Relinquish: Book II of the Rising Trilogy Read Online Free

him truly terrified and rightfully so. “Let’s go.”
    He follows behind me at a near crouch, moving with extreme caution and as little noise as possible. We leave tracks in the softened ground, but there is no time to hide them, and with Vikesh tracking us, there’s no point either. I watch as Carleon’s gaze darts toward every shadow, no doubt convinced the alien is sneaking up on us, but that is not his way. He doesn’t need to hide.
    “So you think you can take this guy?”
    My shrug does little to ease either of our fears as we pause against the side of the building I thought to be the armory. I rise up and look over my shoulder into the window and am struck by a mixture of disappointment and relief. Long rows of bench tables span the length of the room. This is the mess hall, not a storage locker of weapons. At least he won’t be able to blow us up with it!
    “That’s the bunker over there.” I point to a single door that rises from the ground. An entrance rises in an arch that stands barely eight foot tall, plated with sheets of hammered metal. The roof of the structure disappears into the earth, as if the tunnel has been swallowed whole. “Drakon should be through that door.”
    There is no telling just how many exits there are to this bunker, or how many soldiers lie in wait beyond that door. I can feel my heart thumping wildly in my chest as I peer out into the dark. Where has all of the laser fire gone?
    The clearing between us and the bunker appears to be vacant, but looks can be deceiving. I take a calming breath and attempt to lower my heart rate. The last thing I need is Vikesh to use it against me.
    But he wouldn’t want to do that. It’s not in his nature to end a foe so easily. No, he will want to make a public show of defeating me and he will want my friends to have a front row seat.
    “Let’s go.” Silently, we dart across the clearing. Wailing cries suddenly rise from the other end of the base, tearing through the calm like a chainsaw gone rogue. I can feel Carleon hesitate beside me so I grab him by the arm and force him to keep moving.
    “We can’t help them.” I know Eamon is alive, for the moment, but what about Toren or Kyan? I haven’t heard anything from them since the battle began.
    An explosion from behind slams us to the ground. A scream lodges in my throat as I cover my head with my hands, feeling the fibers of my jacket begin to melt against the thin layer of my shirt. The intensity of the heat filters slowly away and I look up through a mess of tangled hair.
    The forest all around the base has erupted into blue fire. The abnormal flames lick at the bark, scorching the barren branches. Like a hundred tiny flamethrowers, streams of fire shoot out from miniature cannons that have risen along the rooftops. Rebel and alien soldiers alike run amuck as they fling themselves into the mud to extinguish the flames that eat away at their uniforms.
    “They’re killing their own men!” Carleon looks green as he watches the charred figures flail about in the distance.
    “It’s war,” I say simply as I tug him on, knowing there is nothing we can do to help them. Carleon raises his hand to shield himself from the heat and I’m stuck again by how young he looks. Even though he physically appears a year or two younger than I am, he has already lived more years on Calisted than I have here on Earth. Time passes differently there. The beauty of youth is not stolen away quite so swiftly. “Drakon is our mission. If we go to help those men, then he might slip away in all of the chaos and their deaths will be for nothing.”
    I can see how hard it is for Carleon to turn away, but he does so without a single protest. We all knew the risk in coming here. Death was inevitable, but I would have liked to have kept it to a minimum. Apparently Drakon isn’t playing by the same rules with his own men.
    Movement from across the clearing catches the corner of my eye almost a second too late.