by David Weber
So far, no dark wizard in history had survived a meeting like that.
"Rethak!"
The wizard twitched as Garsalt's voice spoke to him out of the darkness. A quick flair of bitter resentment flashed through Rethak at the sound. Much as he despised Garsalt, he envied him in that moment, because Garsalt's specialty meant he was safely in the rear, just outside the sacrificial chamber itself, where he could monitor the enemy's approach. Rethak's specialty, on the other hand, lay in the creation of glamours. He was actually marginally better at it than Tremala was, although the sorceress' other strengths outclassed him hugely. And because he was, he was stuck out here, waiting for Wencit and hoping the shield of invisibility he was holding over the armsmen with him would prove strong enough to deflect even the wild wizard's uncanny eyes.
"Rethak!" Garsalt's voice repeated, and this time it was louder. He must have increased the volume of the projection from his end, Rethak thought, because he could hear the throat-ripping shrieks of the sacrifice in the background, despite the thick walls and massive door between Garsalt and the chamber.
"What?" Rethak snapped back in a harsh whisper.
"They're coming your way, after all," Garsalt's voice said rapidly. "They'll be there in less than five minutes."
"Fiendark fly away with their souls!" Rethak muttered.
"What? I couldn't hear you."
"Never mind," Rethak grated. "Tell Tremala. And tell that worthless piece of Scorpion shit we need his frigging demon now!"
Bahzell Bahnakson led the way down the twisting, turning passage.
Houghton wasn't especially happy about that. Having someone armed with what was effectively a hand-to-hand weapon between the place any fresh enemy might appear and the members of the combat team equipped with firearms wasn't normally a formula for tactical success. In this case, however, he'd been forced to admit that sometimes there were exceptions to the rule.
There were no longer advancing through darkness, yet Bahzell appeared to possess something which was almost as big an advantage over his foes as the nightvision gear had been. Houghton didn't pretend to understand how it worked, but the huge hradani seemed to be able to literally smell the other side. Without him, the others would have walked straight into ambushes at least three or four times already, and if Bahzell didn't have a ranged weapon, the tortuous layout of this rat's nest of tunnels didn't exactly give very long lines of sight, anyway. There was blood splashed across Bahzell's green surcoat now, joining the burned spots the demons' ichor had produced, and Houghton had to admit that no opponent who found himself within reach of the hradani's huge sword was likely to be a problem to anyone else ever again.
Still, it offended his sense of the way things were supposed to be.
And crawling around in tunnels fighting demons and wizards doesn't offend them, Ken? he thought sardonically. It's not as if —
Bahzell stopped abruptly, and Houghton eased up to the hradani's right rear. The current tunnel was no more than ten feet across, a circular, polished bore of stone which looked almost as if it had been melted out of the hillside, rather than excavated. There was room for Houghton to take up a position which would allow him to engage past Bahzell, and he and the hradani had agreed that his field of fire would be to Bahzell's right if the opportunity arose.
Houghton had expended another thirteen grenades on the way in, and he'd decided, regretfully, to abandon the MM-1. He hoped Santander would forgive him, but with only three grenades left, and given the close confines of these tunnels, he'd decided that his M-16 gave him much better options. The M443 grenade needed to travel a minimum of fourteen meters before the fuse armed, and they hadn't seen very many tunnel stretches that long in the last twenty minutes or so, so the rifle simply made much more sense. The M-16A4 to which the Marines had switched was shorter than the older M-16A2, and more reliable—and accurate—than the slightly shorter M4 carbine version. With the M203 single-shot grenade launcher under the barrel, he could still make use of the remaining three grenades if the opportunity arose, and he had an entire magazine of 5.56-millimeter on tap if it was needed.
Mashita, on the other hand, was bringing up the rear, watching the backdoor as they advanced with the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon Corporal Johnson's recon section had left aboard Tough Mama when the LAV decided to go universe-hopping. The light machine gun fired the same round as the M-16, but Mashita had a plastic box with two hundred rounds clipped under the SAW's receiver, and four hundred more rounds clipped to his harness, while Wencit carried another four hundred. The weapon was notoriously inaccurate if someone tried to "John Wayne" it, firing freehand, but fired from its bipod in a prone position, it could lay down a devastating curtain of fire. Given the body armor their opponents were wearing—not to mention the toughness of creatures like the demons they'd already faced—Houghton was happy that both Mashita's weapon and his own were loaded with the black-tipped M995armor piercing round. Despite its diminutive size, the tungsten-cored round was capable of penetrating even light armored vehicles, and it had become the round of choice for "reconnaissance by fire," given its ability to penetrate concealing structures, as well, not to mention its enhanced effectiveness against modern body armor.
Of course, the people who specified its performance weren't exactly thinking in terms of chain mail and breastplates, Houghton reflected as he ghosted to a stop behind Bahzell.
"We've an intersection up ahead," the hradani said quietly.
"What sort of intersection?" Wencit asked from behind them.
"It's a four-way," Houghton replied, looking past Bahzell. "We've got another passage crossing at right angles."
"Aye, that we do," Bahzell agreed. "And there's a stink to it. I've no notion exactly what it is, but it's there."
"I hate it when you say things like that," Houghton muttered, and heard Bahzell's snort of harsh amusement. The Marine studied the intersection. Unlike Bahzell, he sensed absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about it, but that didn't prove anything. Particularly given the fact that he'd had ample evidence of the acuity of Bahzell's senses.
"I'm thinking we're needing Jack up here with his little toy," Bahzell said softly, and Houghton nodded.
"Unless I'm much mistaken," the hradani continued, "this tunnel—" a twitch of his head indicated the passage in which they currently stood "—is after turning sharp after it crosses. I'm thinking the other two are likely to run straighter than that. So, it's in my mind that I go straight across while you're taking the passage to our right, and Jack turns to the left."
"And if there's something waiting to shoot you from the side as you go past?" Houghton inquired mildly.
"Well, in that case, I'd probably best be moving sharpish."
"Somehow that doesn't strike me as the most thought out battle plan I've ever heard of."
"I've heard it said hradani are after being simple, direct folk," Bahzell replied, and looked down as Mashita arrived.
"I believe it," Houghton said feelingly, never taking his eyes from the deserted intersection in front of them and wishing that he'd happened to have a flash grenade or two available. They'd proven their usefulness time and time again in urban combat situations; unfortunately, he hadn't anticipated anything remotely like this when he'd prepped for the mission Tough Mama's crew had expected. He continued to study the way ahead carefully as he brought Mashita up to speed on Bahzell's plan . . . such as it was, and what there was of it. Mashita didn't seem any more overjoyed with it than Houghton was, but—like Houghton—he couldn't think of a better alternative, either.
"You're right about there being something up ahead, Bahzell," Wencit said quietly just as Houghton finished. "I can't get a firm grip on it, but there's a glamour of some sort up there."
"And where there's after being a glamour, there's after being someone with a mind to hide something," Bahzell observed grimly.
"Exactly."
"Well, worrying changes naught, and time's still passing," Bahzell said philosoph
ically.
"I know," Houghton said. "But I've just had a thought."
Rethak smothered a vicious curse. He was sweating harder than ever, and every dragging second he had to wait twisted his nerves tighter with Sharnâ 's own pincers.
"Are they still just standing there?" he hissed at the thin air, ignoring the anxious glances the armsmen assembled in front of him were throwing over their shoulders in his direction.
"As far as I can tell," Garsalt's voice replied. "Bahzell and the other two have moved to the front, with Wencit in the back, and —"
Whatever the balding wizard had been about to say became abruptly superfluous.
"Improvise, adapt, and overcome," Gunnery Sergeant Houghton muttered to himself as he felt Wencit behind him. It was a motto which had always served the Marine Corps in general—and Ken Houghton in particular—well.
And if I didn't think to bring along a flash grenade, he thought with intense satisfaction, at least I did think to bring along a wizard!
"Now!" Wencit said sharply, and Houghton, Bahzell, and Mashita screwed their eyes tightly shut and bent their heads . . . an instant before the intersection in front of them exploded in a silent burst of light like the heart of a sun.
There was no sensation of heat, no stunning concussion such as the flash-bangs Houghton had worked with before would have produced. But from the way the blackness behind his closed eyelids turned abruptly bright red, he rather suspected that the flash itself was even brighter, and the stunning effect of pure light had to be experienced to be believed.
"Now!" a deeper, more powerful voice rumbled, and the two Marines opened their eyes and charged forward at Bahzell Bahnakson's heels.
Rethak staggered backward, his hands rising to his eyes. The armsmen between him and that abrupt explosion of brilliance had protected him from the worst of it, yet even the relatively small amount which had gotten past them was enough to savage his eyes and fill them not simply with blindness, but with pain, as well.
He was still moving backward when he heard a ghastly, wet, crunching sound and the first screams began.
Bahzell charged through the intersection, and as he crossed over its threshold, he burst through Rethak's glamour and found himself confronting a passage abruptly packed with armsmen. He couldn't tell exactly how many of them there were, but there were enough to block his way. Unfortunately for them, they were pawing frantically at their stunned, anguished eyes when he suddenly appeared amongst them. The tunnel was too cramped for him to use his sword the way he might have in the open, but there was room enough, and his lunging blade punched through the breastplate of the nearest armsman like an awl through rotten wood. Then he recovered, and his still-blind victim slid backward off the tempered steel, screaming as he clutched at the blood-spouting hole in his cuirass.
"Tomanâk!" Bahzell bellowed, and heard the sudden, deafening thunder of his allies' weapons behind him as they spun to the left and right.
Mashita wasn't really concerned about "accuracy" at a moment like this. The range to his farthest target was no more than sixty feet, and his opponents were packed into a tunnel no more than ten feet across. The armor-piercing ammunition punched through the front ranks, exploding out their backs in spray patterns of blood, then slammed into the men behind them.
Houghton had fewer rounds, and his weapon was incapable of sustained automatic fire, which meant he had to be more selective. He had the selector lever set on three-shot burst, and unlike the men in front of him, he could still see just fine. The glowing dot projected by his day-and-night sight settled on the head of a man less than fifteen feet from him, and his finger stroked. The target went down, and he tracked instantly to his left. Another squeeze, and another helmeted head exploded and another body fell.
Rethak backed away, still rubbing his stunned, watering eyes, as his ears told him what was happening to his carefully hidden ambush. The ear-shattering roar of the strangers' impossible weapons made it impossible for him to pick any details out of the general cacophony, but that was scarcely necessary.
Panic roared through him, urging him to turn and run, but he retained just enough control to know how stupid that would have been. There was a steep, winding flight of stairs back there. He couldn't possibly get down them without killing himself when he couldn't even see. Not that standing here, waiting while Bahzell Bahnakson carved his way towards him seemed like a much better option. Some of the armsmen felt the same way, and he staggered as two or three of them shouldered past him. They ran frantically, bouncing off the wall for guidance, forgetful (or uncaring) of the stairs in their panic, and an instant later he heard fresh screams from behind him —screams which were cut off with bone-snapping suddenness—as they went headlong down the steep stair.
He blinked again, and his heart spasmed with sudden hope. The barrier of armsmen in front of him had shielded his eyes from the direct impact of that intolerable flash, and his vision was recovering much more rapidly than theirs had. He could actually make out blurry ghosts of images, and he rubbed more furiously, willing his sight to clear.
It did . . . just as an enormous shape, glittering with a nimbus of blue light, loomed up before him.
Rethak squealed and turned to dash after the fleeing armsmen, but it was too late. He was still turning when an avalanche of gory steel sheared effortlessly through his neck.
XVI
"Rethak is dead, Tremala!"
The sorceress' head twitched as Garsalt's voice spoke in her ear.
"What happened?" she demanded. "Was it Wencit?"
"No," Garsalt sounded as if he were about to wet himself, she thought. "It was Bahzell. He and those other two. They mowed down Rethak's armsmen, and then Bahzell took his head off before he could run."
Despite the fear quivering under the surface of their own thoughts, Tremala's eyebrows arched.
"Why in the Lady's name did the idiot let Bahzell Bahnakson into sword's reach of him?"
"I think he was blind until it was too late." She could hear Garsalt's heavy breathing, almost taste his panic. "Wencit cast some kind of light spell. It was so bright none of them could even see while Bahzell and the others cut them down. Phrobus! It was bright enough it almost blinded me through the grammerhain! I think Rethak's vision was just starting to clear when —"
Garsalt stopped. Not, Tremala reflected, that there was any real need for him to finish the sentence. A light spell! Who would have expected that? And yet, it was as brilliantly effective as it was simple. Wencit's precious Strictures prohibited him from using his sorcery to directly harm any non-wizard except in direct self-defense, but there was no prohibition against temporarily blinding them.
Even if it did leave them totally helpless against someone else.
"What are they doing now?" she half-snarled.
"They're still headed straight towards the chamber."
"Garsalt, there's no way anyone could go 'straight' anywhere in this miserable place, and he has at least four options now that he's finished of Rethak! I need better than that, idiot!"
Garsalt didn't reply immediately—not in words, at any rate. An instant later, however, a diagram of the temple's tunnels, looking for all the world like an intertwined ball of snakes, appeared before her. It floated at eye level, and she saw one of the twisting strands glowing red. It connected Rethak's last position to the sacrificial chamber, but it wasn't the shortest of the possible pathways, and she wondered for a moment why Bahzell had chosen it. Then she realized. No, it wasn't the shortest path, once its sinuous twists and turns were allowed for, but it had started out leading in the direction of the shortest straight-line distance between Rethak's position and the hradani's objective.
"All right," she said, "I see it. And I think I can cut them off here —" a flick of her finger turned an intersection in the highlighted tunnel a pulsating green, instead of red "— and at least slow them down. But I'm not sure there's any point, if Cherdahn doesn't get his damned demon under control quickly."
"Everyone's insisting the sacrifice is going according to plan," Garsalt told her. Then his voice dropped, as if he were leaning closer to her to whisper in her ear. "Everyone's saying that, but I think they're lying. I think there's something wrong. Maybe badly wrong."
An icicle seemed to go through Tremala's heart. She told herself Garsalt was a coward, whose fears were almost certainly influencing his interpretation of events. She reminded herself that Cherdahn was one of Sharnâ 's most senior priests, hardly the sort to get things wrong at a moment like this. Yet even as she told herself that, she remembered Cherdahn's original time estimate. A time estimate which had expired at least twenty minutes ago.
The unaccustomed panic flickering within her told her it was time to go, time to cut her losses and flee while she was still alive. And with Bahzell and Wencit following the route through Rethak'ís position, she could actually get past them and make a run for it. Unfortunately, Bahzells never-to-be-sufficiently-damned courser was outside the temple somewhere. And, even more unfortunately, Carnadosa Herself had decreed this mission. If Tremala failed Her, the consequences would be almost as terrible as what Cherdahn and his acolytes were doing to their sacrifice this very moment. As she'd told Garsalt and Rethak earlier, Wencit's magic would only kill them, and that was infinitely preferable to other possible fates.
Besides, she told herself, Cherdahn really may still have things under control, after all, and if he can ever get that demon of his out here . . . .
"Stop being an old woman, Garsalt!" she snapped, venting some of her own fear in the angry contempt crackling in her voice. "We can still win this thing, and if we lose, how do you think She's going to react?" Garsalt made no reply, and she snorted harshly. "That's what I thought, too. Keep telling me where they are. And see if you can get anyone to tell you the truth about the sacrifice."