Chapter 33
Osid
Tactically, we should have the advantage.
The mountain ridge was the easiest path to get to Dulba without the threat of Death Valley or the terror wings that roamed most of the eastern plains.
I had anticipated this, of course, and had hidden pockets carved into the mountain for occasions such as these, and all of Lokbaatar’s men had found positions that obscured them from view.
The Roamcrest hated this plan. As wanderers, they were more used to their open plains and fighting atop their mounts with spears. But beasts were a burden on these jagged mountain roads, and subterfuge was our best course of action.
I shifted the pack of mud off my back and placed it at the mouth of the narrow crag I chose to hide it. Beside me, Lok grunted as he adjusted the straps on his armored vambraces.
He caught sight of a flash in the trees farther ahead. “They’re here, just around the bend.”
Even now, it was odd to think I was about to enter battle with the general spear aimed at my enemy and not my back. Strange planet, stranger changes.
“There,” Lok grumbled, pointing down the winding pass.
The enemy forces emerged. At the front, King Iltith sat astride a finback, its yellow fangs bared. The beast’s breath fogged the air as it snarled, muscles coiled beneath its thick scar-riddled hide.
King Iltith himself wasn’t much better looking.
Even from this distance, I could see the ruins of his face: The left side was covered in a burn scar, the eye completely white.
His armor was maroon, etched in the gashes of conquest. His gauntleted hand gripped a long black whip with barbs on its frayed end.
Behind him was a party of five more riders with beasts just as nasty looking as the first. I recalled the finback rider that led the invasion I’d squashed in Riverbend.
If he had access to that many beasts under his control, then it was plain to see how he had dominated most of the east coast. But monsters that bulky wouldn’t do well in a narrow ravine like this.
Lok signaled for his archers to get ready.
King Iltith raised a fist—his column halted. His one good eye swept the cliffs, and for a heartbeat, I could’ve sworn he looked right at me. Then he grinned, a wide, ugly thing with too many teeth missing.
“Loose,” Lok roared.
A hail of flaming arrows sliced through the air—only for his shield bearers to snap into formation, their interlocked wall deflecting the volley with a chorus of metallic pings.
King Iltith threw back his head and laughed.
“Is this any way to treat your guests, Osid?” His voice dripped with mockery. “And here I thought we could be civil about this. Look, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t give a damn about your territory. You are simply in the way. Let us take the females, and we’ll be out of your hair.”
Lok bristled beside me, his massive body coiled.
“No? You won’t even come out to discuss this?” King Iltith scanned the line of trees, then let out a long sigh. “Fine, I know a way to chase you out.” He made a sharp gesture, and the sky erupted.
Flying beasts, dozens of them, their pink wings spread, each carrying hissing green balls in their talons.
“Bombs!” I bellowed. “Take cover!”
The mountain erupted in blasts and the sickly smell of algae. Grabbing the mud, we retreated farther into the crag. A bloated button hit the ground without bursting and rolled to the mouth. Quickly, I took a fistful of mud and threw it on top of the burning bulb.
When the blast stopped, I heard an exaggerated yawn. “I can do this all day.”
“Gods help us, anything but more bombs,” I called, my voice echoing through the mountain pass. “If only there was some way to prepare for the one little trick you keep pulling.”
The echoes dissolved into all the laughter of my men. King Iltith’s fleet was more than likely thrice our size, but when echoed like this, there was no way to tell if we were a fleet of ten or ten thousand.
“You always were an arrogant bastard. Have it your way, we’ll drag you out!” King Iltith’s war horn bellowed—his army charged. The roar of his men was enough to shake the mountain pass, but they had taken the bait.
I gave the signal.
There was a snap, and Lokbaatar’s warriors unleashed boulders to landslide onto the path.
Massive rocks tumbled down the steep slopes, crashing to the charging ranks.
The narrow pass became a death trap as the enemy’s own momentum worked against them.
The shield guard was crushed beneath the falling stone, and the front line of finbacks reared in panic, their massive bodies colliding in the confined space.
While their forces panicked, we dove on them from above, cutting down as many hoof soldiers as we could before they had a chance to regroup.
King Iltith’s mount, the biggest monster of them all with its jagged fangs and frothing jaws, lost its bluster and bucked wildly, trying to free itself and run. The warlord snarled, lashing his barbed whip across the beast’s neck.
“Be still, you wretched lizard!” he bellowed. The finback let out an enraged shriek, its claws digging grooves into the ground as it fought for balance.
King Iltith whipped it again, but then his gaze locked on to me, and his ruined face twisted into a leer.
His mount barreled through the fray, its claws knocking men out of its path like twigs, its rider’s spear raised high in anticipation.
He slowed, keeping the spear trained on me as he sucked in a long, savoring breath.
“Oh, how I’ve longed for this,” King Iltith sneered, raining in his beast to halt before me. “You know I really should be thanking you. A little birdie came and told me you’ve been keeping my future bride nice and warm until my arrival.”
My grip tightened on my sword. “What did you say?”
His grin widened. “Oh yes, a Biwban visited my camp and told me all about how they were searching for a particular male to match a female they had in their facility. Apparently she couldn’t stand the sight of her current match and needed a different male to come in and impregnate her.
” He rested an arm over his saddle. “I do hate to keep a woman waiting, but tell me, what does my bride look like?”
“Subject B 94,” I breathed.
“Oh, don’t look so put-off. I’ll bring her your head to remember you by. She can look back on it fondly while she’s taking a real king’s cock.”
Rage burned through me like wildfire. “I’ll skin you alive before you lay a finger on her.”
The dinosaur’s claws raced toward me, but Lok intercepted, knocking me out of the way before slashing his spear across its muzzle. The dinosaur howled, recoiling, but King Iltith swung his spear downward in an arc. I barely ducked in time, feeling the wind of its passing.
I sliced off one of the beast’s hands before it managed to sink its daggerlike claws into Lok’s neck, but another rider had regained control of his beast to join the fray. Together the riders were too strong, too fast, and King Iltith laughed as he drove us back.
“Their forces are out in the open now,” King Iltith roared, thrusting his whip toward the sky. “Bombers, again!” Flying beasts wheeled overhead, their talons clutching those vile, hissing bombs.
“Take a good look, Osid. I am the last face you’ll ever see,” he taunted, raising his spear for the killing blow—
THOOM!
A deafening blast slammed into him.
King Iltith’s body jerked as the projectile struck his breastplate, hurling him clean off his mount. He hit the ground with a bone-crushing impact, his spear clattering away.
His finback roared in fury, but the skies screamed again.
Not with the flying beasts this time, but with the engines of Biwbanian hovercrafts.
One broke off from the rest to fire indiscriminately in the air above us.
The fliers erupted in midair, their wings shredding as plasma fire tore through them.
Green bombs detonated prematurely in bursts of fire, raining charred hair and gore onto the battlefield below.
Riders were blasted off their mounts before being trampled under clawed feet. The shield guard discovered quickly that metal wouldn’t save them, and most abandoned their heavy shields to make a run for it.
King Iltith gripped the whip still in his hand, rolled to his hooves, and started toward his panicked finback and lashed at its legs. “Obey me, you worthless—”
The finback, mad with fear and pain, turned on him. Its jaws snapped shut around his torso. With a sickly crunch, he was ripped in half.
Its master’s blood still dripping from its maw, the beast turned its attention to me.
Its massive jaws opened wide before it lunged—only for a familiar one-armed billjaw to intercept it in a thunderous collision.
The finback tried to lash at Sunbeam with its remaining good arm, but the billjaw ripped it clean off before lunging at her opponent’s throat, sinking rows of teeth into the tender flesh.
There was a snap and then silence before the beast fell to the ground dead.
The invaders dissolved into chaos. The remaining finbacks stampeded, trampling their own warriors in a frenzy to escape. Hovercrafts shot after the remaining forces, obliterating anyone not smart enough to flee.
Eyes alight with hunger, Sunbeam started toward the retreating forces before pausing to look back at me. She gestured behind her and asked, “Food?”
Lok and I looked at each other before nodding. “Food.”
With a joyful hiss, she took off.
One of the ships descended, landing gracefully in front of me.
The hatch hissed open, and I found the woman who had been haunting my mind crammed tight into the front seat.
She placed her hands on the side of the hovercraft and pushed.
Then blew out a breath and raised her arms to me. “I’m stuck! Husband, help me!”
Baffled, I approached and lifted her out of the tight seat. “What are you doing here?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Aside from making future warfare on this planet completely skewed in our direction? Saving your ass, clearly.”
I pulled her into my arms, laughing breathlessly against her hair. She melted against me like we were made for it and kissed my neck.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Better now.” Exceedingly now that Subject B 94 is in pieces on the ground.
“Not to interrupt this touching moment,” Lok said, coming to stand behind us. The general was smiling, but waves of anger could be felt coming off him. “Is my Stardust in one of those ships?”
Blair paled as she took in his imposing form. “Maybe…”
Another ship descended, and the latch opened to reveal the woman in question.
Her face was flushed, eyes bright with excitement.
Half the front seat was completely torn off.
Presumably to make room for the lion that had squashed itself into the tight space, both paws clamped so firmly down on the control panel it was a wonder it didn’t snap under the weight.
A blinking red symbol flashed in the air above it.
“We did it!” Dory cheered. “See, I told you it would work!”
Lokbaatar’s eyes were slits as he answered her. “I see. So it was your idea to throw yourself in danger. Again.”
“Oh, calm down. I’m in a freaking ship with laser guns, it was hardly a fair—”
“Again.”
Dory huffed, then gestured to the beast beside her. “I brought Toto!”
At his name, the lion thrashed himself free and leapt from the pod. He paced in quick, restless strides, muscles rippling under golden fur. “Did you see me?” he asked Lok. “Tell me you saw me! I had full control of the button. I pressed it more than anyone. I had the best button!”
“Yeah, we ran out of plasma in the first two minutes because of you,” said Dory.
The general still hadn’t taken his eyes off his wife, but the lion didn’t seem to mind or care.
“I have killed so many flesh birds. Look at this carnage!” he trilled, then spun around to roar at the backs of the retreating army.
Whipping his head back to the spacecraft, he asked.
“You will tell my queen of my feats today?”
Dory slumped in her seat. “For the last time, Toto, yes. In detail.”
“Good girl!”
Without a word, Lok walked toward her. His wife looked him in the eye, then started the craft up. “Toto, get back in the car.” The lion leapt in, and she closed the hatch. “Blair, I’ll see you back in Frittata when you’re done. Bye.”
Lok shot after her just as the ship pulled off the ground.
Blair held my face in her hands. “We won, but somehow I still feel like things are unfinished. Is it weird that I miss the after-challenge confetti?”
I knew what she meant. After our time in The Crucible, it was almost strange not to have an announcer monologuing our progress. Now, when she put her lips on mine, there was no affection meter to declare the feelings she kept hidden. But I never was one to back down from a challenge.
“That’s because we aren’t done,” I answered. “I still owe you a severed head, remember?”
She looked around the battlefield with distaste. “Just give me some goddamn flowers and call it a day.”
I took her wrist and kissed her palm. “Could you truly be at peace knowing your enemies still lived?”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” she said, slapping my chest. She pushed away from me and headed back to her hovercraft. “Let’s go, darling, we have things to do.”