Once Broken, Chapter 27 (Patreon)

Dodge, dodge, strike.

His fist hit her side with enough force to break human bones, but the Samalian, an older woman named Urtarel, just grunted and returned blows. He dodged most and blocked some. The pain of the impact from the closed fist ran up his arm, but it wasn’t the kind of pain he wanted to feel.

“Use your damned claws,” Alex muttered under his breath, punching her in the chest, side, then kicking her legs out from under her. He told them to attack him with claws out. He wanted some sort of reminder of his training with Tristan. He wanted the pain of being clawed. But unless he practiced with knives, they closed their fists, like he did.

He was no longer using his knives, not when fighting them. His control was slipping, and it was becoming difficult not to go for killing strikes, even during practice, and they couldn’t survive if he didn’t hold back with them.

She came at him again, smiling. He blocked and punched her across the muzzle, making her stagger back. Get angry, he wanted to scream at her. Take the claws out and try to kill me. Make me feel something!

She wiped the blood from her lips and grinned. “Strong,” she said, her Grr’ler’nin heavily accented. She was from a river town, and had followed one of the visiting males back here. The two had then taken another woman as another lover.

“Taken,” he replied.

She threw herself at him, using her higher weight to get him off his feet. He felt the heat of claws into his flesh as they fell back, and it felt good. His back hit the ground with his foot on her stomach, sending her flying over him. He was on his feet as she hit the ground, and winding back to kick her head in when she tapped the ground twice.

It was the signal he taught them for when they were defeated. For the fighting to stop. But he wanted to kick her. He wanted to hurt her for not being Tristan, for having to hold back because these amateurs wouldn’t know how to handle a real fight.

He placed his foot down, dug his toes in the grass to make sure it stayed there as she stood. His arms were shaking from holding himself back. It was becoming harder now that he no longer had the infection to distract him.

Once the computers had been cured and the net accessible, he’d found out none of the other Samalian towns could be reached. It had taken a few days of work to add seeker capability to his antibodies and release that in the wild. Over time it would clear the infection around the planet, and wherever else it might be used.

Three days ago, one of them had finally been able to talk to a family member on the other side of the planet.

A bulky, silver-furred man approached him slowly. Alex readied himself. This Samalian compensated for his lack of speed with strength. Alex dodged as much as he could, blocking only to protect his head, being forced back each time. He couldn’t afford a head blow; the time it took him to regain his control would be enough to kill one of them.

His arms were getting numb from the blows he had to block. The man mistook Alex’s effort to protect his head for it being a weak point, so he mindlessly aimed there.

Alex caught the wrist on the next attack, turned, and threw the heavier man over him. The Samalian landed on his back, dazed. Alex locked eyes with him and raised his foot over the man’s neck. The Samalian’s eyes focused, first on Alex’s eyes, then on the foot. He didn’t panic; he was deciding what to do. Did he trust the bones protecting his neck to be able to withstand this strike?

He tapped the ground twice. It might’ve been able to take it, but Alex didn’t know; he hadn’t had a chance to test it yet, but he figured even if it did, it would be painful.

Alex turned and waited for someone else to come at him.

The number of people here to train had doubled since the last attack, almost two weeks ago. Like every previous attack, there had been more mercenaries, and the number of attackers had meant that many of the townsfolk who didn’t know how to fight had been forced to. Alex considered it a miracle only one of them died, but the number of injured had forced Hea’Las to send people to the forest to replenish what she needed to make the healing unguent.

Alex hadn’t bothered with the hover this time. He’d thrown himself into the fight, killing as many of the humans as he could, trying to imagine everything was fine, that he’d just gotten separated from Tristan—that his Samalian was in another alley, also killing. And Tristan was there. Alex caught sight of him, ripping the throat out from a woman, grabbing the gun off of a man, and using it to shoot the same man in the head.

For an instant, Alex hadn’t had to make believe everything was all right. Tristan was there, killing, being himself. After this fight they would get back in the hover and fly off somewhere. Tristan would make a final decision about Alex’s place.

And then Tristan had looked in his direction, and his eyes had filled with fear. Tristan ran off.

Movement forced Alex back to the present. A younger Samalian, barely an adult from what Alex could tell, stepped forward. He was new, not here to train, but to prove himself, to prove to himself that he had what it took to defend his town.

Alex had the young Samalian on his back, tapping out, in two punches. Alex bit back the anger; if this had been a real fight, this boy would be dead. He’d never survive the world. He shouldn’t be allowed out of his home.

Alex helped him up, reminding himself that the Samalian was young. There was time for him to learn before the next attack came. And if he didn’t, then it wasn’t Alex’s fault.

Rig’Irik stepped forward.

The Samalian had approached him during the celebration again, wisely waiting until Tristan had gone back to the House. He’d argued his case, again. He’d screamed at Alex for being stubborn, for not seeing that he was the better choice. Alex had left before planting a knife in his chest.

Rig’Irik raised his closed fists, face grim, intent on proving how strong he was. Alex watched him, waiting. How could the Samalian think Alex would pick him, when he didn’t even understand what Alex wanted out of the relationship?

Annoyance crossed Rig’Irik’s face, then he looked up, along with everyone else around them.

“Jacoby!” Alex turned and ran for the hover. He was going to need his knives. “Incoming!”

The harness was on, with half the knives clipped to the available space, when two hovers flew over them. Tristan was already running after them, the wall falling in his wake.

With a curse, Alex forgot the rest of his knives and ran after Tristan. The last attack had been one hover, the same model as these two, as far as he could tell. Forty mercs in the last, so this would make it eighty. No matter how good Tristan was, this wasn’t something he could survive alone.

The hovers flew over the town to land out of view on the other side. They had to have seen the mass of people assembled near the House, and decided the time it took them to reach the town would give them the advantage. They were right. Most of the warriors had been there, watching Alex fight, which only left the sentries to deal with the mercs.

They were going to lose more people this time, there was no avoiding it.

Blaster fire was visible before he reached the town. The townsfolk had instructions to stay inside while the fighting occurred, but the last battle had shown that wasn’t always useful. The mercs had no issues with kicking in doors and attacking the occupants, which was why the number of trainees had grown. Whatever rules Samalians fought by, they’d realized mercs didn’t respect them.

He couldn’t see Tristan. The Samalian was faster than he was, and had disappeared in the town’s alleys already, but Alex heard his Samalian roar. A knife in each hand, mono and vibro, he entered the town and immediately came across mercs.

Alex slashed a throat before they could react, then again through another’s armor and chest. Shots erupted around him, and he used the dead woman’s body as a shield, running toward the people firing at him.

They were dead before they knew it, Alex clipping knives to his body, grabbing belts off the bodies when he ran out of places for them and slinging them over his shoulder.

He ran deeper into the town, toward the fighting, crossed dead bodied, mostly humans. The bulk of the fighting came from the town center, he thought, and was going to join it when he caught movement heading away from that. A group of mercs. Why were they heading away from the fighting? Did they have a specific target?

Alex went after them. The woman at the back was dead before she could sound the alarm; her throat sliced open. The next one managed a croak a warning to the others, then Alex was fighting all of them, outnumbered seven to one.

He grinned.

He threw himself aside, launching a knife as the ground and walls exploded with shots. He grabbed a gun as he rolled to his feet and returned fire, running around the building.

A merc stepped around the corner, gun leveled at Alex. Alex picked up speed, chuckling and throwing the gun over his shoulder. He had a knife in that hand as he felt the burn in his side, but the horror in the man’s face drove him on. The shots became wild, a failed attempt at scaring Alex into stopping.

Only Tristan could stop him, and he wasn’t here.

He collided with the man, planting three knives in his chest, one in his ear, and one slicing the throat open before the body hit the ground. Alex turned to face the others, a beatific smile on his face.

Mercs saw a lot, got used to a lot, but there were things no one could be prepared for, Alex knew. From their stunned expression, a smiling maniac having turned a comrade into a dead repository for knives was one of those things.

They regained their senses before Alex was on them, but they couldn’t aim, and then he was too close for guns, laughing as blades sunk into flesh.

When this fight was over, he grabbed the knives he could before the sound of more fighting pulled him away.

The next time he saw mercs, they had their back to him again, but they weren’t sneaking, they were running away.

He ran after them, out of the town, joining the Samalians chasing other mercs. Mercs heading for the hovers.

Enough of the frenzy left him for Alex to realize how bad this was. He threw knives, but the distance and his hurry made that ineffective. Someone picked them out, slow fire coming over their heads, each shot taking down one of the mercs in the lead, but the groups had split, going for each hover, and the sniper—which had to be Jacoby, since Tristan wasn’t in the right state for such precision shooting—couldn’t get all of them.

One of the hovers took off, and Alex headed for the other. He couldn’t let them escape. He was in and almost seated in the pilot’s chair before the readings on the displays registered. He didn’t stop to look at them, trusting the voice at the back of his head that screamed danger! He got out of it and ran away, yelling and motioning for others to do the same, but they either didn’t understand or were too taken in by the fighting to listen.

The explosion picked Alex up and threw him down. He rolled on his back, spitting out grass and watching the hover disappear in the sky, a few stray bolts chasing after it.

He sat up. Where the other hover had been, only a crater was left, bodies littering the ground between him and it. A few of the Samalians got up, but nowhere near as many as Alex hoped would.

He looked at the sky again.

Things were going to get much worse from now on.