Shadow Heart (56 page)

He fended off Derek and Gentry’s attacks with masterful ease, allowing them to come within a breath of their fatal blow and then denying them victory in the final second, almost as though he was playing with them...delaying them.

Or waiting for their first mistake.

Gentry thrust forward hard, seeing an opening that simply wasn’t there, and stumbled from lost momentum when the warrior sidestepped his attack. Open and vulnerable, he could not move fast enough to dodge the warrior’s elbow, which came down on Gentry’s head with a sickening
thunk
. Gentry crumpled to the ground, and Derek noted his own moment of distress at the possibility the man was dead. He had already come to trust and rely on him, despite how short a time he had known him.

The black-clad warrior paused, Gladius hanging leisurely at his side, as Derek squared off to face him alone. The rest of the battle seemed far away from them now, which meant no one from the Spectorium would be able to help. He was on his own.

“It’s just you and me, now,” Derek said, holding his arms out and motioning to the empty space. “At least make it a fair fight. Turn that armor off.”

A brief moment of silence stretched between him, during which the eyes behind that black visor no doubt sized him up, trying to estimate his chances without his armor. Derek had simply been spouting off a challenge, and did not really expect the warrior to take him up on his offer. Needless to say, he was surprised when the warrior nodded slowly, “Very well, Grand Admiral Blaine. Now we fight as equals.” With his free hand the warrior flipped a switch on his belt, and though there was no discernible change, Derek presumed that the shield around him had been removed.

The warrior squared his feet and held his blade up in the ready position, and Derek reciprocated by holding his parallel to his face, point raised toward the sky. Then, he struck.

Their blades collided with a high-pitched metal clash that rang out across the city square, and the force of it reverberated through Derek’s arm. He couldn’t suppress the thrill that came with knowing he faced an evenly matched opponent, and as he launched into his next maneuver he let loose for the first time that night.
Exusia
darted right, left, up, down, so fast that he himself barely had time to register the next move before it was already made. The Gladius was alive in his hands, a cruel creature of death that had a mind of its own.

Only a few Spectral-adepts that he had met in his lifetime could have countered such a precise and furious assault, and they were all dead. Yet somehow, every time it seemed as though he was about to deliver the finishing stroke, his opponent’s blade was there to deny him. There were even points where the warrior anticipated him, and was in place to counter an eternity before the blow was struck.

Has he studied my fighting style before this battle
? Derek thought as the battle pushed closer to the center of the square.
He must have, to be able to predict my moves like this. But how
? It wasn’t as if there was a repository of footage on his fighting technique.

I’ll just have to give him something he hasn’t seen
. There was a move he had only used once, in a situation where he had also been evenly matched, but he had not used it since.

It was the move he had used to defeat his partner.

Derek allowed the black-clad warrior to get a bit closer with some of his blows, made him believe he was gaining the upper hand. And then, after a few very close calls, he backed away, leaving himself open to attack in the process. It was a feint of course, something he had studied independently during Specter training, but in the heat of battle opponents would almost always take the bait.

Seeing the opening, the warrior sent his Gladius into a stab straight for Derek’s torso. Derek spun out of the way just before the thrust hit, and launched into a turn to drive his own blade into the warrior’s unprotected left side.

But when the turn was complete, the warrior was not there.

Fire leaped across the top of his hand, and
Exusia
dropped to the ground. He tumbled forward to avoid the next blow surely aimed at his back. Somehow the warrior had anticipated him again, and during the feint ended up behind him.

He came to his feet, muscles tensed to go down fighting, but paused as he saw the warrior just standing calmly, watching him. He raised one finger on his armored left hand, “Fool me once.”

Derek blinked, confused. The warrior spoke as if he knew him, though Derek was sure he would remember someone this skilled with the Spectral Gladius. Again he had that strange tingle of familiarity at the back of his mind. Almost every opponent he had ever faced had died in the encounter.
Unless
...

All the pieces clicked into place, and the truth hit Derek like a Gladius driven straight through his chest. The breath fled from his lungs as he recognized the way the warrior carried himself, his fighting style, his ability to anticipate Derek’s every move...it was the only thing that made sense.

But that can’t be,
he thought.
It’s not possible
.

His eyes turned to the battle, which had moved on north of their position. The action had slowed, and it was obvious even with a cursory glance that more gold and black bodies still stood than those in navy. They had lost...the Spectorium was finished.

- X -

Van Dorn rode a moveable platform behind the rear line of his army, raised so that he could see more of the battle as it unfolded. He made adjustments constantly as needed, and as Liz watched from her place in the shadows it reminded her strongly of an event she had attended long ago: a symphony. Van Dorn was like a conductor, performing his art with finesse and expertise, though this particular composition was of death and mayhem.

An entourage surrounded him to relay his orders and to protect him from threats, but all eyes were to the south and the battle. Liz had made her way around to the north to come up from behind, her wounded leg augmented by a piece of Persian armor. She still could not believe that the Persians had helped her, patching up her leg as best they could and then offering her the grieve so she could walk. Her leg had immediately become stronger when the material touched her skin, and she could only imagine how it felt to wear the entire suit. When she explained her mission they had allowed her to go on her way, to finish what Grace had sent her to do.

She studied each man on the platform, picking out the guards from the officers, and then emerged cautiously from her position. She kept to the shadows as much as possible—difficult with only a few buildings in this sector—and finally made it to the platform.

Silent as a phantom, she lifted herself up onto the contraption and prepared to—

One of the guards turned and looked right at her. He opened his mouth in horror and surprise, but it was too late for him. It was too late for them all.

Ignis
came to life in her hand and sliced into the nearest guard, drawing shocked screams from the rest of those on the platform as they realized they were under attack by a Spectral-adept. The guards attempted to fire on her, but they were too slow, and she dispatched the second, third, and fourth with no difficulty.

The guards felled, only Van Dorn and his two senior officers remained alive, and she placed them between herself and the rear line in case any of the soldiers had heard the commotion. She lowered her Gladius and raised her sidearm instead, aiming straight at Van Dorn’s head.

“Give your forces the stand-down order, General,” she said. “This army now belongs to Grace Sawyer, the Magistrate of Corridor Prime.”

The general alone had retained his calm during the slaughter of the guards, and he looked on her with disdain, as so many other men had done in her life. All he saw was her beauty—a young girl with a gun, beyond her depth and out of her element.

“Sawyer will not be magistrate by the end of this day,” Van Dorn said. “So why don’t you put down that gun and you and I can discuss terms.”

“Terms?”

“For your future.”

“You have no control over my future,” Liz said. “I, however, do have control over yours. I will give you one final order, General. Stand down your forces, and relinquish command to Magistrate Sawyer.”

“Or what?” he smiled. “You’ll shoot me? No, I don’t think so. You don’t have the look of a killer.”

She tilted her head, realizing that this man was no different than the ones that had abused and taken advantage of her for as long as she could remember. Whatever future he had planned for her, she doubted it would be as advantageous to her as it was to him.

“Perhaps,” she said, “that’s what makes me so good at it.”

Liz pulled the trigger and Van Dorn’s head snapped backward. The rest of his body slumped down to the ground unceremoniously, and she turned the gun to the shocked face of his immediate subordinate.

“Congratulations, Major General. You have just been promoted. Stand down your forces.”

The soldier, visibly shaking in the aftermath of his master’s grisly death, raised a hand to his ear and spoke, “All forces, stand down. I repeat, cease fire.”

“Tell them the rest,” Liz ordered.

“General Van Dorn is dead,” the major general complied. “This army now belongs to the Magistrate of Corridor Prime…Grace Sawyer.”

Liz kept her weapon trained on the man and holstered her Gladius. Then she activated her own comm, “Davian, the deed is done. Bring down that wall.”

- X -

“You should have withdrawn when you had the chance, Grand Admiral,” the black-clad warrior said. “The deaths of all your men...that is on you.”

“Who are you?”

The warrior hesitated, and then replied, “Go back to Alexandria. Face the retribution of the man you have chosen to serve.”

“Who
are
you?” Derek repeated.

His question was ignored, as the warrior turned toward the battle where the last of the Spectorium were being put to the sword. Then an explosion ignited the sky to the north, and the shimmering wall flickered and disappeared. The weight of defeat settled down upon Derek’s shoulders, but it was not so heavy as the terrible thought coursing through his mind.

“Your battle has ended. Soldiers beyond counting will soon pour back into the city, and you will not find a friend among them. Go, Grand Admiral.”

He drew his sidearm and took aim at the warrior’s back, “Don’t walk away from me, you coward! I asked you a question!”

The warrior paused to look over his shoulder, and Derek waited with bated breath.

“You wouldn’t be asking the question if you didn’t already know the answer.”

“I need to hear you say it.”

“No,” the warrior said. “You don’t.” And with that he continued on toward the battle.

In a rage, and for reasons he still didn’t quite understand, Derek opened fire. He emptied what remained of his magazine at the warrior’s back, and each and every bullet disintegrated against his armor. At some point, he must have turned it back on. He did not flinch or look back. It was as if Derek didn’t even exist.

He couldn’t let the man go, not until he was certain of the truth. He rose to his feet and started after him, “Tell me your name! Say it! Tell me—”

Pain suddenly exploded at the back of his head, and before he could even register what was happening he was on his back. Someone had hit him from behind, and hard. But who? One of the Persians?

As his grasp of the world began to fade, his eyes shifted to the place where his attacker would have needed to be to strike this blow. The scarred face of Specter General Marcus stared down at him, smiling. “The MWR will have your head for this, Blaine. The least I can do is deliver it to him.”

Derek’s hand twitched, longing to hold his Gladius, but it was too far away to help him. And all he could think about, as unknown hands pulled him back toward the shadow of the buildings, was the black-clad warrior.

It was him.

Delirium took him, and then the world went dark.

S
ORROW ALWAYS FOLLOWED BATTLE
, no matter the outcome. Even in victory, the costs had been high. Grace had led fifty men into battle against the Spectorium, and only seven survived. Now that the adrenaline of the moment had subsided, she felt the pain of the wound on her cheek like thousands of burning needles pricking her skin over and over again. Crenshaw could barely walk, and limped along beside her as they ventured slowly back into the city square.

Her remaining warriors stuck close by them, blades out to the side like an honor guard as they followed three golden-armored Persians through the shallow mists left by the battle. They had witnessed the Spectorium’s discovery of how to reactivate their blades and had followed suit, but the Persians had insisted they stay out of the battle. There had been more than three of them at the time, and little choice.

Bodies littered the ground, and the more they advanced the more difficult it became to go around. At points either Grace or one of her warriors helped Crenshaw step over the ones they could not avoid. Some were the enemy...some were men she had commanded. Honorable men, whose time in this world had come to an end.