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There’s nowhere to hide. I wish Rath was back here with me, but he has left me alone to suffer this humiliation. I feel absolutely abandoned. I slink down to the base of the cage and lie there, looking at the top of it and hoping against hope this somehow ends well. God. Hope is perverse and pathetic. I’ve been hunted down and now I’m being dragged through the private korabi quarter. I wish I knew why. Everything I know about justice in Megaris tells me I should be nanofood by now.
Eight
Vindicated
Rath
It has been more than a year since I was last in this courtyard, and since I last enjoyed the company of so many righteous korabi. The conversation in the hovercraft has been triumphant and buoyant from the moment I stepped in.
“King Krush has been notified of the capture, and he is pleased,” Kordin informs me. He is driving the hovercraft, and seeing him again is an unexpected pleasure. I’ve known him a long time. He and I trained in the royal guard. He’s still guard. I’m… not. It is the greatest honor a korabi can have to become a royal guard. Being a bounty hunter makes me the korabi equivalent of the human scum I hunt.
“Roar for Rath!” One of the younger korabi guard in the back shouts to the vehicle. The others follow his lead and shout and carry on, acknowledging my capture in the traditional korabi way—with great and fearsome noise.
The camaraderie is nice, but I cannot forget how quickly it disappears with a single act, or tragedy.
“Here we are. The royal guard will take possession of the human…”
I start to get out of the vehicle. “I want to make sure the human is properly incarcerated.”
Kordin reaches out and grabs me by the arm with a grip that only a familiar friend could get away with.
“Forget about the human. You’ve had enough of humans for a lifetime,” he declares. “I am taking you for a drink, and I am not taking no for an answer!”
The look Lyric gives me as she sees me walking away with my comrades would break my heart if I had one. I cannot afford to show any softness to her now. I do not know if I will ever be able to show her kindness again. It might be that our days in the green were the only connection we will ever be able to experience. If they are, I have the satisfaction of knowing I took full advantage of every moment.
Kordin leads me away to the bar. The royal guard has its own small city inside the royal compound. The barracks, the mess hall, and of course, the bar are the three mainstays of a royal guard’s life. I spent years in those three places, and returning to the Howl does feel like coming home. The door to the place is marked and scarred with the heads, teeth, fists and boots of generations of royal guards slamming into it.
Howl is not the official name of the bar, but it is the one the bar has been known by since it was built. It’s named for the sound guardsmen make there. If you happen to pass by on patrol on a calm night, you can hear howling across the entire compound.
It is a filthy place, filled with reprobates attempting to prove themselves in the king’s guard. I was one of them once. There is a stain remaining on the bar where my head was broken open in a fight. I spot it the second I walk in. A sense of nostalgia overwhelms me. The last time I was here, I was a smartass upstart. I thought I knew everything, and I was ready to fight anybody who didn't show me as much respect as I thought I deserved.
Oh, to go back to being that brash recruit, first in my class, biggest in my intake, and ready to go toe to toe with any of the graduated guards if they looked down on me. I wish I could be that innocent and stupid again. I made my best friends and worst mistakes in this place, not five feet from where I’m standing now.
* * *
Several years earlier…
“Move, peasants.”
Krush struts into the bar as if he owns the place. His golden hair flows in a cascade over his shoulders. He is handsome. He is the son of the king. A prince, I suppose. But he does not have what I have. Honor. Achievement. Or this medal I cannot stop looking at.
“Are you still clutching that trinket, Rath?”
He laughs as he walks in. The bar falls silent. The trinket I am holding is the medal his father just presented me with. It is testament to record high close combat scores. It bears my name, as does the academy’s wall of records. I have become a forever legend part of this place before ever seeing true war. I am tired of Krush’s bullying ways. He has nothing to back it up with, and it is time he knew that.
