Lords of the Seventh Swarm by David Farland Read Free Book Online Page B

now, having fled the Milky Way, and true, Ruin was on the far frontiers even of the Carina Galaxy. But a hundred people?
    Outside, the other florafeems began to land, and people off-loaded. Most were dirty hunters and field scientists. Maggie took a quick guess, and imagined that eighty or ninety people must have already arrived.
    A small gaggle of locals crowded around to meet Gallen’s group. The four were, apparently, the first strangers to visit Ruin in several years. Their appearance caused a stir.
    Maggie took a place to one side of the great hall, waiting for locals to come by so Herm could make introductions. Here, in this stately palace, the crowds looked out of place. They were a sweaty, begrimed lot. No charitable sentiment on Maggie’s part could disguise the fact that most of these folks didn’t need introductions to Maggie so much as they needed introductions to a bar of soap.
    Tentatively, the people of Ruin introduced themselves. From the far side of the room Herm spotted a fellow and waited for him to approach. “I fear,” Herm whispered, “that you’re about to discover why my father doesn’t appreciate visitors.”
    No sooner had he whispered these words than a smelly man with unblinking eyes came and took her hand, bowed low, and kissed it. “Rame Onowa,” he said in a high voice, “at your service, ma’am.”
    He glanced up to Herm, waiting for the winged man to make a more formal introduction. “Rame is an itinerant cave dweller-cum-philosopher,” Herm said, “who lives in the ruins out near, the Yesterday Hills.”
    Rame was suitably attired in a hooded robe of moldy blue hair. His narrow hatchet face was covered with a beard and grime. His teeth were more orange than yellow. “So pleased to meet you,” Rame said, now pumping her hand vigorously. “So pleased to meet such a beautiful, beautiful woman. You’d … you’d certainly make a fine decoration for any man’s cave Miss, uh Miss …”
    “Maggie O’Day,” Maggie answered, trying to pull her hand away.
    “Ah! A beautiful name,” Rame said, then glanced toward Gallen and the bears. “So tell me, Maggie, what brings you to Ruin?”
    Rame stood close and peered into her eyes, unblinking, as if trying to peer beneath any layers of deceit, and Maggie tried to pull her hand back. Suddenly, a memory but two weeks old flashed through her mind, terrifying her.
    Never before had Maggie heard a war band of Vanquishers in flight: now she understood why men called these aliens dronon .
    The falling sun of Avendon lay on the ragged gray hills, creating a cold silver blade of light on the horizon. In that blade of light, Vanquishers flew in such vast numbers they looked like a row of thunderheads stretching over the hills, their black carapaces glinting in the dying sun. Their flashing amber wings limned the clouds with a sickly yellow hue; even kilometers away, the beating of their wings created a deep moaning that was not quite song, not quite a sound of pain. Almost mechanical.
    Machines. They were as mindless and unyielding as machines.
    The Lords of Seventh Swarm. Maggie took one last glance at the dronon over her shoulder. The cloud of warriors sped forward. So close. So close. Out over the prairie, wind stirred clouds of pollen from the purple sage.
    Maggie ducked into a gully, gasping, the scent of sage and dust thick in her throat. She put a hand on her swollen belly, holding the son who waited to be born. Behind her, Gallen stopped. He raised a hand to shade his eyes, half clutched it into a fist, shielding his eyes, then just held it for several seconds, so it became a gesture of denial, as if with one hand he could hope to hold the swarm at bay.
    Sweat streamed down Maggie’s face. Her heart pounded. Her mind was numb from too many sleepless nights, from hours of running. Maggie couldn’t imagine the Vanquishers being more than ten kilometers out, flying fast. Maybe closer.
    After months of nightmares in which the dronon