Dark Age (Red Rising Saga 5)

Rhone jumps from his own to stand over me with Praetorians. They’re in a panic, hauling at me, screaming to get behind them as they shoot. Then I see why.

Darrow bulldozes toward me.

His army in tatters around him, he breaks through behind a wedge of three armored Obsidians. Rhone’s men shoot the Obsidians. But they stumble into the line and Darrow explodes out from behind them. His razor passes through a man’s teeth and jaw. He looks left, then disappears in a blur.

He threw his body back just as Kalindora galloped past on her horse. Still, he’s clipped hard enough to spin like a top. But as he falls, his Red acrobatics shine. No one falls like the Reaper.

His whip snakes out and snaps hold of the back fetlock of Kalindora’s horse. He’s ripped down the boulevard before the Grays can shoot him. The horse tramples through a wall of men and clears the other side. Then it goes down. Kalindora disappears. Through the mill of bodies, I see her gain her feet as Darrow charges her. Their blades spark in an incredible display of fatigued swordsmanship. And then she falls. He hacks down at her four times before turning back to me.

A roar comes from behind me.

Back where Triumphia meets the plaza. The infantry pour in and the spirit that anchored the Rising soldiers to this plot of land finally shatters. In a weird, instantaneous snap, their dogged last stand morphs into mindless hysteria. They flee through the back alleys and down the Triumphia, flowing past Darrow, who stands there watching me. Many drop their weapons or discard their armor to run faster. As happens in all retreats, men are shot through the back, cleaved down from behind, losing far more with their backs turned than when they stood their ground.

It is a rout.

A trio of horses speeds through the broken army. Thraxa slumps in one saddle. One of the Reds who dragged her to safety holds the reins of the third horse as the other sits backward and fires with his rifle. Two shots whiz past my head close enough to flay open the skin of my scalp. Darrow mounts one of the horses as they pass. He looks back at me as my infantry pours through the plaza down the boulevard, and kicks his horse away.

I rush to Kalindora as my men push forward. A Gold says something braggadocious to me, and I shove past him to find her crawling toward a lamppost so as not to be trampled underfoot. She leaks blood from a long gash down her left side. Her remaining arm is hacked to several pieces. She tries to say something to me. I call

for medici. Several Praetorians rush my way to help stanch the bleeding.

I look down the dark boulevard after Darrow. “Let him…run,” Kalindora says. “You’re no…equal.”

I grip a Praetorian. They all have field medical training. “Keep her alive.”

I grab Kalindora’s loyalist razor from the ground and sprint back to Blood of Empire and jump into his saddle to pursue. Rhone shouts after me, but I know if I let Darrow slip through my fingers, he will disappear into the city like smoke.

The Praetorians try to keep up, but Blood outpaces their tired steeds. Buildings whip past. Retreating men scatter. Mobs with torches cheer. Then I catch sight of the trio galloping south on a quiet stretch of the Via Triumphia just past the Bank of Heliopolis.

“Reaper!” He does not turn. “Slave!” Somehow through the clatter of hooves, he hears me and wheels his horse around. Thraxa reaches for him and misses. Her horse carries her past. Covered in gore, his slingBlade held at his right side, he looks a devil atop the blood-frothed steed. Darrow brings his slingBlade around to point at me. Drawn by my shout, shadowed faces fill the windows that line the street.

With a groaning howl, Darrow accepts my challenge. He kicks his horse’s flanks. It springs forward. Blood of Empire needs no encouraging. He sees a horse that is less than him, and surges to meet the challenger.

For a moment there is nothing in the world but my enemy and me and the bobbing of the starlit street and the cacophony of horse hooves on stone. It forms a tunnel of concentrated destiny.

I bring my borrowed razor up like a lance in my left hand. In the mill of battle, I am not his equal. Nor am I in the dueling ring. But aristocrats have always held a monopoly on horsemanship.

Darrow jerks on his reins, angling to his left as if to pass on my right. Predictable. I anticipate he will swerve to my left at the last moment and toss his slingBlade to the other hand to turn my lance and decapitate me with a passing backhand. Or he’ll crash our horses together to maim us both.

But he does not see that I brought Kalindora’s razor as well as Alexandar’s. I clutch Kalindora’s out of sight behind Blood’s neck instead of the reins. I steer with my knees as Atalantia taught me to as a boy. As I saw my father ride when I was not even as tall as his knees.

At ten meters, just as Darrow swerves to my left, I swerve right and take my shot. I flick Kalindora’s razor in an underhand toss. It carries forward and disappears into Darrow’s chest. Just as the horses draw even, I swing Alexandar’s razor with my left arm, digging my toes into the stirrups and driving with my legs to meet his slingBlade as we pass.

Metal cracks.

The world upturns.

My arm goes numb. The razor shatters and flies out of my grip. My head slams against the ground as I skid across the street. I stumble up and fall, concussed. The world tips back and forth as I pick up the hilt of my shattered razor and look for Darrow. Somehow, impossibly, he was not unseated. He slumps from his horse, Kalindora’s razor protruding through his chest and out his back.

Praetorians are galloping toward him down the street. His left arm flops unnaturally at his side as he pulls the horse around and kicks it down an alley to disappear into the city.

Rhone and the Praetorians rein the horses in as they reach me. A dozen set off after Darrow.

“My liege, are you wounded?” Rhone cries. I stare after Darrow.

“He got him through the chest,” a Praetorian says. “Razor straight through the heart.”

“He’s dead. He has to be.”