Westhaven by Rowan Erlking (best sci fi novels of all time TXT) 📕

eyes in pain. “Turning me in is betraying everyone. I know more about this army than anyone. You’d be murdering us all for money. I know a couple of Night Stalkers that would be after your blood.”

“Shut up!” The man shouted at him. The traitor yanked out his sword. Key could feel the blood dribble out more easily. “And get up.” He gestured at Key with his gun. “Thanks to you having us learn to steal horseless carriages, I have an auto waiting.”

“No, you shut up.”

But Key hadn’t said it. Someone behind him did. The earth unexpectedly shook.

His would-be captor staggered backward, losing his footing as he sank into the earth. The ground underneath him turned to sand. Key toppled backward. Pushing away from the man, he looked over his shoulder where Lanona stood very much alive. The front of her dress was torn open below her chest, bloodstained, though no wound was there. As the man howled, he fired his other shot at her. It missed.

Two other cracks split the air. One bullet struck the traitor in the chest while at the same time he sunk waist deep into the earth. There he hung limp, staring across the fields at Tiler who opened his pistol to stuff in two more bullets for extra shots.

Lanona jogged over to Key.

He gaped up at her. He reached up to her face then her missing wound. “I thought he killed you. I thought you died.”

He groped her face again though she batted his hand down.

“Don’t move.” She sealed up the puncture wound in his shoulder, his flesh stinging and yet also tingling as if it were on fire and yet cold.

“How did you…? I was sure wizards were just as mortal as we are?” He gave a nervous laugh.

Lanona smiled painfully, wincing. “He missed my heart. Besides, some wizards can heal themselves.”

Key grabbed his own chest. “Goodness, Lanona, you really do scare me.”

But she only laughed, holding him close to her. “It scared me too.”

*

“Are you saying that Key let you go?” Captain Welsin asked the brown-eye that had a recent cut on his neck where a sword had been held.

The soldier bowed low, keeping his eyes from his leader. “He didn’t know I knew who he was—and he was tired.”

“Why didn’t you just overwhelm him if he was so tired?” the captain snapped.

Cringing, the solider recited as if he had practiced it, “I saw him leap over the ditch. He nearly took my head off. I had nothing, while he had a sword at my throat as well as pistol and one of those demon chains. And he shot Gregir perfectly from afar.

“That man is not normal. He’s like…his eyes aren’t that far from that first poster of him. Angry. His eyes look like he would kill without remorse.” He then met his captain’s gaze. “We also found the human that had agreed to fetch him for us. The humans had moved their medic tent closer to Calcumum. They had gathered all their dead by the time we discovered him. He was sunk in the ground with two bullet wounds in his chest. He looked surprised. So I got to thinking that this Key isn’t just a general, he’s a wizard. Or a magician or something like that. When he spared me, he said he did not kill men weaker than him. I tell you, the man is a monster.”

Captain Welsin clenched his teeth with a growl. “Fine. General Winstrong isn’t here to defeat our wizards, so I will do it. And I won’t bother with catching him. I’ll kill him.”

 

The battle had drawn into Calcumum proper in the following week. It reached even to the palace where, like snakes, the humans slipped out of the holes and slaughtered both the governor and all his blue-eyed Sky Child guards. From the top of the city hill to the walls of the human quarters, they overran everything as the Sky Children fled.

The resident Sky Children of the city flooded the train stations and all the taxi stops to escape—but the trains did not come, and the taxis were well full. Only a few were able to flee the battleground, and with just barest of things. By that time, the humans were all over the railroad, pulling out all the blue-eyed ones from the station and sending them into the laps of the Cordrils they had brought to slaughter them. The humans left the brown-eyeds alive only to put them into shackles, leading most of them into the prison, though some they put directly to work in the fields round about to bury the dead. Many of the humans mocked the brown-eyeds as the great city of Calcumum fell into their hands.

Captain Welsin’s personal army arrived to reclaim it before all was lost.

*

“Where did they come from?” shouted Tiler, getting his second wind in an alley after fending off the first attack, though he had barely any time to recuperate from his former blood-loss in battle.

Key shot at yet another Sky Child. And with his sword, he took out three more that came at him with their bayonets. Spinning round and bracing against the building at his back, he answered, “Looks like the south. Wede Mountains perhaps.”

More of the blue-eyes attacked, climbing the hill towards them, but the Army of Man really had the upper hand. The Underlord had taken his men back into the tunnels to surround their enemy, while the rest drew them in to the trap. Already the enemy’s numbers had been diminished. Yet the blue-eyes had radioed for backup, and that radio they had to seize. Key’s small group was part of the lure to draw them in.

“There he is!” A voice faintly called through the din. “That’s Key!”

Key looked towards the source. He cursed under his breath, seeing the brown-eye he had freed. “I’m so stupid. I should have just killed him.”

“What are you talking about?” Tiler reloaded his pistols and stuffed one in his holster, now grabbing Key’s guns to do the same. He hid behind a coal chute.

“Doesn’t matter.” Key hopped back, reaching for a gun. Tiler handed him one of his. Immediately he took out that brown-eye with a shot right between the eyes. “Too late now.”

The enemy fired back. The barrage ricocheted all over the alley, though several bullets lodged in the brick and between stones. Tiler pulled Key back behind the chute, shoving his other pistol into Key’s hand and nodding. Key popped out again and wounded another blue-eye and then shot another soldier in the face. He dropped back down once more, reaching for another gun.

“It seems they aren’t here to capture me this time,” he said, looking to Tiler who already was loading up the other pistols, grabbing the rifle next.

“Then be a good shot,” Tiler snapped back.

With the rifle, Key’s aim improved remarkably, killing each one he aimed at. He delivered five shots before he ran out of bullets. But the enemy just kept coming as if they carried extra men in their pockets.

“Ah crap! What I wouldn’t give to have a wizard make the ground swallow them up right now.” Key handed Tiler the rifle and grabbed the pistol extended to him. He then took two more shots.

“You’re the one that said it was best that she stay with the medics,” Tiler snapped, though he also laughed.

Key smirked, trading guns again. “Yeah. And she got mad at me, like usual.”

“I’m sure she was teasing.” Tiler dug out more bullets. Though when he looked up, Key had risen and drawn his sword. Tiler had to hop back, stuffing all the guns into what pockets and holsters he had and retreat further into the alley while the enemy charged in, bayonets and swords high as well as pistols ready. “She knew you weren’t saying it just to keep her out of the battle.”

But as Key met the enemy sword-to-sword, brutally slashing, he defended them both so Tiler could draw his sword again if he needed to. From above, their allies fired upon their attackers. Five of the enemy still charged in after Key.

One of them stabbed Key in the arm.

Key slashed back, taking a chunk out of that Sky Child’s side and throwing the demon hard against the wall. Tiler jumped in, taking two more of them out. There were only two left—but one shot at Tiler, hitting him in the leg. And as Tiler staggered back, shooting at his attacker, the other one attempted to bayonet Key in the chest. Key used the last bullet in his pistol on him.

Both men panting as they retreated further into the alley, Key tossed his pistol to Tiler to load. “Ok. Let’s rest at least for a bit. I’m sure more are coming.”

Tiler gave a laugh, cringing as he staggered to the side. That was when Key noticed his friend was wounded.

“Ah…don’t tell me one of them got you.”

“It’s not so bad this time,” Tiler said with a smile, though he cringed when he sat down. “I’ll load the guns.”

Key nodded, tearing off his shirt. He walked over, bare-chested to him. All his scars, burn marks, and tattoos on his front and back and sides somehow made him look like a life long warrior rather than just an escaped slave. Wadding his shirt up, he set it to the wound, pressing down. “I’m running out of bandages, you know.”

Both chuckled as Key then wrapped his shirt around Tiler’s leg, tying the knot over the oozing wound. Tiler cringed once, then stared behind them the moment his eyes opened.

“Look out!” He shoved Key back from him.

A shot hit the wall just beyond their heads. As Key pulled out his sword and staggered up to meet his new attacker, Tiler tossed him a pistol.

Key missed it. It dropped near his foot.

Both of them cursed.

“You’re that blasted boy.” Captain Welsin staggered into the alley, wiping off the blood from a grazed bullet wound that ran across the side of his face. Obviously Key had missed one. “The general’s escaped slave. Of course you’d want him dead. The infamous Key. But you’re no wizard. That I know.”

He jabbed his bayonet at Key. Key blocked, shoving hard to throw him off.

“How is it that you managed to survive all these years?” The captain hissed through seething teeth. “You were nothing more than a mousy, timid little thing—”

“I’m the son the Bekir swordsmith,” Key snapped, swiping at him.  “His heir, Captain Welsin,”

The captain blocked, staggering to keep his feet, though he seemed more stunned that Key knew his name, let alone remembered it.

“I was merely biding my time,” Key said, stabbing hard at the captain.

The captain could hardly deflect that, stumbling backward as Key rounded on him for another strike.

“Setting me among the military was General Winstrong’s first mistake,” Key shouted. “I never forget anything I see.”

Swinging the butt of the rifle at Key’s face, the captain charged him. “You posturing savage! How dare you speak to you masters like that! Winstrong’s only mistake was teaching you to read.”

But Key spun low in Bekir style to duck and swiped the captain’s feet out from under him.

The captain crashed down in the alley, landing hard on his spine.

Key pouncing on the captain’s stomach, he pricked his sword point against the Sky Child’s chest. “No. I take it back. The general’s first mistake was killing my father instead of me.”

He rammed his blade into the captain’s heart even as the Sky Child tried to grope Key’s boot legs for skin to drain him.

But with two chops, Tiler hacked off the demon’s hands, clenching his sword in his fist.

“You aren’t taking our Key from us.” Tiler rose on one foot, nodding to Key. “I’m rested. Let’s go.”

Key removed his foot from the dead captain and jerked out his sword. He cleaned it on the captain’s uniform before sheathing it. He extended an arm to Tiler to help him walk.

“You know, I think you’re ready to kill that general now,” Tiler murmured as