Kanza stared from the rack of steel to Oakh’s face. Deep creases bracketed the innkeeper's mouth. He offered no soothing words, only the open vault. Leaving him to burn beside his bar was impossible.
“My bloodline is coming,” Kanza echoed, the words a low growl. “And they’ll find me standing right here.” The choice clicked shut like a bolt sliding into battery. Kanza pushed past Oakh into the armory, the scent of oil and old leather heavy in the air. Racks of slugthrowers, scatterguns, and precision carbines lined the walls. Kanza’s eyes settled on a long-barreled marksman rifle, its optics polished to a dull sheen, clearly Oakh’s personal piece. It felt familiar, deadly.
“Good,” Oakh said, his voice flat, but the subtle relaxation of his shoulders was a narrative Kanza understood. He reached for a compact, drum-fed carbine. Dalko, who had been watching the exchange with cynical detachment, grunted. “Expected you to bolt, Vayan. Thought your spine was made of sand.”
Kanza ignored him, grabbing a pair of powerful, short-barreled slug-pistols from a nearby rack. “Where are those ‘rigged explosives’ you mentioned?” Kanza asked, turning to Dalko. “Let’s see if your talk is as loud as your boom.”
Dalko’s lips curled into a smirk. “Gladly.” He pulled a satchel from beneath a workbench, its contents rattling with shaped charges and detonators. “Just tell me where to put them.”
Oakh, loading magazines with practiced speed, thumbed a crude map scratched into the table. “We fortify the approaches. Dalko, external charges on the east canyon wall and the compound gate. Kanza, hold the common room and the west access tunnel. I’ll take the high ground on the north parapet. Keep constant comms. No heroics, just hold the line.”
An hour later, the Hollow-Rock Inn smelled of cordite and dry dust instead of spiced cactus brew. Kanza stood behind the reinforced bar, slug-pistols primed, the Vayan tracking ledger stowed in a leather belt pouch. Through the narrow slit of a sand-bagged window, the first flicker of distant headlights cut through the Dune-Seas’ encroaching twilight.
“They’re here,” Oakh’s voice crackled over Kanza’s comms, calm and steady. “Vanguard lead, a heavy-duty assault skiff and three ground crawlers. Approximately twenty raiders.”
Kanza’s fingers tightened on the pistol grip. Twenty guns. Against three. The ground crawlers were the first to breach the perimeter, slamming into Dalko’s carefully placed charges. The desert air ripped apart with a deafening *CRUMP*, followed by a shower of metal and sand. Shouts, then screams. Dalko’s cackle, raw and triumphant, cut through the comms. “Got the first one! The sand eats Vayan trash!”
The assault skiff, a brutalist beast of scarred chrome and roaring engines, powered through the shattered outer gate. A figure stood on its forward deck, silhouetted against the skiff’s burning exhaust – Joric Vayan. Kanza’s cousin. Even from this distance, Kanza could feel the cold, calculating cruelty emanating from him. Joric raised a hand, and a hail of heavy slug-rounds tore into the inn’s reinforced walls, chipping away at the ancient rock.
“Kanza Vayan!” Joric’s voice boomed across the yard, amplified by the skiff’s external speakers. “Come out, little rat! Father wants his ledger back. And he wants to see you *bleed*!”
Kanza felt a familiar rage, cold and sharp, ignite in their gut. This was Joric’s game. The same vicious game he’d played since they were children, always seeking to break Kanza, to prove Kanza weak. Not anymore. Not here. Not with Oakh and Dalko and the few innocent souls sheltering in the safe-room below. Kanza leaned through the slit, tracked a Vayan gunman trying to flank the main entrance, and fired. The pistol kicked, dropping the man into the dust.
Another *CRUMP* from outside. Dalko again. “Two down! These bozos are walking right into it!”
The firefight intensified. Enforcers poured through the gap, armor plates flashing through smoke and pulverized stone. Syndicate drills took over. Kanza cleared the front hall with measured double-taps, then sprinted to the west access tunnel, dropping three infiltrators before they cleared the threshold.
Static hissed over the link, followed by Oakh’s strained rasp. “Sharpshooter on the north ridge! He’s pinning the parapet!”
Kanza bolted back to the common room and scrambled up the maintenance ladder. Through an arrow-slit, Oakh was visible crouched behind the stones, his long gun barking rhythmically into the gloom. But then, a glint of light from the distant ridge, a wisp of smoke, and the unmistakable *crack* of a heavy-caliber round.
“Oakh, get down!” Kanza screamed, but it was too late. A sickening thud echoed, and Oakh, framed against the setting sun, jerked violently. He stumbled, his rifle clattering against the stone, then collapsed. A dark stain bloomed on his shoulder, spreading rapidly. He hit the sandbags with a choked gasp, his leg dangling awkwardly. The shooter on the ridge had spotted the muzzle flash and fired blind into the perch.
Something in Kanza snapped. The cold rage gave way to a volcanic fury. This wasn't about the ledger anymore. This wasn't about escaping a past. This was about *them*. About Oakh, bleeding in the sand, because Kanza had brought the monsters to his door. Kanza didn’t think. Kanza acted. Kanza ripped a thermal detonator from Dalko’s satchel, keyed the arming switch, and hurled it through the breached doors straight into the advancing squad.
The charge tore the doorway apart in a storm of orange heat and flying rock. Kanza vaulted the smoking rubble, pistols barking. The vanguard scattered, stunned by the sudden counter-charge. When an enforcer lunged, Kanza sidestepped, snapped his forearm across a knee, and drove an elbow into his throat. Another raised a slugthrower; Kanza wrenched the barrel aside, stripped it, and cracked the stock against the man's helm until he dropped.
Joric, from the deck of his skiff, watched in stunned silence as Kanza, a lone figure, systematically tore through his vanguard. “That’s… that’s not Kanza,” he muttered, disbelief twisting his face. “That’s a *beast*.”
Within minutes, the open yard fell silent beneath drifting oil smoke and broken engines. Blood coated Kanza's palms. Kanza turned and sprinted toward the tower ladder.
Oakh lay slumped against the sandbags, breathing in shallow rattles. The long gun rested beside his limp arm. Kanza tore the sleeve from an assault rig, packing the heavy cloth hard against the torn shoulder. Kanza’s hands, still trembling with the aftershocks of violence, worked swiftly, expertly, stemming the flow. This place, this safe harbor, had almost been razed because of Kanza’s flight. Hiding, Kanza realized, was a luxury Kanza could no longer afford. It only brought the fight to the innocent.
Oakh’s eyes fluttered open, hazy with pain. He tried to speak, but only a ragged cough escaped. Kanza leaned close, hands slick with dark red. “I brought them to your door. I’m going back to Oura to burn down their towers.”