Page 84 of The Sunlit Man

Another swing sent a Charred to the deck, skull cracking against the steel.

His next attack dropped three at once with a sweep to the legs.

The next broke an arm, forcing the Charred to drop her weapon and howl in pain as Nomad sent the woman into a pile of her companions with a swift kick.

He was the rain, suddenly freed from the cloud and cast into the sky. He was the lightning, so eager to move that it jumped through empty space with frenzied splintering. He was the thunder that hit when you weren’t expecting it, warping the air with its rhythms. He was the storm. Falling on foreign lands, but still the same as it had always been.

He threw Charred aside like dolls. He shattered bones, dropped people off the side into the mud, flung them out in the rain. On thisworld, they were elite warriors—but this was a planet where men did not train for battle, and it hadneverseen anything like him before.

The cab, Nomad,Auxiliary said—watching out for him, even as Nomad was using his carcass as a weapon. One Charred, sneakier than the rest, had slipped through to the cockpit while Zeal and Rebeke watched Nomad fight.

As the creature reared up behind them—the glow from its chest bloodying the chamber—Nomad skidded up outside. Then—with a firm demand—he gave the order.

Spear!

A glittering spearhead etched with patterns from his homeland formed from mist on the end of the staff just as he rammed it right through the windshield, sending the spear into the cinderheart of the Charred inside.

The cinderheart cracked. The light went out. The creature’s eyes burned, each giving off a puff of dark smoke as the body collapsed backward.

The Charred who had been battling on the deck all froze. That gave Nomad enough of a breather to see the stunned Rebeke and Zeal gaping at him. They belatedly turned toward the dead Charred behind them, then looked back at him with expressions that were somehow evenmoreamazed.

Nomad,Auxiliary said,you’re flirting with low levels of Investiture. You haven’t had a chance to fully regain your enhanced strength and endurance. You can’t defeat all of these creatures.

Unfortunately there was truth to that. The Charred, now wary, were getting up. Gathering themselves and healing. They might not be trained, but theywerestrongly Invested, while he wasrunning on fumes. Their next assault wouldn’t underestimate him so soundly.

Nomad reached in and whipped the spear back, then raised his hands—one holding the spear—toward Zeal in a gesture that Nomad considered the universal symbol for, “What the hell?” He then waved his hand upward, to indicate they should take off.

Zeal cringed and nodded, going for the controls. Nomad turned toward the remaining Charred, gathered hesitantly at the bow of the small deck. Their caution told him they could still feel fear. The Cinder King’s control wasn’t absolute.

It does make me feel guilty, the knight notes, that we have to treat them like this. They’re victims too.

It was truth, but one that Nomad had long ago made peace with. You didn’t always get to fight the right people. In fact, you often had to fight the wrong ones—at least until you could stop the men and women who gave the orders.

Perhaps there was another option today. He fell into a stance, spear at the ready. Then, to the beat of thunder and the applause of lightning, he began spinning and twisting, moving his spear through an intimidating set of training maneuvers.

They called it the Chasm Kata. The very first he’d ever seen, and he knew firsthand how intimidating it looked. Stepping forward with each twist of the spear, each foot hitting like a drumbeat—solid and firm despite the slick surface. The spear spun so fast, it reflected nearby cinderhearts almost like a mirror. Battering back the rain, an extension of himself—flipping, spinning, then lunging for a split second. Like frozen lightning.

Then motion again, ever advancing, step after inevitable step.Forward toward the watching Charred, who—with unconscious alarm—pulled back. They huddled against the railing of the bow, and behind them—hovering close on his own ship—Nomad saw a pair of glowing eyes in the darkness. The Cinder King, watching. Awed. Maybe even scared.

Yes… Nomad could see it was true, for the Cinder King’s terror was manifest on the horrified faces of the Charred to whom he was linked. The man was realizing how lucky he was that Nomad hadn’t agreed to duel him. He was realizing exactly how dead he would be if the fight had come to him.

Nomad came to the final spin and step, planting his feet, spear fully extended so that it nearly touched the closest Charred. Then he swept backward into a standing position, dismissing the spear and catching the little offworlder sunheart in one hand. He arranged his arms in a cross pattern, wrists touching, and softly mouthed the words.

“Bridge Four.”

They couldn’t know the weight those words had for him. But the entire display—with the dead Charred behind him in the cab and the ship finally taking off—was enough. The surviving Charred scrambled off the ship, fleeing before him, dropping to the mud below.

He suspected they’d never have broken like that if the Cinder King hadn’t been there, watching and realizing with horror what he’d almost encountered.

Or perhaps Nomad was just projecting emotions onto the man. He was too distant now to make out his expression. Regardless, as they fled into the night with the sunhearts, no one gave pursuit.

They called her Elegy.

The captive Charred continued to mull over that name as the ship soared back toward Beacon. She’d watched the killer’s display on the deck, though her view had been partially obstructed. She’d had to lean to the side, look out through the open door between rooms, past the two people at the controls, through the windshield, into the darkness.

She’d watched him fight, and had hungered.

That. She wantedthat.

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