“We’ll help!” one of the children chirped.
Mills grinned. “Is that so?”
All the children nodded emphatically.
“All right, then, we can always use some extra eyes and ears. I’ll take the first watch, then Steph and Danielson. Once it’s fully dark, Allison and Valentina will head into town, so you two had better get a bit of rest now.”
Later, Mills lay prone in some of the barn’s wreckage, watching an endless stream of people moving along the road, escorted by yet more enemy warriors.
Valentina came and silently lay down next to him. A young boy, Evan, lay an arm’s length from Mills on the opposite side, facing toward the rear of the barn and the fields there, diligently watching for any enemies that might approach from the woods.
The sun was just beginning to droop over the gentle hills to planetary west.
“You’re supposed to be getting some sleep,” Mills chided.
“Like that’s going to happen.” She held out her hand for his binoculars. “Anything new?”
He shook his head as he handed them over. “Nothing good.” He leaned closer and whispered so Evan couldn’t hear. “There’s been a constant stream of civilians being herded down the road from the north toward town. And more warriors. Christ, but there’s a lot of them.”
Valentina frowned as she looked back and forth along the procession moving slowly along the road. There were thousands of people, and their moans and cries sent a shiver down her spine. “My God, where are they going to put them all?”
“I can’t see it from here, but if you take a gander over that way,” he pointed to a small rolling hill about a kilometer away, “you can see a stretch of road rising up behind that hill just before town. None of the prisoners have passed that way, so the Kreelans are moving them off the road somewhere before that, out of sight from where we are. I’m thinking they’re turning off near where you saw all that thermal activity before we were chased down from the hill earlier. I’m wagering the Kreelans have some sort of concentration camp set up there to hold all our people until...”
He couldn’t finish the rest. Not just because he didn’t want Evan to hear it, but because he had a hard time bearing the burden of being totally helpless when so many people were about to die. He had already seen so much death in this war, but most of those had been in combat, men and women who’d been trained and armed, who could fight back. These poor souls being marched along the road were just regular everyday people who wouldn’t stand a chance against the warriors who’d be sent into the arenas with them.
He couldn’t do a thing about it. Nothing. And unless Valentina and Allison were successful tonight, he wouldn’t even be able to tell the fleet to land Marines here to mount a rescue operation.
He felt Valentina’s hand on his arm.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” She understood the anguish he was feeling. While the scale had been vastly different, she had been in more than one situation when she worked as an agent for the Terran Intelligence Service where she hadn’t been able to help someone who had been in desperate trouble. Those people had died, some of them under long and agonizing torture. “Take it from me, you can’t save everyone, no matter how hard you try.”
“I know, but...” He looked away for a moment, wiping at his face, and Valentina saw the glistening of tears.
She’d come to the conclusion over the course of the mission that there was a lot more to Mills that she had ever realized. He would have everyone believe that he was nothing but a big ape, an ignorant jarhead, but that wasn’t him at all.
“We won’t be able to save them all, Mills,” she told him, “but we’ll be able to save some, maybe most, if the fleet comes in time. That’s what you need to focus on. Not how many we’ll lose.”
Mills grunted. “And what makes you so worldly-wise, all of a sudden?”
She was silent for a moment, and he was wondering if he’d managed to insult her when she said softly, “Do you know how many people I’ve killed, Roland?”
“Not if you’re going to add me to the list after you tell me.” It wasn’t quite as much of a joke as he might have liked, and it unnerved him that she was talking about anything related to her operations as a covert agent. It was an extraordinary measure of the trust she’d placed in him.
“I’ve killed eighty-seven human beings, not counting anyone I killed in the firefights we were in on Saint Petersburg and a few other places I won’t mention. But those eighty-seven, they were people I killed face to face. People whose names I knew. I knew everything about them, almost as if we were longtime friends. And do you know how many I’ve saved?”
“How many?”
“None.” It was her turn to look away. “Not a single one. Some of my contacts who were in danger were extracted by other agents. But my own personal salvation score? Zero.”
Mills stared at her. “You know, for someone who’s supposed to be a brilliant super-spy, you’re as dense as a bloody brick.”
“What?” Valentina turned to him, a perplexed look on her face.
“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if it weren’t for you. My mates and I would all be dead back in the government complex on Saint Petersburg had you not shot up half the Russians coming after us. Oh, and let’s not forget that minor miracle of how you got all of us off that rock by doing that freaky mind-meld thing with the navigation computer that left you a vegetable for six months.” He shook his head in wonder. “My God, woman. Yes, we’ll all have to answer for our sins in the end. You’ve got yours, and Lord knows I’ve got my own list of dirty deeds. But don’t ever tell me again that you never saved anyone, or I’m going to turn you over my knee and spank your bottom.”
She grinned. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Mills grinned back. “I could think of worse ways to spend my time.”
They were quiet for a while after that, turning their attention back to the stream of people marching down the road.
After a while, Valentina said, “Mills?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know what I’d like?”
Mills snorted. “That’s a bit of a loaded question, dearie, but I’ll take the bait. What would you like?”
“I’d like a frozen margarita with real strawberries. On a nice beach somewhere under a cloudless sky and a warm sun. I want to be able to just enjoy myself and not be there to kill someone.” She glanced at him. “And I don’t want to be alone.”
Unable to help himself, Mills felt his jaw drop open as he turned to look at her. “Lord Almighty. Are you asking me on a date?”
“Don’t get a fat head about it,” she told him with a wry grin. “But yeah, I guess I am.”
“Bloody hell, woman,” he choked, glancing over to see if Evan heard him cursing. “I think I might take you up on that.”
“You’d better, or I’m going to do to you what I did to Danielson on the ship and you’ll be squeaking like a school girl.”
Mills had to bite his tongue to keep quiet. It wouldn’t do for the Kreelans to find them because he was laughing his head off. “Well, I guess it’s a deal, then. Assuming we get out of this mess.”
“Yeah, I guess there’s always that.” She sighed. “I guess I’ll go check on Allison to see if she’s getting any rest. I might try and close my eyes, too. Talking to you is exhausting.”
“Smart arse.” As she began to get up, he reached out and took her arm. “Just promise me you’ll be damn careful tonight. Both of you.”
“I promise. Allison and I’ll take care of one another.”
“Okay, then.” Mills reluctantly let her go.
Without another word, she got up and returned to the shelter, leaving him to his worrying.
With a sigh, he turned to watch the column of people again, but instead looked up to the sky as he heard the faint but growing roar of an approaching ship.
* * *
Ri’al-Hagir, the First to Ku’ar-Marekh, masked her fear. But i
nside she trembled, for she knew that Death was very close. Very close indeed. She did not fear dying in itself, for that was the worthy and hoped-for ending for any warrior who served the Empress.
No, she was afraid of what would come after. Or, more precisely, of what might not. To die with honor meant basking in the Afterlife, to take one’s place among the spirits who dwelled beyond death in the love of the Empress.
To die without honor, to perish in disgrace, meant that one’s soul would be cast into eternal darkness beyond Her love, without hope of redemption. From birth, Her Children sensed the Bloodsong in their veins, an emotional bond with the Empress that was just as real as the blood in their bodies. It was as natural to Her Children as taking a breath.
But that bond could be broken, the lifeline to the river of the Bloodsong severed, both in life and in death. It was rare, yet it did happen. No mere warrior could mete out such a punishment. Only the Empress had that power...and the high priestesses such as Ku’ar-Marekh.
Ri’al-Hagir knelt now before the cold-hearted priestess of the Nyur-A’il, a silent prayer to the Empress on her lips.
“I entrusted you with a simple matter.” Ku’ar-Marekh’s voice was, as always, empty of all emotion.
Shivering at the words, Ri’al-Hagir braced herself for the eternal agony that would soon befall her. She had been summoned moments earlier by Ku’ar-Marekh to the Kalai-Il, the place of atonement that the warriors had been struggling mightily to complete. The sun had long since given its place to the stars, and the great stone edifice was lit by a ring of torches, their orange light flickering in the darkness.
Were it any other than Ku’ar-Marekh, Ri’al-Hagir would have feared only the pain of the lash up on the Kalai-Il. Agonizing and potentially lethal as it was, it was a mortal pain. Even if her body died, her spirit would live on.
Yet, Ri’al-Hagir knew that her priestess had never inflicted punishment to any warriors on the Kalai-Il. She had either tortured them to death with her powers, or severed their bonds to the Bloodsong.
She could easily accept the former, but greatly feared the latter.
“My life is yours, my priestess,” Ri’al-Hagir said, forcing strength into her voice through the fear in her heart. “The Kalai-Il is not yet finished as you had commanded. I offer no excuse.”
In fact, the delay had been from having to quarry the stones farther away than they had expected. Transporting them to this place using the ancient ways, as custom demanded, had taken more time. The builder caste could have created this monument to Kreelan discipline in but moments, but that was not the Way of their race. The Kalai-Il was found on every world of the Empire, and in all of the great warships built in the last fifty millennia. It was built only by the hands of Her Children, using ingenuity and backbreaking labor. For that was the Way, as it had been even before the Empire had been founded a hundred thousand cycles before.
The priestess stood over her, Ku’ar-Marekh’s right hand holding the hilt of her sword. “I do not take you to task for the Kalai-Il. It is of the humans that I speak.”
This so surprised Ri’al-Hagir that she involuntarily glanced up at the priestess, then quickly cast her eyes down again. “I do not understand, my priestess.”
“Behold.” Ku’ar-Marekh placed a hand on the braids of Ri’al-Hagir’s raven hair.
Ri’al-Hagir gasped as she felt herself flying from the Kalai-Il to the woods where a great encampment had been built for the warriors streaming here, and the corrals where the humans were being kept.
Not intending any cruelty to the humans, the corrals were nonetheless horrific affairs. Thousands of the human animals had been crammed into the pens, and more were on the way. Many hundreds of those who had been strong enough to survive the march here, a winnowing process to eliminate those unworthy to fight in the arenas, had died, trampled to death by their fellow animals or from lack of food and water.
The stench of their waste and wretchedness reached a full league here to the Kalai-Il. In what Ri’al-Hagir knew was the view of the priestess’s second sight that she somehow was sharing, the smell was unbearable, and she could sense through the powerful Bloodsong of the priestess how the warriors guarding the animals suffered their duties.
“We do not treat our food animals in such a fashion, let alone those we would face in the arena or in open battle.” Ku’ar-Marekh released Ri’al-Hagir, bringing the warrior back to the here and now atop the Kalai-Il. “There are millions of the aliens left on this world, and I summoned more warriors here to challenge them and bring glory to the Empress. And this is what they would find when the fleet bearing them arrives on the morrow.”
Ku’ar-Marekh paused. Ri’al-Hagir could feel a tingling sensation around her heart, and she shivered in fear.
“The Way of our people is difficult, yet we do not revel in cruelty. We have dishonored Her and ourselves by letting humans we have captured, especially those who survived the difficult trek to this place, die needlessly and in such a fashion, without the chance to fight,” Ku’ar-Marekh continued. “What would I tell your sisters when they arrive and see this? What would I tell the Empress? This is not Her will.”
Ri’al-Hagir hung her head low, clenching her fists so tightly that her talons drew blood from her palms. “I give my life in dishonor,” she whispered, hoping that the priestess would choose to end her life with a blade, and not with the other powers that dwelt within her.
Ku’ar-Marekh’s sword sang from its scabbard, moving too quickly to see as it severed the first braid of Ri’al-Hagir’s hair. The braids of Her Children were not merely a form of style or ornamentation, but formed a very tangible bond with the Empress. The first braid was the key, for it linked the owner’s spirit with the Bloodsong. Were it severed, the bearer might survive physically, but would be doomed upon death to an eternity of darkness beyond Her love.
Ri’al-Hagir cried out as the braid parted, but her voice died as Ku’ar-Marekh’s blade flashed again, slicing through the warrior’s neck. The severed head fell to the dais of the Kalai-Il with a wet thud, and Ri’al-Hagir’s body collapsed on top of it in a clatter of metal on stone.
The priestess could sense the sudden silence of her First’s Bloodsong as she was carried away into the depths of the cold darkness of eternity. It brought her no satisfaction, but honor had been satisfied.
Ku’ar-Marekh calmly flicked the blood from her blade and slid it back into its scabbard. The warriors around her knelt low to the ground, their left fists over their right breasts in salute. They were terrified.
“Place her body in the forest as a feast for the wild animals,” Ku’ar-Marekh ordered. “Then make right what she allowed to go wrong, or you shall suffer the same fate.”
As she strode down the wide steps of the Kalai-Il, the warriors moved quickly to obey.
* * *
Allison pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle an involuntary gasp as the strange warrior with the dead eyes killed one of her own warriors on the huge stone platform they’d been building.
“What is it?” Valentina whispered from behind her. They’d made better time getting into town than Valentina had expected. The frequent Kreelan hunting parties that had been wandering across the countryside earlier had vanished, and Valentina suspected they were all congregating for the slaughter that must soon be about to start for the prisoners being marched into Breakwater.
“She killed one of them!” Allison hissed. “Cut her head right off!”
“A prisoner?” Valentina sidled up beside Allison where the girl crouched near the blasted-out front window.
“No.” Allison shook her head and pointed to where the strange warrior was now walking down from the stone platform. “One of the other warriors. It looked like they were talking for a while, with the other one kneeling. Then Dead Eyes just whipped out her sword and lopped the other one’s head off.”
“Well,” Valentina said grimly, “I guess that’s one less that we have to kill ourselves.”
“H
ow can they do that, Valentina? How could they just...kill one another like that?”
“Don’t think that humans haven’t done the same to one another, and worse.” Valentina fought to keep a host of unpleasant memories from surfacing. “Let’s just be thankful that our friend there is occupied with her own problems instead of coming after us.”
“I guess so.” Allison watched the warrior disappear from view behind the stone. As she did, the other warriors around her ran to take the body away, then they all disappeared down the street that led toward the woods on the south side of town where the human prisoners were being taken.
In an effort to deflect Allison’s thoughts, Valentina said, “You picked a good place here. It’ll take me a while to put something together, but I think we’ve got all the parts for both a radio and a comm link.”
“What’s a radio?” Allison asked, finally turning from the window.
“Something people used to use a long time ago to talk across distances, before we had comm links. In a way they’re the same sort of thing, just that what we have nowadays can carry a lot more information a lot farther.”
“Then why don’t we just use that?”
“Because sometimes the Kreelans don’t let us. We don’t know how they do it, but they can make it stop working. They don’t do it all the time, but when they do, it’s usually at the worst possible moment.”
“But they don’t bother the radio thing?”
“No, at least not so far as anyone knows. So I want to make sure we have both, just in case.” Patting Allison on the shoulder, she said, “I’ve got just a couple more things to find, then we’ll get out of here.”
“Okay.”
Allison continued to watch, peering out from the corner of the window and keeping as much of her face concealed as possible. The flickering fire from torches illuminated all five of the big rings, arenas, Valentina had called them, and the big stone thing. The sight made her shiver, and she hoped that Valentina would finish soon. She hated just sitting here.
In Her Name: The Last War Page 95