“Gallows humor, I believe the humans call it,” the Opir said. The rifle’s muzzle pushed into the back of Damon’s neck with bruising force. “Who sent you?”
“I come on my own.”
“A Darketan?” the Opir asked, incredulity in his voice.
“I was originally assigned by the Council to observe your colony,” Damon said.
“Spy, you mean.”
“I was one among many, as you are undoubtedly aware,” Damon said, disregarding the Opir’s remark, “but my fellow agents were killed by Expansionist operatives. I learned that Theron was the leader of this settlement, and as I have been left without orders...”
“You thought you would join us?”
“Theron was my mentor, and—”
“You’re lying,” the Opir interrupted. “No Darketan abandons his duty to Erebus.”
“Not all Darketans are alike,” Damon said. “I value my life as something more than a tool of the Council. I know you seek independence from Erebus. So do I.”
“And you claim to know Theron?”
“I was his student. If you are familiar with his philosophy, you must realize that he regarded my people as equals to Opiri. He treated me as such when I knew him in Erebus.”
He could hear the stark skepticism in the Opir’s silence. “I have no reason to accept your claims,” he said. “We know the Expansionists have their own agents watching us constantly. Why should I believe you?”
“The Expansionists would never use Darketans to do their work,” Damon said. “I encountered a few of their operatives, and now they are dead. I have important information for Theron that cannot wait.”
The Opir grabbed Damon’s shoulder, his fingers pressing so hard they numbed Damon’s arm all the way down to his healing wrist, and spun him around to face Alexia.
“Who is she? ” he asked.
“My serf,” Damon said.
“A dhampir?” The Opir leaned toward her, his eyes barely visible through the tinted visor, and inspected her badly torn and stained clothing, her dirty face and tangled hair, all arranged specifically for this moment.
“She was in the company of one of the Expansionist operatives,” he said. “I found her as you see her now.”
“And the operative?”
“Dead, like the others.”
The Opir’s expression was invisible, but his scorn was evident in his posture. “Why do you bring her here?” he said, giving Damon a hard shake. “Darketans keep no serfs.”
Damon refused to react to the provocation. “As I said, I am not like other Darketans. I have no weapons, and any Opir has strength superior to mine. You have nothing to lose by taking me to him.”
For a few moments Damon was certain he had miscalculated in his confident approach.
He caught Alexia’s eye, and she nodded slightly. They were together in this, even if they could never be together in any other way.
If he was never to touch her naked body again, move deep inside her, feel her mouth pressed to his neck while she drank his blood, he would cling to those memories in the last instant of his life.
But it seemed that moment was not to come just yet. Abruptly the Opir dropped his hand from Damon’s shoulder. Without lowering his weapon, he faced the settlement and raised one hand in a gesture obviously meant as a signal. Two colonists, both in the same bulky clothing he wore, emerged from the gate set in the settlement’s high wooden wall.
One figure was smaller than the other—female, Damon guessed—but just as heavily armed as the taller one.
The Opir continued to hold them until the other two had come half the distance across the open field. As soon as they had trained their own weapons on Damon and Alexia, he turned back toward the hills.
Damon made no attempt to talk to the two new guards, nor did he try to communicate with Alexia in any way, though he was constantly aware of the humiliation she must be enduring every moment this masquerade continued. The larger of the two new colonists moved in to pat Damon down while the other continued to stand guard, and then the smaller did the same with Alexia. After a seemingly endless wait the first Opir returned, carrying the weapons Damon had left behind as a sign of good faith.
The shorter of the two guards gestured with her rifle, making clear that Damon and Alexia were to precede her while the other two fell in behind their prisoners. The five of them covered the distance quickly. Though the area was quiet and Damon had never sensed the presence of other Opiri or Darketans in the area since he and Alexia had left their camp, the behavior of the colonists made clear how threatened they felt.
The gates swung open soundlessly as they came within a dozen meters of the wall.
More well-armed colonists in protective suits met them just inside. As the gates closed, Damon made a quick assessment of the area immediately inside. It was bare dirt, clear of anything that might impede movement or catch fire. The colony proper—several clusters of buildings of various sizes, a half dozen well-tended gardens, a barn for livestock and other facilities appropriate to a small, self-supporting community—lay scattered around a commons, stretching some one hundred and fifty meters to the far wall built up against the eastern hills at the foot of the Sonoma Mountains.
The Opir who had first confronted Damon strode past him and gave Damon’s various weapons to the men who came up to take them: two male humans, one dark and short, one tall and fair, both dressed in typical serf’s tunics and pants. The immediate difference Damon noticed was that neither man wore the usual mark of ownership. One had a leather cord strung around his neck, what looked like a melted piece of metal hanging from it, and the other wore a colorful armband of cord and beads. At second glance, Damon saw that even their tunics were different in design and detail, as if the humans had been personally responsible for the decorations.
The two men glanced at Damon with open curiosity, looked with more intense interest at Alexia behind him, and carried the weapons toward one of the nearby buildings.
Damon heard a whistle from overhead and saw that one of the several guards pacing the battlements at the top of the wall was waving to Damon’s original captor. He, too, was human.
“Fresh blood, Sergius?” he called down, startling Damon with his familiar manner of address.
“We shall see,” the Opir said. He bent to speak to the shorter of the two Opiri watching over Damon. She gave a quick nod and set off toward a low building with rows of windows that Damon guessed was a serf’s dormitory.
“Where is Theron?” Damon asked.
Sergius’s visor swung toward him. “Be silent,” he commanded. “You have no status here, Darketan.”
“I am not seeking status,” Damon said, making his scorn clear in his voice. “I said I have urgent—” He broke off as a crowd of humans, most dressed in the same cut of shirts and trousers, a few of the females in well-cut shifts embellished with ribbon, leather and colored thread, gathered in a loose crowd to stare at Damon. If they had come from Erebus—which was Damon’s understanding—they might have seen a Darketan in passing, but it would be a rare occurrence.
What seemed odd was that none of the Opiri appeared to notice or disapprove of their gathering. Serfs in Erebus were not permitted to congregate in numbers above a handful unless they were all the property of one Opir. And in a colony like this one, each of these humans would have a well-defined task to keep the settlement running.
But no one interfered with the humans at all, and after a short time another Opir joined them, speaking casually to the human nearest him. There was nothing in the posture of either one to suggest mastery or servitude. The human neither bowed his head nor flinched away.