The Cyber Chronicles - Book I: Queen of Arlin (8 page)

Sabre spun away
from the scything blades that swished past his neck and chest,
landing a vicious blow on the side of the nearest man's head. He
dropped like a pole-axed ox, and Tassin did not doubt that he was
dead, despite his helmet. Sabre spun to face the last two men,
ducked under a sword and swayed past a jabbing blade to lunge
closer and send the soldier sprawling with a throat punch.

The last man
stabbed at Sabre from the side, his sword sliding past the cyber's
belly as he sprang back to avoid it. He spun and leapt, his foot
striking the man on the side of the neck, and he collapsed with a
grunt. Sabre walked over to pick up his harness and strap it on,
tying the cut webbing.

Turning towards
Tassin, he plucked a tube from his harness, ejected the spent one
from his wrist weapon, and inserted the fresh charge. Glancing
around, he retrieved his knife from the unconscious King's thigh,
sheathing it in his belt. As he advanced on the Queen's captors,
one released her and drew his sword. Sabre raised his arm, then
lowered it and ran at the man, leaping high to kick the soldier in
the face. The flat of the man's sword hit the cyber on the side of
the head as he was flung backwards, his neck breaking with a dull
report.

Sabre staggered
as he landed, then advanced on the soldier who held Tassin before
him, her arms twisted behind her back. Tassin struggled, but the
man only tightened his grip. Sweat ran down Sabre, mingling with
the blood that oozed from the numerous grazes on his chest and
arms. The soldier dragged her backwards, but not fast enough. Sabre
reached around her head, the wet skin of his arms touching her
cheeks, and gripped the man's throat. The soldier released her as
his knees buckled, his throat crushed with a dull crunch that
turned her stomach.

Tassin slipped
out from between them and ran to the groom who still stood gaping,
holding the warhorses. Snatching the reins from him, she yelled at
him to help her mount. The groom boosted her into the saddle, and
Tassin spurred the warhorse past Sabre, heading for the gates.
Sabre dropped the corpse and vaulted onto the second warhorse as it
passed him. Tassin glanced at her uncle, who raised his hand in
salute, and the soldiers at the gate stood aside to let her pass.
Falcon followed as she galloped across the fields towards the
forest, beyond which lay the mountains and safety. Torrian's army
watched her pass, several officers running towards the castle to
find out what had become of their king.

When she
reached the trees, she was forced to slow down, Sabre close behind
her. She continued at a trot for an hour, glancing back often at
Sabre with growing concern. Although still angry at his unwanted
rescue from her castle, her conscience pricked her. After all,
without him she would be at Torrian's mercy now. He was as
expressionless as ever, but many of the lights on his brow band
remained red. She stopped beside a stream and slid from her horse
with a sigh. Sabre dismounted and stood impassively.

Tassin
approached him. "Are you all right?"

"This unit is
functional."

Tassin scowled.
Sometimes he spoke gibberish. The lights on his brow band meant
something, she was sure of that, but not what. "Why are the lights
on your... um, thing... red?"

"Some damage
has been sustained. Greater control is necessary."

Tassin shook
her head in disgust and confusion. The man ought to be half dead,
and he did not even show pain. "Sit down."

He sank to his
knees, then sat back on his haunches. She knelt beside him and
tugged on his harness. "Remove this."

Sabre unclipped
the webbing and stripped it off. Deep grazes on his chest and
shoulders oozed blood down his belly and back, more ran from the
gash on his ribs and scrapes on his elbows and knuckles. Tassin
took the knife from his harness, keeping a wary eye on his
reaction, but he merely turned his head towards her. She cut a
strip from one of the many petticoats that came with the ridiculous
dress, wet it in the stream and wiped away the blood. A part of her
wondered why she performed this menial task instead of ordering him
to do it. Much as she strived not to notice it, there was something
terribly seductive about this terse, lethal man with his subtle
aura of leashed power.

Sabre sat
immobile, although an occasional twitch betrayed his pain. When
this happened, the lights on his brow band flashed, some turning
red. A mottled bruise formed on one side of his chest where Torrian
had kicked him, and a swelling seeped blood on the back of his
skull where his head had hit the flagstones. Tassin had seen men
injured in fights before, and after the beating he had taken, she
was surprised he could still function. Although he gave no sign of
it, she knew that he had to have at least one broken rib, and by
rights he should have more.

The skin on his
knuckles was torn and bleeding, yet his hands should have been
broken after punching an armoured man hard enough to make dents in
the curved steel. That, in itself, was incredible, but how he did
not have a cracked skull was also a mystery. Cuts patterned a
mottled pink area at the top of his nose where Torrian had punched
him. Once again, she was amazed that his nose was not crushed, and,
on the pretence of examining it, she scrutinised the brow band.

The three
prongs pierced his skin, and the flesh was slightly raised around
each one, as if something was under the skin there. She ran her
finger along the band, finding it warm, as if it was truly part of
him. Although she was almost nose-to-nose with him as she peered at
it, he showed no embarrassment or unease, but stared through her as
if she did not exist.

Emboldened by
his lack of reaction, Tassin tugged at the band, finding it solid,
as if it was bolted to his skull. Revolted, she sat back, and
started in surprise. For an instant, so brief that she later
dismissed it as imagination, his eyes focussed on her face.
Piercing, luminous eyes that seemed to look right into her soul,
making her gasp. Then the instant passed and his eyes returned to
their vacant gaze. The brow band sparkled as three of the diagonal
line of seven lights on the right hand side of it, which were
usually all green, flashed red for several seconds before turning
green again.

Tassin stood
and gestured to the stream. "Drink if you are thirsty. Since an
honourable death in battle is denied me and I no longer have a
weapon, it seems escape is now my only option. We will follow the
stream up into the mountains. I will be safe on the other
side."

Sabre slaked
his thirst, then strapped on his harness. Tassin led the way
upstream for the rest of the day, climbing a gentle slope towards
the distant mountains. As the long fingers of dusk crept across the
land, they set up camp in a dense copse of black-leafed jilla trees
that offered some shelter from the wind. Tassin shivered as the
night chill pervaded the air, and ordered Sabre to light a fire. He
gathered wood and constructed a suitable pile, lighting it with yet
another device from his harness.

Tassin huddled
close to it, spread her hands to the warmth and studied Sabre, who
sat on the other side. He was a handsome man, she decided. She
sighed and tossed a twig into the flames.

"Sabre, where
do you come from?"

The lights on
the brow band flashed. "This unit was manufactured on Myon
Two."

"Manufactured?
You mean born."

"Yes."

"Where is
Myontwo?"

"Star cluster
GZ482."

Tassin frowned.
He was talking gibberish again. "How old are you?"

"Unknown."

"You do not
know?"

"Time spent in
cold sleep cannot be calculated."

Tassin's temper
frayed. Why did he keep talking nonsense? "How old do you think you
are, then?"

"Time spent in
operation, twenty-six years."

She studied him
in the flickering firelight, wondering at his deadpan expression
and his flat, toneless way of speaking. "Why do you speak so
strangely?"

"Cybers are not
designed for conversation."

She shook her
head. "It is more than that. You are injured, yet you show no pain.
You have no expression, as if you are some kind of idiot, yet you
are not. What of the magic you use? Are you a mage?"

The crystals
flashed for a second before he answered, "The words 'magic' and
'mage' are not understood. Clarify."

"A magician, a
user of magic, the blue fire is magic."

"That is a
laser, standard weapons issue for cybers."

Tassin prodded
the fire. "You talk riddles. What is a laser?"

"A weapon that
uses light."

"Where does it
come from?"

"Myon Two."

Tassin glared
at him. "I mean the light."

"The power
packs store the energy used."

She shivered,
and her stomach rumbled. The more questions she asked, the more
confusing his answers became. "Can you hunt?"

"Yes."

"Good, go and
catch something for us to eat then, a rabbit or pheasant."

Sabre rose and
padded away into the darkness. Tassin soon regretted her order, for
the forest was dark and spooky without his comforting presence. She
reviewed that thought. Comforting? The man never spoke unless she
asked him a question, and he did not even look at her. He obeyed
her without question or hesitation, and in a way that frightened
her, yet exhilarated her too. He had defeated Torrian, a warrior
king who was more than a head taller and probably weighed almost
twice as much. Yet, magical though he was, his injuries were real
and his blood was as red as hers. What would happen if she set him
an impossible task? Would he refuse and argue as any sane man
would, or would he obey and die?

Until now, she
had lived a sheltered life surrounded by luxury, her every whim
catered for. After all, she had been born a princess and now she
was a queen. She was accustomed to people obeying her, though none
had done so quite the way Sabre did. Yet her feelings towards him
remained mixed. He was terribly rude, and his strange ways made her
nervous. There was no subservience in his manner, none of the
eager-to-please boot-licking that she had experienced in the past
from minions who curried her favour. She stared into the leaping
flames, deep in thought.

Sabre emerged
from the darkness, making her jump, but she was pleased that he was
back. He held the limp corpses of two rabbits, their heads burnt
off. Tassin recoiled when he offered them to her.

"Clean them!
Skin them and cook them, Sabre!" She grimaced. "Do you expect me to
soil my hands?"

The cyber
vanished into the darkness again, returning with the rabbits
cleaned, washed and spitted. He set them on the fire to cook, and
Tassin eyed him. Despite his skimpy outfit, he did not appear to be
cold, while she shivered.

"I am cold."
She scowled at him.

The cyber
raised his head and looked in her general direction, his eyes
unfocussed. After a pause, he rose, went over to the saddles and
brought her one of the blankets. Tassin took it, wrinkling her nose
at the smell of horse sweat that clung to it.

"This
stinks."

Sabre turned
his head towards her. "It will provide warmth."

"It still
smells."

"Yes."

Tassin pulled
the blanket over her legs and settled down to watch Sabre cook the
rabbits. She did not normally engage servants in conversation, but
she needed to talk to someone, maybe to dispel the dark forest's
eeriness. She gave a mental shrug. Okay, she was curious.

"Sabre, what is
the thing on your head?"

"It is the
cyber."

Tassin frowned
and tried another angle. "What does it do?"

"It controls
the host body."

She gaped at
him. "How?"

"Cyber design
is classified."

Tassin lowered
her gaze to the flames. Curiosity plagued her, and she longed to
ask more questions, but his replies were so unintelligible that she
only found them annoying. Now he was keeping secrets, which was
even more irritating. Sabre handed her a cooked rabbit, and she
tore at the soft meat, wondering why he spoke gibberish sometimes.
Was he touched in the head? Possessed? He was certainly not normal.
She had noticed that he never referred to himself in the first
person either. Across the fire, Sabre ate his rabbit, apparently
unaware of her confusion or her scrutiny.

Chapter Four

The sweet
trilling of a lyric bird woke Tassin, and she groaned as she sat
up, her muscles protesting the previous day's abuse and a night
spent on hard ground. Never before had she slept anywhere other
than her soft bed, and she cursed Torrian, Bardok and Grisson with
renewed venom. She rubbed her stiff neck, becoming aware of her dew
damp clothes and her unpleasant pungency. Knuckling her eyes, she
yawned and stretched, then looked around. Sabre sat immobile beside
the fire, his head turned towards their back trail. At her movement
he faced her, blinking.

"Enemies
follow."

Tassin glanced
down the trail. "How do you know?"

"Scanners
detect twenty-five mounted men armed with ancient weapons."

"Scanners?"
Tassin stared at him, then, seeing that no reply was forthcoming,
rose and went to splash her face in the icy stream. Grimacing at
the foul taste in her mouth, she rinsed it and braided her tangled
hair into a more manageable plait. She found some wild linic and
chewed it to refresh her sour mouth, and, with a thought for the
future, tucked several clumps into one of the hidden pockets in her
frock. On her return, she found Sabre still sitting, gazing blindly
down the trail.

"Saddle the
horses," she ordered, irritated by his lack of initiative.