Golden Son (Red Rising Trilogy, #2)(117)

Ragnar drops it like it’s made of fire. I shove it back into his trembling hands.

“They aren’t gods.”

Like shadows pulled from the Styx, we slide forward through the graveyard. Our enemies are not in their fighting bands. Easy targets. I scuttle forward on all fours like some horrible spider, hardly rising from the ground to kill two Obsidians before they even turn. Ragnar snaps another’s neck and cleaves a second in half, the recoilPlate peeling away. Rising from my hands, I sprint at the tallest of the Obsidians, jump and bury my blade into his body. I land poorly on my wounded arm. I don’t even feel the pain. Too much adrenaline. I see the squad of Grays turning, so I fall with the Obsidian’s body and roll into the mud, lying in shadow and filth amongst the other corpses. Their recoilRifles and pulse weapons would rip me to ribbons without my shield and armor. Ragnar’s disappeared too. I don’t know where.

Time ticks by. How much oxygen could they have left? The Grays hunting us shout something about ghostCloaks. The remaining Obsidian groups with the two Golds. Reluctantly, the Grays go through the bodies, finishing my remaining men to flush Ragnar and me out for the Golds and Obsidian. Lea died like this, down in the mud. Not again.

I rise, not with a scream, not with a howl. Silently. Let them try to see me coming. I am fast. And I’m nearly on them when they open fire. I rip toward them, dodging, weaving, like a loosed balloon. No beauty to my movement. Just frantic terror. I cannot see the bullets. Only feel their closeness. Sense the heat of them ripping past me. Feel the punch as I’m hit in the bicep. Shock through my body. The skin tears as the bullet goes through flesh, tendon, muscle, then out the other side, knicking bone. I grunt. And then I’m upon them, and they make no noise at all.

They missed their window.

Twelve enemies fall to Lorn’s kravat lessons. Twelve men and women.

The Golds and Obsidian come upon me now. The Golds use their gravBoots. Ragnar rises from the mud and hurls his razor through the air like a spear. The huge Obsidian falls into the mud as Ragnar rushes the two Golds, picking another razor from the ground.

I marvel at his power. He grabs one of the Golds by the foot as they pass in the air. The pulseShield electrocutes him, sending pain lancing through his body. But he just roars, holding on, and with a scream coming not from his throat, but his soul, he slams the Gold down to the ground like he’s chopping wood. He somehow manages to rip the boot off. The lean Gold rolls away, shouting, “Stained!” to his friend, who comes back to his aid so they face off with Ragnar together.

I run to Ragnar’s aid.

“Reaper!” One of the Golds lets his helmet retract into his armor, revealing the haughty face of a Peerless man. Confident in his rank. In his heritage. In his place. His face is all joy. Then it contorts as he sees Ragnar’s razor.

“You give the blade of your ancestors to a dog?” He glares hate at Ragnar. Then down at the razor, furious, confused. “Have you no honor?”

I choose not to answer.

“Know who you face, Andromedus,” the older Gold rages. “I am Gauis au Carthus of gens Carthii. We built the Columns of Venus. We first sailed the gaps between the Inner and Outer rims and mined the Helsa Cluster.”

“This isn’t The Iliad. Ragnar, kill this fool. We need his gravBoots.”

The Gold spits. “You send a dog to do your fighting?”

“I am a man!” Ragnar screams louder than the roaring engines of a passing ship. Spittle flying, face ragged with rage. Veins rise in his neck. He howls, rushing forward before I can even raise my blade. He picks up the corpse of the fallen Obsidian and uses it to deflect their razors. He punches Gaius. No weapon. Just his fist. He hits him so hard in the pulseShield that the man falls backward. Then he kills the other, hacking through his defenses with mad fury till he cuts him in half. He kicks the top of the corpse aside and batters down Gaius, who sinks into the dark mud as Ragnar thumps forward and, muscles twitching from having touched the pulseShield, holds the razor to Golden man’s throat.

“Yield to me and live,” Ragnar rumbles.

Gaius spits.

“Yield to me as a man yields to another man.”

“Never.” Gaius’s lips curl sourly. He speaks his last words clear and loud, with spite and courage. All that is good and all that is wicked in these extraordinary people. “I am the Peerless Legate Gaius au Carthus. I am the sum of humanity. So yield I do not. For a man cannot yield to a dog.”

“Then become dirt.” Rangar pushes the blade home.

We ferry our men from the bottom of the river. Fast as we can using stolen gravBoots, but not fast enough. Sevro is not dead, but he’s close. I find him buried headfirst in the riverbank. He’s cursing and spitting when I peel him out with the help of Clown and Pebble.

“The dead?” he asks quietly. “My Howlers?”

“Too many,” Clown says thinly.

“Did Mustang get through?”

They all look at me.

“I think so,” I say. “But I can’t hail her on any coms. We have to hurry either way. If she is alive and she blows the generators so our reinforcements can land, then the shield falls and the Sovereign has a wide window to escape. Right now, she’s bottled up.”

Sevro nods. Little Pebble gives him a hand up. Small Thistle, hardly coming to Ragnar’s solar plexus, sees him with a razor in his hand as he frees another Obsidian from a dead starShell. “Drop that,” she snaps.