A Warrior's Sacrifice Read Free

dead."
    Kai rolled his shoulders and wobbled his head side-to-side, the Variant equivalent of embarrassment.
    They rode in silence for a while, Corwin comfortable in his solitude, Kai not so, swaying in time to the tram.
    "They'll put us together," Kai said after his dislike of silence overcame his dislike of Corwin.
    "What makes you so sure?"
    "Outsiders."
    Corwin grunted. "Fair enough. Who else then?"
    "That religious girl, the Exilist and … I'm not sure who else," Kai said, bracing as the tram slowed to a stop.
    "I guess we'll see once the time comes," Corwin said over his shoulder as he stepped from the tram and weaved his way through the gathered crowd on the platform.
    "Where are you going?" Kai's bass voice followed him. Kai tried to stay alongside, but his mass and his fear of the True-Borns gave Corwin enough distance and cover to escape.

    From the underground station Corwin stepped into a city as alien to him as the Prehson home world. The buildings stood tall, identical, the skyline as unvarying as the gray plasteel sidewalks and roadway. Atop each of the rectangular buildings rested a dome, a half-circle that housed anti air and ground weaponry. The buildings' windows were slits designed for defense rather than illumination, with each entrance guarded by a windowless door that opened inward for easy barricading.
    Efficiency in all things — that was what it meant to act with dreng in the Republic: artistry was a waste, jendr. But that dreng made everything so … the same, so plain and sad. It was bleak, desolate, and sucked the soul out of the Humans that lived within its confines like trapped rodents.
    Those raised here didn't seem to mind; they knew nothing else. Corwin hated it all: the buildings, the people, the gray plasteel. Everywhere gray.
    He joined the flow of civilians walking eastward, matching their gait and pace, trying to absorb the anonymity that a crowd provides. Except it didn't work today, nor would it ever work again.
    Corwin bore the markings of the Maharatha, the symbol etched into every article of clothing he could now requisition. His formal wear, the purest black with red piping and seams, from which he'd neglected to change, made him stand out.
    The lowest castes skirted aside, almost reverent as they bumped and jostled one another in their haste to bow. The highest subcastes of the Warrior caste too — the Teyma and Tercio — stepped from his path, nodding or saluting, depending on their own rank in relation to Corwin's. For a man, a boy, really, who wanted to remain hidden, this was the worst of all possible situations.
    Not everyone moved from his path. All the Maharatha knew who and what he was, and members of the centuries-old caste to which Corwin now belonged did nothing to deflect their hate. Corwin took the side streets instead and before long arrived at his favorite park, his bastion of solitude and safety and beauty, plopped down amid the harsh people and buildings of New Detroit.
    When he'd first began his stint within the Republic, he'd found his escape in similar parks, exploring each of them to their fullest, finding all the hidden places that no one wanted to tread. The parks never fit with the Republic's notion of dreng — they were such a waste of useful space — and it wasn't until much later, when Corwin spent his own free time searching through the Intergalactic Alliance's rules and regulations, that he found their purpose. Humanity was required , by law, to maintain a certain number of parks, trees, and green, growing things within their cities. It was tied to the Galactics' ideas of planet preservation, for if a sentient species couldn't take care of a park, it couldn't be entrusted to be the caretaker of a planet.
    All of which made the parks, like the Variants, a constant reminder of the yoke placed upon Humanity by the Alliance. One more strike against Corwin, but on that long list, it was near the bottom.
    At the gate, Corwin entered his passcode and