Horns of the Ram (Dominion Book 2) Read online

  Austin Rogers

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  Horns of the Ram

  Book Two of the Dominion Series

  Austin Rogers

  “Then Abraham outstretched his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son Isaac, as the God of Mystery had commanded him. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ The angel said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or harm him, for you have proven that you fear God, having not withheld your son, the blessed son, from me.’ And Abraham lifted up his eyes and beheld a ram, caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and slaughtered it with the knife and offered it up as a burnt offering. Then Abraham praised the God of Mystery who poured his wrath over the ram instead of the blessed son.”

  —Wisdom of Abraham 4:26-32

  Chapter One

  Orion Arm of the Milky Way, on the planet Earth , , ,

  Fayyad tossed and turned all night, never managing to catch a minute of sleep.

  Panic set in when he saw the first hints of sunlight glowing pale orange out his window. His skin emanated heat. The twisted sheets clung to his sweaty legs. He tried to calm his breathing. Couldn’t. Tried to grip his pillow hard enough to still his jittering. Couldn’t.

  How had this day already come?

  Shaytan swirled in the dim air of Fayyad’s apartment, whispered in the quiet. Fayyad didn’t have to go through with it. It wasn’t too late. He could run. He could leave the Levant, go west to Egypt. He had a cousin in Egypt. Or he could stay, just tell them he couldn’t do it. Tell them his faith wasn’t strong enough. They would understand.

  Fayyad thrust himself out of bed, fists clenched, and stood under the spinning ceiling fan, as if ready to exchange blows with the devil himself. But as he stood there, alone in the dark of his two-room apartment, the awareness of his own smallness crept back into his mind. He was nothing, only a mote of dust in the winds of history. Shaytan could whisper in the ear of the mote, convince it to veer from its God-given path back into the realm of safe meaninglessness, but God would simply use another mote of dust to accomplish his plan.

  No, it would be Fayyad. It needed to be Fayyad. He would obey God’s call.

  He dropped to his knees and touched his forehead to the ground, palms pressed to the floor beside his head, and prayed. Prayed to the eternal, unchanging God. Prayed for peace in his soul. Forgiveness for all the times he’d slept through Salat.

  Morning came. The glow of sunlight brightened in the window. The muffled sounds of an awakening city slipped into his room. Shuttles hummed in the sky. Autos filed into the streets. Children bantered as their mothers hurried them along to school.

  Fayyad pushed his forehead off the floor and sat back on his heels. He stayed there a moment, eyes closed, hands on his thighs, letting the warm light hit his face. He had stopped praying and now simply rested. Breathed. Let his mind clear. So much clutter had gathered in the recesses of his brain. If he didn’t pause and clear it away, it would keep gathering, day after day, triviality after triviality, until no room remained for God.

  He stood, checked the time, and began to tidy his room. He stuffed shirts and socks in drawers, straightened the lamp shade, arranged the items on the night stand, pulled the sheets squarely over the mattress, tucked them in. He made his bed as neatly as he could and tried to remember the way his mother would organize the pillows.

  He did the same for the living room, clearing away pieces of mail and trinkets. Straightening the rug. Spraying and scrubbing stains in the tile. Washing the dishes in the sink, stacking them carefully in the cabinets. He came across a brown glass bottle in the back of the refrigerator—a beer from when Ahmed visited months ago. A pang of shame bit at his chest. He removed the bottle and poured its contents into the sink, running the water to wash down the smell.

  Satisfied with the cleaning, he went to his closet and pulled on the collared shirt and pleated pants of his beige uniform. Used the bathroom. Washed his face. Brushed his teeth.

  On his way out, he grabbed the deceptively heavy backpack resting against the wall and slung one strap over his shoulder. He walked his routine path to work, zigzagging down sidewalks and narrow alleyways, passing the usual assortment of street vendors. Ahead, his building—a sparkling, modern gem amongst the dull stones of the surrounding premises—loomed behind several rows of chain link fences with barbed wire at the top, tilted outward like a fortress. A big sign outside the main entrance gate read:

  Terran Confederacy

  Old City Security Station

  At the ballistic glass doors, Fayyad pulled his ID card from his chest to the scanner pad before letting the retractable wire snap it back. The door on the right clinked unlocked. In the check-in room, he nodded at the guards, who didn’t even pause their conversation for him. His breath held in his lungs as he passed through the body scanner. It didn’t beep. The guards’ conversation went on. Fayyad exhaled.

  Maryam smiled at him from behind the curved front desk.

  “Good morning, Fayyad.”

  Fayyad put on a smile in return, trying to make it feel genuine. Maryam deserved his real self today. “Good morning, Maryam.”

  He paused at the doorway to the offices and locked eyes with her again. She looked at him as if to ask if she could be of any help. That was Maryam—always helpful.

  “You have a pretty smile,” Fayyad said, hoping she would receive the compliment the innocent way he intended it. “Very pretty.”

  Maryam blushed and looked down, seemingly wishing she could retreat into her head covering. “Thanks. Yours isn’t so bad either.”

  Fayyad had never flirted with her before, and now he wished he’d done so a long time ago. But that was not the path God had laid out for him.

  He continued down the hallway of offices, past the break room where a handful of people laughed and joked as they ate breakfast, and through the open room where twenty or so cubicles sprawled. A heavy door opened, and a man in the same uniform as Fayyad stepped out. Qasim’s close-trimmed beard and black-framed glasses gave him away.

  The IT tech stepped aside, holding the door, then nodded solemnly and patted his buttoned chest pocket. It sent a newfound jolt of splitting emotions through Fayyad’s chest—relief that Qasim had retrieved the device, that his mission would not be in vain, but dread that his fate was now sealed. The weight of it threatened to cripple him, but he couldn’t let it.

  Fayyad nodded back, wishing he could exchange more words with Qasim, before stepping into the control room, covered in screens and workstations. A dozen employees in beige uniforms talked as they worked keyboards or pointed at screens showing camera feeds from around the Old City. Some screens showed satellite images, others displays of data about pedestrian activity or patrol routes.

  Fayyad took in a deep breath and shakily exhaled, putting one foot in front of the other, headed for the center of the room.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” An armed guard pushed off a stool beside the door. “You can’t bring bags in here. Stop!”

  Fayyad whispered a quick prayer as he made his way to an empty desktop in the center of the room, heart fluttering. He slung his backpack onto the desk. Others paused their work to watch him, his strange behavior piquing their curiosity. The guard approached, hand on his gun.

  “What’s in the bag?” he barked.

  Fayyad finished his prayer, then unzipped the backpack, produced a small, plastic detonator, and looked up at the ceiling. The guard’s eyes bulged when he saw it. Fayyad’s thumb found the red button.

  He took in a quick breath and cried out, “All glory to God!”

 
People screamed, and the guard rushed him, but too late. Fayyad triggered the detonator.

  A bright flash enveloped him in light as the plastic explosives blasted from the backpack, ripped through his flesh, shredded screens and servers, and filled the entire room with fire.

  Chapter Two

  Sagittarius Arm, on the planet Triumph . . .

  Cristiana looked up at the Eagle airship in the heavens and grinned. The gray sky brimmed with long airships from every manor in the Regnum, but the umber, white, and gold colors made Eagle’s craft stand out, at least to her eye. The sharp-beaked symbol of her homeland kindled a spate of warm feelings inside her: pride, honor, loyalty, joy.

  And determination.

  Determination to display the true eminence of Eagle in Kastor’s absence. To show that its glory would not fade, even if one of its warriors had.

  Cristiana sat tall on Starflash as the majestic, speckled white Clydesdale trotted primly along the broad street in Eagle’s section of the procession. Twenty-four other warriors rode alongside her, each wearing the same distinctive umber regalia with white trim and gold buttons. Twenty-four other horses trotted beside and behind Starflash, their hooves rising and falling in unison. The giant beasts—wonders of genesmithing—pranced with as much dignity as their riders, holding their necks rigidly straight and keeping their eyes forward without the restraint of blinders. A picture of discipline for warrior and beast alike.

  Cristiana reached a white-gloved hand forward and patted Starflash’s muscled neck.

  Ahead, across a thirty or so meter gap from the Eagle riders, the last Mallard float crept along, taking up the rear of their section. A holo display hovered above the float’s platform, showing a purple-headed duck with its green and brown wings extended, frozen in mid-flight. Lines of banner-carriers walked on either side of the float, holding their duck banners diagonally toward the edges of the street so as not to block the holographic display.

  Cristiana liked the fact that Eagle came after Mallard. The ferocity of the Eagle holos would stand in stark contrast to the harmless lake birds that preceded them.

  War parties from ten of the eleven major manors had come to Triumph at the Grand Lumis’s call to reaffirm their loyalty to the Regnum. No one spoke openly about the manor that hadn’t shown, but everyone knew what their absence meant. Cristiana was glad to be amongst the loyalists.

  Lining both sides of the wide, obsidian avenue, servant drummers in silver and black uniforms played upright drums. Men beat copper kettledrums with timpani sticks, while women worked daintier sticks inside concave steel drums, alternating from man to woman down the line. Their drums mixed with the exultant music playing from unseen speakers all throughout the city, coming together to create a full, reverberating sound.

  Beyond the drummers, crowds cheered on the sidewalk and from the crystalline buildings’ rooftops. Children waved. Teenage servant girls peered out of windows at the primarily male display of warriors passing them by. They giggled and whispered in each others’ ears as their eyes followed Eagle’s finest young men. It struck Cristiana as quaint: young girls infatuated by handsome men on white steeds. A whiff of life before genetic pairing that still lived on in the common people. It was a life Cristiana often thought would suit her better.

  Quick, clopping steps picked up behind Cristiana. She turned her head and gasped at the creature approaching. A gigantic Belgian draft horse, probably close to two and half meters tall, pranced with the agility of an Arabian. Engineered for speed as well as strength, apparently.

  But that wasn’t the creature who made her breath catch. The rider, clad in prim orange regalia with a white stripe down the center of his chest, silver centurion helmet with flamboyant orange plume, and snow white pants with orange trimming, moved in his saddle with seasoned ease and poise. He sat perfectly erect and held the reins loosely in one hand while his other rested with genteel grace at his hip. His luminescent, pretty-boy smile brightened as his relaxed gaze locked onto Cristiana. He slowed his horse and pulled closer to her.

  Cristiana couldn’t divine whether she felt anxiety or loathing. She settled for both.

  “You must be Cristiana of Eagle,” he said in her direction, his words unhurried and overly pronounced—even his speech a show.

  It wasn’t a question, so Cristiana didn’t respond as such. Instead, her eyes flicked up and down the ostentatious, human-equine exhibition, from the orange-lined horseshoes to the Fox faces on the horse’s shoulder pieces to the rider’s ridiculous, orange frills.

  “I would’ve assumed you to be Larkin of Fox,” Cristiana said, “but you’re not wearing enough orange.”

  Larkin tipped his head back and laughed. “The maiden warrior of Eagle has a sense of humor. That’s good.”

  Cristiana loathed him already. After a mere ten seconds of knowing him, he already embodied everything repugnant about the male-dominated warrior culture.

  “I doubt you’ll be laughing after the horse race tomorrow,” she said.

  He gave a playful sad face. “It’s a little early in the conversation for taunts, don’t you think? Besides, I didn’t come to exchange barbs.”

  “Did you come to investigate how a woman could rise so high in the ranks?”

  “I came to introduce myself,” Larkin said, unfazed. He turned to look at Cristiana and placed a gloved hand on his chest. “I am Larkin of Fox, son of Lagopus, third planet of the Vulpes system. And I wish you all the best in tomorrow’s race.”

  Cristiana felt disarmed. Perhaps she had misjudged the fellow.

  “Same to you, Larkin,” she said. “Your reputation precedes you.”

  “A good one, I hope.” He flashed his dazzling smile. “I’ve worked awfully hard on it, you know.”

  “It’s an impressive one, I’ll say that.”

  “Very kind of you to say.” He looked out on the cheering crowds and waved, then turned back to Cristiana. “Look at them! They love you. They love us both. We’re stars in their eyes. We shouldn’t be enemies. We should be friends. The people want us to be friends.”

  It almost annoyed her how skillfully Larkin schmoozed. The saying she’d heard from Fox academies went that it was easier to kill one’s ally than one’s enemy. An enemy would see it coming; an ally wouldn’t. Naturally, Cristiana distrusted the Fox warrior. But she figured playing along would be better than not.

  “Alright, then,” she said, loosening her shoulders. “Let’s be friends.”

  She lifted her hand and waved at the crowd as elegantly as she could. Their cheering became louder in reply.

  Larkin’s face turned to one of joyous disbelief. “Let’s, indeed.” He waved with the Eagle warrior for a moment. “I’m pleasantly surprised. You know, warriors of Eagle have a reputation for being a bit . . .bristly.”

  “Oh?” She couldn’t tell if that was a taunt. Perhaps he’d feigned his plea for friendship and now wished to return to oblique verbal sparring. If so, she’d welcome it. She felt more comfortable in that territory anyway.

  “I never met Kastor, but he struck me that way.” He shifted in his saddle to face her. “Did you know Kastor?”

  Cristiana recalled her time at the academy on Tyrannus, the many thousands of hours spent training so close to the storied and renowned warrior, and yet so rarely interacting with him. She had exchanged a few words here and there and in one instance practiced swordplay opposite him, but that was all. The academy’s instructors had pinned him as one of their best from early on, gave him special treatment, surrounded him with only the best of the best fighters. Cristiana had known Pollaena far better than Kastor, and she still felt sorrow over them both.

  “I did,” she said. “Somewhat. I wouldn’t describe him as ‘bristly.’”

  “Then how would you describe him?”

  As she thought about it, her mental image of Kastor solidified as something familiar. Something she understood. “Determined.”

  “Determined, indeed,” Larking replied. “May he be rem
embered that way, rather than for the messy business on Upraad.” He paused and flicked his eyes back at Cristiana with a mischievous grin. “Of course, if not for Upraad, you and I wouldn’t be competing for his old job, would we?”

  Cristiana managed to stretch just enough of a smile across her lips to signal her lack of amusement.

  “And now, before the taunts resume, I’ll take my leave.” Larkin bowed his head and heeled his horse to pick up the pace. The horse trotted away from Eagle’s column and on to the next. Off to play mind games with whomever Mallard sent to compete in the horse race.

  He wouldn’t have much time though. The towering Diamond Castle rose ever taller at the end of the avenue. Ahead, the procession curled around the edges of a huge, round cul-de-sac before the half-pyramid of steps to the main entrance of the castle. The gargantuan structure of diamond and glass and steel dwarfed the people and floats underneath it. Two spires at its front corners rose high into the air with a third in the middle soaring even higher, each coming to sharp, twisted points.

  The castle adorned the center of the city like a chandelier—beautiful and imposing in an aloof kind of way. No place Cristiana would ever want to live. At least, no place she’d everenjoy living.

  The line of Eagle horses arrived at the start of the avenue’s curve. Being positioned on the edge-ward end, Cristiana pressed her heel into Starflash’s side to direct him to curve with the obsidian pavement. The line of horses and riders swiveled with practiced precision—the horses on the far end taking longer steps while the horses on Cristiana’s end taking smaller steps, all hooves remaining in sync.

  Four other manors already curled around the massive plaza, each raising their blazer swords before the Grand Lumis and his royal court on the steps of the castle as an expression of loyalty. The rest of the procession would follow the same path, arcing to the left, passing in front of the Diamond Castle, then moving to their final position in the circle. Fox, as the regnant manor, would take its honored place in the center of the circle.