Play Tribes 2

Pain. A red maze of terrible, endless agony.

"What is your name, spy?"

"Who is your contact?"

"What were you doing on Charybdis?"

The man who called himself Markhel Domeran still had his eyes - they hadn't touched his face yet, thank the Great Wolf - but clamps held his head toward a glaring light on the ceiling. The air was thick with the smell of blood and worse. He must not break. He must not betray - no! Don't even think her name! She must have time to escape with the data! He might mumble his thoughts aloud. Concentrate: I am Markhel Domeran, freelance witness for ZoneVox….

The cycle began again. "What is your name, spy?" the unseen questioner droned.

"M-Markhel D-Domeran…!" They hadn't broken him yet, but they'd succeed shortly. The butchers were too good at their craft. He couldn't hold out much longer. They mustn't know who his parents were, either, he knew. It would be much worse if they knew that.

The pain vanished suddenly, and the unseen questioner sighed tiredly. "You're a stubborn subject, Starwolf."

The abrupt absence of pain after so many nightmare hours was almost enough to bring Domeran to tears.

A shadowy face blotted out the glare. The spy blinked repeatedly, but his eyes failed to focus.

"Are you human?" the dry voice held a new intensity that stirred the ashes of the spy's curiosity.

"Wha-what?" the spy husked. His throat felt shredded from screaming.

"Are you human?"

He tapped the last reserves of his anger. "Damn you." The tears streamed down his face. "More human than you, butcher."

A gentle finger wiped a tear from his eye. "You will break very soon, you know."

Domeran clenched his jaw and shook his head as much as the clamps allowed. What time was it? Had Lydrea gotten offplanet yet? A moan escaped his lips.

"When the pain returns, it will be worse. Much worse. Why not tell the truth and spare yourself?"

I am telling the truth, Domeran wanted to say, but hope and fear betrayed him, and all he produced was a sob.

The shadow withdrew, and the merciless glare blazed down again. The spy braced himself, but his resistance hung by a thread now. The respite and its brief kindness had unmanned him, doubtless as the Blood Eagle intended.

To his surprise, the pain did not return. Instead, the glare dimmed, and the shadow leaned over him again. Domeran saw chiseled features, a barbed tattoo on one cheek, a shaved scalp.

"We are finished," the Blood Eagle said. "I judge you to be human. Thus, I salute your courage. You have won a quick and honorable death."

Domeran was stunned. No more pain?

"Give us your name so that we may speed your body to your kin."

A trick…! "Markhel Domeran," Domeran managed. "…ZoneVox witness…."

The Blood Eagle frowned. "Very well. A pack name among the Starwolf, then. I would not probe further, but a warrior's death should be known by his family."

My family…! Domeran's mind whirled. He couldn't detect anything but sincerity in the Blood Eagle's words. The pain waited offstage, a great beast poised to rip asunder what little dignity he still retained. Was the butcher telling the truth? Would he grant death instead of shame?

The Blood Eagle seemed to read his thoughts. "I swear by my bloodline that I tell you true… 'Markhel Domeran.' A pack name only, and then you will have peace."

Domeran licked his lips, drew a ragged breath. The Eagles were known to abide by their word, but he couldn't tell them who his mother was. They'd use him against her. The thought of more pain tore at him. If he were to die, he could not betray anyone. Slowly, he whispered a name. The wrong name, but one that would eventually lead him home.

The Blood Eagle nodded. "That will suffice," he said. "Farewell with honor, Wolf. Your family will know you died well."

The last thing the spy ever felt was something cold and sharp sliding across his throat.

The Warlords waited for her in the Black Room, the strategic operations center deep in the heart of the Starwolf flagship Retribution. Ursula strode in and took her seat in the circle, ignoring the salutes of her staff. Her thigh still ached where one of the Blood Eagle prisoners from the other day had landed a solid kick. She rubbed it absently with her fist.

"Let's get to work," she said. "Fleet status, Kal."

"Sure thing." Her husband rotated his chair toward the viewscreen that dominated one wall. He tapped the controls on his armrest, and an organizational schematic appeared on the screen. The hoarse voice and deep lines in his face betrayed his fatigue. He'd run himself mercilessly trying to whip their patchwork fleet into a cohesive military organism while Ursula worked on training ground assault forces and navigating the fiery politics of the tribe's command structure. Her main problem involved keeping the tangled and fractious Starwolf warbands united. The challenges Kal faced came from the same source. The Starwolf's traditional independence and interstellar sprawl meant they were totally unready to cooperate effectively in any mass naval action.

He'd also been taking care of her at the same time, which she had to admit added immensely to his stress levels. She felt a twinge of guilt but suppressed it.

He rubbed his face before starting, as if to keep himself awake. "OK, we're close. The overhaul is nearly complete. Almost every ship of the fleet now carries standard communications and sensor suites. Our crews have gotten their battlegroup maneuver and communications drills up over ninety percent efficiency. We'll see how that holds up under live fire conditions, but I'm damn glad we made it this far." He made an adjustment to his comp, and the display changed to a starmap of the Starwolf-Blood Eagle territories, highlighting a string of stars between the two regions. "A more pressing problem is the small-scale raids Fury's been mounting along the border. We've stripped so much fighting power that our defenses in other areas are tapped out. Some of the fringe systems have suffered Griever raids. A few of our Captains have expressed worry about defenseless holdworlds, and the border Thanes have requested the return of their Packs."

Medavara M'Klannin shook her head in disgust. "Cowards. They have the means to hold out against these piddling annoyances. With all the other tribes clustering at the Firetruce, there won't be any major raids."

A snort came from Milanos "Bearshark" Bane, the stubborn white-haired giant who led the Stormrender Thousand. He was an old man, but still fit and vital, a legend in the tribe and a constant thorn in Ursula's side. "We come from a border system, and you don't find our Thane mewling about Fury's pinpricks. Ignore them!"

"Blood Eagle raids have dropped off since we took Shek Two and denied her that jumpgate," Kalamon added. "Fury has to shuttle troops through Halakar space to reach the border now. It's a much longer route to her targets. I think those Thanes will be more than satisfied."

Ursula nodded. "Good. Remind them that if we deal with the butchers decisively, we'll all be safer in the long run. A year from now, maybe two, we'll be at Outermost, besieging the Great Eagle in his last stronghold." She managed a thin smile. "And Gavram's assault wing handled the invasion of Shekerik Two very well. I'd say that gives us a useful indicator of crew performance as well as a buffer against Fury."

Bane cracked his palm against the table, and several of the warlords started. "Ur-Warlord, we don't need buffers! We outnumber Fury - it's embarrassing by how much! Shek Two was unnecessary - all we did was put another planet between us and that butcher witch! It's her buffer, not ours!"

"Since you're jumping in, why not tell us how your troops are doing, Bane?" Ursula shot back.

"Feh! The Stormrenders will rip the wings off those bastards whenever you finally see fit to turn us loose! We've been ready for months while you all fret like sandrakers about supply line integrity and communication protocols!"

Kal stiffened, several of the other Warlords winced, and Ursula fought back the urge to leap across the table and put her fist into the insolent old bastard's teeth. The perfect example of the command problems she faced, the Stormrenders were fierce fighters, but unwilling to follow commands coming from sources other than their own clan chiefs. Worse, Bane favored what he called "direct strategy" and flatly refused to wait in reserve. He was a tenacious leader loved by his warriors, but not the brightest light in the Muster. Ursula only secured his cooperation after she promised he would be in the vanguard of the assault on Charybdis. Dealing with him was a constant test of her temper, and he'd just been getting worse as the Muster's preparations dragged on.

"That day will come, Warlord, I assure you." Turning to Gavram Argos, the Admiral of Stars who would coordinate the Fleet's Battlegroups during the invasion, she asked, "How soon will we be ready to move, Gav?"

"Fourteen days. Ten to shake out the last loose ends, and another four to finish loading everyone." Argos grinned. "We'll come down on Charybdis like a rainstorm from hell, sir."

Bane folded his arms and sneered. "After the Stormrenders have done the hard work and spilled their blood cracking open Fury's defenses, right?"

"By the Wolf, Milanos! Don't you ever use that tone in front of me!" Ursula slammed to her feet, rage thundering in her temples.

He stood also, his face mottling. "Why not? If you'd let us go after Fury with M'Klannin's boys and the Branded Mountain Thousand, we'd have broken the witch before she had a chance to dig in any further!"

"Aren't you forgetting what happened on Shek Two? How her troops - severely outnumbered - fended off our ground assault while they pulled their people out?"

"They didn't get everyone," Argos put in. "We took quite a few prisoners."

Bane waved a meaty hand at Argos. "His pinhanded stringers couldn't hold the jumpgate! But that's my point, damn it! If I was there, we'd have crushed the butchers!" He glared around the table, his eyes like hot blue flames. "The Stormrenders know how to fight the Blood Scrof better than any of you! We've shared a border with them for over two hundred years! But here we're bottled up prancing through a lot of political trumpery! Jury-rigging our ships while the butchers laugh and burrow deeper into their maggoty fortresses!"

"Let me remind you," said Ursula, exerting enormous effort to contain herself, "Fury is different from the other Blood Eagle we've fought. Her Order is highly disciplined. They don't turtle up like most butchers. We can't afford to face her without being fully prepared."

He laughed in her face. "You're afraid of her because she killed your son! That's the truth, isn't it?"

The words hit Ursula like bullets, and she stared down at the table, afraid of what she would do if she continued to look at Bane's arrogant face. Murder him, most likely. Her hands knotted so hard the knuckles whitened. She felt herself tremble as the rage tightened like a steel band around her ribcage. How dare he?

How dare he!

The room had fallen deadly silent. She heard the scrape as Kalamon got to his feet. "That's enough, Bane," he said in an icy voice. "You're out of li-"

"Get the hell out of my war room." Ursula spat the words out like pieces of glass. She looked up and met his rage with her own. "Out!"

"I'll go," Bane snarled, "but don't think you can order us around when it comes to real battle! The Stormrenders fight their own wars."

Only a supreme exercise of will kept her fists from pulping the sneer off the man's face. "I'm sure Fury will be glad to hear that, Warlord. You're welcome to go after her whenever you like." She laughed at the surprise in his eyes. "Ayia! Why not go now? After all, you've been ready for months, haven't you?"

He tensed as she approached him and stared up into his weathered face. "You can go now, Warlord," she said in a deadly tone. "You are dismissed."

He reddened, then spun and stomped out without another word. The door shushed closed behind him.

She turned and regarded the room. "Anyone else want to leave my command?" Several gazes dropped, but no one moved.

"We're with you, Ur-Warlord," said M'Klannin quietly.

"Good. I thank you." She breathed a silent thanks. "Let's reconvene in ten minutes." After the warlords had left, she found herself alone with Kal.

"You better get a grip on your temper, Soo," he observed.

"He provoked me."

"And you took his bait. How can you expect us to win with a commander who lacks self-control?"

She slumped into a chair and closed her eyes. Her head ached. "I don't need you to tell me this, Kal."

"Yes, you do. And you also need to know you're right. Someone needs to settle the Blood Eagle. They've been a blight on the wilderzone for a long time. But you can't let the anger dominate you like it's done so far."

"They killed my son."

"Your son?" Pain shadowed his words. "Laram was my son, too. Remember?"

She knew she should say something conciliatory, but she couldn't summon the will. The rage was there, hot and flaring, blocking all feeling. Kal didn't understand how it protected her from the abyss that yawned in her soul every time she thought of Laram. But he was right that she needed better control. The clash with Bane had stoked the rage and hatred to a fresh heat. There was only one way she could quench it to a manageable level.

She opened her eyes. "Kal?"

"Yes?"

"Two more butchers. In the morning. Cargo Hold B."

His face closed, and something in her heart clenched, but she didn't know how to reach out anymore.

"Ursula-" he began.

She cut him off. "No. Two butchers. Oh-six-hundred hours."

For an instant he looked ready to refuse, but she caught his gaze and held it. Finally he relented. She saw it in the resigned slump of his shoulders. He did know she needed the outlet for her pain, even though he disliked it.

"And Kal?"

"What?"

"Get me real fighters this time."

"Another newblood-veteran combination?" Ursula snorted. "C'mon, Kal. Get me something that's going to be a challenge."

Her husband didn't see the humor in her joke, but kept that sour frown on his face as he adjusted her armor. She wore her standard Scout Armor gear, the old style with the covered midriff, unlike the daring shield-reliant designs that were coming out of late.

Kalamon straightened, ran a hand through his hair, and shook his head. "Again, Su, this is starkissin' crazy. Call it off."

"You know I can't, so shut up about it." She looked across the cargo bay. The butchers and their escort had come in a few minutes ago. Today's opponents were two men, both of them tall and strong, though one of them was outright huge. A Blood Eagle tattoo covered his forehead. The other looked younger, and didn't have any noticeable scars.

She gestured at the escort, two young women and a couple of men. "Which one jumped into the prison camp?"

"The dark-haired one. Kenzie. She's a newblood."

"A young idiot's what she is." Ursula smacked a fist into her palm. It sounded like a hammer hitting an anvil. "Who's the big warrior?"

"Ah," Kalamon said, his craggy features looking uncomfortable. "That's Bandolas Bax, formerly a Sergeant."

"Spill it. What's his story?"

He sighed. "Tortured by the Blood Eagle until he suffered permanent brain damage. Freed during a reprisal raid. He can still fight, but he probably couldn't pour biru out of his boot if the instructions were embossed on the sole."

"Tortured?"

"Afraid so."

"Scroffin' murderers." The usual grim rage worked its fingers up her spine. Her temples tightened until it felt like her heart thumped in tandem above her eyes. The veins throbbed. The need to kill absorbed her once again. She sucked in a deep breath through her nose and headed for the escort.

"Su?" Kal's voice behind her.

"I'm going to have a word with the young idiot before we start." She glanced back over her shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm not going to lecture her like the Phoenix Prime at a garden party. She needs to know this is war."

As she approached the other Starwolf, she took in the familiar room around her, the coolness on her skin, the sterile smell of recycled air, the ringing of each step on the stahlplast floor. Her armor hummed and clicked faintly, a subtle background noise that reassured her. This was her killing ground, and that knowledge centered her, gave her an anchor she could use to focus her anger. Through the rage, she felt intensely alive, as she always did with a duel. That was why she fought, she knew. Fighting kept her in touch with life. It kept her alive. So she could avenge her son.

The escort members came to attention as Ursula came up to them. The problem girl was young, dark-haired, and pretty in a coltish kind of way. Not like her blonde companion, who could easily have stepped into a Starwolf recruiting poster and gotten males to join in droves. Both girls seemed distracted. The large fellow, Bax, was a handsome enough man. His features had a hint of true idiocy about them, but someone obviously trusted him in armor with live ammunition, so he couldn't be that stupid.

"At ease." She stole a glance at the butchers. They'd donned their armors and were running their systems checks. The sight of the crimson and silver suits drove a hot spike into Ursula's brain, and she felt the killing urge well up in her.

Returning her attention to the dark-haired girl, she said, "So. You're Kenzie. Mind telling me what you find so bloody wonderful about the butchers?"

The blonde tried to hide a smile, and Kenzie flushed scarlet. She opened her mouth and closed it, then opened it again.

"Come on, girl!" Ursula snapped. "Don't play fish face with me. Just answer the question."

"I… that is, ah…" Kenzie gulped. "I didn't think we should treat them like that."

"What? They get to torture us and we have to treat them like they're human beings?"

Kenzie's flush deepened, but a determined look came over her. "Yes, sir. We're supposed to be better than they are, so we should keep those standards."

"She has a thing for one of the butchers, sir," chimed in the blonde girl.

"I didn't ask you," Ursula said. "That true, Kenzie? You let one of these killers get under your skin?"

The girl stared at her for a long moment, and then dropped her eyes. "Sort of, sir. I guess."

"Which one?" Ursula held up a hand to forestall an answer. "No, don't bother. I can guess it's not the old tattooed fat one." She clapped Kenzie on the shoulder and held the girl's gaze. "Listen, newblood. Your crush is going to die tonight. You're going into a war, and the sooner you realize the butchers are the enemy, the better."

She said an encouraging word to the blonde girl and turned to Bax. Before she could say anything, he dropped to his knees and clutched at her foot. Shocked temporarily by his reaction, she didn't pull away. When the big warrior looked up, his eyes streamed with tears.

"Kill 'em, Slasher," he said with a deep, rumbling voice that reminded her of a child's in its inflection. "Butchers hurt Bax. Make them stop."

Dimly, she was aware of the blonde girl dropping to her knees beside Bax in an effort to comfort him. Kenzie stood there wavering, as though the same impulse moved her but she resisted it. Ursula shook her head, trying to clear it. An indefinable emotion moved in her at the gesture of this simple, damaged man who - at that moment - suddenly reminded her of her son Laram. It undercut her rage, and she pulled away with an effort.

"Get up, warrior," she said hoarsely. "Act like a man."

"Yessir." He stood and wiped the tears from his face with a forearm, leaving a wet streak across the armored surface.

"Alright." Composure regained, she stepped back. "No one interferes. Understand?" They all nodded. "Good. Get the restraining bolts off the butcher armors and bring them to the starting point." She spun and jetted across the bay to where Kal waited.

"What was all that about?" he asked as he handed her her knife. "Looked like some weird sandraker ceremony."

She shook her head. "Another butcher crime to avenge. That's all." Her arm whipped the knife through an elaborate pattern. At the end of it, she tossed the blade spinning in the air and caught it point down with her other hand. The weapon whined as it sliced another pattern into the air.

"I'm ready." She sounded harder than she felt, though. The rage was still there, but somehow it had unraveled at the edges. The disappointed look in Kenzie's eyes combined with the pleading in Bax's.

Suddenly, Ursula felt very tired. She focused on the two butchers and tried to stoke her rage once again. They both wore Assault-classs, which meant they were less agile, but stronger. No one was wearing helmets, so any blow to the head would most likely be deadly. The seasoned one would be the more dangerous. He'd probably use the younger to distract her while he moved in for the kill. Same old story she'd met before.

"Hear me, murderers!" she called out. "I am Ursula Lennaera DiVaragas, warnom 'Slasher,' Ur-Warlord of the Starwolf, Leader of the Ten Thousand Knives of the Great Muster! Your kin killed my son! I claim blood-right to your lives, and the lives of all your tribe!" She pointed the knife at them, first one, then the other. "We fight to the death! You win, it's freedom and safe passage home. I win, and what's left of you goes out the airlock."

Incredibly, the young butcher answered, his mocking voice cutting into the silence that normally followed her challenge. "You gonna show a good vid on the way back to B-E space? The one on the way out here didn't do much for me."

The rage came back with a vengeance, and Ursula welcomed it. A picture flashed up in her mind's eye of these two butchers cutting her son up and laughing while they did it. Snarling, she kicked off and hurled herself toward them, angling toward the mocker.

He leaped to her left, letting the tattooed man meet her first rush. The big warrior was good, and moved with a speed that belied his bulk. Their knives clashed, and she danced back just ahead of a wicked cut that would have decapitated her had it hit its target. The mocker came at her from the side then, his blade held low. She feinted a parry and then leaped up and lashed a toe kick at his head. He turned and just barely caught the blow with his pauldron as the point of her foot struck sparks from the crimson armor. The impact staggered him, and he dropped to one knee, eyes flashing. The idiot had a half-grin on his face, and her fury redoubled.

Ursula made to follow up, but the big man was on her again like a bulldog. She brought her knee up and elbow down simultaneously in time to shatter his knife blade on one of his thrusts. She stabbed at him but he slapped her attack away and pressed his. Agility and speed were her weapons; if she let him grapple, she was finished. A side kick to his knee plate slowed his advance, and she jetted safely back just ahead of the mocker's second attack, delivered in a peculiar circular style that differed from the usual hard style, straight-at-you butcher approach.

These two were competent. Good. She'd get to stretch her skills. She caught a glimpse of the others watching her, but they didn't really exist for her. There was the battle, a rhythm of jet, fist, foot, and blade that became her world. They maneuvered and clashed, but the two didn't let her separate them. The big one would tire if she pressed the attack; she didn't know how long the younger one would hold out.

The battle blurred by, occasionally freezing into stark moments. Wind of her passage slapped at her as she hurtled through the air and banked off a wall to slash at one of her enemies. She scuttled crablike around one and then shot like a missile along the deck to get some distance. Her knife clanged off an upraised forearm in a staccato one-two-three as she drove at the vulnerable head. Sweat poured off the face of the tattooed man. Her breath sounded harsh in her ears.

Finally, she slipped her knife into a chink in the mocker's armor and drew blood from his wrist. He switched his knife to the other hand, but she could see he wasn't as clever with that grip. That half-grin persisted, though, infuriating her.

In her next attack, a feint-feint snap kick combination struck the blade out of his hand, and it skittered away across the deck. Pain flashed across his face, but he recovered in time to block a flurry of attacks. That circular style was a problem, but she had seen enough to adapt to it. The two had tried to mix her up, but their plans were obvious now. The veteran had tried to be the stalking horse and open her to the other's attack. Interesting strategy, if a doomed one.

Time to finish it.

A whirlwind series of feints and slashing attacks drove them farther apart from each other. The big man was tiring fast now. His breathing had grown increasingly ragged, and he had slowed noticeably. The younger man left blood on the deck here and there, small spatters that nonetheless meant he was weakening. He had a darker complexion, but he looked a little gray to her. And though they'd led her a merry chase, they hadn't been able to mark her.

The rage rose to a fever pitch. She made her move.

A feinting lunge at the big man shifted to a sudden leaping reversal in which she back flipped and aimed a whirling spin kick at the younger butcher. She'd figured he'd block it, so she planned to twist hard, legs reversing in a corkscrew move that would roll her over his head and let her plant a heel into the opposite side of his head. She'd practiced this move many a time. If he could block it, he was a magician.

But something went wrong. The ship shuddered under a distant impact, and her timing was off, so she changed the first move's setup to a feint and switched to a spinning back kick. It looked good. The butcher's guard was down. If he missed, she was going to take his head off.

He blocked… just. He stabbed his hand at her, palm out, thumb pointed at the floor, and turned just enough that his forearm came up underneath and deflected her foot so that it missed his head. That hunchin' circular style!

She was only dimly aware of the ship shuddering again as she bounced away with a touch of her jets. The rage had become a roaring furnace now, her world narrowed to the two men she fought. Skinning her teeth back from her lips, she pressed her attack. One man tired, the other slowly bled to death.

She would outlast them. And then she'd bury them.

The ship lurched and twisted like a bull Gulakir in a mating frenzy. Demon-Core put out a massive hand to brace himself and snarled in irritation. Hyperweb transit could get turbulent, and he hated trusting his survival to other, lesser breeds such as the Steers who piloted the Horde's starships. But in the end patience was a predator's virtue, urrh, yes. He would remain calm. He had traveled the threads between the stars many times. This journey was no different. Soon they would be in real space again, and the killing of these 'Starwolf' could begin.

"You are not afraid of star travel! You, the great Demon-Core? For a moment, I thought I saw you tremble!" A young Goliath named Rakhlog laughed, baring yellowed tusks. "Surely I was mistaken!"

Demon-Core wheeled and advanced on the speaker, the rage he felt in the face of such a blatant insult like lava in his blood. Rakhlog hesitated for a heartbeat, then exposed his throat in apology. "It was only a joke, mighty -awwk!" His words choked off as Demon-Core's grip clamped down on his windpipe like a parasteel vice.

"I do not like this joke, brother," Demon-Core snarled. "When you have won many glory plates and can show me the scars that prove you are Strong, then I will laugh with you when you speak of fear among the greater feroxi. Until then, shut your meat hole! The next time I hear you whisper such a thing, I will tear your arms and legs off and feed them to my sluagh!"

Nearby feroxi shifted away from them. No one wanted to risk the rage of a Goliath as worthy as Demon-Core. Others watched in anticipation, wondering at the fate of this foolish specimen called Rakhlog.

Eyes bulging, Rakhlog struggled to nod. He stank of fear, but also of rage, which Demon-Core found encouraging. The young one had enough wisdom not to resist. Had he done so, Demon-Core would have ripped his throat out. But Rakhlog did not lose control, though his body trembled with the desire to fight before suffocation brought unconsciousness and death. After several minutes, Demon-Core released his grip, deciding the young one should have the chance to kill humans after all.

"I am the Kill-Leader of the grigatim, urrha? Do not forget I have spared you!"

Rakhlog slumped back against the bulkhead and tried unsuccessfully to keep his dignity while regaining his breath. "I ap- apologize… Mighty One." He coughed and massaged his throat. "I will not… make… such a mistake again." Though he kept his tone apologetic, his eyes burned at his humiliation.

Demon-Core almost smiled. Rakhlog made no secret of his desire to make a name for himself among the Hordes. Such ambition showed proper strength for a reaver, urrh, yes, but wisdom was also important, at least the wisdom of knowing who was stronger. This upstart had been rash today, but he would live. This time.

Demon-Core was pleased at keeping his patience after such an insult. His mood lightened greatly.

"A problem, O Mighty One?" The Flaymaster's Inquisitor peered down from the catwalk, a structure designed so it could observe the grigatim from above without the risk of a careless reaver crushing its frail form. Metal and metaplas gleamed darkly from the host of sniffers, injectors, and probes bristling from its skinny body. Three dark-lensed artificial eyes protruded from its face, reminding Demon-Core of an insect. For a creature whose task was to guard the health and strength of the Hordes, it looked sickly. Pale skin stretched thin across long, blue-veined limbs, and it gave off an antiseptic reek rather than a healthy musk. Demon-Core shifted at the creature's proximity and suppressed the desire to wrinkle his nose. He had to remind himself that this… thing… fulfilled a holy purpose.

"No," he replied. "Resume your watch, Guardian."

The Inquisitor bobbed its head rapidly. "Very well, O Mighty One. You are the Kill-Leader." It clicked needle-tipped fingers together in an intricate salute, and scuttled back to its nest. Demon-Core stifled a sigh. Life would be simpler when the Horde arrived at Ymir and could simply kill humans. The grigatim grew restless from lengthy confinement in the guts of the dropship. There had been more fighting, tempers flaring, a few deaths. Venting rage on the enemy would be good. The desire to kill burned hot. He resisted the impulse to clean and reassemble his weapons again.

Patience! he told himself.

The Flaymaster signaled to him from the entrance to her berth at the end of the hold. Her hand clawed the air in Horde Maul combat code: Approach me.

Demon-Core made his way over, striding through the crouching feroxi directly and without hesitation, except that he stepped carefully around the raucous Shikahl circles. Shikahl was a game wherein one player placed his hand on the floor and opponents struck rapidly around it with talons and knives. One gained points for keeping the hand motionless or for forcing the hand to move without touching it. Demon-Core had a great fondness for this activity, and was known to be one of the best players in the Horde, so he did not disturb the circles. Everyone else drew aside for him, his lessers making their throats respectfully vulnerable, his equals - of whom there were few - merely saluting with a curt tap of talon to horn.

The Flaymaster motioned him into her meeting-berth. He pushed past her and she followed, sealing the hatch behind them. The space within was large enough for almost a dozen Goliaths. His friend Rog Gedharhk Blood-Drinker waited there, sitting in a heavily-braced seat-sling and grinning like a freshling at his first raw meal.

The Flaymaster took her seat behind a slab-like desk in the corner and regarded them with an appraising stare.

"How may I serve the Bloodsoul?" Demon-Core asked. No Slonn ever asked how he or she might serve anything else. They would never be slaves again, would never serve another master.

She stroked one of her facial horns thoughtfully. "We have been honored with a great task, O Demon-Core, O Blood-Drinker. Our grigatim will truly be the Horde's spearhead against these tribal humans."

Blood-Drinker pounded a fist on his thigh. "We are first among the Horde! What greater honor is there?"

Her lips curled, showing long, sharp tusks. "Computer, display the image of the Starwolf leader."

The image of a human female appeared in the space between them. Demon-Core studied it with the eye of one experienced in taking human prey. The holo showed long black hair pulled tightly back, gaunt features, a fit body beneath dark blue fatigues. The shoulders and sleeve glittered gold with the stars that showed high rank among the Starwolf. He did not remember seeing so much on any uniform displayed in his briefings. Gold also framed the woman's face in the shape of a band-mask that wrapped across her forehead, down her cheeks, and under her chin. The woman's eyes were what drew his attention. They were pools of rage. Demon-Core felt a sudden kinship with her, human as she was. Rage was holy.

The Flaymaster watched their reactions but kept her face neutral. "Ursula DiVaragas, this one is called, supreme military leader of the Starwolf."

"I thought that was Fury," complained Blood-Drinker. "All these humans look alike to me."

"This one is a warrior," Demon-Core observed. "See the eyes. She will never yield. Her spirit will enrich the Bloodsoul when we feed her body to the Core Plasm."

"She is not to be killed," the Flaymaster said.

"Not killed?" He stared at his commander is disbelief. "Horde Maul does not spare its enemies, especially humans!"

"Not this time," the Flaymaster said. "This time, we spare some. We are to capture this woman and many other Starwolf. Horde Gaunt wishes to make an example of them to crush the spirit of the tribes."

Demon-Core spat. "Gaunt and their plots! Better to kill the humans cleanly!" He scratched the dense bone ridge over his right eye and reminded himself to be patient.

"Urrh, very well, Flaymaster," he said at last. "How do we find this female? There are many Starwolf at Ymir."

"Our vatsatz informs us she lairs on a ship called Retribution. He sent identification codes and the orbital location of the vessel."

"The spy does well," said Blood-Drinker. "Its strain must be superior."

Surprisingly so, Demon-Core thought, given how unstable vatsatz were. To be decanted as Slonn, to glimpse the glory and yet live out one's days in a toothless, talonless human form! Demon-Core thanked the Bloodsoul it was not his fate to be so pathetic.

"Yes. He has won us the honor of attacking the ship of this female and seizing her." The Flaymaster smiled, displaying serrated rows of sharp teeth. "The Great Traitor fears her. The Starwolf guard her with their best warriors. It is very good. There will be much glory."

Blood-Drinker roared his approval. Demon-Core felt his own pulse pick up. "Rrrrh! Yes! We will wash in their blood! We will teach them fear!"

She smiled toothily. "Yes! Gather a small force of the best Goliaths and Plunderers in the grigatim. Prepare yourselves. Be ready. When we enter the Ymir system, we will speed ahead of the other Horde ships. You will board the Retribution and capture the female. Do not let other killing delay you! There will be much glory if you succeed, my Kill-Leader. Much glory! But remember: Ursula DiVaragas must live."

"Urrh, I understand. We will have to move quickly to take her alive." Demon-Core looked again at the glowing image of the human and thought of the glory she represented. His massive hands flexed in anticipation. Thank the Bloodsoul for such a challenge! The Chainless are the strong who shall grasp the future…. Rrrh, yes. Yes!

He bared his tusks in a huge grin. "Consider her ours already, Flaymaster!"

The time had come.

Demon-Core nodded in satisfaction as he examined the hulking figures lining the assault ship's personnel bay, listened to the clack of weapon readiness, saw the gleam of light reflected from carapaces, horns, and glory plates. The grigatim had deployed into three spear-shaped craft in preparation for the attack on the Starwolf ship Retribution. This was Demon-Core's command. The invasion fleet's vanguard, of which they were a part, had dropped out of jumpthread fifteen minutes ago, disguised as Imperial trading vessels under a flag of neutrality. Each ship contained several assault craft packed with elite feroxi. Now the grigatim waited for the Steers to power the combat drives and burn for the objective.

The feroxi musk was very strong in the cramped confines of the assault ship. Demon-Core grunted and tilted his head back and forth to loosen his neck muscles. He'd checked and rechecked his carapace to be sure the jets and shields were functioning. Both the chaingun and the plascannon he carried were in excellent working order.

There was nothing left to do but wait a little longer. The killing would start soon. Urrh, but that would be good. Practicing patience had become a strain. He was eager to win more glory plates and reinforce his status as the grigatim's kill leader. He looked forward to battle again. It was what he had been bred for, after all.

Of course, the human woman must be caught. Demon-Core had studied the layout of this "Retribution." It was a large ship. They would doubtless have to kill many humans while searching. He growled low in his throat, pleased at the prospect of action after so long a wait. Even shikahl had grown tiresome.

"Mighty One, what are you thinking?" The Flaymaster's Inquisitor had attached itself to Demon-Core's group, a fact the Goliath greeted with a mix of elation and revulsion. Inquisitors were holy, yes, but they were also a burden. One had to protect them, and at times aggressive Inquisitors undermined a group's combat efficiency with misplaced threats or conclusions about a particular strain.

Besides, Demon-Core hated the weak, treacherous things.

He bared his teeth in greeting. "I consider the tactical situation that faces us once we come to our target."

"What is your assessment?"

"Urh-hah! The Starwolf do not expect us. They will be slow in their reaction. We will destroy them, for we are Strong!" Even as he said the words he knew the Inquisitor wished to hear, Demon-Core wondered why the Strong must always continue to proclaim their strength. Surely the true Strong had no need of constant boasts. It was a strange thought. Perhaps the leader of the Burning Ones was stronger than they thought.

Apparently satisfied, the Inquisitor scuttled up to its berth. Demon-Core breathed a silent thanks to the Bloodsoul and rubbed one massive arm.

Blood-Drinker lumbered up and locked himself into the harness at Demon-Core's left. "Hai, Demon-Core, my friend!" he rumbled happily. "Very soon now, urrh?" His harness carried a grenade launcher, a chaingun, and a spinfusor. Bulky looking to Demon-Core, but Goliaths could afford to carry extra weapons.

"Arha. Very soon. How are the others?"

The other Goliath shrugged. "Afraid. Why, my friend, did you pick any smaller ones to accompany us? With a go-lahk of Goliaths, we could forge ahead in glory."

"We will bring much glory to the grigatim." Demon-Core squinted so that he could see his friend in the near-blackness. "The Runners bring us speed if we need it, and the Plunderer the same, but with more strength."

"They are all young. Mere freshlings." Blood-Drinker sounded so mournfully doubtful that Demon-Core laughed, a sound like the grate of metal on bone.

"Not Khel-Har the Unstoppable! He is worth three Goliaths, urrha?"

Blood-Drinker chuckled deep in his throat. "Yes, you are right. The Unstoppable is one who knows battle. Even his shadow is enough to kill a human!"

Demon-Core laughed again. It was an old joke between the two of them. The Goliath they spoke of was an abnormally huge specimen, one the Inquisitors would have sent to the reclaiming vats years ago, except for two things. Khel-Har had the talent of being almost impervious to pain, even for one of the Hordes. Second, he proved exceptionally good at killing humans. Had he been smarter, he might have become a candidate for Kill-Leader. However, he could not react to the unexpected as quickly as the average feroxi.

A vibration resonated through the assault craft, and Demon-Core felt a brief flash of nausea that signaled the use of acceleration dampeners.

"We find out now whether the plan is Strong," he told Blood-Drinker. If the Starwolf were able to attack the assault ship in transit, there was nothing Demon-Core could do; it was all in the hands of the Steers.

Their was a good plan, he thought, but no plan was perfect. There was evidently a tribe of humans who took pride in perfect planning, however. Demon-Core looked forward to teaching them the foolishness of such vanity.

Long minutes passed.

Beside him Blood-Drinker exhaled slowly. Demon-Core let his own breath escape, forcing it to be calm, even though his hearts beat fast.

May the seed of my plasm grind the slaver filth into the dust, he recited silently. May the shadows of our past vanish like smoke in the fiery wake of our passage….

Abruptly, a faint acceleration could be perceived, a low hum that increased gradually in pitch. Their commlinks hissed.

"This is the Flaymaster. We are through the first ring of defenses, and our target lies ahead. Prepare for impact."

"Come on, vatscum!" he roared. "Show these tribal humans the mercy of Horde Maul!"

"For the Bloodsoul!" thundered the feroxi. Demon-Core thought he heard a note of relief in their voices. He had to admit that if he were to die, he would prefer it in direct battle, roaring and displaying his glory plates. The thought of perishing in the cold of space like a fish spilled from a broken tank unsettled him. His hearts filled with pride at the thought of going into battle with such strong companions.

His HUD flashed up a message: Impact in T minus two minutes.

Blood-Drinker leaned over and nudged him with an elbow. "My friend, I have decided we shall keep the freshlings safe while they learn strength. It is our duty as the Strong."

Demon-Core began to chuckle, then he realized his friend was serious. "Don't talk like that, Blood-Drinker," he said. "There are some-" he swung his head to point his horns at the Inquisitor's nest, "-who would consider such a statement weak."

"Weak? Me?" Blood-Drinker chortled. "It's a blind Inquisitor who would think that! But enough! A game, O Demon-Core, mighty Kill-Leader!"

"Rrrh?"

"I challenge you! Let us count our kills on this ship. The one with the lower kill number must polish the other's equipment for a week and fetch biru for him besides!"

Demon-Core considered it, scraping one of his tusks with a talon. His HUD read Impact in T minus thirty seconds. "Done! I am Kill-Leader, and I will beat you in this also! But listen you: guard your great flapping tongue, urr-ha?"

Blood-Drinker tapped talon to horn in mock salute. "I hear and obey, Kill-Leader!"

"Good." Demon-Core clapped his friend on the shoulder and bellowed, "Brace yourselves, vatscum!" The ship would spear into the Retribution and break open at the bow so that the feroxi could pour into the Starwolf vessel. It would be a fearful impact, and not all the feroxi survived, though Demon-Core felt confident they would suffer few losses. This was a veteran grigatim. All of them had been through at least one capital ship boarding.

In the dim light of the carrier bay, the feroxi tensed. Demon-Core stole a glance at the Inquisitor's nest, where the holy one crouched amid sophisticated padding that would cushion it against the crash. To his surprise, he saw the glow of the Inquisitor's gaze directed at him. For a moment, he felt great unease, wondering whether the Inquisition suspected his plasm of any flaw.

Then he realized the Inquisitor's attention was directed at Blood-Drinker. Suddenly Demon-Core felt fear for his friend, a dark feeling that marred his excitement at the upcoming battle.

T minus five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One.

IMPACT.

The merchanter Star of Fortune loomed in the viewscreen, its running lights blinking steadily as the shuttle approached on a docking vector. Commander Stalan Perovich shook his head. "I don't like it ma'am. At least let one of the Ravens accompany you."

Fury adjusted the left ventral seal on her spacesuit. "We've been over this, Exec. We can't get any help from outside the tribe. The Phoenix are completely focused on the Firetruce. We need to convince the Bloodlines to defy the Great Eagle, and this meeting may be our foot in the door."

"Then take a weapon."

"I gave my word."

She checked the palm control the techs had rigged onto her glove. "The Halakar envoy wants to meet privately. I'm suspicious too, but I don't blame him. Can you imagine the Great Eagle's response if he learned the Halakar were negotiating with us?"

Perovich nodded glumly. "Civil war."

"Yes, and a lot of suddenly disappeared Halakar children." Fury lifted the helmet from Perovich's grasp and put it on. Microseals clicked and hissed. She raised the visor and made herself smile. "We're not entirely helpless, Exec. I've ordered Wolf Skinner into a cloaked position off the Fortune's port side. If worst comes to worst, this ship will never reach the jumpgate."

Her readouts confirmed all suit systems were functioning properly, including the modified pack on her back. Normally reserved for SCARAB use, the pack's weight would become uncomfortable if she had to wear it long under gravity, but she didn't plan on having it on for more than a couple of hours at most.

Wearing an armor pack made her feel oddly nostalgic. She'd worn all classes of armors in her youth, and fought in countless battles. Sometimes she missed the simplicity of those days, when kill or be killed formed the extent of her philosophy. Not that the situation with the Starwolf was much different, when you came right down to it.

Her Executive Officer looked uncomfortable, plainly concerned about the possibility of Halakar treachery. There'd already been three assassination attempts in the last six months, two from unknown parties. Fury knew she represented a huge prize for anyone who brought her dead or alive before Great Eagle Alexandre Konovalev. Going into this meeting unescorted carried enormous risk, but she and her people needed all the help they could get. The Halakar would be a logical alliance. The Starwolf threatened a lot of Blood Eagle assets if they broke through at Charybdis, including the jewel of the Halakar holdings: Bira Marduk, often described as the richest world in the wilderzone.

Their pilot, a rangy stringer of the elite Falling Fifty squadron, announced their docking sequence. A metallic thump followed moments later, followed by a series of subdued clanks as the ships' airlocks meshed. Fury stepped into the maintenance airlock, well away from where her hand-picked "inspection team" assembled to board the Star of Fortune as a cover for any spies that happened to be monitoring this particular shuttle.

"Good luck, ma'am," Perovich said.

"Thank you, Exec." The hatch closed between them, and Fury was alone. When the instrument panel confirmed the atmosphere evacuation was complete, she popped the external hatch and swung out into space.

She paused and savored the moment, surrounded by the beauty and immensity of the void. It had been a long time since she'd gone EVA, and she missed the experience. Regretfully, she cut her reverie short and scanned the merchantman's hull for the airlock she'd been told to use. A few seconds later, she spotted it, a small maintenance access a hundred meters away, just under one of the port m-thrust arrays. She kicked off toward it.

"Check-check-check," she said, testing her commlink.

"We read you, Sirdar-Prime," answered a woman's cool voice. "We'll be listening for your signal."

"Thank you, Captain Jordan." She cut the link.

She reached the airlock easily and found it unlocked. It took only a few moments to cycle in and enter the mammoth freighter. She stood in a service corridor that ran parallel to the spine of the ship. Only one dim light glowed here, not enough to dispel the shadows. She estimated the faux gravity at about eighty percent of standard.

"Greetings, Sirdar-Prime." A handsome, dark-complexioned man stepped through a hatch at the end of the corridor on her right. He wore a heavy robe what appeared to be a shipboard suit. His hair was cropped short, and his temples were gray. The voice he addressed her with was deep and his tones cultured. "I am Esrehim Halakar. Please join me. I regret the elaborate precaution, but my elders insisted."

Fury lifted her visor and looked up at him. The air smelled of metal and slotlube and something sweet and perfumed that she took to be the envoy's cologne. "Thank you for meeting with me, Sier Halakar. I hope my visit will lay their doubts to rest."

He smiled a politician's smile. "As do I, milady, as do I." He bowed her into the next room. The smile stayed on his face as he took a seat behind a small worktable bolted to the deck. Fury sat in the second chair, somewhat uncomfortably due to the awkward bulk of the pack.

The envoy's expression shifted to one of concern. "Milady, you should have worn a lighter suit."

"It is nothing. My staff wanted me to wear battle armor, but I compromised."

He chuckled. "One can never be too cautious, ayia? Again, I do apologize for the crude circumstances here, but the elders wish my impressions from a personal meeting with the celebrated - some would say infamous - Fury." He held his hands out helplessly. "At the same time, they wanted to be as discreet as possible. You understand."

"I appreciate their concern, sier. As I hope they appreciate mine." Fury dropped her smile. "We here at Charybdis are all that stands in the way of a huge Starwolf invasion. Ursula DiVaragas has assembled what amounts to the entire fighting capacity of the Starwolf. If Charybdis falls, I think we face a difficult and prolonged war, perhaps a losing one."

Halakar shook his head. "I know. Utter chaos. This ship carries a full cargo of weapons and armor. It is the ho-"

Fury had no patience for fencing. "I need warriors," she cut in flatly. "We have SCARABs. We have guns. I need Knights to use them." She leaned forward. "More than anything, I need a commitment from your House. This is no time for playing politics; the stakes are too high."

He coughed. "Milady, believe me when I say the Halakar are sympathetic. The Great Eagle grows more… unstable each year. However, the consensus among the Bloodlines is that they require a significant victory before they are willing to break fealty with House Konovalev."

She snorted. "A significant victory against DiVaragas is impossible without aid! Ymir is well-defended, and - forgive the expression - packed with Starwolf."

"The Great Eagle has promised to send two full Orders to Charybdis if you surrender yourself to Outermost."

"Two Orders are not enough. If they were - and if the reinforcements came in time - then I would surrender." She stood. "This discussion is over, sier."

"Milady?" His hand came up from under the desk holding a heavy pistol. "I really cannot let you go, much as I would like to." A pair of beefy warriors stepped through the hatch. "Please keep your visor up. If you don't, I'll have to wound you rather severely."

"So the Halakar declare for the Great Eagle."

"On the contrary, they wish to support you. This is a private venture, I'm afraid. The other Houses are indeed looking for something to inspire them to pick a side, though. Your capture will serve that purpose well enough, while making me extremely wealthy."

She stepped back into the corner, keeping her voice level despite her racing heart. "I suppose you will hold me hostage in return for safe passage outsystem?"

He smiled warmly. "It seems an obvious tactic, milady."

"Is it your final offer, sier?"

He looked momentarily puzzled. "It's not an offer, Sirdar. It's an fact." He gestured, and one of the warriors produced a hypo. "Don't worry. You'll be quite agreeable in a moment."

"I don't think so." She thumbed the glove control that activated her pack. "Omega," she added, pulling her visor down firmly.

His weapon spat fire at her arm, but without effect. Comprehension dawned in his eyes. "Shield pack!" he shouted. "She has a hunchin' shie-"

A portion of the bulkhead exploded into the room in a hailstorm of shrapnel and white hot metal that vaporized Halakar's head and upper torso, but left Fury unharmed. She saw one of the two warriors go down with a jagged shard of metal through his chest, but missed the fate of the second man. An instant later, atmosphere rushed out through the hole into open space, taking what was left of Sier Esrehim Halakar with it.

"You can never be too cautious," Fury murmured, holding onto the twisted remains of the desk. She fought her way to the hatch, where she found the second warrior's broken body wedged in the hatchway.

The Captain of the Wolf Skinner hailed her. "Sirdar-Prime? Are you CC?"

"Yes, thank you. Fine shooting, Candlessa."

"Thank you, ma'am!" Pride filled the captain's voice at the compliment. "We aim to please."

Fury cut the link and concentrated on getting out, heaving the second warrior's body up and letting the wind pull it away. The heavy energy pack supplied just enough extra weight to help her keep her feet. It took her an awkward few moments to struggle through the hatch and seal it behind her. Leaning against the bulkhead in the sudden silence, she took a few deep breaths and laughed with the elation an escape from death brings.

Raw God, that was close!

The shield pack was completely drained. It only held a few seconds of charge when carried independent of a SCARAB, but those few seconds had been enough, thank God. She shuddered at the thought of what the hypo might have held. A powerful hypnotic, obviously. Most were harmless, but some of the more potent ones caused serious brain damage as a side effect. She had no difficulty picturing Halakar administering the latter variety.

Still, the incident had proven useful in an unexpected way.

Zen masters were said to strike a sudden blow to their students to shock them into new ways of thinking. An utter clarity had descended on Fury, as though she'd received just such a blow. Heretofore, her assumptions about the situation had proceeded from the hope that the Blood Eagle nation would come to its collective senses. That clearly wasn't going to happen. Not without extra prodding, and she now had an idea on how to provide that.

She opened a new com channel. "Exec? Halakar's dead. Send the shuttle to pick me up. Then get a supply officer over here with a couple of hardsuit Quads for backup. Clean this ship out. Inform the crew Halakar and his guards were… victims of a Cardinal Spear assassination attempt against me. Send them home with our condolences after repairs have been made. There's more, but we'll discuss it when I get back."

"Yes, ma'am!"

"And Exec?"

"Ma'am?"

"Assemble the command staff in my quarters in one hour." She allowed herself a smile. "We have a change in strategy."

Sirdar Ashrod Starkweather of the Order of the Coiled Dragon shook his white-maned head and surveyed the multitude of officers packed into the theater-like briefing chamber of the Gladius Dei. Nearly every Pennant and Talon Commander of the Order of Wrath and the Order of the Coiled Dragon was in attendance for this briefing. Starkweather shook his head and returned his attention to Fury.

"Sirdar-Prime," he said slowly. "With all due respect, the brethren hold grave misgivings about the course you're setting us on. Our knights will follow your lead, of course." He produced a tired, wintry smile. "But the fact remains that we are all committing treason."

The last word fell into a crystalline silence, a fragile space between heartbeats. Fury felt the tension curdling the air. The last civil war in the Blood Eagle had been ages ago, but it stood as the most bloodily fratricidal war in tribal history. No one wanted to relive that horror.

She nodded gravely and fixed her gaze on Starkweather. "Sier Starkweather, believe me, I appreciate your candor. For the last week, you've all worked like the devil's own to mobilize our forces for an offensive aimed at Outermost. The pressure has been tremendous. I thank you -- all of you." Then she allowed herself a smile of genuine pleasure, sharing that feeling with the entire assembly. "Your labors have borne fruit."

Starkweather's granite features remained impassive, but Fury glimpsed the spark of puzzlement in his eyes. Puzzlement… and interest.

"Ma'am?" he asked. "This old soldier may be missing something. Would the Sirdar-Prime care to elaborate?"

"Of course. Hakim, begin the briefing."

Sikkyn-Captain Hakim Sevaya stood, holding a control pad in one slender hand. He was Fury's intelligence officer and together with Narr-Captain Felice Chalad, one of the two constant fixtures on Fury's staff. The crew of the Gladius Dei had christened the pair "Fury's Ravens." Eventually, the Pennant officers and knights picked up the nickname, so these days everyone knew who "the Ravens" were.

He cleared his throat before beginning. "Siers, one week ago you received instructions to begin mobilizing for a massive offensive into the Erasmus Axis. The goal of such an assault would drive through the systems held by Chapters of the Order of the Talon and thence to Outermost." He paused for a moment as a large holo-display unfolded darkly in the space above them, displaying the chain of star systems between Charybdis and the Blood Eagle heartworld of Outermost. "The seat of the Great Eagle and the heart of House Konovalev's holdings. The reason for such an assault was to galvanize the Exiled Bloodlines into mobilizing against an invasion. By mobilizing to defend against us, they would be more prepared when DiVaragas chose to move."

"'Was to galvanize,' Sikkyn-Captain?" interjected Starkweather.

Sevaya returned a curt nod. "'Was,' Honored Sier. Our goals have been accomplished."

Starkweather's face hardened. Even in the dim light of the chamber, Fury saw similar expressions on other faces as the realization dawned on her officer corps that they'd been used in a game of deception.

Unfazed by the rustle of murmurs, Sevaya continued. "The Konovalev have moved to a priority alert status, and Court has called for all Houses to call up the reserves. Tribal allies have been contacted as well. House Nagashima is gathering its levies, as are the DeBures and - reluctantly - the Eun Alba. The Sabot-Styx have moved to secure gateway worlds. The Halakar have shifted the bulk of their peripheral forces to Bira Marduk. The Order of the Talon are already combat-ready. It appears Sirdar Do'Brennin has kept his Pennants on priority alert for some time."

"Old Marius was always a canny one," observed Starkweather. "And of course we Starkweather have already mobilized. The Order of the Coiled Dragon has been here for over three months." He addressed Fury directly. "Cut to the chase, milady. You've just told us our opponents are preparing themselves so that any venture we make toward Outermost will be a bloody, costly fight. I thought the point of our rapid mobilization was to catch them off guard. It now appears that hope is impossible." Several dozen heads nodded agreement.

Fury held up a hand and stood, forestalling Sevaya's answer and motioning him to sit. It was time.

"Sirdar Starkweather and all of you: let me apologize for misleading you. However, doing so was necessary to accomplish our intent." As she spoke, she felt her control war with a surge of passion. "For too long, we have waited for the Great Eagle and the Exiled Bloodlines to reinforce us against an imminent Starwolf invasion. We have fought along the Starwolf border in the hope of distracting DiVaragas. We have tried to consolidate our frontier to guard our tribe's holdings. We have even tried to negotiate, using the Children of Phoenix as an intermediary." She smiled humorlessly. "Once."

"Now we wait in the shadow of the Wolf. With the numbers facing us under the leadership of Ursula DiVaragas, our only choice is to be crushed. Or so we have come to believe." She leaned forward, both hands on the mirrored table before her. "The Bloodlines look for a sign before they will commit to helping us. By the time DiVaragas finishes with us, they will have that sign. But Siers, I tell you that I do not care to wait for death." Her voice took a sudden edge. "We are mobilized for an invasion. Let us not waste that effort.

"I am bound for Ymir, to strike the Wolf in the teeth." Fury swept the room with her gaze, watched a shockwave of stunned expressions pass through her audience. "We will come to grips with DiVaragas on our terms, Siers. We choose the time of battle! We choose the place! We will hit the yappers in the core of their strength and show them they are not invincible!" Heart pounding, she took a breath and moderated her voice to a calm tone, as if she were asking someone to tea. "Will you join me?"

For a moment, no one moved. This time the silence was electric. Then Starkweather jolted to his feet.

"Raw God," he said in a near-whisper. "This is insane. But it's not treason…!" His face lit up as he roared, "I'm with you, by Blessed Christ and Holy Hunter! I'm with you, Sirdar-Prime! And all the Starkweather Bloodline as well! Lead us to Ymir!"

The room thundered as her other officers surged to their feet en masse, echoing Starkweather's sentiment with cries of "Ymir! Ymir! Ymir!"

Fury's good eye burned wetly. She lowered her head and blinked for a few moments until self-control returned.

Raw God. It had worked.

The Bloodlines were mobilizing, and she finally had the freedom to act. Her officers would follow her into the jaws of death. It was more than she dared hope for. It was exhilarating and intoxicating all at once. She pushed the feeling down as much as she could. Now more than ever, she needed her trademark coolheadedness.

After the tumult died down and the officers again occupied their seats, she smiled at the assembly. "Siers, I thank you for your loyalty. I need not tell you that you should keep this as secret as possible. We are now sealing all potential security leaks… since they've now served their purpose. Now," she turned to Sevaya. "The Sikkyn-Captain will resume the briefing. It should come as no surprise that you will have different assignments and different targets." A smattering of laughter greeted this comment.

She sat as Sevaya stood. The holodisplay now showed an icy world frosted with a legion of clouds.

Ymir.

The display shifted, the viewpoint pulling away from the planet and retreating into space. Red triangles appeared around Ymir itself and spead in clusters at the planet's Lagrange points. More red triangles appeared in the vicinity of the jumpgate. The sheer number of red triangles settled the mood in the room instantly.

"Raw God--!" someone breathed. Fury saw many officers shift uncomfortably.

Ymir. The Starwolf Muster, the largest army ever assembled in the wilderzone. Ursula DiVaragas, who had sworn an Oath of Vengeance against the Blood Eagle for the death of her son.

Fury was reminded of an ancient poem, one that celebrated the glory of a doomed charge against impossible odds. What was the line that summed up their situation? she wondered. Ah, yes: 'Into the teeth of hell rode the gallant six hundred….'

Maybe someday a minstrel would sing of the Blood Eagle's charge into Ymir. After the Zone Vox witnesses had spread it as news, of course. But first….

First there was work to be done.

"Siers," began Sevaya in his usual detached manner, "there is a POW camp here, next to the planetary capital of Skyrholm…."

The communicator's chime brought Fury out of a troubled sleep. She woke to a pitch-dark cabin, and as was her practice, took three deep breaths to clear her mind before answering. Dreamstuff clung to her brain for a few moments, distorted memories of the meteor's devastation on H-O Two, of gliding through the aftermath, the shattered ecosystem wailing like a thousand hurt puppies. Starwolf bodies strewn over a broken landscape.

Enough! She reached out and hit the accept button. "What is it?"

"Sirdar-Prime, there's a message for you," said Stalan Perovich, her Executive Officer on the Gladius Dei. He sounded uncertain, which pricked her interest. "It's, ah, somewhat unorthodox. I wasn't sure I should disturb you."

"What's so unusual about it, Exec?" As she spoke, she swung out of her bunk and reached for her robe. Her quarters were small and functional, and she could navigate them with her eyes closed.

"Well, ma'am, it's an HCAR voice-only transmission that came in on an old command frequency, using an outdated Outermost protocol."

"We do occasionally get those, Exec. Fringe groups or former allied tribes who don't stay current with our protocols." She belted the robe on and padded to her desk, stopping before she barked her shins on the chair. Reaching out with one sure hand, she pulled the chair open before seating herself. "How outdated?"

"Sixteen years, ma'am."

A chill traced its way down her spine. "I'll take it. Privately."

"Acknowledged. I'm sending it now, ma'am."

"Thank you, Stalan."

She folded her arms in the dark and waited. A moment later a deep, resonant voice filled the room, a voice she remembered very well.

A voice she'd given up for dead years ago.

"Hello, Alyx, this is Mace. If you're listening to this, I'll assume you're wondering where the Seven Hells I've been over the last umpteen years." A laugh followed, then: "All over would be the easiest answer, but I don't think it'd be a terribly satisfying one for you. I haven't much time to explain, since I'm trying to slip into the Nirel-Malak Lattice without stirring up Cardinal Spear. And in any case, I have something to show you that absolutely needs to be shown in person. With luck, I won't be far behind this message. Christ, I may even beat it if the relays at Hindershot are still as bad as they were in '24.

"You'll need something to prove it's really me and not a fake. When I arrive, I'll transmit on this frequency again. Ask me anything you like. I'll see you soon, heya? Take care."

The message bleeped to signal it was over. Fury realized she sat bolt upright, her fists clenched in her lap. She made herself relax, but she remembered a sandy-haired man of powerful build, hard but kind. A warrior and a minstrel. A man she'd hated with frightening passion once upon a time.

But that was a long time ago. Times had changed, and they doubtless would change again. She had become a different person, and she faced a near-impossible task in this reckoning with the Starwolf. Still, the message had aroused her curiosity. She tabbed Perovich's commlink.

"Sirdar-Prime?"

"Exec, if we should receive another message on that frequency, patch it to me at once. First priority."

"Aye-aye, ma'am."

She closed the circuit and stood. Why had Mace decided to come out of retirement after so many years? What did he have that was so important? She dressed in the dark, then turned up the lights to make the final adjustments on her uniform. Once she was satisfied with her appearance, she picked up her swagger stick and went to the bridge.

Preparations had gone well. The strike fleet was nearly ready to depart. Up until now, only the senior officers knew they were going to hit Ymir instead of driving toward Outermost. Fury planned to make a fleetwide announcement one hour prior to departure. To allow her troops to prepare for an arctic combat zone, she'd selected the false target of Grimschloss, a nearby star system with an icebound world held by the Order of the Talon. She'd even sent a few recon units to reinforce the ruse. They'd had orders not to engage under any circumstances, and they'd returned without incident, though they'd confirmed Starkweather's information that Sirdar Do'Brennin had mobilized. Grimschloss fairly crawled with O-T Talons.

No, the real target was Ymir's capital of Skyrholm. In addition to the morale value of a strike on the capital of the system hosting the Starwolf Muster, there was a POW camp nearby that held Blood Eagle prisoners taken on Shekerik Two. Fury's plan was to hit Skyrholm and free her people. Surely that would be more than enough to wake the Bloodlines.

The bridge of the Gladius Dei was a busy, efficient place. It was taller than it was wide. A holodisplay column dominated the center of the room. Command stations formed a half circle on the upper level, and the lower half of the room - called the Gunpit - held the primary gunnery stations in another semicircle. Fury's command seat had its own level just above and to the right of the command stations. Once on the bridge, she mounted the stairs and took her seat. The crew members on station nodded to her but didn't interrupt their work. This was the critical period before going into battle, when the crew made one last shakedown of the myriad of electronic and mechanical systems throughout the ship. Fury didn't care to break her crew's concentration with petty displays of military protocol. The Gladius Dei was one of the most powerful warships in the wilderzone, and Fury meant it to function at peak efficiency.

She began to review her plan for the assault on Ymir. It relied heavily on the Blood Eagle's technological advantages in speed and targeting, which could become a significant factor in starship combat, given a clever commander. Fury knew she couldn't defeat DiVaragas. She might, however manage to achieve her objective and get out without losing too much of her force. If the plan worked, that is. She had no illusions. Military strategy was as subject to the laws of chance and entropy as anything else. However, she had the advantage of a far smaller force to coordinate. If they sliced in quickly, made the hit and run by the numbers, they might get out.

With forty percent casualties.

But if the Starwolf had been alerted and were waiting for them, it could be much, much worse. No question. This venture was a huge gamble. She pored over their intelligence again, ran several more simulations, and made some adjustments. She was supposed to be the brilliant strategist, the miracle worker, but she couldn't find any miracle here. At best, she'd achieve a Pyrrhic victory. She wiped perspiration from her forehead and sipped some tea a thoughtful steward had left for her.

There was another element to her strategy. The Starwolf had a huge number of warriors, but there were a lot of newbloods in that muster, and they'd make all the mistakes newbloods tended to make under fire. Fury's force, on the other hand, was virtually all veteran. Add to that the truculent independence of the various Starwolf warlords, and she dared hope there'd be enough of a difference in discipline to tip the scales.

Her commlink beeped, startling her. How long had she been working over her screens? The chronometer said she'd been here nearly nine hours. She stifled a groan as she stood.

"Fury here. What is it?"

Chalad's voice answered her. "Commander Perovich said you'd left orders regarding a certain transmission, sir. We've received such a signal. Do you want to take it there?"

"Yes." Her command station had more than enough privacy, and was also equipped with anti-eavesdropping features if she needed to trigger them. "Put it through, Felice. Voice only." She didn't feel ready to see him yet.

"Hello, Sirdar-Prime." Mace. Fury felt herself tense again, but she clasped her hands behind her back and waited.

"It's been a long time, Starkar. If that's who you are."

His voice held amusement. "Like I said, ask me anything, Alyx. Let's get this over with."

"All right. How many moles does Freya Cloudchaser have on her left hip?"

Silence. Then "That's not fair, and you know it."

"That's my question, Sier Mace."

"OK, have it your way." A sigh. "None on the left hip, three on the right. One on the small of her back, just above the tailbone. Satisfied?"

"What was the first song you sang to the Great Eagle's children?

"A Pirate Lullaby. I was a little drunk."

Fury ran a fingertip across her eyepatch. "I loved that song," she said quietly, her voice full of emotion. "What in Hunter's name are you doing here?"

"Why don't I come aboard? I could use a drink, and I'd like to see you." He paused. "It's been a long time."

"I'll send a cutter. Give me your coordinates."

He did, and forty minutes later, Fury waited in the shuttle bay with her Ravens flanking her. The cutter docked, and a minute later, the hatch hissed open. Mace walked in, still a strongly built man. He had close-cropped hair over a seamed face that bespoke exposure to the suns of a host of alien worlds. His eyes were a steely gray, but they crinkled when he saw her. He wore loose civilian garb and carried a laser harp under one arm and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He was nearly sixty, but he still moved with a spring in his step.

The sight of him was a shock, but not nearly as much as the man that stepped into the bay after Mace.

She sensed Sevaya stiffening next to her. Chalad exhaled sharply.

The man's hair was a long blonde mane that spilled out over his shoulders, and his face bore several days' stubble. He was only a little taller than Mace, but though he wore similarly loose garb, it looked tight on his physique. He carried himself with a confidence and grace that reminded her somehow of a pacing lion. His eyes blazed blue from a deeply tanned face. He looked at her and nodded in recognition.

Her throat tightened. Ulysses Alexandre Konovalev. Her brother. She cursed Mace silently for keeping quiet, and she blessed him for finding her little brother after so many years.

Despite the storm of emotion the sight of these men caused in her, she kept an iron grip over her voice and facial expression. "Gentlemen. Welcome aboard the Gladius Dei. I fear you've caught me in the middle of planning an invasion. May I offer you some coffee?"

Outside, the wind howled and threw snow against the duracrys window in one of the fierce spring storms common to Falcon's Crossing. Inside, the woman known to the Diamond Sword as the Pure drew a bamboo hand rake through white sand in one of the Eight Sublime Patterns: "Crane Under Moon." She worked without haste, letting the motion come with the economy of long practice. Her robes rustled in soft counterpoint to the sound of the rake's teeth.

A gust battered at the window, and the wind shrieked as if in frustration. The Pure kept her focus on the stroke of her hand. The ancestors were angry. They were right to be, for treachery nested in the monastery. Treachery, yes, in the Triad itself. After all the effort and sacrifice, this betrayal was intolerable. But before action was taken, there must be stillness of spirit. The Pure had come here to meditate and consider the options.

Finished at last, she placed the rake by her side and examined the result. To her discerning eye, the pattern was far from perfect. Yet the flaws themselves represented part of a greater pattern incorporating the laws of Entropy, and therefore - paradoxically - made the final pattern just as it should be. Imperfection created perfection.

Water that is too pure holds no fish, she reminded herself.

Yet her spirit remained troubled. There were imperfections in the Plan. Riding the dragon carried certain risks, but the Plan had been crafted over decades, and its flaws had been minimal.

Until now.

Fury still lived, though it was to be hoped the Starwolf would soon remedy that failing. The wilderzone needed a leader more open to Triad influence. In addition, the Court of Blades had proven intractable of late, doubtless because of the machinations of that rogue kenshin Dur-Miquel. Something would have to be done about that one. And then there was this latest treachery, of course.

Ayia, it was time. Her legs were stiff from kneeling, so getting her old bones up proved difficult, but the Pure managed gracefully. She ascended a raised wooden platform overlooking the sand garden and assumed the lotus position on the quilted floor. A tray next to her held a small white pot and a pair of matching teacups painted with a delicate likeness of cherry blossoms. The fragrance of fresh tea suffused the air, and the Pure breathed it in with pleasure. She made no move to pour, but merely looked at the pattern she had made, letting its harmony fill her soul.

"May I serve?" A man's voice. Silky smooth like a rumble of velvet, yet precise as a razor in its measure of each word. It came from the other side of the tea tray, less than an arm's length away. She had heard no one approach, but this did not surprise her.

She finished one last deep prana breath before inclining her head. The faint trickle of pouring liquid reached her ears, and a moment later, a scarred brown hand offered her a cup. She accepted it, cherishing the heat it brought to her hand. Steam puffed from the rim like dragon's breath. She sipped carefully. The tea was very good.

"You are late, Ghost," she said at last.

"I did not wish to disturb your meditation, O Pure One."

"Ah. But my meditations are already disturbed. This tea is excellent, is it not?"

The Ghost's chuckle reminded her of dead leaves rustling across a stone floor. The Pure suppressed a shiver.

"Most delicious," he said. "Thank you also for this magnificent view, though I wish I could see it more clearly. What is the color of the wind?"

She returned her cup to the tray. "It pains me to say. To my poor eyes, the light strays as through a dark mirror."

"In accusing a reflection, you might in truth come to accuse yourself." The note of warning in his voice was palpable.

She fixed the Ghost with her sternest gaze. He was a small man, masked with the obsidian visage of a sharp-faced tengu. He wore a plain robe of black linen printed with a batik of preying mantises, and his teacup rested untouched before him. His eyes were beads of shadow. She bored into them with all the force of her will and faith.

"Evil cannot shatter truth, Ghost," she said. "I know what I see."

He put his cup down also. "A broken mirror will not reflect again," he warned.

She snorted. "What of that? Fallen flowers never return to the new branches."

"The Mandates guide my actions." His eyes glittered. "How stands the Unyielding?"

She made a dismissive gesture. "I cannot wait upon the enlightenment of others. The elephant does not take the rabbit's path!"

He gave her a short bow. "Lady, the Mandates constrain my actions. Yet if the elephant comes down the mountain, the mantis will not block the road."

"Very well. Then I tell you this: He moves to counter your Ghost at the Firetruce."

The Ghost nodded and flowed to his feet. "I will send a cautionary instruction and watch how the stones are placed. If I discover you are correct, O Purest of the Pure, then will I perform my duty." He bowed again, this time in farewell, and retreated, gliding noiselessly onto the floor and into the shadows.

The Pure let the tiniest smile spill onto her face as she picked up the teacup and sipped the cooling liquid. The encounter had gone as she had planned. A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip, it was said. Very well. She would ensure the Ghost found something enlightening when he looked into the mirror. The Reflective would pay for his defiance, and another imperfection would be obliterated from the Pattern.

Outside, the wind howled approval.

In contrast to the stories about it, the world of Falcon's Crossroads had its moments of meteorological calm. The wind had stilled from the previous evening, and now the chill draped over the mountain like a vast blanket of stillness. Far below where the Unyielding stood knee deep in snow, the monastery gleamed with the first golden rays of sunsrise from the primary star Gilseku. Within the hour, Arseku's light would also rise, painting the skies with emerald brilliance.

The ancestors remain quiet today, thought the Unyielding glumly. Just as well. By the Master's Sacred Toe, my bones hurt enough already.

He motioned to his long-time retainer, the Hiraishin Asira Timar, a younger man than the Unyielding, though still gray with years. "Come. We must continue." His breathing mask gave his words a spectral tone. He hated the device. It smelled of synthflex and sweat. Secretly, he hated all masks, though he recognized their necessity.

Timar's masked face nodded, the oxygen-chargers protruding from the cheeks like grotesque whiskers fashioned from chaingun casings. The two men proceeded to climb toward the summit. An outsider flying in from above would see them as two specks making their way up a dazzling slope. This mountain was called Jusent'antaka, the White Spear of the Falcon, and it was the holiest place of all the worlds of the Diamond Sword.

The Unyielding thrust his ice axe into the snow as he labored upward, relying on it to compensate for his weakened leg. Despite his limp, however, Timar had to struggle to keep up. They were not roped together. Each man or woman of the tribe had to approach Jusent'antaka in a solitary spirit. The ascent was as much about inpidual enlightenment as physical exertion. Even starting from the monastery, it was a difficult trek. The way was steep and at points precarious, so though the monastery lay only a kilometer below the summit, the route up was far longer. They had started long before dawn, and had at least two hours more before they reached the modest shrine where, it was said, the Enlightened Master had attained his moment of vajra.

There the Unyielding hoped he would find his own enlightenment to the doubts that plagued him. But that would wait.

They spoke seldom, saving their breath for the perpetual assault on the steep path before them. The Unyielding fell into a rhythm of breathe-step-step-breathe, trying with little success to clear his mind as he moved. The wooden sword of his office - called a bokken in the ancient Nipponese of Old Earth -- hung in a soft tubular case on his back. Though it weighed little in itself, it carried a crushing burden of duty, and he wished he were free of it.

Duty. It measured the length and breadth of his existence. Without duty, there was nothing.

But duty was also pain. Today he sought the solitude of the shrine to breathe the high holy air and pray for guidance.

The Pure had met with him the day before and informed him that the Reflective worked to undo the Great Plan.

"Have you proof?" he had asked bluntly.

"Very soon," she had replied. "Then the Ghost will have him."

The Reflective thought too much, perhaps finding illusory faults through overanalysis, turning inward like a cenobyte in his cell, confusing duty with compassion. Still, the Unyielding had found the man a sound thinker - else he would not be the Reflective - and had enjoyed long conversations on esoteric points of philosophy and art.

It would be a shame to kill him.

Perhaps it was also a shame to kill this independent girl, this Speaker, but the wheel had been turned toward this end long ago. The Unyielding had his own grandchildren and great-grandchildren; if duty required it of him, he would sacrifice them all instantly.

Too much was at stake for the Diamond Sword to falter. If the Pure was correct, the Reflective must die.

For generations, the Diamond Sword had prepared against the coming of the Hordes. For generations, they had probed and prodded the Tribes of Man and built their own strength, always hiding their secret purpose. They must not allow sentiment to sway them from doing what must be done. The sword half-drawn served neither peace nor war.

Be humble, he chanted silently, for you are made of dung. Be noble, for you are made of stars. Perform your duty with honor.

They crossed an ice-bridge and paused to rest and take refreshment from their jacket pouches, unclipping their masks to do so. The air was bitingly sharp, so much so that they ate as quickly as possible so they could cover their faces again. Frost began to collect on their cheeks within moments. Timar managed a smile before hurriedly reclipping his mask.

"It's too damned cold, Honored Lord," he said.

The Unyielding grunted agreement as he took the last bite of his ration bar and closed his mask. His fingers were clumsy as he tabbed the simple seals back into place. "We're far enough now. Give me the latest news from Ymir," he said. "We'll take a moment longer to rest."

"Yes, Honored Lord." Timar produced a small bamboo rod and handed it to the Unyielding. The rod opened to reveal a tightly rolled scrip of paper. The Unyielding opened it and read the carefully ciphered kanji.

The inner layer of meaning read: 'Fury prepares to strike at Outermost. She hopes to goad the Blood Eagle into mobilizing against the Starwolf. In this she appears to have been successful. All Blood Eagle Orders are on full alert, and Konovalev has ordered forces into place to secure the threads leading to Outermost.'

"They would have mobilized anyway, soon enough," the Unyielding muttered, but again Fury had deviated from the Triad's main projections. "Damn the woman. Cardinal Spear did well when they created her." Timar remained a respectful silence as his master grumbled. The Unyielding admired the Blood Eagle's rogue Sirdar more than any of the other tribes' leaders, but found the mysteries behind her rise… infuriating.

The note continued: 'DiVaragas fights to keep her coalition united. In this she appears to have been successful, but the effort has delayed her.'

The Unyielding grunted again. "Starwolf discipline. Like rooks cawing and flapping in a cage."

"Yet who can say what they will learn when the Hordes come, Honored Lord?" Timar gave a little bow. "When the heron stands in snow, he is no longer white."

"True enough! We'll teach them new ways soon."

"Will the Blood Eagle and the Starwolf destroy each other?"

"No." The Unyielding stamped his feet, feeling the cold despite the heating elements in his cold weather gear. They would have to move on shortly. "We've arranged matters so neither side will gain any decisive advantages, but both will suffer the loss of their strongest leaders. Both will be weakened. We have positioned ourselves in the neutral role. The Tribes of Man will have little option but to turn to us to fill the gap."

"What about Malderi? That one bothers me."

"He sails before the storm or drowns in it. Malderi is an aggressive scrof, but not as strong as he believes. The Phoenix Prime is a much more formidable threat." The Unyielding paused and finished the letter. Nothing out of the ordinary. As a general, the situation at Ymir fascinated him. It would produce the largest battle yet seen in the wilderzone, and he felt a stir of excitement as he tried to foresee all the permutations. Fury was outnumbered, of course, but the Starwolf were unused to wielding such a large force. Fury would do more damage than anticipated, and the Hordes would force both sides to put aside their differences.

The Tribes of Man would be a sword against the Scourge. And the Triad would be the hand.

Crumpling the letter, he stooped and made an iceball with the paper at the heart. Then he went to the edge of the ice bridge and tossed the ball into the crevasse. It fell into blue depths as a green hue tinted the sky.

Let the others' spies find that!

Turning, he began to limp upward once more, and Timar followed. The Unyielding felt suddenly empty, tired of all the deception, all the moves and countermoves.

Projections! Secrets! By the Master's Radiant Brow, there were secrets enough! The Triad itself sat on a secret here on Falcon's Crossroad that would cause tremors throughout the human space were it known. The other tribes would unite to destroy the Diamond Sword if but a hint of the secret came out. Such was the original need for the Ghost Facet: protection of the Great Secret. Bitterness flooded him. The price of the tribe's foresight was eternal secrecy. For generations, Falcon's Crossing had been the soul of the Diamond Sword's efforts, as well as the source of the Plan.

Damn the Plan. Damn duty.

No, that was the one thing he could not do. He was the Unyielding. He would do his duty. If the Reflective stood against the Plan now, then he would die, even if the Unyielding had to strike him down personally.

Do not concern yourself over good or evil, Shige, he rebuked himself as he struggled through a snowdrift. Only your duty.

And keep your hand on your sword.

The woman's body was never found. Instead, the evidence of data-tampering was noticed, and the Skaduvarg - the so-called "shadow wolves" that provided so-called security for the Starwolf - concluded Danean was a spy for the Blood Eagle and had gone underground. Fortunately, the Skads weren't able to trace what she'd pulled for me, so they didn't realize their ship deployments and manifests had been deeply compromised.

Goodbye Danean.

I was appropriately grief-stricken, of course, and then enraged. After the humans who thought themselves my friends managed to convince poor, brain-injured Bandolas Bax that his girlfriend was a traitor, that is.

"By the Wolf!" I thundered. "I feed her to razor hag when I catch her!" I smashed a few things and enjoyed the rare opportunity to be openly destructive and dangle something of the truth in front of the poor, unwitting humans. Oh, yes, it was quite a joke. I laughed inside at their white faces, their fear and uncertainty in my presence.

"Come on, Bax, calm down!" said Branedin Kar, one of the fellow warriors in my "Knife." Quaint unit terms these Tribes of Man used. A Knife was no more than a large squad.

Kar seized my arm in what he fancied was a firm grip. "None of us would have suspected her, heya? Let the Skads catch her. Our job is to go in and blow the butchers to hell."

I let myself be mollified by that, since I'd supposedly been damaged by Blood Eagle medical experiments and carried a great hatred for the "butchers," as the Starwolf were fond of calling them. Truthfully, I wondered whether the Blood Eagle represented the true strength of the wilderzone. If half the tales of their violence were true, they'd easily be the most challenging of the humans we'd encountered thus far. I was quite curious about them, so much so that I'd volunteered for guard duty at a POW camp not far from Skyrholm. Unfortunately, the prisoners there were a broken lot, dispirited wretches who'd resigned themselves to Starwolf slavery.

I hated them. Their complaisance sickened me.

Unfortunately, I was stuck with them until my Knife received its orders for the invasion. There'd been several delays while the Starwolf leaders haggled with each other in their orbital headquarters. Unlike a truly strong state, the Starwolf lacked centralized leadership, consisting instead of a network of alliances and a common culture. Their highest war-leader, Ursula DiVaragas, had to persuade her generals to agree on nearly every significant decision. For her, leadership was a daily political struggle. To be fair, no one else in living memory had managed to assemble such an army from the Starwolf. This DiVaragas had to be a powerfully charismatic leader. In truth, what I'd seen of her in holovids confirmed this theory. Even I found myself impressed by some of what she said, human or not. I'd made it a priority to send as much intelligence on her as possible. Her plasm would enrich the Hordes, and her loss would cripple the ability of the Starwolf to act in any coordinated matter.

By the Bloodsoul, I hoped the reavers took her alive when they came. That would earn me recognition if her genes proved worthy. I might be able to convince the Inquisitors to grant me resculpting to a Runner's body.

Ah, that would be glorious!

For now, however, I would have to be patient. A Horde saying went that patience was a predator's virtue. I had done much to appraise my people of their enemy, and I'd provided them with a wealth of targets when they emerged from the jumpgate. Now my job was to keep a low profile and look for opportunities to sabotage Starwolf defenses when the reavers arrived.

Still, it would be difficult. I'd been bred to be intensely curious as well as deceptive, both traits of the ideal spy. The POW camp duty was for me almost like sensory deprivation, since I'd learned all there was to learn my first day there.

But back it was to watching those pathetic Blood Eagle for another tenday. I suited up in a Scout Armor armor in the afternoon and traveled out to the camp in the company of Kar, who thought he was doing me a favor. The jetting was a welcome opportunity to get some fresh air away from the stink of humanity. Ymir was a primitive world, but I liked it. Ymirian lifeforms were tenacious. Durable. Strong. I respected them even as I felt only contempt for the fool who struggled to keep up with me while trying to engage me in pointless conversation. My supposed emotional state gave me an excuse to be rude and ignore his weak-gutted sympathy. Kar fell silent the last minute or so of our approach, and I savored his discomfort.

The camp wasn't far away, only a couple of kilometers. It was little more than a collection of prefabricated plas shelters surrounded by laser fences and autoturrets. A main tower stuck into the ice like a spear, and it was here I was bound. Lieutenant Galdis had requested that I see him as soon as I arrived. With a brusque farewell to Kar, I clanked into the tower's base and jetted up the access chute to a small anteroom. Once the computer had confirmed my identity, the hatch opened and admitted me to Galdis's office.

Lieutenant Galdis was an unassuming man. He was losing his hair, a nauseating example of tolerating a genetic flaw. His face was hard, though, and I respected his basic administrative competence, even though he refused to treat the prisoners like the worthless specimens they were. Why bother to feed them more than the bare minimum to keep them alive? Who cared if they were warm enough at night? What reason justified not torturing these enemies and breaking their dignity utterly? For that matter, why not simply kill them and make use of the organics their bodies held? These tribals suffered from a basic human flaw: compassion. Galdis was no different.

He nodded at me as I entered and removed my helmet. "Warrior Bax. Have a seat."

"Yessir." I hesitated for a fraction of a second before settling in one of the two metaplas chairs designed for the bulk of a SCARAB. Behind Galdis, a holopic displayed a watercolor of herons taking flight from a river in a lush green valley. On the wall to my left hung a scarred Blood Eagle breastplate, which was more to my liking. The wall to my right was a window overlooking the camp. His desk was just a block of black metaplas.

Galdis fixed me with a level gaze. "I heard about the disappearance of your girlfriend, Bax. Nobody blames you, you know."

I dilated the capillaries in my cheeks, letting them flush. "I kill her if I find her! Butcher-lover, she is!"

He nodded. "I understand. That's why I've called you here."

"You find her for me?" I sounded puzzled, the usual Bax condition.

"No, Bax. I called you here because I know this incident will fuel your hatred of the butchers."

"I don't understand. 'Fool' my hatred…?"

With a sigh, he tried again. "I mean it will make you even more angry at the Blood Eagle."

"I already angry at them! Hate them!"

"I know. But your job is to guard them here, not to kill them." He leaned forward and folded his hands together. "Do you understand that, warrior?"

For a moment I hoped he was offering me a chance to reassign me. &You let me go somewhere else?"

"No." He grimaced. "I'd like to, believe me, but we're short-staffed here, and there's enough confusion with all the troop movements already. Orders are to avoid throwing more scat into the hopper. You're staying. However, I need to know you're going to keep yourself under control."

"I do my job, Lieutenant." I resigned myself to it. My orders were to keep a low profile, after all. I'd babysit these cowardly filth until the Hordes arrived.

"Very well, Warrior. I hold you to your word." And just like that, he dismissed me. No threat, no display of his strength to remind me not to challenge his authority.

I went to the guards' mess hall and warmed myself up with a hot cup of jah. The camp was empty at the moment, since the prisoners were all out on work detail. Kar let me know where he was, but otherwise left me alone. He must have spread the word, because the other camp staff steered clear of me. I napped and dreamed of razor hags tearing them all into pieces.

The alert chime woke me, signaling the return of the prisoners. I stood up feeling refreshed, despite sleeping in my armor. After limbering my chaingun off my warharness, I loped outside and jetted up to one of the raised platforms that overlooked the camp's parade ground. It was night, but arclights flamed over the camp, covering it with a glare brighter than daylight.

"Good to see you, Bax," said Kar over the commlink. "You ready to ride herd on these Blood Sheep?"

I grunted my answer, not ready yet to let my antisocial veneer crack.

His voice became conspiratorial. "Yeah. Well, keep your eyes open. I think we've arranged something that'll make you feel a little better."

My curiosity was piqued, but I couldn't drop my act so quickly. Call it Vatsatz paranoia, but I remained acutely aware of the emotional arc I was portraying. I'd have to let it evolve naturally. I gave another disinterested grunt and waited.

Three heavy trucks rumbled in through the gate and stopped with their rear axles toward the barracks. The hatches popped and the prisoners stumbled out in a tangle of shadow. A few stretched, but most shuffled listlessly toward their mess hall. Another needless extravagance. I would have simply shoved them into their quarters and then dumped food in with them. Let them fight to feed themselves, but don't waste time serving them! I pushed my irritation down and tried to appear vigilant.

That's when things got interesting. A trio of Blood Eagles I recognized as parasites who extorted food from their fellows stepped out of line and waited. Surprisingly, no one ordered them back in line.

"Just keep watching," Kal warned.

I did, and I had to admit it was well-staged. I couple of other Blood Eagle stepped out of line, one of them not terribly formidable-looking. I took a closer look with my zoom. They were both younger than the parasites. The taller one had a defiant look to his features that surprised me.

The parasites began to advance on the young ones. It was clear from all the body language that a fight was imminent.

A waypoint appeared on my HUD, marking the largest member of the three parasites. "Forty sheks on that guy doing the warm-up katas," Kar said gleefully. "They call him Naj-Zero, I hear. Cocky scrof. Zindal says he's already had a piece of the big guy."

I waited a heartbeat before answering. "What about Lieutenant Galdis?"

"No problem there. He went back to Skyrholm for the evening to visit his family. Just relax and enjoy the show."

Convenient, I thought. "OK," I said after pretending to think it over. "I take the big man. He want revenge. Like me."

"Good choice. He's a mean one. Been doing our job for us, keeping the butchers in line."

Habit took over. I triggered my armor's onboard camera and patched it into my Command Circuit to record the fight. "We watch it again," I sent to Kal. I'd be able to analyze it at my leisure later, meaning I could enjoy it to the fullest right then.

"Brilliant, Bax! I'll route the feed into some of the other CCs. I bet a lot of us would enjoy watching these guys tear each other up."

The fight started a couple of minutes later. The defiant one fought well, and his smaller friend was surprisingly fierce. But they were outnumbered and outfought. They went two to one on the smaller one and beat him while the Pig fended off the defiant one. This seemed to drive the defiant one mad. He attacked the Pig like a demon and managed to get around him and strike at the other two. He fought with an unorthodox style, one I hadn't seen used by any of the Starwolf. Neither of the other Blood Eagle used it. Whatever it was, it was effective. He laid the two men out on the ice with dispatch and bent to help his friend, who I knew was probably beyond saving thanks to a broken neck.

It was a fatal mistake for this "Naj-Zero." The Pig kicked him down and seized him. They struggled, but the big one was clearly the stronger. One of the other two parasites staggered to his feet and moved in for the kill. The third parasite didn't move.

I approved. The Command Circuit was active with yells and bets traded back and forth. I almost felt genuine cameraderie for Kar and my fellow guards in that instant. They had given me the opportunity to witness Blood Eagle infighting technique firsthand, which satisfied my genetically programmed curiosity, though I still wanted to see more of that circular technique the defiant one had used.

But then the girl ruined the moment. A female warrior in Scout Armor armor dropped right into the middle of the camp, jets flaring. Before any of us could react, she swatted away the second parasite and ordered the Pig to let the defiant one go.

The Command Circuit exploded in chatter and shouting as guards moved in to clean up the mess. Disgusted, I muted everyone and cut the recording. I felt cheated.

A pair of turbograv transports came out of the sky to hover at a respectful height. The girl stiffened and snapped to attention as everyone else herded the Blood Eagle prisoners inside. Kar jetted over and landed next to me a few minutes later, his expression tense.

"Are we in trouble?" I asked, not really caring.

He hissed angrily, a gout of vapor frosting the air between us. "Dark, yeah, but not as much as that idiot newblood over there. By the Great Wolf, her friends say she has a soft spot for butchers! Can you believe it?"

I let a growl rise from my gut. "Stupid girl!"

"Yeah. Ah Dark, here comes the hunchin' CO. Now the disk is gonna blow."

The Lieutenant entered the camp riding a grav cycle and wearing immaculate Assault-class armor that shone a dazzling ice blue as he swung off the cycle and strode over to where Sergeant Zindal doubtless wished fervently he were far away on the other side of Ymir. Explanations were made, the Sergeant pointing here and there as he related what had happened. Kar and a few others wanted to eavesdrop via the CC, but nobody wanted to risk Gandis's wrath.

Finally, Gandis nodded curtly.

"Warrior Bax, front and center," his dry voice ordered in my ear.

I jumped down and over to him on the bounce. He turned to face me. His face looked sour. "I understand you were not involved in arranging this… hunch-up, Warrior. Correct?"

"Yessir. But I made a bet." I let my face hint at a hangdog expression.

"So did half the muster from here to near orbit," he said. "I'm not concerned about that right now. It seems all the excitement has gotten us noticed. We have received an unusual request from on high."

"Sir?"

"Yes, it seems we're to pull out the two principals in this brawl and equip them with Blood Eagle SCARABS. Then we send them up the gravity well."

"What? We let 'em go?"

Gandis sounded bitter enough to spit acid. "Hardly. It seems they have a personal invitation to 'spar' with the Ur-Warlord."

Spar? By the Bloodsoul, if the stories were true about DiVaragas and her private duels, those two Blood Eagle were dead meat! I was flabbergasted, but the opportunist in my makeup leaped at the opportunity. If I could get close to DiVaragas herself-!

"I escort them, sir!" For once, my enthusiasm was completely honest.

He smiled tiredly. "That's what I had in mind. It's a chance for you to get out of here for a couple of days but stay busy. There'll be a couple of softshells along, though you shouldn't need them. The B-E suits will have inhibitor bolts placed until the 'sparring' begins."

His face darkened. "I'll send that fool newblood girl along, too. She might learn something from you."

A smile crept out. I couldn't help it.

First Ursula DiVaragas, then the Starwolf girl. For dessert.

"Tomorrow" turned into three days. The younger of the two Blood Eagle, the defiant one, needed time to heal while the quartermaster's people found suitable armor for the "butchers." Meanwhile, I chafed at the delay. The invasion was coming any day, though I didn't know exactly when. I wanted to get close to Ursula DiVaragas. Without a doubt she'd be a target of the Horde Maul grigatim, and if I could mark her or capture her myself, I'd prove beyond any doubt my worth to the Bloodsoul and the Inquisitors.

The Lieutenant came down hard on us for breaking camp discipline and attracting the attention of the local ZoneVox witnesses. We immediately received orders not to talk to any media about the incident. Fortunately, he rode me less harshly in the belief that I'd simply followed the example of the other guards. Unlike my fellows, I retained a fair degree of freedom of movement. To pass the time, I played at drinking with my "fellow Starwolf" and dreamed of what I might accomplish if the tribals allowed me to meet their greatest general.

I was well-equipped for espionage or sabotage. Beyond the pheromone implants, my body contained several Horde biotech devices such as deployable microbeacons, scent glands for marking prey or leaving subtle trails, and skinpouches for carrying datashards or even small explosive charges. Under my tongue were chambered three bone slivers I could spit up to three meters with excellent accuracy. Each dart carried a paralytic venom especially designed to work on the human neural system. I could regulate the amount of venom on each dart to produce a range of impairment on my victim, from slowed reflexes to near-instant death. Once I used a dart, I simply grew a new one, but that was a slow process, so I only used the darts in dire circumstances.

Three months ago on Gamma Diehl, a Skaduvarg agent came uncomfortably close to exposing me. When I terminated this annoyance, I put enough venom into him to kill three healthy humans. Completely unnecessary overkill, but it'd been the first time I used the darts in the field, and I wanted to see what they could do. The curdled expression on his face when he died still amused me.

I sorted through the alternatives and made a decision. I'd simply mark DiVaragas to make the hunt easier for the reavers. If the invasion occurred while I was in the Ur-Warlord's presence, I might risk using a dart to slow or freeze her, though such a ploy was extremely hazardous for me. She'd be well guarded, and from all accounts, she was far more capable than the average monkey. I knew the Hordes wanted to capture prime human specimens such as DiVaragas and the Blood Eagle leader Fury. The Children of Phoenix leader Renn Gistos would be considered a weak strain after surrendering the Firetruce to the Diamond Sword. I wondered what his tribe saw in him, to keep him in office.

I still had time to kill, if not humans. It occurred to me that I knew very little about the newblood girl who'd intervened at the camp the other night, so I determined to look her up. Naturally, I would expose her to my pheromones. Without prolonged contact, I'd accomplish little in the way of actual control, but reactions varied from human to human; she might be nicely suggestible. If it came to a firefight around DiVaragas, hesitation on her part regarding whether to pull the trigger on me could prove crucial. In any case, the pheromones would make her somewhat malleable, a condition I'd certainly exploit.

The Lieutenant approved of my "brotherly" interest in the girl. "Brianna Kenzie," he said. "An orphan from the fringe. Newblood, but well-trained. Word is she killed four armored Grievers in a running battle back on her homeworld. Plus she put on quite the display in the Hunter exercises recently." He shook his head. "Soft-hearted, though. Apparently knows nothing about Blood Eagle atrocities."

"I teach her, sir," I offered with feeling. Oh, yes indeed.

He produced a thin smile. "I know you will, Bax. If anyone's suffered at the hands of the butchers, it's you."

I nodded, as was expected, adding, "Prison butchers die up there, Lootenant?"

"Yes, very likely. The Ur-Warlord is lethal. She's played this game with several other pairs of Blood Eagle and come out with hardly a scratch to show for it. I think she'll make short work of these two."

I left his office in fine spirits. I'd get a shot at Ursula DiVaragas, watch a couple of humans die, and maybe get to destroy a monkey girl as a bonus. Though I hated this weak human body I was forced to use, I enjoyed my work. Deception, murder, sabotage, and betrayal. I was bred for all of it.

It didn't take long for me to find Kenzie. Her commanding officer had assigned her to physical training as punishment for her unplanned excursion the other night. She was in the gym cracking out sit-ups and running through brutal calisthenics while the rest of her cadre was outside on field exercises.

I watched her for a few minutes while she stood at attention and lifted a spinfusor over her head repeatedly. Average height, slender but with the hard muscle definition that typified tribal physiques. Straight brown hair so dark it was almost black. Pretty, but not exceptionally so. She did her exercises dutifully. Her skinsuit permitted no sign of perspiration, but her face was flushed and her skin shone with sweat.

An orphan, the Lieutenant had said. That kind of history suggested all manner of emotional turmoil. Once I tapped into those feelings, she'd be putty.

I strolled out onto the floor, hands in my jacket pockets. "You Kenzie?" I asked in my best idiot voice.

She paused, mumbled something into her commlink, and came to attention with the butt of her spinfusor on the floor. I knew her CO would have a camera placed nearby so he could check on her progress. I'd treat this conversation as public despite the apparent emptiness of the gym.

"Can I help you, sir?" she replied. I noted she was breathing hard. Good. She'd take in my pheromones that much faster.

I trotted out with my best idiot grin plastered across my face. "Not sir! My name Bando Bax. I help you take butchers up to Ur-Warlord."

She looked momentarily confused but recovered nicely. "Umm… I'm not in charge of that, mister Bax. I'm just along to help." Her posture loosened up, and she smiled tentatively. "My CO says I should take a break."

"Bax never in charge," I said cheerily. "That's 'cause my head broke." I followed her to where she'd left her towel folded on a bench, staying close enough to keep her in range of my pheromones, which I was now pumping out with a vengeance.

"Oh." She mopped her face with the towel and sat down. "What happened?"

Time for a mood switch. "Butchers tortured Bax. Broke head with brainzap." I looked her in the eye and added gently, "I not blame you."

She reddened again, this time from embarrassment. Good. The guilt was a doorway for me to manipulate. I kept putting out the pheromones, letting them reinforce the sympathetic reaction. "I'm… I'm not a 'butcher lover,' mister Bax."

"Bando," I said, taking a seat next to her. "My name Bando."

Her expression turned grim, a startling change in such a young face. I could still see the sympathy in her eyes. The pity. By the Bloodsoul, I hated that reaction, even though creating it was central to maintaining my cover.

"Why you help butchers?" I inquired.

"What?" Her pupils had dilated, indicating my little biochemical charisma enhancers were doing their work.

"Why help butchers?"

"I… I guess… What was happening the other night just… just wasn't right. We're supposed to be better than the B-E."

"We definitely better." I raised a finger. "But sometimes, we get angry, heya?"

"I know." She actually hung her head. I reached out and tipped her head back up to face me.

"They say you like one of butchers. A boy."

She shook her head. "No… Well, kind of, but just in passing. He seemed nice, not what I expected."

Time to test out how susceptible she'd become. By now her instincts should be screaming for her to trust me.

"He work for Fury," I said. Fury had a bogeyman reputation among the Starwolf. Using her name would help me tie off any sympathy this girl might have for the B-E.

She nodded, more reluctantly than I'd expected. A deep-seated sense of loyalty might be the culprit behind her resistance. In her mind, she'd decided this one Blood Eagle was "decent" and deserving of trust. I'd have to move to a less-abstract means of transferring that loyalty to me.

"This boy not a nice person. Bando know. Butchers torture Bando." I turned my head and flipped my hair up to show her the scar ridges that lined my scalp, scars that had been carefully crafted to suggest an ugly, painful genesis.

Her gaze flinched away for an instant, then crept back. "By the Wolf," she breathed. "The butchers did that to you?"

I adopted a sad expression, let my voice become husky with feigned emotion. "Butchers do this." I waited a heartbeat before delivering the clincher line. "Boys just like the one you help torture Bando." My hand dropped as if my scalp had seared it. Masterpiece. The way I'd put it in my idiot patois clearly passed along the subliminal message "you help torture Bando" while directing the blame at the object of her trust.

Confusion warred with outrage in her face, and I watched as the latter won. "Those butchers," she fairly hissed, her eyes sparkling with tears. "I'm sorry, Bando! I forgot what the Blood Eagle were." The tears ran freely now, prodded by the welter of emotion my pheromones had released. Her shoulders shook. I'd tapped into a deep vein of emotion, evidently. So much the better.

I smiled and put my hand over hers. "It all right," I told her. "Bando take care of you."

I took a mental bow. In a few short minutes, I'd turned her into a stew of guilt and rage easily manipulated by a clever handler.

I was taking a dangerous chance, a fool's chance. The amount of pheromones I was producing was having a notable effect on the newblood women with us. Unfortunately, some of my effort was subconscious, driven by excitement at the prospect of marking or even killing the Starwolf leader. The invasion was coming any day now, and I desperately wanted to prove my worth. The Bloodsoul had granted me an opening to get close to DiVaragas. I would take it.

We picked up the Blood Eagle prisoners at their camp and took them to the dropship. The one called Najrasami seemed to be in good spirits. He actually greeted Kenzie and insulted the second girl, a Lachris Tremane. Interesting. I observed the signs of romantic attraction between Najrasami and Kenzie. The larger Blood Eagle said little, but seemed more thoughtful than other times when I'd observed him in camp.

On the way up to the Retribution, I kept the pheromone levels high. If anything unexpected happened, it would be good to know I had at least a couple of companions devoted to my safety. The pheromones weren't foolproof, and they were far from true mind control, not like some of the more advanced sub-cortical implants. On the other hand, they worked on a deeply primal level, tapping into parental instincts, a child's desire for approval, and various romantic urges. The Hordes had worked hard to leash human biology to their will. I knew the unprecedented amount of pheromones I was exposing these girls to would imprint them deeply, perhaps modifying their loyalties past the point of caution, but I felt reckless, exuberant. So many of these humans would perish soon, that I couldn't help but feel uplifted.

The Sergeant leading our escort didn't pay much attention. I'd cultivated a reputation for being popular with the local fems, so these two wouldn't stir much surprise on his part. The older Blood Eagle remained withdrawn, no doubt contemplating his imminent death. The younger one was a different case. He definitely noticed the girls and their attachment to me, and I could see the circuits clicking in his brain. As we docked with the Retribution, the realization struck me that I didn't know much about the butchers other than basic military data and Starwolf propaganda. For tribals, the Blood Eagle were fairly adept at concealing their secrets. They were rumored to be close to the Empire. Did they share briefing information? What did they know about the Hordes?

I frowned at him and caught Kenzie's eye. Then I put a hurt expression on my face, probably number sixty-four, if I were categorizing my arsenal of duplicity: Reminder of a Painful Memory. It worked nicely enough, touching off a storm of protective fury in the girl. She exploded into a homicidal frenzy, keyed up as she was. The sergeant yelled, but too late to stop her from striking down Najrasami… I hoped.

Unfortunately and to my great surprise, she regained self-control and restrained herself from killing the troublesome Blood Eagle. I felt disappointed. I'd never blasted my pheromones out at this rate for such a long time. Kenzie should have been putty. On the other hand, reactions varied from person to person. Maybe she was just more resistant. It would be interesting to see how continued exposure affected her. And I'd see the Blood Eagle's blood spill soon enough. It wasn't as if he had any credibility here, among his tribe's mortal enemies.

The trek through the Retribution was interesting but not particularly noteworthy. The Hordes already possessed all the information on the ship's schematics and other tactical data. Nothing new to observe, in other words, though my inbred curiosity still nagged at me, pushing the urge to learn more about this vessel. I squelched it down, though. This was not an intelligence gathering mission. We reached the cargo bay DiVaragas used as an arena without incident.

The Blood Eagle went off to the side to prepare their equipment, and I found myself standing with Kenzie, Tremane, and the Sergeant. DiVaragas was just finishing her warm-up exercises out on the floor. She wore a light, Scout-class armor with a skinsuit underneath, and she carried a long, thin blade that seemed well-designed for slashing or stabbing. It reminded me of a boning knife, I thought, like the kind they used in Skyrholm to gut clean fish. DiVaragas herself was dark-haired and struck me as hard in a way I'd not seen since the Hordes. I could almost taste her rage. Interesting. I wondered whether the pheromones would touch her.

Carefully, I removed my gauntlet and slipped a bio-construct tracker out of my palm. It was the size of a bead, but was designed to transmit a pulse visible to Horde sensors. It was also adhesive on contact. I put my gauntlet back on and palmed the tracker. Next to me, Tremane breathed deeply and gave me an infatuated grin.

"I'm Lachris," she said.

"Bando," I smirked. "Brianna tell me about you."

She looked uncertain. "Kenzie? I'm… uh, sure she didn't get… I mean-"

"Look sharp," the Sergeant ordered. "Here comes the Ur-Warlord."

Excitement speared me. I wouldn't even have to go to her to plant my little surprise! We all stood at attention. DiVaragas had words for Kenzie, it appeared, and only token comments for the rest of us. When she came to me, I fairly leaped at the chance to play pathetic idiot. Pheromones roiling out of me like an invisible cloud, I flung myself at her feet and begged for her to kill the evil butchers. While my mouth worked, my hands stuck the tracker on her boot. I'd have kissed her feet if that's what it took to convince her of my sincerity and cover my true purpose. Sometimes it helps to have deception wired into one's genes. Nonetheless, part of me sneered in contempt at how much I had to mimic weakness. I was of the Strong, the Chainless. It rankled me to have to play such a game of humiliation, to shame myself before these monkeys.

DiVaragas was also embarrassed. She stared at me, getting a good brush of my pheromones, but I could see they were barely hitting her. With time, maybe, but her rage ran too deep. She was too alienated to respond to any instincts but those of destruction. I respected that. It was as I imagined the greatest feroxi to function.

She wrenched her foot from my hands. "Get up, warrior," she said coldly. "Act like a man."

"Yessir." I stood and wiped away my false tears. Beside me, I sensed the girls were fairly boiling over with sympathy and a desire to protect me, and I laughed to myself. You are marked like a game bird, Ur-Warlord. You're the Hordes' meat now. We'll see how long that steely front endures when you're in the talons of the feroxi.

"Alright. No one interferes. Understand?" We all nodded. "Good," she said. "Get the restraining bolts off the butcher armors and bring them to the starting point." She jetted back to her starting position, and we settled back to watch.

"You OK, Bando?" cooed Tremane, her blue eyes wide with concern. Next to her, Kenzie watched me with the same expression mingled with envy.

"Bando OK," I said. "Sorry, Brianna. Not mean to upset you."

She looked confused, but she produced a hesitant smile. "I'm not upset, Bando. Don't worry."

My comment clearly puzzled Tremane, who wasn't used to being taken so lightly by males. She opened her mouth to say something, but the Sergeant interrupted.

"Eyes front, warriors. Just because we're ordered not to interfere doesn't mean we go to sleep. Remember, those butchers are wearing armor, and we need to keep them contained."

After the opening declaration of vengeance by DiVaragas - and a surprisingly flippant answer from Najrasami - the match started. Right away I could see the B-E were fighting hard to stay alive. They managed surprisingly well. They stayed close enough to support each other, and they didn't take stupid chances. Their impromptu tactics showed a lot of discipline. At the same time, DiVaragas was magnificent, absolutely in control of the battle even as she rode her rage like a fine stallion. Mere seconds into the first heavy exchange, she destroyed the larger Blood Eagle's knife and almost terminated Najrasami.

Kenzie winced at that, and Tremane said, "Looks like your boyfriend's in trouble, huh?" Kenzie didn't answer.

"Cut it out, Cadet Tremane," said the Sergeant. "Eyes front."

I glanced at Kenzie. She'd gone pale. I reached out and squeezed her arm, playing the reassuring comrade. She shot me a grateful look and returned her attention to the battle.

It went on for longer than I'd thought. DiVaragas disarmed Najrasami, but wasn't able to score any decisive hit on either of the two Eagles.

"He's bleeding," said Kenzie.

"Who?" Tremane asked.

"Naj - the younger one."

"I see it," said the Sergeant. "Looks like Slasher got a cut in at the wrist, but it's not arterial. Lucky scrof. He ought to be dead three times over by now."

"This is wrong," I heard Kenzie whisper. She doubtless didn't mean to be overheard, but vatsatz have excellent ears. The better to ferret out secrets with, naturally. I thought about calling her on it, but the battle was getting interesting now that blood had been shed. If I concentrated, I could just smell it, a salty tang every BioDerm was familiar with. It smelled like victory.

Things went back and forth for awhile after that, and it was clear that the butchers were fading, one from fatigue, the other from accumulated blood loss. Goodbye, Najrasami, I thought happily.

Then the unthinkable happened. Just as DiVaragas swooped in at Najrasami for what had to be the coup-de-grace, Kenzie bolted. She leaped forward, shouting, "Noooo!" and only my superior reflexes let me trip her before she could hit her jets. She slammed into the deck and I jumped over and hauled her up by the arm. Amazingly, she tried to get free, even when I pushed out the pheromones again. A shocked Tremane moved up and grabbed the other arm.

"Hold her, by the Wolf!" the Sergeant ordered, his face mottled with anger. "Damn it, Kenzie, what in Dark do you think you're doing?"

"I…" The pheromones hit her then, and she turned to me. "I… I'm sorry, Bando…!"

"Sorry, Bando? By the Wolf, Kenzie, what's gotten into you?" He lowered his voice. "Listen, I know you think this is barbaric, and between you and me and the wall, you're right. But the reality is-" The ship jolted as if a massive hammer had pounded the hull. It was hard enough to cause the deck to shudder under our feet. "What the Dark…!"

I looked out at the bay floor, and my heart sank. While we were busy with Kenzie, the Eagles had somehow turned the tables. Najrasami had DiVaragas down somehow. The other Eagle was dead. I cursed to myself. This pathetic Blood Eagle had more lives than a cat! Every time he was defeated, something kept him alive. At that moment, I promised myself I would see him dead. The Weak should perish. That was the Law.

The next moment I went from disappointed anger to exhilaration. The Sergeant rapped out, "We're under attack! The ship's under attack! Check the CC, channel Delta!"

I dropped in and flicked through the tac channels. A shaky camera view from some unfortunate warrior showed the unmistakable forms of Horde reavers. There was pitched fighting, but the feroxi moved like lightning and what they didn't blow apart, they ripped asunder as they battled their way into the Retribution.

It was a lovely sight. I cherished it. How powerful the feroxi were, how Strong. I fought down the urge to gun down the humans around me and join the rampage. I was a vatsatz, bred not for combat, but for spying and sabotage. I would maintain my cover as long as possible.

When I switched back to my HUD view, Najrasami was down. For a fleeting moment, I thought he might be dead, but no such luck. Kenzie fussed with him for a few minutes, and soon she was helping him off the floor. He looked gray, and I knew he'd be easy meat if I had the opportunity.

"OK, listen," said the Sergeant. "Our orders are to reinforce 'H' deck. They need every gun. There's a bottleneck there where we can hold the boarders out of the command section. Let's get down there on the bounce."

"What about me?" rasped Najrasami. "Deal was, I go free if I win."

The Sergeant hesitated.

"C'mon, it ain't a Sworder riddle here." Najrasami leaned on the bulkhead. "Either I'm a prisoner or I'm free."

The Sergeant was pathetically easy to read, and I jumped all over his indecision.

"Butcher. Can't trust."

Tremane nodded immediately. Kenzie struggled, but finally relented.

"We should keep an eye on him," she said.

Good girls, I thought.

"At least give me my helmet," Najrasami said. "I promise I'll be on good behavior."

The Sergeant shrugged. "Fine. I can live with that. We'll stash you in a brig along the way. If we win, you're free. If we lose…."

"Same old, same old," Najrasami muttered. "Let's get on with it, then."

Excellent. We'd stash him along the way, and I'd come back for him later. Suddenly I was glad he'd survived. So much more satisfying to kill him personally. Or maybe to get one of the girls to do it. Kenzie.

Perfect.