45. FORTY-FIVE #4
Hashod’s snarl turned into a sneer. “Chaos, was I looking forward to getting rid of you.” His fist seized the front of her jumpsuit.
There was the violence she had anticipated, only a moment overdue.
He stepped so close to her she could feel his ragged breath against her cheek.
She could taste the musk of old drink on his breath.
The rules of the game were always the same: hit him now and she’d lose everything; hit her now, and he’d feel a whole lot better.
Only one outcome could be expected. She flinched.
But Hashod hesitated. With a glare, he thrust her away so that she nearly stumbled over the pipes. “You always did know exactly who to fuck.”
Attilatia’s spine stiffened. She let the comment sink in…
and let it keep sliding straight down through the floor.
She raised her chin and straightened her jumpsuit.
“Much as I enjoy our little chats, Hashod, I have work to do. You have business to run, and I would feel terrible to interrupt you make very stupid mistake.”
A vein bulged in Hashod’s temple, but he spun on the ball of one foot and strode from the workfloor.
“Fix it!” he spat before letting the door slam behind him with a resounding echo.
Attilatia had guessed correctly. Roskaad Thyatira had given her immunity from her enemies. For the first time in a very, very long time, she might actually be safe.
Forever a skeptic, the possibility only banged around in her mind, a startled bird taking flight in a small cage. No matter which way it went, it ran into the same rigid question.
Why?
CALVEROUS
Dex’s steps thunked down the catwalk, almost inaudible against the susurrous below and the fearful squeals of babes that split the darkness.
Calver went the opposite direction, boots prowling over metal toward the ruby glow of the lowsun that pressed in through the doors.
A ladder screeched at the warehouse’s far end.
The silhouettes of the guards at the door shifted into launching stances, and Calver was sure he’d made a mistake.
Sure Dex was about to receive a tanka bit in the neck.
He shouldn’t have trodden cautiously. He should have sprinted. He—
The Survivor pressed in, numbing Calver’s concerns, and Calver lowered the twin ladder at his feet. It glided soundlessly along a pulley until it hit the ground.
“Hey!” someone beneath him shouted in Tera’thian. “State your—”
Calver slid down the sides of the catwalk ladder, leaping into the red-coated sunlight of the doorway. The guards turned toward him as one and, distraction in sight, began to release their bits. The Survivor spun the dowaga, dodging or deflecting each with calculated precision.
Nearly a hundred meters away, from the corner of Calver’s vision, a spark of light began to glow and then grow. Dex shouted something, and others joined in a harmony of barks, gasps, and shrieks.
A sidelong swipe took one guard through the chest. The Survivor purred at the first bloodletting. As a second fled, Calver’s blade plunged neatly between his shoulders.
Pandemonium.
The guards fired bits into the crowd—until the lamp erupted.
The explosion smothered the screams, its sound amplified by the confined space. The building trembled. Bones rattled. Teeth clenched. Nearly every body hit the ground, whether it was a matter of reflex or the passing shockwave—except for Calver’s.
He tore into the fray, blade swiping, blood flying.
The civilians around him streamed away as he closed the gap between him and two fleeing guards.
Somewhere behind him, several of the captives barked orders—their own leadership, helping their numbers find safety.
As Calver dashed the blade through another Tera’thian’s neck, at least two dozen men moved in behind him.
They swarmed forward in unison to overwhelm the remaining Tera’thian guards, unarmed.
{Kill them.}
Calver pulled back. Go too far and the Survivor would overtake him. Go too far and he’d repeat old mistakes. Not today. Today he was the master of his own—
{You could destroy legions, were it your wish.}
Calver nearly crumpled. He sank to his knees, dowaga pressed to the ground, citizens and guards alike slipping around him like he were a boulder in a fast-flowing stream.
He couldn’t void it. He needed it to keep his cover.
Just a few minutes more. Just until these people and his friends could get out of the way of Cul’Mon.
Calver gasped, fighting for something—anything—to cling to.
Across the warehouse, a voice barked instructions to the panicked civilians scrambling through to the outside.
Calver lifted his gaze. The silhouette of a young man stood atop a pile of rubble, backlit by the red light pouring in through the hole blown into the warehouse wall.
Dex, who had come with him, who had believed in him, who had stood by him since the caravan began.
Dex, who deserved more than Calver could currently feel, so deeply sunk in the void.
Through the darkness and the frenzy his eyes locked on Calver’s.
It was enough. Calver nodded—it was the best he could do.
Dex hopped down from the stones and slipped away with the flood.
There was only one clear path forward, now. The one Calver had known would await him at the edge of this desert all along.
Cul’Mon had started this trouble. Calver was going to end it.