Ted Dekker - Mortal

That was wrong, of course. They were fast-he already knew that. Too fast to risk their closing in, or fighting them three-on-one. But their movement would work against them.

He swiped a blade from the sheath on his hip and flung it backhanded at the closest of the three, the one on his left. The blade sailed through the air and smacked home, deep in the eye socket.

The man’s head snapped back. His feet flew off the ground and he landed solidly on his back with a grunt. Dead.

Five paces…

Two left, one in midswing of a three-foot, double-edged sword. It flashed toward Roland like a glinting saucer, cutting for his torso.

No way to avoid the sword. Only to step into it as one edge passed and before the second rounded and caught him.

The blades slowed to a whirr, and then to the lazy turn of a two-spoked wheel. He chose his time, threw himself forward. When he did, his shoulder crashed into the handle at its center. The sword careened off harmlessly.

He dropped, rolled forward. He had two more knives out and slashing upward as they leaped to avoid him. His blade connected with a leg bone, the impact jarred him to his shoulder. The warrior roared with pain and sprawled forward.

Roland came to his feet behind them, but the third man had already spun and was in full swing.

“Roland!” Michael’s cry cut the air.

Once again, their speed surprised him. He was too late to avoid the blade. Too off balance to lunge into it. So he turned into the blow to catch it squarely on his chest where his leather was the thickest, taking the blade’s full length to disperse the force of the strike along as much of the edge as possible.

The blade smacked into the leather. Cut through it and into his chest with a sharp sting.

But not to the bone.

It was all Roland needed to know. His threw all of his weight into a blow to the other man’s face, dead center. The Dark Blood’s nose caved-loudly-against his knuckles.

He twisted the man’s sword from his grasp, whipped it around like a sling and buried the blade in the warrior’s exposed neck. Spun to the second Dark Blood staggering to his feet with one of Roland’s knives sticking out of his leg.

“Enough!” Roland cried. He jabbed the bloody sword in his hand toward the army. “Go! While you still live.”

But the warrior didn’t appear interested in running for cover. He jerked a long knife from his belt and circled, cautiously, to the left.

“Where did you learn to fight, Nomad?”

He hadn’t expected such a typical question from the Dark Blood. Not under the scrutiny of his superiors. Neither did he see any reason to respond.

“Call your man back,” he said, jabbing his chin in Saric’s direction. “Or I’ll kill him.”

“I don’t run,” the warrior said.

“Mather! Back!”

The Dark Blood immediately straightened. Then he was up and jogging for his ranks, order unquestioned.

Roland walked to his horse, swung into the saddle, and wheeled around.

Michael glanced at his chest. “You’re all right?”

“Just a cut.”

He trotted back toward Saric and stopped. Only ten paces separated them. Other than the three Bloods who’d been sent to fight him, not a soul appeared to have moved. The army was extraordinarily disciplined. Machinelike… and unnervingly alive.

Roland knew then that there was no way his Nomads would survive a head-to-head battle with the Dark Bloods. They would have to think through their strategy very carefully.

“Impressive,” Saric said. “Your point?”

“Where is Pasha?”

“Your man.”

“Yes.”

“Feyn killed him.”

Feyn. The one Rom insisted was their only hope.

Roland gave only a curt nod.

“My point is that you’ll have your hands full if you come against us. But you won’t have to.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.”

“Why?”

“Because you want Jonathan,” Roland said. “And I can give him to you.”

THE CORPSES STARED at Jordin and Jonathan as they passed. One of them, a girl no more than five wearing a ragged red coat, came running a few steps toward them, only to stop abruptly and gape at Jonathan. Big green eyes, set in a face that was far too pale. She was clutching a dirty doll.

Jonathan paused and reached out to her, but the guard stopped him.

“We’re not there yet. I’m putting you in Fifteen. Come on.”

He made no move to follow the order. She sensed his anguish then-desperation rising inside his chest like a hard fist.

“Where are the guards housed?” Jordin asked, as much to give Jonathan a moment as to learn more. She quickly added, “If there is ever trouble.”

“Trouble? There’s no danger in the compound.”

“No one tries to escape?”

He gave her strange look.

“Why would they?”

It was hard to remember what it meant to be Corpse without any ambition or sorrow or desire. To be guided only by fear. They lived in fear of leaving the compound as much as in fear of death. As did the guard.

“There are four of us and we live outside the walls. You’ll see wardens and employees. If there’s any trouble, tell one of them. But there won’t be. Hurry up, boy.”

Jonathan tore his gaze away from the girl and followed after the guard.

Only then did Jordin realize she’d hardly registered the smell of the Corpse girl in the close proximity of so many doomed.

Now she could see the large, worn numbers on the end of each building. The white paint was peeling and faint against the gray concrete. Odd numbers on the left, even on the right. There were thirty housing units in all-each of them long buildings inset with small, square windows under the eaves of an industrial roof. Their panes were dirty, dark, as though covered over with some kind of film.

Maker.

Now she saw them closely, the dark heads, the dirty hands pressed up against the glass. She blinked, swallowed.

Faces, in the windows. Four, five apiece. Ten windows along the side of the building, spaced perhaps ten feet apart.

She glanced back the way they’d come. An old man peered at her from the far corner of Building Four, leaning heavily on a wooden crutch, a part of his lower leg missing. A woman came out of a long building against the far side of the perimeter-the shower rooms, perhaps-walking as though half her body did not work properly, so that she had to drag it to catch up with the functioning side. A man with a bandage around his head and obvious palsy followed her. The victim of an accident, perhaps.

An affront. Alchemy, which had long solved the genetic puzzles of cancer, wasting diseases, blood disorders, dementia, and myriad maladies to humanity, could not abide to be reminded of the infirmities it could not prevent.

She swallowed and lowered her gaze to Jonathan’s heels in front of her, to the stony soil beneath that was as gray, nearly, as the concrete. As the smoke wafting to the sky. She tried to school her breath, which grew ever more erratic with each step. She would follow him anywhere, even into this maw of Hades.

The guard turned onto the broken walk that led to the door of Building Fifteen. The sky flashed again. Thunder in the distance.

Even the heavens couldn’t abide it. These people were created to be alive, not dead. Imperfectly alive, not perfectly dead. The realization hit her like a hammer.

Jonathan was born to bring life, not a new order. Chaos, not perfection.

I see, she wanted to cry. I understand.

She spun to Jonathan, words half-formed on her lips, but the sight of him robbed her of breath. He was frantic, trying to open the door, seemingly mindless. Clawing at it, banging on the wood with tears on his cheeks, gasping even as the guard was trying to unlock it.