Malicious intent Page 5

  Vlad smiled as his computer indicated Chistu's 'Mech was suddenly putting out a lot more heat. The shot inside the torso must have damaged the shielding on his engine. It's over and he knows it.

  Chistu shot back at the Warhawk with his own particle projection cannon, a bolt of synthetic lightning striking the 'Mech's left side. Ferro-fibrous armor plates cascaded down toward the ground from the wound, leaving a smoking trail to mark the 'Mech's line of retreat. With damage done to the left side and the right arm of his 'Mech, Vlad couldn't shift to present an unblemished target to Chistu. Tactics be damned, I have no desire to contribute to Vahn Chistu's conceit by even suggesting he has hurt me with his attacks.

  Vlad slid the gold cross hairs over to cover the tattered outline of the Gladiator. When the red dot pulsed in the middle of the cross, he tightened down on his triggers and fired all four weapons. Only one of the PPCs and one of the lasers hit, both sizzled into the blackened hole on the right side of the Gladiator's torso. Explosions spat out half-melted bits and pieces of the 'Mech's internal structures. The 'Mech's right arm, bereft of support, pulled away and fell smoking to the ground. Armor over the 'Mech's heart began to boil away, all but stripping the 'Mech's center torso of protection.

  More devastating than that was Chistu's inability to compensate for the loss of the 'Mech's arm and the collapse of the right side of the chest. The Gladiator lurched forward, then stumbled and fell. It crashed down on its chest, then rolled over to the right before sliding to a stop with a mound of burned turf and earth hunched up on its shoulder.

  Vlad waited for the suffocating heat in his cockpit to begin to drain away, then he spitted the downed 'Mech's left arm with his cross hairs. He hit the triggers on his lasers twice in quick succession. As the stricken Gladiator tried to use that arm to lever itself up off the ground, burst after burst of green laser needles blasted through it. They vaporized all the armor, then tore the arm off at the elbow. With it went the autocannon, leaving the Gladiator utterly defenseless.

  The last of the Wolves walked his 'Mech forward. He configured his radio to tight-beam messages to Chistu's 'Mech, then he keyed the mike. "You must have known you would not prevail—or did the Jade Falcon's legendary arrogance insulate you from reality?"

  Chistu laughed. "I handled you well enough four days ago.

  Vlad tensed for a moment, then smiled. "True enough, but I was taken as much by surprise that night as you were today. On the tenth I came here to watch Ulric kill you. Today I came to kill you. I already knew what your 'Mech could do, and that is why I chose this 'Mech and this battlefield. You had lost before the first shot was fired."

  "A Wolf would be foolish enough to believe that is true."

  "And a Falcon is foolish enough to believe it is not."

  "So now you think you have won your Clan's freedom." Vlad could hear muted mirth in Chistu's voice. "How long do you think it will be before some other Clan is granted a Trial of Absorption?"

  Vlad's Warhawk came to a stop ten meters from the prostrate Gladiator. "It is of no consequence to you, Vandervahn Chistu, because the Grand Council will never let the Jade Falcons win the bidding to absorb us. I still have the gun-camera video of your treachery and cowardice in murdering Ulric Kerensky. If I make that available to the Grand Council, the Falcons will win no bids for a very long time."

  Vlad paused, letting the words sink in. "And if I couple it with evidence that Elias Crichell let me kill you to eliminate a rival to his becoming ilKhan, well, that ends his career, quiaff?"

  Fatigue slowed Chistu's reply. "You have thought long on all this."

  "I have thought long on many things, but how to deal with the Jade Falcons is not one of them. You Falcons require little thought."

  "Oh, I think you underestimate us. You are a fool to think you and your Clan can dismiss us so easily."

  "Perhaps, Vahn Chistu, but I will have plenty of time to learn how to deal with the Jade Falcons."

  "But will your Clan have time enough to let you learn?" Chistu's voice took on a sinister edge. "Time is what you may not have, but you do have other means at your disposal."

  "I do?"

  "Let me be your advisor."

  "What?"

  "Think of it. Elias Crichell delivered me to you, and I can do the same to him. I know his secrets and his weaknesses. With me as your advisor, he would be as nothing to you. You could destroy him in an eyeblink."

  Vlad's smile grew. "But how can you become my advisor?"

  "You have defeated me. Make me your bondsman."

  "You, a Jade Falcon Khan, would be willing to become my bondsman, quineg?"

  "Yes. Together we can destroy Crichell."

  "Interesting."

  "You will find me very useful and resourceful."

  "I already know how resourceful you are, Vandervahn Chistu." Vlad reached out with his 'Mech's right arm and tapped the cockpit canopy gently with the muzzle of the arm's large laser. "I have already seen how resourcefully you dealt with Ulric, remember?"

  "But you can have my skills for your own."

  "I think my skills are sufficient, Khan Chistu."

  "And so you will just kill me?"

  "Aff, as I have ever planned to do."

  "Then why all this talk?"

  Vlad dearly wished Chistu could see the smile on his face. "I wanted to know how far a Jade Falcon Khan would sink to save his life. You have offered to become my slave and betray your Clan. I think that is low enough."

  "You need me, you can't trust Crichell."

  "No, Chistu, I know I cannot trust you." Vlad triggered his large pulse lasers, unleashing a torrent of green energy bolts at the Gladiator's head. The popping and cracking of armor plates and the hiss of super-heated steam drowned out any final scream Chistu might have made. The Warhawk stepped back, and Vlad looked down at the black smoke pouring from what had once been the Gladiator's face. "You see, Khan Chistu, Elias Crichell has yet to prove himself unworthy of my trust. That is why he still lives. I suspect, though, he will not live long."

  7

  Borealtown

  Wotan

  Jade Falcon Occupation Zone

  15 December 3057

  As he waited at one end of the grand hall of Khan Elias Crichell had chosen for the ceremony, Vlad's face burned. The warriors who ringed the hall had all been Wolves and most could claim to be bloodnamed. They had once stood as he did now, awaiting the first battle in the Trial of Bloodright to win one. Those who were close enough to see Vlad's flush might have wondered if he shied at being the focus of so much attention, or at having the Khans of Clan Jade Falcon presiding over the ceremony.

  Those things were not what gave birth to the color rising in his cheeks.

  Once before he had entered a bloodname contest. He had slain the four foes he faced as the field of candidates narrowed from thirty-two to two. His final enemy was a man he had defeated in combat, and who had defeated him, both in 'Mechs and in hand-to-hand combat. Their final fight would decide who was supreme between them, and the bloodname of Ward would be the prize won in that battle.

  Phelan Kell, a freebirth whom Vlad had captured and brought into Clan Wolf, had risen from bondsman to warrior and been declared eligible to compete for the Ward bloodname. Vlad had hated Phelan and everything he represented. The other's successes put the lie to the Clans' belief in the superiority of their warriors. Phelan was the antithesis of the Clan way, and Vlad had wanted to kill him even more than he wanted the bloodname for which they competed.

  Vlad did not prevail that day. Defeated, battered, and bruised, he'd lain in the dust of Tukayyid and had asked Phelan to kill him. "You are a warrior. Kill me."

  "You do not get it, quiaff?" Phelan had looked down at him with abject pity. "I am more than a warrior. Maybe you will understand what that means by the time you win your bloodname."

  Oh, I do understand, Phelan. Though it shamed Vlad to admit it even to himself, Phelan had been right. Being warriors was what the people of the
Clans were bred and born to be. Vlad could no more not be a warrior than he could sprout wings and fly. The essence of warrior was impressed into every fiber of his being, tangled in the strands of his DNA. Being a warrior was as natural to him as breathing.

  Becoming more than a warrior called for something else, the calm of vision and a sense of destiny. Vlad had never doubted that he had the makings of a great leader for his Clan, and perhaps for all the Clans. Realizing that destiny meant taking aim at what he dreamed with clarity and determination. Slaying enemies to guarantee his genetic material a place in the breeding program was not enough. He had to look beyond, to shaping the future in which his genes would be bred, and that meant identifying and eliminating all who stood in his way.

  But the first step is winning my bloodname.

  On the dais at the far end of the room, Elias Crichell stepped forward and away from Marthe Pryde, newly named as saKhan of the Jade Falcons. "I am the Oathmaster and accept responsibility for representing House Ward here. Do you concur in this?"

  The word seyla echoed through the hall as all present an: swered his question. At another time, in another place, the acknowledged head of the Ward bloodline would have pre-sided over the conclave, but Phelan Kell Ward had been exiled through the Ritual of Abjuration. Crichell had insisted on acting as Oathmaster, and Vlad had not gainsaid him.

  "Then what transpires here shall bind us all until we shall fall." Crichell's expression sharpened and his speech slowed as he worked his way through the Wolf formula for the ritual instead of the more formal rite used by the Jade Falcons.

  "You, Vlad, represent the best of House Ward and your Clan, yet it is not for your Clan you battle here today. You fight for the right and honor of bearing the name Ward, and it is a Bloodright especially revered. The Ward name is exalted, as were those of all who remained loyal to Aleksandr Kerensky's dream. Do you understand this?"

  "Seyla," Vlad replied. Every child in every sibko knew how Aleksandr Kerensky had believed he could end the conflicts that had destroyed the Star League and devastated the human race by leading his people far from the Inner Sphere to make their home in distant, uncharted regions of space. But conflict had followed them. Nicholas, Aleksandr's son, saw the solution. Six hundred warriors joined him in pacifying their warring people and thus were born the Clans and their ways. The name of each of those six hundred loyal warriors was transformed into an honorific that could be bestowed on his progeny, though only twenty-five warriors at any one time could claim a Bloodright.

  The pedigree of a particular Bloodright was very important, for it formed the tradition that each new holder of that line tried to further. In some cases a Bloodright had a poor Bloodheritage because of a disgrace—much as Vandervahn Chistu's Bloodright would now bear. Crichell had chosen to let Vlad fight for the Bloodright last claimed by Conal Ward, a bold Wolf warrior who had shared Crichell's political views and who had been murdered by Phelan Ward.

  Crichell nodded solemnly. "In accepting your part in this battle do you realize that you sanctify, with your blood, Nicholas Kerensky's determination to forge the Clans into the pinnacle of human development? That you have been chosen to participate marks you as elite, but victory here will rightly place you among the few who exist as the zenith of what the Clans hold sacred."

  Vlad nodded. "Seyla."

  "Tell us, Vlad, why you are worthy of this honor."

  Vlad tugged at the edge of the gray gloves he wore and let the gray Wolf Clan leathers squeak mutely, to remind the former Wolves dressed in Jade Falcon green that he alone remained faithful to their roots. "I am worthy because I have been denied. I am worthy because I have persevered in the face of adversity. I have slain our enemies and followed the commands of our leaders. I have effaced blemishes from our honor."

  Crichell appeared a bit puzzled by bis answer, and Vlad assumed this was because Jade Falcon candidates were well known for reciting a long list of combats and victories extending back even to their days in the sibko, long before they had attained the rank of warrior. The list of conflicts was meant to identify each warrior, and tended to be unique, like fingerprints. Vlad's response was unorthodox, even by Wolf standards, yet there was no question among those in attendance about who he was or why he was being so honored.

  "Your claims have substance and have been verified." Crichell casually waved Vlad forward. "You shall now face your first foe."

  Ten meters in front of Vlad a young man stepped from the crowd and took up a position on the red carpet linking Vlad and the dais. He wore a green jumpsuit and towered above Vlad. His hulking, muscular form marked him unmistakably as an Elemental, though Vlad did not recognize the man. In keeping with Elemental tastes, he wore his fair hair in a long queue, with his head otherwise shaved.

  Vlad approached and stopped with barely a meter between them.

  Elias Crichell's voice filled the hall. "Why are you worthy?"

  The Elemental's eyes tightened. "I represent sixteen who are not worthy."

  Because of what Vlad had done to free the Wolves from the Falcons, no one in the House Ward wished to stand against him in the Trial of Bloodright, yet Clan tradition would not permit the bestowing of a bloodname without some sort of contest. Each person he faced would stand as surrogate for all those who would have lost in the five rounds of the contest. All Vlad was required to do was to tap his opponent on the shoulder and he would be allowed to pass.

  Vlad reached down and slipped a wolf's-head-pommel dagger from the sheath in his right boot. Straightening up, he took the Elemental's queue in his left hand and pulled down roughly on it, tilting the man's head back. Asthe Elemental's chin rose he exposed his throat. Vlad pressed the dagger's silver blade to the pale flesh below the Adam's apple. He used enough pressure that a slight slip of the blade left a slender crimson line in its wake.

  Vlad released him abruptly, and the Elemental stood aside.

  Next in line came one of the small, frail-bodied, large-headed warriors who piloted the Clan's aerospace fighters. She announced that she stood for eight who were not worthy, and Vlad similarly bloodied her throat. After her came a Mech Warrior who took the place of four who were not up to the challenge of winning Vlad's bloodname.

  Vlad moved on and unsurped Crichell by asking the next foe, "Why are you worthy?"

  The MechWarrior shook her head. "I am surrogate for two who are not worthy." Even before Vlad could grab a handful of her black hair, she raised her chin and presented her throat to him. He pressed the tip of the blade to her throat long enough for a single incarnadine droplet to flow down toward the hollow between her breasts, then he let her withdraw and continued on to his last foe.

  Vlad again overrode Crichell's with his own. "Why is it you are not worthy?"

  The Elemental's eyes grew wide at the question, then his face hardened. "I am not worthy for you alone, Vlad, are a Wolf in heart, mind, and soul. My life is yours to take." The taller man tore open his jumpsuit, bared his chest, and solemnly closed his eyes. "Still this unworthy heart and assume that which is rightly yours."

  Vlad reversed the knife in his hand, then raised it, poised to plunge it into the man's chest. A few voices rose in shock as the dagger hovered at the apex of a fatal arc—Khan Elias Crichell's voice foremost among them. Vlad waited, letting the thrill running through him send a vibration into the knife. The blood already gathered on the blade ran toward the tip and dripped off to join the red of the carpet.

  Flipping the dagger around, Vlad brought his hand down and thumped the wolf's-head pommel against the Elemental's breastbone. Shocked, the man collapsed and Vlad pounced, straddling his chest before he could even open his eyes. Vlad took hold of the man's black braid and raised his head up off the floor.

  "Were I just a warrior, I would have slain you. I am more." Vlad brandished the dagger and, turning it back and forth, looked past its bloodied tip at those assembled in the hall. "Today I am become Vladimir Ward. I am more than I was, yet less than I will become. Mark this d
ay. Mark these events. From this point forward Nicholas Kerensky's designs will be fulfilled through me and my people."

  He released the Elemental's hair, then stepped over him. As he looked up he saw Elias Crichell staring hard at him. Marthe Pryde's eyes were on him as well, but her gaze showed none of the anger and surprise of Crichell's. She watches me as I have watched enemies. Just as I know Phelan to be the antithesis of the Clans, so she knows me as the antithesis of the Jade Falcons. She sees what Crichell will not allow himself to see.

  Elias Crichell descended to the first of the three steps leading to the top of the dais. Vlad swept past him, then turned. He took the hand Crichell had extended in congratulations and used it to guide the Jade Falcon Khan back up on to the dais. Vlad raised the bloodied dagger above his head.

  Crichell freed his hand from Vlad's grip, then turned and backed away a step, but did so without seeming to escape or flee. "Trothkin near and far, seen and unseen, alive and dead, be of brave hearts. Another of your number has been blooded. I present to you Vladimir of the Wards."

  "Seyla," shouted those in attendance.

  Crichell held his hands up to silence the scattered applause. "Your Bloodright, Vlad, is one of especial honor. It is the only one unsullied by the Abjuration—it has forever been loyal to the Clans. It has been open since its previous holder was brutally murdered by a Wolf Khan. I knew Conal Ward. Despite Clan enmities, he was a friend of mine. It makes me proud to think of you inheriting the Bloodright that was meant for you."

  Do you think you will exert control over me so easily, Elias? Vlad stared at him blankly, then shook his head. "That is not the Bloodright for which I fought."

  "But, the others ..."