The Knights Pet

Chapter 31

Vicrul paced the corridor of the Night Buzzard, anger pulsing through him in waves with every step he took. They had hurt her, beaten her, and he wasn't there to stop them.

Every time he closed his eyes he could see how she had looked back in the clearing. She had run to them barefoot, her face beaten almost beyond recognition, her clothing coated in a thick layer of dirt and her own blood. Her body was frail, almost as it had been when they first met her back at the pet club. The look of relief on her face when she had spotted them broke something deep within them all. And then she had collapsed. He grimaced at the memory.

"Sit down, brother. You must be calm before she wakes. You will scare her," Ushar called to him from across the common room. Vicrul's head snapped in his direction, his shoulders rising and falling in a way that made it clear there was no calming him. "Did you see her?" he demanded. "Did you see what they did to her?" His voice choked through the room. "They claim to be the saviors of the galaxy. They call us monsters, murderers, mutants. But look at what they have done."

He took hold of a chair that rested nearby and hurled it, the durasteel ringing as the object smashed against it before falling to the floor in splintered pieces. "I will kill every last one of them." Silence fell over the room as Vicrul's gaze fixated on the shattered remains of the chair, his chest heaving with the effort to rein himself in. "Slowly," he growled. "Painfully. They will die regretting every choice they ever made."

Ushar stood, stepping in Vicrul's direction. "We all saw her, brother. We are all angry." Before he could finish, the raging man before him moved closer, so close his face was only inches from Ushar's. "Angry doesn't even scrape the surface for what I feel," he roared. Ushar didn't react, he didn't move away; he simply allowed his fellow knight to get it out. His eyes flickered toward where Pet was being kept. "I know. But we must keep a level head. The last thing we want is to frighten her when she's already terrified. She escaped them all on her own. And we were here when she came running." His hand found Vicrul's shoulder, squeezing it to ground him back to reality. "Now we must focus. And when she tells us what we need to know, then we will act."

Vicrul knew he was right. Always the level-headed one in every situation that arose. He huffed one last breath before moving to sit next to Ap'lek. The man sat silently, his axe in one hand, a sharpening stone in the other. He moved slowly, sharpening his weapon in an almost ritualistic manner. It was clear this was his way to keep himself collected. Trudgen sat across the room, his elbows resting on his knees, his forehead pressed against his clenched fists. Kuruk leaned against the doorway, arms crossed tightly over his chest, his expression blank.

The tension in the room was suffocating. Each of them wanted release. Each of them wanted blood.
To burn the planet down and everyone on it with it. But none of them moved. Not yet. The sound of the medical room door sliding open cut through the silence. Every head snapped toward it at once.
Cardo's massive frame stepped out. His movements were slower than usual, careful, controlled in a way that made all of their chests burn with anticipation. Something in his posture alone made the room shift. On his hands was dried, darkened blood.

"She's awake."

The room went dead silent. No one moved. No one breathed. It wasn't hesitation. It was a shared, unspoken pause where none of them seemed to know what they were supposed to do with the information they had just been given. Rage had a direction. Fear did not. And for the first time since she had run into their arms, there was nothing for it to attach itself to. Even Ap'lek's sharpening slowed. The scrape of metal faded into nothing at all. Stillness stretched longer than it should have, heavy and thick, pressing into every corner of the room. None of them dared to move. None of them dared to speak.

Vicrul was the first to shove himself up off his chair, the movement so rushed that it almost toppled to the floor behind him. His steps were rushed, anxious, booming across the ground to get to her. He needed to see her, to touch her, to hear her voice. The moment he crossed the threshold of the room, everything stopped. The air inside the medical room felt wrong in a way he didn't know how to describe. Much too still for a room occupied by Pet, much too quiet.