He didn’t have time for his own rifle. He grabbed his knife from his thigh as he rolled and threw it. Coilsen, against the tree, only had a few ways to move away. As he completed the first throw, he reached for his second knife with his other hand, tossed it to his right hand, and threw it to the other side. The second knife caught Coilson on the lower right side of his neck as he moved to dodge the first blade. Hafi saw the blood spray with enough force that Hafi hoped the knife had knicked an artery. He rolled again, thrusting his knee under him to gain his feet as he ripped his medical patch kit off the side of his pack, then swung his rifle free.
Coilsen regained his feet and pushed a hand against his neck as Hafi was tearing open the patch kit with his teeth. He smiled at Hafi, blood covering his face and teeth as he swayed again, struggling until he stood back and leaned again on the tree. Hafi smiled back as he slapped the patch kit onto his ribs and Coilsen stumbled.
“Arterial wounds are a bitch, Coilsen. Ribs heal.”
The boy was seconds from being gone as he began to slip down the tree trunk, but Hafi could never be too sure. Raising his rifle, he shot Coilsen. The boy’s head was gone, red decorating the tree behind where he had stood and the rest of his body folded to the ground.
Hafi limped over to the corpse, leaning down to grab Coilsen’s patch kit, food and other medical supplies. He kicked the boy’s leg and groaned as pain shot from his wound. “Couldn’t have done this before I tore down my cot, cocksucker?”
He decided on a tighter cluster of trees twenty meters away for a new camp and made his way there after delivering one last blow to Coilsen’s body.
Hafi felt his mind burn, along with his healing side wound. Two days had passed in his small camp and all he had to do was read whatever news he could find on the SatNet interspersed with delirious consumption of what little medication was in the medical kit.
Kingston Cross had released a series of statements concerning both the ongoing Blight projects, as well as investigations into the ‘Shara incident’, as it was now being called. While he didn’t take direct credit for the project’s progress, he was given it by others in each release. It was as if Ayna had never existed simply because she was grieving. Hafi sent another message to Ayna. He hadn’t told her about Coilsen yet.
The beep from his LightTab woke him. Hafi had fallen asleep browsing through the SatNet commentary. He picked it up off his chest.
The message was a response from Ayna. He hadn’t really expected one. He gripped the Tab, debating if he wanted to read it. Maybe she would tell him to give up or to resign. Or worse, that she had given up.
He slid the notification open to reveal the message:
Coilsen orders not from Prin. Investigating.
She had attached a satellite image to the message. He checked the time. He had sent his message nearly six hours before. Her response had likely been immediate, but the image had delayed the download until now. Her silence had been busy.
He opened the attachment. The coordinates placed the image about 200 miles east of Shouding, in the mountains. The name Ayna had given the waypoint was, “Shara?”. It was a two week journey.
“Goddammit, you fluffy little fuck!”
Hafi wished he had spent more time learning to hunt without charges. Fishing he could do. He hadn’t been lucky enough to run across a stream or lake in a little while, and he might need his rifle bolts later. Of course, he wasn’t particularly great at making things from wood with his knife either, so it was hard to determine if his crafting or his throwing was to blame for his hunger, when another rabbit dashed away unharmed from the makeshift spear that bounced off the rocks. He retrieved the spear and sat on the largest rock, thinking over the various traps he had aided in setting in his life and wondering if he could adapt any of them to smaller animals than men. He heard a chime from his sack.
He slung it off his back onto the ground and unpacked it enough to get to his LightTab. He hadn’t gotten any further messages from Ayna, but he hoped something important had put her or Jo in touch. He was surprised to see it was a Prin Emergency Push, an official government statement from the council.
As you are aware, Prin suffered a great loss with the capture of Shara Shae, the gifted Inari child who had long been a Xenai target. After her capture, an investigation into the circumstances of her capture was launched. Throughout the past three weeks, we have uncovered that Shara was captured with the aid of certain people in our own government. A communique was sent to the Xenai headquarters in Shouding, bargaining for peace with Prin in exchange for Shara. A meeting point was set and a false reason given to escort Shara to the meeting point, at which point the troop was slaughtered and Shara captured. The investigator sent was recently assassinated by a traitor who attempted to flee Prin and join the Xenai at Shouding. Luckily, prior to his assassination, he was able to send a report to the council.
It is with a heavy heart that we send out this bulletin to excommunicate and strip the mercenary Hafi Boral of all authority and titles. We request that any citizen of Prin or its trade partners report to the authorities any sighting of him. He is suspected of heading toward Shouding. He is acting under orders from former Stateswoman Ayna Shae, who has been placed under arrest, along with her husband and his remaining daughters. They will all be investigated for their involvement and face trial.
Hafi read the statement a second time before the stunned response melted into anger, “What is this ever-living bullshit fuckery? What the fuck did I miss?”
Was it too late? Could he help Ayna if he turned back now? A week back to Prin—kill some fuckers—then two weeks and a few days to the waypoint. But, what if the Xenai are executing Shara after they get her to Shouding?
Ayna had allies in Prin; she would have to wait. Her life wasn’t on the line, but Shara’s was, and Shara was about to be alone in enemy territory. He sent off a message to Jo’s younger brother to get more details, then continued heading west, cursing at the animals that skittered away, but the urgency of his mission kept him moving past them.
79
James
James smiled at the small, thin Terran and the Inari that stood behind her, opening the door and bowing slightly as he waved his hand toward the table in the center of the room. Druva stood beside him to greet the girls as well, and to eat the food. James was fairly certain that Druva would be perfectly happy to let the other three construct all the plans for Prin’s defense. He asked the girls how the plans were coming along for the new medical facilities. Delilah responded favorably. Tani glared at him, somehow appearing smaller as she did so. “They are behind schedule. Of course, they have been since the day your father announced them.”
Druva paused with a pastry an inch away from his mouth. James suppressed a smile as he wondered how someone could be so forceful and so diminutive at the same time. She edged her way around the walls to find a chair that allowed her to see all the doors. She pulled the chair out just enough to slide into it, sat on the edge and leaned with her arms on the table, ignoring the food laid out on it. Delilah sat next to her, copying her way of sitting, but staring at the trays of food.
“I am glad you were able to make time to meet to discuss defensive options for the crystals.”
Tani nodded at him, waiting for him to continue.
“Have you found any?”
“Defensive options and offensive options—in this case—are the same. There’s no point in dressing this meeting up as something else. And we are going to have to get into specifics here. Against Xenai? Get me some Xenai to test stuff on.”
James shifted in his chair, “We can eventually do that, but my father sent what military forces the Crosses have, now that they are back from the front, to the Underground to get all those kidnapped children back.”
Tani looked surprised that men had been sent to deal with the problem, “I witnessed that kidnapping—it was horrible. I am glad someone is doing something about it, but the fact of the matter is that you need to as
sign men to the bigger problem, which is the problem of the Xenai. Bringing those kids home won’t matter if they return and overrun us. I need a Xenai to test solutions on. I have some suspicions without a Xenai, there is no way to know if they would work. If they work, then yes, I could build a weapon with the help of some Artificers, I think. If it didn’t — well, it would introduce a whole new problem, but could set us on a path to finding some answers. Neither of these things are likely adequate measures to address the Shara problem.”
James flinched and he saw the recognition in Tani’s face. “The Shara problem?”
Tani continued, her voice a little quieter, “You may not be fully aware, but from what information I have I believe that the true Xenai threat doesn’t come from them using Shara to make themselves stronger or creating a weapon from her power, but from turning her into a Xenai. I don’t know what that would entail or if it would fundamentally change future Xenai in any way, but I do believe that is their intent. I just don’t have enough data to think that anything could prepare us for what could happen if Shara Shae comes back even stronger as a Xenai.”
James’ head spun and he felt as if the weight of his own body would pull him over. He gripped the edge of the table.
“Why… why do you think this?”
Tani looked at him for a moment, saying nothing, before she said in a near-whisper, “I’ve read the SatNet docs many times. The Xenai aren’t natural. They were made. And they keep making themselves. It’s just what they do. If they didn’t intend to turn her into one of them, we would have found a body.”
James shoved the guard to the side. “I don’t care what your orders are, I will talk to her. Go tell my father, if you want.”
He heard the guard running up the steps as he walked to the cell that held Ayna Shae. He stopped short of throwing the door open and choking her, like he wanted to do. Instead, he yelled through the door, “How could you let them take her? Did you know what they would do to her?”
Ayna sat on the floor. The cell was empty from wall to wall. The floor was made from a spongy material that served as both floor and bed. So long in one room and no contact with anyone, and it had brought out the animal that had hidden below the surface for so long. She stood and paced before him. “Of course, I knew. Why do you think I went to such lengths to protect her for so long?”
“Protect her? Just to turn her over?”
She met his eyes and stalked towards the door of the cell. “Since she was six years old, I have known—they wanted her dead. Then, I find out they don’t want her dead, they want to use her—make her into one of them. But, it was too late. The last battle had already started. Protecting her and protecting Prin are one and the same. So if you think for a second I would ever betray one to protect the other, you weren’t paying attention to someone who has something to gain from betraying both.” She turned from the door and began to pace again, “Apparently, I wasn’t either.”
“Who would gain anything from the Xenai? They are leeches. They don’t make things, they don’t grow food, they don’t do anything other than kill us.”
Ayna stopped her pacing to look at him through the bars on the door. She approached them, “They are part Blight Crystal, you know. That thing Shara did to kill them in the battle? That caused them to retreat? She had done it before, with the Blight Crystals. Someone benefits from this—someone that knows what the Xenai are—what the Blight Crystal is; the only person that really knows is the Author of the Xenai docs. Do you think it’s a coincidence he left out the details of the material he used on them? He made them. The question is, what does he want with Prin? Is he Xenai? Is he something else? Terran, Illara? He is using Prin, just like I suspect he is using the Xenai. The voices are the key.”
James wondered if she had started to lose her mind down here, “The Author can’t still be alive. He’d have to be at least 100 years old—and even if that was possible—what the hell are you talking about? Voices?” Then, he remembered Shara falling over after using the crystal. So many voices. Maybe Ayna wasn’t crazy.
“The crystals—they are like—a network. They connect things. Across time, across space. Your father can give you the reports from the experiments. If they are always tapped into that network, it explains how they don’t have to verbally communicate, how they seem to get orders instantly, how their whole fucking army adapts to new strategies at the same time—and why they were going after Shara the whole time. The Shae blood was always deep with source, and now they have full fucking Sourcemancer, with nearly the same deepness, across all the elements. She might not just tap in, she might be able to change it. And what if its not just her? What if there is another, who can go that deep with the Blight—the network?”
“You think the Author is like Shara? Theres no way he could stay hidden. Xenai, Terran or Illara, we would find out about it. Long before now.”
Ayna looked at him through the bars, the regret all over her face, “How would we know? It’s not like it’d be walking around shooting off Source-works everywhere it went. It could be anyone.” She turned away from the door, “If whoever it is can use the Blight network, they will know things they couldn’t possibly know naturally. Look for anyone with deep Intuition and uncanny knowledge and you’ll find the person that really betrayed us—the person that killed Shara.”
James glared at her through the bars, “Both you and Tani think she’s alive.”
“She is or will be Xenai.” Ayna turned back to face him, “Do you know any Xenai that seem like people? Once they change her, the Shara we knew will be dead.”
“We have to go after her!” James begged his father, “We can’t let them make her into—whatever they are. Put that stuff inside her and Mystics only know what else!”
“What’s done is done, James. They have her back in Shouding, already. There is no way to retrieve her without it being suicide.”
James looked at his father. He was confident she was there already, “How do you know they have her there?”
“Where else would they take her? Before she was arrested, Ayna found a facility in the mountains northeast of Shouding that she guessed they had taken her there.”
“If she was the one that turned Shara over to them, why would she be looking for where they took her?”
Kingston sighed, “She is a mother. She may have done what she felt was necessary for Prin, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care what happens to Shara.”
“What about what she becomes? If we let them do this—we are potentially handing them a weapon beyond anything we can make.”
“Tani is working the problem.”
“Tani is smart, but even she can’t predict what Shara will actually turn into.”
“She doesn’t have to. They will implant her with the Blight crystal, along with her attuned elements, and Tani is working on a weapon to destabilize the Blight. If she succeeds, anyone with it inside of them would be destroyed when the crystal breaks down.”
James shuffled uncomfortably at the idea of Shara being torn apart from the inside out like the Xenai that she had fought, “Even if she can make a weapon like that work, that doesn’t mean it’ll work well. What kind of range would it have? Shara was already dangerous without an amulet from hundreds of feet away. What happens when she is an amulet?”
Kingston pondered that information, “You saw her Source-cast from that far away and be effective without amplification from an amulet?”
“Yeah, the last battle, she was in the center of the pass, up in a little tower she Source-cast for herself, and she conjured stuff on both sides of the battle to protect the walls.”
Kingston muttered something under his breath that James couldn’t make out, then he cleared his throat, “Did you mention this to Tani when you met with her? We are going to have to specify that the weapon needs to be incredibly accurate at long distances. We have men that can make shots farther away than that, as long as the weapon can handle it.”
“I didn’t t
ell her the details. She was the one that told me they would use Shara, rather than kill her. It seems like you already knew that. Why did you leave it to her to tell me?”
“I was hoping no one would tell you, son. It’s easier to think of someone you loved as dead than to think of them as—that.”
James could sense the reluctance in his father, like he was still holding back information that was relevant to their discussion. It was like putting your hand through a thick growth of vegetation and finding a brick wall. The wall vanished for a second as Kingston expressed his concern about James finding out about Shara.
“Alright, so we can’t save her and we might have challenges designing a weapon that is adequate to stop her, if the Xenai send her to us. What about the other experiments with the Blight crystals? Ayna mentioned something about it acting like a network?”
“I really wish you hadn’t spoken to her. She isn’t exactly reliable. Nonetheless, we have been able to figure out some of the crystals abilities by implanting some source users from the jails.”
“Like?”
The wall snapped back into place, “Nothing for you to be concerned about. It seems like they just see things—could be other worlds, could be their own imaginations. We don’t know anything for sure, yet.”
“Where were the casters from? Before the jails?”
Kingston shrugged off the question, “All over the place.”
“Are any of them older? Experienced?”
“Yes, we have a few accomplished casters, but mostly kids who never had the chance to train but are incredibly gifted with Intuition. Our best subject is—I don’t know—your age?”
Ayna’s voice echoed in his mind, Look for anyone with deep Intuition and uncanny knowledge and you’ll find the person that really betrayed us—the person that killed Shara.
Song of Sundering Page 46