Shrouded: Heartstone Book One (27 page)

A
bike lay
twisted and smoking below the security platform. Dolfan dodged it and caught sight of the pilot before careening toward the rocks. At least one of their Security officers had perished in the fight. He pitched his craft up and hugged the wall. Syradan’s shuttle beat him to the platform, even with its bulk against his bike’s speed. He’d had to slow too many times to avoid enemy fire.

The craft landed, thankfully, though it confirmed his fears that the enemy controlled the pad, that the entire valley had fallen to the invaders. He didn’t have time to wonder. He needed to be on that pad and there was no way he’d be landing safely out in the open. He shot straight up the wall beside the platform and aimed for the rim. The emitters streaked past, and he took a deep breath and plunged into the Shroud.

He ditched he bike when the rim rolled away beneath him. The core puffed where he landed, but the ground below the dust made a less forgiving cushion. He slammed against rock and exhaled before he could stop himself. He rolled away from the vehicle and scrabbled back toward the canyon lip. The emitters lay a ways below it. He’d have a short climb down, would have to inhale long before he hit clean air. There’d be no help for it. He tucked his breather in as he crawled and prayed the Shroud was in a friendly mood.

Handholds proved less of a problem. The stone of the core bore pockets where the material had bubbled and frothed before cooling. The hardened, pillow matrix had more rough than smooth surfaces, and he managed to drop quickly back over the rim to find a path he could scale.

Eventually, he had to breathe. The emitters still formed a dark shadow beyond his reach, but his lungs could wait no longer. He took short shallow breaths, breaths that felt different but didn’t quite burn, and worked his way toward honest, clean air as fast as the wall allowed him.

Once he passed the line of devices, he stopped, clung to the support scaffolding and checked his position. He let his lungs relax and refill while he scouted the platform below, found the nearest portion of the roof and plotted the quickest route that might land him on it.

The shuttle still sat on the pad, and he willed it to stay there. He couldn’t have followed it without a mask, not for long, and he would’ve liked to have had a weapon of some kind. But he had no time to think about all that. The man could whisk Vashia away again at any second.
If she still lives.

He pressed his lips together and started for the roof, risking longer reaches and stretching each step to cover as much wall as possible. He heard voices long before he could see anything. The shed’s roof blocked his view, but it also shielded him. He scampered like a lizard the last few feet and dropped onto the surface in a low crouch.

A second transport sat on the pad. This one had a mercenary logo stenciled on the hull and two stiff-backed mercs stationed on either side of the nose. The shuttle waited beside it with the hatch open, but Dolfan couldn’t see well enough to know whether Vashia was in either vehicle or with the men arguing below the awning. The static he felt told him she was close, but worried him as well. It was too damned faint to offer any kind of reassurance.

He needed a better view, and that meant getting off the roof. He sidestepped like a crab to the edge farthest from the action. He peered into the space beyond and when he found only rock and scaffolding, he rolled over the edge and dropped to the nearest mesh platform. Access ladders connected these, which allowed for easy maintenance of the structure. Dolfan slipped along the walkways to the edge of the building.

He crept forward to peek again, had leaned out enough that he was off balance when something grabbed his ankle. He spun back and kicked out against the touch. His grip on the scaffold slipped and he slid down two feet and found a familiar face grinning up at him.

“Where the hell have you been?” Mofitan’s eyes held more relief than anger. “I was beginning to think they’d shot your ass down.”

“Up there.” Dolfan pointed to the Shroud. “I didn’t realize you’d come along for the ride.”

“Right behind you till you dove into the Shroud. No damned sense at all.”

“I was thinking fast.” He prickled, but Mof had a point.
He’d
managed to land without detection or toxic exposure. “Where were you?”

Mofitan pointed directly down. He cracked a smile again and lifted the security rifle he had to have taken from the downed guard. “I tucked in at the bottom. They took out our men.”

“Yeah, I saw.”

“Couple of them.” Mof reached around the small of his back and pulled out a mag pistol. He tossed it to Dolfan and nodded. “Say thank you.”

He snatched it midair.
Armed
. Armed was definitely better. “Thank you, Mof.”

“They have two mercs with them,” Mof continued without gloating. “Syradan and the big guy are under the awning. I think Vashia’s still in the shuttle, but they might have switched her while I was down below.”

“Any cover?” Dolfan eyed the scaffolding. The Canyon fell away faster than the metal supports, leaving a gap between the stone and the piping. “Can we get behind the mercs?”

“Already on it.” Mof winked and pointed under the platform. “You stay here and keep an eye on them.”

He ducked below and was gone before Dolfan could argue. He hefted the pistol in his hand and smiled. Armed felt
much
better. As he pulled back up to his former position, he hoped he’d owe Mofitan a great deal more than a thank you by the end of the day. He’d never expected him as an ally.

The building sat a foot or so away from the edge of the platform, and Dolfan wiggled up onto the ledge, his back pressing against the shed and his ears straining to hear the enemy’s conversation. If he squeezed forward and peered between a gap in the metal, he could see a sliver of the landing pad, one of the mercs, and possibly the spot where Mofitan would emerge.

The voices on the pad murmured. The words were quick and sharp, but garbled by distance and the obstacles between his position and theirs. If tone could be any indication, however, he guessed Syradan’s new friends were not exactly pleased with him.

He considered risking a move. The pad had more than one place to hide—behind the bike rails or into the shed itself, if he could shift positions quickly enough. Except he hadn’t seen exactly where the mercs stood and he couldn’t risk stumbling smack into them.

Before he could decide, however, shadows stalked across the platform. He noticed Syradan tailing a thickset man with dark hair and too much uniform for his own good.
Vashia’s father
. Dolfan faced their backs and bolted around the corner, diving for the nearest shadow. He hid behind a bike, held his breath, and waited for the shout that meant one of the mercs had spied him.

“Jarn guaranteed my passage off Shroud,” Syradan’s voice oozed dissatisfaction. “I have more than delivered enough to warrant that much.”

“You have delivered a great deal, traitor, though into Jarn’s hands, if I’m not mistaken.” The man didn’t look at Syradan. He crossed to the transport and waved one of the mercenaries closer.

“I saved the child’s life,” Syradan whined. “Jarn would have had me kill her.”

“True.” Vashia’s father reached a hand to the mercenary’s belt and drew the man’s pistol. He looked it over carefully. “You saved my daughter, Syradan. You also framed her for murder. Tell me, what use is she? What good is a queen daughter to me now? Will a murdering outsider do me any good when the time comes to fend off Jarn’s strategies?”

Dolfan swallowed and felt his muscles tense. He saw it coming, saw Kovath’s arm lift the pistol casually and aim it at the Seer, but Dolfan still jumped when the blast went off. He still gasped when Syradan’s head exploded. He watched, frozen in place, while Vashia’s father boarded the transport with his mercenaries.
What use is she?

Dolfan lifted his own weapon too late. The hatch slid shut and blocked any chance he had at a shot. The craft whined to full throttle and, through the air between the pad and the undercarriage, he caught a glimpse of Mofitan running up the pad.

Which craft was Vashia in? His chest tightened. Mofitan had a gauss rifle. At close range it could do enough to crash a vehicle. He bolted from his hiding place and ran into the open.

“Don’t shoot!”

The transport shot up, but Mof failed to pull the trigger. He shook his head and waved to the shuttle. “Where is she?”

Dolfan watched the transport’s underbelly spin faster. He waited until it moved forward, not toward the Palace as he suspected, but directly into the Shroud. It took Vashia’s static with it.

“Gone.” He spun and ran for the nearest bike. The shed sat at the end of the canyon, and boasted a heavy stock of face masks. He snagged one from a hook with one hand and pulled the bike along the rails with the other. By the time he left the awning, Mofitan stood in his way again.

“We should take the shuttle,” he yelled.

“Too slow!” Dolfan threw a leg over and flipped the current on. This time, damn it, he’d run Mof over if he had to.

“The shuttle has a cannon!” Mof had a point. No way would they be able to take the ship with a security pistol.

Dolfan shook his head and gunned the bike in warning. “Vashia’s on board!” he yelled.

“I’ll follow you!”

A cannon would help, but only if they could get Vashia out first. Dolfan nodded and waited while Mofitan stepped aside. Once he was clear, Dolfan pushed off. He landed on the current and hit the switch in one motion. The bike rocketed straight up, pointing into the Shroud while, below him, Mofitan ran for the shuttle.

Dolfan didn’t pause. The bike shot forward and he leaned into the rush. Vashia’s father took her farther from him by the second. Mof could find his own way. Like it or not, her static signature sang to both of them.

V
ashia woke to low voices
. The floor vibrated, and she heard the familiar sound of engines, but they came from under her cheek. Vashia blinked her eyes open, cold fear joining the aches in her body. Syradan had drugged her. He’d poked her with a needle and now she was on a ship. Worse, it wasn’t the Seer’s familiar voice that rang through the cabin—it was her father’s.

She could see a uniformed leg, a nubby gray boot and the closed hatch. Masks hung on a peg beside it and below them a line of chutes. Troop transport. Shit. She’d been handed over to the mercenaries. An unfamiliar voice spoke over her head. “She’s moving, Sir.”

Something nudged her side less than gently. She rolled over to avoid a second push and came face to face with Governor Kovath. He smiled down at her with eyes like flint. “Hello, Your Highness.” His lips curled out around the address. “You’ve been a busy girl, haven’t you?”

“Not as busy as you,” she tried to sit, but her arms wobbled under her weight.

“Of course not.” He tugged on his gloves and sniffed his satisfaction. “However, you were supposed to disappear into some native’s bed, not take over the damned throne. Perhaps you inherited at least a portion of my genes after all.”

Vashia winced and managed to prop herself up on one elbow. “No thanks,” she said. She had no illusions when it came to parental affection. “What happens to me now?”

“Now that is a problem,” Kovath grinned, and she scooted a few inches away from him, dragging her ribs out of the range of his boot, just in case. “Syradan has framed you for murder which makes you far less useful to me than I’d hoped.”

Murder. If it had been Syradan who framed her for Tondil’s death, then the Seer had been the one responsible for it. Vashia thought of Peryl’s face, of the rage he’d turned against her and felt nauseated. Had Syradan gone back to spread more lies about her? What would stop them from believing him, now that her father’s men had attacked the Palace? She looked around the ship. Two mercenaries sat on the couch by the door and one pilot at the controls. Where was Jarn? Her gut told her she didn’t want to know.

“Jarn has betrayed me.” Her father answered the unspoken question. “Which leaves me in possession of a moon base and nothing more. Still, the man will want out, won’t he? He’ll need that elevator and he’ll need that base or what good is the bloody planet?”

“Then you’ll kiss and make up?” Vashia scooted away again. This time his boot flashed out, as she knew it would, it caught her in the hip and sent a shock of pain down her leg. The attack covered her slow retreat, made moving closer to the door look natural, innocent.

“Stupid.” Kovath snarled at her. “You always were a slow child. Then I’ll have you to barter with, won’t I?”

“What would Jarn want with me?” She edged away, turning her head discreetly to fix the position of the nearest face mask in her mind.

“Screw Jarn. I should think the Shrouded King will want to see you in custody, considering you killed a member of his Council. I’ll trade you and their freedom for Jarn’s hide.”

“You’d let this planet go just to pay him back?”

“Hell no, but the Shrouded idiots don’t know that, do they?”

Before she could answer, the floor tilted sharply. Vashia rolled with it, found herself wedged against the door with little effort on her part. She heard the pilot curse and watched Kovath’s attention leave her. “What the hell was that?” He snapped at the pilot. His restraint harness held him fast to the couch opposite her. The mercenaries to the side had similar safeties in place. She’d guessed the pilot’s answer seconds before she heard it.

“We’re losing the road, Sir.”

“What? Damn it all.” Kovath reached to his harness snap, but hesitated before releasing it. The floor bucked again. Vashia grabbed the racking and clung to it. “How long till we hit the platform?”

“We should have found it by now.” The pilot’s voice cracked. The man knew her father, she suspected, he’d know what failure meant.

“How the hell did you miss it? I programmed the damned map into—” She watched his face stretch like a cartoon. His thick brows almost reached his hairline and his mouth stretched and twisted around a single name: “Jarn!”

Vashia pulled herself up the rack. She snagged a mask as she triggered the door mechanism. Dust sucked in through the gap, and the Shroud boiled outside, thick and yellow and eager to invade the cabin. She didn’t care. Her fingers clutched the mask, but she doubted she’d have time to don it. Still, she leapt from the vehicle, felt it bobble as the variance took it out from under her feet.

Her body flew to the side, flung toward the deep surface like a scrap. Until she felt the whisper of static, just at the edge of her perception, she didn’t bother to worry if she’d survive the impact.

J
arn heard
the sniffling like distant fingernails, slowly scraping away at his patience. His mercenaries circled the room, keeping a respectful distance from the grieving court. The mercs spoke only in muffled voices, and very few kept their weapons ready at all. And each successive sob from the gathered Shrouded dug Jarn’s irritation even deeper.

He took a report from one of his field commanders with Evan’s comm and kept an eye on the court at the same time. The big crystal bothered him as well. Jarn could think of no rational reason for it, but the damned rock just sat there in the middle of the room, dark and covered in a protective dome. He couldn’t shake the feeling the thing watched him.

He handed the device back and smiled at the man who he’d come to think of as his first in command. “It seems to be going well, Evan,” he said. “Very little resistance in fact. We might be able to tidy this up with fewer casualties than I thought.”

“Excuse me?”

Jarn turned to Haftan. “Yes, Your Highness?”

“If we could move Tondil’s body.” The new ruler’s voice trembled, his tone full of fear and desperation. If Syradan had meant to prepare him for this, he’d done a poor job of it. “I think they’d calm down if he wasn’t still lying there.”

He had a point, though Jarn sensed the man only half believed in his own position. Going along with his suggestion would allow Haftan to feel powerful. It would also cement the idea that it was he, Jarn, who dispensed that power. He nodded and attempted to sound impressed. “An excellent idea, your Highness. I’ll see to it first thing.”

“Have you heard word of Syradan?” Haftan seized upon the opportunity to assert his position, and Jarn didn’t appreciate that. “Our Seer’s presence would help to calm them as well.”

“Do you have so little faith in your own abilities?” Jarn let his irritation show. He’d learned quickly that any show of dominance cowed the young king. “Perhaps your predecessor would be a better man to deal with?”

“No.” Haftan stood taller, but fear touched his eyes. “I am fully capable of handling the situation.”

“Good. Then we’ve dealt with the right man. Now,” Jarn looked away intentionally, letting his attention wander to show Haftan exactly how unimportant his position was. “Go back to your Council and see that you keep them in order.”

He didn’t wait for the man to obey. He stepped sharply away, leaving the king to face his back, and waved for the mercenary Commander. He watched the man cross from the entrance and noted that he too gave the domed crystal a wide berth, cast a suspicious glance at the dark rock and skirted as far from it as the width of the aisle allowed.

“Evan!”

“Yes, sir?” The man appeared at his elbow as if he were sewn there.

“Get some men and supervise the moving of that body. Have the mercs do it, though, not the Royals.”

“Yes, sir.” Evan slid away to do his bidding, and the Commander replaced him.

“Rieordan.” Jarn eyed the man through narrow eyes. This one, he had doubts about. He’d seen the man looking at him more than once with distaste in his expression. “Have your men managed to get word on the traitor, or the missing princes?”

“They’re still in the process of keeping the streets under your control, Sir.” The man’s eyes drifted from Jarn to the group beside the dais. “When Governor Kovath arrives, I’m certain we’ll have more time to sweep for strays.”

“Sweep now.” Jarn snapped. “God only knows what’s kept the governor.”

“Yes, sir.” The Commander turned away and frowned at the mercenaries dragging the body into the aisle. Behind them, the youngest, sobbing prince had to be restrained by his peers. Jarn felt the beginning of a smile twitch, but the Commander cut it short. “You there!” He shouted and took a step toward the men. “Show some damned respect.”

“I have ordered the body removed.” Jarn let the words stretch. The Commander had a little too much authority with the men, a little too much loyalty by his thinking.

“Then get a gurney.” Rieordan didn’t even look at him. He kept his eyes on the cluster of Royals. His voice softened. “Is there something you have to cover him with?”

Jarn rolled his eyes and pressed his lips tight together. The weeping boy unwound his outer wrap, and two of the Palace staff members scuttled to drape it over the dead prince, now lying in the aisle at the feet of two mercenaries.

“You have a medical unit?” The Commander continued to address the group, to come terribly close to defying his orders. “Your Highness?”

“Yes, the doctor can move him, if that is allowable?” Haftan, at least, had the sense to flick a glance to Jarn, to offer him the final say.

“Of course.” Jarn waved the incident to the side and retrieved a measure of calm. Haftan, he could work with. It boded well for their future as political partners. That commander, however, needed replacing quick. Until he could work out how, he’d send the man to look for the missing princes, send him away from the Palace while he got things firmly in hand.

He stomped down the aisle to the entrance with Evan at his heels. The stupid rock stared at him as he passed. Kovath hadn’t arrived on schedule. Jarn’s lip twitched. He’d snagged his daughter then. Kovath had guessed his intentions, intercepted the traitor, and ran for the elevator. He stifled a laugh and eyed the line of mercenaries. If he’d done his job correctly, they were his mercenaries now, and Governor Kovath and his brat would never live to see the elevator, or anywhere else, again.