Page 63 of The Blind Hordesman

Footsteps rush toward me.

It’s not the medic.

It’s the hatchling Swarm.

Three of them leap for me, and I swipe my claws at two, slicing their armor at the throat with my red claws. The third one kicks my chest, and I stumble back, catching his foot. I twist, press my foot at his neck, and yank, ripping the leg off at the hip. His right leg in my hand, I proceed to beat him with it. Blood splatters my face, and I beat him until the leg breaks over his head.

A pod lands next to me.

I lift the leg, ready to kill with it again.

“Seer,” Dreikx says. “Seer, the imposter has escaped with my gate. Oh my ancestors, he has the gate. Wait, what’s the matter with Rickie Lee?”

“Kiki!” I shout at him

“Okay, Kiki,” he shouts back.

“She needs a medic.”

“There’s me and the communication tech left, and my medical skills are primitive.”

His primitive skills are likely what most people consider excellent. I toss the leg aside and pick up Kiki, then place her inside his pod.

“We have no gate, and I can’t jump without it,” he says. “The best I can do is get away from here and try to treat her.”

I nod. “How’s my dad doing?”

“He’s still alive.”

“That’s good.”

Dreikx grabs the back of my neck and presses our foreheads together. It is so unexpected from him that I don’t rattle or reject his imposition of dominance on me.

“We are losing,” he whispers.

I pull back. “I know, Dreikx. Silence the gate.” The silenced gate pulses and expands into an energy monster eating power away from all the tech. The gate container won’t hold it, and the imposter will have to drop the gate. Unless he’s got his own controls, which I’m not gonna think about right now.

“It will be the last thing I can control about the gate. If he has it and I silence it, we will lose the preprogrammed coordinates, thus the control of the gate. You must know what this means for your people and mine. You may never again see your mother, aunts, Raven, any of them. Tamey is on Regha. They’re all there, Seer, and if we initiate Silence and never find the gate again, your brother, Sotay, and even I will support you for a while, but we will eventually turn on you.”

“Dreikx, I will kill the imposter and bring back the gate.”

“From the very beginning, I hated your plan. You are never allowed to plan again.”

I smile. “Take care of my Omega and stay out of my way.”

“Silence will come as soon as I clear the area. Win, Seer. Win.”

“Wait for me,” Arkin shouts from a distance.

I roll my eyes. “There he is. I wondered how long it would be before he realized there’s an Omega in the midst of thousands.”

Arkin makes it to the pod, hops inside, and says, “What’s the matter with her? Fix her, Dreikx, fix her. An Omega should’ve never been here in the first place. Seer, I’m not speaking to you for the next ten years and…”

Dreikx closes the pod door and lifts, taking Kiki and Arkin with him. I listen for the pod sound until it disappears, then turn and face the water. Battle cries carry over the wind, along with blood and the falling Horde bodies. I will be the Alpha who led the Horde to their deaths. Unless I find the imposter, I will be the king of nothing, and my family, what’s left of it, will eventually replace me.

With Horde lives and the important people on the other side of the gate in mind, I run toward the pole Dad resurrected for the Alpha and climb it, listening to the battling males below. All I hear is the Alpha on the pole. That won’t do. I grab one side of his face and push down, snapping his neck so his cheek connects with his shoulder. There. That’s better.

In the water, the Horde rattle as one so I can identify them and stay away from them. I ignore their sounds and the sounds of hatchlings. I ignore millions of sounds and smells around me and project my sense toward a sound and smell that’s not like all the others. A rattle I heard coming from the room in the hive where the imposter held Kiki. I heard him, and I smelled him on her clothes, and now all that’s left for me to do is hunt him down.

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