THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 2 — SWORD OF DREAMS
Chapter 31: Heart & Hand
“Anyone in search of revenge tears their own wounds bloody in the hunt.”
– Duchian Lemanne, Li Marraine author (34 PA)
“Stop!” Gripper shouted. “Stop here!”
Logan slammed on the brakes. It was raining down in the valley and the truck skidded across the wet road. A dented hauler honked and thundered past in the opposite direction as Logan bumped his borrowed vehicle up over a slushy snowbank. There was no appreciable shoulder along the road, so Logan parked on the steep downhill slope.
The second truck slid to a stop right behind him, but the rain poured down so heavily that Logan could barely make out Duaal turning in the passenger seat to confer with Xia and Panna.
On the road, the swift-moving traffic didn’t slow. Logan squinted at the far side. Built close against the steep, stony sides of the valley was a cluster of stark, ugly storage slabs. They were tall, unadorned rectangles of concrete with only a few sealed windows staring out over Pylos like the eyes of dead giants. Several of the buildings had cracked badly across the base and barely hung to the mountainside, leaning threateningly over the narrow road below.
“It’s got to be one of these,” Gripper said. He pressed his ogreish face to the window. “Look!”
He was pointing to one of the cracked foundations. A twisted, broken piece of metal jutted out from the cracked and stained concrete. The snapped-off support was covered in rust that looked a lot like congealed blood. Logan’s heart skipped a beat. Was this it? Was Maeve in there?
Gripper’s com beeped. The Arboran jumped and fumbled it out of his pocket.
“It’s Duaal,” the mage said in an unhappy voice. “We’re running out of time. Maeve gave Gavriel everything. She didn’t want to, but it’s done.”
“Do you know which building she’s in?” Logan asked.
“It’s hard as hells to see out there.”
“Do you know?”
“I think so,” Duaal said. “Everything inside is slanted… or leaning, like it’s on a hill.”
The concrete slab at the end of the row leaned so far out from the mountain that a single quake might very well shake it free and send the whole tower crashing down into Pylos. The small square windows were broken and dark.
“That’s the one,” Logan said. He checked his Talon-9 again and grabbed the door’s handle.
“What are you doing?” Gripper asked, eyes wide.
“I’m going to get Maeve.”
In the other truck, Duaal and Xia started.
Panna grabbed the com. “Wait, you can’t go in there all alone! We’re supposed to call Captain Cerro!”
“How long will it take him to get here?” Logan asked. He opened the door. Wind howled and rain splattered across the dashboard. “How long do you think Maeve’s got?”
“But…” Gripper whimpered.
“Call Cerro,” Logan said. “We’ll still need the police to deal with the Nihilists. Tell them to come in cold.”
Logan closed the truck door before anyone could argue further. Maybe Panna was right, but he could wait no longer. Not now. Not this close to finding Maeve.
The rain was cold and heavy. It matted the hunter’s hair against his face and streamed down the back of his neck. Logan shivered. He hurried across the crumbling road, between honking cars and swerving streetcycles. On the other side, Logan darted up the short rampway to the loading doors, but they were all welded tightly shut and covered under layers of mud and paint.
Logan circled around and — after a few minutes of searching — found a still-functional door obscured by an overturned trash bin. The frozen mud was full of footprints and scraped tracks where the bin had been pushed into position. The bounty hunter shouldered it aside and slipped into the darkness beyond.
Maeve’s arms and back ached from the climb, but when she finally heaved herself up over the edge of the pit and into the garage, she was alone. Now what?
She sucked down a few rancid, burning breaths, then climbed to her feet and staggered back to the stairs. Maeve heard footsteps and froze, listening. They were too heavy and too fast to belong to Gavriel — it had to be another Nihilist. Hallax? Maeve didn’t want to risk an encounter until she could find Gavriel. She couldn’t let him escape with his stolen memories.
When the footsteps retreated, leaving the narrow stairwell and heading off down some other hallway, Maeve spurred herself on. She climbed back up the stairs as quietly as she could on her numb, frozen toes.
Hallax had taken her down at least five stories from the apartment that had been her prison. There were many floors above that, Maeve suspected. There had to be more than three hundred of the rotting little apartments in this building. Where in all of that was Gavriel?
Maeve crept up the stairs. On the next floor, she stopped beside an open door. The hallway was full of trash, but empty of Nihilists. Maeve listened. Rain drummed against windows and wind howled across the crumbling edifice. A brilliant flash of lightning suddenly flooded the hall, making colorful sparkles dance before Maeve’s eyes. The crack of thunder shook the entire building. But she could hear no voices or any other sounds of life. Leaning on the railing, Maeve climbed up to the next level, only to find it just as empty as the one below.
She made her way along the hall and peered into dark, empty doorways. There were signs of habitation: blankets heaped in the corners or across sagging beds, a few empty cans or foil food packages, candles and lanterns — mostly extinguished but only recently. They were still hot. There were at least five floors more to search, but Maeve didn’t think she would find anyone.
The Nihilists were gone.
Logan kicked down another door. The rotten wood splintered and flew apart, scattering across another dark, empty room. Where was the Cult of Nihil? Was this the wrong building? But the narrow halls and cramped apartments reeked of illness and infection that reminded Logan instantly of the Gharib catacombs. But where were the Nihilists?
Where was Maeve?
Logan shined a flashlight around the room, found nothing else of interest and then turned back out into the hall. The next door was in better condition than most of the others, probably replaced within the last few months. Logan turned the handle and shoved it open. The thick oak plank creaked on damp hinges.
The draft that blew out at Logan was full of a familiar scent, one that didn’t belong to the sickly, dying Nihilists. This was the smell of blood and feathers, sweat and Vanora White. Maeve… Or some other drugged and struggling Arcadian, Logan supposed. His throat was tight as he stepped through the door and moved his flashlight across the rubble-strewn floor.
No, this had to be the place. The room was exactly as Duaal had described it: a small apartment with an aged steel beam running right through the center. The only piece of furniture was an ancient armchair, upholstered in faded scarlet. The floor was covered with dried blood and feathers, all mixed in with stone and mud from the broken wall.
There was something coiled in the muck, tangled around something shiny. A needle — just like the one Logan had found in the snow on the mountain — and a bloodstained tangle of rope. A pair of handcuffs lay in the rubble nearby. Just as Duaal had told them… Maeve had been here.
Then where was she now? Logan lifted the needle in his cybernetic hand. Gripper said that Maeve was off the stuff. But Gavriel gave her chems, forced them on her… It was like a rape and the thought seared through Logan, far more painful than any of Vorus’ blows. He crushed the needle and threw it to the ground.
“You’re not one of the flock,” said a voice from behind him.
Logan went cold. He knew that voice. The Emberguard stood in the doorway, a glistening nanosword in his hand. The Mirran that Duaal had called Hallax was thinner than Logan remembered, and his green hair had grown longer — but his mad eyes were the same as the night the Emberguard had run Logan Centra right through the heart and killed his partner.
“You’re the one from Gharib,” Hallax said.
“We met long before that,” Logan answered. “Where is Maeve?”
“I don’t know yet, but I will find and kill her, as Lord Gavriel has decreed.” Hallax raised his nanosword — was it the same one he had used years ago to kill Logan? — and squinted at the bounty hunter, studying him. “Long before?”
Logan didn’t answer. He moved the flashlight to his left hand, gripping it tight enough to dimple the metal casing. Hallax watched him closely and nodded minutely. Whipcord muscles rippled beneath his striped olive skin.
“Ah, yes… I remember you now, Prian,” Hallax said slowly. The sword moved in a lazy arc, like a hunting cat’s tail swishing this way and that. “You wore a lawman’s uniform then. I gifted your partner with death and put my sword through your heart. I left you to die and now you want to do the same to me. You want revenge.”
“I just want to find Maeve,” Logan said. It was the truth.
“Maeve Cavainna belongs to Lord Gavriel and deep in her own grave.” The Emberguard stepped back, settling his long body into an easy fighting stance. The nanosword’s point rose toward Logan. “But first, I should finish my apparently shoddy work on you.”
Hallax lunged in with an expert fencer’s thrust. Logan was still too close to the thick steel post and slammed his shoulder into the pitted metal as he turned aside. The nanosword sliced a neat silver line into the metal.
Logan’s feet slid through the blood and loose dirt, searching for purchase. He planted one boot against the rusted steel girder and grabbed for his Talon-9, but Hallax jumped at Logan and tackled the smaller man to the filthy floor. They tumbled, each trying to bring his weapon to bear.
Hallax sliced shallow wounds into Logan’s arm as he pushed the nanosword up, seeking out the hunter’s throat. Logan tried to wrest his Talon free of the hip holster again, but he was on top of it. The flashlight was smaller, shorter, and easier to swing in close confines. Logan cracked it across Hallax’s cheek.
As the taller man reeled, Logan dropped the flashlight, rolled onto his back and finally drew his gun. His first shot was wild, but at such close range, couldn’t help but hit. The laser whined and Hallax snarled in pain as smoke rose from his burned hip.
Logan adjusted his aim, but the Emberguard snapped a kick into his wrist that sent the second shot high, slicing upward. The unstable ceiling groaned and buckled. Aging concrete rained down on them, forcing Logan to roll to one side, away from his enemy. Hallax leapt up and bolted for the door. The hem of his tattered red cloak whipped around the frame just ahead of Logan’s aim.
The bounty hunter kept his Talon-9 aimed at the doorway as he climbed carefully back to his feet. If he charged blindly back out into the hall, Hallax would be on him in a second. He needed to see where he was going. Logan targeted the side of the door where the Mirran had fled and held down the trigger. The sustained beam did its work as well here as it had under the cathedral in Gharib. The laser seared through the wall, tumbling the cracked concrete down into a pile of gray rubble and exposing the hallway.
Hallax hadn’t gone far. If he ran, Logan could easily have shot him in the back, but the Mirran knew it, too. Instead, the Emberguard charged right at the Prian, closing the distance between them with the same graceful, loping strides that Logan remembered from six years ago and wearing the same mad grin.
Hallax’s nanoblade flashed in a deadly, decapitating arc. Logan slammed the blade to one side with the Talon’s long barrel. Straining, he leaned against the gun and hoped that the lenses inside hadn’t cracked. Police equipment was tough, and that wasn’t just Prian pride. The Talons had to be rugged weapons to survive generations of demanding use. But was that tough enough?
The sword slid off Logan’s gun and the Emberguard spun away. The cloudy windows leaked rain into the hall and muddy water sprayed out from under his boots. He stepped through, sweeping past and whirling behind Logan.
The hunter turned to face Hallax again, but slipped on the wet floor. Hallax’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a maniac grin and he leapt at the Prian with his nanosword extended, point leveled right at Logan’s heart.
Not this time. Logan stepped into the thrust and grabbed the nanosword in his cybernetic hand, the hand Hallax had given him. The blade slid in his grip, throwing sparks as steel ground against illonium. Logan yanked the blade aside and brought up his laser.
Hallax’s grin faltered and then fell as Logan pulled the trigger. The lenses weren’t cracked. Red light flared and seared a smoking hole straight through the Emberguard’s chest.
The Nihilists were all gone. Maeve had to tell someone what had happened. She needed to find a radio, a com… something to call Tiberius and the Pylos police. They had to know about Gavriel…!
The apartment windows were nailed or sealed shut, those that had ever opened at all. A few laminated glass panes were broken, but none large enough for even the small fairy to squeeze through. Maeve didn’t have time to search every single room.
She would have to go back downstairs or all the way up to the roof. Maeve flexed her wings experimentally. They ached terribly. She could fly, but for how long in the driving rain outside? Not long and not far, but surely far enough to find some help…
Her skin was alternately sweaty-hot and clammy-cold. Maeve ran unsteadily back to the stairs and began climbing again, making for the roof. She stared up into the shadows. How much further did she have to go? If only there was room to fly…
A loud clang resonated from far above, followed by the sharp whine of laserfire. Someone was fighting up there. Who could still be here in the abandoned building? Maybe the police had already found this place. Or maybe it was Tiberius and Gripper, her friends miraculously come to rescue her.
Maeve sprinted up the stairs as fast as her wounded legs could carry her. She jumped over the last steps, stumbled and caught herself against a crooked wall. She was running toward a battle, Maeve realized. It was too dark to see very much, but she searched the floor until she felt something hard and sharp — a shard of broken glass a little longer than her hand. She hastily tore a rag of cloth free from her already shredded pants and wrapped it around the glass. It was hardly an Arcadian dagger, but it would serve.
There was another ringing impact and more laserfire. Maeve pulled open the door and stepped out into the shadowed hall. She couldn’t see anyone… They had to be in one of the rooms or down another hallway. Maeve crept along the corridor as silently as she could, searching the shadows with every step. There was a loud metallic sound, a final shriek of laser, and then a fatal, heavy thud.
Maeve broke into a run.
Logan stood over Hallax. The Emberguard was finally dead, the man who had taken his hand and his heart. His life. But there was no satisfaction in that. Revenge had won him nothing. It couldn’t return what Logan had lost.
Vorus was right. He had done this to himself. Logan ruined his own life.
But there wasn’t time to ponder his failure. Footsteps echoed from around the corner, light but irregular. Another Nihilist? Logan pressed himself back into an empty doorway, Talon-9 held ready.
Lightning flashed through the shattered windows, the cracked walls and turned the puddles across the floor into mirrored quicksilver. A small, winged shadow crept out into the hallway, holding a glass dagger low.
Logan leapt from the shadows and grabbed the Arcadian. He jammed his gun against her stomach, but she squirmed like a snake in his grasp. The tip of her blade sliced through his shirt and drew a line of blood. It was hot and slick on his skin. Outside, rain poured from the gray sky.
“Where–?” Logan began.
The lightning blazed again and the fairy in his arms had black hair and eyes the same color as the stormy sky. Those eyes widened as she stared up at the bounty hunter. Her hunter…
Maeve.
She dropped the curving shard of glass to the floor and it shattered against the concrete. Maeve stood up on her toes, feathered wings held out as though she intended to take flight, and twined her fingers through the human’s soaking-wet blond hair. Maeve pressed her lips to Logan’s and kissed him.
