[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.“This isn’t looking good,” Mantis whispered.“Did you not say we’re the hope of the Seven Islands?” Sacmis was moving switches and fiddling with dials.“Was your faith in us so short-lived?”“Not funny,” Mantis said.“Really, Sacmis.”“No faith at all,” Sacmis said, sounding disgusted.“Sacmis,” Hera hissed.“Stop talking and do it.You’re the best shot in the Seven Islands.Show them.”“With pleasure.” Sacmis pulled two shiny black levers up and clasped them in her hands.“On your command.”***Breathing quietly where he lay tied up on the floor, each breath disturbing the dust by his cheek, Elei waited.Soon he caught a different scent: sharper, sweeter.Elite.An Echo princess, like Hera.He knew the elite Gultur was there before she walked through the door.Three of them now.Time to strike.Rex growled, raising his heartbeat, making his limbs tingle.Wait, he told himself.Wait.Find out more.“War machine.” The Echo, Diona, grunted and tapped something on a keyboard.“How is that possible? Are you sure this is a live feed?”“Yes, Commander.This one is being recorded by the cameras on the northern gate and retransmitted by the central in Dakru City.”Elei wanted to see what was happening, but didn’t dare move; the last thing he wanted was another dose of sedative.“The corrupted ones we apprehended claimed the leaders of the attack are friends with this prisoner here.The threat of executing him should stop them.”Iset and Bestret.Caught.No nope of help from them, then.He was on his own.“They say he’s Rex,” another said, her voice rising.“Even better, though he looks like a scrawny child to me.Right now, immediate measures are necessary,” the Echo Commander said.“Commander Demeter, change to live transmission to the Regina temple and put it on the giga screens.We’ll initiate the sacrifice immediately.”Immediate measures.That was all Elei heard.He let out a long, quiet breath and grinned savagely, Rex screeching inside his head.The Echo’s scent saturated everything, erasing every other smell, making his heart boom and his hands curl in their bonds.Come to me.Two sets of steps approached him — soft thumps of military boots on hard flooring — and the faint clinking of a thin chain reached his ears.The keys?Rough hands grabbed and sat him upright.He let them, allowed them to pull him to his feet next, and a good thing as the sudden height sent black splotches to his vision and numbed his legs.A Gultur steadied him.His eyes had barely cleared when the Echo princess stepped in front of him.Rex thumped the back of his eyeball, distorting the image, turning her oval face into a long muzzle.He’d expected it but still he recoiled, then strained toward her as Rex reacted.Blood.He wanted to taste her blood, slash her throat and spill it on the floor, see her die.She must have seen something in his face because she took a step back, mouth opening — all lost in a blaze of pulsing colors.He jerked free and launched himself at the Echo, the chains of his manacles clanking.Shouldering into her, he threw her down and fell on top, driving the air from her lungs.He squirmed and twisted, thrusting his knees on either side of her head.The sound of a bullet sliding into a chamber rang loud, and he threw himself sideways.The shot wasn’t as deafening as expected — a silencer? — but the bullet hit the Echo’s shoulder and she screamed.The scream made his skin crawl.Gathering his limbs, he leaned over her, drew her longgun and cocked it; clicked on the silencer.“The keys, and your guns,” he snarled at their gaping faces — or as much as he could see of them through shadows and flaming colors.The Echo’s blood spilled on the floor, and red misted his vision.He clenched his hands on the gun, hard enough to dent the metal, fighting the urge to hurt her more, to spill more blood.Enough, Rex.Though why he thought the parasite could be put back into a box now.The two Gultur scowled but put down their longguns, then one of them unhooked the keys from her belt and threw them over.If she’d hoped for a moment of inattention, she was sorely mistaken; he grabbed the keys one-handed, Rex calculating the trajectory in silver in his tainted eye, and kept the gun trained on them.They hadn’t tried the bargaining chip they had.It occurred to him these three didn’t know how important Alendra was to him.They couldn’t blackmail him.The Echo clamped a hand to her shoulder wound.It didn’t look like she would bleed out, although Rex kept pushing him to hurt her more.No.Leave her be.He had some trouble inserting the key in his shackles, the key a pale blue object with no defined contours, but he managed to unlock his bonds, free his hands and feet, and lurch to his feet.He kicked the weapons away and motioned with the longgun toward a narrow metal door.“Carry her inside.”They obeyed, and he imagined they scowled but couldn’t see anything but bright lights.He followed them.Through the door he saw a small bathroom.It would do.“Where’s Alendra?” His hands shook and he gripped the gun until his knuckles hurt.“The blond girl who was with me.”They didn’t answer and he advanced on them until he aimed down at the head of the Echo.His jaw wouldn’t unclench, so the words came out in a growl.“I’m not in a good mood.Tell me before I lose my patience.”“The storeroom down the corridor,” the Gultur who’d been manning the monitors ground out.“After the turn.Three doors to the left.”He hadn’t been lying about losing it — maybe not his patience, but his control over Rex.He pistol-whipped the Gultur, knocking her out cold
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]