“All right, Ivar, I’m here!” Alerio bellowed from the base of the wall. “Now I want to see Galar. Alive.” He held up the T’Lir, fingers closed around the green gem. “Or I’ll shatter this, and your god gets nothing.”
“He lives.” Ivar gestured dramatically and stepped aside. The anti-grav fetters dragged the blond upright and up into the air. The blond Warlord groaned in pain, head lolling forward on his shoulders.
“Barely,” Dyami snarled. His fingers tightened on the gem. “Put him in regen, dammit, or . . .”
“Put him there yourself!” Ivar spat back, in no mood for Dyami’s alpha male bullshit. “After you hand over the T’Lir.”
“Bring him down and get it!” The Warlord’s eyes flared so brightly red, they were visible even at this distance in full desert sunlight.
Ivar hesitated. Damned if he wanted to get in range of those fists with the chief’s eyes that color. True, the Victor had upgraded Ivar’s own tech yet again—the process had been just as agonizing as it had been the first few times the “god” had worked on him—but even that was no guarantee against Dyami in a mood. The Warlord could do more damage through sheer strategy and a suicidal refusal to surrender as anyone else could with raw power.
This is a trap, Ivar thought. Got to be. Dyami isn’t this damned stupid.
He did another sensor sweep, but once again, he could detect no sign of the shielded Enforcers he’d expected to arrive in Alerio’s wake. Though Ivar wouldn’t have been able to punch through their sensor shields, he should have been able to detect the energy trace of the fields themselves. Yet there was absolutely nothing there.
Because he didn’t bring them, the Victor told him, roiling impatiently around Ivar’s feet. I told you the weak fool wouldn’t risk his underling’s life. I would sense the Enforcers’ minds if he had, and there is nothing there. A dark anticipation surged through the link. Now I will take what is mine. At last!
A massive spike of power buckled Ivar’s knees as the Victor sent his energies swirling over the ramparts downward toward the Warlord waiting below.
Alerio was still staring up at the battlements when the three-meter-tall golden giant appeared, almost in his face. He threw up an arm block in sheer spinal reflex. It did him no good as a fist the size of his head slammed into his skull.
The next thing he knew, he was staring up at a painfully cloudless blue sky through a field of dancing sparks. His head was full of his neurocomp’s shrieking alarm Klaxons, but he had no idea where he was or what had just happened.
The Victor hit you, the comp told him. GET UP!
Years of experience had taught Alerio never to ignore that tone in his comp’s voice, no matter how bad he felt. He reeled to his feet, but the world swung around him so violently, he almost fell again. He looked down and felt a chill.
His hands were empty.
The bait. Where the fuck is the bait?
He took it, the neurocomp said. He’s stopped to drain it, just as you expected.
The world stopped spinning as the implant compensated. Glancing around wildly, Alerio spotted the Victor kneeling at the base of the fortress wall a good ten meters away. Last he remembered, he’d been standing beside the wall.
Wait. He knocked me ten meters with one punch?
Yes. He’s incredibly powerful.
Let’s just pray he’s not all that bright.
The giant held the T’Lir in both hands as he studied it in obvious fascination. Alerio licked lips left painfully dry by his enforced desert run. If he spots the trap, we’re fucked.
So far Nick had done a good job creating the dummy T’Lir. The counterfeit looked exactly the same as the silver armband with its embedded green gem, but the real thing was still locked around the Guardian’s arm. Apparently the Victor didn’t know the T’Lir couldn’t be removed until Nick died—and then it would immediately disappear off to whomever the sentient gem had selected to be the new Sela Guardian. Damn sure wouldn’t be the Victor.
The trick had been faking the aura of power that clung to the T’Lir even in its half-drained state. The Victor had seen the gem during the battle with Nick six months back, and they’d known he’d spot a substitute.
Nick had proposed the solution back at the Outpost, since it was obvious what the Victor would demand as Galar’s ransom. It seemed the spirit of Nick’s dead mother had volunteered to inhabit the phony gem and serve as the conduit for the catlike guardian spirit that inhabited Nick. But the cat had warned Nick it didn’t have the power to fool the Victor for long enough.
So Jessica and Riane had linked with Nick, adding the psychic abilities the Sela had given both women months before. Nick suspected the Sela had somehow known this day was coming, which was why they’d empowered Jess and Riane to begin with.
The next step was to fool the Xerans at the coach, which they’d managed to do. The only thing they hadn’t anticipated was that Ivar would demand Alerio bring the T’Lir; they’d expected the Victor to require them to turn over Nick instead. Still, the psychic attack they’d planned should work, assuming the Victor took the bait.
Alerio frowned. What was that ancient military saying they taught at the Vardonese academy?
“No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.”
From the cool confines of the grav-sled, Dona watched the Victor examine the counterfeit T’Lir. Her guts laced themselves into intricate knots of nausea.
“He’ll be fine,” Frieka told her, sitting strapped in the seat at her side. With Pendragon back at the Outpost in the equine-sized regenerator the European Outpost had sent along with him, the wolf had decided to accompany the rescue party. “Dyami can plot rings around those bastards.”
“He’d better.” Dona frowned, shooting a concerned look at Jessica, who sat in the back of the sled with Nick and Riane. The human’s eyes were glassy, and sweat streamed down her face as she sat with her hands gripping the couple’s. Without the grav-sled, Jess never would have survived the trek across the desert.
The sleds were illegal for use on Jumps, of course. If a temporal native happened to spot one during an invisibility shield failure—unlikely, but theoretically possible—the teardrop-shaped vehicles would be too obviously alien. They were only supposed to be used to transport supplies and equipment on the Outpost, but Alerio had ordered the three units along on the Jump anyway.
“Let the bastards court-martial me,” he’d growled. “I don’t give a shit as long as this works.”
The sleds were crucial to the plan; their sensor shields made them completely undetectable. Unlike those created by T-suits, sled shields produced no ghosting, thanks to their more powerful onboard generators.
Better yet, Ivar would never expect Alerio to violate regs by bringing one along on a Jump.
The problem was they couldn’t be sure what the Victor could sense. Alerio had decided to take the chance anyway.
The other issue was that the three sleds couldn’t detect each other. The only way they’d been able to avoid colliding as they followed Alerio was by triangulating on the Warlord and flying in rigid formation.
“Get us closer,” Nick said to the sled pilot.
Enforcer Carrie Jones gave him a short nod as her hands glided over the controls, bringing the craft to within meters of the Victor. They watched the tridscreen as the “god’s” golden lips peeled back, exposing his white teeth in a grin.