“Eric, there’s no time! Go—unnh!” He fell backward to the ground, his back arching as the first of the seizures went through him.
Now! Eric thought, and in desperation pulled the pin laser from his jacket pocket. He fell on top of his father, pinning his chest with one knee while holding his arm firmly to the ground with the other. His father’s body spasmed a third time, then a fourth. Gripping the arm with his left hand, he thumbed the safety on the pen-sized laser with his right and jammed it into the wound. A fifth spasm. The fresh blood that oozed from around the inserted laser was slippery and he lost his grip momentarily as the muscles contracted again, jerking the arm powerfully. Eric struggled to steady the arm and made sure the laser was into the wound as far as it would go. He looked at his father’s face, his eyes glassy and staring, and realized when he saw the saliva frothing pinkly at the corners of his mouth that he must have bitten his tongue or lip.
“Father, this is all my fault,” he sobbed, even though he knew his words fell on unhearing ears. “I’m so sorry!”
There was another seizure, the sixth, and Eric thumbed the activator on the pin laser, holding the button down to keep the tiny beam firing steadily. There was a horrible sizzling that wrenched his stomach, and tiny curls of foul-smelling smoke poured from the edges of the wound. He closed his eyes at the sight and fought back the wave of nausea sweeping over him, but he kept holding the activator switch until he felt a sudden popping beneath his fingers, followed by his father’s single piercing scream of pain. He released the button and immediately pulled the laser out of the partially cauterized wound.
His father went limp, the violent muscle contractions halting in mid-seizure. The glassiness disappeared from his eyes and he sat up shakily, his face ghostly white. Eric helped him try to stand, but Javas fell weakly to his hands and knees, his stomach heaving. He gasped several times, then rose once more to his knees, catching his breath. The color was beginning to return to his face and he looked up at Eric, a weak smile spreading across his face.
“Th-thank you, son.” He extended his left hand and allowed Eric to help him to his feet, then held onto his upper arm, the wound now barely bleeding.
“Are you all right? Can you walk?”
He nodded tiredly and started moving, slowly at first, one foot plodding ahead of the other as Eric helped support his weight. He regained his strength quickly as they traveled, but Eric realized that they’d lost too much time and looked desperately for landmarks. The dogs would not be far behind them now.
There they are… There was a great deal of karst here, but two large chunks of limestone—one on each side of the path—stood out among the outcroppings scattered throughout the woods. From there it was just another half kilometer to the cave.
They hurried through the opening between the two rocks, but had barely cleared them when the first of the dogs came up from behind. Eric whirled to meet them, the pin laser in hand, but the animal did not attack as he’d expected. His father joined him at his side, holding the knife well out in front of him, but still the dog hung back.
The dog was unlike any Eric had seen. It bore a resemblance, in build and coloring, to a Doberman; but the legs were much longer and thinner and ended in flat, wide paws perfectly suited for speed in the unsure footing of the backwoods. A second dog appeared, followed immediately by a third. Eric noticed that, unlike the baying dogs still in the distance, these animals hadn’t made a sound and reasoned that they had been bio-bred for speed and stealth, and trained to keep their quarry from moving until the slower, noisier dogs—and their masters—caught up.
The lead dog growled, its head lowered and unmoving but its eyes darting back and forth between the two of them. Eric raised the pin laser, and all three animals oriented on the sudden movement as Eric thumbed the switch and fired on the one in the center. The dog was beyond the effective focal length of the laser, unfortunately, and it did little more than singe a spot on its short black fur, but the lead dog seemed aware of the weapon, what it was and what it could do, and kept a discreet distance from Eric as the other two animals slowly moved to either side as if to encircle them like some wild prey—which, it occurred to Eric, was exactly what they were.
“Don’t move,” said a voice behind them, and both Eric and his father froze. The dogs growled louder, clearly unsettled by the newcomer, who walked briskly to stand between the two men, the barrel of his shotgun pointed at the dogs. Eric continued to keep the pin laser trained on the dog nearest him, but from the corner of his eye saw that his father’s mouth had dropped when he recognized who the man was.
“Brendan—”
“Sire, reach behind me. Tucked into my belt is a revolver. Slowly! Do you have it? Now, aim it carefully at the animal on your right, I’ll take the other two. Prince Eric, don’t move…”
Brendan waited until the Emperor dropped the knife into his boot to better handle the revolver with his uninjured arm, then fired over Eric’s shoulder, catching the dog on the left squarely in the face, nearly severing the head from its body. He brought the gun around and shot the lead dog a split second before his father fired at the remaining animal on the far right, bringing it down.
Brendan paused a few seconds to be sure they were dead, then in one smooth motion slipped the shotgun over his shoulder and into a holster mounted on the side of the back-pack he wore. He pulled a small vial from one of the side pockets on the pack and quickly sprinkled its contents, a grainy black powder, on the ground and around each of the dead animals. “If the other dogs come this way, they won’t be able to track us once they’ve inhaled some of that.”
“Poison?” Eric asked.
“No, nothing so exotic; or cruel, for that matter,” he said, already turning away from the grisly scene. “It’s ordinary pepper.” He took several steps into the brush before Javas stopped him.
“Wait, murderer.”
The icy cold tone of his father’s voice caused a sick, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach, and as he spun to face him he saw that he now had the gun leveled steadily at Brendan. The man halted mid-stride, then sighed heavily and crunched almost unconcernedly back through the fallen leaves and branches to stand before the Emperor.
“What would you have of me, Sire?” he asked simply, his arms spread at his side. “Shall I stand before that tree, so that you may play the role of executioner? Or will you permit me to treat your wound and lead you, and your son, to safety?”
“I’m not so sure I would mind seeing your blood mingled with that of these other animals,” Javas replied, nodding at the carcasses of the three dogs. “And I don’t need your help to reach safety.”
“Oh?” asked Brendan. “With your integrator still blocked?”
His father’s eyes widened in stunned surprise at the admission. How had he known?
Brendan cocked his head in the direction of the road. “Have you wondered why they haven’t caught up with you?”
Javas looked at Eric, clearly puzzled as to what the man was suggesting, and lowered the revolver slightly.
Eric listened carefully. The dogs still barked in the distance, but it was clear that they were not coming any closer. “They’re no longer following us,” he said.
“There is no need for them to be,” he responded, pointing at his father’s injured arm. “They didn’t expect you to get very far. The purpose of the horsemen and dogs was to drive you in this direction, keep you from doubling back to the road until the rest of them came around the estate—much more quietly—from the other side.” He gazed up the path in the same direction the cave lay. “They’re not far, Sire. It should only be a matter of minutes before they reach this point, which”—Brendan looked back to Javas, an eyebrow raised—“doesn’t leave you much time, does it, to make a choice?”