What? That he loved her? He did, he knew that, but he fell in love so often and so easily, he wondered if it meant anything anymore. She made him feel worth more than just his body, which was something great. He had every intention of coming back, but he wished she were there so he could say that out loud and know that she’d miss him if he didn’t.
He dressed quickly, smiling as the armor came to life. He’d never been as excited about it as Cordelia, but it was exhilarating all the same. “Ask Pool to throw me at the Storm Lord. He’s the one in the lead, with the fucking stripes on his armor.”
The drushka looked uncertain but touched the bark with the unfocused look drushka got when speaking mind to mind. “The queen says we will find you.”
He didn’t have time to respond before a branch curled around his waist and flung him straight for the Storm Lord. He held his arms out, and they crashed together in a screech of metal that sent them spinning across the grass. Liam grunted and tried to keep hold, his visor down, the speaker crackling as it came too close to the transmitter inside God’s own helmet.
“I’ve tackled God,” he thought. It made him laugh as they skidded to a halt with Liam on top, but the Storm Lord tried to buck him off, and calls were coming through his helmet as people started shouting.
“Get off me, you bastard!” the Storm Lord said, his voice growling in Liam’s ear.
Liam grinned, seeing only a shadow of his face through both their visors. “Make me.”
The Storm Lord gripped Liam’s shoulder. Liam freed his sidearm and fired all around them, driving the other paladins back.
“No lightning?” he asked as he drove his knee downward, powered armor against powered armor, trying to drive the Storm Lord into the mud. “Are you tapped?” He felt a jolt, but it was so weak, his visor display flickered but steadied. The rain was still falling, but even it had become a trickle. “God having a little trouble getting it up?”
“Get him off me!” the Storm Lord shouted.
Liam holstered his sidearm, tucked his limbs around the Storm Lord and rolled, using his armor to move them both. The Storm Lord struggled, but when they hit the crest of a hill, gravity did Liam’s work for him, and they went over the rise, Liam on top again. He rode the Storm Lord down the hill, sledding on God.
“I’m going to kill you, motherfucker!” The Storm Lord’s fist caught him in the side of the helmet.
Liam jerked, his ears ringing in spite of the armor. He brought his gun out again and fired right into the Storm Lord’s visor, hearing the reverb in his own ears and knowing it must have been deafening in the Storm Lord’s. “That’s for my mom!”
And he really wanted to stay, to claw the Storm Lord out of his armor and kill him seven different ways, but the other paladins were running down the hill, and if they killed Liam, they would be after Pool like a shot. He thought of Shiv and remembered everything Cordelia had tried to teach him about the living being more important than the dead.
“Come and catch me, assholes!” he cried as he ran, heading north. The crack of their guns was dulled by his helmet, but he felt the strikes against his back. The shockwaves had him gasping and stumbling. They didn’t penetrate, but dull pain spread through his lower back as if someone had hit him two sharp whacks with a big stick. He tried to run in a random pattern and fired behind him until his clip emptied. Someone shot him again, then a fourth time, and ache spread through him, arcing with every step.
He kept running, using the power of the armor and the vision of Shiv to keep going. It’d been afternoon when the fight had begun, and now night was falling. He hadn’t known they’d been fighting and running that long.
There were several more shots; one caught him on the shin and one on the hip. They were trying to stop him, not kill him. He risked a look over his shoulder and saw that the Storm Lord wasn’t among them. Only a handful pursued him now, and he wondered if the others had stayed behind because he’d deafened the bastard.
When the sun finally set, he didn’t activate his armor’s glow but kept running through the dark. He changed direction again and again, hoping he wouldn’t hit anything unexpected, but the ground vanished beneath him.
He fell hard into a gulley and tried to tuck into a roll, but he hit a rock and jolted to the side, making all his aches and pains scream as one. He kept his lips shut on a cry. When he came to rest, he wrestled his helmet off and gasped for breath, listening. He heard a sound like someone running, but it headed in a different direction and faded quickly, leaving him alone with the sound of the wind sighing through the grass.
He breathed deep and took a moment to be happy he was alive, even with pain winding through his back, and his lungs burning in his chest. His battery seemed to be losing charge. Maybe the others’ were, too, or they might have caught him. Overhead, the stars brightened to life as the light faded, and a meteorite streaked across the sky. The air was crisp with the promise of a cold season ahead. And he was alone on the plains with no idea how to find Pool.
She was headed east, so he supposed he’d start trekking that way, hoping to meet up with her in Sun-Moon territory. He put his helmet back on and started walking, going carefully in the dark. When the armor became heavier, he wondered if he should dump it, but he heard a noise in the grass, something moving.
He paused, thinking of every predator Wuran had told him about, but the chafa liked to spin tall tales. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound too big. He tried to activate his armor’s glow, and managed a weak light barely bright enough to pick out the grass around him.
“You ruin your night vision!” a drushkan voice said.
Liam breathed a sigh that turned into a laugh and then a cough. “Cordelia always said no one tracks like a drushka.”
“With the scent of your metal skin, it was easy.” The speaker stepped into the dull light: Smile, one of Nettle’s friends. “Come.”
“Gladly.” Liam stripped the battery out of his armor, and one of the drushka carried it, not wanting to leave it on the plains. Walking in unpowered armor brought back happy memories of patrols with Cordelia, and he tried to focus on them instead of the arduous walk through the dark. After who knew how many hours, they arrived at Pool’s tree, and after he’d stripped out of the armor and told her what had happened, Shiv was waiting.
“Fool!” she said as she knocked him to the ground and crawled into his lap. “Fool a thousand times to risk yourself so!”
Liam settled her in his arms, trying to ignore his aches and pains. “I couldn’t let them catch you.”
She kissed him hard and laid her cheek against his. “You are a good mate, even if you make me worry. We rescued shawness Simon, but he is still in danger. We go now to seek shawness Horace.”
Liam nodded. That had been the plan anyway, though with Simon Lazlo out of commission, they were still down a healer. He noticed the bandage wrapped around her hand and peered at it in the dim light. “I don’t want to sound like your mother, but you weren’t fighting, were you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “A scratch, and not from the fight. As you say, Shi’a’na would have my hide.”
“Then how—”
“Let us leave off questions. I am chilled.” She snuggled deeper into his arms, and they left off speaking for a time, though Liam called for a shawness soon after.
*
Dillon trudged back to camp surrounded by a few of his paladins. Most of them had chased the maniac who’d tackled him, and the rest stood around like worried parents. One plucked a blade of grass from the shoulder plate of his armor, and Dillon resisted the urge to yell at her to leave him be.
Lazlo was dead. That was the only thing that mattered.
“Orders, Storm Lord?” someone asked.
“I’ll give you an order when I’m damn well ready!”
They recoiled as they should, and he wondered who was supposed to be giving them orders. Brown, probably. But she’d shot Lazlo, and then Dillon had pumped a bolt into her, killing her. He hadn’t b
een thinking, had only seen her take the shot, and his power had just reacted.
He lowered his visor. The bullet hadn’t dented it, but the noise had deafened him for a full ten minutes. Even now, it seemed as if the world’s volume had been turned down while someone was ringing an imaginary bell.
And Lazlo was dead.
He looked to the horizon, where the man who’d tackled him had disappeared. He didn’t want to run anymore, didn’t want to make this day any shittier than it already was. Why the fuck had he listened to Naos? He could be safe in Gale right then, Lazlo and Brown alive. But no, he’d gone off, thinking to catch her or the Sun-Moon while they were vulnerable, and now everything was one big fuckup.
Back in camp, the yafanai were in an uproar, bustling about. They had to know Lazlo was gone, but they couldn’t know he was dead unless…
Dillon spotted some of the other paladins, the leathers and those who’d had their power cells stolen. They were clustered among the wagons, and one ran to Dillon, his mouth open.
“I know about Lazlo and Captain Brown,” he said, not wanting to hear it again in case someone thought he should be informed. He wondered if they’d brought Brown’s body back.
The man shut his mouth and then opened it again. “And Caroline, Storm Lord?”
“What about her?”
He quivered. “She’s…she’s dead.”
Dillon shook his head and pulled his helmet off. “Sorry, my ears are still ringing. You said what?”
The man blanched, and Dillon tried as hard as he could to look like a man who wouldn’t be fucked with in that moment.
One of the paladins stepped up, Brown’s second in command, Lea. “Caroline is as dead as Captain Brown, sir.”
Oh, this one was going to take it hard, but he couldn’t even think of that yet. “How the fuck? Was it the drushka?”
“No, sir. The yafanai tell me that Lazlo did something to her, sir.”
“Some kind of cascade attack,” one of the yafanai said hurriedly. “She was suffering multiple organ failure, dying as quickly as we could heal her until…” He shook his head. “We did all we could, I swear.”
Dillon waited for that to come crashing down on him, too, but it couldn’t get through his already spinning head. He tried to put it in order. Lazlo killed Caroline, then Brown killed Lazlo, then he killed Brown. All that was left was for someone to kill him.
He waited for Lessan then, but she didn’t appear, nor did Naos or any of her circus. She’d pulled him out of the ground, but he still didn’t know why. Maybe she knew this was coming, knew how much it would fuck him up, and she wanted to watch him suffer.
Lazlo was dead, and that hurt more than Brown or Caroline, more than the accusation in Lea’s face or the grief on others. He tried to get mad for Caroline’s sake, tried to remember all that had happened between them in order to summon grief. His son would grow up without a mother, without a biological one, anyway.
Nope. Nothing would get past Lazlo. Even when he’d left, there’d been hope that he’d come back, the best friend Dillon had ever had. But there was no coming back from a bullet to the head.
The volume of the world went back to normal, and the ring faded. He looked down to see one of the micro-psychokinetics withdrawing her arm. “Is that better, Storm Lord?”
He nodded. “Where are the bodies?”
“Caroline is on the wagon, Storm Lord,” Lea said. “With Brown.”
He’d have to nip that in the bud soon, but not right then. He’d let his soldiers grieve as they would. “Make camp.”
They bustled around, and Dillon sat on the end of the wagon beside two bodies that had been wrapped together in a tent. Covered up, he couldn’t tell which was which. He wondered what the soldiers thought they were going to do with two fucking bodies. They couldn’t take them all the way to Celeste and then back to Gale. They’d be pretty ripe by then. The smart thing to do would be to bury them on the plains.
“Everyone underestimated him,” he said to the bundles. “Even the three of us.” Grief welled up inside him, and he couldn’t even tell who it was for. Probably Lazlo, but the others would catch up to him. “I’m sorry I let this happen. I’ll tell Evan…” He trailed away, unable to think of anything. “Should we just go home?”
He knew what his old man would say: if he went home now, all the suffering and the dead would be for nothing. There was such a thing as counting losses, but this was too damn many for nothing to show for it. No, best to learn from this what he could and keep going, only now he had his sights set on the fucking drushka, too, and he wouldn’t be fooled again, wouldn’t be lured.
He nodded. He’d bury Caroline and Brown at Celeste, with the Sun-Moon and Naos and the drushka and whoever the hell else got in his way.
*
When Ap had first seen the soldiers coming after them, he’d ordered the others to take the children and run while he stayed behind. Some had protested, thinking he’d be killed; others argued that they wanted to slow the soldiers’ pursuit as well, but he had no intention of getting in their way. He told them he would hide and then join the Storm Lord’s followers while the rest of the Deliquois distracted the soldiers. They had run then, saying they would all see each other again in the Contessa’s embrace.
He hid, cramming into a hollow under a nearby boulder. It stank of whatever animal had sheltered there, but Ap shut his eyes and found his center. He’d schooled his thoughts to nothingness, letting the feel of wind and grass, rock and earth fill him. He’d let the soldiers pass and then pressed on to the bulk of them, where several were in disarray, milling about, mourning one of their own. He’d waited until one man wandered out to relieve himself, and then Ap had rammed his knuckles into the man’s head, just where spine met skull. After he’d lowered him to the grass, he’d pressed his hands around the man’s windpipe and held his thumb against the artery that led to the brain.
It’d been easy enough to strip him. He looked like a servant rather than one of the mind benders, so if Ap stayed away from the other servants, he might be okay. He saw how those who were served didn’t always look at those who served them. And if Ap acted as if he’d always been there, they would think he had. When the Storm Lord had come back from the plains, Ap didn’t let himself feel glee. Knowing the abilities of those around him, he kept his thoughts blank or on the services he was to perform. He lit fires when instructed and helped someone set up a tent. Even when he heard in passing that his fellow islanders had gotten away, he didn’t let himself feel relief.
Instead he watched the Storm Lord and waited. When the god went to sit alone on a cart, Ap thought he might get his chance for revenge, but a soldier watched the Storm Lord closely with an unreadable expression, and Ap settled in to wait.
Chapter Twenty-three
From a room high in the palace, Cordelia leaned out the window. Even at night, the swath of destruction was like a scar across Celeste. The Sun-Moon worshipers had piled what they could in front of both massive holes, but they had to admit the only reason Naos’s army hadn’t charged back through was because it must not want to.
“We can’t fight that,” she said.
Sitting on their divan, the Sun-Moon ignored her. Horace had healed them from Naos’s telepathic attack, but they still clung to one another, both pale. Naos’s assault had almost burned out their minds as much as staring at the sun would burn the eyes.
“What do you suggest?” Fajir asked from where she leaned against the wall.
“She doesn’t want surrender,” the Sun-Moon said.
“Then evacuate,” Cordelia said. “Everyone over the wall closest to the sea. Put those who can’t walk in boats, and then everyone up the coast. Let her have the city.”
Fajir sneered. “I never thought you a coward.”
It might have gotten a rise out of Cordelia in the past, but now she shrugged. “So you want to stay and be turned into kindling?”
“Why did she not destroy the city at once if she can do
so?” Nettle asked. “Why this one show of power? Why wait?”
“Perhaps there are limitations,” the Sun-Moon said. “She’s still on the satellite, but we sensed her telepathic connection to someone in the army. Perhaps the connection has a fault. Or perhaps whomever she’s connected to convinced her to leave. It might be someone with their own power.”
Cordelia looked to Horace, and she knew they were thinking the same thing. “Someone with their own power” could be Natalya. She used to be Horace’s friend. Perhaps she’d discovered he was in the city and made Naos leave before he was hurt. “Did you find out anything about this connection?” Cordelia asked.
“A young mind,” they said. “Probably female. We couldn’t read it, not while being attacked.” They clutched each other a little harder.
And Cordelia didn’t want to talk anymore in front of them. “We should get some rest while we can.”
“We need to plan,” Fajir said.
“Sure, you think of a plan that will get rid of the closest thing we’ve ever seen to a real god, then come find me.”
If that hurt the Sun-Moon, they didn’t show it, but Fajir’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Lords, if you will it, I’ll consult with the other serens.”
The Sun-Moon waved her away. As Cordelia started out of the room with Nettle and Horace, the Sun-Moon added, “Don’t even think about leaving.”
Cordelia fought the urge to scream. “I know.”
“We don’t want you to forget.”
Once they were safely in their own room with Mamet, Cordelia said, “I don’t suppose you’ve learned how to block them?”
He sighed. “I think I can tell if they’re actively listening, and right now they’re not. They might sense it if we leave the city.”
Cordelia ran her hands through her hair. “Why can’t I be involved in the regular fights? Guns and blades? Why is someone always throwing lightning bolts or force waves or telepathic attacks?”
“Says the woman who can leave her body.”
Widows of the Sun-Moon Page 26