All of Maggie’s hopes, all her thoughts and dreams would be like words written on a sandy beach, waiting to be erased by the onrushing tide.
“Are you sure?” Gallen shouted. No matter what happened, he was consigning her to destruction. Yet she alone had worked under the dominion of the Lords of the Swarm. She knew the price that whole worlds would pay if she failed.
“Please!” Maggie cried.
Gallen turned. Lord Xim was flying low over the arena, circling back to finish Orick.
Gallen raised his hands, crossed his wrists. “This world is ours! All worlds are ours! A Great Queen comes among you. Prostrate yourselves in adoration, or prepare to do battle!”
The room fell silent, and ten thousand vanquishers looked to Gallen. Lord Xim flew low over Orick, dropped in front of Gallen. The dronon began clicking his mouthfingers, and Gallen went to Veriasse’s corpse, pulled out the translator from his ear, plugged it into his own.
“You claim this woman is also Golden?” Lord Xim asked.
“Yes,” Gallen said. “She is a Golden from the world Tihrglas. All who know her adore her. I am Gallen O’Day, Lord Protector of that world, and her Lord Escort.”
He looked at Maggie, standing there with her long red hair streaming out, her clear blue eyes. He’d seen the longing in men’s faces as they watched her work in the inn back home. Nothing he said was a lie.
Yet Gallen feared that his plan would not work. The dronon lived by their rigid order, their code of honor. He only hoped that his actions and words fit within that order.
Xim seemed agitated by Gallen’s claim. His head swiveled from side to side, and he walked in a circle, dragging his injured leg. “You bring two Goldens and two Lord Escorts?” he asked, confused.
“Yes,” Gallen said. “We humans are soft. We did not think that one pair would be enough.”
Xim stopped in his tracks, raised his head questioningly, whip sensors waving. He tilted, so that his rear eye cluster faced his Golden Queen. “You must rule on this,” he begged.
The Golden Queen raised her head, studied Maggie and Gallen. “She is not a Tharrin,” the queen said, “and therefore cannot be a Golden among the humans.”
“Do you accept challenges only from the greatest hives in your realm?” Gallen asked. “Do only the Goldens who come from your greatest families deserve the privilege of battling for the Right of Succession? Maggie and I come from a small world, a Backward world. We don’t have any fancy lineage. We had never even heard of the Tharrin until a week ago, but on my world, Maggie is as Golden as they come.”
The Golden Queen’s whip sensors stopped waving as she considered his argument. “The omni-mind contains no useful information about your world or your culture,” she said after a long moment. “I cannot corroborate your claims. Still, if you seek to battle Xim, you will find only your own death. You may battle.”
Xim stalked over to Maggie, his whip-sensors waving. He pulled at her clothing, searched her scalp. Gallen didn’t know if Maggie had any scars. He’d never seen her undressed. Gallen held his breath. Xim’s prodding revealed a few moles on her back, nothing more. Throughout the search, Maggie simply glared at the lord, as if she wished only to bash in some more of his eyes.
When he finished, Xim raised his wings and shook them angrily. “Our offspring shall eat your carcasses! We shall rule your land! Your hive shall submit!”
Gallen could not remember what challenge Veriasse had called out next, so he was forced to innovate.
“Bullshit!” Gallen raised his fists. “I’m going to knock out your brains and use your hollow skull for a planter!”
Xim stood silently, apparently perplexed by this nonstandard verbal affront. All around the arena, dronon vanquishers began making thrumming noises.
Xim launched into the air, circled high above the arena. Gallen watched him, considered how best to handle the creature. Veriasse had opted for low dodges, a kicking attack. Gallen’s mantle flashed images before his eyes, showing the dronon’s weak spots.
Gallen wondered what Xim would do if Gallen opted to go over the top. Xim swerved, dove toward Gallen, a frontal assault with his battle arms extended. Xim swept low to the ground, as if afraid Gallen would dive from his reach. Gallen rushed forward, vaulted into the air and twisted, kicking at the vanquisher’s face with all his might, hoping that he could avoid its serrated arms.
Xim was traveling at tremendous speed, and Gallen’s assault took him by surprise. His face smashed into the steel-toed boot with more force than Gallen could ever have mustered.
Gallen felt a sensor whip snap off at the impact, and Xim’s head slammed into the ground. Gallen tumbled through the air, fell on his back. His mantle got knocked off his head, was tangled in the claws on Xim’s rear leg.
Somehow in the impact, one of Xim’s battle arms had grazed Gallen’s leg, slicing it open. It bled profusely, but Gallen didn’t have time to bandage it. Gallen scrambled to his feet as Lord Xim rushed toward him, but Xim suddenly buzzed his wings, flew high in the air, and tossed Gallen’s mantle over the crowd.
Only seconds before, Gallen had felt confident, controlled. Killing a dronon in unarmed combat had seemed not only possible but easy. From moment to moment, the mantle had sent him images of the weak points on a dronon’s carapace, but suddenly he felt emptiness, a yawning void.
Gallen got up, struggling to recall where he should strike on a dronon, remember the films of Lord Xim’s previous fights.
His leg felt numb from the blow it had taken, and he shook it, tried to keep limber.
He recalled that Xim was supposed to be a consummate tactician. In his first fight with Veriasse, the dronon had sliced the old man open with a wing, using an appendage that could not serve as a weapon against other dronon.
Now, Xim was fighting a battle of attrition. He had removed both Gallen’s and Veriasse’s mantles, played against their weaknesses.
Gallen stood, sweat streaming down his face. He had plenty of weaknesses. If I were the greatest warrior in the world, he wondered, what would I do now?
He cleared his mind, let the old peace settle over him. He was breathing hard, and his tongue felt dry. The dronon vanquishers were humming loud, and Xim’s wings buzzed above the crowd.
God, I love a fight, he thought. All his senses were alive, and he reveled in the energy that flowed into him.
He watched Xim buzz around the room, and he realized that Xim fought a battle of attrition because with a fully armored dronon opponent that was the only kind of battle there was. Strike at an eye cluster in this pass, rip off a wing on the next.
Xim circled the great dome, gaining speed. Gallen realized that it was a ruse. The dronon knew of Gallen’s bleeding leg, and he was waiting for the loss of blood to weaken the human.
Gallen couldn’t afford to fight this kind of battle. He was already losing.
Gallen closed his eyes, focused, and all of the sounds went away. He tried to ignore the numbness in his leg. Faintly, he tasted the sweet scent of flowers, and energy coursed through him. Maggie had retrieved the bottle of Hope, removed the stopper.
Gallen opened his eyes and looked up. Xim was diving toward him from the top of the dome-sweeping in with the sun behind him.
And suddenly Gallen understood why Veriasse had lost. He’d performed countless tests, trying to discover how much pressure it took to shatter a dronon’s exoskeleton. But he’d performed the tests by striking the skeleton of a stationary body. He’d never calculated how much force a dronon added to a blow when its body slammed into a fist at a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour.
Gallen couldn’t afford to fight a battle of attrition. He stood his ground. At the last moment, he feinted a left dodge.
Xim swerved to intercept, swung a battle arm, and Gallen veered back right, simultaneously dodging a blow and striking at the dronon’s head, putting all his force into the blow. His fist connected with a loud smack, and instantly pain flared up his arm, into his shoulder. Xim’s momentum threw Gallen back, and human and dronon rolled together in a tumult. Gallen’s arm was loose in its socket.