The Destiny (Blood and Destiny Book 4) (8 page)

The tingling in Larissa’s fingers had
turned to pins and needles, which hurt with even the slightest movement. Her
body drained of all energy, if an opportunity came to run away from all the
madness, she probably wouldn’t manage to take two steps without passing out. Bodies
lay strewn all around—a morbid collection of men, some with burns so bad they
were beyond recognition, others missing limbs. She’d watched so many of them
die. While working to heal one man, three others had breathed their last, and
there was nothing she could do about it. As miraculous as her healing ability
was, it was not perfect, nor quick, and with each person saved, the ability to
save the next became harder.

She was vaguely aware
of Cid nearby, working with her to try to bandage wounds and patch up people as
best he could in spite of his injuries. At first, an occasional swear word
escaped his lips, but he had fallen silent a while ago, and she didn’t dare
turn around, knowing he would have his own macabre collection of people he’d
failed to save.

Though she’d kept
looking up, expecting to see Holt re-emerge from the fray, he’d not returned,
and her heart sank further into despair each time. When yet another man landed—quite
literally—in her lap, blood pouring from a gash on his head, she felt her lip
wobble. For all her strength and experience with death, having it shoved in
front of her face in such a visceral and violent manner was too much. She
looked up again and instantly forgot about the poor man in her lap as she
spotted Holt emerge from the crowd of Marines.

He dropped to his
knees, the skin beneath the mess of mud and blood deathly pale, almost grey, a color
not dissimilar to the shade of the Professor’s body when she’d found his
corpse. She screamed, the sound utterly alien to her own ears. The body in her
lap was pushed aside and the pain and exhaustion in her limbs forgotten as she
stumbled over the pile of dead bodies to run to him.

“Stop,” Cid said as he
grabbed her shoulders.

A large Marine emerged
from the group of people near Holt and scooped him up in one move, throwing him
over his shoulder. He stomped through the muddy bog, splashes coating
everything in muck as his heavy steps disturbed the ground. He approached
Larissa with a frown on his face and silently set Holt down on the ground.

“Got room for another?”
the Marine said.

Larissa couldn’t answer
as she fell to her knees. Holt’s skin was cold and damp, his clothing drenched
with muck. With shaking fingertips, she reached out to his neck to feel for a
pulse and sobbed uncontrollably when she couldn’t find one.

It didn’t matter they
had come this far. She didn’t care her father had gotten away. She didn’t even
care about the massive loss of life surrounding them. None of it mattered if
she couldn’t have the one thing which truly did matter.

Something disconnected
in her mind—time blurred into nothing more than a distant, ticking clock. After
a while, she realized she had laid down, her head against his chest, fingers
trapped beneath the side of his face. She had no idea how much time had passed,
but the noises surrounding them had faded, the raging fire nothing more than a
crackle, no more cannons or gunfire. Only a few deathly gurgles from the last
of the dying men reached her ears.

Her face and lips were
dry. Hair matted against her cheeks. The bloodstains on her arms had dried to form
an unpleasant, crusty layer, and it felt as though her chest was empty, the
heart beating inside reduced to a mechanical device performing a job. She had
loved too deeply and lost so fast, the tears refused to fall any longer as
numbness set in.

“Larissa.” Cid’s voice
was nearby. It might have been the first time he’d said her name or the
hundredth, she had no idea. “If we are to evade capture, we should leave while
Vries is still distracted.”

“Where do you suggest
we go?” she said, her voice a croaking mess, the words barely coherent.

“Take refuge in the
city. Rest. Recover.”

She felt a frown tug on
her face. It sounded like Holt’s voice. Had she gone completely mad? The chest
beneath her head moved, and a hand touched her hair.

“Holt?” she said softly
as she dared to pull away from him and look at his face. His eyes were open. Though
they looked glassy, some color returned to his skin. He was alive.

“Bloody hell, how did
you do that?” Cid said.

“What?” Larissa asked,
not turning to look. She couldn’t take her eyes off Holt. She wasn’t sure if
she was dreaming, or hallucinating, or maybe she was dead as well.

“How did you bring him
back from the dead? He was dead.”

“You’re not still
underestimating her, are you, Mendle?” Holt said as he squeezed her arm, a
slight smile playing on his lips.

“You were dead,” she
said as her lip wobbled again. “How? How?” Her mind raced backwards in time,
trying to unpick the puzzle. She had made no effort to heal him, she hadn’t
even thought to try. The numbness in her heart gave way to a slight spike of
excitement, one she didn’t want to acknowledge for fear of finding out this was
all a dream. She gripped his shirt with hands spiked with pain, still suffering
from all the healing she’d done.

“It’s not pertinent to
our current situation,” Holt said as he looked around, assessing their
surroundings. “Shit,” he said, thumping his head back in the mud.

Larissa finally tore her
gaze away from him, her head swimming with dizzy uncertainty. As much as she
wanted to simply flop forward onto his chest again and hold him close, he was
right, yet again. A muddy field, surrounded by dead bodies beside the
smouldering carcass of an airship with a number of Marines nearby who had
orders to bring them to the President, was
not
the place for sentimental
romance.

The battle had ended,
bodies lay strewn all over the place. In the darkness, the vague outlines of
other downed ships were apparent. At least the sacrifice had made some impact
on the number of pirates. Vries stood with a group of men out of earshot, but
with his face turned towards them—and to her surprise—she saw Colonel Kerrigan
and Lieutenant Saunders marching toward them.

“I don’t think I could
run if I tried.” The familiar voice of Friar Narry came from behind. “But if
you intend to leave, I think the time is now.”

Larissa turned to see
both Narry and Sandy sitting in the mud beside Cid. At some point, they must
have come to help with the wounded. She had been so intent on saving as many
people as possible, she hadn’t even noticed them. She looked back at Holt again;
he hadn’t yet made any effort to move, and if running were an option, he would
no doubt be on his feet by now.

“I am incapacitated,”
he said with a sigh, as though he had read her mind.

“No running then. Plan
B,” she said.

“What is plan B?” Cid
asked as Kerrigan and Saunders reached them. Vries broke away from the pack and
headed in their direction as well.

“I’ll let you know when
I figure it out.”

“I’m glad to see you
have survived,” Kerrigan said to Larissa.

“Likewise. Where is
Sergeant Boswell…and Zeb?”

“Among the dead,” he
said solemnly.

“Oh. What were you
talking to Vries about?”

Kerrigan frowned, then
glanced over his shoulder. Vries approached, cutting short any response
Kerrigan may have given.

“It is not in my nature
to let prisoners go,” the Admiral said as he stood with his arms folded,
looking down at Larissa. “However, I am hardly in a position to detain you all.
My entire ship is destroyed. I have no brig and not enough men to watch over
you and the handful of pirates who surrendered to us, and…” He faltered in the
obviously pre-planned speech he was making. His moustache bristled, and he
unfolded his arms, then crouched down low, resting his elbows on his legs.

“You saved my life,” he
said quietly. Larissa nodded once, unsure what to say in response. “You saved
many lives of my Marines. If you had been working with the pirates, you would
have been saving their lives instead. At least, that’s what logic tells me.”

“I regret so many had
to die in order for me to prove that to you.”

“That is war. Many more
will die when we attack Eptora, although I believe such an order may not come.”
He glanced up at Kerrigan, and Larissa felt a sudden pang of panic in her
chest.

“I told him the truth…about
you and where we are headed. What our intentions are,” Kerrigan said.

“Oh.”

“The honest approach,”
Holt grunted.

“I’m not sure what to
believe. Are you the descendant of Emperor? Has the President been fixing
elections for all these years? Does he deserve to be overthrown? I don’t have
the time or resources to either help or hinder you, but if this Solomon Covelle
is heading to the Capital with the remaining pirate ships we failed to stop,
someone
needs to stop him. The Capital is empty of all but a few reserves in Fort Dalet,
it won’t take much to storm the palace.”

“Do you know how many
ships got away?”

“At least three,
including one with no canopy. You didn’t tell me there was another ship like
that.”

“It wasn’t pertinent to
the situation at the time,” she said, exchanging a glance with Holt. He
squeezed her arm again.

“I sent a call for help
to the rest of the fleet on the coast before the battle began, but I expect by
the time they get here, it will be too late to receive orders from the Capital.
I can do no more for you.” He extended his hand to her, the movement rigid and
awkward. She shook it carefully, the tingling pins and needles racing up her
arm as he gripped her hand tightly. Vries reached down to Holt and shook his
hand next.

Larissa couldn’t help
but feel sorry for Holt as a glimmer of disappointment ghosted across his face.
Shaking the hand of an Admiral whom he clearly admired while he lay on his back
in the mud was probably more embarrassing for him than he would ever admit.
Vries stood and shook the hands of Kerrigan and Saunders, then finally gave a
solemn nod to the remainder of their group.

“Still incapacitated?”
she asked Holt when Vries had headed back to his men. “Or do you want me to ask
Kerrigan to carry you?”

“I will walk,” he said
with a grunt as he sat up.

“Do you have a plan yet,
Captain?” Cid asked.

She looked to the city
in the distance. It would be a long walk, and they had no money to rent a room
in which to rest. They needed food, water, and clean clothing. As soon as she
thought of her clothes, an idea struck her; there was at least one person in
the whole city who owed her a favour, and it was as good a place as any to start.

It took a frustrating amount of time for
the group to trudge across the fields into the city. Larissa ached from head to
toe, and her feet felt like she walked with razor blades in her shoes. The rain
persisted, though it had reduced to a light drizzle. They had begun by taking a
direct route across the fields but changed course when a line of steam-driven
enforcement carriages and fire trucks had emerged from the city. Cid muttered a
surly comment about the fact that they’d waited until the battle was over to
approach the carnage, and while Larissa agreed with his sentiments, the
laziness of the local law enforcement had worked to their advantage. She’d had
quite enough of being locked in cells.

By the time they
reached the outskirts of the city and crossed the train tracks, she began to
doubt if any of them had the strength to make it all the way into the center. An
upturned cart lay abandoned and half-sinking in the mud. There was still one
lone steam train parked up on the track, and as they drew close, it seemed as
though the entire station was abandoned.

“Shall we rest here? It
seems quiet enough,” Friar Narry said from somewhere behind.

“No,” she replied,
determined to get where she was headed before the break of dawn.

“Forgive me, Miss
Markus, but I must rest.”

“I feel the need for a
break also,” Cid said.

She stopped and looked
around at the others. They were a bedraggled bunch with bags under their eyes,
caked in mud though the rain had washed some of the grime away. Holt, who had
been walking silently at her side the whole way, seemed brighter than she would
have imagined possible.

“Anyone who needs a
break can rest here. I need to go into the city to speak with someone who may
help us…who
will
help us, whether he wants to or not.”

“I’m going with you,”
Holt said. She smiled; he finally seemed determined to stay by her side.

“I think you know my
position,” Narry said as he hobbled towards the platform ledge.

“I have no desire to
revisit anywhere in town. I will wait with the Friar. Maybe the buffet car on the
train still has supplies.”

“Good thought, Cid,”
Narry said with a cheerful laugh.

“I could use a rest
too,” Sandy said. It had been the first time she had spoken all night. Larissa
looked at Kerrigan and Saunders, hoping they too would stay behind and give her
and Holt some much needed private time.

“I’m coming with you,”
Kerrigan said to Larissa. “Lieutenant, you stay here and guard the others.”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, then. We’ll
be as quick as we can and meet you all back here. If the station comes back to
life during the day, just try to keep out of the way somewhere. We’ll find you
when we return,” Larissa said.

“I don’t think this
place has been used in weeks,” Cid said.

“That may work to our
advantage. See if you can find out why while we’re gone.”

“I thought I was going
to be allowed to get some rest.”

“You can be restful and
useful at the same time, Cid.” She smiled as he rolled his eyes at her and
headed off toward the train.

It didn’t take long
before the smaller group became surrounded by an awkward silence. Holt still
walked by her side; it seemed as though he were making a point of doing so.
Kerrigan walked a few paces behind them both, almost as if they had their own
guard—or chaperone.

They passed by the
manufacturing district. She couldn’t remember which of the warehouses had held
the Professor’s airship, the start of her insane journey that had taken her to
places she’d never dared imagine. She tried not to think of the timid and
hopeless girl she had once been walking these streets, chasing after Cid and
naïvely thinking she could save the Professor and go on to live a happy life.

“Two blocks east,” Holt
said as he looked down at her, his eyes full of intent.

“Huh?”

“The warehouse. I
stalked you through that alley,” he said, pointing to a dark gap between two
buildings.

A laugh escaped through
her nose. She’d been blissfully unaware of his existence back then. To think he
could have grabbed her and snapped her neck at any point on her way back to the
warehouse after meeting with the mercenary made her realize just how lucky she
had been.

“I guess I wasn’t very
observant.”

“You were not. You
still aren’t.”

“Oh?”

“You should be mindful
of potential threats at all times. Each time you round a bend, someone may be
lying in wait. You should listen for footsteps coming towards you and check in
the windows of buildings for the reflection of anyone awaiting your approach.”

“Who would be awaiting
my approach? No one knows we’re here. Isn’t that a little paranoid?”

“Pirates,” Kerrigan
said from behind them, making Larissa jump a little. She’d almost forgotten he
was there.

“Pirates?”

“It would be safe to
assume the city has been overrun.”

“Indeed,” Holt said,
though he didn’t turn to look at Kerrigan.

“Because the pirate airships
were gathered together in the skies? Because the trains aren’t running? That’s
your assumption?”

“That, and the fact
that not a single person on those fire trucks and enforcement vehicles was
either an enforcer or a fireman.”

“Indeed,” Holt said again.

“You could tell that
from so far away?”

“They had no uniforms,
and they waited until the battle was over. They were probably scavengers
looking to pick coins from the pockets of the dead and steal anything of worth
from the downed ships.”

“Oh. That doesn’t bode
well.”

“Indeed,” Holt said as
he gripped her arm slightly. “We are being followed.”

“What should we do?” She
turned to look, and Holt physically jolted her sideways to stop her from
looking behind.

“They are keeping their
distance for now,” Kerrigan said. “At least two of them, possibly a third.”

“You have weapons?”
Holt asked.

“I have a pistol, not
many bullets.”

“Blades?”

She heard Kerrigan
grunt. It was more a grunt of irritation than an answer to the question.

“May I have one?” she
asked.

Kerrigan caught up to
them and walked at her other side, reaching across and passing her a dagger. It
was army issue, and he must have either been given it by Vries or had retrieved
it from one of the dead Marines. She didn’t like to ask which. She immediately
turned it over and passed it across to Holt, who took it without hesitation.

“If I’d have known you
would do that, I wouldn’t have given it to you.”

“I know. That’s why I
didn’t tell you I was going to do it.”

“You may as well have
the pistol,” he said as he reached into his belt.

“Give her the other
blade,” Holt said.

“Why?” Kerrigan asked.

“Her aim is
questionable.”

“I would argue, but I
think there is a lamppost nearby that may agree with Holt,” she said.

“You have improved
since then.”

“But still questionable?”

“Kerrigan is more
accurate with a gun. It is simply a matter of placing the right weapons with
the right people. Don’t be disheartened.”

“You have an
interesting way with women, Holt,” Kerrigan said.

“He does, doesn’t he?”
Larissa tried her best to suppress a smile; the act of stopping the grin made
her cheeks hurt. She should have been worried about the people following them,
but she wasn’t frightened at all. After surviving through so much, the notion
of being attacked by a couple of thugs when she was shoulder to shoulder with
the two best fighters she’d ever met wasn’t frightening in the least. The
playful banter had at least served to make her forget the aching in her feet,
but as they fell into another awkward silence, the pain returned to the front
of her mind and she felt a little lightheaded. Perhaps wandering through the
city without a rest hadn’t been such a good idea.

“I think we may have a
problem,” she said as they turned into the residential district, great grey
apartment blocks stretching up into the sky. Despite the late hour, there would
have normally been a few candles burning in a few windows, but the entire
street was dark. Even the streetlamps were unlit. It sent a chill down her
spine.

“Go on,” Holt said.

“I was planning on
cutting across the city using the cab system, but it was dangerous enough
beforehand. I don’t want to risk going down there if it’s riddled with thugs
and pirates, and I’m not sure I have the strength to walk all the way across
the city without a rest.”

“Where are we headed?”
Holt asked.

“Near the Hub…the center,”
she corrected herself. The domed structure which had once served as an obvious
beacon from almost any point in the city had not been rebuilt as far as she
could see. She felt a twinge of regret tug at her heart with the memory of it.

“We will use the cabs,”
Holt said, giving a nod to Kerrigan. The Colonel stepped away from them briefly
to collect a lantern from a hook outside one of the nearby buildings. He struck
a match and brought light to the dark street, and the three of them headed down
a flight of steps leading to the cab system.