by Bob Mayer
“Except what happened since it was downloaded,” Orlock pointed out.
“That’s true,” Bren admitted. “But there is a hidden blessing to that. He won’t remember being killed.” She tapped out some commands on the hexagonal display.
“How many times have you been killed?” Orlock asked.
“Three.”
“And you remember nothing of any?”
“No.”
“They have tubes like that and panels like that in the duat,” Orlock said. “They put me in a similar tube.”
Bren paused. “Why? Arcturus never explained how the Nagil came about.”
Orlock briefly explained the need of the Airlia for more nanites and how they culled it from the blood of half-breeds. “The Airlia are limited by their law to a certain number of Nagil in the duat. But some cannot control themselves and seek pleasure with humans. Mistakes happen. Many over the years.” He waved that away. “Go ahead. You are anxious to have your partner back.”
Bren tapped the console. A mechanical arm extended from the side of the tube and touched the side of the clone’s head. A nanoprobe slid through a small, healed scar that was present from an earlier surgery and reached the implant, activating it. The probe withdrew. Bren tapped the panel once more. The orange light changed to red, flickered for thirty seconds, then turned green. Bren turned the console off, then removed the ka.
“He transitions from nothing into Markus while asleep. When he is ready, he will wake.”
“How long will that take?”
“It depends,” Bren said. “Anywhere from an hour to three or four. Until then, we wait.” She took the old implant out of her pocket and placed it in a tray alongside a half-dozen others.
“Can you pilot the ship out of this tomb?” Orlock asked.
“We can blast our way out if need be.”
“It needs be.”
“Says who?” Bren demanded. “You? And why?”
“Arcturus,” Orlock said.
“And why?” Bren repeated.
“He has a plan,” Orlock said. “This ship is part of it.”
“Tell me his plan,” Bren said.
Orlock relayed to her what Arcturus had suggested.
THE RIFT, WEST RIDGE, EARTH15
The two hundred wargs entered the Rift cautiously. None had ever been here before although the leader, a Shakur named Trat-mon, had been told something of it by Horus. Trat-mon had not been converted via the guardian because the Airlia had learned there were limitations in suborning free will in terms of the ability to lead.
For wedjat, the priests, it wasn’t a major problem, but for warriors facing the chaos of battle, the ability to make fast and cogent decisions was critical. Trat-mon was paid a considerable sum to lead wargs; he was a former tribal leader among the Shakur as his name indicated, but that designation meant nothing to the wargs. They’d follow him off a cliff because their minds were bent that way.
He paused in the entrance to the Rift. It was a crack in the West Ridge over two hundred meters tall and thirty-wide at the base. He knelt and felt the stone. It was silent. But there were animal droppings scattered all about, more than what a few cave dwelling beasts would make. He recognized both cattle and sheep droppings. The Nagil’s animals? He’d been told the creatures lived off human blood and that they were criminals, the result of humans trying to manipulate their own breeding using the blood of an Airlia they had captured, Isis, a God in the lore of the Airlia who’d sacrificed herself to save the humans.
As he thought of that, Trat-mon realized it wasn’t exactly clear what Isis had saved the humans from. But there were images and statues of her in various temples. An Airlia with one hand reaching skyward. Very noble, very vague, like much to do with the Airlia. Trat-mon dealt in hard currency. Something he could touch and feel and use to purchase things like land and wine and women.
He indicated for the wargs to follow, then drew his sword. He walked in the entrance to the Rift. The floor was perfectly smooth stone, but the walls were rough. The Rift was a natural split in the Ridge that had been expanded by the Airlia.
The ground sloped downward at a gentle angle, as far he could see into utter darkness. He gave the order and they lit the torches. He gestured and a half dozen torch-bearers spread out in front of the main body. When they were twenty meters ahead, he indicated for the rest to move forward with him.
The Rift widened as they penetrated deeper. It grew darker, the lights from the torches becoming small beacons against the vastness of open space. The flankers indicated there were side tunnels. Rather than leave a possible hidden enemy behind them, Trat-mon had wargs check each one. There were indications of habitation in some. But no Nagil. It concerned Trat-mon that some tunnels continued on as far as could be seen, leaving open the possibility he could be attacked from the rear. However, there were only supposed to be fifty or sixty of these criminals to slaughter.
A few smaller side caves held pens containing cattle and sheep. Trat-mon considered killing the beasts, but they’d fetch some silver so he decided to take them on the way out, once he’d achieved the objective.
This need to check every side tunnel and crevice and cave slowed the movement. Soon the entrance was a dim sliver of brightness in the distance, behind and above them. The wargs had come together in a tighter formation. They moved over six hundred meters into the Ridge and descended at least one hundred. The Rift had been shifting to the right and soon that sliver of daylight disappeared.
Trat-mon ordered a halt, his voice swallowed in the vastness as the Rift expanded to over five hundred meters wide, the ceiling lost in the darkness above. A black stone three meters high and less than one in width was set in the center of the floor. The surface was smoothly polished. There were high runes etched upon it, the language of the Airlia.
Trat-mon ordered a squad of wargs, two of them carrying torches to move ahead. To continue until they could no longer see the torches of the main body and then return.
He watched as the group moved away and descended. He could see the two torches grow fainter and fainter for almost ten minutes. Finally, they became brighter as the recon returned.
“We went six hundred paces, Trat-mon,” the squad leader reported. “We saw nothing. But there was a red glow far ahead of us.”
Trat-mon ordered a squad to remain at the standing stone as a beacon for the return. Then he led the rest of the unit forward. When they reached a point where the standing stone torches were barely visible, he left two wargs, one with a torch, the other on guard. There was a line ahead, very faint, but definitely red light.
As they continued, the red light spread out left and right, perpendicular to their movement. The descent was steeper, thirty degrees. The floor was smooth. It was getting warmer and there was an odor of something burning. Not wood. Something else. Seven more times Trat-mon had to leave two wargs to mark the way back.
Finally they could see that the red light was emanating from a massive crevice splitting the floor. Trat-mon halted at the edge of the hundred-meter-wide chasm. The red glow came from far below, straight down. To the heart of the planet. The red was where the crust of the planet gave way to the mantle, over thirty kilometers below. Heat emanated from the rift.
One of the wargs called out from the left. Trat-mon joined the group gathered around an Airlia control console. But that wasn’t what they stared at. Two poles extended over the chasm. A crane rose above them. And wrapped in twisted cables was a headless Airlia corpse, the skin dried and wrinkled. One six-fingered hand was caught pointing straight up, the arm caught in a cable that had shattered it in several places.
“Isis,” one of the wargs whispered. “Isis,” another repeated. The rest picked up the word, kneeling, saying it over as if in prayer.
“Silence!” Trat-mon ordered. He looked about. There was a third pole, broken. They’d been designed to hold something over the chasm, but whatever had been there was gone. He looked at the control console. It was dark.
He pressed on it but there was no power. This didn’t look very noble or religious to him, more like an accident.
Despite the heat from the split in the earth, Trat-mon shivered. He glanced once more at the body caught in the cables. That was no god trying to save mankind.
“Come,” he ordered. He led the way back up the slope, toward the first torch pair. They retraced their route. Even the wargs were disturbed because everyone moved quickly. No one was whispering Isis any more.
The warg force, which had seemed large and potent before entering the Rift, now appeared a small entity with flickering torches in the vastness of the Rift. Trat-mon breathe a sigh of relief as the vertical sliver of light indicating the opening finally appeared in the distance.
The walls of the Rift became visible on either side and side tunnels appeared. Since they’d made no contact with the Nagil, Trat-mon ordered the wargs to gather then livestock. He assumed the object of his mission, the Nagil, had scattered into the countryside.
He halted the main body two hundred meters from the exit to await the gathering.
That’s when the Nagil dropped from the roofs of the crevices on the sides of the Rift. Not forty or fifty, but hundreds.
The screams of the wargs were cut short as their throats were ripped out and the Nagil feasted. Trat-mon had the opportunity to slash at a Nagil, missing, then he was taken from behind and went down under a swarm.
A few wargs, despite their programming, in a last-ditch remnant of self-preservation from their autonomic nervous system, dashed for daylight, but they were easily run down and slaughtered.
It was over in less than two minutes.
WORMEHILL TOWER, NORTH VALLEY, EARTH15
Horus stared at Wormehill Tower and the water surging in the moat, before pouring in a powerful stream into the Valley. There had been a narrow stone bridge over the moat the last time he was here. He was sure of that.
Wormehill was an enigma. It had been like this when the Airlia first arrived so many years ago. The remnant of some previous civilization long gone. He looked into the swirling water. The stone bridge must have finally given way. There was something about this place that had always bothered him.
He ordered a company of Shakur to take position here, to secure the right flank of the North Wall. He turned the chariot back to the valley until he reached the center and the Lion’s Road.
The wargs and Shakur were replacing stones, patching North Wall as best they could, except for one spot, just to the west of where the Lion’s Road passed through. Horus was leaving that portion crumbled and broken. The Great Alliance would be channeled coming up the Valley. They would naturally try to break through along the road as there was no gate, just an old toll-keepers tower, two stories high, that would be manned by a platoon of archers. The broken portion to the left of the gate would also be tempting and that was Horus’s plan.
The Shakur would hold the wall and the gate in force while the wargs would hide on the north side, near that break. Draw the Great Alliance to that, wait until half the force was through, then annihilate the portion that came through. The Shakur would then go over the Wall and envelope the southern portion of the Alliance.
None would escape.
Of course, Horus knew his plan was lacking some critical intelligence, such as the strength of this Alliance. If his scouts reported it to be overwhelming, which was doubtful, he would send word for the Hegemony army to march south to reinforce while he fought a delaying action. And, of course, there would be Anubis in the Talon.
He sent out three patrols of Shakur. One along the Lion’s Road. The other two were to go through the forests on either side. As they moved out, he climbed the toll tower, where he could observe.
THE RIFT, WEST RIDGE, EARTH15
Moroi walked to the entrance of the Rift and waved her hand, indicating the celebration of victory was over. For many of the quarters and younger ones, it had been their first taste of human blood. As the mass of Nagil’s gradually ceased cheering, she hopped up on a large stone. There were forty halves, the elders. And over twelve hundred quarters and eighths gathered round.
She looked over the group, the blood smeared faces, the light of victory in their eyes, the power of fresh blood coursing through their veins.
“Look about you,” she said in a voice that easily carried over the group, deep into the Rift. “Look at the dead humans.”
Someone shouted a cheer and she raised a hand, quieting him.
“They are humans. We are also part human. They are warrior-guides. Wargs. Remember this, my children. They had no choice about coming here. About what they had to do. Their minds were corrupted. In a way, there are innocent. Humans are not our enemy.”
She paused and let that sink in.
“We have hidden in the tunnels and caves of West Ridge for many, many years. Since Orlock and I first came here from Atlantis. We have avoided being involved in the affairs of humans. And the Airlia. Yet we are both. And neither. The humans are marching once more on Atlantis. As they have in the past. Many will die.” She pointed southeast. “Orlock is helping one of the Walkers. His daughter died in Atlantis trying to assassinate one of the Airlia.”
There was a ripple of murmuring among the Nagil. They had all known Orlock’s daughter.
“I have sent scouts to the human’s Great Alliance to guide them north along the ancient paths.”
A louder murmur, especially among the elders.
“Yes, we are aiding the humans. Because as you have seen—” she swept her arms wide, indicating the Rift—“we are no longer safe. It seems we are a problem for the Airlia. But something is only a problem when it is a threat. And we are a threat. They sent this number of wargs because they have no clue as to our real strength and our real threat.”
She halted, looking about, particularly at the other elders. Gauging their reaction. Then she continued. “Here is the question we must decide before we go further. Do we return to hiding? Remember, if we do that, the Airlia know we are here. They will come again. Or do we become the threat we can be? Do we ally with the humans? With the Walkers? With Arcturus? What say you?”
Moroi expected at least one of the elders to speak up in protest. While she and Orlock were the nominal rulers of the Nagil due to being the oldest, it wasn’t a formal arrangement. Simply one of custom and time.
The silence stretched out, then one of the elders stepped forward. “What do you want us to do?”
Moroi took a deep breath. “Quarters, start a fire on the flat stone outside the Rift. Then remove all the bodies and incinerate them. Elders, sit with me and I will tell you of our plan.”
ALL-LIFE
NORTH VALLEY, EARTH15
“Par-rom is now Paric, a warrior of our people,” Cetic announced to the men and women from his tribe who were part of the army.
Two red dagger tattoos adorned his son’s forehead. The chieftain and king of the Great Alliance put callused hands on his son’s shoulders. “You have done well.”
The search for the two surviving wargs assassins had come up empty. There had been a heavy downpour just after dusk, then the storm had moved on, giving a respite for the rest of the night. The first hint of dawn was in the west. The army would be moving shortly. The sounds of men and women waking, camp being packed up, voices in low conversation, pervaded the forest.
A commotion disturbed these normal sounds as two tall, cloaked figures appeared, flanking Drusa. Cetic, Paric and the warriors drew weapons.
“Hold!” Drusa called out as several warriors approached. “They are not the wargs.”
Cetic pushed his way to the front, sword in hand. “What is this?” he demanded of her.
“They come as friends,” Drusa said. She held up a piece of parchment. “They brought this letter of passage from Bren the Walker.”
“What of her?” Cetic asked. “Who are they?”
“Bren sent them,” Drusa repeated. “They can guide us on a route north that will evade detection from t
he Airlia. A way around North Wall.”
Cetic frowned. “There is no way north except by Lion’s Road or pushing through the forest. But even then, one must go on the road as the valley narrows. There is no way around North Wall.” He took a step forward. “Tell me who they are, witch. Can they not speak for themselves?”
“Please, King, have your soldiers stand down,” Drusa said. “This is difficult to explain.”
“How did they get past my sentries?” Cetic demanded. But he waved a hand and his men lowered their weapons.
“Who they are is why they know secret ways.” She indicated the two. “They are Nagil.”
“Monsters!” Paric stepped in front of his father. “They drink blood and—”
“Easy, young warrior,” Drusa said. She held up the parchment. “Bren says they helped her. That they know ancient paths along the West Ridge. They are not our enemies.”
“It could be fake,” Paric said.
“There are things written here that only Bren and I know,” Drusa said. “It is from her. She says she is on another mission to help us and will join us in the battle with aid.”
“You have learned to kill,” Cetic said to his son. “Now learn to lead.” He turned to his soldiers. “Prepare to march.” He gestured at Drusa and the two Nagil. “Come with me.”
As Paric began to walk off with the others, Cetic called out. “Join us, son. Let’s learn of these ancient paths and these—” he paused—“people. We’ll need all the help we can get.”
NORTH SEA, ATLANTIS, EARTH15
It took a while for Anubis to walk from the hangar to the control room of the mothership along the main central corridor that ran the length of the ship. There was a tube that could make the trip swiftly but it, along with almost everything on the ship, was powered down to conserve energy.