fried inside the cage, he took one last, desperate breath and started to jerk his knees up.
Hael didn't give him time. She released the lever and his feet slid from under him, down the incline, and he lost the ability to push. He tried levering himself up the slowly lowering platform, but could gain no purchase with his boot heels. The fear of dying in such a gruesome way terrified him, sending a rush of adrenaline through his system. With the adrenaline came a momentary spurt of strength and he used it to break his wrists free of the hemp that bound them behind his back. His hands came up to his throat, clawing at the constriction, and he hooked his fingers under the noose, trying to pull it away from his throat.
Hael watched her enemy struggling to breathe, to live. She smiled as his weight began to descend down the slanted platform, his body pulling on the rope, tightening the hold of the noose.
"Die you worthless bastard," she whispered. "Die and your mother will be avenged!"
His fingers lost their grip on the rope and the noose tightened. He dug at his flesh, rending it, dragging long bloody furrows down his throat as he sought to draw air into his depleted lungs. He was strangling, gagging, desperately trying to save himself, but the platform increased it's slant until he was hanging from the noose, all hope of breathing gone.
BRIDGET TURNED as the door to Tylan Kahn's quarters opened. She blinked, unable to credit what she was seeing. "Koni?" she questioned, her brows drawing together.
Konnor Rhye was filthy, his uniform torn in a dozen places and one sleeve was splattered with blood. His hair was tousled, his face streaked with dirt, and he was trembling violently.
"What happened to you?" Bridget asked, going to him for he looked as though he would collapse at any moment.
"You..." He stopped, seeming
to catch his breath. "You have to come with me, now, Bridget."
"You're hurt," she said. There was blood dripping from the fingertips of his right hand to the pale green carpet.
"I have a ship," he said. "A runabout." He looked about him and she realized his eyes were glazed. "It can get us to Terra."
Bridget's lips parted. "Terra?" she repeated. "I don't understand. What— "
"There are hundreds of thousands dead on Rysalia Prime. Lying in the streets. Blood everywhere," he said, shuddering. "When I got to the transport center, there were hundreds of women waiting for Kahn and his men. They were taken into custody."
"Kahn was captured?" she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.
"You have to come with me, now," he said again.
She reached out and took his arm. "Where is Kahn?" she said, shaking him. "Where is he?"
Konnor was staring at her but she doubted very much that he was actually seeing her. His voice was robotic, chilling in its lack of emotion. "The Reapers and their crews were herded into the square and— " He shuddered, his entire body convulsing.
"Where is Kahn?" Bridget demanded. "Did he find Cree?"
At the mention of his hated enemy's name, Rhye seemed to snap out of the daze into which he had fallen. His vision focused and he looked around at Bridget. "They burned them, Bridget. Those gods-be-damned bitches burned the Reapers and their crews in the public square. They are all dead."
"Cree?" she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. "What of Cree?"
"They hanged Cree. They— "
He got no further for Bridget let out an ungodly scream of grief and fainted into his grimy arms. Konnor caught her, staggering beneath the weight of her inert body. He grunted, lifting her higher against him then turned and started for the Admiral's private elevator that would take them to Docking Bay 2, where the Admiral's starcruiser, The Khamsin, was waiting.
In the elevator, he stared ahead of him, seeing the destruction, the fury of the women on Rysalia Prime. He could still hear their cries of ecstasy as Kullen and the rest of them were burned to death in a bonfire that could be seen for miles. He could smell the horrific stench of the frying flesh, the hideous fumes bubbling up from the Reapers' black blood. His ears still rang with the agonized death screams of the Keepers and the Shepherds.
And he would feel `til his dying day the hands that had grabbed him and taken him down, pulling at his hair and clothing, scratching and pinching his flesh, tearing at his body with nails and teeth until one woman had intervened.
"This is Rhye!"
He shuddered, thinking about how the crazed women had moved back from him, their bloody nails packed with his flesh. There had been fury in their eyes until his name began to repeat from one mouth to another to another until they were all silent. He had cringed on the ground, bleeding and torn, and waited for them to kill him.
"You are a lucky man, Konnor Rhye," the Prophetess-Mother had said as she pushed through the crowd.
"Don't burn me," he pleaded, coming to his knees, his hands clasped as though in prayer. "I beg you, please don't burn!"
The woman had come to him and stood over him, smiling down at him. "You are Bridget's betrothed," she said.
For the first time Konnor felt a faint glimmer of hope. "I was," he said.
"And will be again," the woman assured him. "Do you still want her?"
"With all my heart," he swore for it was the gods' truth. He flinched as whispers started from mouth to mouth to mouth among the women.
"Then rise, Konnor Rhye," the woman ordered. "And go to her while you still can."
"You are going to let me go?"
"There is a ship ready for you on FSK-14. I will send four of my best warrioresses to help you. Take Bridget and leave this place." She stroked his dirty hair. "Take her back to Earth where she belongs. She is responsible for us gaining our freedom and we will grant hers."
As Konnor Rhye placed Bridget's unconscious body into one of the Khamsin's E.S.U.'s and injected her with hypersleep, he could not believe his good fortune. There were four women waiting for him on the ship and they would help him fly the starcruiser to Terra. They were looking at him with respect and admiration and he basked in their warm, friendly smiles. He realized they considered him a hero.
"Where are we going, milord?" one of the women asked.
Konnor thought about that for a moment. Should anyone ever come looking for Bridget, they would surely go first to her home in Iowa. That would be the most logical place to begin.
He picked a name at random.
"Georgia," he said, his decision made.
No one would ever think to look there.
Chapter 26
RAINE MCGREGOR had turned over the controls of the Vortex to Tealson Hesar with the stern admonition that the man not fly them into hell. Scrambling aboard The Tempest, The Vortex's runabout, the young Serenian nobleman had no time to brief the second man who joined him. Together, they got the ship out of its docking pod and were arcing away from the prison ship before bothering to introduce themselves.
"McGregor," Raine said.
"Noll," Alexi responded. "Cree's 2/IC now."
Raine grimaced. "Not unless we get his ass off that scaffold!"
The third man of their little crew grunted and began to type in coordinates on his transporter console. "I am Taborn, Prince of Necroman," the dark man stated. "I have the jackal locked in."
"I would suggest you hurry then," Noll advised.
"Vortex to Tempest."
Thorne, the last member of the crew, flicked on the Vid-Com. "Tempest," he greeted.
"We have Kahn inside the obelisk. Repeat: inside the obelisk."
"I read you, Commander," Thorne acknowledged. "Do you have numbers?"
"Aye."
Lares Taborn's fingers danced over his keyboard as Tealson Hesar gave him the exact position of the Admiral. "Got it," he said.
"Bring them aboard, Your Grace," Raine ordered.
Lares grinned at the title he had not heard in a long time. Not that he cared that much for titles. He glanced at his screen, made sure what he had typed was what he wanted, then hit the enter key.
"Tempest?"
"Aye, Commander?"
"FYI, gentlemen," Hesar announced. "We have all but one of our targets on board the Vortex."
Raine and Alexi exchanged a look. "Which one don't you have?" Raine asked.
There was a pause, then: "His lady."
Before Raine McGregor could reply, the transport beam clicked on and the cabin filled with icy blue light. Two figures— one standing, one reclining— appeared on the transporter pad.
"Got them!" Lares shouted and he reached out to shut the transporter down immediately should someone try to beam on board. He shoved his chair back and rushed toward the pad, drawing his dagger as he ran.
Kahn was dazed, staring about him as though he couldn't quite comprehend what had happened. One moment he had been sitting in a locked room inside the Titaness, the next he was standing in a runabout. He opened his mouth to speak, but never got the chance for a bull of a man shoved him off the transporter pad and Kahn went crashing into a chair and fell over it. His head slammed into a console and he went out like a light.
Cree was struggling to breathe, his hands digging at the noose that was constricted so tightly around his neck, the hemp was embedding itself in his flesh. He was gasping, heaving, his legs pushing at the floor as his nails gouged into his throat. He couldn't pull the rope loose and he was turning blue as he jerked with all his waning strength to free his windpipe. Choking sounds came from his tortured throat and his eyes were wide with fear and hopelessness.
"Get that gods-be-damned rope off him!" Noll bellowed.
Lares dropped down beside Cree, jammed the handle of his dagger between his teeth and reached out to pull Cree's hands away from the rope. He was fighting Cree's hands, trying to push them away so he could get to the rope; but Cree was beyond realizing there was help at hand. He wa
s suffocating, strangling to death, and he was aware of nothing but the encroaching blackness that was spiraling around the edges of his vision and the crushing pain lodged over his windpipe.
"Cut it off him, Lares!" Raine shouted.
Taborn threw a leg over Cree, straddling him, and was valiantly trying to pull Cree's hands away. He looked up, his own eyes wild. "Someone help me!" he grated around the dagger clenched between his teeth.
Thorne moved with the speed of a weretiger, skidding to his knees at Cree's head and reaching out to grab the man's clawing hands. It took all his strength to pull the Reaper's arms up and over his head and anchor them to the floor so Taborn could slip his knife under the hemp and cut it away.
Kahn came to, shook his head, and sat up slowly, putting a hand to the growing knot on his left temple. He winced at the touch, and then groaned. Instant fury filled him for he realized the headache he'd had all day and had finally gotten rid of was now back full force. He looked up, fully intending to mutilate whoever had brought the gods-be-damned thing back to him and saw what he thought were two men trying to murder Kamerone Cree. With a bellow of rage, the Admiral threw himself at the man holding a knife to the Reaper's throat and they went crashing against the bulkhead.
"What the...?" Raine shouted.
Thorne looked down at Cree and thought he saw the man breathing as well as could be expected. He got up to pull the enraged Admiral off the dark man.
"Tempest?"
Raine ignored the hail from the Vortex. He was watching Cree struggling to breathe. The Reaper had turned over on his side, his hands to his throat, and desperately gasped for air. The horrible choking sounds told the young Serenian, Cree was not getting air into his lungs. His face was still blue and he was so weak from lack of oxygen, his movements were becoming feeble as he kicked at the floor. Even as Raine watched, the Reaper went limp.
"Tempest? What is your status?"
"Noll!" Raine yelled. "Take over!"
"Tempest! What is your status?"
Alexi took the flight controls and reached over to switch on his Vid-Com screen. "We've got a situation, Vortex. Hold your gods-be-damned water!" He flicked off the Vid-Com.
BloodWind Page 30