Light bringer a red risi.., p.13
Light Bringer: A Red Rising Novel, page 13
part #6 of The Red Rising Saga Series
My concealed com crackles with a priority message. Rhone reports from within the Lightbringer. “Dominus, it is urgent.”
Pallas’s eyebrows creep upward. “Problem?”
“It seems we’re out of wine. Excuse me, goodlady.” I step away from the party to have the conversation near a row of Praetorians. “Rhone, go.”
“There has been a nuclear explosion at the Dockyards of Venus. The Carthii have used it as pretext to launch a full-scale invasion of the dockyards. The Minotaur is asking for reinforcements.”
I reach for the Mind’s Eye to quell the reflexive panic. The sounds of the party shrink away. My heart slows. My welling anxieties slide from chaos into even ranks and await my attention. I look past the Praetorians to the dark sky. The clouds move below.
“I see. Is that all?”
“The situation is still unfolding, dominus.”
“Who else knows this?” I ask.
“Anyone with a telescope.”
“Do we still have eyes on Atlas?”
“Kyber has him in Tyche questioning Coppers.”
I trust Kyber’s competency as much as I trust Rhone’s. Still, if anyone could spot a whisper following him it would be Atlas.
“Have Pytha prep our contingencies and get on deck, I need you here.” The threat of exposure is severe. If the Carthii take prisoners, the Martian exiles will tell their torturers how they got to the dockyards. Not good.
Cicero meets my eyes from across the party. He was listening too and had enough sense not to come over. I hail his com. “Cicero. I need you to tell Tharsus to get out of here now. I don’t want a situation that I can’t control. Keep him away from the Carthii.”
“On it.”
I search for Valeria au Carthii. Amidst her brothers, her head is tilted as she listens to someone in her ear. She’s just finding out as well. Her brother points out Tharsus. Apollonius’s brother is wrestling a small carveling atop a tree to the laughter of his friends.
Sensing my distress, Glirastes abandons Pallas and comes over. I deploy a jamField from my ring so our guests can’t overhear us.
“Dockyards have gone bad?” Glirastes asks. I nod. Thankfully, he has the composure to conceal his panic and his urge to remind me his doubts about the Minotaur. “What does Rhone think?”
I spot him exiting the hull via a lift. He jogs over.
“You need to act as if nothing’s happened,” Rhone says when he joins. “But Apollonius is demanding reinforcements. If we want to move out, we should mobilize our legions and Cicero’s as soon as possible. Mercury is closer to Venus than Earth is. We can beat Atalantia there.”
“If we aid him then we’re in open rebellion against our lawful Dictator,” I say.
In the orchard, Cicero has delivered the news. Tharsus comes down from the tree to find the Carthii staring at him. He shouts for his friends. As he desperately tries to collect the deviants lost in their own fun, the Carthii make their move.
I rush to intercept. I almost get bulldozed by Valeria’s brothers, but I get in front of her before she’s close enough to cause Tharsus harm. She’s within my personal jamField. Her brothers are not. I cover my mouth. “Do you want your inheritance?”
“It is burning,” she says. “So I’ll burn Tharsus. Move or I’ll start thinking you had something to do with it.”
“Your father is not headed for an easy victory. But rather the fight of his life.”
She scoffs. “The only threat was the atomics. I hardly think a handful of Grays will stop our legions—”
I roll the dice. “The Minotaur has eighty thousand Martian veterans.”
She blinks as if she just ran into an invisible wall. “How do you know that?”
“Because I smuggled them to him in the iron caravans.”
“You are in bed with the Minotaur?” She looks as if she wants to drive a knife into my stomach.
“I can give you your inheritance. All of it. You. Not your father. You.”
“How?”
“No time. My life is in your hands. If you expose me, I’m dead and you get the petty satisfaction of revenge. If you say yes to my offer, you can be the head of House Carthii in a week.”
Her eyes dart to Tharsus. He’s gathered his friends. In a tight pack, they head for the table where they stacked their gravBoots. Calculating her chances of surviving her sibling rivalry and the time it would take to achieve the same goal, she looks me in the eyes and says, “Yes.”
Ambition is a reckless master. I turn off my jamField.
“Horatia will be in touch.”
Valeria watches Tharsus and his friends equip their gravBoots, and signals her brothers to stand down. Tharsus glances at me, his face pale, and takes off into the sky. His friends follow hot on his heels. They head east off the back of the Lightbringer. My other guests have noticed the commotion now, and whisper to one another. I return to Rhone and Glirastes. Cicero joins me as I reach them.
“Lysander, we have radar signatures inbound,” Pytha says from the bridge.
“I see them,” Cicero says, spotting a squadron of dark shapes in the sky. Not ships. Men. “Are those yours, Lysander? They’re not ours.”
“No. Intercept them,” I tell Rhone. He motions the nearby Praetorians. They form up and are about to take off.
“Lysander. Hold,” Pytha says. “They’re broadcasting the Dictator’s writ. Olympic tag.” Everyone turns to look at me. “It’s the Fear Knight,” she says. A chill goes through me.
“It’s a legal action then. You have zero jurisdiction,” Rhone says.
“Stand down,” I mutter.
Rhone recalls the Praetorians.
Others see the inbound squadron and rush to the edge of the Lightbringer’s hull to watch. Fear’s squadron, which must be made of Gorgons, descends from a higher altitude than Tharsus and his fleeing friends. They fall in the night sky like crows. Tharsus sees the interlopers and alters his escape trajectory. He and his friends dive down toward the blanket of clouds and disappear into them.
The Gorgons do not follow. My guests gasp and point as the clouds stutter with light. This time it is not fireworks. Tharsus flew straight into a trap waiting in the clouds. A few moments pass. Then Tharsus and only four of his friends race back out of the clouds. They flee right up into the waiting Gorgons. Disdaining weapons, the Gorgons catch Tharsus’s friends with their hands, pin their arms, and start beating them to death midair.
A single dusky figure emerges from the clouds to watch the scene. Atlas.
Tharsus spots Atlas. Even at this distance, I can feel Tharsus’s panic. The Gorgons block his exits, leaving him only one path of escape. He flees across the sky, back the way he came, to land hard amidst the party.
Valeria and her brothers laugh like hyenas at the sight of him. He is bloody, his left arm is broken, his fur coat ripped to shreds. He waves his razor and he calls out to me. “Lune! Lune! I am your guest! You must protect me!”
I lift my hands. “I am sorry. I cannot break the law. They have the Iron Fist.”
“Help me!” Tharsus screams at the guests. No one raises a finger. “Help—”
Then he hears Atlas land behind him. He goes still. Dread darkens his eyes. Shuddering, Tharsus turns to see the Fear Knight watching him from behind his pale mask of office. Tall, lithe, in addition to his gravBoots, Fear wears gray armor styled with a moth motif. His blade is a long black hasta, slick with dark blood, and his right hand is sheathed in a heavy metal gauntlet.
The Iron Fist, writ of the Dictator.
Tharsus looks for escape. There is none. The Carthii cackle and urge him to come to them. “Help me! Someone! Help me!” he screams and starts for me only to find Rhone and a line of Praetorians barring his path. I feel a hand on my chest.
“There’s nothing to do,” Cicero says.
The Fear Knight comes for Tharsus. Finding neither escape nor aid, Tharsus resolves to die well. After a life of privilege, he is denied his last wish. His enraged attack is easily turned by the Fear Knight. After three slashes, Atlas raises the Iron Fist and Tharsus is snared by the device’s statis field. He floats, suspended in zero-G. Atlas cuts off Tharsus’s feet first, then his hands. The severed parts float in the field with their former owner.
Atlas makes a fist with the gauntlet and Tharsus screams as his limbs crackle and compound fracture in a dozen places. Only then does Atlas release him. Tharsus flops screaming to the hull. Wiggling wormlike to nowhere, he gasps as Atlas grabs him by the hair and drags him toward the menagerie. Atlas takes a golden serving bowl from a table as he passes, puts it on Tharsus’s head, bends the edges with his hands to enclose Tharsus’s head, then stuffs Tharsus into the manticore cage.
I look away as the beast feeds on Tharsus’s broken body. His screams echo out from the bowl. My eyes meet Pallas’s. The Bellona client pats her belly.
Atlas is headed my way. My Praetorians make a wall between us. Atlas removes his mask for Rhone. His eyes are dark jewels set in a gaunt philosopher’s face. I read in them paragraphs of disappointment.
He holds up the Iron Fist. “To oppose me is treason against the Society. I am the will of your lawfully appointed Dictator. You of all people are no traitor, Flavinius. Move.”
I set a hand on Rhone’s shoulder and guide him out of the way. Cicero shrinks away from me, terrified at Atlas’s approach. Glirastes comes closer, protective. Horatia finally joins us from her work on the bridge, coming up from a lift in the hull to see Atlas walking toward me. She goes very still.
Atlas lifts his voice for my guests.
“The truce between House Rath and House Carthii has been broken by the Minotaur. An inquest has been launched. The verdict of which will be announced at the summit on Earth one week hence.” He comes closer and taps my chest with the Fist to make it formal. “You have been summoned to report to New Sparta.”
“I am in the middle of my—”
“You have two minutes to set your affairs. Do not abuse my leniency.”
Atlas helps himself to a shrimp from a server’s tray and goes to the manticore cage to whip the creature back from Tharsus’s tattered body. He leaves the body but takes the head and the golden bowl that protected its features from the manticore. Then he strides off in silence to await his ship.
Even the Carthii have gone quiet. My friends are terrified.
“You can’t go with him,” Glirastes says. “Lysander, you have the Lightbringer. You have the Votum. You don’t have to obey.”
Cicero swallows. “We can’t take on Atalantia. Not head-to-head. Not with three Lightbringers.”
Horatia joins. She sees the political trap. “He was touched by the Iron Fist. He must go. It’s a trap. Atalantia wants him to reject the summons. She’s looking for a public infraction to bring you up on charges. Your popularity won’t matter then. All options will be available to her.”
Glirastes grips my arm again, imploring. “Lysander, if you go to Earth you’ll never leave. She will kill you or make you her puppet.”
I did not expect Atlas so soon. I don’t know how he fooled Kyber and lost her tail. But as soon as the news of the dockyards came, I knew I would have limited time to act.
“I must go,” I say. “This is why we created contingencies. Atalantia won’t kill me yet. Horatia, Rhone, we will play peacemakers one more time. Contingency Eleven is our best hope. I’ve already spoken with Valeria. She’s in. You know what to do.”
They nod in agreement.
Cicero is green with worry. “Are you certain?”
“We cannot lose Apollonius. Not now. A dozen ships in hand are worth a hundred on the ledger. We’re in the game now, my friends. Stay true to each other, and we will succeed.”
I hope.
I say my farewell to Cicero and Horatia before taking Glirastes by the arm. “Remember, I want you to get to the safe-house in the mountains as soon as I depart. Keep Exeter close.”
His face is pained. But he tries to be strong for me. He takes my shoulders. “Before you, I was broken. Lost. Hope had fled with youth.” He thumps my chest. “Hope beats here. In you.”
In Glirastes I feel the presence of the love Octavia stole from me with her Pandemonium Chair. The love of a parent for a son. “I will see you soon, Glirastes.” I kiss the wizened man on the brow and tear myself away to walk with Rhone toward Atlas’s landing shuttle. My guests may cry out their complaints against the Dictator but none dare intervene. “I’m counting on you most of all, Rhone. We need more than just Apollonius and his men from the docks.”
“I understand, dominus. I will not fail you,” Rhone says.
Reluctant, he hands me over to the custody of the landing Gorgons. They scan me after I board their shuttle. They miss nothing, not even the implant in my ear canal. The last words I hear before they take it come from Pytha on the bridge. “Good luck, Moonboy. We’ll see you soon.”
“Thank you for your cooperation, Lysander,” Atlas says as the shuttle lifts off. He takes off his cape and hands the Iron Fist to an attendant. “The Styx will rendezvous with us a day out from Mercury. We will take it the rest of the way to Earth. Atalantia thinks you look too martial with that scar. She sent her best carver to better shape you to fit her desires.” He glances at the burn on my face. “But first she has a message for you.” He turns to leave the passenger compartment and calls back to his Gorgons. “Make him shit blood.”
The first fist hits me in the kidneys.
11
DARROW
Inheritance
The Archimedes whispers through space on a route beneath the ecliptic plane that will add weeks to our journey but hopefully help us avoid enemy hunting squadrons. In the commissary, Sevro and I eat dinner in silence. His hair is long and disheveled, and like me he has a beard. He breaks the silence with a burp and wags a chunk of ham on the end of a combat knife. “I’ll say one thing about Kavax. He packs a good larder. Surprised your lot didn’t pillage it.”
“We did. Cassius nicked this grub from Starhold. Neglected to share with the others before we parted ways.”
Sevro shrugs, deciding not to let the origins of the food diminish his enjoyment of it.
“You try the ham yet?” he asks.
“Not yet.”
Four days out from the dockyards, and Sevro and I have apparently forgotten how to talk to each other. At the same time, we can’t seem to ever be more than one room away from each other or avoid touching each other when we are in the same room. It’s weird like that. The push and pull of a war bond that goes as deep as ours. So much guilt, but at the same time he’s my security and refuge, and I am his. We know we’re the only ones who understand what the other one has seen. Indescribable things. Things words explain to those back home about as well as cave paintings relay the reality of a woolly mammoth.
“You always try the ham, Darrow. Wherever you go. It’s a good barometer for the rest of the larder. Trust me.”
He throws a piece on my plate. “I’m prime.”
“PTSD because the Minotaur carved you like a pig?” he asks.
“Was that all a setup?” I ask.
“Don’t be so conceited.”
I grimace at him from across the table. He’s lost weight in his stays in the clone’s prison and then Apollonius’s. Skinny, bearded, tattooed, savage as a serrated knife, drowning in Cassius’s too-large shirt and too-large pants, he looks more like a Lunese street killer than a soldier. Except in the eyes. They’re locked in a thousand-meter stare. Then there’s the matter of his necklace of ears, which he hasn’t taken off. They stink.
“Still a little nauseous from the meds actually,” I admit.
“Pain meds are for Pixies.”
After the duel and the meatstraw, I can’t move without suffering a litany of pains. I’ve been in the Archimedes’s medBay with Aurae more than I’ve been in my own bunk.
“Be honest. It’s the ears,” he says. “I’d get rid of them, but how else could I mock the dead?” He brings an ear to his mouth. “Galerius, you still squealing like a piggy down there?”
“Galerius au Voth?” I ask. “He came to the Minotaur?”
“That’s the piggy,” he says and goes back to eating.
“Well, he certainly had it coming.”
“He was my sixth. After I got free. I was in the vents by then. Strong enough to finally gather supplies and make a real guerilla action out of it. Found him in the showers. His life wasn’t the first thing he lost.”
“I’m glad you showed restraint,” I say. He looks up, eager to take offense but not sure if there’s an angle to. “Ears. You could have chosen pricks.”
“Thought about it. Gender biased and too heavy. Golds, you know.” He’s not joking. “Once I got into an armory and got my hands on antipersonnel mines, it started getting real fun. Best one was pulling a fire alarm in the mess and seeing all those Grays run out. Got fifty-one that day.”
It’s not like Sevro to brag. Maybe like me he doesn’t know how to fill the silence. “So Galerius was there. You already told me about Tiberius and Drusilla. What about on Luna?”
He goes quiet and returns to his food. “Told you. Old crowd. Vox were puppets. Syndicate Queen was Lilath. Clone thing. Clown, Pebble, who knows where. Iron wolf. You want me to tell you Min-Min smelled like bacon when she burned? She did. So did the rest of them.”
He meant it to hurt me, but saying it hurt him too. He looks away. I told him about Mercury. He didn’t say a thing the whole time. Not a single expression either, not even when I told him about Alexandar and Rhonna. He was too mad. He didn’t say it, but I know he thinks I should have let him kill Lysander when he was a boy.
I love Sevro to death, and he is fundamentally a good friend, but he feels no need to be a good person when dealing with enemies. “There he is. Hero of the hour,” Sevro says when Cassius limps in for coffee.
