SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Ivy sighed. “You’re determined to jump right back to work .” The reprimand in her inflection was surprisingly human, every bit the harried and peevish mother.

I shrugged. “Not eager, but I have to know.”

Some of the plates around her eyes slid back, loosening the tension in her face. “There is only Bergrisar. No others wished to challenge you. I think she would not, but she feels she owes it to Sjórisar, as one of her brood. We do not bond with our offspring the way some herdbeasts do, but we still have a duty to avenge them.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry it’s come to that. I don’t wish to kill her.”

Ivy made a motion akin to a shrug. “You have followed our customs; there is no reason for sorrow in that.”

“Still.”

There was something in Ivy’s mannerisms that rankled me. A question came to mind.

“Will Bergrisar be the last?” I asked. “Is anyone honor-bound to avenge her ?”

Ivy’s eyes flashed up to mine, startled. She clicked in agitation. “Bergrisar has lived long. Most of those gestated with her are long dead.”

“But not all.”

“Not all.” She ducked her gaze, and I filled in the rest.

“You’re of her brood.”

“Yes. The same clutch of eggs, even. Not just the same genetic material.”

“Will you fight for her?”

“I’m no fighter. She would not expect me to avenge her. And I would ask— have asked—her not to fight.” She sighed, almost a whistle. “But we cannot put Bergrisar off any longer. I told her it would be dishonorable to come for you unconscious, wounded. But we have passed that point of grace. Let me get you some snow to bathe yourself.”

I nodded in thanks, and used the armfuls of snow she brought to sponge her fluids from me. Even so,

Ivy’s smell clung to my skin, like the expensive hand lotion my mom used.

I glanced at the last remaining cartridge for my rifle. The only way I could get more of a charge for it was to drain my pod battery, trapping myself here.

I didn’t know what I would do if it came to that. I would decide after meeting Bergrisar, seeing if she wanted to meet me in the moonlight ruins.

I put what remained of my suit on and followed Ivy to the court. The rest of the Jötnar awaited me.

Bergrisar growled when she saw me. “Are you happy? You are almost at your victory.” Her voice was a dangerous purr.

“I wish no more bloodshed.” I didn’t know what else that might mean.

“It will fall, regardless; you have not broken all of us.” She flashed a contemptuous glare around the room.

“Tonight, then?” I asked.

“No. You will fight me here. You do not deserve to die on ground nourished with the blood of our ancestors.” Ivy trembled next to me. “Give him his weapons, Iviðja.”

I could see the conflict in her as she passed them to me.

Fear and adrenaline pushed through me as Bergrisar stood and the Jötnar backed away from us.

I turned to Gýgr. “I may not survive this fight. But our two peoples’ friendship shouldn’t die with me.” I opened comms with my ship. “I’m opening up the technologies we offered in the contract. Use them. Help your people.”

I didn’t have a chance to hope it could sway Bergrisar; she was already laughing as I turned. “He thinks he can buy back his blood,” Bergrisar chortled. “It’s mine already. I ache for its moisture on my tongue.”

I glanced at my rifle charge. Shit—with it turned up to the maximum, I had only a handful of shots. Plus whatever was in my sidearm. But Bergrisar was huge, bigger than the last two combined.

She lashed out at me with one of her secondary limbs; this one seemed to be akin to a scorpion tail, and I didn’t want to know what was in the stinger. As it whooshed past, a smell struck me, a familiar one, learned from living with Ivy.

She meant to poison me, even if I could defeat her.

I retreated. It had to come down to the gun, then.

She whipped her tail at me again, but didn’t put as much force behind it as Sjórisar had. It gave her more maneuverability, having less invested in the attack. I ducked, and her tail knocked into the wall behind me. I raised my gun, waiting for a clear shot to her head.

I got it.

When my shot struck, Bergrisar chuckled. The plating around her head was thicker—it had been forged into a single plate since the last time I’d seen her, essentially welded into a helmet. She’d disfigured herself in order to win. The shot dented the plating beside her eye, but not even enough to trust that another shot would do the job, even if I could hit in the exact same spot.

And from her weaving, I might not have the chance to test that.

I cursed myself for not charging my damn rifle when I had the chance.

She turned away from my next shot, but it was going to go wide even if she hadn’t moved. Due to both of our miscalculations, it tore through the limb with the stinger. The carapace there must have been weaker: the stinger fell off, completely severed by the heat of my blast.

That could work. Remove the limbs. It was dicier shooting than center mass, but if it actually got through …I fired again, at one of her smaller arms. She seemed to recognize what I planned at the last moment, and snaked to the side, absorbing the blast with the thickest part of the plating in her chest. I fired again, and again she lurched to absorb the shot harmlessly.

The rifle was dead, and I dropped it. I turned up the charge on the pistol. I had enough shots to try to break through her head plating, or I could stop fighting fate and aim for her chest.

She charged me, and I fired center mass, my training responding before my head could. As I ran to the side and threw myself over her lashing tail, my wounded ankle gave out; I couldn’t count on being able to run or dodge. She turned toward me, whipping a hand ending in a fist, the carapace’s edges sharp and exposed.

The edge caught me, biting into my already injured shoulder and reopening old wounds.

But as I fell back, my hand met Bergrisar’s fallen stinger, and an idea hit me.

When her next attack came, I leaned in to it—twisting my torso so that it skimmed by me—and then I threw myself at her torso, wielding the stinger.

I struck the weak spot in her chest with it, and felt a crazy euphoria as it sank in, deeper, deeper. Her shock rippled through me in her plates’ little trembles. I tore the stinger out, and sections of shell fell away with it. I stabbed it into her again and again, fighting to keep clear of the limbs that reached for me, thrashing around me, defiant even to the last.

I shivered and fell to my knees as Bergrisar’s twitches subsided. I felt dizzy and raised a hand to my shoulder. The old wound was open, yes, but it was more than that: the edges of her fist-plates had torn deeply into my neck. I couldn’t tell if she’d hit an artery, but from the shredded meat where my neck met my chest, I didn’t see how she could have not .

The Jötnar washed toward us, seeing that she was dead and I lived. “You shall have your treaty.” It was Gýgr who spoke. “No one else will argue.”

I nodded. The world felt floaty, and I let myself sit, knees to chest, to wait out its motion. Movement out of the corner of my eye drew my attention, and the Jötnar faded away.

Impossibly, Louise sat beside me. She was pure , her eyes’ color saturated beyond anything I’d ever seen.

“I can’t leave,” I said to her, though I was certain my lips weren’t moving. “And I know you couldn’t love me. And that’s all right.” I leaned over to kiss her, and started at the feeling of a mouth without her lips. Then the fragrance sank into me, one I could wake up to every day for the rest of my life.