Hunted Warrior (34 page)

“You had a vision that terrified you. You've seen most of what happens to Cadmin.” He pushed to his feet, speaking as though continuing a thought that had been interrupted mid-sentence, standing stronger and taller than she would've expected from a man who'd just burst apart. “If it was about Orla or Hark . . . No. You would've confided in me. That means what you saw was about you or me. One of our futures. Tell me I'm wrong.”

Avyi's chest burned. “You're not wrong.”

“Then I did the right thing. This wasn't the time to die, or you'd have tried to stop me. Fixed point or not, you'd have tried.”

He grabbed her wrist with one hand and picked up the Dragon-forged sword with the other. With more power than grace, he shoved her toward the tunnel.

“Go,” he said. “Orla will need us.”

Avyi wanted to protest. She wanted to process. She wanted to hold him while he still lived and thrived. Instead, she crawled, the terror of her vision refusing to leave her alone.

How could both be fixed points?

She'd seen them lying together, lovers, but more than that—two people in love. The feeling was just as important as the moment. More so, even, because they'd already experienced the carnal satisfaction of taking each other to the very limits of physical pleasure.

But she'd also seen Mal consumed by fire.
Consumed
. Nothing left. She'd heard his dying scream. It was nothing like the bellow of raging power he'd expelled when burning the earth. It was absolute pain . . . in the center of the Grievance arena.

They were going to lie together, open and vulnerable to one another—when? How could what she saw of their love affair take place before the vision of his fiery death came to pass?

She was already in love with him. That sudden, almost easy realization—how could it be otherwise?—contrasted so severely with his fate that she retched as she crawled. She only hoped Mal wouldn't hear or see her misery, because he already knew too much about her, and about what would terrify her so much.

She crawled the last two meters with caution, softly calling to Orla.

“Here,” came her sister's quiet reply. “The way is clear.”

Avyi scampered out and to the left, which allowed Mal to jump clear with his sword at the ready.

“Meet Jorvaki,” Orla said. “He's the Garnis I found. Would you mind, Giva?”

Jorvaki was chained to the wall of what appeared to be a concrete dungeon. It was large enough that Avyi could see the other side, but barely. Along the walls, another dozen Dragon Kings, women and men in various states of undress, were bound at the wrists and ankles, completely vulnerable. Some faced forward, with cuts and slashes across their chests and thighs. Others faced the concrete and bore the stripes of whip marks across their backs. Only three were so devastated that they wore no damping collars. Jorvaki was one, his body abused to the point that his captors must not have thought a collar worth the trouble.

“Why are you here?” Malnefoley asked the wounded man.

“I killed two Kawashima guards in an attempt to escape. I won't fight tonight. I'll be executed as punishment.”

“As will everyone here,” Orla said. “Enemies of the cartels are the opening acts. The fit and ferocious Cage warriors fight last, on a stage already soaked with blood.”

Mal growled in his throat, his eyes fiercely charged with flaming blue purpose. He used the Dragon-forged sword to clip through chains as easily as scissors through paper. Orla grabbed the onyx dragon idol and began to snap collars off callused necks. Gasps and even shrieks followed her progress around the room as she freed each man and woman. The rapture of having their gifts restored was too great to contain.

Avyi watched in stunned wonder. She was overwhelmed by the moment, when her sister and the man she loved did so much to save Dragon Kings who'd been left to rot, or left to be used as fodder for the entertainment of the cartels and their guests. These were powerful beings laid low, but they wouldn't be forever. They would heal. And they would have their revenge.

Orla was anxious. She asked every Dragon King she freed if they had seen Hark, or even where groups of humans were trapped—more entertainment for the bloodthirsty crowd.

“Keep going through there,” said one woman. Her flame-red hair suggested she was Pendray. “I was blindfolded, but it slipped when I was dragged down here. There's a pen. The humans smell different.”

“They do,” added Jorvaki. “Your man might be with them.”

Mal was quick to appoint the strongest of the freed to attend the rest. He used the sword to cut pipes and rebar to act as crude weapons. “Put aside what differences we have as clans. Work together, or we'll all die today.”

“Who are you to tell us what to do?” asked a half-stripped man whose flesh had been branded up and down his thighs.

“I'm Malnefoley of Tigony. You may call me the Honorable Giva or the Usurper. Right now, I don't care. Right now, I'm the man who helped set you free. Repay that kindness by using your Dragon-damned heads. The cartels are better organized, and when the moment comes, they'll band together as humans against us even more readily than our clans would against them.”

He surveyed the concrete fortress with all the bearing of his station, and with the arrogance only a man of his authority could bring to bear. Avyi's heart lurched with admiration, love, and abject fear. What could bring down such a being? She looked at him and saw indestructible power. But she'd once thought the same of Dr. Aster, that he was so overwhelming and influential that no one would ever rebel against his sick authority. Men were laid low all the time. Malnefoley could become one of many.

If Dr. Aster was the one who killed Mal, her Giva, then one of her oldest predictions was easy to imagine. She would fight her old master, but instead of worrying about its outcome, she knew the contest would be hers to win.

*  *  *

Mal flexed his arms and upper back with a long, strong exhale. He felt more powerful than he had during any time short of those brief, beautiful moments when he and Avyi had collapsed in breathtaking mutual pleasure. This was a different sort of power. This was the measure of a man coming completely into his own.

This moment made his four years on that distant mountaintop feel like he'd been a child just beginning to walk.

Although any number of those freed could've looked on him with derisive contempt—was being freed by the Usurper something to truly celebrate?—they stared at him with awe. A few touched his sleeves as he passed. They thanked him in quiet tones. A shiver shot up his spine.

This was power . . . and it was something he needed to protect, something that could easily be abused. He knew that lesson well. It was time to learn another lesson, one born of humility and temperance.

“Orla,” he called. “Grab something metal and be ready to fight.”

She already held a length of rebar about a meter long. If swung with the precision he didn't doubt her ability to muster, the metal girding could take off a human head. A Dragon King might suffer a debilitating skull fracture or a crippled spine. The energy coming off her was potent, and growing stronger with every second. He would feel the same way, too, if Avyi were in jeopardy.

“And if any of the rest of you feel fit enough to fight with us, gear up.”

With a quick glance at Avyi, whose golden-green eyes were shadowed by futures yet to come, he exhaled again and let go of his doubts. This was happening. It was the present. The future as Avyi saw it would happen. That didn't mean he would keep from doing his damnedest to bring down the whole fucking complex and every cartel bastard in it.

Orla took point, followed quickly by other men and women who seemed to have been trained for Cage fighting. Some bore the distinctive seven-pointed star of the Kawashima cartel, branded into the skin of their left shoulders. Few of the others bore such distinctive markings.

As a Sath, Orla was the ideal woman to lead them through the two-story tunnels that waited on the other side of the concrete dungeon's exit. She had long experience without her collar, and knew how to skillfully borrow other Dragon Kings' gifts without being overwhelmed by them. She was also a woman with purpose. Mal looked around to find Avyi beside him, and the rest of the freed captives taking up the rear. It seemed . . . intentional.

“They're protecting you,” Avyi whispered. “Their Giva.”

“I don't need protecting.”

“As a man? Perhaps not. But as an institution, as a symbol, you mean everything to us.” She took a shallow series of breaths. “And whoever tried to have you killed before will not give up.”

“These newly freed can't know of the assassination attempt.”

She smiled up at him, with more awe in her eyes than he was used to seeing. She almost appeared as bowled over as the rest of those he led. “They don't need to. They're willing to die for you. That's real power, Malnefoley. Forget the Council. Forget our gifts. You're the Giva we've been waiting for.”

He kissed her swiftly, with all the promise and hope that surged in his veins. “I don't need another supplicant. I need Avyi. My new beginning and my partner, my equal and my Dragon-damned pain in the ass.” He caught her gaze and wouldn't let go. “Forget gifts and visions. Tell me what you
know
.”

“I know I love you. Past, present, future—I love you, Malnefoley.”

He exhaled heavily, accepting her words into the darkest parts of his soul. “Then we do this.”

“Here!”

Orla's shout prompted the Dragon Kings to surge forward. These Garnis were practiced Cage warriors, which meant Mal had been more lucky than not in besting the pair in Florence. These men and women were fast—almost too fast to be seen, with supreme reflexes and speed. Mal managed to count four before he lost track of the contrails of their bodies. The Pendray were next, roiling and raging as they succumbed to berserker furies. Their conscious minds hid beneath layers of animal instinct, like the legends of werewolves they had inspired so long ago in the Scottish Highlands.

His own Tigony fed off that energy until four sparking, shining individuals arced energy between them like children tossing a ball. Every so often Mal would feel the
tap-tap
of an Indranan mind, before that telepathic touch backed off. But the connection they forged helped organize the attack. And through the melee, the Sath borrowed here and there, filling in gaps in the phalanx they created.

The Five Clans. Acting as one.

Mal, at the center, had never seen anything so breathtaking. It was as the Dragon would've wanted.

The thought shocked him, because he'd long thought himself beyond feeling any genuine belief in their creator. But this . . . this was right. Their phalanx of roughly sixteen emerged into a huge domed room that looked as if a large bomb had hollowed out the earth. A practice Cage stood at its center, only the octagonal frame was not empty and tempting, ready for the strongest Cage warriors to step forward in deathly combat. It was filled with human beings like a cattle car. Perhaps they were enemies of the cartels, or simply hapless captives, but all were destined to be executed in the opening rounds of the Grievance.

Those who had been silent or even whimpering began to scream with the approach of so many buzzing, eager Dragon Kings. Mal sympathized. It would be like seeing every mythical creature made real.

All the myths are true.

Avyi was smiling up at him. “Told you.”

“Quit it,” he said without malice. “You can't read minds.”

“No, but I can read your expressions. You know what they're thinking, all these terrified people. We are their religions and demons and legends made flesh—and coming for them.” She crossed her arms, where her brass knuckles flashed in the light of the eight lamps atop the octagonal posts. “I'd be scared of us, too.”

“Hark!” Orla climbed the wire frame of the cage like a monkey up a tree. “Hark, where are you? You Dragon-damned fool, talk to me!”

An Indranan to Avyi's left fell to her knees and clutched her head. Avyi quickly knelt beside the woman, with an arm around her shoulders.

“That Sath bitch is in my head. I can't—she's so furious.” The woman's neck bore the heavy ringed callus of one who'd served a long, long time as a Cage warrior. Her accent was English—perhaps property of the Townsends.

“Try to relax.” Avyi gave her a squeeze, and brushed matted hair back from her forehead. “She's my sister. I know her. She's terrified for her husband. Please, let her borrow your gift. Help her find him.”

“There,” the woman said on a whisper. “There he is.”

Mal and Avyi exchanged glances. “Is he alive?” Avyi asked, sounding reluctant.

The Indranan woman gasped, then fell forward. She would've hit the ground had Avyi not been there to support her weakened body. “She let me go—your sister. She found him.”

Avyi quickly thanked the woman, then handed her into the care of another nearby Indranan. Mal could only assume the two were speaking to each other telepathically, foreheads together, eyes closed. He chased after Avyi, to where the humans were caught like terrified fish in a huge net. Frightened down to their basest impulses, they were frantically clawing at the wire mesh of the Cage and trying to climb over one another. In their blind terror, they made even the berserkers seem lucid.

Avyi flinched back from the throbbing mob, her face dotted with sweat and panic in her eyes, but Mal watched as she visibly shoved her old fears aside. “They need us.”

“Sath and Indranan,” Mal called from a high set of metal steps. “Calm them! They're terrified! Calm them before they kill one another!”

Slowly, he felt an eerie wave build and pulse across the domed, hollowed-out cavern. The touches of telepathy weren't aimed at him, but he felt the brush nonetheless, like what humans believed to be ghosts—that sense of unease, of being watched. The humans began to quiet.