by S. E. Weir
No.
Was he not Velof, Jeskir of the Baldere? He was the strongest, best, and most cunning warrior. He let go of his fear and fed his anger. How dare they come and ruin his plans! How dare they come to his city and his planet and tell him what to do!
Velof gripped the arms of his chair as the video ended. He began to push up so he could give these interlopers a piece of his mind and hope something came to him that might distract them from their line of inquiries, but the next words froze him in place.
“We have quite a collection of evidence that we’ve acquired from a rather brave and astute Baldere named Terland.”
Velof mentally cursed. That sewer scum he had dealt with weeks ago was causing him problems from the grave! He should have taken more time to thoroughly express his displeasure before the final blow.
“Terland? The name doesn’t ring a bell.”
Greyson’s eyes bore into him, and Velof felt the eyes of Halvad, Fastel, and especially Geirik watching him. He had a feeling they knew he was lying. He set his jaw and his mind. If he was going down, he wasn’t going alone.
And it wouldn’t be without a fight.
Link had watched Velof’s face as they talked and tried to follow how his mind worked. What would his next move be? They had tried to anticipate all the ways this could go.
Phina, what’s Braeden picking up from everyone? Anything that might help?
After a minute, he got his answer.
Braeden says the guards feel pride, indifference, fear, and greed, and most of all, a desire to fight. Our three guests are mostly showing determination and disgust, likely at what the videos revealed. Velof is showing a heavy dose of fear and anger, and our co-conspirator here is feeling unease, concern, and some fear, but also sharp anger.
About what he expected. Time to go for the throat. He told Velof about the evidence Terland had collected.
“Terland? The name doesn’t ring a bell.”
Velof’s hand tightened, and the tablet he held cracked. He glanced at it and threw it to the side.
Link, Braeden says Velof lied about recognizing the name but that he’s only showing anger now, and it’s tipping toward reckless and violent.
Really? Link felt like grinning even though Phina had sounded concerned. Let’s throw in the rest.
Is that wise? Aren’t we supposed to…you know, parlay in diplomacy rather than push them toward violence?
My dear, you will find that there are all kinds of ways to practice diplomacy.
Phina looked at him in disbelief. What way is this?
He tossed her a grin and didn’t care if anyone else saw it at this point. Push them until they admit what they know.
He turned back to Velof with raised eyebrows and an expression designed to look challenging. “So, Terland gave us a lot of interesting tidbits in his notes and files. One file listed every crime he had witnessed and who was present, as well as who had ordered it. We know you are involved in this whole thing as he captured video of everything in your system long before you thought to wipe it when you knew we were coming. Nice try, that! Sorry it didn’t work out. Our people have better skills than your people and we found everything, so we know you ordered the deaths of Dreuved and any other Gleek who found out. You are involved in these crimes up to the ridges on your purple head. However, the thing he told us that especially caught our attention was that you had a co-conspirator. Care to share?”
Velof slowly pushed to his feet, his body tense and unyielding, his face set and glaring. Link knew what he would say before the words came out.
“Only this. Guards! Kill them all!”
Ah. It was so nice to be wanted.
Phina couldn’t believe Link had purposely pushed and tried to aggravate Velof into confessing. It seemed reckless and pointless. She had only a second’s warning from Braeden along with her own assessment before Velof shouted for the guards to kill them.
What?
The situation threw her until she realized that had been the point of Link’s pushing. He wanted to cause Velof to act rashly in a way that made it easier for them to act in response and remove the problem. Sneaky, tricky man.
Within ten seconds, the guards inside the room were fighting the five Gleeks and the three Guardians and Marines. There were only two extra guards if those fought one each, and Maxim fought two at once, bringing it down to one.
That left Velof, his fierce companion, and the spare guard for Geirik, Halvad, Fastel, Link, and her, which was manageable since Geirik and Halvad vaulted over the couch in front of them and went for Velof while Fastel ran around to meet Torel. Link ran past her to attack the last guard, surprising her by drawing a knife from a sheath that was hidden on his back under his shirt.
Phina took a breath and observed the fighting, trying to decide where to join in as she tucked her tablet away. Everyone held their own against the Baldere. Halvad and Geirik took turns against Velof. In their exchange over the past two days, which had been initiated by Phina at Link’s request, they had expressed in no uncertain terms that Velof had to live to compete in the games. Their people had to see Geirik win as the leader before Velof died. That made the fight more complicated since Velof had no compunction about harming them.
She turned to Charles Edwards to see what he would do in the midst of all this, and the doors crashed open, and five more guards ran into the room.
With only her free to fight them off.
She drew her knives from their sheaths on her thighs and took a shaky breath at the sight of the incoming Baldere with their fierce and determined expressions as they drew their weapons, all of them much larger than her knives.
“Uh, guys? Little help?”
Braeden and the other Gleeks had spread out to each meet a Balderian guard. As the fight went on, he thought it felt like a repeat of the night before. He moved his staff quickly, connecting with the Baldere’s weapon hand, shocking it to release his weapon, much to the guard’s shock and dismay.
He had just turned his staff and was preparing to knock him out when he felt Phina’s emotions jump in shock and alarm. Whipping his head around, he took in the five guards about to attack her, then turned back and assessed the group in a glance. His fellow Gleeks were fighting beside him, having twisted around a little. Draeget took a step to his left, Kroegen took a step forward, and…ah, perfect.
Braeden quickly moved to the side of the Baldere he had just disarmed, and much like the night before, he shoved his staff into the Baldere’s belly with even more kinetic force behind it. The impact threw the male back into the Baldere fighting Kroegen, who didn’t even have time to brace himself before they both landed on a third Baldere who was fighting Draeget. This freed up Braeden and Kroegen to help Phina.
“Knock them out and disarm them, Draeget!”
Braeden gestured for Kroegen to join him in speeding over to rescue Phina from the guards who had just surrounded her. She wasn’t doing too badly, but with five to her one, she was getting overwhelmed. The Gleeks’ elongated limbs made their gait ungainly but they covered ground much more quickly than Baldere.
Within seconds they closed in, but it was too late to keep Phina from harm if he didn’t act immediately.
Duck!
He threw the order to Phina, who dropped into a crouch. Good enough. Using as much as he dared, he thrust his hand forward and forced the kinetic energy out, aiming for the guards’ chests. The force exerted was greater than he’d thought it would be, and the Baldere had no chance to brace themselves. Only one even saw him coming. As a group, the Baldere flew into the wall near the double doors.
The two closer Baldere had been flung into those behind them, which gave them a slight cushion. However, the two Baldere at the back of the group hit the wall hard with their heads, just missing the ridges, so they had no protection from the effects. Both were knocked out. The last Baldere had hit the floor hard, just missing the wall. He wasn’t unconscious, but the force seemed to have broken something inside
that helped to maintain equilibrium since he appeared to be dizzy.
A figure flew in front of them toward the guards.
When Link had heard Phina’s uncertain voice asking for help, he had been toying with the guard. Why not? It barely gave him exercise to fight, but it was the most action he’d had all day. Her uncertainty gave him pause since Phina had always sounded confident, and if not confident, then she had attitude.
Phina uncertain? That didn’t bode well. Swerving to miss being hit by the Baldere’s strange-looking sword with a slit in the middle and barbs on the edges, he sidestepped and glanced over to see five Balderian males advancing on her.
No!
He focused on the Baldere in front of him, ducked, twisted, and shoved his knife deep into the thin slot between the male’s arm and his chest protection. He jiggled the knife from side to side and withdrew it as quick as you could spit, then turned to run to Phina just in time to see the Baldere fly toward the wall.
Braeden, Braeden, what large teeth you have…
Seeing Phina crouched gave him pause, but when her head popped up to see the aftermath of Braeden’s push, he felt like he could breathe again. If something had happened to her…
But it hadn’t. Focus and finish the job, man.
He turned his run to Phina into a run toward the fallen Baldere, dashing past the taller Gleeks while he moved his knife from one hand to the other, flipping the point around so he could use the hilt on their skulls. Two taps to each head where their necks met their skulls did the job nicely. The ribbed armor on the top of their head didn’t help them there, but he saw a few slices on their bodies and knew they were from Phina’s knives.
Heaving a breath, he turned to examine the young woman. She had a gash on her leg and a large slice on the opposite arm, neither of which was deep enough to be life-threatening but were concerning enough that he stopped and pulled off his coat.
Phina blinked up at him, confused. “What are you… Oh!”
Taking a quick glance at the fight told him the Gleeks and Guardians had the guards under control, which was a relief. The three Guardians ran over as Link applied his knife to the jacket, taking strips off the bottom, and began wrapping them around her leg over the wound, which seemed slightly worse than the arm. After tying one off, he did the same with the slice on her arm. Throughout his ministrations, Phina remained quiet, just watching him and wincing every so often. Maxim was muttering curses under his breath, apparently thinking he should have been faster to lend aid.
After Link finished, he rested a hand on her shoulder. “That should do it, but you need to see this out from a chair.”
When she made to push herself up, he lifted her in his arms, eliciting a small noise of surprise from her before one arm slid around his neck and the other gripped the opposite shoulder. He waved off Maxim’s offers to carry her and glared at Ryan when he attempted to take her from him. By the time he had deposited her on the couch facing away from the door, her face was red from the attention.
“Thank you.”
He nodded and turned to view the state of the others in the room. The guards had all been knocked out and disabled or killed. The large Baldere Velof had called Taben sat with no weapon and two Gleeks holding their staffs toward him.
Charles Edwards had moved to the side of the room and was looking around with impassive eyes. The only ones still fighting were Velof and Geirik and Fastel and Torel.
It didn’t seem to be going well for Fastel.
Fastel had noticed the Balderian female as soon as she entered the room with Geirik and Halvad. As the others had talked, her attention had strayed to the female she had later learned was named Torel. The name wasn’t what drew Fastel’s attention. No, that had been entirely because of the way she looked.
Torel could have been Fastel’s sister, they looked that much alike.
Shaking her head, she had viewed the male who had sought to be her bondmate years before and knew she had made the right choice. Velof had shown a few redeeming qualities when they were younger, but she had seen a core of weakness in him that came out eventually. That weakness had done so in the form of all the sneaking around he had done to gain wealth and power over the past ten years, quietly slaying those who opposed him or found out about his machinations.
It sickened her to think she might have been tied to him if life had turned out differently. No, she had made the best choice, and it wasn’t on her that he had committed all these crimes after she had chosen Geirik over him. Those acts had been his choice alone. Fastel hadn’t realized how much she had needed to recognize and understand that. It felt freeing.
After she had been volunteered to do the little telepathy project, she felt the weight of someone’s glare and looked up to see Torel’s eyes burning into her. Ah, jealousy. Perhaps she had realized who Fastel had been to Velof after he volunteered her. Torel’s eyes had remained on her until Velof suggested she fight the young girl from the Empire.
The human girl had looked startled. Torel had looked both eager and disgusted that she had to spend any time on the young girl, then returned to her stoic and sullen but proud self when the topic was dropped.
It didn’t take long for Fastel to feel the rumblings of a fight about to break out. Once Velof had shouted for them all to be killed, Fastel ran to fight the opponent she had chosen—Torel, who looked so very much like her.
Perverted bastard.
As Fastel ran around the couch toward Torel, she saw that the other female had an excited light in her eyes and was eager for a fight. They wouldn’t have a lot of space for maneuvering between the furniture, but there was enough to move around. Fastel pulled her short swords, which were flaumag—wavy blades with sharp angles and curves on both the tip and the flanges just below the hilt. Perfect for slicing things to pieces.
“He will never be yours, pahka!”
The venom in Torel’s tone didn’t surprise Fastel but the words did. She stopped a few paces back, considering the other female.
“I thought I made it clear years ago that I didn’t want him.”
“Lies! I saw the way you looked at him earlier.”
“You mean when I showed pity and disgust on my face? That was all for him, but I would have thought it would tell you I don’t want him. He’s nothing to me now.”
“I see in his eyes when he’s thinking of you. You still have a hold on him somehow, but it will end with your death!”
The female lunged forward, pulling out her weapons and engaging with Fastel’s swords. Fastel felt pity for the younger female, that she wanted to believe it was she who was the villain here instead of Velof.
That didn’t mean she was going to lay down and die for her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Etheric Empire, Vermott, Planet of the Baldere, Governing Center, Consulate
Fastel was good.
She could hold her own with Geirik in skill; she just lacked his endurance, strength, and strategic mind to determine how situations could play out. However, where Fastel was good, Torel was vicious. Fastel had heard of her. Any small opening her opponent gave, Torel took and then hammered until the other person gave up. However, Fastel hadn’t ever been one to give up, and she wouldn’t start now.
Turn, strike, strike, strike. Nothing existed but the need to keep fighting, looking for every opportunity to slash and slice. Fastel ducked, whirled, lunged, and dodged as she tried to avoid and block the strikes of the other female as well as push back.
She ignored the grunts and cries around her about trouble with the extra guards that had come in. She ignored Velof fighting with Halvad and her bondmate. She ignored it all and focused on the female in front of her. She had to. Fastel could feel the burns of the cuts she had received from Torel’s weapons, which were shaped like metal disks with a slice taken out, leaving a thicker bar with holes for the female’s fingers to fit through. The weapons were called rhinghur disks, and they moved like an extension of Torel’s hand. The circular blade ma
de it so very easy to slice from any angle.
As evidenced by the number of cuts on Fastel’s body. The Baldere had the ability to heal quickly, but the more there was to heal, the slower the recovery and the slower she moved while she waited for the cuts to heal. Fastel had done damage to Torel, but those cuts were fewer, though not as easily healed since the barbs on the tips of Fastel’s swords tore as much as sliced.
Fastel realized she was in trouble. She needed an opening to get past Torel’s defenses. She blocked one strike and batted away another, but doing so left her open to Torel’s other rhinghur disk. Torel’s eyes ignited with glee when she realized Fastel wouldn’t be quick enough to block her strike to a vital part of her body.
As Fastel moved forward in a thrust of desperation, Velof bellowed a cry of outrage and dismay, causing Torel’s attention to search him out in alarm. Fastel’s move was too quick, her blade too sharp, and Torel’s movement was arrested.
The blade slid deep between the female’s heart and her lungs. There was no changing the mortal strike. If Fastel pulled out her blade, it would tear the other female’s body more. Torel’s rhinghur had sliced Fastel’s hand, causing her other sword to drop, but that gash was nothing compared to the wound Torel now bore.
Fastel let go, leaving herself with no weapons, but Torel wouldn’t be able to take advantage as she sank to the floor, fingers reflexively opening and letting her disks slide down her fingers. Her face spasmed between emotions, choking and gasping, though she reached a trembling hand toward Velof.
Fastel stood back and watched the female bleed out. She was uncertain about the feelings running through her, but she knew that despite the criminal activity Torel had been involved with, she cared about the man at the heart of the corruption.
Whether Velof reciprocated those feelings remained to be seen.