The Reforged Trilogy: Book 1 — Crucible of Stars
Chapter 24
Reaping Tears
“It’s young hearts that pound the drumbeat of revolution.”
– Lyran proverb
Gripper’s heart hammered inside his ribs so hard that he wondered if it was trying to break out and run ahead. Xia, Vyron and Kessa — clutching her infant son tight in her arms — raced in front of him through the cramped corridors of the Blue Phoenix. Gripper had to duck and squeeze through tiny doorways, leaving behind scraped skin and tufts of painfully pulled fur as he struggled to keep up. Duaal ran after him, swearing hotly.
Gripper could imagine Coldhand right behind them… He ran faster, grabbing onto bulkheads and swinging on long arms where he could. When they reached the mess, Xia signaled a stop. The kitchen sink was still full of dishes left over from lunch.
Vyron and Kessa crouched behind the table, huddled protectively together around Baliend. Doors at either end of the room led back the way they had come, past the engines and crew quarters, but the other opened into a hallway that went up to the little antechamber of acceleration couches and the cockpit.
“That fight may not stay in the cargo bay,” Xia said. “Maeve and Tiberius might have to fall back. There’s enough room to move in here, if it comes to a fight. But if we go much further, we’re going to run out of space.”
There was something wrong that a doctor had to know anything about fighting, Gripper thought.
Duaal positioned himself near the door. “I’ll handle Coldhand if he makes it this far.”
Xia nodded. “Gripper, whatever Tiberius says, Duaal can take care of himself. So can I. Let us do the fighting. Just keep an eye on Kessa and Vyron, alright?”
“I… I’ll try,” Gripper said. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to keep the Dailons out of trouble. “I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will.”
Xia smiled at Gripper and patted his huge, furry arm. He really, really hoped that he wouldn’t let her down.
They all waited in tense silence. It took every bit of Gripper’s self-control not to swing nervously from the supports. Shouting and arguing voices drifted up from the cargo bay, but he couldn’t make out the words. Duaal and Xia were closest to the door, leaning through as they braced for trouble. Gripper hung back, the Dailon family cowering behind him. The top of his head and points of his ears brushed the ceiling.
Gripper could still hear the shrill of a laser weapon and raised voices, but there was something else.
“Hey, what’s that?” he asked.
Duaal shot Gripper a look and Xia shushed him absently, but the noise continued — a groaning, tearing sound. Gripper strained to listen.
The other sound was sharper and higher pitched than he had first thought, but the upper registers were completely washed out by the noise from the hold. It reminded Gripper of a time just a few months before when the ISR junction had fused shut. None of his drills or microsaws had been powerful enough to cut through the melted metal, forcing the Arboran to simply rip through the plating and tear off the fibersteel covers.
Whatever Gripper heard now, it was similar to that buckling of metal. And it was getting louder.
“Um…” Gripper said.
But no one was looking at him. All attention was on the corridor that led down to the hold, everyone poised and waiting for trouble to come tumbling through that door.
The grating sound suddenly stopped, and Gripper let out a sigh of relief. So it was nothing after all.
Gripper didn’t realize that they were no longer alone until Xia was stumbling back, reaching for her gun. But it was still down in the hold and she swore hoarsely, invoking the names of demons Gripper didn’t recognize. Baliend was crying again, screaming with lungs that seemed far more developed than the rest of his tiny blue body.
Was it Coldhand? And why was Maeve flinging herself at Xia in a furious whirlwind of feathers? Gripper realized a second later that this Arcadian wasn’t his friend. The new fairy was taller than Maeve, with butter-yellow hair swinging in a long braid. Her face was far sharper and looked older than Maeve, too. Only her sad, red-shot eyes were anything alike.
Something hard and furry hit Gripper in the stomach, painfully knocking the wind out of his lungs and sending him reeling back into Kessa and Vyron. They stumbled and fell under him.
A snarling Lyran in bright red robes stood over them, a nanosword in one paw, curved like a fang and running with a shifting oil-on-water rainbow of colors. The blade whistled over their heads as Gripper and the Dailons struggled to untangle themselves. Vyron and Kessa threw themselves out of the way, Baliend clutched between them, but the sword’s molecule-thin edge sheered through the tip of Gripper’s long left ear.
He howled in pain and clapped his huge claw to the wound. The Lyran in red smiled as Gripper screamed, and spun the nanosword effortlessly. His blade flicked out again, quick as a striking snake and cutting deep, bloody gashes across the Arboran’s mottled hide.
How did they get onto the ship? Every lash of the sword sliced a burning line of pain into Gripper’s body, over his knotted shoulders, thick arms and wide chest. He tried to wriggle away, but Vyron and his little family were too close and Gripper was just too big. His pained thrashing could kill them almost as easily as the Lyran’s nanosword. Blood dripped into his eyes and the Arboran brought up his huge hands, trying feebly to fend off the blows, but each slash slid past and cut free another howl of agony.
The mess was suddenly alive with crackling electricity. Gripper shouted and the Lyran went stiff, his exposed fur bristling. Curling fingers of lightning leapt from the empty air, surrounding him in burning energy. The Lyran fell to one knee with blackened burns smoking all across his gray pelt.
“Hey there, pup!” Duaal called out. “Why don’t you come dance with someone who knows the steps?”
He touched fingers to a symbol embroidered on his coat and sang alien words. The Lyran jumped to his paws and whirled on Duaal, red robes billowing. Duaal stepped back, snapped a word and released his spell. The air sizzled and then burst into flame all around the Lyran. He howled as the fire enveloped clothes and fur, blazing and filling the mess with the stomach-churning smell of burning hair and flesh.
But the flaming Lyran pounced on Duaal, sending both combatants skidding across the floor. The smaller and more muscular man slashed out with his nanosword — still clutched in one smoking paw — at Duaal’s unprotected face.
Duaal gasped a word and splayed his gloved fingers. The sword rang as though it had impacted steel, crashing off the apparently empty air in front of Duaal’s face. But the force of the blow shoved him down, cracking the back of his head against the deckplates. Duaal blinked slowly, eyes glazed.
“Magic!” the Lyran growled.
There was something in his voice, a respectful, even reverent tone. But he didn’t get off of Duaal.
Where was Xia? Gripper hauled himself back to his feet, trying not to crush Kessa and her family. He bled from a dozen painful wounds, and the stickiness running down into his ear made it hard to hear.
Xia was struggling to disarm the Arcadian of a dagger that the fairy had pulled from somewhere in her rough black robes, but not faring well. Xia sported fewer cuts than Gripper, but not by much. Her silvery skin was spotted with blood and her jeweled eyes whirled a frightened red. Her fairy attacker had Xia pinned in a corner and was bearing her blade inexorably down on the Ixthian. The medic had one of her six-fingered hands wrapped around the Arcadian’s slim wrists, warding off the knife, but she was tiring quickly.
“Silver!” Gripper cried.
He jumped at the Arcadian and grabbed her wings in his huge claws. Delicate bones snapped like twigs in Gripper’s hand as he yanked her off of Xia. The fairy screeched sharply in agony and Xia sagged against the wall. The strange Arcadian dropped her knife and twisted treacherously, lashing out behind her with a slender leg and landing a kick right between Gripper’s legs. Tears sprang into his eyes. He released her and fell to his knees with a groan.
Alainna staggered but managed to keep her feet, even as her broken wings trailed out uselessly behind her on the floor. Seon straddled a dark-skinned human man, who was shaking his head and trying to focus glazed eyes. She retrieved her fallen dagger and made an off-balance dash at the great ogre that had destroyed her wings.
“Alainna, no!” Seon growled. “Take the baby and return it to the cathedral.”
Gritting her teeth, Alainna veered off course. It wasn’t wise to disobey orders from an Emberguard. Seon regarded the human boy beneath him, who was struggling to stand.
“What of these life-clingers?” Alainna asked.
She didn’t like the idea of leaving anyone alive. What right did these land-bound creatures have to breathe when the White Kingdom was gone? And there were practical considerations, as well — survivors now might make enemies later.
“I’ll finish them,” Seon answered.
The Lyran’s yellow eyes smoldered with a banked flame, a mad spark of burning need. Blackened fur around his muzzle and ears still smoked. Seon pointed his nanosword at the human who had burned him.
“Except this one,” he said. “Lord Gavriel will want him. I think he’s a mage. I’ll kill the rest, but then bring the human prize to our master myself.”
“You want all of the glory for yourself, Emberguard.”
“Take the baby and go!” Seon growled.
But at the sharp end of the Emberguard’s sword, the human boy whimpered like a beaten dog, his sea-green eyes wide.
“Gavriel…?” he asked. “Gavriel Euvo?”
Seon whipped his eyes back to the mage, who raised his hands, lips already moving in song. Alainna recognized the focus-words of a lightning call, but Seon struck the boy across the face hard with the guard of his nanosword, shattering the caster’s attention. Blood ran from the boy’s mouth.
These people were all dead, whether they knew it or not. And when Seon was done with his bloodbath, he would take the mage to Gavriel himself.
The huge ogre-thing was clambering back to his feet, but both the Dailons still cowered in the corner of the mess, cradling their child between them. Alainna stalked across the room.
“Give me the baby,” she said.
The Dailon woman hugged her child to her ample blue breast, weeping and shaking her head. Her man stood up shakily between the two women, arms held out and black eyes wide with fear. A pair of handcuffs dangled from his right wrist.
“Leave us alone,” he said almost bravely. “Please, I just found my family. Don’t take my son!”
Alainna smiled thinly. How tight the living clung to their pointless lives and their empty loves.
Alainna brought the bloody knife down on the male Dailon, opening a gash from his collarbone to navel that gushed red down his blue chest. He fell to the ground and the woman screamed in horror as blood ran across the floor. Alainna sheathed her blade, stepping over the man and grabbed the wailing baby from his mother’s arms.
