Night Song (The Guild Wars Book 9) Mark Wandrey (christmas read aloud txt) 📖

it a hundred times,” Drake muttered, with the perfect balance of resentment and humor. Shadow wanted to thump him in thanks.

“Candy worked with Ripley in the sims, we all know Sonya’s the only one Dailey will tolerate for long in maintenance—to the point half of you would go to her when you needed something from him. How many of you lost to Rex in the races?”

He kept his ears from flicking, kept his eyes big. Silent Night had never been a large company, and the compound didn’t leave a lot of room for secrets or deep grudges. Mercs got it together or got out. They didn’t all love each other and sing around campfires, but Shadow knew patterns, and the ways Humans interacted were exactly that.

“We lost you, so we suited up to find you. Maybe you would have done it differently, but I don’t think so. Silent Night fights for Silent Night.”

“For Humans,” one of them muttered, and Shadow’s nose twitched. Pierce. Always had a sour tint, always chewed a little too hard. Even in Silent Night, they couldn’t all be winners.

“Some Humans collaborated with the rats.” Rex didn’t do as good a job hiding his snarl, but Shadow never would have expected differently. “You been gone during the war. Maybe you didn’t hear? Peepo and her Veetanho buddies invaded, killed a lot of people. A lot of Humans. Some of the Humans fought for her. You fighting for those collaborators, Pierce? Out here while Earth got stomped?”

Shadow twitched his tail, and Rex caught the hint. He kept the snarl in place, though.

“We came for you. With Zuul help, yes. You had the cruiser, and we needed a ride.”

Someone laughed at that. They bit the chuckle back fast enough, but some of the tension bled out of the room.

“You’re Zuul,” Candy said, but reluctantly, like he was losing what more he wanted to say.

“We are. Zuul and Silent Night. We just came from the med bay, Candy. Know why?” Shadow put some heat in his tone now, and he heard the smallest edge of a whimper in Sonya’s soft growl. “Ripley almost died, getting us to you. Drone attack, she was hit in the chest by a laser. Flop died taking fire, and Ripley kept the rest of us alive, bleeding out, until Tesfaye picked us up. Silent Night fights for Silent Night.”

“The Zuul you came with—”

“You’ve fought other Human companies on contract before.” Sonya pitched her voice to match Shadow’s tone, and Shadow admired her restraint. “Being a merc can get messy. I think you told me that, Sentinel, when I told you I was thinking about joining up.”

The big merc in the back shifted, the belligerence in his shoulders ebbing.

“We came for you, and we almost died for you. This isn’t a Zuul versus Human thing. You want to bitch about it some more, or you want to get our shit together and get the fuck out of this bunghole end of the galaxy?”

A ragged smattering of cheers met that, and Shadow slammed his hand to his chest.

“SILENT NIGHT. I’ll ask you again—you here to whine, or you here to win and GO the FUCK back HOME again?”

Bana stepped forward, putting his sergeant’s voice to full use. “What do you say, shovel heads?”

A more full-throated wave of sound met that. It wasn’t everyone, and Shadow knew everything wasn’t magically fixed, but it was a step away from the lingering taste of death in the back of his throat. There was still resentment and fear. He didn’t know what to do about that—yet.

* * *

Alan knew Shadow wanted some deeper reaction from him, but he couldn’t summon it. With nine dead mercs fresh in his mind, and the fact that they had no clear way out of the system beyond outwitting the Zuparti guildmaster, the fate of the galaxy felt very distant.

The idea of visions, no matter how deeply his youngest son held them, couldn’t outweigh their pressing needs. With the immediate situation defused, he took Shadow aside.

“You did good in there, Shadow,” he said, hating the droop in his boy’s shoulders. “And I’m not saying Bana won’t put you on some shit duties, but enough’s happened that muster…”

“I’m not making excuses for missing muster, Dad. Isgono said—”

“If you have a vision that helps us get out of this shit show, I’m all ears.” He made an effort to keep any hint of derision out of his voice—he meant it, and he wanted Shadow to know that, but fading stars and exploding ships were less important when he was stranded on a dwarf planet with two self-important guilds slugging it out and getting his people stuck in their mess.

“Do you know if Isgono went on one of the assault shuttles?” Alan asked. The older Zuul had a position of importance on the Paku, and if he trusted Shadow’s visions, perhaps he could put in a word with the other force of Zuul mercenaries.

“I don’t know. And if we try to make contact—”

“Half of Silent Night will forget about bikes and surfing and training you as pups, and assume you’re collaborating.” Alan scrubbed his hands over his close-cut hair and restrained a grunt of frustration. “I’m talking to the ‘guildmaster’ later this evening. The Lumar and…Aku, Jill said, were here long before all of this heated up. See if they’re up for talking to the other side. I need to tell them about you and your brothers and sisters before they find out another way. If they get hostile because you’re Zuul—”

“I got it.” Shadow held up his hands, ears swiveling in disappointment. “Been doing it my whole life,” he muttered, low enough that he likely thought Alan would miss it.

His kids always underestimated his and Dana’s ears, and the reminder of it almost made him smile. Instead he clapped