Defender of the Empire 2: Facades (18 page)

“Because your aunt said that someday soon, the prison door would be opened and the only hope we have is the Defender; the only one who can save us from the enemy.” He paused and looked at me with all seriousness. “Rylynn, you
are
that Defender. It was why I had blessed Ace’s request to use our tech to bring you home.”

I stared at him for a moment, torn between the need to either laugh or cry. They thought I was some mythical hero come to save them? From an enemy I had only just begun to hear about? It wasn’t just crazy, it was insane!

The Story Keeper touched my hand gently. “I have told you the Story, the Truth of our world. Now you must see it with your own eyes. And in finding the poisoned heart, you will better understand it. You might even find something you are searching for.” Looking into her gold-amber eyes, I wondered if she was like my aunt, because there were times when Aunt Sylvie said things like that.

Chapter 22 – In Rexio’s Footsteps

              Rylynn

“Put these on,” Dukio said, handing me a bundle of brown clothes. The fabric was rough in texture yet soft to the touch. Even better, they were clean, which was something that couldn’t be said for my uniform. I couldn’t wait to change. I had taken a quick dip in the stream and got somewhat clean, but then had to put on the uniform again. It was necessary, but that didn’t make it pleasant. I thanked Dukio and took the new clothes back behind the bush I had used as a screen earlier. The clothes I had been given were too big, but I preferred that to the other extreme. I had the feeling that I would need the freedom of movement soon. When I put on the clothes, I noticed that parts were threadbare. Now looking myself over, I was pleased to see that I was decent, though I looked like I had just been picked up from the streets again.
Ah well,
I thought,
at least they aren’t revealing anything important.
Not that I
had
anything much to worry about in that department, but you get the idea.

              Dressed in my borrowed best, I rejoined the others who were similarly clothed—except for Talis and Kifen. They didn’t have on any of the clothes, probably because Dukio was still holding them. He looked somewhat pained as he glanced between the Telmicks and the bundles he held.

              “I fear that I don’t have anything big enough for you,” he was saying as I walked over.

              “We don’t need them,” Talis said, unperturbed.

              “But you do!” Dukio protested.

              “Why?” Kifen asked with his head tilted and his arms crossed over his chest.

              “You must smell like Pack. Only way Watchers will let you through to cave,” Dukio explained.

              Talis held out his hand for Dukio’s burden, “If that is the problem then I have a solution. Give them here.” Dukio handed the bundles to Talis. Talis tossed one to Kifen, then tied the shirt to his right shoulder and the pants to his left. Kifen followed his example except for the shirt, which he made into a headband. I wondered if it was just to be different or if he just liked headbands. “There,” Talis said. “We are wearing them. Should smell like your Pack now, yes?” He wasn’t asking and Dukio couldn’t say the large mercenary before him was wrong.

              I chuckled. “I think we are ready to go. Lead on, Fydo,” I said, turning to our other guide.

              Fydo shook his head before leading us away from the Story Keeper’s great tree. I glanced back once and saw Lazia watching us from her perch on a branch. I smiled at her before concentrating on trying to keep up with Fydo without sounding like a drunk elephant in a crystal shop. I don’t know how successful I was in my personal challenge, but I tried, stepping where Fydo had, following in his footsteps.
Much like how we are following in Rexio’s,
I thought.

              The L’uf picked up a ground-eating pace that didn’t tire me as quickly as I thought it would. We would jog for a time, then walk. Over and over again, until he called a halt. “We will wait here. Give Watchers time to scent us. Then we go on to what’s now the back entrance to your Imperial Pack’s mines.”

             
The mines were connected to the prison? How had no one noticed that?
I wondered.
And which was this mine for—gems or char jelly?
I didn’t get the chance to ask, since Timothy tapped my shoulder and Fydo had moved off.

              “In the meantime, let’s play some drad’age,” Timothy suggested, sitting on a log. Next to it was a conveniently leveled stump. It made me think someone had cut down the tree, then had cut the tree into logs for seats. It made for a semi-comfortable spot to wait that most would probably miss if they weren’t observant. I pulled a log seat closer, and watched as Timothy pulled out a rectangular wooden board from his pack. He set it carefully on the makeshift table before pulling out the pieces. The board had a square section of sixty-four places outlined in black. The leftover section of thirty-two places was outlined in purple.

              As he set up the three spots—one for me, one for him, and one for the drad—he explained each piece. “This is similar to chess in that there are eight special pieces and eight others. Unlike chess, however, each power piece is different.” He said, showing me that none of the taller pieces were alike. “There is the ‘king’ or ‘master’ piece. Your goal is to capture this one,” he said, setting down one of the tall pieces on the board. He went on to list a ‘spy’, ‘assassin’, ‘thief’, ‘soldier,’ ‘noble’, ‘priest’, and ‘musician’. He told me how each piece moved and what it could do. I also got a brief overview of the rules, one of which was ‘whatever piece you touch, that is the one you must move that turn.’
Okay, no thinking with my hands,
I thought after hearing that one.

              After that, we were playing. Each of us tried to think ahead of the other. But he had an advantage over me, since he had played before and knew the rules of the game better than I did. That said, I was determined to beat him at his favorite game, or at least give him a run for his money.

              Timothy was about to take his turn when Kifen suddenly sat up. “Someone’s coming,” he hissed.

              Fydo sniffed the air. “Not L’uf.”

              “Whatever’s coming, I have not smelled before,” Dukio added.

              “Rot too,” Fydo said wrinkling his nose.

              “Let’s disappear before they notice us,” Jack suggested. Like fleeing ants, we ducked for cover. A tense moment passed before those of us with less keen hearing could make out what Kifen had. Heavy footsteps crunched closer to us. Personally, I thought it sounded like a herd of large beasts bumbling through. Watching from my spot under a thick leafy fern, I could see the last thing I ever expected to see here. A group of six-legged, four-armed Zar’dakens were moving through the trees. None of them looked especially pleased to be there. I figured part of that stemmed from how easy it was for roots to trip the unwary. It’s bad enough with two legs. Can you imagine what it was like with
six
?

              The second thing I saw wasn’t as surprising, though it was kind of handy. Adrian Knight was with them. “That human smells like rot,” Dukio whined softly near me. I agreed that Knight was a rotten one, but I hadn’t realized it was something one could smell.

              Turning to my own concerns, I mentally called to my Spectral.
Kylesst! Please tell me Knight has the blade, because I’m a stone’s throw from him.

              THANK THE LORD OF HEAVEN! Kylesst sighed, before quickly telling me what I was actually looking at. A SOUL SHADOW NAMED BALENNA IS POSSESSING HIM. SHE ORCHESTRATED THE ATTACKS ON AND AROUND LENTI FOR THIS. SHE IS GOING TO USE ME TO FREE THE REST OF HER KIND. And there was my answer; there were some free Soul Shadows. The rest were truly locked up in the heart of Lenti. No wonder my aunt had said the ‘heart of the problem was Lenti’.

              And the entrance to that prison was a cave turned mine not that far away.

              “The human must be stopped,” I whispered to Dukio. The golden-haired L’uf eyed me. Something in my expression must have agreed with him, because he tilted his head back and howled. Fydo instantly took it up and others farther ahead agreed.

              The Zar’dakens pulled up short, blasters drawn. The Watchers hurled spears down from the heights. The Zar’dakens scrambled to escape the projectiles, but their anatomy betrayed them. Many of them couldn’t move fast enough with all the undergrowth tangling in their many jointed legs. Even with four arms, they couldn’t move it all out of the way fast enough to escape. Several of them hissed in pain as they collapsed, spears caught in their joints. Other spears had been aimed better, and struck some Zar’dakens in the torso. The only problem was that the leather they wore blunted the sharp points. Though they didn’t pierce, some of the spears must have damaged the flesh underneath. I saw one coughing up what must have been blood. Then there were the truly talented L’uf who had managed to kill one or two Zar’daken’s outright. Those Zar’dakens had died with large pieces of wood jutting from their throats.

              The survivors wasted no time in retaliating. Some shot their blasters at the trees. Others hurled the spears back at their ambushers. A single yelp revealed that one of the L’uf hadn’t moved fast enough.

              “The L’uf had enough fun,” I heard Kifen mutter over the noise of the fight. Looking in his direction, I saw both he and Talis had drawn their blasters.

              I slipped closer to Talis. “Let me help! Give me a knife,” I appealed to him, choosing a weapon I could handle, because the Lord knows I didn’t have a chance trying to heft a Telmick’s chromatic sword. But I was good with the knives.

              I expected him to argue with me. I was all ready to plead my case, but to my surprise he unbuckled one of his arm bands with five sheathed chromatic knives and handed it to me. I took it with a nod of thanks and belted it to my waist. It was tight, but wearable at its loosest fitting. “The human is mine,” I said before scrambling up the closest tree. I was small and fast, but I didn’t fancy trying to take down Knight whilst dodging around flailing combatants. I really didn’t have time for that nonsense. I had a Spectral to save.

              It took me a moment, peering down into the chaos, to find Knight. I found him weaving his way through the combatants. With all the large targets around him, Knight had managed to escape the first barrage of spears. I tracked him from above, moving to keep pace with him. From my vantage point I saw a L’uf try to stop him. Knight grabbed the L’uf by the throat. The L’uf struggled against the big man—he wasn’t having much luck. I drew one of my knives. I was about to throw it when I noted the L’uf’s hair had dulled and his body went limp. His skin was saggy as if the flesh under it had shriveled.

              I gaped as Knight dropped the carcass.
What the…?

             
BALENNA TOOK HIS ENERGY, HIS LIFE FORCE, Kylesst explained. HURRY! he urged and I threw the knife. I threw too late, but at least I got a Zar’daken in the back. The L’uf he had been fighting waved his thanks as the Zar’daken toppled to the ground. I nodded in return and hurried after Knight. Below and behind me, I could hear Timothy calling to me. I ignored him. I could not let Knight get away from me.

              He ran like he knew where he was going. Like he was a homing missile with a target. I could barely keep up with him. In the end, I had no choice but to leave the trees. No branch could help me, now that he had entered the mine. Unsheathing another knife, I followed him in.

Chapter 23 – Sixth Sense

              Valencia

             
‘No good job goes unpunished.’ Who said that?
Valencia wondered. She couldn’t remember. Of course it would help if she actually ever
knew
the answer.
Maybe it was ‘deed’ not ‘job’. ‘No good
deed
goes unpunished.
’ That sounded better, but whatever. It fit her current situation. She had just finished guiding a group of refugees from the colony city of Abil’heti to Sage’tehti. She had also seen to it that they found a safe place to stay until they could get passage off world. And the job proved she had a heart, because she hadn’t charged them. Not one credit.

              And here was her reward.

              Sage’tehti was now under attack and all air traffic had been shot down. There was nowhere to hide that the enemy would not find, should the defenses fail. It was a fact she knew well, but apparently few others did. They crammed into buildings like sardines. Valencia couldn’t understand why they thought that would help them.

              Whatever, that was their choice.
She
was feeling a bit more proactive.

              She had the choice of going back to the refugees she had just helped. But then what? As she had said, there was nowhere to go unless she took them through one of the tunnels she had discovered. But that would mean having to fight her way back through the panicked crowds. Or, she could try to keep the defenses from failing.

              Valencia looked about the street. In the opposite direction from where the refuges were, she could see a spire marking where one of the defense towers stood. It was closer than the refugees. Valencia started making her way toward it, when a tingle shivered up her spine. Something important, world altering, was afoot. The knowledge hit her like a punch in the gut. Feeling woozy she leaned against the nearest wall. Her fist to her chest, Valencia struggled to work through the feeling, to understand what it wanted her to do.

              The feeling grew and suddenly she felt the need to go down the alley across the street and get up to the top of the wall.
All righty then,
she thought. The Officers of Order were going to be none too pleased to have her up there unless she had a reason they could understand. If she wanted to be unmolested, she would need something from the defense tower. But her sixth sense didn’t care about that. That would take too long and she needed to hurry. Needed to get to the place it wanted her to go, soon, before she missed it. Whatever ‘it’ was.

              Muttering to herself, Valencia pushed her way through the thinning crowd to the alleyway. The alley was claustrophobically narrow, and yet there were mats and belongings crowding it that had been left by owners who had nowhere else to be. They were gone now, probably panicked along with the rest of the crowd. Valencia tried to avoid the mats as much as possible, but it couldn’t be helped sometimes. They were too close together and she was in too much of a hurry.

             
Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
her sixth sense seemed to chant.

              She was through the alley and near the wall.
Stairs. Need stairs. Where are the bloody stairs?
she wondered frantically. She probably looked like an idiot, standing in the intersection with her hands held slightly away from her sides in preparation to run in whatever direction she could find stairs. She felt like a hot chicken holding its wings out in an attempt to cool down. But she couldn’t see any stairs.

             
Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!

              Fine, she didn’t need stairs. Who needed stairs? Certainly
not
her. Valencia convinced herself of that as she turned to the buildings built near the wall. Smiling, she ran toward the nearest one and clambered up the door. Her fingers caught the tiny ledge the doorframe made. Using her momentum, she pushed up from the door and reached for the next handhold, a window ledge. Up she went like one of those great aracre spiders. Valencia made it to the roof, and from there scaled the short distance to the top of the wall.

              “What are you doing up here!?” an Officer of Order demanded. Valencia barely spared him a glance. Instead she turned to her right and saw that not that far away was Braeden Wingstar.

              Braeden must have heard the officer’s shout and looked up. He blinked in surprise. “Valencia?”

             
You need to guide him, the boys, and the doctor with him elsewhere,
her sense seemed to whisper. Valencia took a step toward him, but was stopped by a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Lay off!” she snarled. The officer didn’t bat an eye.

              “Leave her alone. She is with me,” Braeden ordered, and the officer let go of her like he had been burned.
Well, I am hot,
Valencia thought smugly to herself.

              “Forgive me, Admiral,” the man said before taking the opportunity to slip away.

              Valencia raised an eyebrow at Braeden. “Moving up, did we?” she asked. “I thought you would be a captain for the rest of your life.”

              Braeden grunted. “I was strongarmed into it. Why are you here?” he asked.

              Valencia would have made a comment about how he had just skipped to the point and missed all the fun nonsense of chit chat, but her sixth sense was driving her too hard. “You and those who came with you need to come with me. Now,” she said, glancing at the young men—boys really—peering at her. A red-headed woman was nearby, wearing the green sash of those trained by the Masailen healers. Valencia turned back the way she had come.

              “We cannot leave,” Braeden said. “We are helping with the defenses.”

              “What good will defenses do if the heart of this world is opened?” she asked, over her shoulder. She had no idea what she meant by those words, but they felt true. Better yet, they had the desired effect.

              Braeden turned to the boys behind him. “Come, we have a matter of urgency to attend.”

“The doctor too!” Valencia added before climbing over the wall and dropping over the other side, back onto the roof. She glanced up at the men and the woman, all looking down at her, and grinned. “Race you to the street.” And off she went. Going down was just a matter of falling in a controlled manner. In moments, she was on the street tapping her toes, waiting for the men to work their way down. The green-eyed boy was the fastest at following her. The other two boys followed more hesitantly in his wake. Behind them was Braeden, assisting the doctor.

Finally, they all made it down, and without mishap either. She was so proud. The tallest boy looked a little pale, but he would get over it. “Let’s go,” she said. Spinning on her heel, she ran down the street. Braeden and the others followed her. They didn’t have to go far before Valencia tried to open a door. It was locked.
Of course,
she grumbled to herself. Braeden caught up. “We need in there,” she said.

“Back away,” Braeden directed before melting the hinges with his blaster. He kicked the door open. It didn’t go all the way, but it moved enough for them to push through. The people inside stared at them in terrified shock. Valencia ignored them and made her way to the stairs and down to the basement. The men and doctor followed her.

“Why are we coming down here?” the youngest boy asked.

“Because of this,” Valencia said, pushing a bookcase out of the way. Behind it was an ordinary cement wall, but Valencia knew its secret. She stomped her boot down on a hard-to-see pressure plate that had been protected by the bookcase. Machinery grumbled as it was forced to work. A section of the wall slid ponderously into the floor. Beyond it was a dimly lit tunnel. “Answer your question?” she asked the boy. The boy nodded, his strange tri-colored eyes wide. “Good. Get in,” she said briskly. Once they were on the tunnel side of the wall, she hit another pressure plate. The wall slid back up.

Once again, Valencia ran. They sped through the tunnel. In places, they had to slow down to keep from tripping on something. The lights in the area had gone out. Dust drifted down from the ceiling as the tunnel suddenly started to shake. The tremor didn’t last long, but it wasn’t alone. Others shook under their feet.

In the tense silence, Braeden answered the question they were all asking, “Weapons fire.”

“Great,” the youngest boy muttered.

“We need to keep going.” Valencia started them moving again. She could feel the questions burning on her back, but she didn’t have time to explain it to them. Finally, they came to a dead end. Valencia noted that she was the only one who felt somewhat relieved by this, but then she knew what it actually was. Before a word could be said, she stepped on yet another pressure plate. The door ground its way open. They came out in what looked like a tool shed.

“Mining tools?” the green eyed boy asked.

“Looks like it,” Braeden replied. “We must be near one of the mine entrances.”

Valencia nodded and moved to the door. Outside, she could hear howls in the near distance.

“What is that?” the young boy asked.

“L’uf.” she replied, and took off after the sound. They had no choice but to follow. As they neared the howling, they could also hear the sounds of fighting—weapon blasts and the visceral sound of flesh being hit.

Putting a hand on her shoulder, Braeden slowed them down. Gritting her teeth at the delay, Valencia obeyed Braeden’s silent command. Once they got close enough, they could see Zar’dakens fighting against a bevy of Lenti’s dogs and two Telmicks. The Telmicks were a surprise. Valencia also noted two humans fighting alongside the Telmicks and the L’ufs. Suddenly one of the humans, a redhead, cursed, looking up into the trees. “Rylynn!” Braeden shouted.

The three young men with Valencia and Braeden gasped collectively. Before Valencia knew it, they were breaking cover. Cursing, Braeden fired at the nearest Zar’dakens who had turned toward the boys. Valencia saw the redhead take off into the woods, but she couldn’t think to follow him. Instead, she was blasting at any Zar’daken who got too close.

Between the L’uf, the trigger-happy Telmicks, and Valencia’s group, the few remaining Zar’dakens left were overrun, mostly because the L’uf were numerous and hard to predict, and the Telmicks knew what to do with a blaster and a chromatic sword. The survivors of the fight gazed about at the mess around them before looking at each other. It was clear that the L’uf and the Telmicks weren’t sure what to do with the newcomers. The doctor started to kneel before one of the injured L’uf. Valencia put a hand on her shoulder, urgency making her tremble. There was something not right—

IT’S HAPPENING!
Valencia’s sixth sense screamed, fear grabbing her by the throat. Valencia drew in a ragged gasp and let go of the protesting doctor’s shoulder. The woman frowned at her. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“No. It’s happening,” Valencia whimpered, before whirling drunkenly toward the entrance of the mine. Dimly, she heard the young boy cry out. Driven by the urgency pounding through her, Valencia took off. So what if every damn tree got in her way and tried to trip her up? She had to get to that mine. She had to get there before it was too late. She was vaguely aware of others following her, but she didn’t care. Something involved Rylynn again—why did things always center around
her
?

Something, she knew, was very
wrong.