Chapter Thirty-Seven

The Charred clambering onto the deck howled and shouted at him, which served—beautifully—to draw the attention of the ones inside the ship. They left the door to the cockpit that Zeal and Rebeke had been defending, and piled out to join their fellows on the deck—as they had just found a far more engaging fight.

Nomad tried to form a spear but felt resistance in the action—his soul was still being lanced, and some remnants of the canker remained. Instead he held his hands forward and formed a simple bo staff—a length of silvery metal six feet long. For some reason, leaving the spearhead off made it work, and he cocked a smile—remembering a similar story told to him by a friend from long ago.

He made a hole in the haft the proper size, then slid the offworlder's sunheart inside so he could touch it while holding the weapon. As he did, Auxiliary oohed—which was distinctively amusing in his monotone.

I can feel the power of that sunheart growing, the knight says. I…I might be able to draw upon the Investiture you are putting into it. Why? I can't use the power of the canker on your soul.

"Filtered and purified, maybe," he said, raising his staff. "Not really the time to ponder it."

This will give you a few hundred BEUs. Use them well.

He'd need to. Some twenty Charred—crawling up over the side of the ship or scrambling out from inside the cab—surrounded him. Even the one he'd punched earlier stood up, his cinderheart flaring with passion.

Twenty to one. Bad odds, even for one such as him. Still, he launched into the first group of them, determined to keep as much open space around himself as possible. His worst danger here was getting pulled down, smothered, overwhelmed. Hopefully they'd underestimate him. Either way, to win against such superior numbers, his best option was to hit quickly, hit repeatedly, and keep the enemy uncertain.

Fortunately, if there was one lesson he'd learned well over the years, it was how to keep moving.

He crashed among the Charred, throwing several of them back. Glowing cinderhearts lit the deck like a fading midnight campfire—washed out occasionally by white lightning from above. Three swung batons, which Nomad expertly deflected, his muscles—and soul—as eager for this as he was. He slammed one behind the knee with the bottom of his staff—sending her sliding to the deck in the rain—then shoved aside another before stepping back and swinging the end of the staff up with the force of a man who had been held back too long.

Lightning flashed as he hooked the third Charred under the chin with enough power to send him into the air—teeth exploding from his mouth when lower jaw met top.

Nomad spun directly into the next batch, rainwater spraying from his arms as he swept around—dropping the staff and dismissing it while snatching the sunheart out of the air—and formed a shield that blocked the next three attacks. He heaved forward—hurling them back—then dropped the shield just in time to form another staff and come in swinging at the woman he'd tripped earlier.

He hit her with the force of a thunderclap, sending her soaring off the deck, spraying water.

Another swing sent a Charred to the deck, skull cracking against the steel.

His next attack dropped three at once with a sweep to the legs.

The next broke an arm, forcing the Charred to drop her weapon and howl in pain as Nomad sent the woman into a pile of her companions with a swift kick.

He was the rain, suddenly freed from the cloud and cast into the sky. He was the lightning, so eager to move that it jumped through empty space with frenzied splintering. He was the thunder that hit when you weren't expecting it, warping the air with its rhythms. He was the storm. Falling on foreign lands, but still the same as it had always been.

He threw Charred aside like dolls. He shattered bones, dropped people off the side into the mud, flung them out in the rain. On this world, they were elite warriors—but this was a planet where men did not train for battle, and it had never seen anything like him before.

The cab, Nomad, Auxiliary said—watching out for him, even as Nomad was using his carcass as a weapon. One Charred, sneakier than the rest, had slipped through to the cockpit while Zeal and Rebeke watched Nomad fight.

As the creature reared up behind them—the glow from its chest bloodying the chamber—Nomad skidded up outside. Then—with a firm demand—he gave the order.

Spear!

A glittering spearhead etched with patterns from his homeland formed from mist on the end of the staff just as he rammed it right through the windshield, sending the spear into the cinderheart of the Charred inside.

The cinderheart cracked. The light went out. The creature's eyes burned, each giving off a puff of dark smoke as the body collapsed backward.

The Charred who had been battling on the deck all froze. That gave Nomad enough of a breather to see the stunned Rebeke and Zeal gaping at him. They belatedly turned toward the dead Charred behind them, then looked back at him with expressions that were somehow even more amazed.

Nomad, Auxiliary said, you're flirting with low levels of Investiture. You haven't had a chance to fully regain your enhanced strength and endurance. You can't defeat all of these creatures.

Unfortunately there was truth to that. The Charred, now wary, were getting up. Gathering themselves and healing. They might not be trained, but they were strongly Invested, while he was running on fumes. Their next assault wouldn't underestimate him so soundly.

Nomad reached in and whipped the spear back, then raised his hands—one holding the spear—toward Zeal in a gesture that Nomad considered the universal symbol for, "What the hell?" He then waved his hand upward, to indicate they should take off.

Zeal cringed and nodded, going for the controls. Nomad turned toward the remaining Charred, gathered hesitantly at the bow of the small deck. Their caution told him they could still feel fear. The Cinder King's control wasn't absolute.

It does make me feel guilty, the knight notes, that we have to treat them like this. They're victims too.

It was truth, but one that Nomad had long ago made peace with. You didn't always get to fight the right people. In fact, you often had to fight the wrong ones—at least until you could stop the men and women who gave the orders.

Perhaps there was another option today. He fell into a stance, spear at the ready. Then, to the beat of thunder and the applause of lightning, he began spinning and twisting, moving his spear through an intimidating set of training maneuvers.

They called it the Chasm Kata. The very first he'd ever seen, and he knew firsthand how intimidating it looked. Stepping forward with each twist of the spear, each foot hitting like a drumbeat—solid and firm despite the slick surface. The spear spun so fast, it reflected nearby cinderhearts almost like a mirror. Battering back the rain, an extension of himself—flipping, spinning, then lunging for a split second. Like frozen lightning.

Then motion again, ever advancing, step after inevitable step. Forward toward the watching Charred, who—with unconscious alarm—pulled back. They huddled against the railing of the bow, and behind them—hovering close on his own ship—Nomad saw a pair of glowing eyes in the darkness. The Cinder King, watching. Awed. Maybe even scared.

Yes… Nomad could see it was true, for the Cinder King's terror was manifest on the horrified faces of the Charred to whom he was linked. The man was realizing how lucky he was that Nomad hadn't agreed to duel him. He was realizing exactly how dead he would be if the fight had come to him.

Nomad came to the final spin and step, planting his feet, spear fully extended so that it nearly touched the closest Charred. Then he swept backward into a standing position, dismissing the spear and catching the little offworlder sunheart in one hand. He arranged his arms in a cross pattern, wrists touching, and softly mouthed the words.

"Bridge Four."

They couldn't know the weight those words had for him. But the entire display—with the dead Charred behind him in the cab and the ship finally taking off—was enough. The surviving Charred scrambled off the ship, fleeing before him, dropping to the mud below.

He suspected they'd never have broken like that if the Cinder King hadn't been there, watching and realizing with horror what he'd almost encountered.

Or perhaps Nomad was just projecting emotions onto the man. He was too distant now to make out his expression. Regardless, as they fled into the night with the sunhearts, no one gave pursuit.