Honour's Knight (47 page)

Brenton charged with a roar of his own, launching at me with terrifying speed. Now that I was close, I could see the tube in his neck where they’d drugged him. They must have used a lot, because though he was fast as ever, the Brenton I knew would never have tried such a straightforward attack. He charged me like a bull, leaving me a good two seconds to jump if I wanted. But I didn’t jump. I held my ground, leveling Sasha until I’d lined up a perfect shot.

When Brenton was only a foot away, I fired. Sasha’s round struck him square in the head, right between the eyes just like Rupert had showed me. Of course, Sasha wasn’t a disrupter pistol, but I didn’t want to kill Brenton this time. I only wanted to blow him back, and there, at least, I succeeded. Sasha kicked him hard, and Brenton flew backward as fast as he’d flown at me, landing in the sand across the arena. I shot him again when he hit, trusting my targeting system to line up a shot that would get the tube on his neck. My pistol jerked in my hand, and I saw the tube go flying as the sand exploded around Brenton’s head.

I lifted my gun, scanning the arena for the next enemy, but all I saw was Caldswell gaping in my rear cam like he’d just seen me raise the dead. “Morris?” he got out at last. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Saving you,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Come on.”

The captain was normally faster on the pickup, but all the fighting must have left him a bit punch-drunk, because he just stood there staring at me like my words made no sense. I didn’t have time to explain it again, though. The crowd was already getting louder as two more doors opened on either side of the arena, letting in a wave of warrior xith’cal. High overhead, Reaper was on his feet in front of his throne, roaring out orders loud enough to rattle my suit.

The sight of him almost made me drop my gun. Seeing the tribe leader on camera had been scary enough, but that was nothing compared to seeing him right above you. It wasn’t just his size, either. That was nothing new, but I hadn’t expected the
feel
of Reaper. Even though he was standing on his balcony almost fifty feet away, his presence was like a force of nature, a huge, undeniable gravity far larger than any physical size or charisma could account for.

I’d heard the xith’cal speak of their leader in awed tones plenty of times, but I’d always thought that whole “Reaper’s flesh” thing was just propaganda. Now, I realized it was much, much more. Reaper’s power was plasmex. A
lot
of plasmex, and he was using it with ruthless efficiency, soothing the panic even as another lelgis cannon strike shook the tribe ship. And when his huge, yellow eyes swept down to meet mine, I felt his control land on me.

I bared my teeth in response. Wrong merc to mess with, pal. “Rupert!” I shouted. “Do it now! Take out the head!”

Caldswell whirled around in surprise. “Rupert?”

The word wasn’t out of his mouth before Rupert ran up beside me, our final strategic anti-tank missile hoisted on his shoulder. There was no countdown this time. He took one second to line up the shot, and then the missile exploded off him in a blast of burning smoke.

Since it wasn’t aimed at a ceiling this time, I could actually watch the missile go. It streaked across the arena, flying so fast Reaper didn’t have time to move. He didn’t have time to do anything except stare as the missile shrieked through the air to land in his chest.

The explosion knocked me off my feet. I hadn’t realized until it blew how much stronger this missile was than the other. The explosion had blown Reaper’s entire platform down in a ball of black, billowing smoke. The wreckage landed in the sandy arena with a crash that sent a wave of sand flying into my face. For two heartbeats, all I could hear was the echo of the crash bouncing around the arena, and then every lizard in the place went insane.

If the xith’cal had been screaming before, I had no idea what they were doing now. The stands exploded into violence as the xith’cal began attacking one another with astonishing ferocity, ripping and clawing and biting like animals. The sheer magnitude of the carnage was so shocking I couldn’t do anything except watch in stunned silence for several seconds before I finally got it together enough to scramble back to my feet. “What the hell is going on?”

Caldswell stared at me in disbelief. “You killed Reaper.”

“And that caused all this?” I threw out my hand at the slaughter going on in the stand.

“The tribe leader keeps order within the bloodlust,” Caldswell said. “It’s how they…” His voice faded as he shook himself. He blinked a few times, wiping the blood off his temple. When he turned back to me, he looked much more aware. He also looked pissed as hell.

“
What do you think you’re doing?
” he shouted. “You were supposed to be getting out of here!”

“I don’t take orders from you!” I shouted back.

Caldswell’s arm flung out, pointing at Rupert, who was brushing the ash from the blast off his shoulder. “He does! What the hell was that, Charkov?”

Rupert’s smooth answer made me proud. “A missile, sir,” he said crisply. “Our last one. We should go. It is foolish to waste time arguing here.”

“This is not over!” Caldswell bellowed, but he started running toward the hole we’d made in the arena floor. “What’s our exit?”

“Hyrek’s got us a ship,” I said. “Let me grab Brenton and—”

I didn’t get to finish, because at that moment, Brenton grabbed me.

He must have recovered from the shot during the chaos, because the bastard came out of nowhere, taking me off my feet before my cameras had even registered him. We flew across the arena in a tangle that unfortunately landed with me on the bottom. But as I’d noted before, this Brenton was nowhere near as clever as he normally was. Though he landed on top, he didn’t pin my legs, and the second he got me down, I kicked him off. My suit flipped me back to my feet on the upswing, and I came up gun first, pegging Brenton in the chest.

Sasha’s bullet didn’t even get through his scales, but the force pounded him back into the sand again long enough for me to get the advantage. I jumped on him, getting him in a headlock. Symbionts might be tough bastards, but under all that armor and strength, they were still human, and they still needed to breathe. I twisted him tight, putting all my weight into the arm I was using to pinch his neck, but I was still barely holding him. I glanced at my cameras, scanning the arena for Rupert in the hopes I could get him to come help me deal with this craziness, and that’s when I realized that the arena had gone still.

Without letting my grip on Brenton slack, I jerked my head up. It wasn’t my imagination. The arena was silent, the xith’cal frozen like someone had hit pause. Only Rupert and Caldswell were moving, and they were backing away. A second later, I saw why.

Something was stirring beneath the smoking wreckage of Reaper’s box, the broken metal shaking like there was an engine rumbling under it. Then, without warning, the pieces exploded out as Reaper shot to his feet.

As he rose, the pressure of his presence rose, too. The strength of it was enough to make my body go slack, and I almost lost Brenton. I recovered at the last second, bashing the mad symbiont into the sand again, but I was sorely tempted to toss Brenton and run.

I’d never seen Reaper fight. Never seen him do anything actually except sit around, give orders, and survive a missile to the chest. But even if I hadn’t witnessed that last part, my instincts were enough to tell me that Brenton was now the lesser threat by several orders of magnitude.

Fortunately, though, the xith’cal wasn’t looking at me. All his attention was on Caldswell, and as he stared the captain down, his shoulders began to shake with a horrible, deep, metallic sound. Laughter, I realized belatedly. Reaper was
laughing
.

His huge snout opened, showing thousands of yellow teeth sharp as shrapnel as he began to speak. The words were so deep they vibrated in my chest, and though I had no idea what the giant lizard was saying, Caldswell must have, because his shoulders stiffened.

“Devi!”

I glanced at my camera to see Rupert skid to a stop beside me. I hadn’t even seen him run over, but he was with me now, his knee on Brenton’s chest, pinning him down. “Let’s go!” he hissed.

“Can you understand that?” I said, pointing at Reaper.

“No, Caldswell’s the one who understands xith’cal,” Rupert said, tugging on my arm.

He’s telling Caldswell that he is impressed by his final blow, but it failed all the same
, scrolled the text across my camera.

I gasped. I hadn’t realized Hyrek was still watching. “What else?” I asked, ignoring Rupert’s growl.

Your weapon is mine, sworn prey
, Hyrek translated.
Call your puppet squid off, or I will use her to destroy you all.

I frowned. Puppet squid? Caldswell must have thought the same thing, because the captain grinned wide as he glanced at me. I could almost see him putting two and two together as he remembered my earlier threat to call the lelgis if he betrayed me, and when he looked back at Reaper, his face was so cocky even I wanted to punch him.

“The lelgis aren’t here for me,” he said, folding his arms over his bloody chest as the tribe ship rumbled under the lelgis’ fire. “You’d better look to your tribe, Jorek, while you still have lizards left.”

Reaper hissed, and a roar rose from the stands, half rage, half shock. Even Hyrek’s text looked excited when it scrolled over the screen.

He used Reaper’s old name!
The words flew by.
That is the greatest insult. Tribe leaders abandon their names when they become the flesh of all. Caldswell must be suicidal to say such a thing to Reaper’s face.

Or calculating, I thought. Reaper looked ready to eat the captain right there, but as Caldswell held his ground, daring him, his hand was behind his back, waving at us to run. Rupert saw it too, and he tightened his grip on my arm, yanking me off Brenton. But before he’d gotten me to my feet, Reaper attacked.

For such a huge lizard, he could certainly move. His head snapped down like a trap, jaws plunging to devour Caldswell whole. If the captain hadn’t been a symbiont, that would have been the end. Even my Lady couldn’t have evaded Reaper’s teeth. But Caldswell was faster than death. He dropped and rolled just in time, and as he came up, the change rippled over his body.

I was used to seeing symbionts change by this point, but Caldswell’s shift still took me by surprise, mostly because it was so
fast
. Rupert and Brenton both took seconds to cover their body in scales. Not many, but you could see it happening. Caldswell changed like a flipped switch. One moment he was human, the next he was perched on claws as long and deadly as any I’ve ever seen, leaving shredded clothing behind as he dove out of the way of Reaper’s next attack.

For a supposedly injured old guy, it was a pretty impressive sight. Caldswell was so fast my cameras had trouble tracking him. Good thing, too, because Reaper was tearing after him now, and with every move, the huge xith’cal seemed to be growing even bigger as the lizards in the stands began to chant.

He’s drawing on the strength of the tribe.
Hyrek’s message flew by in frantic bursts.
You have to get out of there before he gets any stronger.

“Devi!” Rupert shouted at the same time, tugging my arm so hard I stumbled. “Let’s go!”

Even Brenton seemed to have caught what was going on. Maybe it was because I’d shot the tube out of his neck, cutting off the drugs, or maybe Reaper was just that scary, but Brenton seemed to be coming around. He still wasn’t talking, but his symbiont wasn’t fighting us anymore. Like me, he was staring at Caldswell and Reaper and the double ring of warrior xith’cal that now circled the arena.

I felt Rupert tense as his head swiveled, taking in our position. I didn’t have to look because my suit had already laid it out for me. The xith’cal that had charged into the arena when we’d blasted through the floor hadn’t stopped coming while Reaper had been making his speech. The arena was thick with them now, and though they’d spread out to give their tribe leader room to fight, I had no illusions they’d let us run. I also didn’t see how we could take them all.

Rupert must have come to the same conclusion, because he moved closer to me. For a second, I thought he was about to remind me that this fiasco was my idea, but whatever his other failings, Rupert had always been tactful, and all he said was, “How do you want to do this?”

I blew out a long breath to put off admitting that I had no idea. Originally, I’d planned to escape using the chaos of a lelgis attack for cover and the death of their tribe leader to wreck the chain of command, but while the lelgis part had worked just fine, how was I supposed to know that asshole lizard could survive a missile to the chest? Now, though, no matter how I cased the situation, I couldn’t find our out. There were just too many of them, and we were too deep into the tribe ship. Even if we could break free of the warriors ringing us in, we’d have to fight our way back over fifteen miles of enemy territory to get to our ship. Rupert and I were good, but we weren’t
that
good.

And just like that, the feeling hit me in the gut. That cold, sinking tightness that comes when you know you’re completely screwed. Reaper was already a good five feet taller than he’d been when the fight started, and Caldswell’s escapes were getting narrower every time. Another few swipes and it would all be over. Caldswell would die, Rupert would die, the crew would get caught and die. Even goddamn Brenton would die, and I’d be a xith’cal weapon until I died too, a quiet, traitor’s death in a xith’cal lab where even the king’s death guides couldn’t find me.

My fists curled into tight balls. Rupert saw the motion, and his calm voice grew hard. “Devi?”

“No,” I said.

I felt him tense. “No what?”

“I’m not dying like this,” I snarled. “I’m not giving these lizards a goddamn thing.”

As the words left my mouth, the pins and needles of the black sickness spread up my arms like wildfire. I welcomed them. I’d been trying very hard to avoid this, but right now I was having a hard time caring about the consequences. For once, I hadn’t come looking for a fight. Reaper and Maat had captured me, sought to make me their weapon. Well, they were about to see just how dangerous a weapon I could be.