Warriors

THIRTEEN

Ton and Victor guided X through the passages of the capitol tower. He took a nip from his flask when they weren’t looking.

The stainless-steel flask was as old as the Hive. Handed down from generation to generation, it had ended up in his Hell Diver locker after he won it in a poker game twenty years ago.

This juice was strong, and tonight he needed something thicker than the wine he had been drinking like water over the past few days. Happily, Marv, the former owner of the Wingman, had reopened his bar on the trading-post rig and was back to making his potent drink.

Miles looked up, tail thumping, as X sneaked another swig.

“Not for you, buddy,” he murmured.

Ton and Victor stopped at a door that led to an interior stairwell. The dog entered, and X followed, taking another nip as he prepared to do something he had dreaded for days.

Nearing the bottom, he put the flask away, not wanting Lieutenant Sloan to see he had moved up to the hard stuff. She waited with a torch at the bottom landing.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Getting better with each step,” X replied.

“That’s good, sir.”

She waved the torch down the enclosed concrete stairwell. Miles kept beside X, looking up every time he winced from the pain.

Two more levels of stairs ended at a passage of hatches. The Cazadores had used this area as storage in the past, and now his people had retrofitted one level into a morgue.

A wall of cool air hit them as they entered the room.

Candles in sconces lit up mounds of rusted metal parts that had been moved and stacked along the sides of the room.

The glow from her torch chased away the shadows, capturing a group of four men already huddled around a metal table in the center of the room. A sheet covered the corpse of General Nick “Rhino” Baker.

X stopped to take a drink from his flask without Sloan seeing him. Then he limped after her until he reached the table.

Two more militia soldiers followed them inside—for security purposes, X supposed. Mac, Felipe, and two Cazador men X didn’t recognize all turned toward him and bowed slightly.

“Good evening, King Xavier,” said Mac.

“No, it isn’t,” X said.

Sloan raised her torch, and X saw Rhino for the first time since the Purple Pearl. The massive warrior looked better now than he had then.

X thanked the Octopus Lords, or whoever was listening, for the two drums of embalming fluid scavenged on a recent foraging trip to the mainland. Someone had done a good job cleaning Rhino up, dressing him in his battle armor with the crest of the Barracudas.

X reached out and shook Mac’s hand.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done,” X said. “You risked your life to help Rhino protect me at the Purple Pearl, and again on Renegade.”

“General Rhino thought very highly of you, sir. He believed you are the one chosen to protect this place, and if he was willing to die for you, then so am I.” Mac pounded his chest armor with his prosthetic hand.

X looked back to Rhino and resisted the urge to take another drink.

“So what happens now?” he asked.

“Tradition is to send a warrior out in a boat and give him to the Octopus Lords, but Rhino apparently had other plans,” Mac said. “He wanted an old-world ceremony.”

“He wants us to bury him?” X asked.

“Not exactly.” Mac looked toward the torch Sloan held.

“He wanted to be cremated?” X asked.

“Yes, and have his ashes spread over the islands, and some of them given to Sofia, his one true love.”

“Then we will make that happen,” X said. “Lieutenant, find a boat that we can put his body on. Use whatever spare wood we have.”

She hesitated, probably because they didn’t have much wood to spare, but then she gave a nod.

“I’m surprised Sofia isn’t here now,” X said.

“Tradition is not to have the wife or lover see the deceased until the ceremony,” Mac said. “Rhino would not have wanted her to see him like this, either.”

X put a hand on the general’s arms, which were crossed over his chest.

One of the other Cazadores standing behind Felipe and Mac held out a spear shaft. The motion caught the attention of the militia soldiers standing guard, but X waved them back when he saw that it was Rhino’s double-bladed spear.

X took the shaft and carefully placed it over Rhino’s body.

“I never served with a braver warrior,” X said. “I grew to trust him like a Hell Diver.”

They stared at his body for a moment in silence.

“I knew Rhino for many years,” Mac said. “In those years I’ve never known him to kill anyone to advance in rank. He earned his rank by completing missions and killing beasts in the wastes.”

X pulled out his flask and drank, drawing the gaze of Sloan’s lazy eye. He handed it to Mac, and Mac took a gulp.

“Yeow!” Mac said, making a bitter face.

“Good stuff, right?” X said with a chuckle.

Mac handed the flask back, but X put it in his pocket. It was time to switch to wine.

But first he had a favor to ask.

“How many men do you have, Mac?” X asked.

“I recruited thirty after Rhino was killed,” he said. “But the battle with the praetorian guards cut our numbers in half.”

“Keep recruiting. We’re going to need a lot more loyal Cazadores for what comes next.”

“What does come next, King Xavier?”

X wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that. In the past, gut decisions had guided him and kept him alive on dives, on his trek through the wastes, on the journey to the Metal Islands, and in the battles that followed. Now his gut was telling him those were the easy fights.

What came next would be for the future of humanity.

X patted Rhino again, holding a breath to keep from choking up. Then he nodded at Mac and the other Cazadores and turned away from the table to leave with Sloan.

It was time to forget his worries for now with a bottle of wine, or three.

X jerked free from the nightmare. He sat up to glaring sunlight and a mean headache. The first thing he saw was his bandaged stump.

Not what you’d call an inspiring start to the morning.

Not morning, he realized when he saw the clock. It was just after noon.

He groaned and slung his legs over the side of his bed. Miles hopped up, tail wagging, keen to get outside. The poor dog had been cooped up all morning.

“I’m sorry, boy, just hold on,” X said.

Without this dog, X wouldn’t have survived this recent flirtation with death—or his ten years in the wastes, for that matter.

A knock came on the door, and X stumbled over, nearly tripping over a pile of dirty clothes. He went to grab the knob with a right hand that wasn’t there.

He hoped it was Ted with a fresh supply of shine.

“Ah, shit,” X grumbled.

Lieutenant Sloan stood outside, in a freshly pressed black militia uniform.

“Nice to see you, too, sir…” Her lazy eye flitted from his bare feet up to his shorts and ragged T-shirt. “Sir, you haven’t even dressed.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. He walked back into his room, bumping an empty bottle that skidded across the floor.

“Were you drinking this morning?” Sloan said. She followed him into the room.

“I had some wine for breakfast, if you count three in the morning as breakfast. Grapes are fruit, right?”

He didn’t need to look to know she had found the other empty wine bottles that Ted had sneaked him the past two nights.

“What can I say,” he said with a shrug. “Cazador wine is great for numbing pain.”

He wasn’t speaking of his injuries. He spent his bedridden days thinking about Rhino, Katrina, Aaron, and all the other dead people he had loved.

At night, he dreamed of them—and of Ada.

The guilt was eating him alive, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was having a hard time functioning since they cut his arm off.

“Sir, did you forget what is happening this afternoon?” Sloan asked.

“No,” he said. “Rhino’s ceremony. I have plenty of time.”

“That’s tonight…” Her eyes narrowed. “You seriously don’t know?”

X tilted his head, clueless.

“Colonel Moreto’s fight to the death,” Sloan reminded him.

“Yeah, I know,” he growled. “I just don’t give two shits, or even one. Mags will make quick work of that old hag.”

“Are you going to watch?”

He shrugged.

“Do you need help getting ready?”

“Help?”

“You know…” His body language sent her back a step.

“I can wipe my ass with the other hand, if that’s what you mean,” X said. “And if I’m not there on time, Carmela can have an extra hour in the brig before she dies.”

“Okay, then, sir.”

As Sloan left, Michael and Layla squeezed past her. Layla wore a white dress that curved over her belly, and Michael was in new black pants and a camel-colored shirt. His long hair was pulled back, and Layla wore braids.

Miles trotted over to say hello.

“X, will you be ready to go soon?” Michael asked, petting the dog. He stopped stroking Miles when he saw the bottles.

“Don’t say it, kid,” X said. “I already got the full ration of shit from Lieutenant Sloan.”

“You’ve been drinking more, and I’m starting to worry.”

Layla kept silent, but he could see the concern in her eyes.

“I don’t need scolding today,” X said. “I’m going to watch Magnolia cut off Moreto’s head, and then say goodbye to a dear friend.”

“No judgment. I’m just worried.”

“Nothing to worry about, but I’ll warn you now, after the ceremony I’ll probably drink another bottle. It’s my process, and I’ll get through it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get dressed so I don’t have to worry about Sloan trying to do it,” X said. He walked over to the pile of clothes on the floor, then went to his dresser. The drawer rattled, but he couldn’t get the damn thing open.

He pulled harder, and it sprang off its tracks. He stumbled back against the side of his bed, dumping clean clothes onto the pile of dirty laundry.

Layla stopped in the hall, and Michael hesitated in the open doorway.

“It’s fine,” X said, holding up his stump and wincing in pain. “I’ll get it.”

“Give me a minute,” Michael said to Layla.

She quietly shut the hatch behind her, leaving them in silence.

“X, we need to talk,” Michael said firmly.

“If I had a piece of coin for every time I’ve heard that—”

“You’d be able to buy your own island,” Michael said. “You said that a lot when I was growing up, remember?”

X couldn’t help but grin, recalling old times.

“Well, you got your island, so why are you drinking like you did at the Wingman?”

Bending down, X grabbed his favorite shirt and draped it over his bed. Then he laid out a pair of brown shorts.

“X, I’m not judging you; I’m trying to help,” Michael said. “You almost died again, but you didn’t, and that’s a damn good thing, because we need you. I need you, and pretty soon, Bray is going to need you.”

X had his back turned to Michael now. Pulling off his T-shirt, he used it to wipe the tears away.

Michael stepped closer. “I want you to be Bray’s godfather,” he said. “Layla and I were going to ask together, but I think you really needed to hear this from me today. And there’s something else I want to ask you.”

X tossed the shirt on the floor and faced Michael, trying to keep his lip from quivering.

“I’m going to ask Layla to be my wife,” Michael said. “And I want you to be the one to marry us.”

X couldn’t stop himself from choking up. Miles moved over and pressed against his leg, whimpering.

“Xavier,” Michael said.

He reached out and grabbed X, pulling him into a hug. X felt as if he might break at the young man’s touch.

“X, it’s okay. Everything is going to be okay. You’ll get used to not having an arm. It’s not so bad, trust me.”

X chuckled and snorted at the same time. “My arm isn’t the reason I’ve been drinking like a fish.”

“Then why?” Michael asked.

“The past, and the future.” X recalled the fortune cookie with the quote about both those things. “I know I’m supposed to accept the past without regret and face the future without fear, but sometimes… sometimes I just can’t fucking do it, kid. I’ve trekked the wastes for a decade, found a home for our people, and continued the fight, but I’m getting old and I’m tired. Tired of fighting, and really tired of losing my friends.”

“I understand, X, I do. But please, you got to keep fighting—if not for yourself, for Bray. I want you to meet him, and at this rate, I’m worried you’re going to slip back into the darkness I remember.”

X thought back to those days after Aaron had died on the surface, and even before. He had watched Tin grow up but couldn’t remember a lot of the good times because he had been too drunk during many of them.

And he had missed Michael’s teens by being stranded on the surface. It wasn’t until last year, after they found each other in Florida, that X had really connected with him again after he had grown into a man. Michael was the son he never had.

“I’m not giving up,” X said.

He walked over and grabbed the wine bottles in his left hand and tucked them against his body with the stump of his right arm. Then he went to the open window and looked out over the water.

He flung the bottles out and watched them splash into the ocean. Michael handed him the last bottle, still half full.

X hesitated long enough to smell the wine.

“I’ll miss the fruit juice,” he said as he lobbed it out after the others.

Michael joined X at the window, and they stood taking in the gorgeous view.

“This is worth fighting for, kid,” X said. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“You’re welcome. Now, about that request?”

“I’d be honored, kid, you know that.”

They embraced so hard that X hurt, but he didn’t care.

“Okay,” X said, pulling away, “enough of the sweet sap, as Rhino used to say. Let’s go see Colonel Moreto become a head shorter, and then I’m going to give our friend Rhino the send-off he deserves.”