20
Trudging on foot across the battlefield, Aidan had to dodge Clan Wolf warriors, 'Mech pilots who had ejected from their machines and now staggered about clumsily, looks of disbelief on their faces. He would not have minded a few skirmishes with these warriors, just for the exercise, but the battle was over and the Jade Falcons had won. Aidan saw no point in dying aftera battle, when some other time a warrior could die inone. Still, the frustrated Clan Wolf warriors were angry enough to engage in useless combat, and so Aidan stayed out of their way.
One of his boots had split open during the battle with the Elemental, and he had cast it away. The ground beneath his bare foot was hot, making him step gingerly. The burning hot steps, alternating with the booted ones, were clumsy, so he cast off the good boot in order to walk more rapidly. The ground heat urged him forward and definitely helped him to pick up his pace.
* * *
He found Lanja trapped beneath a large piece of armor that must have fallen with the 'Mech beside which she lay. He would not even have noticed her except that his burning feet had forced him to stop and sit on a jutting sliver of the fallen 'Mech. The place where he sat was quite warm, but at least it was a new area of his body that was getting singed.
He did not notice Lanja until she groaned. It was an abrupt sound, more an expression of frustration than pain. At first all he saw was the twisted armor of her battle suit sticking out from under the metal fragment. Walking around it, he saw Lanja lying in the shattered hallmark of her trade.
"Are you all right, Star Commander Lanja?"
"No. You can tell that easily, quiaff?"
"Well, aff. But I thought it was polite to ask."
"A freebirth who is polite. What a novelty. What has happened in the battle?"
"It is over." Aidan told her what he knew about it, including his own crushing of the command dome.
"So your plan was a success," she said. "And your dark band. It is ripped."
He looked down. "So it is. I had a bit of a skirmish back there. Happened then."
"You are a good warrior, Jorge."
"It must cost you a great deal to say that. I have always known you despise,us, quiaff?"
"Freebirths? I have always hated freebirths. I hate you now. But you are a brave warrior."
"I am about to complicate your hatred even more."
"Oh? How?"
"I am going to carry you to the med dome, Star Commander Lanja." Ignoring her look of disgust, he summoned up nearly all his remaining strength, lifted the metal piece, and then pushed it off Lanja. When it was safely aside, he looked down at her. Seeing her body, twisted as it was, crushed in the upper legs, even his emotionless Clan demeanor gave way. Lanja undoubtedly saw the slight flinch in his eyes.
"Can you move?"
"I feel very little sensation, but I will try." Her arms responded naturally and she was able to lift her neck.
"Your back seems to be all right, and your upper body. We will have to get you out of here."
"We?"
"Figure of speech. We freeborns do n—don't speak just right, you know that?"
Working quickly, Aidan fashioned some pieces of shrapnel and wire from various exposed places in the fallen 'Mech into a kind of metal cot, a device called a traverse that he must have read about. Ripping out some electrical cable, he made a usable handle with which to pull the flat metal construction.
The hardest part was extracting Lanja from the remnants of her battle suit and onto the makeshift traverse. She was covered with the black goo that the suit's medical system expelled to stabilize injured Elementals. The goo, combined with Lanja's massive frame, made it difficult to maneuver her onto the traverse. Using more electrical cord, he fastened her body firmly onto the construction. When he was sure that she would not slide around unnecessarily and harmfully, he grabbed the cord handle and began to pull.
Almost immediately he realized that he could not progress quickly. The weight of the traverse, so much greater than any real medical conveyance, plus the care needed to keep the ride smooth over some fairly rocky ground, forced him to move slowly. Each step he took seemed to burn his feet even more.
It was not long, however, before the ground cooled as he drew away from the battle site. Then he was spotted by some Jade Falcon Elementals, who rushed up to take over transport of the traverse. Weary and exhausted, Aidan was grateful for the strength of these towering, sinewy warriors.
Aidan barely felt his last steps into the Jade Falcon encampment. He stumbled into the center of camp, then fell unconscious at the entrance to the command center. Kael Pershaw was there. He had watched Aidan's progress the whole way, ordering his subordinates not to give the exhausted warrior any help.
* * *
Pershaw was feeling extraordinarily good at that moment. He had just signed off from Dwillt Radick's surrender acknowledgment.
"I am to be your bondsman then," Radick said.
Pershaw chuckled to himself before responding, "There will be no need for that. Your defeat came at the hands of a freebirth. I cannot have such a humiliated warrior as my bondsman. You may return with your Cluster to your home world."
"Kael Pershaw, you musttake me as bondsman. It is Clan law."
"No, not law. Only custom. I reject the custom. If you were my bondsman, I would remember your shameful history every time I saw your face. To lose a battle because of the actions of freebirths. I could not bear that. If you must have the custom, I take you as bondsman and immediately free you. May you come to understand Kerensky's blessing, Star Captain Dwillt Radick."
He could sense Radick fuming at the other end, but the Wolf Clansman could do nothing. It was not mere custom, but Clan law, that gave Pershaw the right to dictate all terms. Pershaw thought the defeat, against odds and with so much freebirth help, was humiliating enough. Why subject Dwillt Radick to any more? He would carry this shame with him long enough, perhaps for the rest of his life.
Then a messenger came to him with the news. Lanja was alive but injured, and the hero of the battle had returned, having dragged Lanja across nearly a third of the battlefield.
As Jorge staggered toward him, Pershaw could not repress the disgust he felt for this man's freebirth origins.
* * *
When Aidan woke up later, lying on a cot in Pershaw's office back inside Glory Station, Pershaw was sitting beside him, idly fingering the severely ripped dark band.
"Bast's picture is gone," Pershaw said laconically.
"Must have dropped off. I am sorry. I am not supposed to speak without permission."
"Under the circumstances, we can ignore that rule. We can, in fact, ignore the dark band."
With a pull that sent pain down Aidan's back, Kael Pershaw ripped the dark band off.
"Now you can speak as you always have, disrespectfully and rudely. Consider it your reward for winning the battle. Quite the opposite of the dark band. For now, do not even discuss this with me. I despise the fact that you must be honored now, and I will hate every moment of my participation in honoring you. But your act, especially for its capable improvisation, is deserving of the medal we are forced to award you."
"Do not award me anything. I am Clan. What we must do, we do."
Pershaw laughed abruptly. It was a chilling sound. Aidan wondered if anyone on Glory Station had ever heard Pershaw laugh. It was not real laughter, of course, but more the delighted growl of a creature about to pounce, the happy scream of the jade falcon before it seized its prey on the mountainside. It was the laugh of nightmare monsters.