The Dying Moon ( Feyd Rautha )

Chapter 19

Hawk bounded down the hallway with Feyd Rautha mere steps behind. He had showed a insouciant lack of regard for an attack from Oliver, sweeping him onto the floor with little care and eyes locked on Hawk. She almost felt bad for the Moritani general, but there was so little concern she could manage. The Duchess had been kept alive for the time being under the care of her general, but how long that would last was entirely up for bet.

Feyd was diligent if nothing else, a dagger in his back and a wounded leg didn't hasten him much. Hawk figured there blow to his ego had been the driving force behind his adamance to follow her. His newfound hatred echoed in his laughter as he goaded her from behind, the small length between them growing shorter.

Through the smoke and rubble the palace was darker than the carapace of a netbeetle. Shiny in the spots where light still threatened to loom from the missile's cascading outside. Dark, in the near corners that fire had yet to reach. Hawk gingerly leapt over fallen rafters and bodies, examining the corpses uniforms to check for Galicine. Very few had fallen, the ones that did still clinging to life with a fury defiant. That was the thing about her people, hard to kill, stupid with rage.

Hawk braced against the wall as a troupe of Harkonnen's turned the corner. They stopped in salute to Feyd who promptly shoved past them in search of Hawk. When the foremost man got the idea that he should assist his leader in that endeavor, Feyd struck him down. Hawk found no comfort in that sort of protective measure; she knew better than anyone that the glory of a kill was weakened by outside influence. Feyd wanted to end her himself. The yearning to do so outweighed his duty as a commander.

Feyd followed her through the annal's, down the passage and toward the raging day. The floor ruptured and shook beneath them, a product of another dropped bomb. Hawk used the stone jutting from the walls to keep her upright; but for once, Feyd was not so swift. She heard him groan to the ground and quickly pull himself upright.

"Where are you going to run?" he called after her, "I will always find you."

Hawk couldn't choke a response, her legs were heavy with despair and the threat of death that was both in front and behind her. The chain had tightened with Collette's order and her thoughts swam to confront the task she could not escape from. Find Eidan, find the princeling, choke the princeling with his own robes or keep him harbored until he realized his only option was to unclasp her collar.

There was a certain reprieve in the non-specific.

Feyd caught up as they dropped down the palace steps and toward the training yard. Hawk's eyes adjusted to the carnage that swept across the horizon and broke rock to rubble. Oliver had said there were three battalions of Harkonnen soldiers. Three battalions looked a lot like forty or fifty from her low vantage point. Vessels loomed from mountain peak to courtyard, poised to draw destruction. The black of their shells reflected Califenat's crimson rays, dawn was breaking, the world was breaking. Hawk straightened her shoulders, unconvinced that she wasn't breaking with it.