Chapter 17: Death Comes to the Lord Marshals.

"Okay," Riddick said. "Let's review. There were six Lord Marshals before me.

Covu, Oltovm, Naphemil, Baylock--" He broke off, as Jack shuddered, stared hard at the ground, "Baylock" the Brutal, I'll ask her about that later, he promised himself, or I could just check the book. "Kyril and Zhylaw. What do we know about these assholes?"

"They don't like each other." She said, flatly, not looking at him. "Though they are all terribly polite. When I first got here, Zhylaw used to show me off. They're . . ." she swallowed. "I'm told that as they get older, they're increasingly less human. Zhylaw still seems like a man. Kyril's . . . man, it's like he's letting out his inner lizard or something. Baylock's got," she shuddered, "tentacles. Lots of them. Not always. Naphemil glows. Or something. Zhylaw said he could burn things down. Oltvom – the earth shook when he walked. He was like a tidal wave. And Covu . . . Covu's a dragon. One who spend way too much time in the heart of darkness. All hollow and stuffed with . . ." she shuddered. "Darkness. Or something. They've all got armies and it seems like at least two of them are always fighting. I don't know why. Both armies just get up the next day and do it again, until their masters join forces against someone else."

"Guess that's something to do."

"Monkeys fight," the raven said smugly. "I like it. Lots of eyeballs."

"Apes," Riddick said, absently, trying to formulate a plan based on far too little information. He pulled Jack's book out his pocket, started paging back to where she'd met the Lord Marshals. The other Lord Marshals. Their names glowed on the pages. He touched Baylock's name, almost expecting something to happen.

"Huh?" quoth the raven.

He responded without thinking. "Humans are apes, not monkeys. No tails."

Jack snorted. He pulled himself away from a truly riveting, and truly disturbing, description of her time with Baylock and his tentacles and gave her a quick look. She was staring at him strangely. He shrugged, feeling an embarrassing urge to explain. "I've been, um, hanging out with a school teacher. And, um, a librarian." To his horror, the words just kept on coming out of his mouth. "And a butler. Named Albert."

"And you learned all about monkeys?" Her tone was dry. Wasn't hard to hear what she wasn't saying. "I got slaved out to men turning into monsters while you learned about the primate kingdom? Did I mention one of the guys had tentacles? Do you know where he put those things?"

He flushed. "No! Just – there was this orangutan . . ." He stopped. What the fuck do I tell her? "He gave me some bananas," he finished, inanely. "After I killed a dragon." The last bit was almost defiant.

Her eyes narrowed. "What the fucking hell happened to you after I died?"

The words came out of his mouth before he thought them through. "I lost the will to live." Fuck me. I did, didn't I? "It made me crazy. I did some weird things. I really missed you."

She blinked at him several times. Then she punched him in the arm. "You old softy you."

He growled, low. "You just wait until we're out of here. You'll find out how soft I am."

She snorted. "I'll believe it when I see it." She poked him in the stomach.

He grabbed her hand, held it for a heartbeat, then swung her into a bear hug, holding her book behind her back. Gazed down at her adoringly. "Okay. Killin' first, then mushy stuff."

She pulled away enough to look up at his face, her eyes widened slightly. "I'm with you on the killing. We'll have to talk more about the rest of it."

He snorted. "Okay. Give me a sec." He let her go, leaned against Binky, still paging back through the book. Kept his hand over the title.

"What are you reading?" she asked suspiciously.

Oh, shit. "Just something I" – he almost said "got from the orangutan, but managed to change it to "picked up along the way." The raven coughed. He scowled at it, thought hard, keep your beak closed, bird. Or I'll feed you your own eyeballs. "I'll show you some time when we aren't in such a hurry." Yeah, right, I'll do that. "Zhylaw knows you escaped; do you think he'll come after you himself?"

She got a thoughtful look on her face. Well, where else would she get it? "He always sends Irgun. But he must have been weirded out; it's usually just Irgun." She turned on the raven. "You plucked the guard's eyeballs out, didn't you?"

"Yup."

"Now I can believe you're one of Riddick's friends."

Riddick laughed. Caressed her cheek. Walked around to Binky's front. Tapped Zhylaw's name in her book. "Can you find him?"

Binky nickered affirmatively. Riddick grinned over at Jack. "Might as well do him first." He mounted Binky. Felt like home. He held his hand out to Jack like he'd once held it out to Carolyn Fry. Smiled at her. "Come on. Let's go kill us some monsters."

Zhylaw was having breakfast; tea and biscuits on a veranda up five stories in his stone castle. Riddick didn't even have to get off the flying horse. One blow with the scythe and Zhylaw was gone, his teacup crashing to the stone floor below. "Bye bye, pops," Riddick called as Binky galloped across the sky before anyone else had a chance to reach for a weapon.

They landed in a clearing in the woods by a bend in a stream. Riddick slid off Binky's back, gave him a friendly pat. "Nice one. You need a drink?" Binky seemed to nod. Riddick lifted Jack off the horse, who padded to the stream and took a long drink. Riddick stared after him, thoughtfully.

"You can let me go now, Riddick," Jack said. He blinked. He hadn't realized he still had his hands on her waist. He let go, slowly. Shook himself. Sat down against a tree, her book in his hands, re-reading her encounter with Kyril carefully. Pretty straight forward. He was a lizard. A big lizard. "Come on, Riddick. I can tell you're not letting me see the title. What is it, anyway?"

He grunted. "Call it a . . . travelogue. About someone who was here once. Met the family."

"Someone else who escaped?" She sounded terribly hopeful.

"Something like that." He grinned at her, tucked the book under his arm, strode over to Binky. Tapped Kyril's name. "Can you find this one?"

Binky nickered, a little smugly. Riddick grinned. "Okay. While it's still cool."

"Huh?" quoth the raven.

"He's a lizard. Lizards are slower in the cold."

"Good grief, Riddick, did you become an expert on animals while I wasn't looking?" Jack's voice was dry. He grinned at her again. Vaulted on to Binky's back, pulled her up behind him.

Kyril was indeed sunning himself in the morning sun in a lizardly fashion with ten self important soldiers a discrete distance away. They weren't watching for flying horses. Kyril's eyes barely opened as Riddick sliced off his head. They were gone before the witnesses had time to stop gasping.

Binky cantered to a stop. "That was easy," Riddick said, smugly. He dismounted, turned, held out his arms for Jack.

She snorted. "Helps when they're not expecting you. And when you've got the only flying horse. And the better weapon. Where did you get that thing?" He just grinned at her, arms still outstretched. She hesitated, then slid off the horse into his arms. He kissed her forehead.

"Killed someone."

"For me?"

"Everything's for you, Sunshine. But no. Figured that out later. Stranger aeons, babe." She looked up at him blankly. "Death may die."

She frowned. "You know, you used to make a whole lot more sense."

He laughed, a full belly laugh, tightened his arms around her. "Yeah." Kissed her forehead again, more lingeringly. "I did." Finally, reluctantly, he let her go. "Okay. Two down. Four to go."

She backed away. "Yeah." She shuddered again. "We should move fast before word gets around."

He nodded. "Who do you think's gonna be the hardest?"

She got an abstracted look on her face. "I'm not sure. Naphemil is weird. Like he's turning into light. I don't know how you kill that. Oltvom is huge. Like I don't understand how his skeleton can support him. But he moved pretty slow, and you do have a flying horse. Baylock's like this giant octopus. At least he was the one time I met him. Lots of tentacles. From something Zhylaw said, I think he's a bit of a shape shifter. He basically lives in the water, though he doesn't have to. That might make it harder; I don't remember swimming being one of your superpowers. Can flying horses swim?"

"Dunno. Binky?"

Binky seemed to nicker smugly. Riddick nodded. "I think they can. Okay. Go on."

She stared at him for a second. Shook herself. "Covu might be the easiest. He's like this self important little dragon holed up in a cave. Zhylaw didn't seem to think he was any big deal."

Even though he knew the answer, he asked anyway. "You spent time with all these guys?"

She sighed, noisily. "Yeah. Some. Not really with Naphemil or Oltvon. I'm gonna need therapy after all the time I spent with Baylock. I spent the most time with Covu. Zhylaw ditched me off in his cave once for a couple of days. Wasn't that bad. His family's there. He pretty much ignored me when he wasn't explaining he was the mighty god king of all creation. He's . . . arrogant. He really believes. His wife puts up with him. I actually kinda liked her. I don't think he'll be hard to kill."

"Okay. Baylock first." She nodded, a little fretfully. "Do you wanna sit this one out?"

"Oh god no. I want to watch him die."

Baylock was easy to kill. Riddick regretted he hadn't chopped off his tentacles first; it was all so fast. Only thing that was hard was listening to Quoth's smug cry, "To take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing end them."

Naphemil was even easier.

Oltvon barely noticed they were there.

Then there was only Covu. He left the rest of them and stalked, alone, into the dragon's cave. Blinked at what he saw there. More like a dragon-et, nothing like the monstrosity that Riddick killed back on the disc; barely bigger than Binky. It hissed. "Tremble brief mortals! I am the thing the darkness fears. I am the thing that goes bump in the night. I am the Lord Marshal. The first."

"Really?" Riddick smiled, tightened his grip on the scythe. "I'm the Lord Marshal too. The last." Covu never had a chance. One blow, and it was gone. The ground started to tremble. He backed out of the cave. Then he ran, rocks crashing around him.

The rest of them were waiting, huddled together. There was a question in Jack's eyes. "Got it done?"

"Oh yeah."

"Now what?"

"I think this place is imploding, guv," the Raven croaked. "I think it's time to get on our Pale Horse and ride away."

Beautiful idea. He vaulted up Binky, leaned down and swept Jack up and set her down in front of him. She shrieked girlishly, just like she had in his dream of her being stalked by an angel. The raven landed on his shoulder, the rat scrambled up Binky's withers and hunkered down in the horse's mane. "Hold on Sunshine," Riddick whispered into Jack's ear. "This part's fun." Binky took two steps and galloped into the shrinking sky.