Author's Note: I'd like to thank again everyone who has showed their support for this story. If you liked this, please check out my other fics.
Rules of Engagement
Chapter the Fourth: Ask Me For My Sacrifice
Evan had not expected his wedding to be a circus.
He stood on a dais in the public square in front of a huge, ornate, piller-decorated building that Lak had said was the 'Mortum Temple. Evan wasn't entirely clear what had happened to Sangheili theology once the Covenant had collapsed, but apparently the Elites had decided that if one possessed an impressive ceremonial edifice, one might as well make the most of it. Similar use was being made of a quartet of Priestesses with bejeweled anklets and embroidered robes, who, right now, were chanting verses in front of the sea of Sangheili who packed the square in front of him.
Evan was the star attraction. Every Sangheili was looking at him. It made his skin crawl after so many years of trying to avoid aliens' notice while he fought to kill them before they killed him. Many gawked openly; Evan had to resist his natural impulse to stare them down. He had to remember that he was the curiousity here. The majority of these Sangheili were not warriors and would never have seen a real Human being before. They would form their opinions of Humans based on what he did, and if he were to act aggressively or rudely, the repercussions would be felt far beyond his own experiences on Sanghelios.
So instead of glaring back at them, he smiled and waved his hand in the up-down motion that Lak had taught him meant a polite greeting.
Many of the Sangheili hesitantly waved in return. Evan's breath caught as he watched a mature female boosting her young, first one, than another, then a third, in order to give each of them a good look at him. He did not know whether to take comfort in the familiar gesture—his own father had done the same at parades when he had been a toddler—or to be discomfited that he was the focus of their attention, like an animal in a zoo.
Lor'n 'Malach, in full ceremonial armour, sidled close to him. "Do you have your gun?" Lor'n asked in a low, urgent voice.
Evan had deliberately chosen not to wear any kind of weapon to the wedding, not even his service pistol. He hadn't wanted to appear aggressive or hostile towards the Sangheili at his first major public event. "No," he replied, and got a funny feeling in his stomach as he watched Lor'n's skin turn ashy grey.
"But...you must!" the Sangheili protested.
All of a sudden Evan wondered what he'd been thinking. The Sangheili were a martial people. They wouldn't freak out at the sight of a gun the way human civilians would. Without one, they'd probably think he was some kind of...well, sissy didn't even begin to cover it. Sangheili would never give their respect or their serious consideration to a creature that did not display its skill with weaponry.
"Your ways are different than ours," Evan hissed in retort. "If you think I need a weapon, find me one!"
Lor'n, unhesitatingly, handed Evan the plasma pistol from off his own hip, and the energy sword from his hand. "I will try to find your personal weapons," he replied in a low voice, "but I cannot guarantee..."
At that moment, a loud fanfare of music ripped Lor'n's words away.
Evan did not know how to describe the group of Sangheili, dressed in green robes, who assisted the Priestesses. Acolytes? Slaves? Altar boys and girls? Right now, half their number had procured musical instruments and were playing something that Evan guessed might be the Sangheili version of the wedding march.
With a Covenant plasma pistol clipped to his belt and the hilt of a Sangheili energy sword jammed awkwardly in his left pocket, wearing a brand-new suit of ODST jump armour, Major Evan Doucette turned to greet his bride.
Relu, emerging from the Temple behind him, was not at all as he'd been expecting.
She was not wearing a veil, or any of the typical Human accoutrements. Lak had inquired and Evan had vetoed the idea; the notion of dressing up a Sangheili in a veil and garter to fit her would simply have been grotesque. Evan knew he would think of the trained bears he'd seen in the circus as a child, wearing little suits and pinnafores, riding on tricycles, performing tricks that made them look like they were cooking, working, dancing. Animals in human suits, balancing a highwire between comical and horrible.
Relu was not human and there was no point in any pretense.
But this...this was not at all what he'd imagined.
Evan realized he'd been expecting to see her as the other Sangheili were, with their battle armour polished to a mirror shine, their clothing enhanced with fur cloaks and ornamental pins, their weapons held in some alien equivalent of present-arms. He was getting married in uniform; it seemed natural that she would do the same.
But on Earth, most military females chose to forgo their uniforms for traditional dress. And it seemed Relu had done this as well.
She wore a headdress with a beaded circlet and suspended jewels that reminded Evan of an ancient Egyptian princess. She had traded her armour for a silken...kimono was the closest word he had to describe it, though the garment wrapped about her shoulder in a manner more reminiscent of a sari, and it was trimmed in an ornate lace. Her arms carried golden bracelets of various widths that chimed like bells when she moved; her waist and neck were draped with more of that same fine beadwork that hung in loops from her headdress.
Evan held his breath when he realized that she was beautiful.
Not the slightest bit human and yet, still beautiful. She kept her eyes downcast as she moved towards him.
Relu was almost to his side when Evan realized that she was walking alone. No bridesmaids, no escort, no proud father at her side. Could that be normal? From what he knew of Sangheili, he would have expected them to be more possessive of their females. He glanced away from Relu, his eyes sweeping the crowd. Surely some of these Sangheili in the forward galleries had to be her family. Surely...
He spotted them then, a tall, heavy-set male who wore his authority like he wore the brilliant magenta cloak on his shoulders. He was staring straight ahead like a soldier about to be inspected. He looked as though he had been carved from stone.
Not so the female at his side. She was patting her eyes over and over; her mandibles quivered. She seemed agitated. A younger female put her arm around the matron and held her close, while six shorter females gawked at him and Relu. The smallest, who appeared young, waved enthusiastically at Relu. Evan watched in disbelief as the male at her side cuffed her to make her stop.
If these were Relu's family, they did not seem particularly happy. Evan felt his stomach twist with trepadation. His married friends had complained that their mothers-in-law were monsters, but Evan's new in-laws were monsters quite literally...
No. He had to stop thinking of his bride as a monster.
Evan shot a glance at Relu. She took one more step to join him. She blinked, her eyes large, and then she ducked her long, sinuous neck in a gesture that seemed strangely shy. Her eyelids opened and closed, and then she peeked at him from half-hooded eyes.
To stand still would be the best option, the least likely to cause unintended cultural offense, and yet, Evan chose to take a gamble anyway. He reached out his hand and touched hers.
Evan did not understand most of the ceremony; his translators had dutifully reported on the words spoken, but he did not know their significance. It seemed very short. From what he had gathered from Lak previously, the traditional wedding involved vows regarding the producing of offspring and the making of war. These had been stripped away, leaving only the formal allegiance between two clans, expanded to join two peoples.
And now, as the Priestesses led the married couple into the Temple, Evan glanced at his new wife and realized that something was wrong with Relu.
Evan still didn't know much about Sangheili, but he'd spent enough time with Relu in the past week to know what nervous Sangheili girl looked like, and this wasn't it. He remembered how she had dropped her eyes when he'd spoken to her, how she'd twitched when he'd taken her hand, how any compliment could put purple in her cheeks. He had expected her to be more timid and shy than ever on her wedding night.
Instead, now that the ceremony was over, her whole demeanour had changed. Her body hummed with a tension that Evan couldn't quite put his finger on. Her head was up, eyes wide, and she sniffed the air from time to time. She seethed with restless energy, tapping her claws and clicking her mandibles as though she had to bleed off the excess lest she explode with it.
Evan wondered, uncomfortably, if this was what an aroused Sangheili looked like.
If it was, he told himself, he shouldn't complain. Relu had signed up for this duty; he liked her well enough not to wish her a miserable experience.
Evan realized how little he knew about the post-ceremony plans. Somehow in the course of the past week he'd neglected to ask if there would be a dinner, a reception, a...a honeymoon. He'd been so busy trying to wrap his mind around the notion of this marriage that he had never asked the simple questions.
"Where are we going now?" he asked her.
Relu bowed her head, but her words were terse and clipped. The shy girl he had just married had faded away, replaced entirely by his Captain of the Guard; even the wedding robe could not soften the steel in her bearing now. "Tomorrow, we will be travelling to the Ambassadorial suite in the 'Vadum compound." She must have seen the question in his eyes, because she continued, "In most cases, the bride and groom spend this night in the breeding chamber of the bride's keep. The next day, the groom takes his new wife home to his keep. But..." She bit down on her lower left mandible. "For security reasons, it was deemed unwise for us to travel to my father's keep. And for diplomatic reasons, the ceremony was held here at the Temple square. So it made the best sense for us to spend this night in the Temple's breeding chamber." He watched her hands twisting the beads at her waist. "It is a great honour for me to be allowed admittance there. That chamber is typically for Priestesses alone."
Evan watched in disbelief as the Priestesses paused to admit a young Sangheili female into their group. The girl trotted up to Relu and handed her an energy pike. Her energy pike, Evan realized when he saw the orange ribbon on its handle. The young female whispered a few quick words and then darted away. Then Lor'n came up on his left and pressed something into Evan's hands—his service Magnum. Evan stared at the weapon, though the Sangheili around him seemed to take no notice. The group moved on.
Strange tradition, Evan thought, and then they passed through the doors of the Temple proper.
The inside of the Temple was extreme in its opulence, reminding Evan of the Palace of Versailles. Huge mirrors and magnificent tapestries hung on the walls. Statues stood on pedestals. Thick furs carpeted the floor. Doorways were skilfully carved from marble and encrusted with precious stones. Evan realized he was probably gawking, and shot a glance at Relu.
Relu stalked beside him, moving like a warrior, oblivious to the riches around her.
The Priestesses led them to a chamber and bowed their heads. Evan, curious, opened the door and entered, with Relu at his side.
The bed within was huge, easily big enough for two Sangheili couples. A thick rug lay before the bed in addition to the furs covering the floor. A fireplace burned in one corner, sending showers of sparks up a chimney and warming the stones in the room. Tapestries depicting…Evan glanced away. He didn't need to see Sangheili couples engaged in lovemaking, no matter how valuable the art was.
Instead, he looked at Relu. She slammed a bolt hard across the door and then turned, sweeping the room, her gaze lingering on the windows and, briefly, the chimney. She glanced under the bed, snorted, and returned her attention to the door. She clenched her hands around her pike.
Evan didn't know what had caused her dark mood, but this was not going well. What had gotten into her? He gestured to the energy pike. "You're not taking that to bed with us, are you?" he asked, forcing his mouth into a grin he did not feel.
Relu moved too quickly for him to follow. One moment she was standing before him, the next she'd half-turned and sidestepped until her back was pressed against his. "Draw your weapons," she breathed, her voice tight, and in that moment Evan recognized the nature of her tension. In this emotion, Humans and Sangheili were much the same. It was the same tension Evan himself had felt while sitting in a drop pod, waiting for launch.
Relu was ready for a fight, Evan realized, and just as he wondered if she intended to fight him, the door to their room disintegrated in the blast of a plasma cannon.
Evan did not recognize the five Sangheili who crowded through the door, though one of them was bleeding from a deep gash on his arm. They all wore nondescript blue armour. Out in the corridor, a Sangheili roared in challenge; Evan hoped it was Lor'n as the sound of a Covenant carbine firing reached his ears. Then he had no more time to listen to the fight in the hall, for he had fight enough in his own quarters.
At first, Evan felt his hands freeze in position, one on the firing stud of his plasma pistol, one on the trigger of his Magnum. This could be some Sangheili tradition he didn't understand, and he didn't want to start an intergalactic incident by shooting an ally.
The cannon-toting Sangheili raised his weapon, worting loudly. He fired off a shot that caused Evan to dodge to the left to avoid the blast. As he hit the ground and rolled, Evan realized that the newcomers weren't part of some symbolic tradition. This battle was real.
Relu dodged right and leapt forwar. Her energy pike came down in a scything arc. The gunman's plasma cannon fell to the floor—along with both his arms.
The other Sangheili leaped to the attack, swords in hand. Evan needed no more proof that these uninvited guests meant to do them harm. He fired his plasma pistol, sending a glowing ball of green light flying across the room. It caught one of the Sangheili in the chest, making him laugh evilly as his shields took the damage.
The bastard was still laughing when Evan sent a Magnum bullet soaring across the room and into the Sangheili's skull.
The other three swordsmen were trying to attack Relu, but her spinning staff made it impossible for any of them to get within sword's reach of her. Two of them started circling her instead, knowing she could not withstand blade attacks from three directions. But unfortunately for the assassins, this maneuver left one of them far enough away from Relu that Evan could get off a good shot without risking hitting his bride.
The plasma ball rocketed into Evan's target, but this assassin was not stupid. He'd already been in the process of throwing himself to the ground, not fast enough to avoid the plasma blast, but in time for Evan's bullet to miss. Unfortunately for him, he'd been on his belly with his shields down when Relu pivoted and impaled him on her staff.
The other two assassins rushed her. Relu jerked her staff backwards, even with the weight of the body hanging on the sharp end. The blunt tip caught one of her assailants in the lightly-armoured stomach area and sent him staggering back.
The other, though, leaped forward with his blade outstretched.
Evan aimed both his guns, but now Relu was in amongst the targets, and he dared not fire. He could only stand there and watch as the assassin's blade sank home.
The ODST found himself launching forward before he could process any conscious thoughts. He felt the Magnum fall from his right hand. His left hand jammed the plasma pistol against Relu's attacker, fired it. His right hand, moving as if of its own volition, came up holding the sword hilt. Evan pressed the trigger, bisecting the hostile Sangheili from the base of his spine to the nape of his neck.
Evan was not used to the sword, and it had entered the Sangheili at an awkward angle. His hand, covered in blue blood, slipped on the hilt as the dead Sangheili sagged, pulling the sword downward. The hilt was not designed for human hands and Evan had trouble finding the firing stud to turn it off again. The dead Sangheili was desperately heavy.
In slow motion, Evan saw Relu's final attacker rally, catch his balance, drop his sword. Draw a plasma rifle. Point it, not at Relu, but at him.
Evan tried to raise his plasma pistol, but the immense weight of the dead Sangheili made it difficult for him to concentrate on aiming with one arm while he was struggling to free his sword with the other. He fired off a volley of shots. Most of them missed; the one that hit was not sufficiently charged to strip the attacker's shields.
Evan saw the Sangheili's mandibles snap shut in a cold smile. The alien's hand tightened on the trigger.
Then Evan felt something strike him in the side and send him staggering clear.
Relu.
The plasma blast hit her in the chest. She fell backwards, not stumbling, no arm lowered to break her fall, just a sick and final toppling of the woman who was to have been his wife.
Who was his wife.
Evan did not remember when he realized it was possible for him to simply let go of the energy sword. The UNSC's ingrained training to hang onto his weapon had been too strong, even in this situation where a bladed weapon was very different from a gun. Either he'd lost his grip on it when Relu hit him, or it finally crossed his mind to dump the hilt and the dead Sangheili impaled upon it—he would never know which. What he did know was that he found himself running at the last Sangheili, screaming in rage and wild-eyed fury, his vision hazed in red.
He punched the alien bastard square in the mandibles. It was too shocked to do much of anything with the gun it carried until Evan was on it, listening to a satisfying crack that doubtlessly meant some of its jaws, as well as some of his fingers, were broken. The pain, if anything, energized him. He pressed the plasma pistol to its stomach and yanked the trigger.
The monster's armour soaked the damage, of course, but Evan threw his arm around its shoulders and hung on. The Sangheili, roaring and spewing a spittle of blue blood from its mouth, lifted its gun arm, only to discover it could not aim at a Human that clung to its own body. It wheeled, trying to shake Evan loose, but he held on desperately and pulled the trigger of the plasma pistol again.
Round and round they spun, like a couple at a dance, whirling faster and faster. Evan did his best to stamp his boots down on its feet, hoping to hobble it, to no effect. A third shot in the gut. The Sangheili bumped into the bed, tumbled backwards with Evan on top of it. Evan landed heavily, pinning the thing to the bed while he jammed the pistol down its throat and pulled the trigger one last time.
Evan left the Sangheili dying in a gurgle of blood as he slid off and surveyed the room. Counting the Sangheili on the bed, four of the assassins lay dead or dying. The fifth—the armless one—had crept off, leaving its limbs behind. Somewhere in the corridor, shots and shouting could still be heard.
And Relu lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling, one hand clutching her chest.
Evan sprinted to his wife's side, watching in horror at the widening bloodstain on her wedding robe.
No. He had to take charge if he was to save her. She was still bleeding. That meant she wasn't dead yet.
Evan didn't hesitate. Even as he started yelling for help, he ripped strips of cloth from the wide hem of her robes. He folded the cloth quickly and inserted it under her grasping hand, then pressed down, encouraging her to hold the makeshift bandage over the wound to stop the bleeding.
Two Sangheili he'd never seen before appeared in the doorway, both in red armour. Evan realized, to his sudden terror, that he had no way of identifying if these Elites were allies, or more assassins. He wanted to tell them to help Relu, but he did not dare turn her over to enemies.
"Where's Lor'n?" he asked instead.
"He does battle in the corridor," one of the Elites said hesitantly.
"Then you go get him, as soon as he's able, to come in here. Understand?"
"Yes, my lord!" The Elite was out the door in a blur of red.
"And you," Evan said to the other one, "I want you to fetch the doctor. Got it?"
"Yes, my liege!"
He was gone in a blink as well. Evan was left with nothing to do but try to think of how his first aid training would apply to a Sangheili. The basic principles had to be the same, didn't they? Stop the bleeding, check the breathing and heartbeat...
Evan had forgotten that step. He put his hand on Relu's muzzle, trying to figure out where Sangheili breathed. Funny how he'd never realized before that there were no nostrils on the blunt, rounded snout he'd always thought of as the end of her nose.
When he touched her, her eyes suddenly blinked and her mandibles flared, gasping in air. She struggled, thrashing to get up. Evan put both hands firmly on her wound, pressing the bandage to her wound and Relu herself to the ground.
"Ssssh. Lay still," he said gently. "Help is on the way."
Her eyes rolled. "The assassins..."
"Gone," he assured her, though he checked the corners of the room just to be sure. The noise in the hallway was distant now. "You're safe, Relu."
"You're safe." She sounded as though she were correcting him.
"Tell my father…" Her teeth snapped shut, as though she rode a wave of pain, and then she drew breath to speak again. "Tell him I made this sacrifice."
Evan was still puzzling over those words when Lor'n arrived, along with two Sangheili carrying a stretcher. They loaded Relu onto the cot and hustled her away without waiting for Evan to follow. When he stepped forward, Lor'n moved to block his path.
"Are you injured?"
"I'm fine. We need to go with Relu," Evan insisted. He looked around the blood-splattered, plasma-singed room that was supposed to have been his honeymoon suite and was taken aback by the powerful feeling of loss that settled in the pit of his stomach. Last week he would have been happy for anything that could get him out of this wedding.
Lor'n, however, did not seem inclined to move. "I must stay to protect you," he said, clearly evading the question.
If he wants to talk, then I will make him talk, Evan thought. "What did she mean?" Evan asked Lor'n. "Her last words. I made this sacrifice. She wants me to tell her father—but what does it mean?"
Lor'n regarded him strangely. "I would be shocked if Lak did not warn you about what tends to happen on Sanghelios when an individual has just received a large promotion."
Evan thought for a moment and then his blood ran cold.
How do Sangheili test new kaidons? By sending assassins.
"You let those assassins through?" Evan asked coldly.
I will make this sacrifice gladly. She'd said that in his quarters, that first night when they'd eaten steak together and watched cartoons. And he'd asked her opinion on sex and she had said it might not come to that.
Evan felt his throat close when he realized that Relu had known the assassins would come.
Oh, God, she had known.
And she'd chosen to die for him.
Lor'n huffed. "Of course not. But their presence was a foregone conclusion. We cannot tell which of our number harbour rebel sympathizers. Well, now we have at least nine fewer traitors in our midst."
"Nine?" Evan demanded.
Lor'n beamed. "I myself slew two of them; my trainees took another pair." He frowned. "It seems the guards on the other side of the hall fared more poorly, since this lot reached your quarters. I am ashamed of their failure, as I assisted in their training."
"Don't worry about it," Evan said quickly. "Missions don't always go the way you planned." He was simply relieved that his guards had actually tried to keep him safe. Now he needed to find his wife, and make sure she was all right.
My God. What woman marries a man, knowing she'll be asked to give her life for him?
He stepped forward until his chest was a bare inch away from Lor'n's. "I'm going to see Relu now. You can come with me…or you can move out of my way."
Lor'n fidgeted uncomfortably. "Are you sure you want to do that?"
Evan gave him a strange look. "She's my wife, and she's injured. Why wouldn't I want to see her?"
The other Sangheili bowed his head. "This way."
#
Evan stared.
There was no medical equipment here. No IVs on stands. No computers with wires and sensors. No breathing tubes. There were not even trays carrying needles and swabs.
What there was, was a row of cots down one side of the room and a row of tables on the other. The cots held Sangheili, either curled up into tight little balls or languishing on their backs with one or more limbs dangling limply off the edge of the beds. The tables, on the other hand, supported occupants who were strapped down, secured in position with leather cuffs—or chains. These Sangheili wore masks on their faces which Evan had at first mistaken for breathing apparatus. Up close, they looked more like muzzles, or gags.
There was a stink in the air—the smell of blood, offal, sweat, and pain. There were no nurses or doctors in sight.
Evan was not sure if he felt more sickened or enraged as he rounded on Lor'n and demanded, in a thick, strangled voice, "What is this place?" The words tore at his throat like glass shards as he forced them through his narrowed airway.
Something in his expression caused his bodyguard to flinch back. "It is..." His mandibles churned. "I do not know your word...ward?"
"Who is treating them?" Evan asked, his voice a low hiss. He grabbed Lor'n by the armour plate on his chest. "Where are the doctors?"
Lor'n continued to grope for an English translation. "Palli...palliative? Hospice?" He studied Evan's blank expression and gave up on words in favour of description. "This is where the seriously injured are left to heal...or to die."
Evan's gaze darted frantically up the row until they fell on the bed in the corner. Shoved back, lying in shadow, was the still form of a Sangheili in a white gown.
Evan ran down the corridor, heedless to the Sangheili thrashing in pain on the tables or those quietly groaning on the beds. He watched Relu's sides, willing them to move.
The blood on her dress was drying now, but her chest still moved. Shallowly, weakly, but she lived. For now.
Evan had thought he could not possibly be angrier—that any more fury added to the volatile mix in his heart and soul would cause him to explode from the pressure. It turned out, though, that there was a whole new level of rage he had never before experienced. All the hot, burning, churning energy inside him went suddenly and terribly still, diamond-hard and unspeakably cold. His voice, when he spoke, was frosted with the hint of a deadly winter, the promise of a vengeance that would never burn itself out, but would instead last forever, punishing, pitiless, eternally unyielding. "You will get the doctors, Lor'n. You will tell them they will treat her, and after her, these others. And if they refuse, we will shoot the one who speaks for them and we will ask it of the next. And the next. And we will go on until Relu is saved or until this entire world is ash, do you hear me, Lor'n?"
Lor'n was gaping at him, mandibles hanging open, as though he'd never truly seen Evan before, not until now. Evan watched the huge roundness of Lor'n's remaining eye and he suddenly realized that Lor'n himself must have once been relegated a place like this. He did not have a neatly sewn slit where his other eye used to be; instead, a huge, wrinkled, purple furrow twisted its way across the side of Lor'n's face.
A deep, feral growl rippled from Lor'n's throat, and for a brief moment Evan wondered if he had made a fatal error. Then, with a sharp nod, Lor'n bolted for the door.