The Obsidians look at one another in confusion.
“Name yourself,” Skarde demands.
“Before you bothered with moons, you liberated planets in my name. How far you’ve fallen. You know me, Skarde. You all know me. Or have you forgotten the man who put the razor in Ragnar’s hands?”
I lower my helmet to bare my face to the warriors and to Io’s freezing, poisonous air. It’s horribly painful. My skin starts to ache fast. They lean back, kind of like they’re pissing themselves. I think it’s fear. I really hope it’s fear. Then one makes a sign of protection. My skin feels like it’s falling off. Poor Romulus. I’d hate to die this way. I put on a very disappointed face, and let it become a very weird, very malevolent smile.
I raise the helmet again, mute the helm, moan for breath, and wait. If I’m the next one who talks, Cassius and I will die.
“Tyr Morga,” Skarde whispers. “You are dead. Dead in the sands of Mercury.”
“With your brothers of the Free Legions?” I ask. “With your sisters? I looked to the sky for Valdir, for Sefi, for you, Skarde. I prayed to the Allmother for the kin of Ragnar to remember their oaths. To deliver on their promise to follow the Morning Star. To protect the Republic. But no. Skarde breaks oaths. Like a noman. Now you’re out here playing Gold in the dimness. How can you live with such shame? Where is Sigurd? Where is your son? How can he look upon his honorless father?”
Guilt has a corrosive effect on self-confidence, particularly for warriors. The Obsidians could kill us without losing a man. But they eye the gloom and fury of the volcanoes as if waiting for an army to emerge. That is not all that restrains them. Obsidians delight in war. Not only for the violence, though they love that, but for the truths war flays bare. When the enemy is closing in and you’re on your back foot, that’s when you discover who your brothers and sisters really are. For ten years, wherever the fighting was the thickest, they needed only to look to the sky to find me on my way.
I know the Rain phalera on their armor because I pinned it to each of their chests. I see three who wear the platinum pendant of a rat, eleven with the white fist of the Earth campaign, others still wearing their horse helms with the white horsehair crests of Pegasus Legion.
“Is it working?”Cassius asks.“That all seemed a terrible amount of provocation, Darrow.”
I ignore him. “What have you become, Hafnar…and you, Lothgar…and you, Loka. It is Loka, yes? I see a rat badge. You fought with me in the tunnels of Mars. ‘Big Cousin,’ wasn’t that what the Red children called you? You wore their ribbons in your hair. Now…what. You take little boys and sell them at market? Or do you keep them for yourself? Have you learned the ways of your new master? Will you sell me to him too?”
Instead of facing their own guilt, they embrace denial.
“He cannot be Tyr Morga. He is too short,” one says.
“That’s Sun Industries gear. Eight-bit screws. Maybe it is him.” I know that voice. Sigurd, Skarde’s son. An amiable young man, neither as clever nor as greedy as his father, he adores the arcades and nightclubsof the Republic and was once in love with Thraxa. “That’s Bad Lass in his hands.”
“It’s a Gold trick! Shoot him and let’s take their gear. I want to go back to the Garter and play in the orchards with my new nymphs,” another rumbles.
“Flay him, the cur who takes Ragnar’s name in vain,” a berserker whispers. “Flay him. Flay him. Flay the pretender.” The berserker comes at me in a rush with two armor-boring fists whirring. Sigurd calls for him to stop. He does not.
I bend under the berserker’s left jab and come around his flank where I hack off both his legs at the knee and then take off his head for good measure. My helmet’s sensors warn me. Two more descend from above. One like a hawk, the other a tiger. I shoot straight up past the hawk, split the tiger in half, then come down on the hawk from behind like a needle. My blade goes through his back armor and into his spine and I drive him down and stake him to the crusty ground. To them, it might look supernatural. But they don’t feel the hamstring I just strained. The left one. It aches like a snakebite. I went for drama, not form. I hear Cassius going.“Tsk. Tsk.”
The wind howls as the men die at my feet. No longer interested in testing me, some of the braves make signs of protection. Sigurd, slender for an Obsidian with kudo horns jutting from his helm, rushes forward and bares his throat. Skarde jerks his son back and calls him an idiot. Skarde’s voice is barely above a murmur.
“Tyr Morga. How…”
“Why, Skarde. Not how. I am here to claim what is rightfully mine. The life of Volsung Fá. He killed Sefi. The sister of Ragnar. Your sworn queen, last I checked. I’ve come to declareashvarupon him. I’ve come to claim the contest of blood that is my right as a son of the Valkyrie Spires.”
“Tyr Morga…that will not happen. You must leave this place. When Fá learns you live, he will offer a mountain of helium for your head. He will not fight you. He will drop atomics on whatever city he believes you inhabit. He will scorch a continent from space to kill you. He does not abide byashvar.”
“So he is a hypocrite. Is that not how he rose? Claiming to avenge Thalia, a dead wife?
“Here is my head. Come claim your helium, Skarde.”
He wouldn’t dare, not in front of his men. They might even kill him for it. Not all of them, but someone. Maybe in his sleep. Maybe when he’s bedding his new slaves. He knows that, so it’s impossible to tell if he really does have honor when he says, “We will not fight the man who gave Ragnar the razor. No. We are not savage dogs. But you have no place here. The Rim is your enemy too. Let us play with it. We are helping you. Go back to Mars.”
Is that how they justify it to themselves?
Sigurd approaches his father. “Father, how many times have I heard you moan on about Fá? His favoritism of the Ascomanni. His rigid hand? His Bloodguard? Is this not a sign? Is this not what we prayed—”
There’s a fizzing sound and then a triplet of noise—panng, fffttt, bshhhhhhh.Sigurd stumbles. The Obsidian to his left jerks. Lines of blue fire arc across that man’s pulseShield before the shield collapses with a shriek. Something slams into another Brave’s breastplate, punctures it, then detonates. Gore sprays out. Skarde uses his own body as a shield for his son, Sigurd, and slips back into the protection of his men.“Snjeg! Snipers! Testudo!”
I’m so startled Cassius has to tackle me to the ground. Slugs scream overhead.
56
DARROW
