Perdition (Dred Chronicles 1)

“Let the Dread Queen’s champion face the Death Knight,” the Speaker pronounced.

Dred found all the titles and posturing tiresome. She hadn’t come up with the Dread Queen mythos, but the men ran with it, as it pleased them to have a figure around which to build a world better than the one they lived in. Without these trappings, they were all just beasts scrambling for scraps in a rusted metal cage.

An enormous male, dressed only in black leather pants, strode to the center of the hall. His arms were easily the size of Dred’s head, and he stood two meters in height. Unlike Einar, he had no scars, unless you counted his expression. He wore pain like a wound, a suffering so deep it dug brackets beside his mouth, furrows etched into his brow and between his eyes. Silence’s other men had eyes like hers, full of nothing, but this was a beast in chains.

Except he wasn’t.

He carried no weapons, but Dred suspected he needed none.

Jael should be worried. Terrified, even. She knew he was fast—and stronger than he looked—but to beat a gladiator like this, he needed to be a hero from the ancient stories. And if he were one, he wouldn’t be here. Just as well I didn’t get attached.

Instead, the new fish strolled to the center of the hall. At some point, he’d traded his prison-issue gray for other clothing, handmade by Queenslanders. It let him blend in better, but at the moment, he looked oddly nondescript, considering what he was about to do. He raised his hands in a defensive posture, and she bit back the desire to chide him or warn him or call him names for being stupid enough, cocky enough, to toss his future down the recycling chute.

I could’ve used somebody like you, she thought.

The giant lashed out with a ferocious right cross, but Jael wasn’t there. He danced—and it was such a graceful movement that it seemed taunting—to the side. Then he spread his arms. “I’m right here, mate. Go on, then. Show everyone how terrifying you are.”

Silence’s warrior rushed, head down, like an enraged beast, but Dred could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Somehow, he had been forced to this role, and his body was only going through the motions. He’d killed until there was no joy in it if ever there had been. She hadn’t even known that was possible, that one could rehabilitate a murderer via aversion therapy. But then again, no wonder; it required an endless number of worthless lives and the complete absence of anything like mercy or remorse. It required a certain conflation of factors.

It required Perdition.

Quick as a snake, Jael flipped the larger man in a strike so powerful, it snapped his shoulder out of socket. A normal fighter would’ve groaned in pain, either at the dislocation or when he hit the ground. The giant only breathed, his lungs hauling hard. She swore she saw pleading in his face as Jael kicked him in the head. In another zone, men would be cheering, taunting, placing bets. Not here.

This poor Death Knight seemed eager now. His movements became rushed, sloppy. He threw punch after punch and landed none of them. His breathing grew hoarse, which could’ve meant desperation, but when she closed her eyes, she read them, and saw the fluttering orange eagerness that raced through his psyche like a psychedelic.

He wants this, more than anything. Don’t make him wait, Jael.

As if he heard, the new fish grew focused. The room fell to absolute stillness as Jael finished the Death Knight. He was merciful when he broke the man’s neck. She’d never seen anyone fight as he did—with reckless confidence combined with such skill. It was like he could tell what his opponent would do before he did it.

Maybe he’s Psi. Limited precog, applied to combat. Such a skill wouldn’t surprise her, and it would explain a lot. Nobody had heard of her empathic permutation until she started trying to explain it to prison doctors, but they diagnosed her with all kinds of mental illnesses as well. They claimed the men she called killers were good family men; and she was absolutely delusional. As soon as she admitted it, then they could help her. Fix her.

Bullshit.

Dred preferred life inside to the lies they crafted and placed on her tongue in pill form. Once she spat the meds out enough, they took to feeding them to her intravenously. That kept her quiet in the planetside prison for a while. She had the dubious honor of being dubbed belatedly too dangerous for the common criminal.

As Jael stood over the Death Knight’s body, she didn’t move; this had to play out between Jael and Silence. He’d thrown the dice, so it was up to him to cast the winning roll. Or eat his losses. If he survived, they’d talk about his impulse-control problems.

Moving with quiet confidence, Jael presented himself to Silence, standing before the bone seat with his hands laced behind his back. Oddly, Dred thought he’d never appeared more impressive, a military cast to his stance. He actually looked like a queen’s champion. While he waited, Silence conferred with the Speaker, and Dred glanced at Tam, hoping he’d offer a clue as to what was going on. He only shook his head; talking would be rude at this juncture and might screw up negotiations.

Fine. I’ll wait.

“The Handmaiden will honor your bargain,” the Speaker announced. “It was a good fight and a clean death. But she has terms for your agreement.”

“I’m listening,” Dred said.

“You are correct in that if the Great Bear swallows Queensland, he will turn his eyes to Entropy. That one has a hunger that can never be sated even should he swallow the stars.”

It was a poetic way to describe the savage, murdering conqueror, but Silence wasn’t wrong about Grigor. So Dred nodded, showing they were on the same page.

Then the Speaker went on, “But the threat alone would not have been enough to push the Handmaiden to War, even though War is Death.”

Weirdly, she could hear the capital letters in that sentence, as if War and Death were people. To Silence, maybe they were.

“I understand,” Dred said, though she didn’t, really.

This shit hole required a constant fight for survival. People who lay down, died, unless they were crazy in a sufficiently terrifying manner, so that nobody wanted to screw with them in case doing so stirred a nest of snakes so poisonous that it could end only in certain death. Silence had that down to an art, and maybe it was why she’d created the persona, ages ago. By this point, however, she believed in her own legend.

Not the sign of a stable mind. But she’s my best shot.

“These are her terms. First, if this alliance results in new territory, she claims half of it as her right for aiding Queensland.”