DON’T LET HER get the weapon.” Zonte’s words were all but lost in the din. He slapped his hand onto Sabira’s chest, attaching his shield emitter to her harness, then shoved her toward the massive pyramid. “I’ll help Orion.”
Sabira ran for the nearest ground-level opening and tapped on the shield. She called back for him to keep his head down, hoping he could hear over the industrial chugging noises. Felt wrong, leaving Zonte unprotected. But he was right. She had a better chance of beating Daggeira on her own.
With cold-stiffened fingers, she pulled the yarist gem free. The wave of rage and transformation didn’t come. No warm tingling raced up her arm. Had she used it too much already? Her tight, rumbling belly might be telling her she had no energy left for the gem to draw upon.
From behind her, Zonte’s veil lifter flashed emerald green. And then Daggeira was there, twenty meters ahead and running. Her gait was off. Injured leg. Even with the lead, Sabira could catch her.
Running full out, Sabira stuffed the gem away. She readied the palukai against her shoulder and tracked Daggeira’s lurching center mass.
Godsdammit, Daggs, don’t make me shoot you in the back.
The Hara boomed. The floor bucked like a mad grank, sending both Sabira and Daggeira sprawling. The dome rang from the impact. Low, resonant frequencies vibrated the air. Sabira rose to one knee, sharp pains radiating from the back of her skull. She sighted her target on Daggeira. Rested her finger on the trigger.
Zonte’s scream pierced through the din. Sabira stood and turned. A strange, vicious-looking biomech had Zonte pinned to the floor. Its many long, sharp limbs trapped his arms and legs. Others tapped expectantly at his chest.
Sabira whipped back around to look directly down the barrel of Daggeira’s rifle.
“Remember me?”
“Let him go,” Sabira yelled over the noise. “The two of us can finish this.”
“If you think you can take me, then slag the vaidu before it slices the pretty pillow—you can’t,” Daggeira shouted back. “If you take out the vaidu first, I make it to the pyramid and win. So what are you going do?”
“Let him go, and I won’t try to stop you. Godsfall is yours.” Sabira slowly took a step toward her.
“You’re a traitor and a blasphemer. I can’t believe a word you say.”
“I’ve never betrayed you.” Sabira crept a little closer.
“No, no. Won’t be that easy. This is bigger than us. Thousands of servants died because of you. Plenty of blood on that pillow of yours, too. Did you really think you could run away from that? The Gods are watching. The Gods demand Their price.”
“That price is mine to pay, not Zonte’s.”
“You gave your pillow a name? You really think more blasphemy is going to make this better?”
“He’s not a pillow. He’s a free Human, and his name is Zonte. Whatever the price is, it’s mine alone to pay.” Sabira took a full step forward.
“That’s not for you to say, apostate.”
“Apostate? You know my name, Daggeira.”
“I know apostates are nameless. I know my orders are to bring you back alive. Just you. Order came from Handmaiden Gunna herself. She wants to be the one to put you in the altar. Why do you think I didn’t kill you when I had the chance?”
Sabira halted her steps. My blood-mother. No. She’s trying to drill with my head.
“Now put down the stick,” Daggeira said. “Laser guns, too. Or the pillow dies right now.”
“See me. That warseer you came with is dead.” Sabira let her palukai clatter to the ground. She kicked it away, sending it spinning across the floor. “Wasn’t me, though. Grandfather Spear slagged her. He defected. He wants us to remove whatever that godsdamned thing is they stuck into you.”
Using only two fingers, Sabira unholstered one pistol and dropped it at her feet, then the other, and kicked them away. “You don’t have to fight and die for Divine Masters and Warseers anymore. You have another chance to choose . . . to choose a new fate. To be free.”
“I see what you call freedom, and I see weakness.”
“We can help you and grandfather both. No one in the Unity will ever know.”
“I’m not a traitor like you.”
“Don’t you see? The Gods, Divine Will. That’s all a lie.”
“You’re the drilling liar! I’ve seen Her. The Goddess. Mother of Life chose me!”
“It’s just us now. You don’t have to . . .”
“Don’t you remember? We had this talk already. Except this time I’m not letting you walk away. I’m taking the superweapon and you back to the Holy Unity, and handing you over to Handmaiden Gunna. Your blood-mother sees you for what you really are. The monster you've become. But someone still needs to pay the price for your sins. And I won’t live with this shame any longer.”
Shame? “Dagg—” Agonized wailing cut her short.
Sabira spun around. Blood—so much blood—sprayed from Zonte’s chest. Coated the black and yellow biomech in dripping red. Orion stood helplessly by, smashing metal hands against the snare field trapping him.
The high wail of Zonte’s scream ended as sharply as it began, only to be replaced by Sabira’s.
No thought now. Only movement.
Only fury.
The vaidu launched itself forward, blood fanning out in its wake. A whirl of razor-sharp limbs scythed and cut at her shield. She drew Grandfather Spear’s combat knife from behind her back. Stabbed deep into its underside, twisted, and ripped the blade free. Thick oil-blood gushed over her chest, pooled and steamed at her feet. Gurgling, the biomech crumpled lifelessly to the floor.
Orion yelled something she couldn’t hear. But she didn’t need to hear anything but the thudding war drum of her heart. Her fury knew what to do, and drove her toward the pyramid like a charging grank. The fire consuming her wasn’t from any yarist gem. This rage was all her own.
Daggeira raced into the nearest pyramid entrance, and it constricted shut behind.
Without breaking stride, Sabira found another opening and stormed through. Inside, more blisters shed yellowish light. The narrow passage walls blurred past as she ran. The floor’s texture seemed to change from step to step. Sometimes hard and smooth, then as soft and giving as flesh. Other openings branched off from either side, spiraling into blind curves.
The blisters went dark. Flickers of sulfurous illumination lit up a branching spiral. Sabira changed course. The gelatinous floor rippled beneath her steps. The agony blazing in the back of her skull only fueled her frenzy.
Bloody images strobed through Sabira’s mind. Plunging the knife into Daggeira’s heart. Bashing that smirk from her face. Wringing the last breath from her neck with bare hands.
And then Daggeira was there in the flesh. Waiting for her straight ahead, back turned.
Sabira charged.
The corridor suddenly opened into a vast, open cavity. Sabira didn’t stop. Jumping from the lip of the passage, she roared through the air at Daggeira, blade held high.
Something caught her, thwarting vengeance. Frozen mid-leap, Sabira hung, suspended and helpless in the open air. Blue-green shimmers of a snare field danced tauntingly around her. The knife and gem fell from her hands and pockets.
A few meters away, Daggeira hung suspended as well, ice blue eyes blankly staring.
A hot yellow surge burned Sabira’s vision with paralyzing light.
Zonte . . .
Sabira screamed. Not in rage this time, but in pure, heart-wrenching anguish.