The pain crashed over Eric like a wave!

After the first inadvertent scream Eric reflexively clamped his jaw shut, stifling the rest of the screams that followed after, but the blood-pumping stump of his left arm sent jagged streaks of white-hot agony searing through his body and into his brain. He fell backward, crashing onto his back, wishing over and over with all his over-stimulated mind that he hadn’t agreed to remove the healing potions from his battlesuit’s auto-injectors.

The jarring impact as he crashed onto the ground sent another wave of pain through him, and he felt himself bite his lip hard enough to draw blood. Various voices, both in his head and from outside were shouting at him, but his brain was so fried he couldn’t make sense of what was being said.

All of this happened in seconds, before his suit automatically flowed forward and sealed itself around the stump, flooding the interior of the sleeve with a cool anesthetic gel that numbed the area. The relief from pain was sudden and very, very welcome, and Eric felt light-headed with euphoria.

“Focus, sir!”

Eric looked around, dazed with relief and shock, seeing Osar battling with Nurixan, the Urgan forcing the fucking Bolseq away from where Eric lay helpless. The sound and shockwaves of their swords clashing rocked Eric’s body, a palpable rhythm of violent grace that further confused Eric’s brain.

“Captain!”

“I… I…” Everything seemed to move in slow-motion, not least of which were his thoughts.

“Pick up your arm.”

“Whu… what?”

“In front of you, pick up your arm, sir.”

Eric’s attention focused on his severed arm, lying just a couple of meters away from where he lay, with a pool of melting flow-metal mixing with his blood below it, the dissolving armor exposing his pale amputated limb with its wrist still encircled by the carved golden bracelet that was Vashanka’s ring.

His ring. An irrational, driving need to retrieve the ring blazed within Eric, scouring away every other thought in his brain, his Flaw awakening like a dragon prepared to defend its hoard!

Eric blinked.

Suddenly, his mind was clear again, his thoughts coherent. Like a mental enema his Flaw flushed everything else from his mind for a single clarifying moment, allowing Eric’s decades of mental conditioning and hard-won experience to default his mind back into his normal brain-state of calm, rational decisiveness.

Focus! Move!

With a snarl, Eric launched himself forward, tucking his body into a roll that ended with him crouched over his arm. Vashanka’s, no his ring, loosened as soon as the fingers of Eric’s right hand touched it. Clumsily, Eric pulled the ring off the limp limb, fumbling with it for long seconds, before managing to slip the spatial device one-handed onto his still-armored right hand. With a sigh of relief Eric reached out and touched his pale left hand, taking it into his ring.

A green-armored body crashed into the ground a few meters from him, rolling over a few times before sliding to a halt on its hands and knees. The battered-looking Nurixan had lost his sword, and dark gritty dust covered his face and head. Beyond him, Eric saw Osar stoop to pick up the bounty-hunter’s white sword.

“NOW, JURUB!” The downed Nurixan suddenly shouted, looking somewhere behind Eric.

Startled, Eric turned, in time to see a strange being shimmer into existence over the prone form of Serra Jakobin: It’s features were vaguely fox-shaped with an elongated head, pointed ears, and two dark eyes, except that it was also furless, had multiple clawed limbs, and its stretched leathery skin was ivory-colored and thin enough that the general shapes of its internal structure could be seen through it. More importantly, the creature took hold of Serra’s torso and with incredible strength for its apparent size, lifted the unconscious woman up into a shoulder carry.

“NO!” Eric shouted, just as the creature and Serra abruptly disappeared.

“Incoming!” Pig screamed in Eric’s mind and he ducked, covering his head with his forearm as a pair of Luna’s drones streaked in, carpet-bombing the area with explosive and smoke grenades. Eric was rocked back by the explosions, his body showered by dust and debris, with nothing but billowing clouds of rock-dust filling his vision. Automatically, his suit’s helmet deployed, protecting Eric’s face from the assault.

A moment later Osar was beside him and forcefully hauling him to his feet, helmet pressed close and shouting urgently at Eric’s face. < We have to get you out of here Jad-Os! >

< Serra? > Eric asked, looking yet not finding Serra on his auto-map.

< Gone, Primus! > Cid’s voice came in over the Squad-Net. < Whatever took her has an ability that hides it from our sensors. However, I have Luna’s droids tracking the Bolseq as it flees towards his ship. >

< Hellfire! > Eric cursed, stumbling as his worry over his long-time comrade tangled up his feet. Osar grunted to compensate, keeping both of them stumbling forward through the dying dust cloud and broken ground.

< They will not escape Jad-Os. > Osar snarled, though it sounded like he was trying to convince himself rather than stating a fact.

< Can we prevent them from leaving? > Eric asked a few moments later, leaning heavily on Osar as the Urgan half-dragged, half-carried him down the slopes of the lair-mound towards the tree-plaza and their Fall-Back position.

< Yes, sir! > Cid confirmed. < As per your orders I have several plasma-cannon armed drones aimed at the vessel’s thrusters while Luna is ready to increase the aetheric charge across the Dome in case it’s needed. She can only keep it that way for a few seconds before draining her reserves but it should be enough. >

< Good job, everyone. > Eric said softly, keeping his internal rage and worry about Serra’s capture to himself. < Let’s regroup and recover for now… >

< And then we crush them. > Osar growled beside him, the Urgan’s voice rough with pent-up fury. Eric could feel the big man shaking with anger as he helped him further down the slope.

< Aye jadosi… for this they will pay. >

As he sped back to his ship aboard his personal sky-skimmer, Nurixan fumed.

Born to one of the Clan’s highest-ranking Families, he had decided early on to become a Rutkar like his father, a killer of renown. To prove his ability, he had entered from the bottom up, but the jealousies of his rivals and the biases of his instructors held him down. He had been unfairly treated, passed on again and again in favor of his lessers, until his mother had finally intervened. By her command he had been assigned to the Clan’s Maonrut training-cadre, the bounty-hunter’s, where he soon distinguished himself as one of the best to emerge from the ranks of the Giboga Clan in living memory, as he had known he was all along. Then, after years of assisting the Clan’s more senior hunters, Nurixan had finally been granted permission to perform his Kesh-rut, his One-Kill, the mission that would elevate him from hunter-aspirant to full hunter status. Most other aspirants at this stage in their career undertook simple kill missions as their Kesh-rut, but that was both cowardly and uninspired in Nurixan’s opinion. He was clearly made for greater challenges.

And so, despite his sponsors objections and the recommendations of the Clan head himself, Nurixan had chosen to go after one of the longest-standing bounties on the Clan’s mission board.

No doubt impressed by his determination, his Clan sponsors had bowed to the inevitable, and allowed him to undertake the mission.

Because the individual identified as his target was rated as extremely dangerous, his Clan sponsors had made sure that he was well-prepared and trained to deal with this particular individual. He had endured weeks of training regarding the target’s known abilities and allies, even going so far as to force him to learn various spells and abilities. He had even been given permission to use one of the Clan’s prized Kerenom blades, a weapon crafted by their Clan founder no less, because the contract stated that not only would he have to succeed, but that he needed to be seen to succeed. His sponsors had stressed that point so much: Success was important, but more important still was the fact that an untried bounty hunter was seen to be the cause of the target’s capture.

More than a year passed before he was allowed to leave, and it was a mark of the regard he was held that his father had taken time away from his duties to see him off, the moment ruined by the sight of his weeping mother, who had to be held up by her new escort of Clan guardians.

So, Nurixan had traveled to the Fringes of the Empire to hunt down his prey.

After encountering some difficulties on the way to the target’s last known location, nothing that his blade and quick wits couldn’t handle, he finally arrived at the primitive world of Dai-Lan. Nursing injuries he had sustained after a disagreement with a stupid provincial, it had taken a while for Nurixan to come into contact with the advanced team his mother had sent to provide support. Not that he had needed any, but his mother had insisted. After several costly delays caused by the team’s incompetence, Nurixan was finally forced to step in and coordinate the attack on his own to actually acquire his target. As expected, given the quality of the members of his advanced team, there were several early set-backs during the actual operation. He lost both his personal bodyguard and his prized battlesuit before he got close enough to do his thing. Surprisingly, it appeared that his sponsors had been so thorough and paranoid in their preparations that the device they had given to Nurixan to neutralize the target did so immediately and without any undue difficulty.

Activate and done.

Because the skirmish to apprehend the target had escalated just enough to leave most of his advanced team dead and a neighborhood of the city in flames the planetary authorities had been alerted, and Nurixan had been forced to leave the planet hurriedly. Ultimately the entire short-lived and anticlimactic affair had left him short of funds, considering the expenses he had had to incur to keep himself in minimum comfort, but with a large amount of time left before he was scheduled to return to the Clan. Having heard so much about the hidden riches of the region Nurixan did what any self-respecting sentient would do: He set out to earn his fortune.

He planned a grand tour of the Empire’s fallen Southern Fringe, ravaged by the Dark Sun Cataclysm, taking bounties when he felt like it, and generally enjoying himself as he crossed through the region.

In Carim II he walked beneath the massive boughs of the Treelord’s Preserve, and hunted feral Hak’num in the ice-caverns of the Pearl Belt of the Iomad System. He fought as a hired duelist during the short-lived Twelve Moons Uprising, and then took bounties for a month along the lawless Gazmun-Parella Circuit. In Sela, early on his wanderings, he met the Immuran mercenary Jurub during an illegal blood-match in one of the planet’s water-sphere casino’s and hired the phase-shifting warrior as his bodyguard until he returned to the Clan headquarters in Samgoba.

All the while, he still plied his trade, scouring the rare Imperial Nexus Postings as well as the local news-sheets for outstanding bounties. Those he apprehended or killed that were wanted locally he turned over to whatever local authority there was, and the rest he stuffed into his ship’s stasis chambers to be delivered once he returned to the Empire’s Middle Sphere. He also took time to do a fair bit of exploration, noting planet’s or regions with useful resources as well as taking an inventory of species for possible exploitation or slavery.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

This was because for all its legitimate businesses, the backbone of the Giboga Clan’s wealth were slaves and rare treasures, and slaves were infinitely easier to acquire. Then in his journeys, Nurixan came across his greatest discovery, one which he had been careful to keep to his crew instead of far-casting it out to his sponsors: By sheer luck and an Ifni-blessed local Interdiction, Nurixan came across an unclaimed Dungeon World.

He was not the first Imperial citizen to arrive at the planet of course, nor was the world fallow, since there was a sentient native species inhabiting the world already. But, deep in the dangerously volatile Serig-Adamus Cluster as it was, Maya V was largely unexplored and certainly unexploited. So, Nurixan took advantage of this, capturing and enslaving a pair of the diminutive avian natives, who called themselves the Mayarad, but hedged his bets by also raiding a Planetary Survey Station that had been set up to study the Dungeon World in preparation for staking a claim. Being neither an exobiologist nor an aether savant, Nurixan figured a captive who was both of those things could better illustrate the riches that Maya V could offer, if the Giboga Clan moved fast.

With his captives secured and himself eager to bring the news to his Clan sponsors, Nurixan cut short his leisurely wanderings and began the long journey home, despite having one more year remaining before his scheduled return. However, during a stop-over at a small trading station called Carasus, the young Bolseq heard rumors of a rapacious Sun Wyrm that hunted in the region; and a Sun Wyrm core was one of the cores Nurixan needed for his planned Tempered Stage build.

So Nurixan turned from Carasus and began scouring the vast Ash Cloud Region for a little over a standard month, even venturing as far abroad as Bokkar’s Rim. Then, just when he was about to give up, his ship sensors detected the trailing wave of a massive aetheric emission. Backtracking the source of the emissions took him and his crew nearly two more months, but finally Nurixan arrived at a small, unremarkable asteroid belt in a small, unremarkable solar system, to find a massive Atmospheric Dome crowning what looked like an ancient Ark-Ship. It was potentially the find of a lifetime, eclipsing even his discovery of Maya V, for the Ark-Ships of the ancients were coveted by even the Dragon Lords themselves.

And then that Urgan and his Ifni-cursed human had to ruin everything.

As Nurixan stepped off his sky skimmer and onto the ship-deck of the Issurath, he gave a quick look at the landscape outside, noting with satisfaction that his pilot had chosen a spot away from many of the ruined buildings, as per his instructions. His sponsor’s training had suggested that hiding his void-ship somewhere was more important, but Nurixan had quickly learned that doing so made it difficult to find if you were in a hurry to leave, which was an inconvenience he would rather do without. His pilot had been reluctant at first, but quickly learned that it was not a good idea to go against Nurixan’s wishes. This spot, compared to the other’s his pilot had chosen during the early parts of their journeys, was a good one, being on a flat plain over red gravel, making the ship clearly visible from afar.

As he stored the skimmer in his ring he was met by Jurub, who had used his species’ phase-shifting ability to arrive at the ship ahead of his master. Nurixan gave his bodyguard a curt nod before striding quickly through his ship’s corridors.

The Issurath, like the Predator, had originally been built as a luxury yacht, but now had been repurposed as a long-range reconnaissance and bounty collection vehicle. To do this, the Gibogan engineers that Nurixan’s mother had hired had ripped out one of the ship’s interior decks, leaving only two; one as living quarters for potential crew, and the other for the rows of stasis cells that now held the people that Nurixan had captured in his wanderings.

Hurrying through the richly-decorated corridors Nurixan’s destination was one of the crew cabins, which had now been transformed into a well-equipped but hastily repurposed medical bay, where the bio-savant he had kidnapped, a Falwan female named Ranla, was examining the unconscious person they had captured.

“What have you discovered?” Nurixan asked immediately as he entered the room, noticing not only the uncomfortably increased heat and humidity but also that the amphibious Falwan had enlisted the help of the pair of feathered two-meter tall Mayarad slaves to fetch and carry for her.

“The battlesuit she wears encloses a human female ser,” Ranla replied in her fluting, hooting voice, her agitation showing by the frequency she flicked the translucent membranes over her large, bulbous eyes. “But she is afflicted/paralyzed by hooom, some sort of neurostatic toxin.”

A filthy human? Bah! Nurixan wanted to spit with disgust, but held back only because he did not want to dirty his own ship. His first thought was to kill the human then and there before it could befoul the space they were in further, and yet… there was still the matter of retrieving his sword. Would the Urgan and his human pet trade the sword for their companion? Perhaps, since if the stories about human sentimentality held true, then he could probably use this female as a bargaining chip. “Can you revive her?”

“I can remove the toxin, yesss,” Ranla said, running an unfamiliar instrument over the human’s expensive-looking battlesuit. “But I am unsure if that will revive her.”

“Remove the toxin.” Nurixan commanded, kicking away one of the slave-collared Mayarad’s who dared to walk too close, eliciting a satisfying squawk. Then, with a last disgusted look at the prone form of his captive, he turned away to the small conference room where Jurub waited.

“We should leave now, Nurixan of Giboga,” The phase-shifting Immuran said as soon as Nurixan entered and the door slid down, licking its black lips in anxiety. Nurixan gestured for his bodyguard to continue, luxuriating in the cool air of the room, which stood out in contrast to the one he had just come from. “Fate wears heavily upon me tonight.”

“Shit on your fate, Jurub!” Nurixan rounded on his companion, the remembrance of the human’s smile after what it had done to his face exacerbating his anger and annoyance. The wound was easily dealt with of course, and had taken only a single potion to heal, but the fact that he had been wounded by a human was insult enough. “I will not leave without the sword, not even if I have to burn this entire Ifni-forsaken place to do so!”

“We do not have the strength to overcome these people!”

“They are just humans, Jurub!” Nurixan half-screamed as he rounded on the Immuran, while he unconsciously rubbed at the long, still hairless region where the human’s blade had struck. It would take time for new growth to cover the area. At the annoying thought Nurixan’s tail rose up straight, bristling with affront. “We are both Steel-level adepts! How can you even doubt our victory?!”

“Your prejudice blinds you, my employer.” Jurub said softly, spreading his arms wide. Nurixan could see the adept’s heart beating through his skin, noting the speed of it. Jurub was as steady a fighter as any that Nuruxan had ever fought besides, and as cold-blooded a killer as any of his Clan Giboga sponsors. It was a good thing that Immuran’s never broke their word once given, else he felt that the mercenary would have left his employ long ago. However, if even the normally unflappable Jurub called for caution, perhaps he needed to temper his own ire.

“You are right: We shall be cautious, friend Jurub.” Nurixan said soothingly, tamping down on his anger as much as he could. “But you know as much as I that we cannot return to my Clan without the sword.”

Jurub sighed, the air whistling through his pointed teeth.

“I know this, employer Nurixan,” The long-faced alien conceded with grim fatalism. “I shall prepare.”

“BOLSEQ!”

His voice amplified by a small glyph-carved torc placed around his armored neck, Osar walked out alone onto the large, earth covered area where the invader’s voidship had landed, holding the captured Bolseq’s sword aloft one-handed where it could be clearly seen.

As he waited, Osar concentrated on keeping his anger down. Still, despite his valiant efforts, he could feel the blood pounding in his temples and chest, taste bile in his mouth and a heavy emptiness in his belly: All telling him that this matter with Nurixan, the severe injury inflicted on his Jad-Os, and the capture of Serra had awakened raw emotions he had very deliberately chosen to keep locked away, burying them so deep in the hope that that they wouldn’t have the strength to hurt him ever again.

Yet here he was.

The sound of a hatch opening on the side of the invader’s ship drew his attention and his eyes narrowed as Nurixan himself stepped outside.

“Have you come to return my property Urgan?”

Osar concentrated on keeping his breathing even, forcing his reply through gritted teeth. “Return our companion Bolseq, and you may have your blade.”

“You value her so much?” Nurixan asked, producing a new sword, this one with a wider blade. “That sword you hold is a genuine Kerenom, and surely worth more than any human.”

Osar smiled, before throwing the blade he held contemptuously onto the ground. Nurixan gave a gasp of outrage, inadvertently placing one foot forward. He may be highly trained and equipped, but he is a youngling still, Osar thought, seeing the agitation his disrespect exposed. Let’s see if we can make him do something rash. Still keeping his eyes on the Bolseq, Osar stepped on the hilt of the fallen blade, grinding its hilt into the dirt.

“Kerenom is overrated.” Osar said contemptuously. “His blades are a crutch for the weak.”

The Bolseq flushed, clearly visible through the hairless region of his face where the Jad-Os had wounded him earlier. Even though the distance between the two of them was significant, Osar could clearly feel the bounty hunter’s focused intent to kill reaching out towards him. Outwardly unaffected, Osar inwardly steeled himself for an attack.

“You will pay for your disrespect Urgan.” Nurixan snarled, as he activated his suit, the protective plates converging over his head to present a hideous red-eyed death-mask. The sword in his hand flared with green aether, and red gravel crunched as the Bolseq stepped down from the last rung of the ladder and onto the Stage’s surface.

“I’ll be sure to piss on your grave, Bolseq.” Osar sneered, goading the man further.

< Let him get into the kill-zone Osar. > Cid’s voice was calm over the Squad-Net, which Osar hoped the young man was truly feeling, because a mistake now would surely lead to their deaths.

< I know what needs to be done, friend Cid, > Osar placed a hand on his voice-amplifying torc, putting it away as he readied his sword and activated his shield, taking comfort from the steady hum it emitted. He had tried to explain to his human comrades how different it was going up against an actual adept versus fighting a beast, even an evolved one, but he had known deep inside that they would never truly know the difference until they actually fought against another adept.

This Nurixan was as good an example as any: Yes, he was skilled with a sword, probably even extensively trained as a duelist, but nothing near the skill level of any of the Masters that Osar had seen in his lifetime. He was young too, but that had not prevented him from doing serious injury to someone as experienced as the Jad-Os. In truth, much of Osar’s anger was actually directed at himself for allowing Eric to face the Bolseq on his own, instead of taking on the adept himself.

Time to remedy that, Osar thought, as Nurixan suddenly charged.

The youngling was fast, or at least had some item or ability that made him fast, because he was past Cid’s designated kill-zone in the blink of an eye. Osar heard the human scientist cursing as Nurixan closed in, but was quickly too occupied defending himself to reply.

Osar met Nurixan’s blazing blade head on, noting the man’s strength as their blades met. His Squallbiter held, despite the Bolseq’s clearly superior blade, and that was enough for Osar. With a grunt, the big Urgan stomped forward, barreling through the duelist’s defense with wide sweeps and judicious shield positioning, using his superior weight and strength to keep his smaller opponent unbalanced. He used his abilities to counter his opponent’s too, notably using Prescience to dodge attacks and avoid blade-traps, even as he spammed Snap-Strike and Gust to provide openings for his own attacks. However, he was less of a duelist and more of a line fighter, and fighting alone was not really one of his strengths.

An ability blasted his shield aside, and even as Osar rolled his shoulders to bring his massive sword around, Nurixan connected with two slashing blows against the Urgan’s exposed chest-plate. Only of the quality of his battlesuit kept Osar uninjured as he stumbled back. His opponent, slid his right leg back, crouching down with one hand extended and his sword hand pulled back, ready for a killing lunge.

One Osar knew he could not stop.

< NOOOO! > Suddenly Cid slammed down on the ground between them, showering everyone with red dust and pebbles, as he discharged both guntlets in the Bolseq’s direction.

Surprisingly, the bounty-hunter dodged aside from the explosive barrage with relative ease, slipping and sliding to the side. Cid engaged his Voidwalker jets to skim over the gravel sideways, guntlets blazing away, explosions following the speeding Bolseq as it moved in a wide circle.

< Get back, Cid! > Osar shouted as he moved to intercept, knowing the human was no match for the bounty-hunter in a one-on-one fight.

< I got him! > Cid cried out as Nurixan seemingly stumbled and crashed into the ground, raising another plume of smoke. Overexcited, Cid produced his spear and dived forward, only to be met by Nurixan surging forward, catching Cid on the side and sending the human tumbling away with a sudden spray of blood.

Seeing another of his comrades injured, Osar went berserk.

Stowing his sword, Osar brought out his Legion knife and engaged every one of his Voidwalker’s jump jets, slamming onto Nurixan’s body and carrying both of them to the ground. They rolled a few times before breaking apart and then coming together again, blades flashing, battlesuit-clad bodies colliding, in a high-speed stab-fest that left cuts and scrapes all over their bodies. Then, with a clever twist of his wrist, Nurixan struck the knife away from Osar’s numbed fingers even as he sent a tremendous blast of aetheric force against him, sending the big Urgan off his feet and onto his back.

Osar cursed, blood filling his mouth, unable to move as Nurixan retracted his death’s-head helm and stooped to pick up the fallen Legion knife.

“A Cut Man, eh?” Nurixan mused as he studied the blade. Osar lifted his head, finding that it was the only part of his body that he could move. Was it a paralyzing ability? Or was his back just broken? Either way, he was helpless as the victorious bounty-hunter walked towards him, laughing triumphantly. “Well, so much for the vaunted prowess of the Legion, eh?”

“What shall I do with this one?” A new voice asked.

Osar struggled to move his head slightly to the right, seeing Nurixan’s Immuran companion holding a blade to Cid’s uncovered throat, the scientist’s face pale and drawn as he looked at the fallen Urgan.

“Let him watch.” Nurixan commanded as he threw aside Osar’s knife.

The bounty-hunter came to stand beside Osar’s fallen body, raising his green-blazing sword above his head.

Osar, resigned to his fate, closed his eyes as the blaze intensified.