Punished, Tana Stone [top reads .txt] 📗

boots. Once I’d snatched my battle axe and attached it to my belt, I stepped outside armed with my weapon and renewed purpose.

I’d done the right thing. As hard as it had been, cutting ties with Sienna had been the right move. She might be the best fighter I’d trained on the planet, but the fact remained that her planet’s customs wouldn’t allow it. Spending more time with her was a waste, when I should focus all my energy on preparing the villagers to defend their planet.

I stomped down the stone path, breathing in the cool morning air and grateful that the suns were still low and not yet blazing. My logical brain knew that training Sienna had been foolish, but I couldn’t make myself regret it. Fighting with her, and then sitting beside her and eating more of her sister’s baked goods while she told me tales about the villagers she’d grown up with, had been the best part of every day. Better than watching the graceless males in my official training class.

I forced myself to think about the humans and Kimitherians I was training. If a visit from the Zagrath was truly imminent, then I needed to step up my drills. They were not as awkward as they had been the first day, but few of them were competent enough to hold their own in a fight, and they had a difficult time moving as a unit.

I thought about moving in attack formations with my fellow Vandar warriors, our shields held high and our feet moving together in lockstep precision. After flying and fighting together for so long, we moved as one. The connectedness and feeling of being a part of a greater whole was something I’d never appreciated fully until I’d lost it. Now, being isolated on an alien planet and trying in vain to teach the concept to fighters who did not understand what it meant to be part of a tight-knit unit—a family—I missed my Vandar brethren so much I felt it in every fiber of my being.

And for the first time since I’d been exiled, I understood deeply how much I’d wronged my horde and my Raas. Staggering down the last few metrons of the path, I braced my hand on the rock ledge. In my determination to prove myself right and show the Raas that his female was deceiving him, I’d forgotten that I was an integral part of the whole. My independent actions had splintered that unit, weakening it with my need to be right. My exile had not only been a punishment for me, but it had also been a blow to the horde.

I glanced up at the sky, the pale blue already whitening as the suns rose. The Vandar were out there. As much as this planet might need me right now, I would have to return to the hordes. I was part of a greater whole, and I would not be complete unless I was joined with it. I sucked in a breath, my newfound determination giving me fresh energy. For now, I had fighters to train and a planet to defend. The Vandar never left anyone to the mercy of the empire, and I was still the fiercest of Vandar raiders.

“Corvak!” the sharp clicks of the Kimitherian voice drew my gaze across the village square.

Kerl ran toward me, his hood billowing off his face and his large eyes bugged out. The rest of the square was still quiet, only a few shop keepers opening doors and sweeping the dust off the brown paving stones, even though I detected a faint scent of freshly baked bread in the air.

I hurried forward to meet him at the obelisk, allowing the alien a moment to lean one webbed hand on the stone monument before urging him to speak.

“What is wrong?”

He thrust a cloaked arm behind him toward the shallows and the amphitheater. “It has begun.”

I tried not to let my impatience brim over, but I had never been known for temperance. “What has begun?”

Were my students assembled early? Was there some sort of meeting to which I was late?

Kerl clutched my arm. “The imperial scouting ship arrived at some point in the early hours before dawn. Our planetary defenses are not powerful, especially when matched with Zagrath ships, but they also did not notify us of their approach.”

I stiffened, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling. The Zagrath were here on the planet? My hand went to the hilt of my axe out of habit, and I scanned the area quickly. “How long since they landed?”

“I do not know. It cannot have been long.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Since they did not request landing approval, our usual landing pad was not empty for them. They landed on the other side of the shallows, so any soldiers have a long walk to reach us.”

I allowed myself a breath. That was something. A fully equipped imperial soldier with their dark uniforms and shiny helmets would trek slowly across arid land and under the heat of two suns. I placed my hand over Kerl’s. “I need you to send word to all the males I’ve been training. I need them to assemble with me outside the village. It is time for them to put their training to use and defend their people.”

He nodded, rushing past me and up the pathway to the cave dwellings. As my gaze followed him, I noticed a flash of gold hair disappearing around a bend. Although I felt a flicker of disappointment that I hadn’t gotten a glimpse of Sienna, I was glad her sister was running far from the impending battle.

Chapter Twenty-One

Ch 21

Corvak

“Is this everyone who’s coming?” I stood in front of a motley group of humans and Kimitherians, most of whom appeared to still be in the process of waking.

Low mumbling told me that it was. Even Donal, who usually preferred standing in the front with his small posse of equally