Penitents could sense malice or impending attacks aimed towards them, if the attacker was close enough.

So Flen kept his distance. He used his powers.

He stayed well away from the line of penitents who were winding towards the assessment facility, and from a safe distance, he shoved an elderly female who wasn’t scurrying fast enough.

Another penitent caught her and helped her to limp along. Ugh. Both penitents shot wary looks towards Flen. These mind readers probably knew what had become of Flen’s sister and mother. They were probably laughing like demons inside their minds.

“Go easy on them, will you?” Anchet offered a strained smile. “We are not in a war zone. These are just prisoners. We are merely shepherding them.”

Flen shot his second-in-command a withering look. More than a tenth of all the Alashani warriors in existence were dead, yet some idiots—like Anchet, for example—still trusted the alleged messiah and his rekveh puppetmaster. It was unbelievable.

Flen gestured at the seemingly endless line of rekvehs who were pretending to be as docile as cave-sheep. “I have not forgotten what these things are.”

Some of the penitents looked like mockeries of Alashani. The ones with white hair, for instance. That was offensive. Someone ought to outlaw that. Rekvehs should not have anything in common with albinos.

“I believe we can handle this duty on our own, premier.” Anchet clasped her gloved hands behind her back, respectful. “You can go home to your fiancee, if you wish.”

How kind.

Did the warriors honestly favor the company of penitent Torth over that of their appointed premier? Flen couldn’t quite believe that.

“Right, premier,” another warrior called from the opposite side of the street. “We’ll keep the penitents in line.” He chuckled. “At least we’re out in fresh air. Better than being in one of the rekveh indoor cities.”

Flen hated the immense sky. Right now it was colored by the sunset plus that banded planet, and far too many scudding clouds. He distrusted every chilly breeze. He would have preferred unchanging stalactites. Even so, he inwardly admitted that guarding this boulevard was preferable to standing inside a gigantic facility pumped full of telepathy gas and mind readers. What a nightmare.

He was grateful that no one had insisted that he go near the rekveh Thomas or the telepathy gas zone.

“Did you hear about the telepathy gas party last night?” another warrior called, apparently making conversation to relieve the boredom of guard duty.

“What?” Anchet asked.

“Yeah, it was in a brewery on Leaven Street. Apparently a bunch of those Academy students think they can become rekvehs.”

Anchet tittered. She apparently thought that recreational telepathy was funny instead of absolutely horrific. “I’m curious to try telepathy. My ummin friend said—”

“Hush,” Flen snapped. “This is not a discussion we should be having in front of mind readers.”

That shut them up.

Too many people were losing fear of rekvehs, thanks to ludicrously lenient policies. Some foolhardy aliens actually allowed penitents to prepare their family meals.

Flen found the implications darkly disturbing. Chambermaids could earn their way out of slums, if they were fortunate in family or friends. Might penitents rise out of the slums like that?

The boulevard was full of penitents trudging out of their barracks right now. The line zigzagged across multiple intersections, bridges, and market squares. Flen was tasked with keeping the rekvehs apart from ordinary pedestrians. He also had to make sure that none of the vile creatures tried to bolt away before their turn to stand in front of the rekveh Thomas. It was demeaning—

Distant screams broke Flen’s musings.

Penitents scattered in all directions.

Flen drew his spears. “Anchet! Baysuch!” He shouted directions to his warriors.

Corralling penitents was unlike the battles Flen was used to. These Torth were unarmed, unarmored, and extremely easy to kill. A few dozen spears stopped them. Penitents sprawled, their backs or sides pierced with iron projectiles. The rest of the Torth cringed together.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Stranger Danger!” one screamed.

“There are brainwashed nussians!” another yelled.

One penitent shouted directly at Flen. “You have to stop them!”

It might be a Torth trick; an escape attempt. But those screams were coming closer.

And was the ground trembling?

Flen wondered if Ariock was causing an earthquake. Was this the end? Was extinction the fate of the Alashani? Was he helpless despite his powers?

The penitents hurled themselves to the ground, cowering and pleading for Flen to take action. That was when he saw the rockslide of red and orange storming downhill towards him.

Nussians.

They galloped on all fours, snarling, making the ground tremble. Pedestrians leaped aside, screaming with terror. Any who were too slow got trampled. The nussians were in berserker mode.

Flen whirled around to see what the nussians were rushing to confront, half-expecting a horde of Red Ranks. Nussians would not behave like this without a good reason.

But there was no army. No enemies.

Were the nussians zombified?

Were these penitents actually telling the truth?

“Stop them!” Anchet called from a distance. She had somersaulted out of harm’s way, up on top of a portico. Four of her spears hit one target, and that nussian sprawled and slammed against her perch. The jarring impact caused a pillar to crack. The portico collapsed, spilling downward.

Anchet shielded herself with wreckage. The other nussians flew past their fallen peer and his slayer.

Their small red eyes were utterly vacant. They did not even react to the people they trampled or spiked out of their way.

Flen readied his spears.

He wasn’t fast enough.

Suddenly Flen was amidst overwhelming violence. The penitents bolted, but many got spiked or crushed. The thorny nussians were as merciless as transports speeding downhill. There wasn’t enough room to throw spears.

Flen infused his body with extra strength and speed. That empowered him to leap high. He bounced off one thorny spinal ridge, then another. He pushed with his feet, somersaulting in midair. Another kickoff. He spun and landed hard on a steep slope. The sewage canal.

Flen saw what was coming, but there wasn’t time to stop it. A zombified nussian whacked him aside. He was airborne, and before he knew it, he fell into utterable filth with a splash.

He spewed sewage out of his mouth as he struggled to stand. The stench was overpowering. He had to infuse his body with power just to eject the stuff.

Even his quiver was waterlogged. Disgusting.

And why was it foggy? Was the fog pink?

He was not the only victim staggering around in the sewage canal. Other people had fallen here. A child wept.

Flen drew four spears. Perhaps there really was a second brainwasher in the city? No doubt the unholy rekveh would blame this calamity on Stranger Danger, whether that was true or not.

Those poor nussians used to be people with hopes and dreams. They probably had families. Some of them might have been shani nussians. But now? They were nothing but weaponized corpses. They would have to be slaughtered like dangerous beasts.

Someone screamed.

Another panic started. Filth-covered aliens floundered, mobbing away from a group of figures in the twilight gloom.

Penitents.

Ten of them. A work crew.

They looked sinister in the blackness beneath a stone bridge. Their slave collars glowed like evil grins inside their cowls, illuminating nothing above their chins. Just flesh. Flen certainly did not want to get near them.

He infused his spear-throwing arm with extra strength—or he tried to. Suddenly he could not expand his awareness.

His powers were gone.

Pink gas, Flen realized. Someone must have thrown inhibitor gas off the bridge.

This was a clever attack. Someone had orchestrated it.

The work crew of penitents grinned with savage mockery. They moved with coordinated speed, wading towards Flen. Someone might have commanded them to target warriors. Perhaps they knew that he was a premier?

He tried to run, but it was like a nightmare. He was too slow. They were gaining on him.

This wasn’t fair! He shouldn’t die easily, the way his father had, the way his mother and sister had gone. This surely wasn’t what a war hero like Flen deserved. He had earned a better ending than this.

Watery lights appeared in the gloom.

The wind picked up, blowing the stench away. The lights were like bioluminescent eels that shimmered beneath river water. They gathered into tendrils. Those tendrils gathered into strands of cloth and hair and wings.

The Lady of Sorrow glowed with terrifying beauty.

Flen whimpered. Glowing like that, she was the embodiment of the tales his mother used to tell. She looked like a goddess of life and death, a being who straddled the river and controlled its vital blessings. She reached out a hand, and that hand stretched into a glowing white fire.

The cloaked penitents scattered like rats fleeing a torch.

The Lady of Sorrow morphed into a writhing mass of glowing serpents. She tried to follow each and every one of the scattering figures. But they blended into the gloom. Flen could not tell if they splashed further up the sewer, or if they climbed a ladder, or ducked into a side tunnel.

The goddess’s power must have limits. The further apart her serpentine forms traveled, the less cohesive they became. They broke apart.

“Ugh,” the Lady of Sorrow said. “I cannot track them all.”

Her glowing serpents wheeled apart and came back together as a single feminine form. Her hair and gown rippled in an unseen breeze. She was pristine and glowing, and sewer filth did not touch her.

Yet Flen did not want the Lady of Sorrow to come any closer to him. She was a mind reader. A goddess, perhaps, but a rekveh as well. He didn’t know whether to worship her or revile her.

“Are you all right, Premier Flen?” The Lady of Sorrow used her powers to wash the filth out of his hair and off his skin and his ruined armor.

Flen shivered.

“You’re safe,” she said.

To his relief, the Lady of Sorrow moved on, rescuing victims and healing injuries. She floated bodies onto dry ground.

Safe?

Flen sloshed to the embankment and climbed onto the boulevard. This monstrous attack should have clarified what evil rekvehs were capable of, if anyone had doubts. He would not regain his powers for several days. He wasn’t safe.

Nobody in Freedomland would be safe until they got rid of all the mind readers.