TYRAM

“What I am about to tell you all cannot leave this room,” Ms. Fadden said. “It was bad enough getting permission to tell you all, even though you deserve to know. And they still only let me tell a representative of the village. For everyone's peace of mind I'll need your assurances, right now. This is a secret some of us have dedicated our whole lives to keeping.”

She was not holding the meeting in a very comfortable room. Even with only eight of them—the six knights, Andry, and Aurina as the village's representative on the logic that she was already in the area—the room was cramped. Too many chairs for too little space and too few people, arranged to view the large digital screen at one end of the hall. Tyram wondered idly what the room was normally used for, a classroom? Small entertainment center? Or maybe just for briefings like this? It didn't matter. He was a lot more interested in what she was about to tell them, his curiosity overriding his discomfort.

No, more than curiosity. Tyram had been third to awaken after the battle, and the memory of the thing, the bloody gory pulsing thing he had torn from Jalgoz's living throat wouldn't go away. He could still feel it, the slithering rhythm between his fingers. Maybe somewhere in the secrets they were all about to be told was...purpose. Maybe there were answers, something to put everything that had happened in focus.

“I can keep a secret,” he promised.

“We all can!” Rimni said proudly.

“You are likely to be the one she is most worried about,” J'vann said.

“I can though!” Rimni insisted.

“Please,” Ms Fadden sighed, hand over her face. “Please do not make me regret this. It is important that you know. There are further complications. In fact, that's where I'll start.”

She pulled a remote out of her suit pocket and pressed a button. The screen dominating the wall behind her lit up and the glow coalesced into a view of Trego from space, the curve of the planet in the background of the bottom quarter of the screen. The foreground was dominated by a spacecraft. An ovoid dome, sloping down in the front, rested in a nest of crystal. The crystals formed a ridge of triangular spikes around the back of the oval, while at the front one huge spike stuck forward and downwards almost like keel of a capsized ship.

“That's a Chistani ship,” Verro said. “What are the Chistani doing all the way out here?”

“What's a Chistani?” Rimni asked. “I never heard of them.”

“They're kind of hard to explain,” Fann said. “They're completely different from most other species, and they're nuts.”

“Our order has some history with them,” J'vann said. “The Knights of the Alicorn Shield I mean. We were among several orders who responded when they called for aid defending some of their colony worlds from invasion.”

“They're still nuts,” Fann said. “I was watching live on a viewscreen about...I think it was eight years ago? When they dropped a planet killer on Oscalon. Shattered the whole planet like a ball of glass.”

“But why would they do that?” Aurina said worriedly, the rabbit creature draped over her shoulders rubbing its cheek comforting against hers. “Are they planning to attack this planet?”

“They were considering it,” Ms. Fadden said. “They're currently heading out of the star system. But they were here looking for the same thing they were looking for at Oscalon. A man named Balthazar Nodd.”

“The pirate?” Tyram asked.

“I don't know him either,” Rimni said.

“He was the most powerful warrior in the universe,” Sasha said. “Or at least that's what they said about him. That he could punch moons out of the sky, and rip planets open with his bare hands.”

“Wow!” Rimni's eyes widened. “Was he really that strong?”

“I do not believe anyone knows how much legend has exaggerated his feats,” J'vann put in. “But no one has heard anything about him since the end of the ruin wars.”

“And I'm not sure I believe the stories about him fighting in the Ruin Wars anyway,” Andry said. “I mean what's the record on a human lifespan, even with a Regalia? Two hundred something?”

“Two hundred and fifteen years,” J'vann said. “Most races have lifespans in the one hundred fifty to two hundred range. To have fought in the Ruin Wars, Nodd would have had to be at least twenty years over that when the wars began.”

“They also say he's going to live forever because the reaper is scared of him,” Sasha said.

“No one's saying he wasn't powerful,” Verro said. “But if they think he's still alive the Chistani must be nuts. By now he'd be...I don't even know how old.”

“Three hundred and fifty eight,” Ms. Fadden said.

“Yeah,” Andry said. Something like that.”

“Balthazar Nodd is three hundred and fifty eight years old,” Ms. Fadden repeated. “His birthday was three months ago. It was an...interesting day. It always is. He feels the need to celebrate.” She shuddered slightly, but none of the knights commented. They were too busy wrapping their brains around what she'd just said.

“He's here?” Andry demanded. “On Trego?”

“He has been for the past thirty one years,” Ms. Fadden confirmed.

“But what's he doing here?” Aurina asked.

“Dying,” Ms. Fadden said. “He's taking his sweet time, but he is dying. He was dying when he arrived. I can't speak for the reaper's fear but we know he's kept himself alive this long by exploiting his Indomitable Regalia's unique powers, and it's taken him as far as he can go. We have him in a special facility designed to keep him comfortable and keep him contained. We are...less than certain it can actually fulfill that second function. Hopefully, it won't have to. He has only a very little time left to live.”

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“Eight months,” Tyram said. “That's it, isn't it? That's what you wanted us to wait for.” Ms. Fadden nodded.

“But what does any of this have to do with the Brothers Sloth?” Verro asked.

“Our grandfather kind of retired here,” J'vann said.

“What?” Rimni asked.

“Something Jurgo said at the beginning of the fight,” J'vann explained. “I asked him why they were terrorizing a peaceful planet, and he said their grandfather had retired here.”

“They had different grandmothers,” Ms. Fadden confirmed. “All except Jurgo and Jarlo, they were actually twins. But they were all Balthazar Nodd's grandchildren.”

“And you were afraid if you killed or arrested them all he'd go crazy,” Aurina said.

“He told us he would,” Ms. Fadden said. “In so many words.”

“Why haven't you just killed him?” Rimni asked. Tyram was startled by how easily Rimni asked that, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Because we can't,” Ms. Fadden said.

“But if he's so old and sick...” Fann began, but she cut him off.

“We tried twice,” Ms. Fadden said. “The first time was right after he landed, demanding medical treatment. Our weapons bounced off him, and the three officers with Regalia who went to fight him...died. Painfully. A few years into the current arrangement we tried to poison his medicine, but he felt it go to work inside him. He walked to a random village, killed everyone in it, and then found the doctor who administered the poison and spat it out into the doctor's mouth. And then he reminded us that if he raised the level of his auram high enough, the Chistani might sense it...”

“And come to destroy the planet,” Sasha said.

“They'd blow up an entire planet just get one person?” Aurina asked.

“He drove their entire species to near extinction once two centuries ago,” J'vann said. “If the stories are to be believed, on a whim. While I am horrified at their disregard for the lives of so many innocents, their determination to see him killed is completely understandable.”

“Three weeks ago he flexed his auram,” Ms. Fadden said. “He did it to intimidate us into doing something he wanted. It worked. The Dome—the facility he's being kept in—registered a yellow alert. His rising auram had just barely exceeded the Dome's ability to mask it. Eleven standard days ago, this Chistani destroyer arrived in orbit. They responded to communications only to inform us of their arrival, that they had a planet killer targeted on our world's core, and that they would launch if we did anything to interfere with them. Then they started scanning the planet. Last night, they apparently determined they weren't sure enough he was here to kill us all and began heading out system. They are now hours away from attack range, and gaining distance. I'll be happier once that time measures in months.”

“Okay,” Andry said. “Now I've got a question.”

“What?” Ms. Fadden asked.

“What the hell were you thinking!?” Andry exploded. “You put the lives of everyone on the planet in danger!”

“They were given no good options,” J'vann pointed out. “If they had denied him a place on this world he would have rampaged without restraint. And putting aside the lives lost in that rampage it would, even if quelled, have brought the Chistani all the same.”

“But why wouldn't you tell us?” Aurina asked, almost pleading. “If we'd known this we would have been willing to relocate! All we knew is you kept refusing to help us when we were in trouble! We didn't know we could have gotten everyone on the planet killed!”

“No,” Tyram said, looking down towards his feet. “No, we didn't. But we almost did anyway.”

“You must understand,” Ms. Fadden continued. “The Chistani have destroyed eight worlds they suspected of harboring Balthazar Nodd. Five of those worlds were destroyed thanks to persistent rumors alone. The rule was nobody got told unless they were directly involved with containment...we were just lucky both those villages he leveled were remote.”

“Bet the citizens didn't think so,” Verro pointed out.

“You don't have to tell me that!” Ms Hound snapped, but then her face softened. “And you all acted perfectly correctly given what you knew. After the way we'd acted letting us put you on transports would have been suicidal. And I won't deny I'm glad to have the Brother's Sloth and their band gone. I wish I could have called you here to congratulate you. But instead...I have to ask you all to leave.”

“What?” Aurina said. “But Andry and I were born here!”

“You can most likely stay,” Ms. Fadden indicated Aurina. “But the rest of you...there aren't a great many interstellar transports that come to this planet, it's mostly freight. But we've reserved seats for all of you on one arriving tomorrow night.”

“So you're just going to kick us out?” Rimni demanded hotly.

“Only for eight months—six, now!” Ms. Fadden said. “Please, listen. Jurgo is alive, and he's sworn revenge on you all. If he catches up with you and you fight....well, either he'll have some brilliant plan in mind and you all die, or you'll kill him and we're right back where we started. For what it's worth I think the second is more likely.”

“But if we leave,” Tyram said, “It might take him months to catch up with us. Or he might not even bother to chase us off world.”

“Exactly,” Ms. Fadden nodded. “It's not what you all deserve. As far as I'm concerned you're heroes. Knights right out of the old stories. But for right now I have to ask you to leave. For just a few months.”

JURGO

“What?” Jurgo snorted as someone shook him awake. “What is it? I'm sleeping.”

“I know you are,” Birger growled, and Jurgo sat up in his hospital bed. “but your grandfather says he wants you out tonight, so you go out tonight. Or do you wanna argue with the old man?”

“No!” Jurgo clambered out of the bed. “Of course not!”

His new prosthetics were obvious, unappealing things. A metal plate covered one half of his head entirely, a raised disk with a red circle on it taking the place of his right eye and a robotic mandible supporting that half of his jaw. His shoulder looked covered in tank armor and his arm had been replaced with a mechanical monstrosity ending not with a hand but the barrel of a gun.

“Good job they did on you,” Birger said grudgingly. “If a little bit rough.”

“It's designed to work with my Regalia,” Jurgo said.

“That'll help,” Birger shrugged. “Come on, the others are waiting.”

Jurgo's mind raced as he followed Birger out of the dome. The guards didn't try to stop them, that might upset his grandfather. And no one ever wanted to do that.

Jurgo did not, exactly, love his grandfather. Jurgo's feelings for his grandfather were more like the feelings an island tribesman has for the volcano. It was a thing that could give, that could provide resources, but it was also a font of infinite destruction that could without prelude or warning lay waste the landscape. Awe was probably the most accurate word. He lived in total awe of his grandfather.

His feelings to his grandfather's old crew, on the other hand...

Most of them were dead. Others were retired, or had struck out on their own. But four of them had chosen to remain with their dying captain out of the rough sense of loyalty possessed by some pirates and thieves. Although rough as it was there was nothing weak about it. They were loyal, totally, completely, and eternally loyal, to Balthazar Nodd. But Balthazar Nodd was going to die soon, and Jurgo and his brothers had always known the old crew felt no loyalty to them.

The four remaining pirates were legends themselves, but the Brothers Sloth had figured they could win in a fight. If they had to. They'd been hoping to find a ship and go reaving, just like the old man, and leave Birger and the others standing beside a dying man's bed. But the Churmegoedon that was going to finance their ship was gone, his brothers were dead, and Jurgo was left all alone with four powerful fighters who'd just as soon see him dead. He'd been hoping to hold out in the hospital until the knights left the planet and then slip away himself.

But now that he was here...well, Jalgoz had called him stupid a thousand times, and maybe it was true, but nobody had ever called Jurgo a coward. Now that he was stuck with it he'd try the backup plan he'd worked out. When they stood around him, making him feel more than just a little bit surrounded, he didn't even flinch.

“Listen,” Jurgo said. “First of all thanks for helping me...”

“Can your thanks,” one of the pirates said. “We're doing this for the old man.”

“Right,” Jurgo clenched his fists. “Of course you are.”

“Still your orders,” Birger urged.

“Right,” Jurgo said. “Fine. For Grandfather then. I've picked out targets for each of you. The plan's real simple: go and make them dead.”