A Warrior's Sacrifice (35 page)

In that instant, Corwin forgot about everything — his mission, the Void, even his loneliness — as pure rage and animal ferocity wiped his mind clear of everything that made Corwin who he was.

He leapt to his feet, snow exploding into the air, and threw himself into an all-out sprint.

An inhuman snarl was the only warning that his sleeping Void had of his departure.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The Choxen had an eighty-kilometer lead on Corwin, and they too had armor that boosted their running speed. At first it was impossible for Corwin to make any headway on the prey which he pursued; after the first hour he'd gotten no closer than when he began.

As the chase dragged on, Corwin's mind began to clear, and as the fog that had clouded his judgment lifted, his heart sank to settle in the pit of his stomach. Corwin had abandoned his post. Worse, he'd left his Voidmates there in the field, deserted them, abandoned them as they slept and perhaps sentenced them to death.

That was only part of the betrayal, too, a small part. In a moment of self-reflection that only comes about when someone has stepped too far out of bounds, Corwin realized that he had finally and without thought cast himself from the only people in this entire universe that cared about him. He thought he was alone before — wickt! Now,
now
he was truly alone, a single man who had forsaken himself, trapped in the blank tundra between two factions that would kill him.

With a sad laugh, he pushed on ahead. He would make his betrayal mean
something —
even if it was only the whetting taste of revenge.

They ran, the prey unaware, the hunter calm, listening to the cadence of his breathing, his footfalls.

Leaping over a snow drift, Corwin felt the thrill of fear as an armored figure appeared on the landscape below. Time seemed to slow, and the Maharatha hung in the air as though suspended on wires. He had time to wonder if maybe they'd detected him, and yet, why hadn't Corwin detected this ambushing soldier in turn?

Corwin landed, rolled, spun as he came to his feet, rifle snapped into firing position. A body in blue armor lay half buried at the base of the drift. Blood, now frozen, lay in a sunken pool, jagged tendrils reaching outward like red fingers.

The Choxen had killed one of their own. He left the body where it lay and continued the chase.

Kavin and Its four remaining guards spread out at the landing zone. It had managed to kill the others on ones and twos, telling these four that there was only room for them, that It had selected them to accompany Xe into the stars with the Creators. Kavin would kill them when the Siloth ship landed.

Kavin felt the full effect of his species' hormonal rush, the thrill of the kills, the expectation of victory all combined into an urge that It wished to fulfill. Pushing the need down, Kavin scanned Its eyes back across the clearing and the hidden guards. In the growing darkness and whirling white, it was difficult to see anything at all, and the scant sunlight that still forced its way down to Earth obscured his helmet's infrared sensors.

If someone were to attack, now would be the time…

It might have been instinct that caused Kavin to dive sideways, or perhaps It saw the slight heat shimmer moving through the falling snow — either way, that movement saved the Princip's life as several high-powered rounds tore through the earth and sent debris splattering into the air. Even still, one of the rounds ricocheted and penetrated Its faceplate and raked across Its face. It was a glancing blow that knocked the Princip unconscious.

"Wickt," Corwin said as the blue-clad figure lunged out of danger. Choxen rose up in the snowy plain, and Corwin was forced to deal with them instead of the one he hungered for.

Corwin turned, sweeping his rifle in a long horizontal arc as he tipped himself over onto the ground. A few lucky hits tore the stomach out from one armored Choxen.

On the ground now, Corwin crawled and fired, rolled sideways and fired again, advancing by centimeters on another enemy position as bullets flew blindly overhead. Reaching to his chest, Corwin pulled loose a grenade, thumbed the trigger, and tossed it into the vicinity of a Choxen.

Plasma erupted in a gush of green-blue, melting the rocks to slag, vaporizing flesh and the standing and falling snow. For a moment, nothing existed in that space, the snow hesitant to fill the gap as residual heat shimmered and danced upward.

Using the heat shimmer as cover, Corwin jumped to his feet, firing and advancing on another of the Choxen. Rifle rounds tore into Corwin's side and arm, a few rounds striking his rifle to send it careening out of his grip and into the snow, now a useless hunk of twisted metal. To those observing, it seemed as though a rifle appeared out of thin air as it passed outside the sneak suit's holographic aura.

Corwin, cursing, suit screaming of integrity breach, lunged forward into the temporary cover provided by a mound of snow and ice packed four meters high and twice that across. Gritting his teeth through pain, he drew his pistol with his left hand, sword with his right. The prick of a needle pushed the throb of broken ribs and torn flesh into the background.

In a crouched position, Corwin waited. The gun's effective range was limited, so he'd somehow need to get closer to the remaining Choxen.

Corwin flattened himself to the ground as rifle rounds sent ice pelting into the side of his helmet. The Choxen had their helmets attuned now. They could see him behind his pile of ice as clearly as if he were naked. With a grunt and a ripping, grating noise in his side, Corwin gathered his legs, prepped his suit's musculature, and jumped.

The jump was bad. Spasms of pain caused Corwin to jerk, sending his airborne body into a slow, forward flip and spiral. He landed with bone-jarring impact flat on his back, ribs cracking, mind rebelling as he fought the panic associated with a diaphragm too stunned to pull air into his lungs.

Half-awake, Corwin's instinct and training replaced conscious action. With a groan and a twist he turned, left elbow pressed into his side to provide some amount of pressure to his injuries. He fired, not wholly sure why or at what.

By jumping, Corwin had traded places with the assailants who had rushed his previous frozen hiding place. They came back to him singly now, and Corwin fired, three of the five rounds striking his target: hip, stomach, faceplate; sending It spiraling back and away to tumble in the snow.

Corwin flung himself in a near front flip, twisting his body around to face the other soldier that was just now rounding out of cover. Corwin unloaded the clip, his hand locked on target by the suit's muscles.

Snow chunks flew upward as Corwin and the Choxen fired. Half a dozen rounds raked across Corwin's legs, but his armor held. The Choxen wasn't as lucky. One of Corwin's high-powered pistol rounds, seemingly guided by an unseen hand, struck the Choxen at the base of the throat where the armor was softest. The round ricocheted upward inside the helmet, bashing, cutting, shredding the soldier inside. It crumpled to a heap, momentum carrying It a few feet farther before stopping.

Corwin lay back, relaxing at last as the drugs swept in and nanites flooded his body to set to work knitting bone and flesh. He would die out here, he knew that. Already, cold crept inward from his open wound — hypothermia, maybe. Blood loss, absolutely. That was fine. He wouldn't have to worry about anything anymore: no more loneliness, no more hate.

Only darkness.

A strong west wind pushed the cloud cover away, and with it the snow. The night was black, with no moon in sight, and a billion pinpricks of light twinkled overhead. A figure in bulky armor staggered to Its feet. Blood still leaked from where a bullet had slashed Its face, oozing in time with Its heartbeat.

It couldn't see. Its right eye was swollen shut and blood-filled, the left covered by a cracked visor that displayed only spider webs. Its hands scrabbled to Its side, exhaled in relief to find the pack still attached, the orb and transmitter both intact.

Tearing the useless helmet from Its head, Kavin stalked forward, drawing Its sword to make sure that the Maharatha was dead.

In darkness, Corwin dreamed. He was back, almost fifteen years earlier and a continent away from that snowy plain where he lay. He was in a thick forest, the sun setting to dusk. The crickets were waking up, the other daytime insects not yet asleep, and birds chirped and flitted overhead. Corwin watched from where his aunt held him, the faces of his other family members, Warriors all, wary as they eyed the Choxen across the battle ring.

The swords rang in the summer air as they danced and parried. His mother twisted within the combat circle, whirling, baiting, enticing the Choxen leader to strike and open Itself up to counterattack. But the clone counter baited, attempting to lure just the same, each of them parrying with body positions along with their swords when one or the other made a mistake – or not. His mother was about to win!

Then the killing started.

Rifles spat death from the forest, rending Human and Choxen flesh alike. Corwin's aunt fell dead atop him, and he had to push and shove her off, his chest and shirt slick and hot with familial blood. His family fired back, but surprise wasn't on their side, and they died even as his mother and the Choxen leader fought on, oblivious, in the center.

Corwin was free, crawling on hands and knees as bullets cracked overhead like peels of thunder. Somehow he found his brother crawling among the dead and the dying, and together they fled towards the safety of the trees. Corwin looked back over his shoulder in time to see his mother win, slicing a half-circle on the clone's face from forehead to chin, the Choxen stumbling to Its knees.

She became aware of the battle cries then, the chaos that swirled around her in storms of death. Her focus broken, she did not force the Choxen to yield, and, seizing the opportunity, It struck upward, lopping her in half.

That was all Corwin had seen before his brother pulled him up to his feet and they ran into the forest. They fell together onto the rough roots of a tree and pressed themselves into the burrow beneath.

Corwin knew what should have come next: his brother's face would appear above him, blocking out the tree's leaves, telling him to "Get up! Run!" Then he'd pull his knife, and an armored hand would snatch him away.

But that was not what happened. A different face appeared, an older face, scarred, sneering, and above It, not trees but long winding swirls of blue-green aurora light that covered the dome of sky, casting itself onto the snowladen world below.

"You are awake," the face said. "I have the pleasure of Subjugating you myself, Human."

Corwin struggled for his pistol, but Kavin had already kicked it away, his sword following it into the night.

Kavin raised Its sword, point aimed down at Corwin's chest.

Corwin welcomed it: the end. He relaxed, let go of everything: his hate, his fear, the guilt that had ridden him like a demanding taskmaster for his entire life inside the Republic. He was weightless now.

As those layers came free, something deep down and buried sprang to life. It was more than the urge to survive. It was
right
to life that he had denied himself for all this time.

In that moment, too, as his bindings came loose, time slowed down. Corwin looked at his killer, the Choxen that would — that had — set him free. Corwin's eyes traced the scars of the alien face, a face like all the others, but different, given character and personality by Its scars.

Its scars.

Pieces of a puzzle — long ago started but never finished — clicked into place. That half-moon scar, a wound given by a female Quisling long ago. Corwin realized now what he had when he first started this chase, when the reptile part of his brain had driven him to abandon his post and the only friends he had: this Choxen had started it all.

The blade flashed down.

Corwin was ready. He rolled sideways and twisted, sitting up and out of the way, screaming in pain as broken ribs punctured skin. The blade slammed up to the hilt in the snowy earth. Corwin wrapped his feet into Kavin's — pulling with one, pushing with the other — to lock the Choxen's knee.

Kavin stumbled, releasing the sword to avoid breaking Its leg. Corwin was on his feet, diving forward to catch Kavin in the armored stomach with his own armored shoulder. Kavin's armor cracked under the assault, and they tumbled to the ground, rolling and throwing snow into the air.

They punched, kicked, screamed as they struggled, each jockeying for position over the other. A lucky blow landed on Kavin's chin, Its head snapping to the side, Its eyes rolling to give Corwin time for a second strike, then a third.

Kavin crumpled sideways, barely conscious, and Corwin let the Choxen fall. He returned to the sight of his own freedom and slid the sword from the ground. Kavin had begun to collect Itself, one arm pulled up under Its body in a feeble attempt to rise.

Corwin kicked the arm out from under It, and the Choxen fell back to the ground with a grunt.

Taking the sword in a reverse grip, Corwin stepped onto the Choxen's arms, pinning It in place. He lowered the tip of the blade into the chink of the alien's armor where arm met torso, and slid the blade in.

He twisted the blade.

Kavin's eyes sprang open, air hissing between broken and bloody teeth as Its shoulder separated. There was pain, agony, but there was a bit of pleasure, too, a growing sense of finality for the Choxen that perhaps It had finally met Its match. It had engaged in ritual, and here, now, at long last It was about to lose. Kavin smiled as best It could through spasms of orgasmic pain.