Free Shattered Sun (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 3) by Michael Wallace Page A

Elyot Kar, and He promised to release me from the sugar curse.”
    The two adjutants glanced at each other. Again, the sense that something was passing between them. What exactly had they been discussing before he entered the sweating room?
    “My skin is drying out,” he said. “The room needs more steam.”
    He didn’t expect Dela Zam to move—the priestess was too haughty to be ordered around by a mere general—but Lenol Tyn would normally be springing to her feet at the suggestion. Instead, she sat strangely inert. Mose Dryz made a noise of irritation deep in his throat and got up to do it himself.
    “Yes, but when , Lord General?” Lenol Tyn asked.
    Mose Dryz drew a ladle of water from the bucket. “When, what?”
    “When will Elyot Kar release you from the curse?”
    “When Apex has been defeated.” That was not in any way a lie, yet left out layers of truth. “Until then, I must continue to eat sugar.”
    Mose Dryz poured the water. Steam billowed, and he drew another ladle, then a third. As steam filled the room, he drew it into his lungs, letting the heat and the vapors calm him. Soon, he almost forgot the sugar waiting for him outside.
    But it was time. Already, two competing needs were scratching in his head. One, Apex, demanding to be heard and obeyed. The other, the sugar craving. He would feed the one in order to put off the other.
    Mose Dryz turned around, ready to order the adjutants to their posts, and drew back in surprise. They’d risen silently while he poured water, and now stood close to him, the colonel to his left, the priestess to his right.
    “What is this?”
    His eyes fell to Lenol Tyn’s left hand. She clenched something in her palm.
    “Lord General,” Lenol Tyn said. “Do not make this difficult. Do not resist.”
    Mose Dryz reached for the door, but the priestess seized his wrist. He tried to shake her off, but her grip was iron, and her eyes gleamed with holy zeal. Lenol Tyn grabbed his other wrist.
    “Let go of me. Stand back, both of you.”
    “I must ask you one more time,” Lenol Tyn said. “Will you take it willingly?”
    “God of Death take you, no I will not. You have no idea, you don’t understand. I can’t take the antidote, curse you. If I do, everything will be lost.”
    Lenol Tyn let out her breath with a sad-sounding burr in her throat. “Every sugar eater thinks that, Lord General. You feel better on the other side.”
    “No!”
    Mose Dryz gave a violent jerk. He got loose from the colonel, who was still holding the capsule in one hand, and then shoved at the priestess’s chest. She fell back, and he was loose. He sprang for the door.
    Dela Zam tackled him before he could get it open. He fell into the water bucket, spilling it. She wrapped one of her long, bony legs around his neck as he tried to rise, and scissored him down. Lenol Tyn leaped onto his back. He fought them with all the savagery of a cornered pouncer cat, but they were younger than he was, and there were two of them.
    “Listen to me,” he cried as they pinned him down. The priestess seized his jaw. “Please, I beg you, don’t. Let me explain.”
    He kept struggling and thrashing as they got his mouth open. Lenol Tyn shoved the capsule in his mouth, then forced his jaw closed. It broke in his teeth, and a bitter, almost spicy flavor filled his mouth. He tried to force it out through his closed mouth.
    “Hold the bastard down,” Dela Zam said. “Don’t let him spit it up.”
    “Swallow! Lord General, please!”
    Mose Dryz kept thrashing, but couldn’t spit the stuff out before he reflexively swallowed. Some bubbled out of his mouth, but most went down. It burned all the way to his stomach. He stopped fighting.
    The priestess let go of him first. “That’s all, that’s enough.” She heaved for breath. “It either went down him, or it didn’t. The gods will decide.”
     
     

Chapter Eight
    A welcome sight greeted Captain Tolvern when Blackbeard jumped into the Kettle System: