Found (46 page)

“We can’t just let you fight him by
yourself,” Deep objected.

Xairn shook his head. “You have to. You see,
I have some of the same powers.” He took a deep breath. “I can
withstand him as the rest of you cannot. At least, I
hope
I
can.”

“Then we’ll do all we can to see that you
have a clear shot at the AllFather,” Sylvan said decisively. “But
if we see you struggling and there’s anything we can do, we can’t
promise to hold back.”

“True.” Deep nodded. “Kat cares deeply for
Lauren—she’d never forgive me if I didn’t do everything I could to
be sure the mate of her friend returns safely.”

“That goes double for us,” Baird growled.
“Olivia would have my hide if I let the mate of her kin die.”

Xairn felt a surge of gratitude for the
strong males beside him, pledging their help and support. Here was
the same feeling he’d experienced with Lauren, but in a different
form.
Family. Brothers. Maybe after this is over I can really
become one of them.
It was a hope he couldn’t help cherishing.
After his lonely, cold existence on the Fathership, the idea of
having people to care about, who also cared about him, was
certainly tempting. But in order to get to that point, he had to
confront his father first.

“I thank you,” he said again, bowing
formally. “And if any of you has a weapon I could borrow, I would
be grateful for that as well. Mine is completely out of
charge.”

“Will this do?” Sylvan produced a black piece
of metal that was curved on one end. “It’s a cryo-knife,” he
explained as Xairn examined it. “Not as much range as a projectile
weapon, obviously, but it’s good for close work. Plunge it to the
hilt in your enemy’s chest and you’ll flash-freeze his heart and
all his internal organs in a tenth of a second.”

“Intriguing—I’ve never seen a weapon like it
before,” Xairn murmured. He thumbed the switch at the bottom and a
thin, ice blue blade made of pure energy hummed out of the curved
end. “Where did you get it?”

“It’s an ancient weapon developed on my home
world,” Sylvan said. “We know a lot about cold on Tranq Prime. This
particular cryo-knife was carried by my father until he passed it
on to me.”

“Then I am indeed honored to carry it into
battle.” Xairn nodded gravely and turned the knife off again. “If
you’re all ready, I will to pilot a course for the Fathership.”

“Lead on.” Baird grinned and pounded him on
the shoulder. “I’ve been spoiling for a fight for months now. I
know it makes our females nervous, but a male needs to go to battle
sometimes. It’s in our blood.”

“I agree.” Sylvan smiled and put an arm
around Baird’s shoulders. “Let’s go knock some heads.”

“Forget knocking heads.” Deep gave him a
bloodthirsty grin. “Let’s kill the bastards.”

His twin brother nodded. “We will spill their
blood like water.”

“We’re in agreement then,” Xairn said. “Let’s
go!”

The approach to the Fathership didn’t take
long and, as Xairn had expected, the docking bay doors slid wide
with no trouble at all. His father was welcoming him home—like a
spider welcoming a nervous fly.
But I’m not nervous,
he told
himself as a cold cloak of certainty dropped over him.
I’m here
because I need to be—this confrontation has been a long time
coming—maybe my entire life.

He felt the males behind him tense as the
small Kindred ship settled in the huge, empty space. Behind them,
the docking bay door slid silently shut and then the entry level
access irised open revealing…

“Nothing,” Baird said, breaking the tense
silence. “There’s nobody there.”

“Where are all the Scourge warriors?” Deep
wanted to know.

Xairn opened the ship’s door. “There aren’t
many of us left—not true Scourge anyway. We’ve been dying out for
years now, as you know, and the only way we have to replenish our
race is by growing soldiers in our flesh tanks. They’re like
automen—poor copies of a twisted reality. They aren’t smart or fast
but there are many of them.”

“Not here, there aren’t,” Baird muttered as
they all descended from the ship.

“Or if they’re here, they’re hiding,” Sylvan
put in.

“Just wait,” Xairn said grimly. “Now that
we’re inside the ship my father will know I’m not alone. We had all
better be prepared to fight soon.”

“Where will the AllFather be, do you think?”
Lock asked.

“In his throne room.” Xairn nodded down the
long, empty corridor. “This way. Come—the closer we can get to him
before we’re blocked by the vat grown soldiers he sends, the
better.”

“Let’s go,” Deep said. “If we no longer have
the element of surprise on our side, at least we can have speed.”
He started off at a dead run for the empty hallway and Xairn and
the rest followed. They made good progress through the echoing
corridors and he was just beginning to think they might actually
get all the way to the throne room unmolested, when the first wave
of vat grown soldiers appeared.

“Watch out!” Deep kept charging even as he
shouted. He had his blazer out and ready and was already carving
his way through the silent ranks. The rest of them followed, doing
the same, but for every vat grown they cut down, two more rose to
take its place.

The vat grown soldiers moved forward, a
noiseless, grasping mob, arms outstretched, reaching for anything
they could rend or destroy. Some were armed with knives, though
none of them had a
kusax,
Xairn was relieved to see. Though
silent and stupid they were big and strong and there were hundreds
of them to their small force of five.

“They’re like insects,” Sylvan shouted,
batting away a Scourge soldier with a long knife and getting a
nasty gouge on the arm for his trouble. “Cut one down and a dozen
more pour in to take its place.”

“Just keep going!” Baird roared. He was
forcing his way through the corridor now, cutting swaths through
the ranks of the vat grown with his blazer and leaving a trail of
steaming body parts in his path. Xairn was right beside him,
stabbing the ones that got too close with the cryo-knife. Again and
again he plunged the glowing blue blade to the hilt in a vat
grown’s chest. Again and again he watched as their bodies went
stiff, a fine patina of frost covering the muscular torso before
they fell to their knees, only to be trampled by their fellow
soldiers.

The Kindred were fighting valiantly beside
him and Xairn could see the huge double doors which led to the
throne room far ahead at the end of the hall. But the narrow metal
corridor was getting clogged with bodies, both living and dead, and
there were only so many each warrior could fight off at once. Xairn
had several freely bleeding wounds on his arms, chest, and back and
all around him he could see his new friends receiving similar
injuries.

“There are too many of them!” Lock’s voice
was a hoarse shout of despair. “They’re everywhere.”

With a feeling of desperation, Xairn realized
he was right. Even if the entire lot of silent, deadly soldiers
dropped dead that moment, their bodies would still block the way to
his father.
Why is he doing this?
he thought, looking
through the seething mass of bodies to the open doors of the throne
room.
He wants me here—he lured me back himself. This must be
some kind of a test.

“
How right you are my ssson,”
the
voice of the AllFather hissed in his head.
“The question is, can
you passs it? Can you find your way to the foot of my throne before
your darling mother isss no more?”

Xairn cursed aloud in his harsh native
tongue. His father’s mocking laughter echoed in his head in reply.
Clearly the AllFather was enjoying himself immensely. Suddenly
Xairn’s eyes grew hot and he felt something swell within him—some
power beyond the physical realm. He opened his mouth, uncertain of
what might come out.

“
Listen to me, soldiers of the
Scourge,”
he shouted and his words rang with the power that was
building up inside him.
“Cease fighting and
listen.”

As one, the vat grown soldiers stopped
fighting and stood motionless, their empty, soulless eyes fixed on
Xairn.

“
This is not your fight,”
he told them, still speaking with the resonance of power.
“You are little more than animated corpses—bodies grown from
ancient DNA harvested long ago. You are kept alive and breathing by
the cruel will of the AllFather, forced to fight in order to serve
his whims.”

The ranks of the vat grown swayed toward him
and Xairn could feel their silent agreement. They might not have
much intelligence but they knew enough to know they led a miserable
existence. They never knew kindness or comfort or love—only the
endless grind of a daily existence devoid of anything but pain and
monotony.

“
Go,”
he told them, his
voice ringing through the metal corridor.
“Go from
here and do not return.”

“
Nicely done, my ssson,” The AllFather
laughed in his head. “And most humane—letting them live instead of
killing them. It must be the human DNA in you, making you so weak.
You could easily have had them turn on each other, you
know.”

“
I know that but I choose not to. And I’m
not done yet,”
he sent back grimly. Looking at the silent
hordes which were already beginning to disperse, he raised his
voice once more.
“Go to the flesh tanks, the vats
where you were grown,”
he told them.
“Rip them
apart! Make certain that no more like you can ever be made
again!”

He heard the hiss of anger in his head but
the vat grown soldiers were already on the move and Xairn didn’t
think that even the AllFather would be able to stop them all before
the damage was done.

Baird let out a breath as the soldiers
shuffled away, leaving their dead and dying behind without a
backward glance. “Very impressive, Xairn, but how do we know they
won’t come back again?”

“They won’t.” Xairn nodded in the direction
of the throne room. “There might be more guarding my father,
though. If so, leave them to me.”

Deep shook his head as they began to advance
again, stepping over the fallen bodies. “How in the seven hells did
you do that, anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Xairn shook his head. “It is
a power that has been growing inside me. Being with Lauren seems to
have…unleashed it somehow.”

Sylvan smiled. “Then she must be an amazing
female, Brother.”

“She is,” Xairn said seriously. “As soon as
I’m done here, I’m going back to her.”

“As we all will return victorious to our
females,” Baird grinned. “Come, brothers, the true fight
awaits.”

They charged forward into the throne room but
as they passed the threshold of the immense double doors, they were
immediately enveloped in a cloud of dread. Xairn had lived with it
so long that it barely affected him but he could see the unease on
the faces of his companions. The feeling of horror and panic was
part of the AllFather’s personal aura—he carried it with him
everywhere but it was strongest here, near his seat of power.

“Steady,” he heard Baird tell the others.
“You’re not going crazy—this is just the way it feels in here.
Ignore it.”

“You ignore my warningsss at your own peril,
warrior.” The AllFather’s hissing voice filled the vast, echoing
room.

Xairn looked up the vast set of broad black
steps leading to the green etched throne and saw his father
standing at the top. The AllFather was flanked on both sides by his
personal guard—eight foot tall monstrosities of the flesh tanks
which stayed with him at all times. Xairn tried to look around
them, to see if the cage containing his mother was sitting at the
foot of the throne, as it had been in his dream. But there was no
seeing anything past their bulk.

“Where is she?” he said, looking up at the
skeletal figure in the billowing black cloak. “What have you done
to her?”

“Nothing that ssshe did not richly dessserve
for giving me sssuch a weak and cowardly ssson.” The AllFather’s
eyes blazed crimson and Xairn felt his own eyes growing hot in
return.

“If you hurt her—”

“Come and see for yourself.” The AllFather
looked at his head guard. “Alpha, you and the othersss engage the
Kindred in combat. Allow only my ssson to passs.”

The huge guard seemed to be thinking hard.
“But Master…that will leave you unprotected.”

“I need no protection from my ssson,” the
AllFather snapped. “The human DNA he carriesss makes him weak. He
hasss neither the sssavagery nor the ssstrength to overcome me. Now
go!”

Nodding obediently, the Alpha guard and the
other three vat grown soldiers that made up the AllFather’s
personal bodyguard, came lumbering down the steps.

“Get ready, brothers,” Baird said in a low
voice. “They’re coming for us.”

Concentrating, Xairn called the power to him
again.
“Stop!”
he commanded the Alpha guard but
the huge soldier kept coming. From the top of the steps, the
AllFather laughed.

“Nice try my ssson, but these are no ordinary
guardsss. I had each of them grown ssspecially, as you know and I
am ssshielding their mindsss with my own. You cannot use your
fledgling powersss on them any more than you can ussse them on
me.”

“I wasn’t going to use my powers on you.”
Xairn held up the cryo-knife, showing the deadly pale blue blade.
“I’d rather use this.”

For a moment the crimson eyes of the
AllFather widened, then he threw back his skull-like head and
laughed. “Do you really expect me to believe you’d try to kill me?
I’m your father, Xairn.”

“Yes, you’re my father.” As he spoke, Xairn
began to climb the stairs. “Also my torturer, my jailer, and my
most constant oppressor. You made my life a misery from the day of
my birth.”