DarkWind: 2nd Book, WindDemon Trilogy (43 page)

“Don’t,” he warned with a glower that made the Amazeen look away.

“What is happening back there?”

“They’ll be out when the weather calms,” Chanz reported. “Chakia sent Deon to the ship to track your position.”

“I didn’t think of that. She’ll be able to pinpoint where we are!”

“Not without a functioning transpositioner she won’t.” Sern chuckled and held out her hand out to the werebeast. “Come here, sweeting.”

Cree folded his arms and stared at Sern. The woman allowed the weretiger to sniff her fingers, even lick them. He cocked one thick dark brow when the beast lay down beside the Amazeen and laid its head in her lap.

“You sabotaged the transpositioner array?” asked Kahmal.

“Do Diabolusians smell?” Sern looked at Cree. “He’s been sick, but he’ll be fine now. He’s claimed me as his. He says you won’t mind since you have the other two.”

Cree’s eyebrows shot up. “You can understand him?”

Sern shrugged. “I have the ‘voice’ with animals.”

“If I remember the weather patterns on the Vex,” said Kahmal, “the snow in the ice fields lasts from the tenth to the fourth rotation. That means we could hide here for as long as we have food and water. When the snow stops, we can move deeper into the cave system and keep moving until Chakia gives up.”

“They won’t wait until the snow stops,” Chanz disagreed. “They want to get him back in time to see his bloodsons executed.”

The Reaper’s gaze jerked to Chanz. “Explain!”

“On the Feast of Alluvia, less than a month away, they will take what is left of your bloodsons to the cage and-”

“No!” Cree shouted, his amber eyes glowing red for a moment. He strode toward her, his hands clenched into fists. “I cannot allow that! I will not allow it!” He turned his furious stare to Kahmal. “Why did you not tell me about this?”

“I did not tell you because there was nothing you could do about it,” Kahmal said. “As originally planned, you were to be made to watch your bloodsons burn then you would have been executed. But now, with the Attribution...”

“I will not allow this!” he bellowed.

“And how do you plan to prevent it, Cree?” asked Kahmal.

The warrior part of Kamerone Cree that had lain dormant since his flight from Rysalia Prime awakened with a bloody vengeance. His amber stare was brutal as he shifted his eyes from one woman to the next.

“I saved the life of each of you,” he said, his voice eerily quiet. “Therefore your lives belong to me. Is that not so?”

Chanz nodded. “Aye, milord, that is true.”

“Then you are obliged to do as I ask, are you not?”

“Not necessarily,” said Kahmal. Cree swung his livid glower toward her and she cleared her throat. “In a manner of speaking, aye.”

“And if I can take that ship, will you help me fly her to Rysalia Prime?”

“For what purpose?” Kahmal asked, but she already knew.

“To save the lives of my bloodsons and take them beyond the reach of the Multitude.”

“There is no such place,” Chanz said.

“There is Terra.”

“They are Reapers!” protested Kahmal.

“I am Prime Reaper. I can control them if that is what worries you.”

“I am sure you can, but...”

“Help me,” he asked, his eyes filled with pleading. “These are flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. I can not allow them to die as my cousins died in that hellish cage.” He took a step toward her. “Please.”

It was the please that melted the last of the ice around Kahmal’s heart. “You play dirty, Reaper.”

“If we help you, we will never be able to go home,” Chanz said. “We will have to go with you to Terra.”

“That is a given. Although the men on Terra will not be as tame as what you are used to.”

Chanz and Kahmal frowned, but Cirolia Sern brightened. “Good! If that’s the case, then Deon will join us. She has no love for Chakia anyway and loathes the Chalean. My guess is Renata and Cedilla will help as well. They will honor the Attribution.”

“We can leave Chakia and Sejm here,” said Kahmal. “It would be a fitting punishment for the both of them.”

“But this one we will take with us,” Sern said, nuzzling the weretiger’s fur.

“How can you breathe that creature’s stench, Cir?” Chanz asked, fanning the air.

“Don’t listen to her, Ceatie,” cooed Sern. “We’ll have you smelling fresh soon enough.”

“Ceatie?” Cree questioned.

“C-A-T,” Dorrie chuckled. “I like it!”

Apparently the weretiger did, too, for he reached up a massive paw and playfully swiped Sern’s cheek.

Augeania Deon had
been working for over four hours re-wiring the crippled transpositioner. The moment she had seen the mass of pulled wires, she knew who had caused the mischief. Not that she cared. Her thoughts were identical to Chanz and Sern’s so she had no problem with what her fellow warrioresses had done. When the Captain asked her who had sabotaged the equipment, Deon had no compunction about telling her commander she believed the Reaper had created the havoc before trekking on toward the ice fields.

“Get it fixed ASAP!” Chakia ordered.

Well, Deon thought as she fiddled with the wiring, there was the Captain’s opinion of as soon as possible and then there was her own. As far as she was concerned, as soon as possible could be a week from now.

When the footsteps behind her stopped and no one spoke, Deon didn’t bother to turn around but continued to jiggle the wires. “This is precise work and it must be done just so,” she said. Her movements were infinitely slow.

It wasn’t until the cold nose poked at her arm and she looked down to see a weretiger gazing up at her that Audeania Deon moved like lightning.

“What is that
noise?” Sejm demanded, looking up from the plate of tasteless stew two of the warrioresses had provided for her and the captain.

Captain Thalia Chakai paused with the spoon halfway to her mouth, cocked her head to one side, then lowered the spoon. “It sounds like the engines of the Aluvial.”

The two warrioresses who had been serving table for Chakai and Sejm looked at one another. “Would you like us to go check?” one asked.

“Why are the engines being tested this time of night?” Chakai wiped her lips on her napkin. “Aye, go check and tell Deon to report to me immediately!”

The warrioresses took off at a fast walk, both aware of what was happening. Their pace increased; they did not want to be left behind on Montyne Vex.

When the floor of the cave began to shake beneath their feet, Chakai knew the ship was lifting from the desert floor. Her green eyes opened wide and she stared into the Chalean woman’s confused face.

“What is happening?” asked Sejm.

Chakai slumped on the wooden bench. “Sweet Merciful Alluvia,” she whispered.

“What is it?” When Chakai did not answer, Sejm stood. “I asked what is going on here?”

“You might as well sit down and enjoy the last meal you will probably have for awhile, Doctor.”

“What are you...?” Sejm stopped as the blast of the ship’s engines rose in volume then ceased altogether as The Aluvial soared into the heavens. Her face drained of color. “They left us?”

“It would seem so.”

“Alone?” Sejm gasped. “With the Reaper?”

Chakia shook her head. “My guess would be he is with them.”

“No!” Sejm screeched. “I want to be there when he is executed!” She reached up and began pulling at her hair, tearing handfuls from her head.

Chakia stared in silence at the mad woman flinging about the room and wondered how long it would take them to die on Montyne Vex.

“This is the
LRC Aluvial. We are reporting a situation on Montyne Vex,” Lt. Deon reported to the Amazeen fleet command transport she had contacted.

“What is your situation, Aluvial?”

“We had a hull breach and were forced to land on the Vex to make repairs. Unfortunately, Captain Chakai was bitten by a ghoret and has succumbed to her wound. Major Akkadia Kahmal has assumed command.”

“You have our sympathies Aluvial. May we speak to the Major?”

“Not at this time, Command. The Major is in mourning and is in her quarters saying
kasla
for the Captain. When she has completed the ritual, she will contact you.”

“Understood. Please ask her to do so at her earliest convenience.” There was a pause.  “I have been asked to inquire after the Chalean scientist, Dr. Sejm.”

“It is with regret that I inform you Dr. Sejm also succumbed to the ghoret attack. In her efforts to ease Captain Chakai’s suffering, she was smeared with ghoret blood and fell into a stupor. She never regained consciousness and is buried beside Captain Chakai on the plateau at D-9.”

“A most tragic state of events,” the communications officer replied. “Did you retrieve your target?”

“Aye,” replied Lt. Deon. “The Reaper is aboard and we are bringing him to Rysalia Prime.” She looked up as Kamerone Cree laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Good, we will join you there for his termination.”

“That’s what you think,” Cree murmured.

“Aluvial ending transmission.” Deon leaned back in her chair and wondered why the touch of the Reaper did not bother her as she thought it would have.

“Because I am not your enemy,” he said,  reading her mind.

“I hope you have a plan, Cree,” Kahmal said as she joined them.

“I will by the time we reach Rysalia.”

“From your mouth to God’s ear,” Dorrie said.

Cree walked to the sweeping windows that looked out into the ebon heavens through which they sped. His only chance to make it back to Terra was through the women who had vowed to bring him to justice. In the reflective glare of the windows he could see them: Kahmal, Sern, Chanz, Deon, Aegean, and the one he learned was called Cedilla. His gaze shifted to Dorrie and he knew she was looking back at him, gauging his emotions as he stood at parade rest, his hands clasped behind his back, his legs spread wide.

A thought from one of the women wound its way to him: like a king surveying his domain.

He turned and looked at Cirolia Sern and smiled.

She answered his smile as she patted the head of the weretiger lounging beside her navigational chair.

He returned his attention to the stars streaking by the ship and reminded himself that he would need to shield his thoughts around one such as Sern.

For an hour he stood at his self-imposed post then turned to Kahmal.

“Do you have a chapel on board your ship?”

Kahmal nodded. “Deck three.”

He nodded and turned away from the bank of windows and walked to the elevator, his hands still clasped behind his back.

“That has to be a first,” Chanz said quietly. “A Reaper seeking solace in a chapel.”

“If I had not heard him ask, I would not have believed it possible,” Cedilla said.

“There is a lot about Kamerone Cree you women will never know, but this much I will tell you,” Dorrie said. “He is not the beast you have been taught he is. He is a very spiritual man although he would be the first to scoff at the notion.”

He found the chapel a place of strangeness for it was adorned with the likenesses of the goddesses of the Amazeen pantheon. The faces on the statues lining the circular walls were fierce and forbidding, disquieting. With pikes and maces, swords and daggers in their hands, the statues looked down on him with milky-white eyes that set his nerves on edge. As he slid onto a bench before the image of Alluvia, the Great One, and stared up into her angry face, he felt chilled to the marrow of his bones.

“You are an evil entity,” he said. “You, Who sanction the torturous deaths of my bloodsons.”

The air grew colder around him and he knew he was no longer alone in the still room.

“A time ago, I was asked to help Your women to throw off the yoke of the Empire and I did as I was asked. I held to my bargain but Your women did not hold to theirs.”

The intense scent of lavender drifted through the room and a soft green glow pulsed at the left of the statue.

“I was told I would be allowed to take my Lady and leave in peace. That she and I would be able to live in peace. Even as those promises were made to me, those who made them were lying. There was no honor in the words of the women who made those promises and no honor in what they did to me and mine.”

A harsh wind swirled through the room, tousling the Reaper’s black hair, buffeting him, but he did not move. He kept his intent stare on the raging face of the goddess.

“I fought in honor and expected honor in return. What I received from Your women was treachery, deceit, and dishonor.”

“Be quiet!” a voice spoke from the boiling green glow.

“Your women were dishonest with me for they had no intention of holding to the bargain they made. I fought for them and in return was betrayed and sentenced to die.”

“Do not continue!”

“The truth has no meaning for You and Yours, does it, Alluvia?” he asked. “Honor is a word but not a concept. There is no honor among You and Yours!”