Schwarzenegger’s voice from Predator fills his ears: “If it bleeds…we can kill it.” He never thought they would bleed, even as he’s watched dozens of them be destroyed.
The mask browns like aging ivory piano keys. Flowing rain of sulfur-smelling sand spills out. The physical transformation of the sword completes as the ivory mask crumbles to sulfur mist. The metal gleams and the Sandman explodes.
The tingle—as if his hand wakes from a numbing sleep—subsides. Reynard draws into a kata form, enjoying the exquisite balance of the weapon. Not even the most refined blade from the Calthos armory cuts with such agility and swiftness. He helicopters the blade in his right hand, moving into his next kata, slicing through the mask of an appearing Sandman. Sulfur flashes and vacant robes fall. Reynard smashes his katana into the neckline of a third Sandman. The faded ivory mask explodes, sending a shower of yellow pebbles to the floor. Its robes drop to the ground, empty.
Reynard kicks the cloth. “I should start a collection. I’d rival any Sand Killer.”
His own clan sword rests on the floor. He retrieves the blade, sliding it upside down in the designated loop on his gun belt.
The sword’s glow fades, returning the chamber to darkness.
The march from the antechamber leads to darkness. I need light. As if granting his wish, the sword glow increases, illuminating the passage.
He waves the sword as if playing with a Fourth of July sparkler. Before he writes his name in the air, the radiant energy shoots backward, engulfing him. He staggers back from the blast, slumping against the wall. The burn sucked all the breathable air away, leaving him without oxygen for seconds.
The copper-skinned woman grabs his arm to prevent him from collapsing.
“What happened?” he gasps.
“You accepted Calesvol.” Reynard notices her copper skin dims as she steadies him. “We all were offered the choice. It brought the blessing of the sword’s knowledge and the ability to control the weapon.”
“How do I control this weapon?”
“I will instruct you in—” Boney fingers punch through her chest, spraying Reynard in orange blood.
Reynard stabs the monster through the hole in the woman’s chest. The monster explodes in a rain of sulfur mist. He grabs for the copper girl as she fades from reality. Spitting more orange blood, she says, “The sword’s not…incorruptible.”
She vanishes.
WERE-APES SNARL-CHANT as they race after the lavender dragon.
“We must protect Fuzz.” Joe brandishes a sword in each of his four arms.
“He was willing to wear a collar with a commlink built into it until I build one for his tiny arms. I’ll transport him out.”
“Are you beaming us out?” JC asks.
She and Scott both swing their gun barrels at the noise to their left.
“You do and we may have lost the smerth’n cat.” Doug drops over a crumbling wall to join them. “Amye shot at Samantha. She ran off.”
JC scolds Scott with her eyes. “She’s gone too far this time.”
“It’s not a military ship. How do you expect to discipline her? If we were mercenaries, I’d simply dock her cut,” Scott says. If she cared for money.
“She went after the cat,” Doug adds.
“To finish the job?”
“I wasn’t smerth’n going to ask her. She hates me almost as much as she detests Samantha.”
“Now we have to go after her,” JC says.
“Three missing crewmembers and we still don’t know if Reynard’s here,” Scott says.
“And we have to deal with those ape things,” JC says.
“Athena.” Scott touches his watch. “Activate Beers descent program one.”
JC concentrates instead on locating Reynard’s mind. As close as we were, old man, I should sense you. Why didn’t you let me read this part of your memory? It wouldn’t change what happens to me.
“How close will your program bring the Dragon?”
“Top of the tree line. We’ve ten minutes to scan for Reynard, and then I beam us out and try Athena’s sensors.” Scott shoulders his rifle.
“We could just leave Amye here.” Doug smirks.
“And the cat?” Scott smiles.
JC scolds, “With that kind of warm welcome, I’d hate—”
Doug stammers, “Amye…Uh, we, we were worried about you.”
Amye leaps from the pile of ruined stone, covered in purple blood. “I can tell. Did you find Reynard?”
“Not…not yet.”
“Grow a pair, you sniveling git. The blood belongs to a straggling ape creature—not the cat.”
“You shot at her,” JC says.
“I shot near her. I don’t miss,” Amye affirms.
“Her aim’s impeccable.” Scott witnessed her pick off multiple Mokarran with a sniper rifle. “Where’d Sam go?”
Fluctuations on Doug’s scanner top out the charts. “Scott, a power surge sent the sensors off the chart.”
“Weapon?”
“Readings I’d expect from a hypergate.”
“Scan for Osirian life signs,” Amye orders. “It would take the energy of a hypergate to cross realities.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t. Logically, it would create an intense energy surge, creating a null field as when a ship exits hyperspace. Only more than is needed for jumping light-years.”
“The Sandmen leave behind no such traces.”
“Reynard’s not a Sandman.”
JC touches her commlink. “Commander Reynard.”
White noise.
“We don’t even know if he still has his watch.”
The Silver Dragon drops through the clouds, shadowing the crew.
Chants of the were-apes drown Scott’s order. Fuzz zips past overhead.
Joe cleaves his blades through the first two were-apes to leap over the rubble concealing the crew. JC fires. Amye shoves Doug back, blasting two more creatures.
The scanner bounces across the cobblestones as Doug stumbles to catch his balance. Amye saves him from being impaled on a spear.
Blinding white light engulfs the crew.
Fuzz bolts low over the crumbling stone, his tiny wings undeveloped to support long periods of flight. He stays above the underbrush that Samantha bounces through. Were-apes chant. His translator lacks the program to decipher the snarling growls.
He breaks. The aerodynamic shift almost sends him in a tumble to the ground as he doesn’t have full control over flight. Flapping faster, Fuzz hovers before three Sandmen. The ivory masks lack any swimming figures. They grab were-apes, ripping open their skulls.
As
