Page 56 of Into The Rift

He drew me into his arms and kissed me again, and my feelings of homesickness receded a bit further. I wondered if it were too soon to tell him I was in love with him. I decided it probably was.

We began walking back through the courtyard to the sidewalk that would take us to Itaka’s old residence. It was a beautiful night, a little chilly, perhaps, and Niko kept his arm wrapped around my shoulders.

We were perhaps halfway there when Niko gave a hoarse cry of warning, as his face twisted into a mask of rage. Four men were slinking out of the shadows and coming toward us. Without any hesitation, Niko pulled out his weapon and fired pointblank at the nearest man, who crumpled to the ground as the blast hit him squarely in the chest, leaving a smoking hole. I pulled my dagger out and got ready to fight, as two of the men jumped on Niko and took him to the ground. One of the remaining attackers had peeled off the group and was coming at me, but I ducked under his arm as he grabbed for me, pivoted behind him and stabbed him where I thought his kidneys might be. He screamed, his hands scrabbling frantically for his back, but I had already leaped away to try and help Niko.

He was back on his feet, and I saw that he had killed another of the attackers and was grappling with the other one. I jumped on that one’s back and began wildly stabbing him in the neck and upper back. He plucked me off his back as if I were an annoying insect and threw me against the nearest wall. But my efforts had given Niko a chance to get his weapon up so he could fire.

The charge hit the attacker in the face, leaving a round, black hole directly between his eyes. Niko was still so furious, though, that he fell on top of the man and began tearing out his throat with his hands and teeth. I pulled at his arm.

“Niko, stop! There might be more of them coming. We need to get out of here.”

I kept pulling at his arm and he looked up at me with a feral expression, but got slowly to his feet, still trembling. I pulled on his arm, and we started moving again toward the residence.

We made it inside, and I was relieved to see Niko more like himself, having shaken off some of the blood lust he had apparently been feeling. He pulled me toward the bedroom, which had some broad windows running along the back, so we couldn’t be trapped inside the room. He began barricading the open door, using furniture and a big couch to block off most of the passage. He went over to his bags that the servants had brought in earlier and began searching through them for more weapons.

“You carry extra weapons in your luggage?” I asked in amazement, and he just shrugged.

“This is a different world than yours, princeling. I have to be prepared.” He turned and pointed to the closet. “Look in there for a panel on the wall at the back, covered by clothing. Itaka used to store some extra charges there along with a few other surprises, just in case.”

I ran over and after a moment of searching, I found the panel and the charges for his weapon. I also pulled out about ten or twelve small, lethal-looking black objects carefully and showed them to Niko. “Are these the surprises you were talking about?”

“Yes, they’re explosives. Be careful with them but stack them here near the barricade.”

Marichal came running into the front room on other side of the barricade and Niko yelled at her in Pton. She gave us a frightened, panicked look and ran out the side patio door.

I could already hear the sound of more men coming down the sidewalk outside the house with light running footsteps and getting closer to the residence. Abruptly there was a crash of wood at the front door and loud yelling in the entryway.

“The fucking door was open,” Niko said. “But the idiots have broken into the house anyway. Let’s give them a welcome. Get down behind me.”

He picked up two of the explosive devices. I heard the sounds of breaking glass and furniture that was coming from that front room as the attackers crowded through the door. He waited, with me right behind him, until the sound of many voices was closer—almost up to the barricade. Then he jumped to his feet, threw both explosives directly into the crowd of men and then ducked back down, putting his arm around me to shield me from the concussion.

The explosion was loud and fiery. Men were screaming and running as their bodies caught flame, but many were killed in that first impact. Such a quick slaughter of men checked the advance of whoever else was outside, and in addition, the loud sound brought people running from every direction in the dula. I could see lights coming on outside the bedroom window and hear people shouting all around us.

Still more men began swarming around the windows at the back, but Niko said the glass was shatterproof. They began beating on it with sticks and throwing rocks, but indeed, the glass held. I could hear the emperor’s voice yelling from the front of the house.

“What’s he saying?” I asked Niko, and he shook his head.

“He’s pretending shock, but I’m not buying it. He sent them here.”

“Are they coming to help us?”

“Not likely.”

The attackers in back were still trying to break the windows, packed so close together they could hardly even strike the glass with the weapons they carried for that purpose. Niko got up to go to the window and smiled at them as they yelled and gestured at him. He leaned over to the wall and flicked a switch, and the ones toward the back began screaming. The ones at the front were too busy being electrocuted to make a sound, falling to the charged ground, their bodies seizing.

“Itaka had that installed when she lived here. Forward thinking, hmm?”

I admit I was a little horrified, but glad she’d done it.

He went back to the barricade and began firing charge after charge at anyone brave enough to try to come in.

“For the moment, the advantage is ours,” Niko told me. But they’ll have time for one more charge before the crowd outside grows too large and they can’t hide what they’re doing any longer. Linnius is probably telling the councilors these are soldiers he’s sending in to try and save me.”

A sudden outcry from the direction of the front door came again, along with the pounding of many feet. They had managed to push through the dead bodies littering the floor, so Niko made me crouch down behind the bed with his disruptor. He showed me quickly where and how to pull the trigger. “It’s rapid fire, so just aim into the crowd and pull,” he told me, while he took the remaining explosives over to a chair, turned it on its side near the barricade and crouched behind it.

“On my order,” he said calmly, and I nodded.

It was dark now in the house, as they’d cut the power a while ago, but I could see their white faces as they came charging into the room, their mouths open and their eyes strained with battle.

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