Hers to Choose (17 page)

“
No!” Sophi screamed in outrage, flinging herself to her back. She jerked the knife from her belt and slashed blindly at the shadowed figure looming above her. “No! No!”

“
Flight Leader
! It’s me! Adonia! You are safe.
You are safe!”

“Adonia?
Adonia?”
Too much. It has been too much.
Sh’r Un Kree
, Petrina, the Fell wolves, the Haarb, Eric. Eric.
Adonia’s wiry arms pulled her into a sitting position and hugged her.
Dead. He’s dead.
All the terror and anguish Sophi had been suppressing during her flight now burst out in choking, ragged sobs of inconsolable sorrow. As her
flight
sister rocked her and murmured comfort, Sophi clutched Adonia’s robe in her bloodied palms while heartache ravaged her soul. Even in the midst of her agony, Sophi was mindful of their exposure. Smears of dirt smudged her cheek as she swiped at her tears and straightened.

“We must get to cover. They
will trail me.” She didn’t recognize the croak as her voice.

“Yes.” Adonia helped her rise. “Can you ride behind me?”

Sophi nodded. “You will need to help me mount.”

Adonia
vaulted onto her horse, then pulled Sophi up behind her. Sophi clung to Adonia as the woman sent her horse toward the sanctuary of the purple foothills. They could easily lose themselves in its crags and canyons. The hills further separated them from Amboy Crater, an additional benefit.

Full dark had settled upon them before Adonia pulled to a halt in a sheltered overhang. Swinging her leg over her horse’s neck,
Adonia slid down, but had to help Sophi rise; she had collapsed upon her own dismount.

“Sit here,
Flight Leader
. I’ll see about water and food.”

Sophi nodded, numbed into mindless obedience. The journey bread and
citrus water Adonia shared with her revived Sophi but she remained still as Adonia set about cleaning her scrapes and abrasions.

“We heard the Haarb attacked
Sh’r Un Kree
. How do you come to be here?” Sophi asked.
Adonia’s face hardened.

“The sons of
belly-crawling snakes hit us six days after we parted from you at
L’ago Mistero
. We repulsed the first attack but the Haarb’s numbers were overwhelming. They came like carrion eaters to a dead carcass, seeming to multiply out of the air.” She pulled her head covering off and ran her fingers through her hair, scratching at her scalp.

“
Their soldiers…” Adonia shuddered. “Unnatural creatures—constructs. Nothing I have seen before. We cannot fight them conventionally.
Primus
G’hed scattered our fighters into the desert. They attack the Haarb positions with night raids. Layna, Rhea and I roam as scouts during the day. Mother Lyre gathered all our young women and children and they hide in the wastelands. Even I don’t know where they are.”

A small sob of relief escaped Sophi’s lips. “
Primus
G’hed, Mother Lyre, they are safe? Unharmed?”

Adonia nodded. “Yes. Captain Biron and his men, also.”

“Petrina?”

Adonia shook her head silently.
“She didn’t make it.”

Sophi closed her eyes and slumped.
Another beloved soul dead.
“This is because of me,” Sophi whispered. “I have brought this horror on the
Oshtesh
.”

“No!” Adonia
raged. “No! The lowlander aristos with their unholy trade in
cinnagin
brought this upon us. They sell it to fund their dissolution and corruption and in so doing, they defile our Mother Verdantia.” Adonia rose in a swirl of robes. “They hide behind their shield walls, protected, and abandon us to the Haarb.
Primus
G’hed sent Eudora to Sylvan Mintoth as soon as she arrived at
Sh’r Un Kree
with our warning of attack
.
She did not even wait a night to rest. But where are the armies of the
Tetriarch
? Where is our help?”

Startled, Sophi
clasped the other woman’s robes. “Adonia, it is not like that. Queen Constante, High Lord DeTano—they serve all Verdantia. Something must have happened. I know at least my brother would come. I know he would.”

Adonia turned on Sophi angrily. “Why do you defend the indefensible? You, who were born into
a noble house, even
you
cannot live with them. Your time with that aristo DeStroia has corrupted you.”

“
You don’t understand.” Sophi searched the other woman’s face.
How do I explain to her?
It was not debauchery the aristocrats practiced. “The noble houses
served
. They worked for the commoners. I left the Verdantian court because I could not deal with the crowds who demanded things of me so soon after my imprisonment —people who wanted my notice, besieged me with petitions because Doral is my brother, men who wanted me to
speak
and to flirt with them. I was overwhelmed—not revolted.”

Adonia held her eyes
, unwilling to relinquish her anger, unwilling to listen and to understand. Sophi fought back her own impatience. “Listen to me! Listen! The villagers of Silver Grove came to us and we helped them. Eric and I—we helped them. Yes, sex is involved, but only to channel the forces required to perform the Rites, only to empower the
diamantorre
. We channeled the power of our planet-mother and gave them light and heat. We gave them the means to grow flourishing crops and grind their grain. We gave their
medica
the power to heal life-threatening wounds. Us! Eric and I. I heard
Her
voice. Eric heard
Her
voice.”

Adonia tossed her head back and challenged, “So where
is
Commander DeStroia? How did you come to be alone, three-quarters dead, in the middle of the wastelands?”

Stricken, Sophi could only look at Adonia
. Stabs of agony thickened her throat and strangled her speech.
Eric.
She sagged back down onto the rock she had risen from.
I can’t speak of him now.
“Am I still your
Flight Leader
? Will you still follow me?” Her voice came out a thready whisper ripe with anguish.

Adonia crossed her arms and no
dded. Her voice softened and her anger disappeared. “Yes. I will always follow you.”

“Thank you,” Sophi whispered. “Let me rest a little, then take me to
Primus
G’hed. I know where Krakoll is.”

R
amsey DeKieran rode beside Allegra Contradina as they entered Krakoll’s encampment at Amboy Crater. He counted himself lucky to be alive. Contradina’s rage at the discovery Lady Sophillia DeLorion had escaped would forever inhabit his memory as the benchmark for unbridled, destructive ferocity. They left three dead behind—all men who had contact with the DeLorion woman before she “escaped.” He would have become a fourth, had Contradina been physically a match for his swordsmanship. Ramsey knew she just bided her time. She had some unpleasant end in store for him.

His eyes scanned the high cliff walls
, noting the guards stationed along the ridgeline, then the stench hit him—filthy bodies, excrement poorly covered, old cooking fires, rotting food. It hung in the still, hot air, a miasma of corruption, tainting each breath he took.

Disorganized clumps of dung-colored, temporary shelters fanned out over the basin of the crater. He felt stripped of his clothing, his horse, any possession of value by the covetous acquisitive gaze of these barbaric men barely clinging to the term “human” and others clearly not.
Without the men at my back and this abomination of a creature at my side, my chances of surviving among this lot would be zero.

As they approached the hub of the chaotic swarm, order started to appear in the placement
of living quarters and the discipline of the soldiers. Almost exclusively, they appeared of the “non-human” variety. During the Haarb war, he had killed lizard-men with cold-hearted dispatch and strung their claws from his horse’s breast plate. He heard the ‘clitter’ and ‘clack’ of his trophies as his mount strode along.
Make of that what you will, you mutant spawns from the seven hells.
Nausea pervaded him at the thought of an alliance with these unnatural monstrosities. Revulsion skittered across his skin like roaches exposed to light.

Contradina pulled up in front of a large campaign tent. “Come with me,” she snapped over her shoulder as she dismounted.

Ramsey turned to his second-in-command and in an undertone murmured, “Geoff, don’t dismount. Loose your sword, but do not draw. Yet. Pass the word.”

One hand on the pommel of his sword,
DeKieran shouldered between the reptilian sentries stationed on either side of the entrance. He followed Allegra into the dim interior. As his eyes slowly adjusted, he identified the figure sitting behind a large table—the creature known only as Krakoll. Ramsey calmly returned the cold scrutiny of Krakoll’s yellow snake eyes. They bulged from a face of swarthy, pock-marked skin partially hidden by hanks of long, greasy hair. The reek of fetid meat rolled off him. Krakoll rose slowly from behind the table as Ramsey watched.
Gods-be-damned, the unnatural perversity is huge.
His thick lips gradually pulled back from brown-stained, pointed teeth.
Is that supposed to be a smile?
Ramsey wondered again at what sort of an unholy alliance he had committed to.

“You have brought me the
DeLorion woman,” Krakoll purred.

Allegra straightened and looked at him defiantly. “No. She escaped.”

One moment Krakoll stood behind the table, the next he held Contradina in the air by her scrawny neck, her legs kicking uselessly, her hands clawing the air inches from his face. He threw her violently to the ground. “I didn’t buy you from the Trill for you to fail, you pestilent, worm-ridden slut. I have worked
years
to see this day. Without the DeLorion woman, all is for
nothing
!” The Haarb leader loomed over the crumpled form of Allegra, stark menace on his face. “Your incompetence dooms us. She is the key to
everything
!”

Finally, it all fell into place for Ramsey. The Haarb played for immense stakes.
They had raped and despoiled their planet millennia ago. Now, they prowled the galaxy as slavers and drug-runners—opportunistic parasites preying on the vulnerable. At the end of the first Verdantian/Haarb conflict, the League of Federated Planets had confiscated the Haarb ships and turned them over to the Verdantians. Without ships, the Haarb faced extinction as a race. As the leader of their race, Krakoll desperately needed immense amounts of money to replace his fleet.

Krakoll mean
t to ransom Lady DeLorion for
cinnagin
but he needed a Verdantian as his operative in Sylvan Mintoth. Only life-forms native to Verdantia could pass through the energy wall.
Contradina is tailor-made for his plans. She loathes the Tetriarch.
But the
Oshtesh
lived outside the shield wall. Krakoll must have leapt for joy and scraped the gutters of the entire galaxy for any creature willing to fight when he learned
Sh’r Un Kree
sheltered Doral DeLorion’s sister.

Krakoll picked up a hissing and scratching Allegra by the scruff of her neck and flung her out the tent flap. Striding after her, he cut off her screams of outrage. “Silence, creature! You have one last chance. Take the
Fell
wolves and my private guard and
find her
.”

Ramsey, forgotten, moved past them both and mounted his horse. Krakoll scanned upward and focused on him and his men. “Verdantian dogs
! Heel to your mistress,” he sneered. Grabbing the captain of his private guard, Krakoll drew him aside. DeKieran couldn’t hear their conversation, but from the frequent glances his way and the evil smile distorting the guard captain’s face, he would bet every hope of passage into heaven it concerned their imminent death.

Once again, the Verdantians ran the gauntlet of covetous
, inhuman eyes as the company rode out of Amboy Crater. This time, however,
Fell
wolves snarled at their heels, controlled by the twenty or so lizard-men who rode with them.
Damnable, foul and unnatural creatures—the wolves and the soldiers.
By the seven hells, Ram—what have you gotten into?
He kept his eyes focused forward but his back crawled with unease. His sharp command of “Silence!” had halted his men’s mutterings of complaint but he shared their revulsion.

The lizard captain rode up to Allegra when they had cleared the encampment. “I need something that has the
DeLorion woman’s scent.”

“Give him the blanket, Captain,” Allegra hissed, throwing a foul stare at Ramsey.

Turning in his saddle, Ramsey untied the strings holding the rolled blanket to his cantle and held it out to the Haarb captain. Jerking the blanket from his hands with a sneer, the lizard captain rode back to the wolves.

Ram
refused to turn around to watch and barely restrained his shudder as “Loose the wolves!” echoed against the rock before his face. He clenched his jaw tighter and sat rigidly upright as the wolves’ soul-stealing howls trailed away. The lizard captain rode by and threw a contemptuous, “Stay with them, you Verdantian scum,” over his shoulder.

Ramsey’s
fingers crept toward the handgrip on his sword before he caught himself.
You’re a very dead reptile. You just don’t know it.
But now was not the time to enlighten him.

“
With me,” he yelled back toward his men as he spurred his horse after the wolves.