BloodLust (Rise of the Iliri Book 1) (30 page)

"Thanks, men," LT said to the Blades around him.  "Once we get this load moving, I want four of you to stay with it.  I think you can all guess which.  Cyno and Sal will need to get themselves under control.  Shift, see if there's anyone you can help."  He shot a warning look at Shift, before the Sergeant could make a sarcastic comment, and turned to Cyno.  "So far, you both are doing well.  If you aren't, get out of here.  Her, too."

Cyno nodded.

They sat in silence for a few moments, Blaec watching the army fumbling in the back of the carts.  Time passed and still no cries of excitement came.  The Blades started to trade glances.

"Ok, enough of this shit, let's see what the hell they're doing now."  LT gestured for his Blades to follow him, nudging Scorch toward the train.

From their height on the horses, they could see into the wagon beds.  Crates were stacked side by side, their tops cracked open, but the contents refused to make sense to Sal's eyes.  These were not steel swords.  It was not piles of ore.  Packed in each box, like fruit headed to market, were what appeared to be heads – iliri heads – their white eyes staring sightlessly at the sky above them.

Cyno and Sal gasped as one, the unexpected death more than they could take in their heightened state.  Sal tried to control her sudden urge to tear and rip.  Her lips raised in a rabid snarl, and she willed herself to breathe, telling her muscles to relax.  On the other side of LT, Cyno did the same, his knuckles white on his pommel, his breathing fast.  Sal forced her eyes closed.

"Blades?" LT asked them both.

"I'm good, man," Cyno insisted.  "I'm good."

Sal just nodded, reining Arden back.  The smell of death was tantalizing and all around her.  She heard Arctic push Bazya between her and the wagon, his hand on her reins, turning her mare.

"Breathe, Sal," he whispered.

"It's the smell that's doing it," she growled.  "Arctic, just fucking give me something to kill!"  She snarled as she opened her eyes. 

"Easy, Corporal," he told her, his pale eyes boring into hers.  "That's a fucking order, soldier."

She nodded and tried to smile, letting him know it was working.  "I'm ok.  Just give me a second.  I'm ok," she whispered.

LT looked back, his concern obvious.  At a nod from Arctic, he relaxed and turned back to the wagon.  "What is this?" he asked the nearest soldier.

"Dunno, sir.  Looks like a bunch of scrubber heads to me."

"Are they all like this?" LT persisted.

"Nah, most are, but a few in the last cart are filled with papers, or something like that, sir."

"Show me."

The Lieutenant followed the man down the line of carts while the Blades pulled back, forming a knot around Sal and Cyno.  The two berserkers did their best to not look at each other until Zep pushed Cessa in the middle, putting a barrier between their instinctual desires.  They waited tensely for the Lieutenant to return, but when he did, his face was solemn.

"There's no metal in this shipment," he told them.  "But there are three crates of what appear to be iliran writing.  The cav think its scribbles and want to dump it."

"Shit," Shift breathed.

"Yeah.  I volunteered us to take it back, and I want to have a few of you look it over."  LT sighed deeply before turning to Cyno.  "I'm sorry, but I can only give you an hour, maybe an hour and a half.  You're the most fluent among us and I need you to look through these before we get back to the main camp."

"We can hold out, Blaec," Sal assured him.

"No, love, you can't.  I can see it from here." He smiled up at her and rested his hand on Arden's neck, careful not to touch Sal.  The gesture was obvious.  "If you don't tear something – mainly Cyno – apart soon, one of you will tear apart a human.  It's not pretty over there.  They think the crates of heads are funny.  The first bad joke and one of you will rip a man to shreds.  I can't risk that."

She nodded at him, knowing it was true.

"Cyno, I'm sorry, but make it fast.  The rest of you, start moving those crates together."

Cyno turned his horse, pointing Raven into the woods, and glanced at her.
Come with me, kitten,
he thought, and she nodded, pushing Arden to follow. 

Behind them, the rest of the Blades dismounted and moved toward the train.  Zep cast a glance back at his friends, realizing he might be lucky that he didn't have to suffer the strains of being iliri. 

One of the men in the carts pointed to the Blades riding away.  "Hey, looks like the scrubber bitch didn't like seeing her own kind."  The men around him laughed.

"You think that's funny, don't you, you stupid fuck," Zep growled.

"You talking to me?" the smart mouthed soldier asked, puffing up.

"Yeah, I am.  Don't fuck with my mates.  Don't talk shit about my mates.  Fuck, don't even look at my mates.  Get it?"

"What, you a scrubber lover?"

"Yeah.  I am.  Got a problem with that?" Zep asked, stepping into the man's face.

Behind him, another soldier whispered, "Granz, that's a Black Blade!"

"I am," Zep said.  "They are, too."

"They're just fuckin' scrubbers.  Can't believe that bitch couldn't take seeing a few dead ones.  Or do you only like killing humans?"  Granz didn't know when to quit.

Without warning, Zep reached up and grabbed the man's collar, dragging him from the bed of the wagon with one hand, slamming him into the ground at his feet and dropping one knee into his chest.  Around him, the sound of blades sliding from their sheaths sang in the air.

"I wouldn't do that," Razor said, walking up.  "Zep could take you all without drawing a sword.  There's six more of us here, too.  Do you really want to chance it?"

"You couldn't!" a man said, his sword point dropping.

"We could," Zep promised.

"And who is to say how many of you died to the Empire?  Be a shame if the only ones to make it back were Blades, hmm?"  Razor smiled smugly.  "Now put away those weapons or shit is going to get really ugly."

The men around them returned their blades to their sheaths. 

"Zep, let him up," Razor insisted. 

Zep complied, taking his hands off the man, his eyes holding him in place.  "Let me explain something to you all, real clear-like," he said, still watching the man on the ground.  "Some of my friends like killing a bit too much.  If you say the wrong thing to them, you might not live long enough to apologize, ya get me?"

Granz nodded. 

"Eight of us pulled your asses out of that shit.  How many men did you have?"  Zep asked.

"Brought fifty," a man in the back admitted.

"And it just took eight of us to clean up your mess.  Think about that before you pick on the little iliri bitch.  She scares the shit outta me.  Get it?"

Chapter 35

Sitting in the wagon, Cyno looked through page after page of iliran writing on a strange paper that none of them had seen before.  It was smooth, like resin, but flexible.  The writing was formed into the page itself.  The strange arcs, curves, and colors of the iliran words turned each one into a work of art.  At the bottom of the second crate was a separate bundle, these in Glish, the common language of the Conglomerate. 

"LT!" Cyno yelled. "Something you need to see."

"What did you find?" he asked, riding up.

"This is important."  Cyno handed the papers over.

LT dropped his reins and flipped through the pages in his lap, reading in silence.  Riding behind them, Sal watched him turn back, read the page again, before flipping forward.

"Stop the damned cart," he ordered.

Razor pulled the oxen to a halt, looking back.  The tone in the Lieutenant's voice pulled the Blades in around him.  None of them spoke.  The severity of the documents in his hands caused them to tense, their horses fidgeting nervously beneath them.

"This cart was headed for Prin," LT told them.

Shift muttered, "Why send a train of iliri heads, and a box of iliri... whatever they are, from Terric to Prin?"

"Because the Emperor thinks it's proof."  LT met each of their eyes before continuing.  "He thinks this is proof that they deserve to control us.  He wants to convince Parliament to help him wipe iliri from the planet."

Around him, the Blades muttered their disbelief, each one trying to explain why the idea of removing an entire species from the planet was ludicrous.

"What are the documents, Jase?" Sal asked.

"They are old, Sal," Cyno said, shaking his head, his glance flicking to LT before turning back to the pages before him.

"Jase?" she insisted.  "What are those documents?

"It's our history," he whispered.

"You mean, like the Conglomerate?" Shift asked.

Cyno shook his head, his eyes fixed on Sal.

"He means the history of the iliri," Zep said.  "Their history.  All of your history."

"Yeh.  I mean, it's that too, but's more than that."  He reached for a page.  "They talk 'bout the Landing like it's an event." He pointed at a page in his hand before flipping to another.  "Here they talk 'bout invaders with brown skin and peace treaties."  He looked up.  "They talk 'bout gifts of metal – I mean, they do na call it that, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is.  Maast, these documents are the iliran version of the Landing!"

The Black Blades fell silent.  It was hard to comprehend documents as old as time itself sitting in their lap.  Such things had only been stories until now.  Myths and legends of a time before humans.  For centuries, their histories only went back as far as the Landing, a time when humans had begun to settle the continent and form their own primitive countries.  Here before them were records of an age before that.  Answers to questions they'd never even thought to ask.  The documents had to be more than three thousand years old.

"What do they say about us?" Risk asked quietly.  "Why are they all in iliran?  They have to say something about us, not the humans."

Cyno nodded.  "Yeh.  I would na believe it if I had na read it.  Ayati, I still can na believe it."  He took a deep breath and reached for another page, scanning it quickly before he spoke.  "K.  I'm making this the short version, but yeh.  When they landed – I do na know much bout that part, yet – the land was savage.  White beasts struck in the night, coming from the north, killing and eating the humans.  It upset them pretty bad.  So, they did somethan, I do na quite get what yet, and they killed and captured us.  They bred us, domesticating us, and used us ta protect themselves.  They made two types, forcing us ta breed against our wills in some cases, and made slaves of us all.  The quiet ones they used in the houses.  The savage ones?  Them they used like hounds, setting us ta guard and shit.  This," he gestured to the pile of documents around him, "was written by the pet of a human.  She recorded the history of our people.  Wrote it down, saying that we'd be lost in time and that the invaders would exterminate us, one way or another.  Says she used his means ta write it out, ta preserve it."

They sat in silence, trying to understand what Cyno had just told them.

Looking around, Zep spoke up.  "You were here first.  We – the humans – we came and..."  he broke off, shaking his head.  "We forced you to become like us?"

"Yeah," Risk said.  "It makes sense.  The old stories, most of us heard them growing up, they say we're the playthings of the humans.  That we were stronger, smarter, and better, until the humans ruined us."

"My amma allus said," Cyno added, "that's why we're so different.  The more iliri we are, the more we're like..."

"Like beasts," Sal whispered. 

"The Emperor thinks he can use this as proof that we need to be put down," Razor growled, his anger clear.

"Yeh, but tha's na quite what it proves," Cyno said.  "What this is saying is that we were designed to be perfect for what we do.  We were made to be soldiers – "

"And the Black Blades prove that," Arctic pointed out.

"Yeh," Cyno agreed, "and that the more generations we're bred, the more tame we are."  He shot a proud look at Sal, then turned back to the men.  "These papers say pretty clearly that we exist because they made us, that we're smarter, stronger, and faster than them, because they made us ta be."

"They'd use it to control us?" Shift asked.

"They already do," Sal said.  "How many of you weren't conscripted?"

They glanced at Zep, and he looked down, embarrassed.  "I may have the right to quit, unlike the rest of you, but I sure as hell don't have the heart to."

"I know, big brother," Cyno said, patting his arm.  "Is na yer fault, man."

"I enlisted, too," LT said.  "They didn't ask, I didn't tell."

Sal looked over to Razor, the second darkest of the Black Blades.  He shook his head.

"Nope.  Got caught in Lewes."  He grinned, showing sharp teeth.  "Seems growling is a very distinctive trait.  Worst way to lose a fight."

The men chuckled, understanding what he meant.

"So none of us own our lives as it is.  One way or another, they control us."  Sal gestured at the crates.  "Then what do we have to lose?  Worst that happens is nothing changes.  The best?  Maybe they understand us better?"

"It's worth it," Cyno said.  "The risk is outweighed by the reward."

"So what now?" Zep asked.  "We're sitting on the most important find I've heard of in centuries.  What the fuck do we do with it?"

"We get it to the professors," Blaec said.  "Quietly.  Once it's in their hands, there will be enough copies and enough documentation of its existence that they can't make it go away."

"And Jase," Sal said, holding his eyes when he looked up at her.  "Keep reading," she told him.  "Read as much as you can.  Remember it."

Blaec turned at the tone of her voice.  Sal hadn't asked, she'd just given an order.  It wasn't the first time.  She had a tendency to just take control, and the men instinctually did what she asked.  They couldn't stop themselves – because it was in their nature – and half the time she didn't notice until it was done.

She saw his eyes on her and shot him a questioning look, flicking her ears up.  He smiled just as their horses reacted.  Arden threw her head up, staring into the trees.  Scorch and a few others spooked.  The men quickly gained control of their mounts, heads looking in all directions for the cause, their mental voices battering each other's minds.

Quiet!
Sal screamed at them.

Immediately, they fell silent and she could hear beyond her head.  She breathed in deeply, seeing a few of the others doing the same, but she couldn't find a scent.  Her ears swiveled.  She could hear something, but just barely.  It was getting louder.

They're downwind,
Arctic said.

I hear them,
she thought. 
A lot of them, and they aren't ours.