Skybreach (The Reach #3) (41 page)

Roman swung the arms of the RECS at the Redman, who moved lithely to one side.  The blow glanced off his armour ineffectually, and then the Redman danced closer, inside the arc of the machine’s elongated limbs.  His gasmask-clad face pressed close, filling Roman’s view, and then he shoved his weight against the RECS, forcing it backward.

Roman knew that he should avoid tussling physically with the Redmen, as Remus had suggested, and yet here he was, heaving against one like a sumo wrestler.  It was not like he had much say in the matter.  The Redman had come at him, and he had been too fast to outrun, too
agile to keep at bay with the ungainly arms of the RECS.

There was no choice now but to flail away at him from close range.

Roman scraped a claw at the Redman, scratching his armour, and then the Redman twisted to one side, clenching one arm of the RECS with both hands.  He yanked savagely, using all his strength, and Roman felt the machine lurch to one side in response.

The Redman ducked another blow, then pulled again, and now Roman could see what was happening.  The edge of the platform was perilously close.

The Redman was trying to throw him off.

Panicked, Roman directed the controls away from the drop, but the Redman cunningly used the momentum shift to swing him around like he was performing a hammer throw.  Roman found himself teetering closer to the edge than before.

Suddenly he remembered the stout gun that he had found earlier, the one that was built into the hull of the RECS.  He had drawn it on Duran but not fired it.

Maybe that was his last hope.

Roman rotated the weapon forward as he spun, directing the broad, curving muzzle at the Redman.  He pulled the trigger, but instead of firing immediately, a charge indicator began to fill, and then a moment later it
went off.

There was a loud bang
, and the Redman stumbled backward, a look of surprise on his face, but otherwise unharmed.  Confused, Roman tried to figure out why there had been no sign of bullets or any other projectiles leaving the weapon, and then he noticed the label beneath the trigger, which read:
Air gun
.

His mind raced.  What had Remus called these things?  Riot Engagement Systems, or something?  The air gun must have been used for crowd control, to force rioters backward, but not t
o kill or even to cause injury.

Terrific.  Just what I need.

Somehow he doubted blowing air at a Redman was going to do any harm.

Even so, as the Redman recovered and came back at him, Roman instinctively pulled the trigger again.  As the air gun charged, the Redman swung his arm and drove a gauntleted fist into the opening.  He struck with such force that the RECS rocked backward, and when it righted itself, Roman could see that the gauntlet had become wedged in the mangled remains of the gun.  The Redman attempted to wrench himself free once, then again, then reached up with his free hand and flicked a clip at his wrist.  He drew his hand out of the gauntlet, freeing himself again, then rammed his shoulder into the RECS once more.

Roman cried out as he was jostled about, and now alarms began to sound in the cockpit.  A series of messages appeared on the console in front of Roman, including
Master Warning
and
Pressure Cavity Malfunction.
  The hull of the RECS began to creak and shake as if it were about to split apart.  The power meter associated with the air gun was also flashing, but Roman didn’t know the system well enough to understand what any of it meant.

All he knew was the Redman was still dragging him closer to the edge of the platform, and in moments there would be nothing under his feet but air.

Roman cried out desperately as he struggled at the controls again, and then the Redman swung the RECS around one final time.  Roman felt himself spinning out of control, and then there was an almighty wrenching sound, and the hull buckled outward.  As the pressurised air was expelled through the remains of the air gun with explosive force, the RECS flew backward and off its feet, rolling across the platform.

As it came to a shuddering halt, Roman looked and saw the screaming Redman spinning through the air and out into the abyss beyond the edge of the platform.

Murtas glared at Lazarus and drew himself up to his full height.  He ripped the gas mask from his face and tossed it away, and then a disparaging sneer spread across his face.

“Your moral corruption knows no bounds, Lazarus,” he said.  “Betraying the Crimson Shield itself, now?”

“I see no Crimson Shield here,” Lazarus said.  “Just dogs.  You and these others are pathetic
distortions of what the Crimson Shield truly represents.”

He ripped away the bindings across his chest, revealing his own crimson breastplate beneath.  It was charred and melted in places, the result of his battle in the Infirmary.  He drew his sword from its sheath and held it at the ready.

“Take that off.  You do not deserve to wear the crimson,” Murtas spat.

“Nor do you, and yet here we are.”

Murtas picked up his own sword, which lay close by, and began to circle the other man.

“What are these scum paying you?” Murtas said.  “Have they promised you another whore?  One even prettier than…”  He smiled mockingly.  “What was her name?”

“Do not speak it.”

“Edyt
a.  That was it, was it not?”  Lazarus said nothing.  “Ah, yes, I remember her well.  In some ways I do not blame you for becoming enraptured with her, brother.  After all, I tasted her myself.  I cannot deny the sweetness of her skin.”

“You are a liar,” Lazarus grated.

“I swear in the light of the Holy One,” Murtas teased, holding up one palm as he uttered the oath.  “She came to me in the days after your sentence of Landfall was carried out, after you were cast down into filth.  Into muck and shit with the peasants of this world.  She begged for her life, and for yours as well.  Most ardently, I must add.  There was nothing she would not do in her quest for forgiveness.”

Lazarus snarled and sprang forward, but Murtas was quick.  He stepped lightly out the way and slashed with the sword, landing
a blow heavily across Lazarus’ breastplate.

Lazarus grunted and staggered backward.  “Enough talk.”

“I have to admit that, when I took her, I was not gentle.  I fucked her within an inch of her life, using her in every way a man can use a whore, and yet that only seemed to spur her onward to greater heights.  She came back the next night, and the night after that, and I punished her in every conceivable way–”

Lazarus ran at him again, and this time Murtas’ sword bit into the flesh of his opponent’s shoulder.  Lazarus cried out and wheeled away.  He stood there enraged, panting as blood trickled down his arm.

“I will admit one thing, though, brother.”  Murtas began to circle him again, twirling the sword extravagantly in one hand.  “I did lie.  When she first came to me, she begged for her life.  That much is true.  However, she did not beg for yours.  Thoughts of you were discarded the moment you were out of her sight.”

Lazarus felt the rage bubbling up inside him again, the years of pent up fury that had festered within threatening to explode.  To hear him
utter these words against his precious Edyta was like a knife in his heart, and now he could bear them no longer.

He knew what Murtas was doing, how he was goading him and forcing him into mistakes, and yet he couldn’t seem to do anything about it.  He seemed powerless to contain his emotions.

His grip tightened on the sword.

Think of Edyt
a.  Picture her in your mind as she truly was.  Her purity will act as your guiding light.

Lazarus closed his eyes.  His mind crept backward through all that
had happened to him: handing Edyt
a’s diary to her mother; the fight in the Infirmary; meeting Knile at the chapel in Link.  The years spent in solitude and in prayer.  Further back, he re
membered hearing the news of Edyta’s death in the Cellar, learning of his sentence of Landfall.

Amongst it all, he found another memory.
  He was lying on the bed in Edyta’s apartment, and she lay with him, her head resting on his bare chest.  He remembered the feeling of her fingers tracing lazy patterns on his belly, the smell of her hair.  The feeling of bliss as they lay together after making love.

She had looked up at him and smiled sadly, perhaps knowing that what they had together would soon end.

“Whatever happens, they can’t take this day away from us,”
she had said.

It had been their last happy moment together.

Lazarus opened his eyes, and now the fury had fled.  He was filled with calm.

He was ready.

Murtas danced inward and slashed again, and Lazarus parried the attack with ease.  He parried a second and a third blow, then delivered a stunning strike that knocked Murtas backward.  The Dux gasped as he stumbled, then steadied himself.  He gritted his teeth and came again.

Lazarus attacked, heaving with such might that Murtas’ sword was knocked clean from his grasp.  In the same motion, Lazarus swung his free hand and hammered the Dux in the side of the head, sending blood flying from his mouth.  He followed up with another blow, then another, knocking out two of Murtas’ teeth, and then rammed his fist into his nose, squashing it against his face.

Murtas went down in a heap.

Lazarus stood there, breathing heavily, savouring the moment.  Murtas raised a shaking hand in submission as he spat out a mouthful of blood.

“Please, lord,” he croaked through his ruined teeth.  “Please have mercy on me.”

Lazarus took a step toward him.  “Mercy?”

“Yes, lord,” Murtas said, spitting again.  “Give me your judgement.  I will accept it with all of my soul.”

Lazarus paused, his eyebrow cocked.  “You would have me sentence you?”

“Yes.  Show me your mercy, lord.  Banish me if you must.  Strip me of the crimson.”

“It is not my place to pass judgement.”

“The Council is not present,” Murtas gasped.  “I will accept your sentence in their stead.  Show me your mercy.”

Lazarus considered this for a moment as Murtas lay before him, trembling.  Then he nodded.

“Yes, I will pass judgement.  I will banish you.”

Murtas wiped at his m
outh.  “Yes,” he said feverishly.  “I accept.  I will leave this place–”

“I sentence you, Murtas Dux,” Lazarus said, reaching down and clasping Murtas, one hand at the collar of his armour and the other at his crotch.  He heaved the Dux mightily above his head.  Lazarus opened his mouth and bellowed.  “I sentence you to
Landfall!
”

The muscles in his arm bunched, and he heaved Murtas into the air with a roar that encompassed all of the pain, the sorrow and the emptiness he’d felt since Edyt
a had gone.  As Murtas’ body arced out over the edge of the platform, his armour glinting softly in the fading twilight, Lazarus experienced a kind of catharsis, as if he were not only hurling his sworn enemy to his death, but casting aside all of his hurt along with him.  Murtas seemed to hang there for a moment, a shocked and disbelieving look on his face as he stared back at Lazarus, and then he disappeared from view without a word.