David Farland - Lords of the Seventh Swarm

He grasped her arm, tried to struggle to his feet.

“Where-what’s happening?” he asked. “Where’s Orick?” He didn’t know why that question came to mind. He had a sense that if Orick were here, Orick would fix everything. But as Gallen glanced around, he could see no bear-only the red pavilions, only the millions of dark bodies.

The air around him smelled acrid-the scent of dronon stomach acids. “Oh, Gallen!” Maggie cried, and she was holding his face up, trying to look into his face, but blood spilled down onto her hands. The shock on her face, the fear in her brown eyes, told him he did not look well.

“What? What?” Gallen asked.

And suddenly amid the clamor and the tumult, the million voices crying out in a furor for blood, suddenly in the slow wind, Gallen looked out toward the sun, saw Kintiniklintit winging toward him, flying out of the sun, low to the ground, battle arms raised.

“Got to go,” Gallen said thickly, tried to push Maggie away. The dronon Lord was flying toward her unprotected back. But Gallen’s muscles had all gone rubbery, his movements felt disjointed.

He tried to push her away, and felt as feeble as a child. She held him, tried to hold him upright. She glanced over her shoulder at the Vanquisher.

Gallen tried to push her, tried to get in front of her, but realized numbly that she held him tight, that she shielded him with her body.

“I love you, Gallen,” she said.

The Vanquisher was coming, and Gallen struggled with Maggie in a clumsy dance. With one great heave, he shoved her back, just as Kintiniklintit struck.

Gallen only had time to half turn to the monster thundering toward him when he heard battle arms whistle downward. One of them struck him on the right shoulder, cleaving through the collarbone, ripping down through his right lung and the rib bones, exiting from his belly.

The blow totally undid Gallen, ripping him nearly in half. He dropped backward to a sitting position from the force of the blow, was thrown sideways so that his face hit the dirt.

He lay there, unmoving, unable to move-yet still strangely conscious. He felt no pain, sound was but a dim rushing in his ears, the delighted cries of dronon Vanquishers sounding like nothing so much as the sea.

Maggie got up from the ground, stared at him in dismay. Her lip was bleeding, and though Gallen struggled to breathe, he found himself choking and knew that in seconds his life would bleed from him. He felt no sorrow for himself, only for her. He so wanted to reach out, to comfort her.

Gallen saw Kintiniklintit turn sharply, double back, and the roaring of the sea grew, filled his ears. When a Lord Escort came to kill a queen, it did not move so swiftly as when it killed her protector. The dronon considered the combat to be over. Golden Queens, with their bloated bellies and feeble arms, could not protect themselves.

Maggie touched Gallen’s cheek, stroked it, and glanced over her shoulder as Kintiniklintit made his final assault.

To her credit, Maggie raised her fists and assumed a combat stance. The mantle she wore must have shown her this stance.

But Maggie was no Lord Protector.

Kintiniklintit dived toward her, and by now, Gallen’s hearing had gone dim. He coughed uncontrollably, his life hacking from him as he struggled for breath. Distantly, he saw the dronon Vanquisher stoop, battle arms raised high overhead, mouth opened so that its terrible teeth, like the yellow teeth of a horse, gaped at her.

Orick, where are you? Gallen wondered. He remembered now that Orick was seeking the Waters of Strength, that Orick would drink from them, was supposed to come save him. If the Qualeewoohs had conquered time, then Orick should have been here by now. But Orick was nowhere to be seen.

As Kintiniklintit neared, Maggie leapt in the air and kicked.

But Maggie was no Lord Protector. She did not leap high or fast enough. While carrying a child in her womb, she could have done neither.

Kintiniklintit’s battle arms swung down with alarming speed, slashing Maggie at the midriff, slicing her nearly in two.

Blood sprayed in the air-dark droplets that seemed to fall in slow motion, and Maggie’s head and torso dropped backward, thudded next to Gallen.

Her head was toward him, face upraised, as if in her last moment she’d tried to turn to him. Her eyes, her deep brown eyes with their flecks of gold, stared at him vacantly, unmoving.

Gallen’s mantle lay in a pile beside her red hair, the gems in it shining. It had slipped off.

She did not breathe, did not cry out. Gallen felt-nothing. So empty. Why did I bring her to this? he wondered. He could feel nothing, no pain or despair, no love or hope.

Instead, he simply stared out over the crowds of dronon in their millions, saw them raising their arms, crying out in triumph. In the distance, across the field, Hera and Athena rushed toward him.

Go back , he wanted to say. They could do nothing now .

The ground felt cold on his face, and he imagined that the smell of blood came from the soil, that blood was somehow rising from the earth.

The earth bleeds, he thought in wonder, just as we do.

He stared off at a line of clouds rushing toward him, lightning flashing at their crown.

Thunderheads.

Everything nearby had gone out of focus. Before the line of clouds, two dark forms winged toward him hazy, indistinct.

Angels , he realized. Black angels coming for me .

Orick raced desperately down the tunnel beside Tallea, fleeing the dronon Vanquishers. He needed to find the Waters of Strength, and soon, yet found himself running away from Teeawah, dashing through the smoky corridors, leaping over the bodies of dead dronon and sfuz.

They had run perhaps six hundred meters, when Orick realized he had missed his turnoff. With the smoke so thick, his sense of smell was going, and he hadn’t smelled his own scent.

Here, in these dark corridors, where the shadows lay so thick on the irregular walls, he hadn’t noticed the narrow hole in the tunnel wall.

He only knew that he’d reached unfamiliar territory, that they’d run for a moment without his recognizing any landmarks.

Tallea came to a halt, dropped her glow globe on the ground. “Where to now?” she asked.

“I don’t know!” Orick said. He glanced back. The dronon were not far behind. Their light reflected direly from around the bend. They were marching fast, and Orick dared not keep running ahead blindly. What if they met another dronon patrol? Who knew, how far it might be till this tunnel intersected another.

“Orick, over here!” Tallea hissed. She lifted her glow globe in her teeth, bounded toward several dead sfuz, over near one wall.

When she reached them, she dived behind the nearest corpse, and Orick stared in surprise. The sfuz had fur of dark, dark, purplish hue, but Tallea, with her black fur, looked like Just another dead sfuz. If the dronon didn’t study the corpses closely, they might just pass her by.

Orick rushed to a pair of dead sfuz near her, then nosed under one of the hairy bodies. Orick didn’t have the six long legs to make the disguise complete, but he stuck his rear paws in the air, hoping it might fool the dronon.

He did not have to wait long. In only a couple of minutes, the dronon Vanquishers came surging through the tunnels.

The point guards consisted of six Vanquishers, side by side, each carrying a pulp gun and a light, so that as they came marching down the hall, the Vanquishers filled the tunnel with light. Behind them, the others marched in files of three.

Orick watched them from squinted eyes. The dronon moved swiftly, in an eerie silence. Unlike humans or bears, who would swing their heads from side to side as they listened for enemies or sniffed the air, the dronon marched with heads fully erect, facing perfectly forward. With their numerous eye clusters, the dronon could see everywhere ahead and behind.