Dominic cl's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Dominic ran for the general's quarters, but he did not reach them. A tall officer in a captain's coat stepped from the shadow of the training barracks. Two more men flanked him. These were not scared scouts. The captain held a pistol, and his hand did not shake. Dominic stopped in the cold yard. He raised his palms and started to speak, to bargain the way he had before. The captain did not wait for words. "You talked us into a corner," the captain said. "I won't hear it." Dominic turned to run. The shot cracked across the yard. The ball struck him high in the back and drove through his chest. He fell against the sturdy timber wall of the barracks and slid down. His hands pressed the wound. Warm blood filled them. His breath came short and wet. The wooden building tilted above him. He heard boots grind on the frozen dirt. "That's done," the captain said. He kicked Dominic's leg. Dominic could not move it. His vision narrowed to a gray tunnel. Cold spread from his chest to his fingers. Then the captain snarled at the other two men. "You let him get this far. Five men couldn't hold one clerk. Now I clean it myself." One soldier muttered an excuse. The captain cut him off. "Bury him past the ditch. If the general asks, he deserted." Dominic's heart faltered. He felt it stumble, then stop. The pain went far away. His eyes half closed. The last thing he saw was the captain's boots turning to leave. Then a voice spoke inside the dark. It did not come from the yard. It came from everywhere at once, flat and calm, like a clerk reading a ledger. "Host expired. Contract terms met. System activated." Dominic felt himself falling upward, out of the cold body against the wall. The words repeated, patient and exact. "Reincarnation protocol engaged. Assigning new vessel." A presence turned toward him in the dark. It had no face he could name, only attention, vast and precise. "You died owed a debt," the voice said. "Stolen pay. Stolen rations. A stolen life. I keep accounts. I am returning what the world took." Dominic tried to speak and found he had no mouth. The presence answered his thought. "You will not go back as a clerk they can shoot in a yard," it said. "You will go back as something that cannot be shot at all. God of light and darkness. My grant. My interest on your murder." The dark filled with a light Dominic had never seen, and under it a deeper black. Both poured into him. He was no longer a man dying against a wall. He was something new, and it was climbing back toward the yard where his killers still stood. "Rise," the voice said. "Collect what you are owed."