Warlord and the Waif by Chloe Parker
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
ELLA
IT TURNS OUT Oddí is full of people chomping at the bit to escape.
Jack, Lucien, and I lead the crowd through the city streets, picking up more angry indentures as we go along. There’s at least three hundred of us, and I’m getting concerned that we won’t all fit on the Fury when Jack turns and faces the group, stepping up onto a fountain.
“Oy!” he calls, his voice somehow amplified. The mob pauses, and he raises his sword toward the spaceport. “We’re going to need a distraction! I call on a few able sailors to head to the spaceport and hijack the Hyperborean ships.”
“We’ll be shot down!” someone replies from the crowd, but Jack shakes his head.
“Once we’ve taken the Fury, we’ll provide cover from orbit,” he replies, “We need this distraction to succeed, and all it will take is a few brave souls if we take them by surprise. Say aye if you dare!”
People start to emerge from the crowd; men, women, and everything in between. They form a smaller group apart from us and trek toward the spaceport, heading to the right while we branch off to the left.
“And the rest of you!” Jack says, “We might have the harder job. First, we’ll have to take on the city guard. Then there’s a Hyperborean force of sixty at the castle, including three magisters with thousands of years in psychokinetic combat under their belts.”
The crowd quiets, hanging on his every word.
“But we have the larger force, and the drive to get off this planet. Some of us will die, but death would be better than eternal life on this planet. And I know that I, for one, can’t wait to see the stars again. Tonight, we finally escape Myste!”
The crowd roars, and my heart pounds in anticipation.
Jack leaps down and strides onto the main boulevard, his long black coat billowing around him as he leads us in the direction of the castle. I don’t have to hurry to keep pace, adrenaline pulsing through me. I pull my hood up over my hair to stay hidden; I can’t fight, and the little dagger Jack gave me won’t do much good against someone like Ioni. My job is to get down to the castle’s dungeon and free Calder and Portia with Lucien’s help.
“Why didn’t you try hijacking the ships at the spaceport before?” I ask Jack, breathless with exhilaration, “If you could have escaped, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t.”
Jack shakes his head.
“There’s a satellite in orbit that will shoot down any prohibited spacecraft,” he says, the words strange in his archaic accent, “The only ship on Myste that can match the defense satellite is the Fury; once we’re there, we can eliminate the threat and get a whole pirate fleet off-world.”
“You think we can do it?” Lucien asks, “Defeat Ioni and her retinue? I watched her fight Calder; she’s strong.”
Jack smirks, glancing at me.
“Apparently we have the power of love on our side.”
I don’t know if he’s messing with me, but I don’t care.
We’re about halfway to the bridge when the City Guard notices us, stationed along the main boulevard between Kaer Idunn and the spaceport. One of them approaches us, raising his hand, and I don’t even see the gun before I hear a bullet fire and see smoke rising from a shiny revolver in Jack’s hand.
I guess we’re not going for subtlety.
I duck as chaos erupts around me and I hear a blast of noise from the spaceport behind us. Jack pulls out a blade made of some kind of alien metal, and grins at me and Lucien.
“Good luck!” he says before he jumps into the fray.
Lucien gives me a horrified look.
“Follow me!” I shout.
I throw the cloak over the little alien and duck low, then push my way onto the bridge.
My memory swims in and out from the last time I did something like this, fleeing the National Guard at a protest in D.C. They were shooting rubber bullets at the crowd, and muscle memory reminds me how to dodge and weave around other panicked protesters, making sure I don’t get trampled as I go. We’re fairly secure in the center of the rebel group, but I know it’s a sheer drop down onto the planet’s surface if I’m not careful. People are screaming all around us, shouts of rage and pain ringing into the fog.
“I thought you’d be used to this,” I whisper to Lucien as he trembles at my side.
He shakes his head vigorously.
“I was the ship’s navigator,” he says, “I liked to stay on the ship. Which is what I’ll be doing after we get out of here.”
A Hyperborean lands on his back in front of us and I grab Lucien’s arm to yank him away, only to see what looks like a massive wolf jump on the guard and maul him. The beast glances up at us with a feral grin before it gallops away, shoving another guard into the darkness as it carves out a path for us.
“Was that a…was that a werewolf?” I gasp.
“Shifters,” Lucien sighs, “This isn’t the part I missed.”
I can do nothing but take it all in stride.
We continue across the bridge, the sound of combat never ceasing. I watch aliens of all kinds doing battle with the Hyperboreans, engaging them with swords, ancient pistols, and makeshift weapons. I can’t imagine it’s easy to get that kind of thing in a prison city, but Jack’s mob isn’t lacking in ways they can kill, some of the aliens having built-in weapons in the form of claws, clubs, and pincers. The chaos is overwhelming, and it seems like victory is assured with the massive advantage we have in numbers.
“Lucien, the gate!”
A break appears in the crowd where the shifter carved its way through, and the gate looms ahead of us. Lucien scrambles around in his pockets for the key, and I give him a concerned glance as we get closer.
“Did you lose it?” I demand, and he shakes his head frantically.
“No, it’s got to be here somewhere!” His eyes go wide and he pulls it out of his pocket, attached to a chain. “Aha!”
That’s when I hear an awful screech.
I look up to see one of the magisters — the one on my left from dinner last night — fly over the gate and onto the bridge, his eyes black as night.
“We need to hide!” I tell Lucien, scooping him into the cloak and hustling to our left. He sprints to keep up with me as we move forward with the crowd, still agitated and still bloodthirsty as they surge toward the magister.
The Hyperborean is tough, but there’s no way he can take all of us. At least that’s what I think until he flings a hand toward the mob and a wave of energy pulses out of him, slicing through the fighters to our right like they’re paper. He raises his hand to do his deadly trick once again, only for Jack to step in front of us, putting out his arm. A blue pulse stretches ahead of us, protecting us from the wave, and I gape at him.
“Looked like you needed a little help,” he says with a cocky grin.
I almost laugh in shock, then he’s running straight at the magister, flanked by a group of three massive wolves. I can’t believe what I’m seeing when he engages the Hyperborean in battle, the wolves nipping at the magister’s heels as he tries to keep up with Jack’s strikes. I catch sight of the wolves pulling him to the ground before Lucien grabs me, gesturing around the magister at the gate.
“Don’t get distracted!” he warns, “We can get around him with Portia’s cloak. Let’s move!”
I hold my breath when we get close to the magister, huddling into Portia’s clock with Lucien. I’m glad Portia’s taller than me, otherwise I don’t know that we would be able to do it, but we manage to slip by, Lucien extending his arm to hold the key out to the door.
The pieces start to drift away, leaving it exposed. The crowd surges behind us once again, flooding around the magister as he starts to lose control, and I glance back with an anxious stare.
He sees us.
The magister rounds on us, raising a hand as Jack’s eyes go wide. I see it in slow motion, throwing myself to the ground and shoving Lucien out of the way.
But it’s too late. The pulse goes right through the little alien, sending him stumbling forward as the gate opens completely. Jack’s blade hits the magister too late, but ends him all the same.
I rush toward Lucien, grasping the alien’s hand. But he’s already cold, the key limp in his fingers as the mob floods around us. I’ve never seen someone I know die before, and I’m flooded with panic and rage, tears burning the corners of my eyes.
“There’s no time,” Jack’s voice drifts out from behind me, putting a firm hand on my shoulder, “We’re through the gate, but this isn’t over yet. Let’s do him proud and take his ship back to the stars.”
I nod and stand on shaky legs, taking the key from Lucien’s hand. Hanging on its chain, it reminds me of my brother’s dog tags, pulling them from the box of his effects when the army came to our front door and told us he was dead.
It only strengthens my resolve.