After dinner, Riyun struggled to sleep. He wrestled with worries and a sense of failure—the things that always plagued him. And there was the fight with Javika, a disagreement that made no sense but lingered through the bland dinner and into the night. Then there was the bed, which was about as comfortable as sleeping on rocks. As bad as the linens had reeked, the hay stuffed inside the mattress smelled worse. Maybe someone had died on his mattress in the past. Died and melted. Then exploded.
The mattress was that bad.
Unlike him, Symbra had no problem drifting off. She complained about the bed at first, but once she actually set her head down, the complaining stopped.
It was the cycling worries that nagged him: Could they find Zabila in a place like this? Could they escape? Could he realistically hope to keep everyone alive?
A few times, he drifted off, only to be awakened by the jingle and clank of men in armor patrolling the streets. When he peered out through the window, they looked like the soldiers on the wall, but these men had lanterns and marched in a tight formation.
Watchmen.
Riyun tried to close the shutters, but the room quickly became stuffy despite a whispery breeze. He finally settled on keeping the shutters open just enough to let the air circulate.
Sometime after watching the silver moon settle overhead, he drifted off.
Pleasant memories were a rare thing for him. They were concentrated in the years before he left Hurdist. Whether it was the boxing training he received from his Uncle Govon or the struggle of trying to coax seeds into life, or even trying to learn the Ruodir music that meant so much to the Hurdisti, the memories were about simple and reasonable goals. Even someone like Riyun had a chance.
But the true pleasure in life didn’t come until he met Monisa. How was it that someone so perfect could have been born in his small settlement? And how was it that she could fall for someone like him?
It only made sense that something so precious and perfect would be taken from him.
That night was a nightmare he could never escape.
They’d been planning their wedding and negotiating with the people of the settlement for a plot of land to build their house upon. The other young men of the village were jealous—Monisa had been the desire of so many. She’d never let it go to her head, and she’d never given Riyun any pause or doubt. They were meant for each other and would be happy together forever.
A single gunshot had been the alarm that night. It was all the alarm they needed.
Riyun had rolled out of his bed, fetched up his long knife, and bolted from his room. His father Faxal was already at the front door with his own blade.
“Tungron raiders!” The old man was too angry to be afraid.
They threw the bars off the door and sprinted out into the night, hunched low and ready for anything, leaning into the wind. Torches burned like falling stars, speeding through the village streets. The Tungrons were vagabonds, people uninterested in the honesty of hard work. They attacked farmsteads, killing and stealing to survive.
Riyun had survived two raids before. On that night, his blood boiled. Tungrons also liked to steal women.
Another fire lit the night, this one large and stationary.
Monisa’s farm.
“Monisa!” Riyun straightened. “I have to go to her.”
Faxal slapped his son on the back. “Go! I’m with you.”
They stayed off the road, watching for riders. When no one was around, they ran, risking the uncertainties of the treacherous terrain. It was nearly a mile to the burning farmstead. The flames had grown higher and brighter in that time, revealing the barn that had been targeted.
Bodies lay before the breached door of the house. Raiders darted in and out, arms full of grain sacks and pickle jars. They howled like animals and cackled, reveling in the slaughter.
“Six of them, boy.” Faxal squeezed the grip of his weapon and shook his head.
Riyun’s breathing was ragged and loud. “Twenty wouldn’t be enough to drive me away.”
“I know but be cautious.”
They crept in, focused on the two raiders left out on watch. Getting to them meant sprinting across an open patch of ground. Fortunately, the Tungrons weren’t known for discipline, and the two men were no exception. When one of their brethren howled, the two howled back.
Riyun pointed at the farthest of the two with his knife. “That one.”
“I’ll take the other.”
They charged, with Riyun sure he’d cut the other man down but at the last moment switching to the dull hilt of the weapon to club the raider unconscious. Faxal had no compunctions about killing Tungrons.
The old man scooped up the rifle from the dead raider, inspected it, then tossed it to Riyun. “No matter what happens, keep yourself alive.”
Riyun had used a rifle once, when hunting with his uncle years before. They were a luxury, and they were uncertain. If there was any chance to get in close, Riyun would.
They crept in, sometimes on hands and knees, sometimes crawling on their bellies. They stopped about thirty feet out from the horses that were now burdened with bag upon bag of goods. A year—a lifetime—of toil. And that lifetime had been ended. Monisa’s father, brothers, and mother were all dead.
Where was she? Alive?
Riyun held the rifle in his left hand, the blade in his right. The four remaining Tungrons were still inside. Their frenzied rush to load the horses had stopped.
Why?
He signaled to his father—it was time to check what was going on inside.
Riyun slipped past the animals, quiet as the night, feeling the heat from the barn fire riding the wind. The smell of smoke almost made him cough.
Inside, the lights were on. The kitchen was a disaster, one of the sturdy chairs shattered and the table overturned. Blood spatters covered the floor, some of it left a trail that ran to the doorway. And there was a dead Tungron in the corner, a bloody gash in his forehead, a rifle clutched in his hand.
Crazy cackling brought Riyun around, but it was the soft gasping of Monisa that froze his heart.
Her room. They were in her room.
He wanted to charge, to get into the room and kill them all. He wanted to lift her up and carry her to freedom and safety, as he’d promised he’d always do.
But his legs were frozen. The muscles in his forearm ached from squeezing the hilt of his knife.
Then Monisa screamed his name, and whatever had held him in place released him.
He charged inside, blade raised. There was a vague awareness of his lovely wife-to-be pinned beneath one of the monsters. Tears rolled down her face, and her ruby lips contorted.
Riyun moved faster that night than ever before. His blade cut through the arm of the closest raider, then Riyun closed with the second, smashing the man’s head in with the rifle butt. The third seemed unsure whether to pull his pants up or bring his own rifle to bear.
Riyun cut the man’s throat.
But there was no amount of speed that could make Riyun faster than the man on Monisa. He had a pistol pressed against her bloody cheek. “Stop right there, boy. You’re a fast one. Bullets are faster.”
Monisa squeezed her eyes shut. “Riyun, I’m sorry.”
“You’ve nothing to apologize for, Monisa. I’m the one who failed you.” Riyun set the rifle on the floor. “Take your horses and go. All I care about is her.”
The raider guffawed. “I’ve taken a liking to her myself. Pretty as I’ve ever seen in all my years.”
She shook her head. “No.”
Riyun pointed the tip of the knife at the Tungron. “Let her go, and I’ll let you live. That’s the deal.”
That drew a snort from the raider. “Boy, can’t you see this pistol? I’m making the calls. Hear me?”
A rifle report from the kitchen silenced the raider, but it was immediately followed by the pistol’s thunderclap and the spray of Monisa’s—
Scraping and rattling woke Riyun.
Sunlight lit the room, revealing the tub they’d have to empty before leaving and Symbra tangled in the musty linens of her bed. She must have dreamed, too.
Smoke.
Dreams sometimes stayed with Riyun, especially after the Golgar Portals. He could smell something burning as strongly as he had that night back on Hurdist.
Then there was the scraping and rattling again, and he realized something was tugging at the shutters. Cracking the wood.
Claws. Reptilian claws.
He wasn’t dreaming. The smoke and the scraping and the claws…
The shutters were suddenly torn away with a snap of dry wood and the groan of hinges being yanked from stone anchors. Riyun had a moment to catch a reptilian form before it fell from sight, ruined shutters clutched in its grip.
“Symbra!” He rolled off his bed and searched around for his Devastator carbine.
The Onath mercenary sat up in her bed. “What—?”
Her question was silenced by the creature, which hopped onto the sill, flinders still clinging to leathery wings. It was similar to the flying lizard that had attacked in the forest clearing—winged and reptilian—but was otherwise completely different. The coloration was darker, the scales more pronounced, and there was more of a hooked beak to it. A horn-like protrusion rose from the end of the beak top.
And the eyes…
They weren’t animal eyes but intelligent. Deep gold, with a vertical slit for a pupil.
Those eyes leapt from Riyun to Symbra.
She screamed and jumped from her bed.
It was the wrong thing to do.
Her feet tangled in the linens, and the bed groaned just before one of its legs snapped. She spilled to the floor and rolled against the tub with a groan.
Riyun’s fingers curled around his weapon, but the beaked thing seemed to anticipate that and jumped onto his chest, bearing him down.
It was heavy, and Riyun didn’t have his armor to take the weight. Its hind legs pinned him down, and it reared up to bring its wicked beak down in a strike that could without a doubt snap bone.
He whipped the carbine across the thing’s face before it could attack. “Symbra! Shoot it!”
Out of the corner his eye, he caught enough movement to realize she was getting up.
Unfortunately, the winged monster noticed as well. It craned its neck toward the young woman. Then its beak opened, and a horrible sound—like a vomited squeal—rolled out.
And then came a sulfuric smell, followed by a gout of flame that seemed simultaneously liquid and alive.
Once again, Symbra screamed, but this time there was as much pain in the sound as terror. It was drowned out by the splash of water.
Riyun swung his carbine again, this time striking the thing in the throat just behind and below its jaw. The blow caught the beast by surprise and seemed to infuriate it.
It arched its back so that its head was right above Riyun’s face. The beak opened as it had before.
But it only managed a choking sound.
The thing looked as surprised as Riyun.
He swung again, but it got a wing inside his attack and batted the weapon away.
No gun. Hips pinned down by the thing’s weight. Only an instant of confusion while the monster tried to deal with whatever he’d done to it. Riyun searched around for his knife, but it was closer to the window, behind the reptile.
So he grabbed the beak.
The thing snapped at him and with its hard bill could probably have easily severed fingers.
But Riyun was fast. He released the bony jaws, seized the horn, then grabbed both the top and bottom of the beak.
And he squeezed.
Years of combat, and before that years of labor, had gifted him with strength, but the thing was so much more powerful. Its head jerked back and forth, and its jaws worked against his grip.
He held. Straining, grunting with the exertion, but not giving up. If it opened its mouth again—
Water sloshed onto the floor, and the thing’s eyes tracked to something deeper in the room.
Symbra.
Wet footsteps slapped against the wooden floor, then something scraped and rattled. The Onath groaned, and he caught the familiar clatter of a weapon strap on the barrel. More wet footsteps slapping on the floor, then she was at his side, swatting the thing’s wing. Her clothes were blackened and wet, and there was unmistakable redness on her arm.
But she swung the weapon with a welcome fury.
And Riyun held on to the beak with all he had.
Finally, she screamed and landed a blow against the back of its skull. Its eyes lost focus for a second. “Get away!”
Riyun didn’t need a second warning. He twisted his hips, brought a knee up into the reptile’s torso, and rolled from beneath it.
Then there was the distinctive burp of her weapon, followed by the heavy, wet splash of gore.
The thing thrashed and scraped, gouging furrows in the wood as it tried to right itself.
Riyun continued to crawl away from it, watching its death throes over his shoulder. The thing got its feet beneath it and brought its head up to glare at Symbra. For a moment, it looked as if it might finish her off with another gout of fire, as if the holes punched in its chest that now sprayed dark blood everywhere weren’t actually fatal. Just as quickly, though, it shivered, and the intelligence went out of its eyes.
Before Riyun could get to his feet, the door to the room burst open. Javika sprang in first, sword drawn and murder in her eyes. Hirvok was close behind, then Quil and the rest.
The wiry assassin rushed to the beast and prodded it with the tip of her blade. “The things from the clearing?”
Riyun limped to Symbra’s side and waved Quil in. “No. This thing spat fire.” He tugged on a portion of the Onath mercenary’s charred shirt. The cloth came away in a wet clump, revealing red flesh.
The young woman gasped. “Oh. That…”
Quil caught her as she collapsed. He set her on the broken bed and unzipped the hip pouch he’d brought with him. “My backpack. If I get the blister salve on her quickly enough, I can save this skin.”
Hirvok spun and was gone before Riyun could even take a step. Letting people get involved within the team was a bad idea, but it was good to see the sergeant actually showing concern for someone else. Hirvok was experienced and understood the risks of the job. Maybe his attraction to the young woman was purely physical. Symbra was pretty enough, if a little on the pampered side.
Then again, Monisa had been similarly soft. There was nothing wrong with not letting life wear you down.
The pseudo tore away the last of the burned clothing. Blisters were already forming, and it seemed as if Symbra might be on the edge of going into shock. She blinked rapidly, and her lips trembled. Her breath was short and loud, and it sounded as if she were trying to speak.
Quil frowned, but when Hirvok returned with the backpack, the pseudo dove right into his work. “We have a small reserve of painkillers.” He squeezed half a tube of a clear gel into the palm of his hand and rubbed that along the length of the burn. His frown turned to a wince when some of the flesh came away in his hand. “Lieutenant?”
Riyun hated himself for what he had to ask. “Will she live?”
“The odds are good. Our main concerns are infection and preventing nerve damage. The salve is the first step. Clean bandages are the second. Avoiding shock would be a good third.”
Something scraped against the door frame: Lonar. “Give it…to her.”
The big man’s eyes locked with Riyun’s. There was no resentment or hostility. Lonar only cared about the suffering of a fellow team member.
Javika brushed past Riyun. “I will get her a new shirt.” She stopped, glaring at him. “You bleed.”
Blood was spreading across the front of his tattered T-shirt. “It’s nothing. The thing’s claws—”
“You will live.” The Biwali warrior scowled, then hurried out.
Hirvok seemed frozen in place, eyes squinting with each gasp from the Onath woman.
Riyun set a hand on his sergeant’s shoulder and pulled him into the hallway with some effort. “Hirvok?”
“That wouldn’t have happened.” The sergeant spoke through clenched teeth. “She should’ve been with me.”
“You couldn’t have stopped it. That thing tore the shutters—”
“I would’ve stopped it!” Spittle flew from Hirvok’s lips. “You’re old, and you’re getting slow.”
“Hirvok, stop. You need to—”
“Don’t tell me what I need to do, old man. You dragged us into this. You wanted to get into her pants so bad, you had to put her in the room with you.”
The younger man was dealing with pain and jealousy. He wasn’t thinking; he was reacting. But he was going over the line.
And Riyun had to put an end to that. “Hirvok—stop. Now.”
Hirvok’s hands squeezed into fists. He seemed ready to strike. It was too far; Riyun couldn’t allow it to happen.
Feet stomped down the hallway, and a shrill voice broke into a string of totally meaningless words.
There had been times where Riyun had tried to understand some of the local people when they talked. Not this time, not with the way the woman spoke so rapidly and with so much vigor. She was in his face, wagging a finger at him, then wagging it at everyone she could see.
Then she was in the room, momentarily distracted either by Symbra’s wounds or her state of undress.
Javika rushed down the hall, jungle-green T-shirt in hand. She cast a cocked eyebrow at Riyun, then hurried inside to help Quil with the last of the bandages.
Riyun groaned. He glanced over his shoulder at Hirvok. “We’ll talk about this later.”
The sergeant grinned. “Count on it.”
Naru was standing between the proprietor’s wife and the broken bed, slowly talking the woman down. Or at least that seemed to be the intent. The old biddy appeared to just be spinning up more and more. Her concern now was apparently the blood on the floor and the broken shutters.
The hacker shook her head. “It’s all the fires.”
Heavier steps came from the stairs, and Riyun thought there might be a glimmer of sanity in the proprietor’s eyes. That idea was silenced when the wrinkled man glanced through the doorway and bowed his head. It was the sort of defeated look Riyun had seen many times in his life. The old man was no more in charge than Quil or Naru.
The proprietor mumbled something, and for a moment Riyun thought he might have understood at least some of the words. It almost sounded like…
The sky is burning…
And it wasn’t imagined: Lonar’s eyes were wide in surprise.
Did the old man know some of their language?
The scars… The same pattern as the tattoos on the terrorist…
Riyun reached out. “Excuse me, do you—?”
Surprise replaced defeat in the old man’s face. “Oh! I never—”
A shudder ran through the building at the same time as the sickening groan of failing wood merged with the deafening pop of cracking stone. Dust and a fine powder blew out from the room and into the hallway.
Then the old woman screamed, a high shrieking sound cut suddenly short.
The old man darted in. “Margva! My love!”
Riyun tried to grab the proprietor’s shirt but missed. And once through the bedroom door, any further thought of stopping the old man came to an abrupt end.
Same as the old man’s life.
The wall that had held the window lay mostly in heavy chunks, some of those were piled on top of the old woman. What had shattered the wall and part of the roof was a giant version of the fire-breathing lizard. The thing was a dark gray-green, with overlapping scales as wide across as Lonar’s open hand. Its wings whipped up dust devils and sent debris through the ruined wall. A wicked, blood-soaked hooked nail protruded from the old man’s back.
There was no need to bark out orders—the team was operating on instinct now. Javika already had Riyun’s gear and Symbra’s weapon. Tawod hooked his arms under Naru’s and dragged her back into the hallway. Quil hefted Symbra over his shoulder and sprinted for the door, his bag in one hand, hers in the other.
And the giant lizard…
The look on its face…
The smell…
It was getting ready to breathe…fire.
“Hurry!” Riyun pointed them toward the closest doors. “Inside! Close the doors!”
They’d already figured that out. He barely managed to get into Hirvok’s room before the door slammed shut. Lonar shoved Riyun to the floor and dropped on top of him.
And then the building turned into a furnace hot enough to boil away flesh.