“The components have memory.” Brad shrugged. “They could hold hundreds of text messages, but no one here could decipher them.”
“I meant Shaliece. The Memory.” Roca smiled. “I suppose she is like a computer. Her recall is incredible.”
Brad nodded. “I’ve wondered if the original colonists here were trying to design human computers.”
“I wish I could spend more time learning the culture.” Roca would have liked to hear her sister’s opinions on it. Dehya’s genius with computers never ceased to astonish Roca. “It’s remarkable.”
“And in danger of vanishing.” His anger flashed. “The resort planners intend to develop this world. If it has inconvenient wars, they may just take over and get rid of the leaders.”
Roca scowled at him. “I thought your people had all these rules to protect new worlds.”
“We do.” Dryly he added, “So many, in fact, that corporations can use some of them to run circles around the others.” He ran his finger down the flier’s wing. “But only within limits. It’s true, with the right approvals, the developers can get permission to meddle. But no one would allow me to kill the people.”
She thought of his pulse-gun, useless in the port. “Even if you were defending yourself?”
He hesitated. “The boundaries are always gray.”
She wondered if he realized just how gray. “Your laws are moot, here, anyway. This should be a Skolian world.”
“And if it was?” His expression darkened. “What would you do? Kick out the developers and send in your military?”
Roca wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. ISC always set up a base on a new planet before it allowed civilian contact. If they weren’t careful, their effect here could be as deleterious as the resort planners. With care, she said, “Normally, yes.”
“Normally?”
She spoke quietly. “I am a Ruby Dynasty heir.”
That seemed to throw him. After a moment he said, “We’ve been here so long, sometimes I forget what your title means beyond this world.”
She thought of her marriage to Eldri. “Sometimes, so do I.”
“Will you help Eldri’s people?”
“I certainly intend to try.”
“What about your family?” He spoke cautiously. “I imagine your new husband will surprise them.”
That was certainly a masterful understatement. It wasn’t a subject she wished to discuss with anyone, even herself. She wanted to enjoy however little time she and Eldri had left rather than brooding on a future they might never see.
Roca motioned at the flier. “If we send out ten with holos, a few might reach Dalvador.”
“Changing the subject won’t make it go away,” Brad said. When she only looked at him, he held up his hands. “Right. The fliers. We’ll have one chance with them. The first time we send out any, it will probably catch Avaril off guard. After that, I imagine his archers will be ready to shoot them down.”
“We need decoys, to help the holo fliers get through.”
“It shouldn’t take long to make them, now that we know how.” He shifted his weight. “But Lady Roca—when we launch the holo fliers, we lose our means to communicate with the port.”
Roca also dreaded cutting their last link to home. “Let’s just hope it works.”
Standing at a window on the second story of Windward, Roca could watch Eldri’s men training below. They were working in the “narrows,” a long portion of the courtyard bordered by low walls. Stands for an audience stood along one long wall and tables along the other. She had wondered at the purpose of the narrows when she first came to Windward. Now she knew.
In peacetime, the warriors here stayed in shape by holding competitions in swordsmanship and archery. Healers used the tables as stations where they could treat injured men. But today was no game. Eldri and his warriors trained with a fierce concentration broken only by the clang of swords, the thunk of arrows, and the grunts of men. Healers waited with supplies, and pallets lay on the ground near them, ready for anyone hurt during the exercises.
Eldri’s prowess with a sword mesmerized Roca. Even from so far away, she felt his intensity. Years of training had honed his skill; now he moved on instinct, as if the sword were a part of him. It was a bittersweet joy to watch, like seeing a beautiful dance, but one as deadly as it was graceful.
Her heart was tearing in two. Eldri would fight if—no, when—Avaril’s army attacked. If he had a seizure, he would probably die; it was unlikely he would be lucky enough to frighten away his opponents again. And he knew it. Yet still he intended to lead his men. She wanted to rage against his determination, his pride, the integrity that made him refuse to stay back when others went into battle.
But nothing would change his mind.
Rolling over in bed, Roca opened her eyes into darkness. The shutters in the window alcove across the suite were cracked open, letting in air and hints of the pristine light that heralded the suns, though the strip of dark sky she saw wasn’t yet touched by the gold, pink, and red of dawn.
She didn’t know what had awoken her. Eldri lay at her side, deep in sleep, one hand under his cheek. The castle was quiet. People were surely stirring, but in here she heard nothing. On a world with no birds, the dawn came in silence. Lyshriol needed no musical animals; in its Bards, it had singers of unmatched beauty.
A distant clanking interrupted the silence, followed by a call from the courtyard. Roca slid out of bed and padded across the cold stone floor to a window that overlooked the courtyard. When she pushed apart the shutters, breezes blew across her face, less chilly today than usual.
Three men were running across the courtyard, outfitted in leather armor and mail, their hair streaming out, two holding helmets. One shouted to someone out of her sight. She didn’t understand his words, but the alarm in his voice needed no translation.
Roca turned—and saw Eldri standing by the bed, his face blurred with sleep as he pulled on his trousers.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He fastened his clothes, his fingers fumbling. “But they wouldn’t sound an alarm without reason.”
She went over to him. “Eldri—”
He took her hands. “Stay here. Don’t go outside or even downstairs. We don’t know if Avaril realizes I have married. Go to Brad’s suite and hide. If they think you are Brad’s woman, they may spare you.”
She stared at him, hearing what he didn’t say. He feared he would die today. She squeezed his fingers. It seemed surreal, impossible, that the heir to an interstellar empire had to see her husband go out with no more protection than primitive armor and a sword. “Take care.”
Eldri kissed her, softly, urgently. Then he strode out the door, tying the laces on his shirt.
A crash vibrated outside. Roca ran back to the window, but she saw only Eldri’s men gathering below. Another crash came, thundering from beyond the great wall that protected the castle.
“Gods almighty,” she muttered. It sounded like Avaril’s people were using the battering ram.
Roca threw on her clothes and ran out into the hall, headed for Brad’s suite. She had only gone halfway when she saw him striding toward her. They met in front of a niche with the statue of a woman holding a bow and quiver, the archer-goddess Sauscony, now a part of Lyshrioli mythology, but probably a remnant from the ancient era when star queens had settled this world.
Roca spoke fast, breathing hard, her hand over her abdomen. “We need to send out the fliers.”
“They’re in my suite.” He jumped as another crash thundered through the keep. “I have to get the explosives.”
Her hope leapt. “Can you collapse the bridge?”
“I don’t think so. But we can use them in other ways.” He took a deep breath. “Can you send off the fliers?”
“Yes. I’ll take care of it.”
Brad clasped her arm. Then they both took off, Roca running for his suite. She burst through its antechamber and into the ro
om beyond, which was set up like the one she shared with Eldri. Piles of fliers were scattered on tables, strewn across the window alcove, and heaped on the floor. When she threw open the shutters in the alcove, cold wind gusted past her, blowing the fliers off the benches.
Roca scooped one up and flicked its switch, then threw it out the window, into the gales of the Backbone Mountains. It sailed away on the currents of air. She grabbed another and sent it off, then another and another. After she had released the ones in the alcove, she ran back into the bedroom and gathered up armfuls of the fliers. She sent every one out the window into the wind. A cloud of fliers soon stretched across the sky, above the mountains, headed toward the plains of Dalvador. Whether or not any would make it, she didn’t know, but they had a good start.
All the time she was tossing mechanical birds, the ram continued to crash against the portcullis below. As soon as she sent out the last flier, she ran across the room and threw open the shutters of a window overlooking the courtyard. Eldri’s warriors had gathered below, on walls, in towers, and at windows, archers up high and swordsmen below. The archers were shooting at Avaril’s men, but the wind limited their efforts, endangering their own people whenever a gust sent an arrow intended for their foes at a friend instead.
Another crash came—and the great gates in the courtyard shook. A gargoyle carved into the rock above the entrance split off from the wall and smashed to the ground.
“Saints help us,” she whispered. Roca had never believed in the pantheon of goddesses, gods, and saints worshiped by many Skolian peoples, but now she prayed to them all, for Eldri, for his people, for the unborn child she carried.
Then she saw him. Eldri. Fully outfitted in armor, he was striding across the courtyard, stopping often to encourage his men. A tall man in a helmet strode at his side, his height marking him as Garlin. Then Eldri donned his own helmet, the stylized head of a beast.
Eldri’s people had rolled a staircase made from glasswood up to the great wall, next to the gates. A line of women and men extended from the courtyard up the stairs, and they were passing barrels to the warriors on top of the wall. Flame suddenly leapt up from a barrel held by two men at the top. When they tipped it over the wall, Roca realized they were raining burning oil on the attackers below. Shouts erupted from outside the castle.
Roca suddenly glimpsed Brad on the wall, just as he hurled an object through one of its crenellations. An explosion boomed outside the castle, probably on the bridge in front of the portcullis, in the midst of the invaders. Men screamed and Roca flinched, feeling ill.
The assault continued. The attackers had obviously succeeded in building machinery that moved the ram with enough force to make it effective. Whatever else Roca thought of Avaril, she had to acknowledge his ability to innovate; he and his people achieved wonders with basic engineering. The ram hit again—and a great crack split the gates, though they were made of glasswood layered until it was as thick as two men’s bodies. Another crash resounded and a second crack appeared, rending the gates from top to bottom.
Down below, Eldri shouted to the men up on the wall. They dumped one last barrel of oil, then began a fast retreat. The people on the stairs ran down ahead of them, clearing the way so everyone could reach the courtyard. The civilians raced for the castle while the warriors took up formation in the courtyard.
Roca no longer felt the icy wind that whipped back her hair and plastered her clothes to her body. Her awareness strained toward the defenders as they prepared to protect the castle. She felt their determination, their fear, their battle fury, and their desperation.
With a great crash, the ram hit the gates again—and the massive portals split in two. One half toppled forward into the courtyard, and the other fell back onto the bridge. Warriors on both sides scattered, running madly as the portals fell. Avaril’s men retreated across the bridge, but that reprieve lasted only seconds, while the gates slammed into the ground, the crash thundering throughout Windward as it sent up clouds of debris. Then the invaders surged back and poured through the break, through the swirling dust, jumping over the wrecked portcullis and gates.
Eldri’s men leapt forward, and the clang of swords filled the courtyard. It was a nightmare. Roca almost threw up when one man chopped the arm off another directly below her, blood spurting. The archers tried to pick off the attackers, but in the melee of fighters, with the gusting wind, it was hard to get a clear shot.
Suddenly an explosion went off in the midst of a phalanx of invaders working its way forward. Roca clenched the windowsill, her nausea surging at the sight of what happened to the men caught in the blast. Another bomb exploded, but this one fizzled and had little effect.
Men had collapsed throughout the courtyard, some dragging themselves out of the battle, but too many lying completely still. Avaril’s warriors continued to pour in; far fewer of Eldri’s men were coming out of Windward. Tears welled in Roca’s eyes. Brad and his hastily assembled team of proto-engineers couldn’t have many explosives left. Long after Windward’s defenders had depleted their numbers, weapons, and energy, Avaril’s much larger army would keep on coming.
Roca couldn’t find Eldri in the chaos below. She glimpsed his helmet among a mass of men by the western wall, but it vanished as the battle roiled across the courtyard. Another time she thought she saw him lying crumpled and broken against one wall. She cried out as another man fell, blocking her view, and she pressed her hands against her abdomen, praying her child wouldn’t suffer such a brutal death. She couldn’t believe Eldri lay in a broken heap under another dead man. It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t.
She couldn’t accept such an end for the man she loved.
When Roca first heard the thunder coming from beyond the castle walls, she feared Avaril’s men were using the battering ram again, though why, she had no idea. The relentless invaders were already pushing their way through the courtyard, cutting down Eldri’s men. It wasn’t until the fighting lagged in the courtyard, with men turning their heads upward, that she realized the roar she heard came from the sky.
Leaning out the window, her hair streaming in the wind, she craned her neck to look. She had been at Windward so long that for an instant she reacted as would a Lyshrioli woman, shocked to see a great gold and black beast soaring above Windward, its voice raised in an unnatural roar. Then her perception shifted—and for one brilliant, incredible moment she wanted to shout her relief at that great metal creature—a Skolian military shuttle.
Then the ship fired.
Its beam sheered off a tower, one far from the window where Roca stood. Another shuttle roared into view from behind the castle, looming over the battle. Warriors scattered, running for their lives as the ship blasted the courtyard with the exhaust of its landing. Roca shouted, her protest lost in the noise. They must have pinpointed her position—and were eliminating any threat they thought existed to that location. In “rescuing” her, they would destroy the very people who had protected her all these months.
She whirled around and took off, racing out of the suite. Her feet pounded on the stone floor in the hall. When she flung open the door to the stairs, shouts in the dining hall swelled in crescendo. She strode onto the landing at the top of the stairs—and froze, clenching the rail as she stared in horrified disbelief at the scene below.
Unaware of what was happening outside, Eldri’s men were still locked in combat with the invaders, the battle crashing throughout the hall. Several warriors were on the table, fighting back and forth, swords flashing as they parried and attacked. One of Avaril’s men suddenly found an opening in his opponent’s defense and stabbed him through the heart. Roca cried out, but in the tumult, no one heard.
The double doors of the hall slammed open. The dining hall was supposed to be inside the castle, but sunlight streamed into the room, coming through the destroyed wing beyond. A gold giant stood framed in the doorway like an avenging metal god, a man seven feet tall, indomitable and massive, towering over every other man
in the room. He wore the harsh uniform of a Jagernaut Primary, black leather embedded with computers, more machine than clothes. His skin, hair, and gauntlets all glinted, hard and unforgiving. He had drawn his gun, a huge Jumbler that glittered black in the sunlight. His eyes showed no whites, only unbroken shields of gold, as if he weren’t human at all, but a machine.
Her son had arrived.
18
God of War
Roca saw Eldri.
He must have jumped on the table just before Kurj threw open the doors. Eldri had lost his helmet somewhere, and his disarrayed hair was wild around his head. He stood with his feet planted wide, his body half turned to the door, his sword held out, blood dripping off the blade, his eyes wild, his chest heaving from exertion. He looked as much the atavistic barbarian as Kurj looked a warlord of the stars.
How Kurj knew Eldri was more than just another fighter among hundreds, Roca had no idea—but in that moment, when he and Eldri locked gazes, she saw the recognition in their faces and felt it in their minds. Time seemed to slow as Kurj raised his Jumbler in both hands, his arms straight out, pointing it at Eldri. And in that moment Roca knew, without doubt, that her son was about to commit the equivalent of patricide.
“KURJ!” She shouted her words. “Don’t shoot!”
Both Eldri and Kurj whirled toward her. Their reaction was so intense that for an instant she saw herself in their minds, her gold hair wild from the wind, untamed around her body, her face flushed, her eyes frantic. Desperate to stop them, she started down the stairs—and in her hurry, her foot caught on the top step. She flailed, yanked forward by the weight of her body. With relentless, unforgiving momentum, she toppled down the stairs.
The walls went by in a blur, too fast for Roca to comprehend fully. It hurt, hurt, hurt, every time she hit the steps. She wrapped her arms around her swollen belly, curling up, trying to protect the baby. Then she crashed into the lower landing and smashed against the railing on its other side.