Retribution: Book Four of the Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  It didn’t make sense.

  Were these artifacts of fights he’d had with other raknoth and humans since returning to Earth with his kin? Or had it been his kin themselves who’d done this, maybe as punishment for his haste and ultimate failure in attacking ahead of their arrival?

  Ahead, Gada reached out to flip another one of their trucks.

  Jarek reached for his sword and leapt down the porch steps, reminding himself the rest didn’t matter one damn bit right now.

  He couldn’t let Gada wipe out their transportation, had to draw the big bastard away from—

  Movement above threw Jarek’s heart into his throat, and then something large slammed to the ground right in his path.

  Jarek touched down from his staircase leap and threw himself to the side in the same movement, turning through a sideways roll before coming to his feet to face … something.

  Something dark and wriggling.

  The thing that could only be another Kul reached for him with a pair of oddly amorphous limbs, its form shifting like the universe’s creepiest and most sizeable bag of worms.

  “Open fire!” someone—Chambers, he thought—bellowed from one of the farmhouse windows.

  And open fire they did.

  Gada, who’d just wrapped his claws underneath their SUV, gave an irritated growl and thrust the vehicle toward the house as if he were tossing a stone. The SUV rolled and bounced its way across the yard with frightening speed. It smashed through the deck and halfway through the front wall.

  Resistance soldiers and Mosenites alike were pouring out onto the porch, firing at Gada and the newcomer alike.

  The Incredible Wriggling Monstrosity recoiled under the storm of incoming lead, its movements more that of a startled or curious animal than those of one in pain or distress. Jarek flipped the switch on the Whacker’s pommel and took a swing before it could decide the bullets weren’t so interesting.

  Azure fire flashed in the wake of the blade’s edge, and a smell like ozone and burnt plastic hit Jarek.

  The blade passed with less resistance than expected, spattering the ground with … not blood?

  “What the fuck?” Jarek snapped, recoiling back.

  Wriggles gave a horrendous screech at the new and oddly bloodless gash in his hide and made a wobbly undulation toward the porch.

  In his wake, the Kul left a scattering of several dozen inch-long Wriggles Juniors squirming in the dirt.

  Jarek turned after Wriggles, torn between heading him off or going to stop Gada before—

  “SIR, INCOM—”

  The shock of impact blurred the world, crushing everything else from Jarek’s awareness until the raw sensation overload poured over into pain and spinning motion.

  He was airborne, sailing like a ballistic missile after a hit that would’ve embarrassed a freight train. The question of who or what had hit him was only becoming a twinkle at the edge of Jarek’s mind when his abrupt flight ended.

  Hard dirt smacked into his shoulder, bucking against his momentum and sending him flipping end-over-end too fast to get his bearings and stabilize.

  The ground seemed to come at him from all sides at once, pummeling his tumbling body until, some unknown time later, he was staring at crisp blue sky with the dull realization that he was no longer moving.

  He could barely breathe through the pain.

  “Get up, sir,” Al’s voice crackled in his ear.

  Easy for him to say, Jarek decided as the ship floated by overhead, out of easy reach.

  “Your sword, sir, he’s …”

  His sword!

  He hadn’t even realized he’d dropped it—probably because he’d actually been hit hard enough for Fela’s iron grip to even fail him in the first place.

  Jarek sat up with a deep wince and saw nothing but bad news.

  Gada was approaching from the left with a leisurely swagger, as if he were immensely enjoying the moment.

  To the right, Wriggles, having already taken down a few of their men, had reached the front door of the farmhouse and cut off the direct path to the vehicles.

  And straight ahead …

  The thing that had hit Jarek might have been taken for a gargoyle if you removed about two-hundred pounds of muscle and swapped the gray, leathery hide for stone. Short, stubby horns jutted over long, pointy ears. A demonic face, complete with fiery red eyes. Spindly wings, half-furled over its shoulders. Disproportionately long arms with fingers to match.

  And, in those long, clawed fingers, the creature held his sword, turning it over with a kind of casual curiosity.

  “Here,” Jarek tried to call, though his voice came out more of a croak as he pushed himself to shaky feet, “let me show you how to use that thing, Mr. Satan, sir.”

  “Insouciant to its last,” came the disjointed choir of whispers that was Gada’s voice from the left, the words shaped oddly by his alien tongue. “Do you see, brother?”

  By way of reply, the Anabolic Gargoyle cast the Whacker aside like a cheap toy. It hit the house and dropped to the porch with a heavy thunk. The gargoyle leapt forward, not bothering to unfurl his wings for the short flight, and slammed down a few yards in front of Jarek, several hundred pounds of dark, muscly monstrosity.

  “This is the one?” the gargoyle said in a deep growl of a voice.

  Jarek swallowed, cold fear constricting around his insides and freezing his limbs as the meaning of the Kul’s words dawned on him and Gada drew up beside them.

  “It is, brother,” Gada said. “The one who slew Kul’Armin.”

  The gargoyle looked at Gada, in no apparent state of urgency.

  Gunfire and an agonized scream from the house had the opposite effect on Jarek.

  “The one who nearly slew you, brother,” the gargoyle said. “Pathetic.”

  Behind the two rakul, some of the troops were spilling out into the yard from around the back of the house now. Wriggles was nowhere in sight, and sounds of fighting were pouring out of the house, whose front wall appeared to have been violently breached by the amorphous Kul.

  Move.

  Jarek had to move.

  Get his sword. Clear the way to the trucks and …

  Glass shattered from the direction of the house.

  Impossible, his exhausted mind whispered as the gargoyle took his first step forward.

  It was impossible.

  Hold off three Kul? He’d be lucky to manage one on a good day, and this was the furthest thing from—

  “Slater!”

  The two rakul followed Jarek’s gaze to the porch—just in time to see Mosen cock back and hurl the Whacker straight at Jarek.

  Jarek reached for the blade without thought, instinctively calculating arc and rotation until the hilt smacked into his waiting hand, reverse-grip.

  “Do it for Blondie!” Mosen called.

  Then he turned and dove back through the ruined window toward the sounds of fighting inside.

  Jarek gripped the Whacker’s hilt tight, letting Mosen’s words and the feelings they stirred flow through him like a cleansing fire, burning away his fear, leaving behind nothing but thrumming determination.

  It was impossible. He was hopelessly outmatched.

  But Jarek would be damned if he was going to let that stop him now.

  “Let’s go, asshats.”

  The words were barely out of his mouth when the gargoyle lunged forward with a sound like a bellowing bull.

  Jarek dipped low, spinning far to the outside and coming around in time to clip the gargoyle’s passing left wing with a reverse-grip rising strike.

  What little satisfaction the gargoyle’s aggravated grunt bought Jarek was snuffed by the sight of Gada rushing in on his brother’s flank.

  Gada pounced.

  Jarek leapt twenty feet straight up into the air, pulling into a horizontal corkscrew. He swept his sword around and carved a smoking line of charred hide across the back of Gada’s thick neck from above as the Kul fought to draw up from his fruitles
s charge.

  Gada halted faster than anything his size had business doing. Certainly faster than Jarek had expected as he reached the zenith of his jump and began falling—straight for the Kul’s spiky shoulders.

  Jarek tucked and spun as fast as he could. Just fast enough to get his feet back under him as he slammed down to the aggressive terrain of Gada’s back.

  Unthinking, Jarek thrust his sword into the spiky mess for purchase.

  It didn’t sink far, but it was something to hold onto as Gada roared and whipped around, trying to shake him free.

  He was about to take his chances with yanking the sword free to take a shot at Gada’s head when Al cried out, “Incoming!”

  Below, The Anabolic Gargoyle was already springing from the ground, bound straight for Jarek.

  Jarek started to jump then rethought trying to out-elevate the gargoyle’s unfurling wings and instead tucked into a low backward roll down Gada’s left flank.

  The gargoyle’s claws narrowly missed him as he tumbled down and landed off-balance.

  Gada’s backhand didn’t.

  This time, Jarek managed to hold onto his sword right up to the moment he slammed into the crumpled mess of the truck Gada had trashed.

  He groaned, trying to blink his vision clear and rise above the waves of pain rolling through him.

  To the left, some of the Resistance troops and Mosenites alike were reaching the other convoy vehicles now. That was good. But there were still too many shouts and gunshots pouring out of the house, and he didn’t see Mosen, Chambers, or Michael. That was less good.

  And, as he came back to his senses and focused dead ahead, he saw that the gargoyle was gliding straight for him on leathery wings, long arms outstretched.

  That was least good.

  Jarek dropped like a sack of bricks. The gargoyle crashed into the truck and sent it flying into the adjacent field with a velocity that made Jarek wince.

  He rolled to the side, feeling more than seeing the earth-shaking stomp he avoided as he scrambled back to his feet.

  The gargoyle didn’t give him time to shake it off.

  He came after Jarek at a more controlled speed this time, leaving no room to maneuver outside of his charge. Worse, he seemed to have caught on that the Whacker posed some threat—however small—to even a Kul’s resilient hide.

  The gargoyle twisted and dodged outside of Jarek’s first few strikes, closing on him all the while, those damned long arms seeking to wrap him under control.

  Rhythmic vibrations in the earth underfoot told him Gada was charging in at the same time Al did.

  Jarek stepped between the gargoyle and Gada, feigning ignorance of Gada’s approach with his turned back. He cocked his sword back for another strike at the gargoyle …

  And threw himself to the side at the last possible second, praying to the gods that an over-eager Gada would plow headlong into his brother as Jarek turned through an aerial and landed ten yards away.

  No crash. No aggravated roars.

  The sight of the two crimson-eyed rakul calmly stalking after him would have made him blush if it wasn’t too busy shriveling his insides.

  How had he expected that to work?

  And what the hell else was he supposed to try?

  Behind him, a window shattered, and he glanced back to see Mosen slam to a rough landing beside the house as if he’d been thrown by something strong and wriggly.

  Michael and Chambers came around the back of the house at a sprint and hauled him to his feet just as Wriggles began folding his way through the too-small window.

  “Go!” Jarek shouted at them. Above, Al was banking the ship down to offer them entry to the open rear hatch. “Get the hell out of here!”

  He didn’t wait to see if they’d listen. Didn’t have time.

  Gada and the gargoyle Kul moved on him as a pair this time, fanning to either side of him.

  Jarek took a long jump away from the convoy, determined to draw them away from his friends and, at the same time, trying to avoid entertaining attack from both directions.

  The maneuver was half-successful, at least.

  The rakul sprang after him, their movements different than before, like a pair of seasoned pack hunters refusing to let their prey slip out from between them.

  The fight took on a new quality for Jarek after that, and not for the better.

  He dipped and weaved, parrying Gada’s blades here, pressing the offensive against the gargoyle’s shorter claws and more vulnerable forearms there. He gave himself over to the deadly dance completely—until his mind was blank and there was nothing but action and reaction, attack and counterattack. No space for pain or fear.

  He was perfect.

  And it wasn’t enough.

  Alone, against one Kul, he’d have had his hands more than full. Against two, with no Rachel or Drogan to watch his back, it was inevitable.

  The blow that hammered him to the dirt had come from the gargoyle, his addled brain reasoned as he lay there, waiting for breath and focus to return with a horrible, creeping sense of acceptance.

  It had come from the gargoyle, his brain continued to hash out, because, pulverized shoulder and lung aside, he was still physically in one piece, decidedly not hacked in two by Gada’s wicked blades.

  But he might as well have been.

  Because there was no getting back to his feet this time, he knew, as he rolled over to face the rakul and found his sword hand already trapped beneath the gargoyle’s massive foot. No stopping Gada as the leering dinosaur approached, flexing his finger-blades in anticipation.

  “Get up, sir,” Al pleaded in his earpiece.

  Words failed him.

  They’d done their best. He’d done his best. And now, just like that, all of it was about to be rendered worthless. All the fighting. All the pain.

  Rachel.

  He’d been so close. So fucking close.

  The moment you think everything’s well and good …

  Gada paused at Jarek’s feet, the violent delight evident even on his alien features as he leaned in to plant an enormous foot on Jarek’s torso.

  The moment you’re sure you’ve got it in the bag …

  “GET UP!” Al bellowed.

  That’s exactly when things are most ready to blow up in your face, kid.

  “I’m sorry, Goldilocks,” he whispered, closing his tired eyes as Gada raised his blades.

  20

  Lying in the dirt, eyes closed in some futile attempt for a moment of quiet peace with the image of Rachel in his mind’s eye, and the last thing that Jarek would ever hear, of course, was the bestial roar of a damn Kul.

  The air vibrated with it—a roar that might’ve come from a lion the size of a truck.

  A roar, he realized, that didn’t belong to Kul’Gada.

  Jarek knew that roar.

  Just like he knew the rustred raknoth who slammed into Gada’s shoulder as Jarek snapped his eyes open.

  “RUSTYYY!!” Jarek bellowed in an incoherent flood of relief.

  He didn’t have time to ask how or why.

  Zar’Krogoth’s rustred form ducked Gada’s counterattack, and two more scaly green raknoth flew in to catch Gada in a tandem kick that took the Kul from his feet and shook the earth with his landing.

  Three more raknoth sprang in to tackle the gargoyle away from Jarek before the Kul could pick up Gada’s work and stomp him into armor-covered paste.

  Krogoth spun around and yanked Jarek bodily to his feet.

  “Gather your wits, Jarek Slater,” he rumbled. “We must flee and regroup.”

  “Best idea I’ve heard all goddamn day,” Jarek said, relief and residual swirls of icy terror rendering his mind numb as he looked around in a stupor.

  A few more raknoth were sweeping in to help contain the three rakul—roughly ten in total at a glance. Rumbling engines to the right drew his attention to an approaching convoy of trucks similar to their own, but larger in number.

  The trucks were al
l driven by humans, as far as he could see. And behind the wheel of the lead truck—

  “Alaric?” Jarek asked to no one in particular.

  The sight of the wiry Resistance commander, and the additional recognition of Commander Daniels beside him, sent another wave of warm relief through Jarek. Relief that was quickly tempered by Gada’s roar of fury as the enormous Kul rocked back to his feet to engage the raknoth alongside his brother.

  Time to move.

  He dodged a wild lunge from Gada, hacked his own slash at one of the gargoyle’s furled wings, and was rewarded with a pained screech.

  The gargoyle Kul spun from the two raknoth he’d been facing to retaliate with a sweeping backhand, but Jarek was already throwing himself out of harm’s way. Past the farmhouse porch.

  Straight at Wriggles, who looked to be a second away from hurling his leathery form at the ship Mosen, Michael, and Chambers were hurrying toward.

  Jarek thought for a few steps about trying to hack the wriggling blob clean in two. But that hadn’t worked so well the first time. All they needed right then was space to get out of there.

  So when Wriggles turned at his approach, Jarek lowered his shoulder and charged.

  The impact was jarring and far from pain-free, but it did the job. Wriggles smashed down amid the thick weeds fifteen yards away. Michael, Chambers, and Mosen hesitated for a second, then clambered up the boarding ramp of the ship Al had hovered in just behind them.

  Jarek turned to the soldiers who’d frozen halfway to the convoy to watch the ongoing fight. Behind them, Alaric’s trucks were pulling up and throwing open doors and hatches to take on additional passengers.

  “Get to the vehicles, people!” he bellowed. “Now! Go!”

  Wriggles was gliding back toward him through the thick brush now.

  Jarek glanced around to make sure everyone was clear. His stomach fell at the sight of the rakul ship hovering patiently above the battle—the one that must’ve carried Gada and his pals here. That ship had to go if they had any hope of losing these three. But how?

  He turned, painfully aware of Wriggles’ proximity at his back, and darted back to Krogoth and the other raknoth, who were still locked in a furious battle with Gada and the gargoyle.