Page 15 of The Sunlit Man

…summoning Auxiliary as an extra-large wrench. He pointed it at the four ember people, then charged them. They made way for him, sidestepping and surrounding him. He didn’t swing, though. He spun toward one of them and formed Auxiliary as a shield right as they attacked. He blocked the blow, then threw the ember person back before spinning to block the next attack.

He met each attack with alacrity—though having a huge, transparent, moldable shieldwasan undeniable advantage. He had to be careful not to push them too aggressively, lest his Torment activate.

Nomad, the knight warns, check the other ship.

He glanced to the side, seeing that the second vessel had almost caught up to the hovercycle. His gap-toothed friend was listing, strapped in place but losing consciousness from his pain. The captive ember woman fought against her restraints and howled toward her allies, but the driver—leaning low—was concentrating on trying to fly. She couldn’t use her gun, as she had to keep weaving and darting to stay away from the enemy ship.

To no avail. It was faster and more maneuverable. She’d soon have four enemy soldiers crawling along the fuselage toward her. Nomad blocked one more blow, then turned and shoved between two ember people, leaping the distance to the second enemy vessel.

Again, a moment in the air. Glorious.

Then he arrived, just barely grabbing the ship’s deck and slamming down beside the vessel, hanging off it. He formed Auxiliary as a ladder, hooked it to a railing above, then scrambled up to face a new group of surprised ember people. Shocked by his suddenappearance, the pilot lost control for a moment, causing the platform to veer toward its companion ship. That let the four ember people there—now wholly focused on Nomad—jump across the narrowed distance. That put all eight in position to fight him on one crowded deck.

Perfect.

In a fight of one against many, chaos favored him. A trained military squad would have easily surrounded and pinned him, but these people didn’t fight with coordination. They came at him individually, shouting angrily. They were quick and strong, but their usual advantage over others had taught them the wrong lessons. They thought they didn’t need to fight as a team. He’d seen it many times.

He rolled to the deck, skidding and coming up with his shield, blocking the machetes and maces that managed to track him. Other ember people stumbled or tripped one another in their eagerness to get to him. He jumped to his feet, throwing one man back into several others, then leaped closer to the cockpit at the back of the long deck.

Through the window, he saw the pilot in her white coat, watching him with a panicked expression. She hit a button, and a blast shield slid up over her window, sealing her off. Fortunately he wasn’t after the pilot. Because Nomad spotted a hatch set into the floor of the deck, similar to the one that had been blown off the hovercycle.

He formed Auxiliary as a crowbar and rammed it into the hatch’s lock. The hatch popped open, revealing the power supply.

Ah… the knight says with begrudging admiration.

The power cell inside glowed with a similar light to the spear tip that made the ember people, but the sheen wasn’t quite so…violent. To be careful, Nomad formed Auxiliary into a gauntlet on his hand and reached in, then ripped the power cell out. The ember people tried to rush him from behind, but the ship—now without power—dropped beneath them. Nomad got off one last good jump, hurling himself back toward the first warship.

Behind him, the ember people howled as they fell. The unfortunate ship plowed into the ground below just as Nomad landed on its companion.

You should be able to carry that power source without it hurting you,Aux said.It’s different from those spear tips somehow. It is more stable.

He nodded, taking the glowing power source in one hand while dismissing the gauntlet. As he did, he leaned out over the side, looking down, and noticed that the ember people were pulling themselves from the mud. Here, the ground seemed as wet as it had been at the arena. Maybe rain fell in the darkness. Then, as the planet rotated that landscape toward the sun, the reflected light—and Investiture—of the rings made things grow. Finally the sunrise approached, burning it all away.

What a strange life these people had, always a few hours from total annihilation. No wonder they didn’t trust one big, indivisible ship to carry them. Bunches of little engines gave much more redundancy. Not to mention the chance to detach your home from the others and move on ahead if something went wrong with the community.

Remarkably he thought he counted all eight ember people climbing from the wreckage below. Damnation. These things were hard to kill.

He raised his shield and turned toward the cockpit of this ship, where the pilot was accompanied by that sharpshooter. Both stared at him, wide-eyed, through the glass. The sharpshooter raised her rifle at him. And in a panic, she fired—melting holes through the windshield, unloading at him.

Each shot bounced off his shield. Then predictably they tried to raise their own blast shield. So he tossed Auxiliary at the window—jamming him into the mechanism so it failed to cover the half-melted window.

Nomad advanced. Completely unarmed, of course—and worse, completely unable to harm these two. But they didn’t know that. He pointed at their gun, then glared down at them. He’d noticed that people here were, on average, shorter than those of his homeworld. He’d often felt short compared to the towering Alethi, but herehewas the tall one.

Intimidated by the strange man holding an energy core in his bare hand, the sharpshooter obeyed Nomad’s demand. She lowered the gun, then—in response to his miming—tossed it out through the ruined windshield. She stepped back, raising her hands. The pilot kept at his controls, and as Nomad seized the gun, the man rolled the ship.

When they returned to verticality, the sharpshooter was collapsed on the cabin’s floor. The strapped-in pilot had kept his place. Nomad stood where he had before, Auxiliary having formed a magnetic boot around one of his feet. His heart pounded; he hadn’t been sure that would work. He smiled with relief, raised the energy core to his face, and breathed in.

It had taken him months to get the trick of that. He was certain thatthe “breathing in” part was purely psychological, but it somehow facilitated the action. Being able to feed on Investiture was an aftereffect of the burden he’d once carried, the thing that had given him his Torment.

He needed a power source that was potential, not kinetic. Scientific terms that, in this case, meant he was extremely good at leeching batteries or other stable sources of Investiture. However, something like an energy blast being shot at him or—unfortunately—the power of that sun wouldn’t work. Too intense, too kinetic. It was also storming difficult for him to get Investiture out of a person or another living being, requiring very unique circumstances.

In this case, though, he had what he needed: a battery of some sort. He easily absorbed the Investiture of that fragment of the sun—a ball of molten light that somehow wasn’t the least bit hot in his fingers. As he took the Investiture in, the entire core dimmed, its energy drained. Depleted, it looked like dark glass or one of the gemstones from his homeworld, except there were more smooth ripples and bumps on its surface, like melted glass or slag.

Inside his head, Auxiliary sighed in satisfaction.That’ll do, the knight tells his unwashed companion.

“How much did we get?” Nomad asked.

That jumped us up to over ten percent. Still want me to Connect you to this land so you can speak the language?

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