Kamak waited, and watched the horizon. Khem was coming. He knew that much. The question was when. He kept his finger near the trigger just in case.
Farsus and Corey had dragged some heavy crates out of the ship and were using them for cover, but Kamak stood in the open, alongside Doprel. They were all the backup he had today. To Vo had opted not to join the fight, citing a long list of legal rules that made it illegal to interfere with a bounty hunters contract, some of which even Kamak wasn’t aware of, and Tooley had opted not to fight on account of not giving a shit. Kamak didn’t begrudge either of them. Neither were much good in a fight, and pitting an amateur against Khem was just a roundabout way to create a corpse. Kamak had even tried to talk Corvash out of a fight, but the rookie had held his ground.
Kamak had tried holding his own ground, and standing in the open for his dramatic showdown with Khem, but time and the blazing hot sun of Tannis had worn down that instinctive aplomb. He now sat and lounged on a crate, conserving his energy for the fight to come. After so much time on the run from a seemingly endless onslaught of random enemies, it was actually kind of nice to know exactly who he’d be fighting next.
It was also kind of nice to know he’d probably be dead soon. Khem didn’t back down from fights, and he didn’t lose fights either. Kamak just hoped the rest of the crew could find a way to stay alive.
The blazing sun of Tannis began to set, and the shade Kamak was sitting in started to shift. The blazing sunlight started to scorch his skin again about the same time he noticed a small black speck start to cut its way across the horizon.
“Ah. That’ll do it.”
Kamak had very little time to contemplate his rapidly decreasing time on this mortal coil. Khem’s ship moved fast and silent, and it was on top of them only moments after Kamak first spotted it. He lifted his gun and did one final check of every firing mechanism as the small craft descended. Kamak had always felt a bit cheated that Khem’s ship looked so damned mundane. Someone like him should have had some jagged, knife-edged ship with a full black paint job. Instead he flew around in a ridiculous yet efficient metal tube, even more aggressively utilitarian than the Hard Luck Hermit. Kamak would’ve preferred to get killed by someone with a little style.
What he lacked in style, Khem made up for in his sheer menacing presence. Even walking out of a plain metal tube, Kamak still felt his blood run cold as Khem stepped out, spears on his back, pacing towards the battlefield on legs as thick and sturdy as tree trunks. Kamak felt a brief urge to fire while the hunter was still at a distance, but he stayed his hand. Khem was in an odd mood, given his encounters with Morrakesh and Vatan, and Kamak didn’t want to do anything to piss him off.
“Khem.”
“Oathbreaker.”
The titanic hunter stood a few yards away from their makeshift battlefield, with spears at the ready. Kamak took a few steps forward, but kept his gun low. Khem wasn’t attacking yet, and so neither was he. The wing-like appendages on Khem’s back folded out and up, ready to strike, but he made no moves yet.
“Why are you still after us?” Kamak asked. “You know there’s something bigger going on. You literally watched Morrakesh snatch us up.”
“And yet you live,” Khem growled. “So either you have sold yourself to him, or he sees some value in keeping you alive. In either case, the universe benefits from your death.”
Kamak hated that argument, and he hated it even more because he could not refute it. At least not in any way that would be effective against Khem. He was “Oathbreaker”, there was nothing he could say, no promise he could make, that Khem would take seriously.
“So. You made up your mind already?”
“My mind was made up decades ago, Kamak,” Khem said. “I merely take this opportunity to act in fulfillment of my code.”
“Of course. And what about my crew? They’ve never broken any oaths. To you.”
Kamak knew Tooley had broken quite a few oaths. Maybe Corey had done some too. He was reasonably sure Farsus and Doprel had never broken any, but people had a way of surprising him.
“I have accepted a bounty on their heads as well,” Kehm said. “They will be taken alive, if possible. Terminated, if necessary.”
Khem’s six eyes looked six different directions, focusing on the scattered members of the crew. Corey nearly took a step back as the dull eye focused in on him, but he managed to hold his ground, and hold up his gun. Tooley took a quick drink from a bottle she had brought out just for the occasion, and glanced at To Vo, who was vibrating nervously as she clutched a first aid kit.
“Taken alive won’t mean kept alive,” Kamak said. “You’ve dealt with as many crooked cops as I have. Maybe more. You hand any of my crewmates over, you’re killing them, plain and simple.”
“The failures of the police force are their burden to bear,” Khem said. “They have their laws. I have mine.”
“You and your fucking laws,” Kamak said. “You’d let the whole universe burn if someone made it against the law to put out the flames.”
“Yes.”
Kamak put his finger on the trigger and stared at Khem. Khem tightened his grip on his spears and stared right back at Kamak. Corey knelt down a little, putting as much of himself behind the crate as possible.
“Well, nice talking to you,” Kamak said. He shot first.
As soon as the first bit of gunfire rang out, Khem hurled a spear right at Corey. He barely had time to fire off a shot in retaliation before the colossal metal spear hit the crate he was hiding behind, went through it, and kept sailing. Corey’s stomach finally stopped its penetrating flight, but sheer inertia carried the spear, the crate, and Corey himself through the air a good five feet further before he fell, pinned under the crate with a spearhead in his gut. Between the crate, and his body armor, the spear barely broke flesh, but that thought was of little comfort to Corey while he laid on the ground with a spearhead scraping his kidney.
To Vo broke away from the sidelines with a shout and ran to help Corey. Tooley sat on the sidelines and took another sip from her bottle of booze. It was nearly empty. She was running out of booze almost faster than she was running out of hope.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
While Tooley drained away more alcohol and more will to live, Khem ran after Farsus. To his credit, Farsus managed to dodge the first spear, and get far enough from the second spear that it hit him in the shoulder instead of the heart.
While Farsus reeled from the blow, Khem dashed in to close the distance, running at shocking speed for a being with such a massive frame. Kamak and Doprel tried to gun him down, but what few projectiles he did not dodge had little effect on his stony hide. Khem closed the gap on Farsus and used the spear embedded in his shoulder to lift him off the ground and hurl him against the Hard Luck Hermit’s hull. A low groan of pain was the only clue Farsus had survived the impact, as Khem turned his attention to Kamak and Doprel.
A single precisely thrown spear shattered the gun in Kamak’s hands, though it did not injure Kamak himself. After that, Khem picked up the crate Farsus had been taking cover behind and hurled it in Kamak’s direction. As he had anticipated, it never made impact, but Doprel did let go of his gun to catch it before it could crush Kamak.
“Doprel, drop-”
Kamak had seen through the gambit almost as soon as the crate had been thrown, but could not speak fast enough to outpace Khem’s predatory speed. With Doprel distracted trying to help others, Khem fell on him in an instant, the wing-like appendages on his back folding down and beginning to pummel with scorpion-like strikes, hammering Doprel’s head and torso with powerful blows. Doprel dropped the crate and started to shield himself, but only after a few disorienting blows had already landed. Even with Doprel defending himself to the best of his ability, Khem simply had the advantage of limbs, with four arms against Doprel’s mere two. No matter how well he defended himself, Doprel was at Khem’s mercy, and Khem had no mercy.
While Doprel was hammered with relentless blow, Tooley took another drink from her bottle, and found there was nothing left in it. She’d drained the entire thing without even noticing. She looked down at her reflection in the glass, and then looked up at her crewmates. Corey was screaming as To Vo tried to mend his wound, Farsus was barely conscious, Doprel was starting to bleed black bile, and Kamak was struggling to lift and aim the massive gun Doprel had dropped. Tooley checked her own reflection again.
“Okay then.”
While Tooley swung the glass bottle and shattered it against the Hermit’s hull, Kamak finally raised Doprel’s colossal gun and fired it into Khem’s torso. The massive burst of superheated plasma almost managed to knock Khem off his feet. Almost. The shock of the impact at least ended his barrage on Doprel, and the blue behemoth managed to stagger backwards, away from Khem, before falling to the ground. Khem turned towards the source of the gunfire as Kamak struggled to reload the massive weapon. The hunter’s scorched hide was still sizzling as he walked up to Kamak and tore the gun from his hands.
“Stand and fight, Kamak!”
“Oh, what do you want me to do, punch you?” Kamak scoffed. “You have to satisfy some warrior code, not kill an opponent who isn’t fighting?”
“No. But it amused me to watch you struggle,” Khem said. He grabbed one of the spears on his back and lifted it above his head. “If you insist-”
Khem’s grip on the spear tensed as he felt the hell of a boot dig into the burned spot on his back. His back limbs folded in and tried to shake off the sudden attacker, but could not react in time to knock Tooley off his back. The half-drunk pilot jumped up, latched on to Khem’s neck with one hand, and stabbed a broken glass bottle into his eyes with the other. Khem let out a yelp of pain and tried to shake Tooley loose, but the momentum only helped her drive the broken glass deeper into his eyes.
The shattered bottle stabbed as deep as its jagged edges would allow, and Tooley finally pulled it loose, dragging an entire eye along with it. Khem’s shaking finally shook her off, and she landed on the ground in a heap, close to Kamak.
“Fuck you,” Tooley spat back up at Khem. She held up her glass bottle and waved his own eyeball at him mockingly. Kamak couldn’t even enjoy that small victory.
“You stupid bitch,” he mumbled. Tooley didn’t even register his comment, as she was too busy reveling in Khem’s bleeding eye socket- until the bleeding stopped, his head bulged, and a second eye rolled forward to fill the empty space.
“How the fuck does that even-”
Tooley’s question was cut off by Khem’s massive foot catching her in the gut and knocking her backwards. There was always a short readjustment period after one of Khem’s redundant organs slid into place, but that did little to slow him down.
“Oathbreakers and liars, all of you,” Khem growled. He took spear in hand once again. “This universe will not suffer you any longer.”
“Oh, trust me, Khem,” Kamak said. He was dead anyway, so he figured he might as well get the last word. “I’ve been around. This universe deserves us.”
Khem let out a low growl, one that was matched by the metallic groan of an approaching engine. Khem and Kamak turned to the sound as one, to find a small, rusted van approaching from the nearby hill.
“No,” Kamak said. “No no no no.”
Kamak picked the broken bottle out of the dirt and waved its bloodied edge at Khem.
“You don’t touch her,” Kamak shouted. “You swear to me, on Klakai or the gods or whatever else you give a fuck about, you don’t hurt her! You can kill me or whoever the fuck else, but not her!”
“I promise you nothing,” Khem said, as the van’s door began to open. “You have no honor.”
“Nor do you, if you continue.”
Kamak froze. That wasn’t Vatan’s voice. That was a voice he hadn’t heard in a long time.
Vatan stepped out of the van, pushing a woman in a wheelchair in front of her. The new arrival’s body was visibly atrophied by paralysis, and her face prematurely aged by scarring and the weathering of Tannis’ sun. Her deep-set wrinkles were made even deeper as she set eyes on Kamak.
“Khem of the Kalakai,” the wheelchair-bound woman said. “These are my lands, and these are my guests. By attacking the honored guests of a host who cannot rightly defend them, you dishonor me and yourself.”
Khem looked at the woman in the wheelchair, then back at Kamak, and snarled loudly.
“Catay,” he growled. “You defend him? After he did this to you?”
“Kamak didn’t do anything to me,” Catay said. Her face set like stone, as she refused to betray any emotion. “I did this. I caused the accident.”
“Catay, you-”
“Don’t you fucking patronize me, Kamak,” Catay snapped. “I’ve had forty-five years with nothing to do but sit in this chair and think about what what went wrong. Did you think I was too stupid to figure it out?”
Kamak said nothing, and after glaring at him for a long time, Catay returned her attention to Khem.
“As I said. These are my guests, and by attacking those I cannot defend, you insult me and debase yourself. Leave, now, and this trespass will be forgiven. Continue, and I will curse your name before Akai.”
Khem bent low, and let out a bellowing roar of frustration, almost directly in Catay’s face. She closed her eyes and endured the torrent of rage until Khem relented. When his shout was finished, Khem put all four of his primary limbs on the ground and sprinted back to his ship at full speed, before taking flight and roaring into the stars.
“Cunt,” Catay said. Kamak agreed, but right now he was taking a moment to breath and take stock of his existence.
“Doprel? Doprel, talk to me,” Kamak said. Doprel groaned and continued leaking black bile onto the ground. Kamak stumbled after Farsus and shook him back to full consciousness before To Vo was even done bandaging his shoulder . Farsus was the only one who knew a damn thing about healing Doccan’s, and Kamak put him to work right away. With a little help from Vatan, Farsus managed to assess that Doprel was stable, at the very least, and started working towards his recovery. Kamak checked on Corey and found he was already working on getting back on his feet, thanks to To Vo’s quick help. Kamak didn’t give a shit about Tooley, but she was fine anyway, so his apathy did not matter.
With his crew taken care of as best they could be under the circumstances, Kamak finally devoted his full attention to Catay. She stared up at him with a cold hatred in her eyes.
“You want to talk on the ship?”
Catay never dignified him with a response, but she did start moving her wheelchair up the Hermit’s boarding ramp, into the ship. Kamak gave a quick nod to Vatan before following her mother aboard and closing the ramp behind him.