James Axler – Judas Strike

Approaching the throne room, trumpeters blared a herald for the arrival of the baron and his son, which naturally made the infant start to wail in fear. Seriously annoyed, Baron Kinnison glared at the men, and they quickly retreated down a side passage. Fused-brain idiots.

“My lord, a moment!” a sec man called from the attending crowd.

Turning in the doorway, Kinnison stared at the disturbance. It was a corporal from the coast watch. Evander something, good man, had chilled a guard with his bare hands for sleeping on a watch.

“What?” the baron demanded.

“My lord, pirate ships have been spotted on the horizon,” he reported. “And the quartermaster is unhappy with the number of Firebirds we have ready. I understand this is an important moment, the coronation of your first son—congratulations, my lord—but the safety of the ville may be in danger. Would it be completely out of the question to—?”

“You talk too much,” Kinnison snapped, and turned to the midwife.

“Take my son to his room. Double the guards and stay there until called. Understood?”

“Yes, my lord,” she said, bowing her head. “I shall guard the boy with my life.”

“You better,” the baron growled, touching the blaster at his side. The woman paled and raced away with a full squad of sec men in her wake.

Anxiously, the crowd waited to be told what was happening.

“Evander, with me, the rest of you stay here,” the baron commanded, and started along a corridor at his fastest pace.

Murmuring among themselves, the attendees did as ordered, nobody wanting to be the first to leave and risk the wrath of their brutal lord and master.

The sec men easily matched the speed of the ill man, and spread out in a standard defensive arc as he reached a massive door set in the stone block wall. It was a new section of the mansion, formed of solid granite blocks taken from the ruins of a lighthouse at the far end of the island.

Kinnison unlocked the door and opened it a crack to reach through and fumble with something on the inside. When the booby trap was deactivated, the baron swung the door wide and marched straight inside. The room was narrow and dimly lit by a single oil lantern hanging from the ceiling, the wick barely glowing red it was turned down so low. At the back was a honeycomb of bamboo tubes, every one filled with a Firebird, and both of the walls were lined with shelves filled with small bowls. Something in the bowls splashed about at his approach, and tiny tentacles writhed in the air as if waving in greeting.

Suddenly, Evander entered the room with a torch, the crackling light filling the tiny room with brilliant illumination. The things in the bowls began to shriek and wildly thrash their tentacles in blind panic.

“Out!” Kinnison yelled, and shoved the man into the corridor.

Evander stumbled from the room and dropped the torch. It rolled away, leaving a trail of burning pitch on the cold stone.

Leaving the room, Kinnison ever so gently closed the door, then turned on the sec man. “Idiot!” the baron shouted, backhanding the officer to the floor.

“I just wanted to see…” Evander began hesitantly. Suddenly, he felt the cold gaze of the other sec men directed toward him.

“The pilots are terrified of fire!” Kinnison raged. “You’ve weakened the defensives of the entire island! If the pirates attack now, we may lose because of this. It will be days, even weeks before the pilots calm down!”

Kinnison found he had trouble speaking, his mind was a hurricane of dark thoughts. To lose everything because of one small mistake. There was no torture awful enough to serve as punishment for this crime. Wait. Yes, there was.

“Guards, seize the traitor,” Kinnison commanded. “But no blasters! I want him alive when we feed him to the pilots.”

Evander went pale and backed away, clawing for his blaster. But the other sec men pounced on the former guard, easily disarmed him, then bound his hands behind his back.

“Mercy, my lord,” Evander stammered, tears running down his bruised face. “Castrate me, burn me at the stake. But not this! Anything but this, please!”