Another step.
Where was Tara-Khan? He whirled about suddenly, his sword cutting a protective arc, but Tara-Khan was nowhere to be seen. There was only the cryptic stain upon the sand, quickly fading. Surely, he thought, Tara-Khan had not conceded, not in silence, without a word?
He took another step toward Esah-Zhurah, the Empress. And another. Closer to Her now, he could hear the slow, shallow rustle of Her breathing, could smell Her hair, and his insides began to tremble. The trickle of warm blood that ran down his side from his shoulder felt like a caress, as when her hand had touched him lovingly, when he had held her close. So long ago, he thought. So very, very long ago.
He was close to Her now, his sword ready at his side, but his eyes were filled with the image of Her face. She had become his world, the very Universe. The song that had turned his blood to fire sang still, not for battle, but for love, for Her.
At the dais, now. Climbing the steps. The sound of his feet through water. Her face, turned toward him–
Water?
– as if watching him, Her eyes closed…
He did not see the water stir as he passed, heard nothing as it rose and took shape and form, silent as a still pool as metal, flesh, and bone emerged.
His inner alarms clamored and his body reacted with the strength of a tiger and the speed of lightning, but it was too little, too late. With a triumphant roar, Tara-Khan attacked. The great blade speared through the side of Reza’s armor, embedding itself deep within him in a searing flash of pain.
In agonized rage, Reza swung his own weapon at Tara-Khan’s unprotected head, but again it found nothing but water.
I have failed, he thought miserably, as Tara-Khan rose again, his sword ready to strike.
“You fought well young one,” the elder warrior said, “but you are not The One. You are not worthy of Her love, and thus shall you perish.” The sword fell.
Water, the thought flashed through Reza’s mind as the blade hissed through the air. Water… and ice…
At the last instant, Reza threw himself forward, sinking his claws into Tara-Khan’s armor as the sword whistled past above his head. Laughing at Reza’s desperate attempt to save himself, Tara-Khan did as Reza had hoped. His body melted into water, his essence slipping through Reza’s fingers.
But they were no longer in the arena.
“Look out!” Enya cried, as an energy bolt sheared an elephant-sized chunk of the great glassine dome from the slender frame above.
With a jerk of his head, Braddock saw the huge glass fragment falling toward him. Twisting desperately to the side, he tried to get out of its way, but he was too late. With a crash that shook the dais itself, Braddock disappeared beneath the mass of crystal as it exploded into a million tiny shards.
“Tony!” Nicole screamed as she crawled through the debris toward him, the crystal fragments lacerating her hands and knees. She reached out to take hold of the glass shell that covered Braddock’s body like the transparent lid of a coffin.
“No!” Shera-Khan cried, batting her unprotected hands away from the razor sharp edges. “Let me.” Sensing a lull in the firing from below and using his armored hands and diamond-hard talons, he struggled to lift a fragment of the crystal that covered Braddock’s body, but was unable to move it. It was far too large, too heavy.
Nicole slid up next to him, keeping her head down and out of the line of fire. Above them, the dome began to disintegrate, huge chunks falling into the throne room as the structure began to lose the last of its integrity.
“Tony,” she whispered, peering at his smashed body through the clear crystal. His face, his coat, his hands were covered with blood. Blood was everywhere. “No,” she moaned. “Please, Tony,” she whispered, “You cannot die!” But she had seen death enough times to recognize it. And Tony Braddock was dead.
As Shera-Khan watched helplessly, Nicole laid her head on the crystal that covered her husband and began to silently weep.
On the other side of the dais, separated by the circle of blue light from the others, Enya and Eustus continued to fire at their attackers, trying to keep them pinned down.
“There are too many of them!” Enya shouted above the thunder of the guns.
“You have a talent for understatement, my love,” he replied as he sent a round into a careless Marine’s leg. He was trying desperately not to kill any of them, only to injure them or keep their heads down. The ISS guards were one thing; they were as much an enemy as the Kreelans had ever been. But the Marines were his people, his family. “Nicole,” he bellowed, “how are you doing?”
Only the guns below answered him.
“Nicole?” he called again. They had been able to hear each other before. “What the hell are they doing over there?” he asked Enya as he turned, ready to skirt around toward the other side, where the other three of their little band had posted themselves.
The ugly snout of a blaster suddenly thrust itself into his face.
“Drop it,” a voice growled from behind a combat helmet. Eustus saw that where the nameplate had been on the man’s armor, there was nothing now but a still-hot scorch mark. “Both of you. Now.”
Hesitating for just a moment, Eustus did as he was told. They had lost.
Behind him, Enya asked quietly, “Eustus?” She still held her weapon, clenched in her left hand.
“Drop it,” Eustus told her. He heard the weapon clatter onto the cold stone floor.
“Where are the others?” Eustus asked.
“Shut up,” the Marine snarled as three more armored figures appeared from the other side to surround them. The Marine motioned with his blaster toward where he had left Nicole, Braddock, and Shera-Khan. “Move it. Now.”
Eustus led Enya around the cylindrical wall of light, ignoring the vicious shove the Marine gave him as he passed. As he walked, he heard something crunching under his feet, like glass. And then he saw Nicole slumped over a huge mass of crystal, Shera-Khan on his knees beside her, a Marine covering them with his rifle. A pool of blood seeped from beneath the crystal.
“Sweet Jesus,” he whispered. “Nicole, what hap–”
A huge Marine slammed an elbow into Eustus’s jaw, sending him sprawling dangerously close to the light. Through the stars dancing through his brain, he smelled hair burning, and a prickling sensation told him that it was the hair on his arm, being burned into plasma by whatever energy governed the barrier.
“Eustus!” Enya cried as she grabbed at his ankles, pulling him away from the shimmering wall. “You could have killed him!” she snarled at the figure looming behind her.
“He’s a traitor,” Lieutenant Riggs sneered over the suit’s PA system, “just like you. I don’t know why General Thorella wants you alive, but he does.” He grimaced at all of them, a look of utter disgust diluted only with hatred, not caring that they could not see his expression behind his helmet. “And I follow orders.” A booted foot kicked at Braddock’s crystal sarcophagus.
“You bastard!” Nicole shrieked, leaping to her feet, her blood suddenly blazing with a fiery alien rage.
Shera-Khan watched in amazement as this human woman, this friend-warrior of his father, struck out at the animal in armor. She moved as if she had talons, with the deadly grace and speed of a warrior priestess.
Riggs was caught off-guard, and his head rang against the inside of his helmet as her hands slammed against his armor with a strength he never would have guessed at by looking at her. But sheer mass, if nothing else, was on his side, and he recovered quickly. As one armored fist fastened itself around one of Nicole’s wrists, the other rose to smash her in the face.