Orange flames rolled through the air like a Caladan hurricane, stripping towering ferns and leathery trees to the bare bones of branches in an instant. The fuel vapor was consumed swiftly, and Paul’s body shield protected him from the brief but devastating thermal shock wave, but the flashfire was enough to mow down most of the unprotected primitives, leaving them charred and flattened. The merest breath of the focused heat was enough to burn lungs to ash. Some survivors gasped, clutching their chests and throats, trying to inhale, but only smoke came from their mouths.
Most of the beautiful tapestries woven by the Sisters in Isolation had been crisped in the thermal bombardment, smoking as they curled. One of the primitives, her skin blackened, had wrapped herself in a tapestry to smother the fire.
Three dark-uniformed men appeared riding a suspensor platform above the canopy, hunting for their quarry. No longer stealthy killers, the assassins screeched as they fired projectiles from their platform. “For House Moritani!” They shot at Paul and Duncan, whose shields deflected the projectiles. At the moment, the assassins didn’t seem to care about any specific quarry.
Those primitives not killed by the incendiary bomb had begun to tally, grabbing weapons. Unshielded, they ran toward the three attackers — and were gunned down, their bodies ripped apart by projectiles.
Paul was not some pampered princeling who needed to be guarded every moment. He noted a flicker of indecision on Duncan’s face, which Paul easily interpreted. The Swordmaster was torn between two methods of keeping the young man safe — fight or escape. Paul made the choice for him. Only three assassins remained. “We’ve got to fight, Duncan. No more running. We’re safer if we stop them.”
With a bitter quirk of a smile, he said, “As you command, young Master.”
Shouting to each other in Atreides battle-language, the pair raced forward. Then, with a sword thrust so ferocious it went through the torso and out the back, Duncan dispatched the assassin who had called out in support of his Viscount.
Paul had no time to admire the kill because a second assassin tossed aside his depleted projectile weapon and retrieved a hooked dagger reminiscent of a fisherman’s gutting knife. Facing him, Paul stood in the correct stance, holding his own dagger and turning his shield to meet the hooked blade.
The killer wore a baggy, flexible hooded suit that encased his entire body. When Paul slashed with the dagger, he easily cut through the oily gray cloth. This wasn’t body armor, but a thermal suit. The three assassin- trackers must have expected to wade into an inferno. They probably had more incendiary bombs in their arsenal on the hovering platform.
Paul parried the barbed knife with his own, turned about, and thrust in, hoping to score a second slash, but the assassin fought with greater verve now that he had realized that this was no helpless boy.
With his entire focus on the combat at hand, Paul couldn’t watch Duncan. The universe had collapsed to nothing more than himself and his opponent. He felt no reluctance about killing this enemy. The massacre and the subsequent assassination attempts had left no room for doubt, and he would not hesitate if the opportunity presented itself. He had trained well for this.
Seeing Paul struggling, Duncan shoved his own adversary aside by using his shield to inflict a blow that sent the foe staggering. He spun and hamstrung Paul’s rival with a single slash of the notched sword. The man let out a brief gasp as he fell. Duncan flattened him with a kick and killed him with a thrust of the point, before turning to confront the remaining assassin.
These three hunters were ill prepared for a concerted resistance. Expecting the incendiary bomb to do their work for them, they had come here merely to recover bodies.
Seeing he was alone, the remaining killer produced a second dagger and leaped toward Duncan with a knife in each hand, yelling. In a blur of steel, Duncan thrust the Old Duke’s blade through the man’s abdomen. The assassin didn’t even try to evade the sword.
Thinking the fight was over, Paul resheathed his own dagger.
But the Moritani assassin, whether pumped up on a stimulant or on adrenaline and bloodlust, looked down at the long blade piercing his stomach — and kept coming, pressing himself forward as if the sword didn’t exist. He raised his two daggers as if they were lead weights and worked his way in through Duncan’s shield.
Duncan struggled with his trapped weapon, twisting to withdraw it, but the man was too close. The sword was caught in the man’s rib cage, and Duncan wrenched the hilt in a desperate gesture. The shield generator flickered off.
Paul drew his dagger again, bounded toward Duncan.
The impaled assassin grimaced and lurched forward along the sword blade, bending it. Paul couldn’t get there fast enough.
But like an unintelligible banshee, the silver-haired headwoman rose up behind the assassin and swung her fang-inset club. The blow against the back of the man’s skull sounded like the splitting of an overripe paradan melon.
DUNCAN AND PAUL used their field medical packs to help the surviving primitives, but even so, nearly three-quarters of the tribe had been wiped out by the flaming shock wave and projectile fire.
Paul looked around, sickened and unutterably exhausted. “If we were the targets, Duncan, why did they need to kill so many of these people?”
“Their attack shows desperation. I would speculate that these three were the last of those hunting us, but we can’t be certain of that.”
“So we just keep hiding?”
“The best alternative, I’d say.”
Like the previous group, the assassins’ bodies carried no obvious identification. Paul’s father, as well as Gurney and Archduke Armand, would soon be taking their military forces to Grumman for a full-scale attack — while he and Duncan were skulking about in the jungle.
When Paul spoke next, he used the powers of command that his father had taught him as Duke and his mother had shown him through Bene Gesserit exercises. “Duncan, we will return to Castle Caladan. Hiding hasn’t kept me any safer than if I’d remained with my father. I am the heir of House Atreides, and we need to be part of this. I will not turn my back in a fight… or a war.”
Duncan was alarmed. “I cannot guarantee your safety yet, young Master, and these repeated attacks prove there is continuing danger.”
“There is danger everywhere, Duncan.” Though he was not a large or muscular boy, Paul felt like a full- grown Duke. The last week had fundamentally changed him. “You saw it yourself — I am not protected or sheltered by staying here on Caladan. Even with our best efforts to hide in the most isolated of places, the assassins keep coming after me. And think of all those who have died because of us — these tribesmen, the Sisters in Isolation, Swain Goire. What is the point in further hiding? I would rather stand with my father.”
Paul saw Duncan wrestling with this decision. He could tell what the man
Finally, the Swordmaster wiped a hand through his curly black hair. “I would rather be on the battlefield at Grumman, no doubt about it. Our armies can protect you almost as well as I can.”
Paul smiled and nodded toward the notched and bent blade that had once belonged to the Old Duke. “Besides, Duncan, you need a new sword.”
PART V
Emperor Muad’Dib
10,198 AG
