C. Cherryh - Kesrith

And darted into the rocks and scrambled for cover as it lifted, swinging over near him, drawing off again. He was in the open now, in the main valley, and other aircraft hovered.

They would have him, eventually. He ran low among the rocks that bordered the open sands, pursued by the aircraft with their sensors, and finally, a desperate tactic, braced and fired against the nearest—all without effect for the first several shots. Then the aircraft began having difficulty, and skidded off into a great cloud of sand amid the valley.

Others swooped in. The sky was alive with the sound of them: they passed low and drew off, warned by the fate of the other.

He ran and he rested, and by now the air was tinged with the coppery taste of too much exertion in the thin air, and he could not see clearly to fire back at them. Shots tore up the rocks where he hid, and he staggered as rock became shrapnel and tore his arm, bringing a warm flow of blood.

Lights played across the cliffs, making it impossible to stay hidden. There was scant cover, and shots tore at all of it. He ran, and fell, and scrambled up and raced for the next rock, and what had become of the dusei he did not know: it was not their kind of fight, this fury of fire and light.

The valley became ruin, steles and natural formations blasted to rubble. It was the final vengeance of the regul on his kind, to destroy the last sanctity of the People; and to ruin the land, as they had destroyed all that they had touched.

A near miss threw him rolling, dazed, blinded by the membrane that shielded his eyes, and he rose up and ran, too harried to fire any longer, only to run and run until they had him a clear target

An aircraft pressed at him, diving low, throwing sand from the wind of its passing. And then he thought with a sudden and clear satisfaction, and shifted left, toward the end of the valley, toward an old, old place, under the sightless eyes of Eddan and Liran and Debas, his teachers.

Fight with the land; make it your ally, they had been wont to tell him; and he heard them clear and calmly through the roar of the aircraft.

He fell, sprawling, and the aircraft continued on over him, hovered, kicking up sand; and he lay still, still as it settled, playing lights over the sand where he lay.

It touched; and the earth exploded, a great pale shape rearing up, heaving the aircraft, catching the craft in the convulsions of the mantle: burrower and machine, entangled in a cloud of sand, and the concussions of its struggles shaking the earth. Niun rolled and tried to run, but an edge of the mantle or a shock of air hurled him sprawling, and then another impact, and he saw the world go up in fire as the aircraft exploded.

And dark, thereafter.

"Niun!"

Someone was calling him out of that dark, that had not the familiarity of the brothers; but it was a familiar voice all the same.

Light broke over him. He moved limbs that were buried in sand, and heard the sound of engines.

"Niun!"

He lifted his head and drew himself up, standing on legs that swayed under him, shielding his eyes from the light with his arm.

Waiting.

"Niun!" It was Duncan's voice, from a ragged silhouette before the lights. "Don't fire. Niun, we have Melein aboard. She is not dead, Niun."

He went blank at that horrid shock, mind not functioning, and came near to falling. And then the kel-law echoed in his mind, reminding him that there was a she'pan to be served; and that above all else, he could not leave her alone in the hands of strangers.

"What do you want of me?" he cried, his voice breaking with fury, with rage at Duncan, and treachery, and dishonor. "Duncan, I remind you what you swore?"

"Come in," Duncan said. "Niun, come in with us. Safe conduct. I still swear it"

He hesitated, and the strength went out of him, and he made a gesture of surrender, and began, slowly, to walk into the lights, toward the silhouettes that waited for him, tall and human.

Better than the regul, at least.

And out of the tail of his eye, a squat dark form. He saw it, saw the move, knew treachery.

He palmed the as'ei, whirled and threw; and the fire took him, and he never felt the sand.

"Hada Surag-gi is dead," said Galey."The mri are hanging on."

Duncan wiped his face, and in the same gesture, swept the head-cloth off and ran his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair. He stumbled back through the narrow confines of the aircraft and shouldered past the medic who had already twice ordered him to keep his seat.

He sat down on the deck, unsteady in the motion of the aircraft, and regarded the two mri, wrapped in white, a tangle of tubing and monitoring connections from the automed units keeping their lives by means that the mri would find distasteful if they knew.

But they would have the chance to know.

"They're going to make it, both of them," the medic said. And then, frowning, with a glance at the sheet-wrapped hulk to the rear: "That particular regul was an officer of the Nom, with connections. There are going to be some questions asked."

"There will be some questions asked," Duncan said in a still voice, and looked at the mri, dismissing the medic from his mind. He sat with his legs tucked under him, still in the tattered and makeshift robes, and with his mind elsewhere; and at last the medic drew off to talk to the crew.

They had spoken little to him after the first excitement of recovering him alive; they were put off, perhaps, by the look of him, the strangeness of a man who had come alive from the desert of Kesrith, keeping company with mri and insisting with such vehemence on the possession of a mri treasure.

He touched Melein's brow, smoothed the metallic-bronze of her hair, noting the steady pulse on the monitors that assured him of their lives. Melein's golden eyes opened, the membrane cleared slowly back, and she seemed to be exploring the curious place that she had seen in her intervals of waking, rediscovering the strangeness that had taken them in. She was curiously calm, as if she had accepted to be here. He took her long slim fingers in his hand, and she pressed his hand with a faint effort

"Niun is all right," he told her. He was not sure she understood this, for there was not a nicker. "There is the object you wanted," he added, but she did not look; likely all these concerns were distant from her, for they were heavily drugged.

"Kel'en," she whispered.

"She'pan?" he answered: perhaps she confused him with Niun.

"There will be a ship," she said. "A way off Kesrith."

"There will be," he said to her, and reckoned that he had told her the truth.

The war was done. They were free of regul. A human ship—there would be that—a chance for them. It was the most the mri would ever ask of tsi'mri.

"There will be that," he said. She closed her eyes then.

"Shon'ai," she said, with a taut, faint smile. He did not know the word. But he thought that she meant acceptance.

The deck slanted. They were coming in. He told her so.

This is the story of three people: Sten Duncan,a soldier of humanity; Niun, last warrior of the mri, humanity's enemies; Melein, priestess-queen of the final fallen mri stronghold.

This is the story of two mighty species fighting for a galaxy: humanity driving out from Earth, and the enigmatic regul struggling to hold their stars with mri mercenaries.

This is a story of diplomacy and warfare, of conspiracy and betrayal, and of three flesh-and-blood people who found themselves thrown together in a life-and-death alliance.

This latest novel from the author of Brothers of Earth and Hunter of Worlds is top-flight science fiction worthy of the winner of the John W. Campbell Award.