Chapter 19 #2
Cheers. Scattered at first, uncertain, then growing stronger as his supporters made themselves heard and those who were too afraid to resist added their voices to the chorus.
"For too long, this city has been content to exist in the shadows.
To scrape by on the edges of civilization, accepting whatever scraps the Alliance deigns to throw our way.
" His voice took on a self-righteous edge, the tone of a true believer in his own propaganda.
"To live like rats in the walls while others feast! "
More cheers. Louder now. The crowd was warming to him, feeding off his energy.
"But I say no more!" Hewes's voice rose, taking on a fervent edge.
"Under my leadership, Fange City will become a power in its own right!
We will stand against the Alliance's tyranny!
We will show them that there are those who refuse to bow, who refuse to accept their place in the order they've created! "
The crowd was eating it up. I saw it in their faces—the hunger for something to believe in, something to fight for, some purpose beyond simple survival. The desperate hope that maybe, just maybe, Hewes was offering them something better.
Hewes was giving them that.
He was also full of shit.
I'd seen men like him before. Too many. They talked about freedom and justice and standing up to tyranny, but what they really wanted was power. They wanted to be the ones doing the oppressing, not the ones being oppressed.
"This Vaktaire—" He gestured toward me with a sweeping motion, and every eye in the square turned my direction, thousands of gazes fixing on me like physical weight.
"—stood against me. Against us. Against our future.
He thought his strength made him untouchable.
He thought he could defy me and face no consequences. "
Hewes's smile was cold. Cruel. The smile of a man who genuinely enjoyed what he was about to do.
"He was wrong."
The crowd roared its approval, a tsunami of sound that crashed over me.
"Let this be a lesson!" Hewes shouted over the noise, his voice cutting through the din. "Anyone who stands against me—against us—will face the same fate! There is no mercy for traitors! No forgiveness for those who would see us remain weak and powerless!"
He turned to the executioner and nodded, a single sharp gesture.
"Proceed."
The guards shoved me forward. My knees hit the stone in front of the block—hard enough to send pain shooting up my legs. They forced my head down, rough hands on the back of my skull, pressing my neck against the blood-stained surface.
The stone was cold against my skin, shockingly cold despite the warmth of the morning sun.
I could smell the old blood. Taste the copper tang of it in the air, mixing with the dust and my own sweat.
The executioner moved into position, his massive form blocking out the light. I heard the whisper of his blade as he raised it, the soft sound of metal sliding against leather, preparing for the killing stroke.
This was it.
The end I'd been courting for the past ten years. The punishment I'd convinced myself I deserved.
I closed my eyes and thought of Merrilee.
Her smile. Her laugh. The way she'd looked at me like I was something worth saving instead of something that should have died a long time ago.
I felt the executioner shifting his weight above me, preparing for the downward stroke. I'd seen enough executions to know the timing—the slight pause at the apex, that fraction of a second before gravity and muscle brought the blade screaming down.
That's when I'd move.
The plan crystallized in my mind with perfect, terrible clarity: Wait for the blade. Dodge at the last possible instant—my speed would be enough, had to be enough. Snap the chains. Three strides to reach Hewes on his platform. My hands around his throat before his guards could react.
They'd shoot me. Of course they would. Fill me with so many holes I'd look like a sieve. I'd be dead before I hit the ground.
But not before I ripped Hewes's windpipe from this throat. Not before I watched the light fade from his eyes and knew—with absolute certainty—that he couldn't hurt anyone Merrilee ever again.
It was a shit plan. A suicide plan.
But it was better than dying here, while that bastard watched and smiled.
I felt the executioner's weight shift. Heard the intake of breath that preceded the strike.
My muscles tensed, ready to explode into motion.
The executioner's blade began its descent, cutting through the air with a whistle that sounded like a funeral dirge.
And all hell broke loose.
The first arrow took the executioner in the throat.
He made a wet, gurgling sound and dropped his weapon. It hit the stone beside my head with a clang that rang in my ears, the vibration traveling through the block and into my skull.
Then the screaming started.
Arrows rained down from the city walls—dozens of them, maybe hundreds, falling like deadly rain. They struck Hewes's guards, his supporters, anyone who'd been standing too close to the platform. Bodies fell, some silently, some screaming, blood beginning to pool on the stone.
The crowd panicked. Stampeded. Bodies pressed against bodies as everyone tried to flee at once, creating a crush that killed as many as the arrows.
What the fuck?
More chaos erupted from the opposite side of the square. Prisoners—dozens of them, armed with whatever weapons they'd managed to scavenge or steal poured out of the lower levels like a flood of violence and rage. They attacked Hewes's remaining guards with the fury of men with nothing left to lose.
Leading them was Roone.
The small alien moved like lightning, his blade flashing in the morning light as he cut down a guard twice his size. Other prisoners followed his lead, their movements desperate but effective, and suddenly the square was a battlefield, a slaughterhouse painted in blood and violence.
Hewes screamed something I couldn't hear over the noise and ran, his carefully constructed image of power crumbling as he fled for his life.
Coward.
I surged to my feet, my hands still bound, my ankles still shackled, my body screaming in protest but moving anyway.
The chains wouldn't hold me. Not now. Not with adrenaline flooding my system.
I pulled. Hard.
The metal groaned. Protested. My shoulders screamed as I forced them past their natural range of motion, as ligaments stretched and tendons threatened to snap. Pain exploded through my wrists where the metal had cut deep, opening old wounds and creating new ones, blood streaking down my arms.
But I didn't care.
The chains snapped with a sound like breaking bones.
I bent and grabbed the executioner's fallen blade—massive, heavy, perfectly balanced for taking heads. Then I went to work on the ankle shackles, my movements quick and efficient despite the blood making my grip slippery.
Two strikes. The metal parted. The chains fell away with a clatter that was lost in the chaos.
I was free.
I glanced across the dais.
Persico was still in the cage, still trapped, still vulnerable to anyone loyal to Hewes who decided to finish what he'd started.
I turned toward the cage. The Kerzak's massive hands gripped the bars hard enough to make them creak, his dark eyes tracking the chaos around him with the awareness of a predator waiting for his moment.
I ran, my newly freed legs eating up the distance.
An arrow whistled past my head, close enough that I felt the displacement of air. A guard tried to intercept me—I cut him down without breaking stride, the blade singing through the air, through flesh, through bone. He fell in two pieces, his eyes wide with shock.
I reached the cage and brought the blade down on the lock.
Once.
Twice.
The lock shattered, metal fragments scattering across the stone.
I yanked the door open, and Persico climbed out, his movements stiff from confinement but still powerful, still dangerous. He rolled his shoulders, testing his range of motion, and I saw the flash of predatory satisfaction in his eyes.
"You didn't have to do that," he said, his voice rough.
"Yes, I did." I handed him a blade I'd taken from one of the fallen guards, a nasty-looking thing with a serrated edge. "Hewes?"
"Ran like the coward he is." Persico's mouth twisted into something dark, something that promised violence and retribution.
"There's a ship. Hidden on the outskirts in one of the old mining buildings.
He was planning to leave once you were dead—let his lieutenants consolidate power while he escaped to regroup somewhere safe. "
Of course he was.
"Where?"
"Old warehouse district. East side. But Ahrick—"
I was already moving, my feet carrying me toward the edge of the square before he could finish his sentence.
The sound stopped me.
Not the clash of weapons. Not the screams and the shouting.
Hoofbeats.
Dozens of them.
Thunder rolling across the wasteland, the rhythmic pounding of kuda hooves on hard-packed earth.
I turned toward the sound, and my breath froze in my chest.
They came over the ridge like a wave of bronze and fury—warriors mounted on galloping kuda. Strong. Impossibly graceful. Their skin glowing with subtle luminescence that marked them as something other, something ancient, something powerful.
The Welati.
And leading them—
Oh gods.
Merrilee.
She rode at the front, mounted on Starfield, her dark hair streaming behind her like a banner of war. She wore armor I didn't recognize—leather that looked like it had been made by the Welati, fitted to her body like a second skin. A blade hung at her side.
She looked like a warrior queen riding to war.
Our eyes met across the distance, and I felt it—that thread of connection pulling tight, singing with recognition and relief.
She'd come for me.
She hadn't run. Hadn't saved herself like I'd told her to.
She'd come for me and brought a fucking army.
The Welati hit Hewes's remaining forces like a hammer striking glass.