Chapter 5

five

. . .

Katarina

"THAUMAS!"

His name tore from my throat, raw and ragged, as I watched him fall. The smoking hole in his chest seared itself into my retinas, a waking nightmare I knew would revisit me for the rest of my days.

If I lived that long.

The mercs closed in around his crumpled form, Vex swaggering forward with a look of vicious triumph. He kicked Thaumas's limp wing, cackling when he got no response.

"HA! Not so high and mighty now, are you, beaky? Guess you griffins can die like anyone else if you pump enough plasma into ‘em."

White-hot rage exploded behind my eyes, narrowing my world to a single, crystalline point. Through the static roaring in my ears, I heard Thaumas's voice, steady and sure.

Righteous violence in the face of evil is a badge of honor, not a stain on your soul.

My hand closed around the hilt of my dagger. Thirteen inches of Accatran steel, honed to a lethal edge. The weapon of a warrior. I'm glad I paid attention when he gave me a impromptu lesson on dagger usage days ago.

I was moving before I realized I'd decided. I leaped from my perch on the outcropping, hitting the ground at a dead run. The mercs whirled to face me, momentarily shocked still by my suicidal charge.

Their hesitation cost them dearly.

I fell on the first knot of them like an avenging angel, my blade flashing in the harsh sun. Thaumas's lessons echoed in my head as I slashed and parried, dancing between grasping hands and stabbing blades.

Watch your footing. Maintain your center. Use your agility. Anticipate!

I didn't think. I just moved, instinct and desperation fusing into a cold fury that lent preternatural speed to my limbs. I hamstrung a hulking Gorlian, spun to rake my edge across the eyes of a knife-wielding Zypheran. Hot blood splashed my face, filling my mouth with the coppery taste of rage.

They fell before me, these hardened killers, crumpling like broken dolls as I carved a crimson path through their ranks. I could feel myself screaming, a high, keening wail that never seemed to run out of breath.

Vex watched me approach, his face slack with shock. He fumbled for his blaster, but I was already on him, batting the weapon aside with contemptuous ease.

He stumbled back, stark terror filling his eyes as I pressed my blade to the pale column of his throat. He held up his hands in a pathetic, warding gesture, cringing away from my gore-streaked face.

"W-wait! Please, don't...I was just following ord-ack!"

I shut him up with a swift kick to the balls, driving him to his knees. I fisted a hand in his greasy hair, wrenching his head back to expose his bobbing Adam's apple.

"You shot Thaumas," I said, my voice a flat, terrifying thing I hardly recognized. "You HURT him."

"I...I didn't, it wasn't me! It was one of the men! I never."

I twitched my wrist, my blade dimpling his pasty flesh. A single drop of blood welled around the razor edge. Vex made a thin, mewling sound, his bowels loosening with an audible squelch.

"You're the leader. You give the orders. Which makes you responsible for every fucking thing these bastards do." I leaned in, my breath hot against his ear. "I should gut you like the worm you are. Leave you to steam on the sand like the scavenger filth that raised you."

He let out a reedy sob, piss staining the front of his overpriced jumpsuit. "Please, I'll give you anything. Money, weapons, women, power. Zarath rewards his loyal soldiers handsomely! Join us and… "

"Shut. Up." I twisted the knife, opening a shallow cut along his bobbing throat. "I wouldn't piss on Zarath if he was on fire. I serve no master, least of all a limp-pricked slaver like him. Or you."

Vex shivered, the acrid scent of his fear turning my stomach. "What do you want?" he whispered hoarsely.

My lips peeled back from my teeth in a feral snarl. "I want you to deliver a message to your boss. Tell him Katarina Mayberry is coming for him. Tell him his days of preying on the innocent and helpless are over. And tell him that when I find him - and I WILL find him - I'm going to carve his withered heart from his chest and feed it to him one putrid bite at a time."

I shoved Vex away in disgust, sending him sprawling in the bloody dust. "Get out of my sight," I spat. "Before I change my mind about mounting your head on a fucking wall."

He scrambled backwards, crab-walking in blind panic. "You're crazy!" he screeched, staggering to his feet. "You think you can take on the whole Syndicate alone? We'll hunt you down! Gut you like a - eep!"

His tirade cut off in a squeak as I hurled my dagger, burying it to the hilt in the sand a mere inch from his crotch.

"I won't be alone," I promised grimly. "I'll have every pirate, merc, and miscreant in the sector on my side once they hear the Obsidian Syndicate has gone soft. There's nothing more dangerous than a clever victim with powerful friends..."

My eyes flicked to Thaumas's crumpled body, my heart seizing. "...And nothing she won't do to protect what's hers. Now fucking run, before I decide to geld you with that pretty pig-sticker you're pissing yourself over."

Vex needed no further encouragement. He bolted like the hounds of hell were snapping at his designer heels, vanishing over the stony ridge in a plume of panicked dust.

I held my fierce pose for a long moment, making sure he and his surviving goons were well and truly routed. Only when the hum of their departing hover-engines faded did I allow my shoulders to slump, the bravado draining out of me like a lanced boil.

"Thaumas," I croaked, turning on wobbly legs to stagger toward his prone form. I crashed to my knees beside him, tears blurring my vision as I reached for him with shaking hands.

Blood matted his once-glorious plumage, and a cruel hole in his broad chest continued to leak a steady crimson tide. Those keen amber eyes were closed, his noble face slack and still.

"Don't you dare," I choked out, pressing trembling fingers to the underside of his jaw. Searching desperately for a pulse, a breath, any sign of life. "Don't you fucking dare leave me, you stupid bird! Fight, dammit! I need you!"

For a long, terrible moment, there was nothing. No flutter, no rise of his ravaged chest. The entire world seemed to hold its breath, narrowing down to the cooling body of the fierce, beautiful creature who'd stormed into my life and changed everything.

Then, so faint, I thought I imagined it... a pulse. A single, stubborn thread of life, clinging to the edge of oblivion.

A sob tore from my throat, my entire being shaking with relief. "That's it, baby. Come back to me. I've got you."

With the utmost care, I gathered his enormous body into my arms, cradling his head against my chest. My fingers carded through his crest, sticky with blood but achingly gentle.

"Stay with me," I whispered, pressing my lips to his feathered brow. "You're going to be okay. I'll fix this, I promise. Just hold on."

Summoning every ounce of strength left in my battered body, I heaved Thaumas up and over my shoulder in a fireman's carry. He was twice my size and three times my weight, but desperation lent me the power of ten men.

Staggering only slightly, I began the long, arduous trek down the side of the plateau, heading for the distant glint of the transport Thaumas and I arrived in. If I could get him back to the cramped bolt-hole we'd claimed as our own, tend to his wound with the meager med supplies on hand...

It was a fool's hope, a one-in-a-million shot. But it was all I had. Thaumas needed more help than I could provide, but who could I turn to? With every hand raised against us, I pondered, who on this blighted rock could I rely on to care for my wounded guardian?

By the time I reached the battered little hauler, my lungs were burning and my muscles screamed in agony. But I didn't slow down, determination propelling me up the ramp and into the tiny medbay.

As gently as I could with my flagging strength, I laid Thaumas out on the narrow cot, arranging his wings and limbs into a position that looked halfway comfortable. My hands shook as I pawed through the cabinets, searching for anything that might stem the terrifying flow of blood from his chest.

Disinfectant. Clotting agent. Pressure bandages. I tossed them on the cot, my field medicine courses from a lifetime ago rising from the depths of memory.

"This might sting a bit," I told Thaumas's still form, my voice cracking on a wobbly smile. "But no pain, no gain, right? You'd probably make some dumb joke about me playing nurse right about now."

Silence. Gods, what I'd give to hear one of his stupid bird puns.

Blinking back tears, I set to work. I cleaned the wound as best I could, wincing at the alarming amount of blood that refused to clot. Biting my lip, I packed the hole with gel foam and wrapped his chest tightly, praying to gods I didn't believe in it would be enough.

"There," I said, tying off the bandage with a trembling knot. "Good as new. You'll be cracking terrible yolks and critiquing my knife work again in no time."

I stroked his face, my fingers lingering on the tick of his pulse. Sluggish, but still there. Still fighting.

But for how much longer? Thaumas needed a proper doctor, a fully equipped medbay. As it was, infection and blood loss would do what Vex's blaster couldn't.

Despair crashed over me, heavy and smothering. Was this how it ended? After everything we'd been through, every impossible odd defied, would I lose him like this? Bleeding out in a filthy hauler while I watched, helpless to do anything but pray?

"Katarina..."

I jolted, hardly daring to breathe. That voice, little more than a thready rasp...

"Thaumas?" I leaned over him, tears spilling down my cheeks. His eyelids fluttered, glazed amber peeking through his lashes.

"Kat...you're okay? The mercs..."

"Shh, don't try to talk," I soothed, pressing my fingers to his bristly cheek. "Vex is gone. Ran off with his tail between his legs. I gave him a message for Zarath."

His beak twitched in a shadow of his usual smirk. "That's my girl. Fierce as any warrior. Knew you'd...make me proud..."

I caught his taloned hand, pressing it to my wet cheek. "You can't leave me," I whispered brokenly. "I can't do this without you."

His eyes softened, the wry acceptance in their golden depths cleaving my heart in two. "You can...you will. You're strong, Kat. A fighter...survivor..."

His lids drooped, his words slurring. "Proud to know you...my brave...beautiful...wench..."

And with that, he slipped back into unconsciousness, leaving me weeping over his bloody form.

I don't know how long I knelt there, my head bowed over our clasped hands as I sobbed. It could have been minutes or hours. Time lost all meaning in the face of my grief and terror.

But eventually, the tears ran out. The hitching sobs eased, replaced by a cold, clear resolve.

Thaumas believed in me. He'd seen my potential from the start, even when I was just a scared, scarred Earther adrift in a hostile universe.

He'd been my compass, my lighthouse. My guardian angel with wicked claws and a razor wit.

Now it was my turn to guard him.

I rose to my feet, every muscle protesting. My jaw set. I activated the hauler's long-range comm system.

"This is Katarina Mayberry to any friendlies in the sector. I have a Griffin down, seeking immediate medical assistance. Repeat, Griffin warrior gravely injured and in need of help. Will trade weapons, credits, intel. Please...if anyone can hear me..."

I swallowed hard, my pride screaming at me to shut up, cut the comm. Never show weakness to potential enemies.

But what choice did I have? If there was even the slightest chance that someone out there would answer my desperate plea...

"He's dying," I said baldly, my voice cracking. "The Griffin...Thaumas, he...he took a blaster round to the chest. I've done what I can, but it's not enough. Please, if there are any doctors, medical frigates, anything...I'll pay any price. Just help me save him."

Static crackled across the open channel, the faint clicking of auto-relays the only sign my message was transmitting at all.

Please, I prayed, my eyes squeezing shut. Please let this fucking work. Don't let it end like this. Not when we're so close...

And just as despair choked me again, a voice burst through the white noise. Gruff, accented, shot through with urgency.

"You read? Repeat, Mayberry, this is Captain Raza Bloodclaw of the Crimson Claw. We are receiving you. What is your location, over?"

My legs nearly gave out from sheer, dizzying relief. "I read you, Captain," I managed, my voice shaking. "Sending coordinates now. Please hurry. He doesn't have much time."

"Acknowledged. Stay on this frequency. The Claw is en route, ETA seven minutes. Prep the patient for emergency evac. Raza out."

The comm link clicked off. I slumped against the bulkhead, my heart still trying to outrace my ribs. Seven minutes. Just seven minutes, and the cavalry would arrive.

But would it be enough? Would this Raza Bloodclaw and his mysterious ship reach us before Thaumas succumbed to his wounds?

I pushed away from the wall, staggering back to the medbay on leaden feet.

"Hear that, big guy?" I whispered as I smoothed a fresh bandage over Thaumas's bloody chest. "The Claw is coming. You'll be sipping Akkadian brandy and trouncing Yargo at Clack-Tock again before you know it."

Thaumas, of course, didn't answer. But I fancied I saw his eyelids flicker, ever so slightly. A faint twitch of recognition, perhaps. Or a trick of the dim light and my own wishful thinking.

I pressed a soft kiss to his feathered brow, lingering for a long moment. "Stay with me," I breathed. "I'm not letting you off the hook that easy, bird brain. We've got a score to settle with a certain slaving scumbag, remember?"

I adjusted his makeshift pillow and tucked a shock blanket around his lower half. Gods, he looked so vulnerable like this. Stripped of his cocksure smirk and deadly grace. Just...broken. Diminished.

But not defeated. Never defeated.

My hands fisted at my sides. No, we weren't done. Not by a long shot. This was just a detour, a bump in the road.

We'd get Thaumas patched up. Make some powerful new friends. Then, when he healed and became fighting fit again, we would take the battle to Zarath once and for all.

The Obsidian Syndicate picked the wrong girl to fuck with twice. And now, with a fierce, beautiful avenging Griffin at my side, well...

Their time of preying on the innocent and helpless was ending.

But my focus would always be on one thing first - protecting the overgrown turkey that flew into my life and stole my heart.

I settled into the single chair by the cot, preparing for a long, anxious vigil. "Hear that, Thaumas?" I murmured, lacing my fingers with his. "I'm not going anywhere. You're stuck with me, buddy. Only death gets to take me from your side, and I'm not ready to give that bony bitch the satisfaction yet."