Barbarian King's Bride: Supernova Escapes

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Dagar

Dagar Ramanth stood tall at the center of his village, peering at the twilight sky as the red sun threatened to dip beyond the treetops of the forest surrounding them. The three moons of Caraben were high up in the sky, with the fourth still rising.

It was nearly time.

He turned to the men standing in the clearing. The sight of the shikara warriors was quite impressive. Dozens of men, each wearing the golden plate mail of their people. Their arms remained uncovered, and the short red fur on them stood up, just as alert as the owners. Waiting in anticipation.

Each warrior held his shika sword in one hand and a torch in the other. Dagar had yet to light his torch, but he gripped his sword tightly, his blood pounding in his veins as it did every night when he set out for battle.

An elderly female walked up to him—Merani, the tribe healer. A younger woman followed her with a cup of clamen juice. Dagar recognized her as Iana, the daughter of Faruk, one of the warriors joining them tonight. With her eyes downcast, she offered the cup to Dagar.

Dagar glanced at Merani, who seemed disinterested in the exchange. But her eyes betrayed her. There was a glint of knowledge and scheming in their depths, and Dagar narrowed his eyes at her as annoyance flared inside him.

He knew what this was about. Besides being the tribe healer, Merani had a penchant for matchmaking. She was presenting Iana as a potential mate for him.

Not accepting an offering made to a warrior before a battle would be rude. Besides, clamen juice was always appreciated, since it strengthened both body and mind. Merani knew this, and she was taking advantage of the fact.

Unable to politely decline, Dagar thanked Iana and accepted the cup. He downed the drink in one long swig and passed the cup back to her.

Dagar had no interest in the female. He had seen her in the tribe before—he knew everyone in his tribe—and he already knew he would never have her. He was waiting for his sinra, his true mate. And this female was not it.

Good luck out there tonight, my king, the female spoke in a quiet voice, her eyes downcast in submission. May your fight continue.

Dagar jerked his head in a nod. May I continue to serve.

Then, with a look at Merani that hopefully adequately delivered his annoyance, he turned back to look at the sky. The fourth moon had appeared just above the tree line. There was no more time to waste.

Warriors! he called out as he turned back to the crowd. It is time to go! May we defend our village and its people on this night! May we protect our land and homes! May we continue to serve!

The warriors raised their swords in the air, bellowing out a battle cry that shook his bones. The anticipation of the fight raged in his blood, pulsing through his veins. It had been bred into him. As the seventeenth king of Ramanth, he had been born to defend it. His father had fought for this village, as had his father before him, and his father before him.

And now, it was his turn.

With a cry of his own, he raised his shika sword into the sky and started to lead the warriors out of the village. The men marched forth in rows of four, each group following Dagar as he marched through the forest.

A shimmering barrier wall loomed ahead of them as they reached the edge of the village. It was as tall as ten men and infinitely wide. It surrounded their land, protecting the village just as they did.

The barrier was a new addition to the village, erected only a generation past by the Galactic Alliance. When the Alliance had first arrived, the planet had just been known as La—the nature, the world.

Dagar’s father had told him many stories of the aliens’ arrival. Even now, years after his father’s death, Dagar could picture the shock his old man had felt when the people of Caraben had discovered that they were not alone in the universe.

Before the Alliance had arrived, La had been a primitive world, unaware that life existed elsewhere. They had been too busy dealing with life forms of their own.

Such as the darkness that roamed his world and devoured everything.

The darkness that he was about to fight on this night.

In truth, the Galactic Alliance was not the first alien arrival on their world. A thousand suns past, a meteor had struck the plains of Garush, several days’ journey north of Ramanth. But the meteor had not been a mere rock. It had held an otherworldly passenger, a creature that had changed his people’s lives overnight.

Tribes that had once fought against one another had come together to fight a common enemy. A being that devoured everything it came in contact with, growing with each thing it ate. Soon, the plains of Garush had been no more and the creature had sought sustenance elsewhere.

Fields. Forests. Villages.

Nothing was safe from the being.

Never since then had the warrior kings warred with one another. The only war that lived was with that being; the Formor.

When the Alliance had arrived, they’d helped the people of Caraben defend themselves against the creature by erecting walls around the villages. The barrier surrounded more than fifty tribes, with a city in the middle. It was made of electricity—a strange substance that the Alliance had introduced to them and that was now used to operate almost everything. Light could easily illuminate the villages and it powered things like computers and communication devices.

Dagar’s parents had grown up without such things, and most of the people on Caraben continued to live traditionally, in small hotara huts in the woods. But he couldn’t imagine a world completely in the dark. Just like the Formor had once done, the arrival of the Alliance had changed everything.

The barrier was the most important part of Caraben. Without it, the city of Engar would have never emerged. None of the tribal huts would be filled. The tribes may even have been devoured down to only a few, as had happened over and over in their history.

Even with the barrier, defense was necessary. The barrier kept the creature at bay, but that didn’t stop it from trying to get past it. So, from dusk to dawn, each tribe sent protectors beyond the barrier to keep it standing. Just as they would do tonight.

Reaching the edge of the barrier, Dagar disabled a small portion of it so that they could pass through to the other side. As soon as they did, the difference in the surrounding environment hit him. It always did, no matter how many times he saw it.

Large parts of the forest around them were nothing but ash. There were trees here and there, but the further you went from the barrier, the more dead the ground became. The world outside the barrier was a dry and desolate wasteland. What trees and plants had once stood there in times past had long since been devoured, leaving nothing behind but dust and exposed rock.

Dagar could only assume the Formor had not eaten all the trees because it possessed enough intelligence to realize that eating the entire planet would prevent new growth. There would be nothing to eat the following day. No planet to live on.

Despite being nothing more than a dark mass, the people of Caraben had long since discovered that the Formor was more intelligent than it seemed.

A group of warriors piled up logs on the ground and used their torches to create a fire by the gate. The other members of the tribe broke off and each began to travel to their positions along the barrier.

When everyone had passed, Dagar closed the gate, then turned and lit up his torch by the fire.

Adimar, Lethos, he addressed the warriors who had stayed with him. Take position twenty steps to the north along the barrier. I will stay here by the gateway and tend to the fire.

Sir? Lethos asked him curiously. Do you think it is wise to guard the gate alone? I know the fire will discourage the creature, but the Formor could easily opt for a frontal assault.

Dagar smirked.

That's exactly what I'm hoping for, Leth, he told his friend. You will be far enough not to be seen among the trees but close enough to hear if there is trouble and rush to help. If the Formor sees me alone, it might believe I’m an easy target. But we all know better than that. Tonight, we will lure it out and fry it.

The men smirked back at him as they caught onto his plan. With their torches and swords in hand, they rushed to their position. The fire would discourage the Formor—it was the only thing that did. Cutting the creature with a sword didn’t harm it, as the pieces would always crawl back to its main body and merge into one large unit again.

But fire… Fire could harm it.

In the old times, they had surrounded their villages with fire. It was not as effective as the barrier, but it had helped to keep his people alive. That was why they always set a fire by the gate. It was the only thing that could kill the creature, although not for good.

Nothing could truly destroy it. It was too vast. Too hungry. It would never be truly gone, not unless it took their world with it, but if it was chopped into small enough pieces and then burned, it would diminish in size. That was why each warrior carried a sword and a torch.

Dagar gripped his own in his hands as he stood by the fire, watching the sun as it disappeared completely beyond the horizon and cast shadows over the land—shadows that the Formor would use to its advantage. As darkness was its nature, it could easily slither in among the shadows and devour an untrained warrior if one was not careful.

Over generations, his people had developed a keen night vision to watch the shadows for this very reason. If you could not watch the shadows, you were as good as dead.

Dagar stood still in his spot. Listening to the sounds around him. Watching as the shadows darkened with the setting sun. Waiting to see if they moved.

Out here, beyond the barrier, his mind and purpose were clear. Keep the Formor on this side, and his people on the other.

A long, high-pitched whistle from the south alerted Dagar to the fact that the Formor—or at least some part of it—had been spotted. The sound of a shika strike rang out next, followed by several more. The surreal and frightening scream of the Formor pierced the air, making the hair on his body stand on end.

Dagar squared his shoulders as he readied his own weapon. A part of him always wanted to go help the warriors who were under attack, but he knew he couldn’t. They were too far, and he couldn’t leave his part of the barrier unprotected. So, he simply waited.

He didn’t have to wait long.

Leaves rustled in the small underbrush before him, slowly turning grey and shriveling to the ground. Then, he saw it.

The shadow was three times larger than him, dark yet somehow translucent. It came at him like a rippling wave, little bursts of static popping here and there inside the thing as it hissed at him