[Makebelieve] Original Fic: Brothers of the Blood: Mark Of Cain 11

[makebelieve archive]

Summary: Dalton makes a last stand
Previous chapters at
http://www.squidge.org/~peja/cgi-bin/viewstory.php?sid=37198


Brothers of the Blood: Mark Of Cain
CHAPTER ELEVEN



Bombarded near out of his mind by one devastating grief piled on top of
another, Dalton slumped wearily to his knees beside Arissa's lifeless body.

"How could I have been so damn stupid? How could I have ignored the danger?"
he demanded of himself as his trembling hand caressed her bloodless cheek.
"I am...sorry, my Arissa."

His deadened gaze drifted, finding Yessenia. Her flaming hair spread around
her in glorious waves. Her sparkling green eyes were closed now. Closed
forever.

Dalton's distraught glance traveled slowly up Yessenia's outstretched arm,
settling on Ian. The imprudent pilot had died with the reckless love of
danger surging through his veins. Ian would have approved his death. Would
have called it a death with honor.

And he had been nothing if not a man of honor.

His desensitized gaze shifted again, stopping on Paris. The wiry man had
once vowed he'd live forever, or die in the attempt. He'd raced with death,
running head-long toward it in his fanaticism to avoid it. His forever had
miscarried into violence.

Paris had died trying to find his life.

Dalton's searching glance strayed once more, this time settling on Domani,
who lie sprawled on his back near Paris. A faint glimmer of awareness
brightened the other man's silver eyes.

Domani was alive. He was still miraculously alive.

Dalton's spontaneous pleasure died almost as quickly as it had been born.
Crumbling when he realized that alive, Domani represented a danger far worse
than any weapon their enemy possessed.

If the Coalition discovered the truth about this valued fighting man, if the
injured man could be made to talk, the remaining rebel splinter groups would
face total and complete destruction.

What Adric and Dalton and the generations before them had bought through
blood, and sweat, and fire, and brimstone would be for nothing. All the
lives, lost, wasted. Gone up in smoke. For nothing.

But then again, Dalton carried the same information in his head. And he was,
perhaps, the greater danger to the rebellion. After all, squeezing
information from a healthy man was easier by far than wheedling that same
information from a man the inquisitors feared might die without careful
handling.

A cynical smile, cold as the death surrounding him, curved Dalton's lips.

What was he on about?

He'd lived his entire life in the shadow of death. Had seen murder dealt out
in his name, at his command.

Facing the finality of his own life, under the circumstances, was more
welcomed than feared.

The brutal truth of the matter was that his history had been colored by too
damn many fruitful raids on important targets. His very success disallowed
him a summary execution.

That particular, sterile death would make him a martyr like his fanatical
father, his dogged grandfather and his too proud to bend great-grandfather
before him.

No, his assassination could all too easily stand as a battle standard for
the rebellion to flock around. His outright execution at the Coalition's
hands might actually reunite the squabbling dissidents that remained a thorn
in the side of the corrupt, self-serving government.

And it was a well publicized secret that the Coalition inquisitors had a
strong hunger for sampling his blasted blue blood. An insane thirst they
would only satisfy through his living destruction.

Dalton knew, had been conditioned from birth to know, that his enemies
thrived on the dream of eradicating his entire family. Dreamt of the day
they would finally annihilate him completely.

Not by killing his body, though. That would not give them the satisfaction
they craved. That gratification could only be achieved by converting his
mind and his soul to the 'greater cause'.

Before they were finished with him, he would become a living, albeit
mindless, husk. A breathing trophy to be trotted out and paraded before the
cowed populous whenever the unwashed masses needed a reminder of what
happened to the disobedient.

Captured alive, his fate would serve as a crippling disillusionment to the
few remaining dissidents who believed in the freedom his forefathers had
promised them.

He knew he should by rights not give a damn what became of those foolish
souls, but curse his very essesnce to hell, he did care.
He could not allow the dream to die.

Not while he had breath in his body to stop it.

Dalton dragged in a shuddering breath, filling his lungs with the bitter
copper odor of spilled blood that had braided with the tang of sulfur and
the stench of burning flesh.

The repulsive scent settling in the back of his throat was one he'd tasted
often in his barbarous life, but this time the distinctive bouquet marked
the death of his people.

The blood of his crew, of his friends.

Blood senselessly spilled because he had stupidly disregarded his training.
Because he had made a fatal error in judgement. And he had only himself to
blame. When it was all said and done, he had violated his own personal prime
directive for survival. He had let sentiment override common sense.

Dalton had come a long way, a dangerous way, in search of Adric because of
trust. Because of trust, for Jude's sake. He had risked the lives of his
companions for Adric.

And in the end, he had watched his people being brutally murdered because of
Adric.

And that same misplaced trust.

Moving like a man aged ten decades in a second's time, he pushed slowly to
his feet. And as he did, a pack of armed men circled him, surrounding his
solitary figure, closing their ranks and cutting him off from freedom.

Ah well, those were the cards he'd been dealt.

All things considered, he'd actually managed a good life during these last
years.

His lips lifted in a confident devil's smile. Besides, he could still lay
claim to several of these impudent lives set before him as a final tribute
before he drew his last breath.

Catching Domani's paralyzed gaze one last time, Dalton drew a semicircle
from his right shoulder to his left, then held his hands before him, his
left palm up, the right down. He slowly rotated both hands over together.
'We die.'

Domani blinked his understanding, then closed dulled silver eyes, blocking
out the sight of approaching death.

Plastering his most arrogant smile on his face, Dalton filled his lungs
deeply with the tainted air and lifted his mocking gaze to the patrol. "Come
and get me." His dark, taunting laughter sounded like a ghostly rustle in
the sudden silence of the room. "If you dare."

One of the oncoming trooper's stopped advancing toward him, the color
draining out of his face. "Do you know who the hell that man is?" he
demanded of the soldier at his side.

"I don't need to name 'em, mate. My orders are kill 'em and get it over
with."

"But you don't understand. We're up against Dalton St Moritz. My brother
says the man's in league with the devil."

His dark dragon's laugh erupted from Dalton's chest, sending an eerie
whisper like hell-fire through the soldiers. "Do you believe the legends,
then? Are you willing to risk your lives to kill me?" His mockingly
confident smile held the mesmerized patrol enthralled as he raised his gun
slowly, careful not to startle the seemingly bewitched soldiers. "Shall we
play with death?" He waved his free hand, drawing their attention to his
dead companions. "My friends are waiting for us on the other side. In a very
few seconds, we can all die... for eternity."

But before he could put action to the threat, a blinding light flared. The
white-hot glare bathed the room in an unearthly glow, indiscriminately
irradiating everyone in the room.

Dalton felt his mind close down, paralyzing him under a killing shroud of
darkness. His knees crumpled beneath his weight and groaning a protest, he
slid into the black abyss reaching out to trap him in its frozen embrace.

And then it was over.

The floor was littered with the scattered bodies of those who had invaded,
and those who had stood the line to repel.

The toxic flair faded as quickly as it had come. The battle sounds that had
raged just moments before were mere spirit echoes on the air. Until even the
imagined echoes faded, leaving behind only a haunting silence.

The silence of the tomb.


end part 11

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