Page 32 of The Blind Hordesman

“What?”

He can’t hear me.

I try to remove the helmet, but my body is covered with overweight cumbersome armor, and I’m struggling to get it off. As I struggle, I almost tip off the hound and scream. The Collector grabs me, urging the hound faster.

We’re leaving the Warlords.

We are leaving Seer.

I’ve been collected.

The helmet bounces on top of the chest armor. It’s large and uncomfortable and makes me feel like I’m sitting inside a barrel. My gasping breaths come erratically. Panic rises, and I freak out, trying to throw myself off the hound. But I can’t. The Collector holds me. He’s clamped his powerful thighs around me, and I can’t move.

“I can’t breathe,” I say.

“What?”

“I can’t breathe. Get this thing off me.” Several times, I hit the helmet, trying to get it off. “Please!” I shout.

The Collector clicks his tongue, and the hound slows down, stops. I hear more hounds surround us, and Seer’s brother dismounts, then removes my helmet. Hair falls over my eyes, and I go to move it, but he tsks and slaps my fingers away. “Allow me,” he purrs, and gloved fingertips gently move the hair from my face. He tucks it behind my ear. His pitch-black eyes stare right into mine, demanding submission. It’s as if Seer looks at me, but he never quite does, not in this way. Tears well up in my eyes. I touch the Collector’s face, and a thought occurs to me, one I never considered before, but I voice it anyway to see how his brother will react. “He’s blind, isn’t he?” Memories of Seer tapping things before gripping them. Walking with axes out, touching the ground. Seer knocking the glass over. Seer not being able to tell the difference between a chicken and a rooster. Seer crouch-crab-walking toward the drones, head always somehow tilted, ears twitching as he listens.

“Let’s get you out of this thing.” The Collector slides off the armor. Another Collector hands him a saddle, and he helps me off the hound. He tacks up the animal, then lifts me back onto it. Nice. The saddle feels nice and small and is likely made for a smaller rider. From his waist, the Alpha takes out the rope and winds it around my waist, then secures me to the animal. He lifts his gaze, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I never thought I’d collect my brother’s Omega. I thought he’d die single and unavailable.”

“He’s blind, isn’t he?” I press.

“He is Seer.”

Not a denial, but not a confirmation either.

“I don’t want to leave him.”

“I understand.” He mounts a different hound and clicks his tongue again. We move at a slower pace, with four Collectors boxing in my hound. He starts growling, runs faster, and soon we’re racing over the terrain and putting more and more distance between the town and us, between Seer and me.

* * *

Seer

Swarm males mixed with Regha Alphas mixed with the smell of burning, blood, and dust make it hard to tell the Regha males apart. Luckily, I don’t have to because I intend to slaughter all of them. If they allowed me to enter the town, I’d have killed only five, strapped a few onto poles and asked for information but I wouldn’t bother with killing them all. Sparing the lives of my males is important. If I don’t have to engage or suffer causalities, I won’t.

Stepping over bodies, Warlords and I advance between the military housings. I’m rattling off sounds so I can hear them bounce back and gauge the proximity of the next housing unit and the distance I have to cross from my current position to the next one where one motherfucker rains laser fire on my males. T-ne’s with me, I brush his hand, a signal we’re gonna make a run for it. I run first, his steps following me.

I make it to the building, and listen for who’s inside. Five males. Regha Alphas. Three facing the street behind their laser weapons, shooting my males down. Two pacing the room. One of them rattles in agitation, “If we don’t get the Omega, we don’t get land.”

I crouch and signal T-ne to wait.

“The Collectors have her.”

“Then we get out of here and go after them.”

“How?”

“Send more Swarm.”

“They’re all out there already. We’re surrounded.”

“Then we kill the Warlord.”

Silence.

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