Read Alien Chronicles 2 - The Crimson Claw for Free Online

trees. Ampris found it strange that they met no other traffic on the road. Saw no dwellings, passed no village clusters. This was an empty world, Ampris thought. From her old lessons, she knew that not all the colony worlds were heavily populated. Sometimes, the Viis established only a central port, with a governor, a military station, and little else to hold their claim on a planet. Ampris wondered what the native folk of Fariance were like. She had seen none yet. Perhaps there were none on this cold world with its muted colors and dim sun. Perhaps the Viis had long ago killed them all or deported them to work elsewhere in the empire.
    To Ampris, this world seemed an unimportant place for the most popular gladiator stable to be based.
    The sun was sinking to the horizon by the time the transport passed through gates that were paneled with tall iron spears. Carved beasts of snarling fangs and extended claws stood atop the gateposts. Then they were winding along a lane bordered on both sides by heavy woods. The ground rose in a long sloping hill, and halfway up the woods stopped. Ampris saw a villa stretching across the crest of the hill.
    In the murky remnants of sunshine, the building stood gray, square, and solid—its architectural lines unfamiliar to her. Towers flanked it, and at the rear she glimpsed a tall, solid wall enclosing a compound of some kind.
    At the front, the house was aproned by elaborate gardens of low, clipped hedges planted in intricate patterns of knot and curlicue. Stone-paved walkways curled among the tiny hedges in pleasing patterns. But there were no flowers of any kind, no fragrance beyond that of tilled soil, shrubbery, and trees. Ampris sniffed, and found the garden a peculiar and unappealing vista.
    The transport made its way around to the rear of the massive house—much larger up close than it had seemed from a distance—and lurched through a gate into an enclosed courtyard.
    Once it parked on hover and Ampris was let out of the cargo hold, she stood quietly while her restraints were unlocked. Then she stretched fully, taking pleasure in unrestricted freedom of movement for the first time in too long.
    From an upstairs window overlooking the courtyard, she saw movement and a glimmer of a face watching her. Then the watcher was gone, and Ampris wondered if she’d imagined it.
    Halehl pointed at the upstairs windows rowed at regular intervals around the courtyard. “The fighters’ quarters,” he said. “Yours are at the end, over there.” He pointed at a window, and Ampris found herself suddenly astonished.
    “No barracks?” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
    Halehl flicked out his tongue, and overlooked her transgression. “You are a professional now,” he said, sounding amused. “Ah, Ruar,” he said to someone approaching from behind her. “Come and get Ampris settled. We’ll start her training tomorrow, but let her adjust to the climate and gravity for the rest of today. Take her around the training grounds. Let her sniff and look all she wants.”
    Ruar proved to be an elderly Myal with silvered fur and extremely short bowed legs. His mane was so sparse only a few strands floated around his face. His eyes were dark and rheumy, and he bowed to Halehl with a type of habitual anxiety not often seen in his kind.
    “As the master says,” he replied, bowing again. “And the evening meal?”
    “No,” Halehl said, puffing out his air sacs thoughtfully. “I think not just yet. Keep her isolated from the others. They’ll meet her soon enough. I want to watch her train alone for a few days. Then we’ll integrate her with the team.”
    Ruar glanced at Ampris as though she had just made his life harder. “They will want to see her,” he objected, wringing his thin, bony hands. His prehensile tail was coiled tightly around one of his legs. “Master knows how Ylea is.”
    “Ylea will have to wait, just like the others,” Halehl said firmly. “I don’t want any