He gritted his teeth. He felt the energy gather. Come on.
The flyer slowed, but not enough.
They hit the ground with a jarring thump.
Rhain was tossed forward, then backward. He slammed to the floor, his head striking something hard.
He must’ve lost consciousness because the next thing he knew, hands were touching his face.
“Rhain? Rhain.”
Mal. He really liked the strong lines of her face. Interesting, attractive, and subtly different.
“Mal.” He cupped her cheek.
Relief leaked into her green-gold eyes. “We made it, thanks to you.”
Thadd appeared behind her. “You all right?”
Rhain nodded. “I’m fine.” He pushed to his feet. The back of his head throbbed but his vision seemed fine.
Someone had opened the side door. Outside, he knew his fighters would have set up sentries.
“The Zhylaw?” Rhain asked.
“They flew away,” Thadd said.
That wasn’t good. “Reinforcements?”
“The pilots called for help. Ruggers are inbound, but it’ll take them a while to reach us.”
“Okay.”
They disembarked from the ship. Once outside, Rhain stared at a lava pool nearby. Luckily, they hadn’t crash-landed in it.
The pilots were studying the wreck of the flyer.
“Any chance it will fly?” Rhain asked.
The senior pilot shook his head. “The energy capacitor is damaged.”
“All right. We’ll wait for our rescue from the outpost, and defend ourselves until it arrives.”
Mal scanned the empty landscape. “It doesn’t look too bad.”
“Overlord. To the east,” a fighter called out.
Rhain and Mal swiveled.
She groaned. “I’m just the universe’s punching bag, I swear.”
It was a dust cloud.
They watched it, and a second later, Rhain squinted to make out what was generating it. A flood of creatures sprinted toward them.
They weren’t hexids.
“I saw one of those reptilian things in town,” Mal said.
“They’re called cupra. Heavily armored, and with a very powerful bite. Another Zhylaw creation.”
She drew her sword. “How do you take them down?”
“With great difficulty.”
“Wonderful.” She rotated her sword.
“Fighters, form up,” Thadd bellowed, pulling his own sword from its sheath. A second later, it charged a brilliant gold. Nearby, Carvia hefted a beautiful saber that gleamed with an orange charge.
“Charge your weapon,” Rhain said.
Mal screwed up her face, concentrating.
He touched her arm. “Relax. Don’t fight it. We need to get you some training.”
He felt a lick of power between them. She gasped. Deep in her eyes, he witnessed a faint glow of silver.
Her sword charged, glowing silver-white.
Rhain heard the gasps of shock from the other fighters.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
Chapter Nine
The creatures, the cupra, raced closer.
They really did look like fast-moving, mutant crocodiles.
Mal watched several fighters firing charged crossbows.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
The bolts hit, exploding on contact. Cupra parts flew into the air.
The rest kept coming.
In the distance, Mal spotted something. “Rhain!”
He followed her gaze.
It was some sort of ground transport. It was the same black color as the Zhylaw ships, with black spikes rising at the back of it. A lean man stood at the front.
Bald except for a strip of black hair down the middle of his skull.
Rhain sucked in a breath. “Krastin.”
The man was watching impassively. Mal’s grip tightened on her sword hilt. Asshole.
Rhain frowned. “There’s someone with him.”
Mal strained to see. “Where?”
“Kneeling—”
She caught the glint of blonde hair. Her heart contracted. She knew that slender body and hair. “It’s Poppy!”
Mal took off running.
“Mal!” Rhain roared behind her.
The first cupra reached her. Powered by her rage, she swung her sword and slashed at it.
It opened its huge jaws.
Yes, yes, what big, meat-ripping teeth you have.
It snapped at her and she dodged to the side. Near the neck, she could see a faint change in the coloring where the dark scales didn’t overlap as thickly. There was also the faint line of an implant in that area.
Hello, weak spot.
She spun, and ran in from the side and slashed again.
Her blade cut into that thin spot. Not like butter, she still had to push it, but it cut deep.
Blood splattered, filled with a rotten reek. The cupra made a screeching sound and snapped its jaws at her again.
Die, damn you. She had to get to Poppy.
She ran along the side of the creature. She spotted another weak spot in the scales and stabbed deep, puncturing something.
It roared.
Rhain leaped on its back. The deadly strike of his dual swords was impressive. Energy pulsed off them, beheading the creature.
Mal heaved in a breath. There was no time to think; another cupra rushed at her.
She dropped low, under the fangs, and cut into the creature’s legs with a brutal swing.
Mal charged on. Around her, Rhain’s fighters had their weapons out, swinging, filling the air with punches of power.
She hacked into another cupra, and Rhain did as well.
She looked up and saw that the transport carrying Krastin and Poppy was moving away.
“No!” Mal cried.
A cupra leaped on her while she was preoccupied and took her to the ground. She felt the prick of claws, saw the jaws descending.
No, dammit. She wasn’t dying here.
She rammed her sword up.
Power, like a ball of energy, exploded along her sword. The cupra tore apart and she was drenched in blood and… ugh, she didn’t want to know.
Rhain yanked her up. “What was that?”
“No idea.” The power had just flowed from her.
She looked up. The transport was headed into some rock formations.
“We can’t let them get away.”
Rhain’s jaw tightened. “Thadd!”
The captain appeared, black blood decorating his chest in a diagonal spray. His sword dripped with it.
“Leave most of the fighters here to defend the flyer and deal with the last of the cupra. Get two fighters. We’re going after Krastin.”
Thadd nodded.
Soon, Mal, Rhain, Thadd, and two fighters—Trist and Carvia—were running across the rocky landscape.
They dodged the lava pools, and the thin rivers of molten rock that crisscrossed the rocks.
Ahead, lay a foreboding rock formation. Black rocks arched up, sharp, pointed, and curved. They almost looked like the bones of some long-dead, giant creature.
There was no sign of the transport, or Krastin or Poppy.
But there were hexids.
A pair of the creatures loped out of the rocks. With a roar, they charged. Thadd chopped one down with his deadly sword. Rhain raised a palm and let off a pulse of energy.
The other hexid flew into the air and crashed down. The other two fighters ripped into it with their weapons.
Where the hell did Krastin go? Mal searched the rocks.
“This way,” Rhain said.
“Look.” Mal paused. There was a mouth of a cave that headed down into the ground under some rocks.
Into dark, impenetrable black.
“Did they go in there?” she asked.