Allie's War Season One (95 page)

I glanced over my shoulder, seeking what held her gaze.

A gold-feathered eagle drifted up and down in the currents just behind the edge of the cliff where I stood. I felt my arms relax.

I looked back towards her.

“Yeah,” I said, trying a bit of the patois. “Sure. Just us girls. Sounds good.”

At my stiff accent, the old woman laughed, and I smiled.

7

CONSEQUENCES

JON HEARD THE commotion before he realized what it meant.

Revik was back.

He glanced at Cass, who had paled a little under her tan.

Then, wordlessly, both of them got up.

They’d been staying out of the way since the incident with Allie, although they’d talked quietly between them about what they should do.

They’d even wondered whether they should go looking for her, in the hopes she might want to talk to them more than any of the seers. Jon didn’t particularly want to see any of those seers either...at least not the ones who turned him and Cass into wax dolls, then stood there gawking while Maygar tried to rape Allie. Unfortunately, despite the paralysis, Jon could remember all of it, including seeing his sister on the ground, screaming, while a seer three times her size shoved his hand down her pants.

Without really talking about it, Cass and he had been waiting for Revik to return. No doubt lived in either of their minds about what his reaction would be...or how long it would take him to act on it.

Balidor had been polite to them both, and apologetic as he explained that they were having some difficulty locating Revik. Somehow he’d managed to get himself clear over to some obscure corner of the settlement.

Jon knew full well that Revik would take it badly. Cass and he hadn’t talked much while they waited, but he knew Cass was nervous, too. They’d both seen a lot of different sides to Revik in that cave in Russia...but none as scary as when Terian convinced him that he’d taken Allie captive and was hurting her. Terian managed to string him along with that fiction for about a month before Revik felt enough off Allie to realize he was lying. Well, that coupled with the fact that Terian was never able to produce a physical body.

Even so, when Jon opened the door leading to the courtyard, he couldn’t quite believe his eyes. He stopped so fast that Cass ran into his back.

Before he could recover, Balidor turned, meeting his gaze.

“Jon! Cass! Get back inside!” he shouted in accented English.

Jon ignored him. He paused only to grab Cass’ arm when she pushed past him into the sunlight. The motion was almost redundant though. Cass came to a dead stop as well, gripping Jon’s hand as she stared into the courtyard.

Over thirty seers filled the small space.

Jon watched in a kind of shock as four of them grabbed a struggling Revik. They held him for only a few seconds before he twisted free, back-fisting a barrel-chested seer in the Adhipan named Garensche across the face.

He kicked another in the knee in the same fluid twist of his body...then climbed up the front of Garensche’s body like an acrobat, using the height to kick another seer in the head, effectively knocking him out cold with the edge of his boot. Throwing himself up and driving his weight down in a punch, he knocked Garensche to the dirt, leaping off sideways as he fell.

Garensche let out a surprised grunt, falling to his back.

Jon barely tracked with his eyes as Revik then grabbed a mid-sized seer, using him as a shield before he threw his body at two others.

He was trying to get away, Jon realized, fighting his way to the edge of the crowd. Jon stepped forward to help him when someone grabbed his arm. Turning, Jon jerked free with an angry glare, but the seer holding him, whom Jon only vaguely recognized, looked pale and worried, and merely shook his head.

“Dangerous,” he said in accented English.

Jon didn’t recognize him from earlier that day, with Allie, so forced himself to relax, nodding. He turned back to the crowd.

He’d never actually seen Revik fight before.

He’d seen the aftermath, and he’d heard rumors about him in hand to hand. He had some kind of rep, but he was in penance so couldn’t fight recreationally, despite the occasional challenge from some up and comer. Even so, as Jon watched him now, he found himself completely floored.

Revik lacked the flash of a lot of the young seers who screwed around in the sparring ring day after day, trying to one-up one another. Back when it was his job, Jon would have classified Revik a purely economical fighter...meaning he was practical, through and through. He didn’t waste a lot of movements. He rested between every beat, threw his whole weight behind every hit, no matter which part of his body he used. And he was fast as hell.

At the moment, he seemed to be fighting about fifteen seers at the same time. He aimed low with the vast majority of his kicks, downing opponents by breaking shins, knees, ankles before he knocked them in the head.

Even then, his hits were calculated, aimed. Temples, jaws, throats, solar plexus, kidney...a few upward hits to the nose.

He didn’t fuck around, Jon noticed. Nothing flashy at all.

He used them against one another, always keeping one mediocre fighter between him and the better fighters, using their momentum against them, their weight, getting in close to the stronger ones to offset their size, sliding between the limbs of the taller ones.

Jon watched him in a kind of admiring awe...and understood why some of the more jaded fighters would want to take him on, even if they didn’t expect to win. Revik fought like he’d trained for years against people twice his size, with every conceivable advantage over him. He fought like he was used to being outnumbered...and like someone a lot smaller than he was, a lot weaker, a lot slower. In fact, he fought as if he expected to lose.

Which, paradoxically, gave him an enormous advantage.

Even so, the odds were against him now, too.

Several of Balidor’s men were closing on him already as Balidor shouted instructions from one side.

“No, goddamn it! Don’t hurt him! Just get him down! Drug him if you have to, but don’t let him leave...!”

“Jesus,” Jon muttered. He glanced at Cass. “Look at his face.”

He hadn’t noticed Dorje on her other side until the seer spoke.

“Yes,” he said, his voice grim. Seeing Jon looking at him, he said, “Is it true that the two of you were there? Today. For the claim.”

Cass gave Dorje a hard look. “Sort of.” Her voice turned openly caustic as she folded her arms, pushing up her breasts. “Are they going to punish Revik if he hurts Maygar?” she said. “What if I did it for him?”

Dorje looked at her, his face white and serious. “They tell me Dehgoies was looking for a place to make the request of her when Maygar did this.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Cass said, dismissive. “I want to know why they’re after him...why not let him go?”

Dorje looked from Cass’ face to Jon’s, his eyes wide. “They are trying to protect his soul! To tell him they had to show him what Maygar did. If Dehgoies doesn’t kill anyone today it will be a miracle...”

Cass made an angry noise, looking back at the scene in the courtyard.

Jon found himself thinking about Dorje’s words, in spite of himself.

He forgot them entirely seconds later, when he saw Yerin push past on Dorje’s other side. Christ. Was Yerin really that dumb? If they really did show him what happened, Revik would absolutely see Yerin as an accomplice.

Jon reached out to catch the seer’s arm, but Yerin avoided Jon’s hand, and his eyes.

“Yerin!” Jon said, sharp. “Don’t! Let him cool down...!”

Yerin raised his voice, aiming it at Revik.

“You are in danger of breaking penance!” Yerin said. “You are prohibited from fighting except in the line of duty!”

“Asshole,” Cass muttered, folding her arms tighter.

“Idiot, you mean,” Jon said. “He’s going to get his head ripped off.”

“Maybe not,” Cass said.

She motioned towards the courtyard and Jon followed her hand.

He watched as four of Balidor’s men managed to catch hold of Revik by the arms and throat. Using their collective weight, they forced him to his knees, then flat forward onto his chest. Landing hard in the dirt, Revik made a low sound, then lay on his stomach, his arms behind his back, his legs pinned, gasping, the wind likely knocked out of him.

Cass tensed, gripping Jon’s fingers.

“Dehgoies!” Balidor knelt beside his head. “Dehgoies! Calm yourself! Please, my friend! Try to disengage!”

Revik fought them, muscles straining in his arms and chest.

To Jon, he still looked thin from his captivity with Terian. The muscles in his arms looked ready to burst out of his skin. He struggled harder, fighting to free himself, then to twist to his side to use his legs. He got off a single punch at one of his captors before they caught hold of his arm again, trapping it behind his back. Jon winced as they clicked binders over his wrists.

“Hey!” Jon yelled out before he knew he intended to. His voice came out angry. “What the hell? How is it
he’s
the bad guy in this?”

Balidor looked over at him, his face openly startled.

“He is not the bad guy, Jon,” he said. “This is for his own protection.”

“Bullshit!” Cass said, loudly. “This is
bullshit!”

Balidor hesitated, but didn’t answer.

Revik was looking around at all of them now...the seers anyway. His eyes paused on faces that Jon recognized from the crowd watching Maygar and Allie that afternoon. The look in his eyes remained almost frightening. His expression didn’t improve as his gaze made its way through the crowd.

“Let me go,” he said, thickly.

“Dehgoies!” Yerin walked closer. “Calm yourself!”

“Gods, I’ll kill you if you don’t let me go...” His voice choked.

Jon gripped Cass’ hand tighter.

Emotion rose in him, catching him off guard. He stared at the man on the ground, feeling helpless in a way he hadn’t since Terian. It hadn’t occurred to him until then that Revik wasn’t just angry; he was grief-stricken, desperate, nearly devastated. Knowing him, he also felt guilty. But the main emotion Jon saw was fear. He was out of his mind with fear.

“Brother—” Balidor began.

“Let me go! I haven’t broken any laws!”

“Dehgoies!” Yerin squatted in front of him.

When Revik didn’t look over, the other seer slapped him, making Jon and Cass flinch. Yerin hit him again, hard enough to force Revik’s eyes to his. Revik’s face changed. Jon saw the hunter cloak kick back in. He stopped struggling against the seers holding him and narrowed his eyes up at Yerin’s face.

“Brother, please!” Yerin pleaded. “Calm yourself!”

There was a silence. Then Revik nodded.

“All right.” His voice grew quiet. “I’m listening.”

He relaxed his body almost completely.

“No!” Balidor shouted to the others. “Don’t fall for it! Hold him!”

Revik lunged against their hands, and for a moment the four seers had to work to restrain him. Yerin stumbled backwards as Jon looked at Cass, who squeezed his hand in both of hers. She looked furious, but she was crying too. It was too close to home, seeing Revik on the ground in cuffs again.