Page 41 of Hooded (Gladiators of the Gryn #5)
KLYNN
The stench of the Varangy invades my senses as I stalk the corridors of the spaceport. Occasionally, I pass a small huddle of Fenere, and I wonder how this planet has gotten by all this time without a fighting force.
Something they will need to remedy.
The walls are scorched with pulsar fire, but as yet there are no bodies and no scent of blood. Whatever the Varangy want with this planet, it is not death.
However, they have found it, regardless of whether they want it or not.
The first one sticks his ugly head out of a side room, mouth open as he sees me, the overly complicated pulsar raising as he takes in a breath. The gladius finds its home in his gizzard, and he falls backwards with a dull thump.
Did the Fenere say they wanted dead or alive Varangy? Perhaps they should have specified. I specialize in dead and nothing is going to change me.
The large atrium of the port was, as far as I recall, bustling with life and filled with planting. The air is heavy with the ozone scent of pulsar fire and the floor littered with debris and vegetation.
I watch the cohort of Varangy, approximately ten of them, some sprawling, some drinking out of containers clearly purloined from other cargo, some casually releasing pulsar bolts at the remaining glass of the upper atrium.
They seem at a loose end. Perhaps it’s time they worked for their pleasure.
With a roar, I’m in the air, swinging the gladius to deflect the pulsar fire which comes my way far too late. I dispose of three in quick succession, remove limbs from another three, and then face down the remaining four who have taken shelter behind a large slab of metal which used to form part of the entry port.
Pulsars fire wildly over the top, missing me by a wide margin. I shake my head and curl up my claws, gripping the gladius in one hand and contemplating whether these ones should live or not.
I don’t think the Fenere wanted all of them to die. And these ones can let any others with designs on Fenes know it is not to be messed with.
“Leave,” I growl. “Leave now or lose your heads.”
“Gak you, Gryn!” One of them shouts.
“Your choice.” I respond. “I gave you a chance.”
I’m in the air, wings beating down as I descend on them, dodging their wild pulsar bolts, landing easily among them, disarming the first with a single swing of the gladius. The second I take out with a head butt which sends him reeling back into the metal slab, sliding down and staying down. The third manages to get a bolt into my side before he too is sent flying by the shoulder of my left wing.
The fourth drops to his knees, puts down his weapon, and puts up his hands.
“What the vrex are you doing here? This planet has nothing a Varangy would ever want,” I fire at him.
“We came for you, Gryn,” says a fifth Varangy, his uniform considerably cleaner than his colleagues’, a couple of medals glittering on his chest. “Our master requires your presence, having only just missed you on Trefa.”
“Get vrexed.” I spin the gladius in my hand. “I don’t belong to anyone, not anymore.”
“On the contrary, .” His ugly face breaks into a snaggle-toothed smile. “I believe you belong to Proto, as all Gryn do.”
“Come and get me, if you think you can,” I respond, gripping the weapon in my hand and unsheathing my claws.
“We don’t need to. You’ll come to us. We’ll find out what you care for most and squeeze.” He grabs hold of the Varangy in front of me and pulls him as he backs away and disappears behind a wall.
“Fern!” Her name is a growl and an exclamation all in one. I beat my wings, heading up, up within the atrium until I reach the roof, slamming my head against it as I punch through in a shower of debris which tinkles over me, dropping down to the floor below.
The Varangy ship hasn’t moved, and there is no sign of the Varangy who threatened my mate. I have a creeping, unpleasant realization that the ship didn’t contain the few I have already dealt with. It’s large enough to contain significantly larger numbers of the foul species.
The species which has somehow followed me to this out of the way planet, which threatens me and my mate. All I can think is I need to get to Fern. Protecting her is the one and only job I had, not making a nest, not hunting for food (she was never very keen on my offerings anyway). It was keeping her safe and I failed.
I left her alone to come at the behest of creatures I don’t know and shouldn’t trust. Now she is in danger and I am far away.
“Gryn!” a metallic voice barks at me.
I spin in the air to find the Varangy ship is right behind me, the cargo hold a yawning maw. I can’t let them take me, and I go to dive down, away from the hovering ship with its engines screaming at the air, but below me is a psi-net.
I have nowhere to go.
I have failed my Fern.
The ship surges forward, and I’m scooped inside, down into the dark, stinking interior and away from the one and only thing in this universe I care about.