Alliance of Serpents (10 page)

Curse you, Arus. If only you had been
strong enough to fight it. I believed in you.
That was the
truth. Up until the moment Arus' blade pierced Eaisan's heart,
Vultrel had had all the confidence in the world that Arus would
snap out of it, break free of Truce's hold, and send the bloody
Mage to his bloody grave. But his estimation of the young man had
been further from reality than Vultrel could've imagined. Anton had
given his own life to save Arus—
Anton!
—and Arus couldn't
find it within himself to do the same for his own mentor and
teacher. Instead, he spewed excuse after excuse about his implant
being more sophisticated than Anton's, and how he'd tried to fight
it and all that. Vultrel refused to buy it. Anyone could make
excuses, especially about something no one else had any experience
with. But he knew what he saw, and he knew Anton had broken the
implant's hold. The fact that Arus could not or would not do the
same proved that he was weak, and Vultrel had allowed that weakness
to affect his life more than enough. With his father dead, it was
time for Vultrel to step up and be the strong male presence in the
Lurei family. And he wasn't going to allow Arus' weakness to crack
his own strength.

"We will be ready to depart shortly, Sir,"
one of the crewmen told him as they passed.

"Thank you," Vultrel said with a nod. It was
going to be good to be home, good to get out of his dirty clothes
and ragged jerkin. Good to be back with his mother and his people,
good to be able to protect his home from the menace of the Mages.
Good, yet difficult. Without his father guiding him, he'd have to
continue his training on his own, though years of Eaisan's constant
fatherly admonishment had left his voice permanently ingrained in
Vultrel's mind. He'd be hearing his father's advice even when he
didn't want to, he was sure of it.

"Hey."

Vultrel closed his eyes and swore silently.
He had hoped the boy would allow him to leave quietly. "What is it,
Arus?"

Arus leaned against the wall to his left and
crossed his arms. "Are you sure you want to leave? Damien and
Kitreena could use your help, and so could I."

"I can't hold your hand anymore, Arus,"
Vultrel said softly. "If you can't stand on your own two feet by
now, there's nothing I can say or do that will change—"

"I can stand on my own feet just fine,
Vultrel," Arus shot back. "And I can't believe that after all our
years together that you truly think I'm some weak little boy that
needs to be spoon-fed by others just to get by. We were like
brothers
, Vultrel. At least, that's how I saw us."

"So did I," Vultrel admitted. "But a brother,
by blood or otherwise, would commit the vile acts that you did no
matter what the conditions. Anton killed himself to keep from
hurting you, and he didn't even
like
you all that much. But
you couldn't even control yourself long enough to—"

"By the Maker, Vultrel, I told you that my
implant is much different from his!" Arus shouted, turning so that
the two were face to face.

"A machine is a machine, Arus," Vultrel said,
forcing himself to meet the stare coming from the boy's cybernetic
eye. "Either it works or it doesn't. Anton's did, and so did yours.
Anton overcame his, and you failed to overcome yours."

Arus was shaking his head. "Machines aren't
that simple. They aren't all the same!"

"Steel is steel."

"No, it's not! You don't understand how these
things work," Arus argued. "It's not like—"

Vultrel held up his hand as he shook his
head. "You know, I really don't care, Arus. I just want to go home
and get on with my life. I miss my mother, I miss Keroko, and I
miss Terranias. I'm done with all of these machines and starships
and magic! All of it!"

Arus breathed a sigh of resignation. "After
all these years, I figured if there was
anyone
 I could
count on for support in a time like this, it would be you."

"And I thought if there was anyone I could
depend on to
defend
my father, it would be you."

He opened his mouth to argue, then sighed
again as he drew a folded piece of paper from behind his belt.
"Would you at least do me the favor of giving this to my mother?
She's got to be working herself toward a nervous breakdown."

Vultrel stared at the paper for a moment
before he took it. "Are you sure you want her to know what's
happened?"

"I just wanted to let her know that I'm all
right," Arus told him with a shake of his head. "And to say
goodbye."

It all sounded so final. Was he really saying
goodbye to his best friend for the last time? "You're never coming
back?"

Arus focused the steel cylinder of his
cybernetic eye on him. "How can I?"

This time it was Vultrel who sighed. "I
understand. Good luck in whatever you decide to do, then. Keroko
will miss you." He made a conscious effort not to say that
he
would miss Arus. To Vultrel, his best friend and lifelong
training partner was dead, and the responsibility for his fate
rested solely in the hands of Sartan Truce. He felt the lump in his
throat and the tears welling up, but he beat them down with the
anger and rage he harbored for the Vermilion Mages.
You may not
have been strong enough, Arus, but may I be cursed by the Maker if
ever allow myself to be defeated by a man like Sartan
Truce.

"Take care of them down there, Vultrel," Arus
said, patting him on the shoulder. "I'm sure you'll do Master
Eaisan proud."

Vultrel glared at him for the mention of his
father's name, but he let it go just as quickly. A crewman in a
brown uniform and short-brimmed hat approached and bowed politely.
"The preparations are complete," his deep voice announced. "We are
ready to depart."

"Thank you." Vultrel wasted no time in
heading into the transport, boarding without looking back. The
fewer memories he had of this weakened boy who claimed to be Arus,
the better. He still had the utmost respect for the friend he once
had, but that young man was gone forever. It was going to be hard
to live and train in Keroko without the old Arus to accompany him,
but the situation was what it was, and time only marched forward.
With my father dead and the militia wiped out, it is now my sole
responsibility to build a new army for Keroko. I will not let you
down, Father. The Mages will
not
win.

The air inside the transport was cool.
Vultrel dropped into a cushioned chair by the windows on the
opposite side so that he wouldn't have to look at Arus. The pilots
filed in behind him and moved through an archway into the front of
the ship. There they took their seats and immediately began running
their fingers across a series of glowing buttons and switches. The
hangar deck rumbled, shook for a moment, and then began to descend,
sinking to a lower level of the
Refuge
. The new room was
little more than a bland steel box, like a hidden pit beneath the
hangar bay. Through the window, Vultrel watched as the ceiling
closed in from both sides above them, and when the panels had
firmly locked together, the wall in front of the ship began to
separate, revealing the vastness of space where the glowing blue
crescent of Terranias floated silently. It was nighttime on this
side of the planet, leaving only the azure rim of the far side of
Terranias in plain view. A dull hum grew behind him, and the ship
lifted from the floor and soared through the open doors into
space.

"Liftoff successful," one of the pilots said
amidst their technological babble of instructions to each other.
"Estimated flight time will be thirty minutes."

Vultrel took the opportunity to take his
first good look at the
Refuge
itself as the transport veered
slightly to the left. Enormous was the only word that came close to
describing its size. The bulk of the ship looked like two narrow
steel tubes lying side by side, joined smoothly in the middle and
polished to a beautiful shine. The head of the craft came to a
flattened point, topped with glass viewports along the upper curve
where the pilots and navigators of the
Refuge
operated the
ship. A black spider-like logo gleamed just below those windows,
its surface shining with pinprick reflections of countless stars.
An assortment of lights dotted the side of the hull where faces and
figures in windows faded from view the further away the transport
flew.

The darkened side of the planet began to
appear as Vultrel's eyes adjusted to the night sky. Surely no one
in Asteria, or the rest of the world for that matter, had ever had
the chance to view the Terranias from such awesome heights. Clouds
looked like enormous clumps of cotton that parted as the ship broke
through, opening a path to the distant surface. For a time, all
Vultrel could see were miles of unidentifiable ocean, but
eventually the Lighthouse of Asteria, built of the finest marble
and engraved with the Red Bear emblem of His Majesty, appeared in
the distance where the land parted to allow the Narleahan River to
join with the South Sea. So far below, the lighthouse looked like
little more than a whirling glimmer atop a stick in the sand. But
the lay of the land was unmistakable; the port town of Hemanal was
not far off, and beyond that was the coast of Beremain, Asteria's
neighboring kingdom.

The lights winked out, and the hum coming
from the rear of the craft gradually faded, leaving the transport
gliding through the air in near silence. Vultrel shifted nervously
in his chair. Had they somehow lost power?

As if sensing his unease, one of the pilots,
a skinny man with a large gap between his front teeth, turned
halfway toward him. "No cause for alarm. We have shut down the
lights and engines to reduce our chances of being detected. We want
to keep our societies as contained as possible, so it is important
that we do everything in our power to keep the transport from being
seen."

Much of what he'd been told about starship
technology had been unintelligible, but Vultrel remembered the word
"engine" being used to describe the transport's propulsion systems.
"If the engines have been shut down, then how are we—" He stopped
himself as the ship veered smoothly to the left. The Keroko Forest
was not too far ahead. Somehow, they were still in control of the
craft.

"The main engines have been taken offline,
but smaller ones, called stabilizers, keep the ship safely under
our control. They are positioned beneath the hull and keep us level
using a combination of heat and air to propel . . ."

The pilot's technobabble droned on as Vultrel
returned his eyes on the trees below. They'd be passing over
Dugan's Grove soon, the halfway point between Keroko and the South
Sea. He was almost home. Soon he'd be able to leave this mechanized
world of starships and laser pistols behind and return to the life
he'd once known. Soon Keroko would have a new militia with a new
leader, and they'd usher in a new era of peace for Asteria. Soon
things could get back normal.

Almost
normal.

The transport dipped lower and lower until
they were skimming the treetops. The rooftops of his hometown
appeared in the distance, separated by the dull glow of the street
lanterns. The ship shifted to the right, and the dirt trail to
Keroko appeared beneath them. Again they lowered, dropping below
the trees and following the trail through the forest. The pilots
were certainly taking no chances with their approach; it was
unlikely anyone had caught sight of the ship.
Almost home. I'm
almost home.

They finally slowed to a stop just before a
sharp curve in the trail. Only a slight tremor signaled that the
ship had touched the ground, and the door slid open with a soft
whisk. "Should be about a ten minute walk from here," the
brown-haired pilot told him. "We'd take you further, but once we
round this curve, we risk being spotted by your town's watchmen. I
assume you know the way from here?"

Vultrel nodded as he rose from his chair and
stuck his head through the door. The familiar scent of countless
summer nights gone by filled his nostrils, flooding him with
memories and feelings that nearly brought tears to his eyes. As
much as it smelled and looked like the same old home he knew, it
would never be the same again. Not without his father. And not
without Arus. And as much as he wanted to get back to his daily
routine of gathering fruit for breakfast and tending the farm and
honing his skills, doing so without the two most influential
figures in his life was going to be anything
but
normal.
"Thank you," he said, peeking back through the door. "For
everything."

"Good luck, Sir."

The ship was off the ground and pivoting in
place before Vultrel had taken ten steps. It had vanished down the
dark trail before he'd taken twenty. Rather than look back, he
focused on the trials and tests that lay before him. When he'd left
Keroko, he'd been a nervous boy content to hide in the shadows of
his father's protection. He couldn't be that boy anymore; he had
died with Arus and his father at Castle Asteria. It was time to
take responsibility, time to be an adult, time to grow up.

It was time to be a man.

By the time the flickering torches on either
side of the Keroko gates came into view, he'd already decided how
he was going to begin the recruiting process and had even selected
a few men he thought would make excellent trainers for the new
soldiers. With his head down, eyes narrowed, and face solemn, he
marched toward the gates like a captain leading his troops to
victory.

The guardsmen on either side crossed their
pikes firmly in front of him, tearing him from his thoughts.
"Halt!" they ordered in unison.

Vultrel did look up then, though he kept his
expression hard as stone. He chose his words carefully; gone were
the days of casual greetings and childish informalities. If he
wanted anyone to take him seriously as a leader, was going to have
to do more than
act
like one. He was going to have to
be
 one. "Good evening, Gentlemen." The faces looking
back at him were unfamiliar, though he was not surprised
considering the number of militiamen that had been lost at
Cathymel. "My name is Vultrel Lurei. I am a citizen of Keroko and
son of Eaisan Lurei. Allow me to pass." He had not intended it to
come out as a command, but he let it go.
Strength, Vultrel,
he told himself over and over.
Believe in yourself, and others
will believe in you.