Space Knight Page 9

  “Someone is coming for you,” she said. Her eyes twitched, and pupils and irises formed in their center. “You are in grave danger!”

  My heart raced as I stood. Had the thugs found me? I couldn’t let them hurt this diviner woman. I gripped my longsword, and the blade sang when I set it free from its scabbard.

  “Stay back,” I said over my shoulder. “These men have . . .”

  The diviner was nowhere to be seen, and her promise to point me toward the exit had disappeared along with her. But I had bigger problems to worry about now than missing the Stalwart. Gregory’s men were following me, and their scowls earlier said they intended violence.

  My senses were reeling from the peculiar mind-invasion, and my body swayed as I listened for my pursuers. I heard dirt crunch and whirled around. A rug wall swayed in the wind, but there was no sign of anyone.

  I quickly activated the longsword’s rune and pushed aside the rug with my left hand. Behind it was one of the atmospheric vents, gently blowing out air. Beside the vent, and hidden earlier by the rug, was a short pathway leading out from the Wayfarer tunnels. I was relieved to see it and guessed this was where the diviner had gone.

  Before I could escape along the path, a strong hand gripped me on the shoulder. I cocked my elbow and brought my sword up in two hands as the person pulled me around. When I’d turned completely, the longsword’s edge was resting against a thug’s neck.

  The man raised both hands. “I just want a chat,” he said. “Gregory thought he didn’t exactly leave you on the best of terms.” An assault rifle dangled from his shoulder, and I wondered where the other thug was. Something hard pressed against my back, and I didn’t need to wonder anymore. With all the blanket walls around me, there could be dozens of enemies waiting.

  “Put the sword down, hero,” a deep voice cracked from behind me. “You feel that? It’s my dagger against your spine. It’ll go shoot straight through your fancy armor and leave you a paraplegic. I call it my Knightslayer. Don’t suppose I need to tell you why.”

  “What do you want?” I kept my sword pressed against the other goon’s jugular.

  The goon with the gun narrowed his eyes. “Sword down, Hero.”

  I wasn’t ready to give up my newly acquired weapon, but I would have to wait for a bit so I could skewer these guys with my sword. We were in a quiet area now, but the rugs around us could be hiding a bunch of innocent Wayfarers. If bullets went flying, I didn’t want innocents to get harmed. The vent was behind me, and there wasn’t anyone there, so I had to ensure their gunfire was in that direction.

  Simple.

  I lowered my sword slowly. As soon as the thug had room to move, he clocked me with a hard right. Prot-fields only absorbed fast moving bullets, lasers, and plasma shots, so my neck snapped back with the impact of his fist. My vision flashed for a moment, and I tasted blood in my mouth.

  “Throw your sword on the ground,” the guy with the dagger said from over my shoulder.

  From the corner of my eye I could see the thug held a pistol in his other hand. He was close to me, and I could probably cut him down before he fired his weapon. Probably wasn’t good enough. I had to wait for a better moment. At least, for now, the two goons didn’t seem like they wanted to kill me.

  I let go of my longsword, and it stuck on my palm for a bit until the runes deactivated. The weapon clanged as it hit the ground. Then the guy in front of me kicked my sword, and it skittered six meters away from us before it bounced off the brick wall of the alley.

  “Gregory doesn’t want you killed,” he hissed. “Working for him isn’t all that bad, and it pays really well. You’d be an idiot to give it up.”

  These two hadn’t been in the enchantry so they couldn’t have known how adamantly I’d refused Gregory’s offer. Maybe I could string these thugs along for a bit. The situation might turn deadly when I told them where to shove Gregory’s offer. But I’d be prepared by then.

  “Tell the Hero what we’ll do otherwise!” the thug who’d punched me said.

  “Let’s just say we’d hate to dirty my Knightslayer on a squire.”

  “I thought you said you wanted to talk?” I asked the guy who’d hit me as I rubbed my jaw. The bastard had loosened one of my back teeth. If I managed to find a way out of this, I’d pay him back.

  The man grunted and massaged his right hand. In an instant, he dropped his rifle, and his left fist came flying toward me. I heard the other guy laugh, and the end of his pistol veered away even as the other man’s fist was about to slug me across the chin. I took a step back, and slammed my head into the guy behind me. The thug’s nose crumpled and he dropped his pistol as the other asshole’s blow narrowly missed my head.

  I could hear muffled cries behind me and knew the guy with the broken nose would be out of action for a bit. The thug in front of me placed his hands on his rifle and moved to turn it on me. I sprang at him and grabbed the gun before the business end could face me. My fingers closed around the upper receiver of his weapon as I punched it into the man’s face.

  I expected the asshole to fall away from me when I hit him, but the thug ignored the blow that had just split his eyebrow. He proceeded to devote his efforts to wrestling the firearm from my grip. The rifle slipped from his hands when he pulled away, clattering as it hit the ground three meters to our side.

  The thug grabbed my shoulders, bringing his knee up toward my groin in an effort to incapacitate me. I was quicker, and my own knee caught the man in his groin. He let out a gasp of surprised agony and tried to bend over, but I drilled his stomach with my fists before he could protect himself.

  The guy behind me was stirring, and I guessed he’d be back in action in a few seconds. I might have been able to take both men hand-to-hand, but the other guy still had his gun. My longsword was too far away from me to grab, so I spun around and elbowed him in his ugly face.

  My sharp blow tore off half his nose with a fan of blood, and it knocked a bunch of his teeth out with a spray of ivory. He tumbled to the side as I continued my spin back around. I was just in time to block the other goon’s side kick with my left knee. The sharp point of my leg caught his knee at the arch of his kick, and I heard his joint pop. He screamed when his leg broke, and I reached across his chest with my right hand, brought my left leg into his stomach, throwing him to the ground.

  I whirled back around to the man with the face I had opened with my elbow. He was crawling toward his dropped weapon like a scurrying rat trying to escape into his hole. I dashed toward him, but he managed to wrap his fingers around the gun’s grip and spin the barrel toward me before I could reach him. Fortunately, my foot managed to catch the side of his pistol. Luckily, the bullets fired in a wide arc and didn’t come anywhere close to hitting me.

  The man’s face was a mess of blood and jutting bone, so I was a bit surprised when he somersaulted backward and popped up on his feet with his fists raised. Although skinny, this guy was a head taller than the man whose leg I’d broken, so I was expecting punches with his long reach. Instead, he delivered a series of high kicks, and I blocked them all with my hands, forearms, and shoulders.

  The tall thug’s blows were like sledgehammers, and I winced with pain as I felt the powerful attacks beneath my armor. The man was strong, and I knew I would end up with some broken bones if this kept up. Unlike the other thug, this one could actually fight hand-to-hand.

  While I was blocking his kicks and wondering how long it would be until he shattered both my forearms, I realized something: He wasn’t throwing any punches. The way he had his guard up, along with how his feet were set, made me think he might have only been proficient in a kick-based fighting style. I wasn’t going to be able to match this guy with my own kicks, and he wasn’t letting me get close enough to box.

  I was going to have to risk a takedown, and hope I was better at grappling than he was.

  I leaned back when his next head kick came and stepped in before he could swing his knee around to hit me. I threw
a quick jab with my left, and the attack glanced off the thug’s cheek. It was just a feint really, but the man took the bait and leaned away to protect his face. The movement caused him to be slightly off-balance, and I wrapped my left arm around him in a bear hug while my right heel hooked around his grounded left foot.

  Then I lifted and prayed my tackle would work.

  “Haaaph!” he grunted when my body weight pushed all the air out of his lungs. I also heard the back of his skull bounce off the ground. I figured I’d half a second of an edge because of the blow, so I scurried up his torso. Each of my legs gripped the sides of his chest, and I squeezed my thigh muscles to pin him.

  The thug tried to bring his hands up to block my first palm strike, but he was a second too slow. His face was already ruined from my elbow, but his skull cracked against the ground with my second palm strike, and he stopped moving when my fourth blow split his skull.

  I rolled off the man’s chest and glanced at the last asshole crawling toward his gun. It looked like his broken knee was causing him a lot of agony, so he was still a few meters away from his weapon. Three steps brought me to his side, and I kicked out as if I was punting a rubber ball. The blow caught him on the side of the face, and I heard multiple snapping noises. His body collapsed immediately, and a nearly instantaneous flurry of emotions exploded from my gut.

  These two dead men were the first humans I’d ever killed, and a flurry of emotions tumbled down from my chest to my stomach. I was grateful because I was still alive, proud I’d been able to protect myself against guns, sad I had been forced to kill these men, and angry at myself for not being able to get away.

  We were supposed to be killing Grendels, not each other. These were my people, and I’d killed them because of a bullshit political schism.

  I ran over to my sword and heard shouting as soon as I lifted it from the ground. The two thugs who’d been with Gregory were standing ten meters down the alley, and they pointed rifles at me. I’d won two gambles, and I wasn’t willing to try for a hat trick. I pushed aside a rug wall with my left shoulder and entered the Wayfarer maze again.

  Guns screamed behind me as bullets shredded the rugs. I quickly spied some cover and ran for it. Screaming filled my ears as I jumped over a low retaining wall. All I could hear among the bursts of gunfire were the terrified wails of the Wayfarers. How many of them had been snagged by bullets? I needed to make a move before these thugs killed them all.

  Rugs parted everywhere, and confused men and women ran into the line of fire. I screamed out to them, but they couldn’t hear me. They were too terrified. I saw their frightened faces as they were mowed down. The gunfire didn’t stop though, and the men filled the Wayfarers with slugs until their cartridges were empty.

  People were groaning on the ground, somehow still alive after the murderous wave, but I couldn’t help them. The longer these thugs were alive, the greater the death tally would be.

  Guns started firing again. This time, the thugs aimed at me, but the bullets hit the bricks with a hundred thuds. I could tell now the goons weren’t particularly bright since they kept on shooting me from the same position, despite the ineffectiveness of their tactic.

  I wasn’t complaining. Their stupidity gave me time to run through how I’d thrown a forcewave earlier. With the sword in my hands now, I tilted my wrists so the blade ended over the right side of my body. The weapon thrummed with power.

  36:45

  I had to hurry this up.

  The thugs over the wall stopped firing their weapons, and I heard them fishing out new cartridges. I stood upright, planted my left hand on the wall, and swung both legs over the barrier.

  Before the men could finish loading their rifles, I swept my sword in a wide arc as I ran toward them, and a forcewave boomed out from the blade. My arms were still aching from blocking the tall guy’s kicks, but the sword’s rune effect meant I didn’t need a strong swing to produce an effective forcewave. The thug leaped out of the way, and a dozen rug walls flew from their wires as the blunt force of my prot-field punched through them. The forcewave continued ten meters until it hit an air vent. The machinery creaked under the pressure for half a second before the forcefield slammed into the engines. An explosion boomed from the vent and a volley of shrapnel fired out from it.

  “Oh, shit!” I yelled as I jumped out of the way of a Javelin sized hunk of shrapnel. It missed me by a half meter, and buried itself into the brick wall behind me.

  Metal shards minced the rugs still hanging from the cables, and I heard the thugs behind me scream. I jumped to my feet as soon as the sound of chaos ended and glanced at the destruction. The atmospheric fan was mangled, and both thugs had been caught by the debris.

  One was on the ground twelve meters away from me, screaming and clutching his foot where a two-inch metal rod pinned it to the ground. His rifle was out of reach, so I left him to continue wailing and turned to my other attacker.

  What I saw left me speechless.

  Fragments of iron jutted out from along the goon’s body, and it seemed like this man had been a human magnet. The thug’s hands shook in front of him, as though he wanted to start tearing out bits of metal but didn’t know where to start.

  The man jerked toward me, and I looked away. Metal shards the size of toothpicks impaled his eyes, and his eyelids were shredded from where he’d tried to blink. The goon coughed blood and then dropped face first onto the path. Under his weight, the metal rods sticking out of his guts slid deeper into his corpse.

  The other thug had torn himself from the rod and a bloody puddle gathered around his mangled foot. I might have marveled at his courage except he had picked up his rifle, which was now fully-loaded, and pointed it at me.

  I flanked the goon as he pulled the trigger. I left my longsword in my right hand while the fingers of my left hand danced across my new belt. The buttons were in the same place as my Novice belt, so I was able to activate the code for my speed sequence easily. My strides lengthened as bullets punched holes in the remaining rugs but didn’t hit me. This was the kind of move most knights had trouble with, but I’d practiced it countless times in the Academy’s battle rooms. If my life were a virtual game, it would be my signature move.

  I recalled the practice inside Max’s enchantry and twisted my wrist as I shoved my new blade forward in a thrust. A forcewave boomed out from my sword and caught the man in the abdomen. His legs and arms reached forward as he gained air, and his eyes bulged. He broke through another vent and hit the giant fan with a sickening crash. Blood sprayed out from the fan shaft like someone had pricked a gigantic balloon filled with red dye.

  I deactivated the speed burst. I wasn’t wearing a helmet, so I didn’t have a readout on my visor to tell me how much of my prot-field remained while I was fighting, but my belt’s interface said they were at 50%. It would replenish in under a minute because of the new cuirass, but I didn’t want to fight any more of Gregory’s men.

  I needed to get the hell out of here and jump on the Stalwart.

  The rugs forming this section of the Wayfarer tunnel system were now on the ground. There were bulges in places, and I tried not to think of the dead or injured Wayfarers who might be beneath them. Above me, the network of steel cables running from building to building was now bare. The loss of life filled me with rage. Gregory would pay for this one day, but I couldn’t bring him justice quite yet. When I finished my assignment, I’d find a way to make things right.

  I turned back to make my escape when two more of Gregory’s henchmen appeared in the alley ahead of me.

  “How many of you guys are there?” I yelled in exasperation. I couldn’t see myself ever getting to the Stalwart on time if these assholes kept coming at me. I’d gotten lucky so far, but my luck wouldn’t last forever.

  The pair were twenty meters away, and I dove over a staircase as a wave of bullets chased me. One hit my forcefield and pinged off. A glance at my belt told me one bullet had dropped my prot-field to 45%. I wouldn’t b
e able to take many hits and still fire forcewaves.

  More projectiles peppered the wall I was hiding behind, and mortar sprayed my hair and face. Windows shattered in the apartment building at the top of the staircase and the screams that followed made my blood boil.

  “See what you’ve done, Hero?” one of the thugs yelled. “You made us kill these people. All you had to do was accept Gregory’s proposal. But, no, you’re too good for that.”

  I ducked behind the concrete again, but the bullets didn’t come for me. I heard the roar of rifles and saw bits of mortar fulminate from the buildings around the massive courtyard. Glass shattered, and more screams accompanied the sound of gunfire.

  I thought about all the people who might have been inside those buildings and screamed with rage. Anger fueled my steps as I leaped over the railing and zig-zagged toward my enemies. My prot-field sparked as it prevented bullets from hitting my armor, and I tried not to think about how little power remained.

  I punched in the code for the speed sequence while my left hand took my sword. The runes illuminated as the magic triggered, and the boost allowed me to close the gap without getting hit. One of them lifted his rifle to strike me with the stock, but I swung my new blade into his stomach before he could bring the weapon down. My longsword tore through his armor as if it was made of paper, and blood sprayed from the wound. The man’s torso fell off his hips, and I dove toward the last gunman.

  The other goon hadn’t fired on me, and as I ran toward him I knew why. The weapon had misfired, and he was staring at it with surprise. I figured the goon would turn to run, but he simply dropped the weapon, grinned at me, and pulled out a two-handed axe from a harness on his shoulder.