Regi's Goddess, chapter 16 (Patreon)

Dante was sprinting for the safety of the townhouses that lined the side of the temple one moment, and the next a strong arm caught him around the waist and flung him into the air at such an odd angle that his arms flailed and Peaches offered an angry chittering that could only be dop profanity.

Hitting the ground hard, Dante cupped his hands around Peaches to prevent her from either getting flung wide or crushed as he rolled. Before he could gather his wits well enough to ask Regi for an explanation, the shimmering heat of an alien laser gun seared the air above their heads. The guards Dante had been rushing toward pointed weapons in their direction. Regi plastered himself to Dante’s back, pressing Dante to the hard-packed ground as weapons fired.

Shit.

Dante usually like to be in right. He reveled in it. After a childhood of being told in unambiguous terms that his very existence was wrong, he found any opportunity to crow about his successes. However, he was not as sanguine about recognizing that Alb was the enemy. Dante looked to Regi for strategy. Right now, panicking animals gave them some cover, but that wouldn’t last long. “Run for the freio.” Regi gestured towards the enormous lumbering beast that looked like a cross between a bear and a saber-tooth tiger.

Dante had been trying very hard to ignore the beast and deny the bone-deep terror at being near the creature. Being told to run towards it was a step too far. Panic blossomed in Dante's chest. “What?” he yelped.

Before Regi could answer, more energy weapons discharged, super heating the air around them. Given a choice between being shot or being mauled by a saber-tooth tiger-bear, Dante would rather be shot. However, Regi thought the big fucking predator was the better option. Great. Wonderful.

“Go, go, go,” Regi ordered as he rolled off Dante’s back. Dante held Peaches close and sprinted towards the predator without looking back. In horror movies, every time someone looked behind them, they tripped and fell, and Dante did not want to be a stereotype of a stupid human. So he kept his eyes on the lumbering beast as he weaved between the other animals, some of whom raced for the temple, and some of whom fled it.

Unlike the other animals, the saber-tooth bear seemed remarkably unconcerned with the drama. It neither flinched nor wavered as it trundled towards the temple. When one of the energy weapons discharged close enough to make the air around the animal shimmer, it simply stopped and looked in the direction of their attackers with disdain that made Dante suspect that anyone who managed to hit the beast would regret it for the remainder of their brutally short lives. A few feet from the bear-thing, Dante stumbled and caught himself with a hand against the furred hide. Like the Kowri themselves, the beast was striped, but it had dark brown and vivid red stripes that reminded Dante of poisonous snake colors.

Dante searched for Regi, assuming that he couldn't be more than a few steps behind. He was wrong.

Regi had taken Dante's position beside the huge, old stallion. The creature was injured and moving more slowly than his herd, but, like the rest of the pebafri, he was still moving towards Alb and her men. That meant Regi was moving toward them as well.

“Oh fuck, no,” Dante whispered in horror. He tried to move toward Regi and whatever suicidal attack plan the idiot had formed. Unfortunately, the saber-tooth bear’s enormous head swung around and nearly knocked Dante off his feet. Dante was so out of breath and had such a stitch in his side that he had to grab the animal’s fur to keep from falling. However, he had their most effective weapon—Peaches. Dante needed to reach Regi.

However, when Dante tried to move around the saber-tooth bear again, the beast blocked. Since predator didn’t act like this, Dante assumed a Kowri god was riding the animal. “He needs help, and either I'm going to help Regi, or you are. But I am not going to let him throw his life away on your agenda. His life is not expendable.” Regi had seen up close the nasty burn the old stallion had taken, the weeping edges of the wound and the charred bits of flesh. As bad as that had been, Dante didn’t want to consider Regi dying with those same horrific marks.

“Get out of my way.” Dante tried and failed to go around the beast again.  Dante couldn't see over the creature's back, and it had moved to block Dante's view, so Dante crouched down to see under the creature's belly.

“Regi!” he screamed. The air was raucous with the calls of animals and the pounding of hooves hitting the hard ground, and Regi didn’t react. “Regi!” Dante screamed so loud that his throat hurt. Regi continued his lone assault using only the inadequate cover offered by the stumbling stallion. Several of Alb’s henchmen were on the ground, and Dante was unsure of the reason until the two half grown pebafri raced through the ranks of gunmen.

The goons turned their guns on the animals, but the youngsters darted and swerved with the nimbleness of yearlings. Their antics looked playful until one leapt over the gunman's head, and hoof met with skull. The gunman collapsed. Another fired a shot that caught the pebafri across the rump. The yearling screamed in pain and both young pebafri raced away, bucking as through trying to rid themselves of unwanted riders.

Weapon fire came fast now, and several gunmen focused on the slowing stallion. The animal stumbled to his knees, and Regi was left dangerously exposed. Regi had said that the gods provided only opportunity and any Kowri who relied on them would die because their hands were too large to shelter a creature as small as a Kowri. Dante marched up to the saber-tooth bear’s head and looked it straight in the eye.

“You get your oversized hands down here, and you protect him, or I swear to God I will burn your fucking temple to the ground. I will raze it. I will have Ter teach me engines so I can overload one and blow your temple to smithereens. I will salt the ground so that nothing ever grows again if you don't protect him.” The saber-tooth bear snorted hot air that smelled of leaf rot.

Peaches chattered at him desperately, her paws tangled in his hair as she sat on his shoulder.

Half afraid to look, Dante crouched down to watch under the beast’s belly. The stallion was down, one leg still kicking in the air to suggest the creature was alive and suffering. But against all odds, Regi was also alive. He was grappling with one of the gunmen, each holding one side of an alien laser gun as they wrestled.

A second gunmen ran toward the fray. Dante pointed at the new gunmen. “Get him. Stop him. Eat him. I don't care, but do something.” When nothing happened, Dante stood and Dante grabbed the saber-tooth bear’s beard and pulled its head around and pointed at the running henchman. “Stop him,” Dante demanded. The saber-tooth bear snorted again, his leaf-rot breath enough to make Dante mildly nauseated. But screams came from the air.

Creatures that looked like miniature feathered pterodactyls screamed down the sky. Five or six of them swooped toward the approaching reinforcements, making the man take off running the other way. At the very least, that took him out of the conflict, but Dante still hoped the damn birds ate the asshole’s liver.

Regi still wrestled with the gunman, but both were on the ground now. If Kowri lives were as small as Regi insisted, their gods would be unable to separate the combatants. That meant it was Dante's turn. He started to go around the saber-tooth bear, but the stubborn thing stepped in his way again. “I'm going to help him,” Dante said as he shoved the beast. He got another rotten leaf woosh of air across his face. Peaches chattered loudly enough that it was difficult for Dante to even hear his own voice, but Dante didn’t back down to slavers, and he wouldn’t for alien gods, either. He addressed the bear since he didn’t want to curse out Peaches. Maybe she was just as connected to the gods as this damned bear, but Dante liked her.

“I don't worship you guys.” He poked the saber-tooth bear’s shoulder. “In fact, I think you’re assholes. You damn near killed Regi and his entire crew just because you wanted your dops saved. Even now, you're letting your people debate whether or not to kill a crew of good people who helped. So, you don't have a whole lot of credit with me. So don't you fucking get in my way because the offer to burn your fucking temple down is still fucking on the table.”

The saber-tooth bear was unimpressed.

“You!” Across the near-empty field, Alb pointed her finger at him. She was so old that her stripes were gray, but when she ran, her steps were sure. Worse, she lifted what looked a lot like a shortened version of an alien ray gun.

Caught between backing up Regi and fleeing, Dante froze, unable to do either. “I should probably run, huh?” Dante asked the saber-tooth bear. It blinked at him while Peaches chitter-screamed in his ear. The far side of the temple was too far to run with a stitch in his side, so Dante ran straight for the arched entry to the temple’s sacred in her garden. He would apologize for offended Kowri later; right now he wanted to avoid getting shot.

The moment he passed the arched entry, the humidity increased as water trickled over the stone walls on either side of the arch. The archway had hundreds of little niches and holes and burrows. Another day, Dante might be curious about the odd architecture, but he had a madwoman with a gun chasing him. So he ran through the arched tunnel that was big enough that two semi-trucks could've passed each other. Ahead, thick vegetation and trees grew and animals cried. Determined to find cover in the trees, Dante ran even though every breath made his lungs burn, and his legs wobbled like a new-born colt’s. Once clear of the arch, Dante raced across a thick meadow of knee-high grass that gripped his ankles and threatened to trip him.

“You defile the gods,” Alb cried out behind him. It was so nice of her to announce her villainy in such unambiguous terms. Dante hoped the Kowri had cameras so the other exalteds realized she was crazy. Then again, if they had cameras, they might've recorded him threatening to burn the temple to the ground.

Dante reached the first tree and threw himself into the shadows of roots that rose high above the ground. He didn't have the strength for one more step. He just had to hope that Alb raced past him. Dante laid in the dirt and gasped for air quietly.

Seconds later, Alb cleared the arched tunnel and searched the garden.

“Regi claimed that you were respectful. He claimed outsiders could be respectful. And yet here you are, defiling our temple! Outsiders have never offered the Kowri anything but betrayal and lies. I know each story, each example of outsider betrayal.” Alb stalked closer, her gaze scanning the ground. Dante hoped that she would be as blind as the average greenhorn from Austin. Unfortunately, she spotted the trail he had left through the thick grass and started following it.

Dante crawled backwards through the dirt to put more distance between him and the mad woman. Peaches clung to his back, utterly silent.

“The gods should not allow any life in this universe other than Kowri,” Alb said as she advanced on him. Dante didn't have the strength to run anymore. His legs hurt, and he was weak after months of being on a ship. He decided to let his mouth try to slow her down. Using tree branches to climb to his feet, he continued his steady retreat well he called out to her. “We had a guy who tried that solution. He wasn’t a good guy.” Genocide was more common than that, but Dante didn’t want to make humans look completely psychopathic. “Besides, it seems that Lady Divashi is the one who chose to bring us here. That means your gods are on our side not yours.”

“Divashi wished to bring her sacred creatures home. Outsiders stole them away, imprisoned them and used them to produce poison that they sell to their own people. That is the sort of depravity that outsiders indulge in. But you appear with a dop so traumatized that she clings to the only creature to offer some succor, and the others are confused. They don’t see that your people are just as corrupt as the other outsiders.”

“You’re not wrong, but your people aren’t perfect, either. You're trying to kill people that you agreed to help. I’m fairly sure that makes you a backstabbing asshole.”

As Dante hoped, Alb slowed her steps, eager to monologue her villainess beliefs now that she had her victim pinned down. Dante would feel better about that if he were not actually pinned down. If this were step one in a trap, he would be feeling smug. But she held the weapon and while her steps had slowed, she still advanced on him.

“I’m protecting my people from outsiders. They are the plague of every story in which they appear.” She sounded unhinged.

“Maybe you only have negative stories about outsiders because the only ones who hang around the borders of your Empire are ones seeking profit. Good people with quiet lives want to avoid you.”

“All outsiders are stained with greed.” Alb continued her steady advance. The bushes were becoming thicker and starting to impede Dante’s retreat.

“You have Gavd ships to investigate crime, so I suspect you are people are infected with greed too. From the time that two cells meet in a pond and one tries to swallow the other, greed is the defining characteristic of surviving.”

“That is the sort of assumption that an outsider would make. Kowri cut out the infection of greed. We exiled diseased ones or ensure they cannot corrupt others. Outsiders allow corruption to thrive.”

Dante didn't know much about the universe in general, but he couldn't exactly refute her point when it came to humanity. Even when the Supreme Court sided with individual rights, states like Texas transferred authority to private religious institutions so they could continue discriminating. Too many of those people, like his father, did that not because of any philosophical belief or religious tenant but because of greed. Siding with religious separatists gave his father political power, just like supporting the Mars colony did. Every move he made was to gather more and more power. But that wasn't all humans or even more of them, and Dante refused to believe the universe was more corrupt than Earth, not when there were good people like Vk and Ter and Bevit and Ean. And sure, he avoided Ean, but she never held it against the crew that none of them wanted to speak with the ship’s psychologist.

“Where the followers of Gavd that Regi called? Did you kill them?”

She laughed and stopped to hold a low hanging branch. Maybe she hadn't been running the way Dante had been, but she was old enough that this slow pursuit through the woods was tiring her. Dante had a small flicker of hope that he might survive this yet. “I would never harm a true Kowri. I am an exalted. When I told them I had plans to deal with Siger and his compatriots, they ceded the field to me because I am a leader here. Regi a’Poque is a traitor who walked away from his people. Poque. The Lady of wanderers. That is the life he wanted, and the life he chose. He cannot now come back and claim the mantle of exalted.”

“Lady Divashi settled that one already,” Dante pointed out. He had always assumed that if religion were based on cold facts that people would be more rational, but Kowri based their religion off energy readings and documented behaviors from their divine beings, and Alb was still seven pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag.

“Divashi is the Lady of assassination. She heralds the arrival chaos and disorder. She invites disaster into the Empire. Like you, Regi must go. Her connection to the Empire must be severed.”

Dante frowned as he saw creatures stirring on the ground behind Alb. “I'm pretty sure you don't get to tell the Lady Divashi what to do,” he said.

“I am an exalted of Oba. I am a keeper of stories. I see the prodigious danger laid out in front of us, and I will not leave my people vulnerable to the machinations of a god of disorder and outsiders who have no respect.” Her voice rose to a shout.

Dante watched as the trap closed around Alb. “I don't think badmouthing the Lady Divashi is wise.” Given that Dante had just recently threatened the cold-weather gods, he also suspected himself of rampant stupidity, but hopefully the gods would be a little more forgiving of him because it was pretty clear they were done with Alb.

“What do you know of our gods, outsider?” Alb demanded.

“I know that they take up much more active role in smacking down idiots than my gods,” Dante said. “In fact, you might want to look behind you.”

Alb glanced behind, her gaze remaining at eye level before she whirled as though expecting Dante to jump out at her. As tired as he was, Dante was fairly sure that if he tried jumping it anyone he was going to fall on his face and then get shot in the back of the head. Alb looked behind again, only this time she looked down.

Dozens of dops trundled forward, their round little bodies waddling in a way that belied the danger in their quills. Alb retreated. “No. No, I am doing the work of the gods.” She brought the weapon up as though she were going to fire on the dops and Dante feared he would have to tackle her. Or at least try. However, on her next backward step, she cried out and collapsed in pain as she grabbed her lower leg. “No!”

Dante darted forward, his gaze locked on the weapon, which he grabbed and tossed to one side. Maybe he'd seen too many police movies, but someone grabbing a gun and firing at last minute was far too common a trope for him to trust a weapon near an enemy, even one that had fallen to the ground. Only then did Dante focus on Alb and realize that Peaches no longer clung to his shirt. She stood beside Alb, her tail up in an attack position and enough quills missing that her rounded tail looked anorexic. Alb carefully pulled her pant leg away from her skin to show a half dozen barbs sunk deep into the flesh.

“Do your people have medicine for that?” Dante asked. “Where can I go to get you medical help?”

“This is your fault,” she said. “You brought this conflict. The other gods are on my side.”

Dante considered the way the saber-tooth bear and the pebafri and dops and even the damn tetradactyl things had all defended Regi and Dante. “I'm fairly sure your gods are united. They're just united against you.”

Alb gasped, her breath rattling. Dante knew there was no help to be found behind the temple. At best, Regi was there unarmed and suffering the aftereffects of his fight with Alb’s henchmen. At worst, Regi was dead and the henchmen was waiting to shoot Dante. So instead, Dante scooped up Peaches and stumbled as fast as he could deeper into this garden as he called for some exalted to come and help.