Lexa McIntosh appeared to agree with him. She poured more tea into a porcelain cup from the big silver teapot and added a lump of sugar with the silver sugar tongs. “It’s a long way from Barra Station to a castle in the mountains. Life is good.”
“With only three platoons?” Jock Gordon said. “It’s not that good.”
Will shook his head. “With three platoons we can fight off any scouting forays until the main body arrives.”
“That’s all very well,” the company commander said, “but just in case the good life decides to give us some nasty surprises, I want to wire everything in sight with demolition charges. Starting from the cliffs by the uphill drive, right the way back to the public road.”
Lexa’s gaze drifted over to the windows as the company commander spoke, and Will saw her eyes narrow. He followed her glance. The long uphill drive to the castle’s front entrance ran briefly in view of the windows, but the road when he looked showed nothing visible, either on the pavement or in the snowdrifts to either side.
“What was it?” he asked. Lexa had a sharpshooter’s keen sight and noticing eye, and if there’d been something moving on the road a moment before, she’d have seen it.
“Messenger,” she said. “On a fast motorcycle. None of your damned hoverbikes.”
“Looks like the good life’s over with,” said the company commander. He set down his tea cup. “I believe that the three of you should go see what the postman has for us today.”
Will and his two friends hurried down to the castle’s front entrance, arriving in time to stand together on the granite steps as the motorcycle came into view on the last curves of the uphill road. The bike was faster than safe and leaning into the curves so hard that it seemed to be lying on its side. The rider was a man in the uniform of Northwind.
“Message for the company commander,” said the messenger.
“Kinda figured that was it,” Lexa said. She’d had her laser rifle sighted in on the final curve, and grounded it as she spoke. “Let us have it and we’ll carry it up.”
The messenger pulled out an envelope with a string seal on it. “I’ll need the commander’s answer,” he said.
“We’ll make sure you get it,” said Will. He took the envelope. “Wait here. Jock, Lexa—you stay with him.”
He carried the sealed envelope back through the castle great hall to the lesser hall where the company commander waited, looking out of the windows at the snowcapped Rockspires and stirring his cup of tea.
“Messenger from central command,” Will said with a salute.
“Thanks, Sergeant,” the company commander said, returning the salute. He opened the envelope, read the flimsy inside, then put it down. “Please ask the other sergeants to come in. And give this reply to carry back to the Countess and General Griffin. ‘We understand.” ’
“Sir,” Will said, saluted again, and left.
A few minutes later he returned with Jock and Lexa. The company commander, who’d been looking out the window at the Rockspires again, turned around to face them.
“This is where things get interesting,” he said. “I’ve just been given some information, and an order. The information is that the main body of the Highlander force will not be coming here after all. I expect that the reason is this: there’s only one way in; there’s only one way out. If the main body came here, they could be bottled up by anyone holding the end of the pass.
“The order is very simple. We are to prevent the Steel Wolves from taking Castle Northwind. All means are acceptable. Questions, comments, suggestions, or observations?”
“Blow it up now,” Jock said. “With three platoons, we can’t hold it.”
“We don’t want to blow it up until we have to,” Will protested. “How about this? Hold it as long as possible, make the Wolves spend time, troops, and matériel, and then blow it.”
Lexa nodded agreement. “A fight’s a fight. Here or somewhere else. If we destroy the castle, and the bad guys don’t show up, then we’ll have done it all for nothing, and the Countess will be pissed.”
“How do you know that?” Jock asked.
“Because if it was me, and it was my castle, I’d be pissed.”
“I’m thinking much the way you are, Sergeant McIntosh,” the company commander said. “But all of the solutions involve the possibility of demolishing this structure at one point or another. So we can start by wiring it. Later, other things. But for right now—”
“Captain,” Will asked, “your message. Did it say when the Steel Wolves would get here?”
“Six hours, maybe eight.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Lexa said. “They won’t attack until dawn.”
“What makes you say that?” the company commander asked.
“Call it intuition. Anastasia Kerensky is a bitch’s bitch. She won’t stand off and let her troops take our Countess’s own castle in the dark—she’ll want to be here to watch the flags go down.”
“If there’s a good chance she’ll show up in person—”
“Let me see to my rifle,” Lexa said. “If she gets within a mile of me, she’s mine.”
“Very well,” the captain said. “McIntosh, your squad has the road leading in. See to its defenses. Gordon, you have the exterior defenses, as soon as the interior is wired. Elliot, you have interior defense. Help Gordon with the demolition charges, then everyone get some rest. This may be a long night coming.”
“Who does he think we are?” Will muttered to Jock as the three sergeants headed down the stairs to give the good word to their platoons. “We already know to sleep every chance we can.”
50
Castle Northwind
Rockspire Mountains
Northwind
February 3134; local winter
“As I came in by Fiddich side, on a May morning. . . .”
Lexa McIntosh hummed under her breath as she lay on the top of a cliff overlooking the road up to Castle Northwind. She was looking to the south, not silhouetted against the sky, invisible to the road, her laser rifle at her shoulder. The large telescopic sight she’d attached to the front of the rifle showed, in great detail, the line of scout vehicles, armor, and infantry moving up the valley toward Castle Northwind. Lexa ignored the scouts and the infantry troopers; she would only have one shot from this position, and she wanted to make the target worth her while.
All right . . . the tank coming into view around the curve was a Condor, with a full-scale Star Colonel—through the telescopic sight she could make out his rank insignia—standing up in the opened top hatch. She tracked him in her sights, a kilometer and a half away, moving at thirty kilometers an hour. If she’d chosen to use one of the Gauss rifles, she’d have had to lead him a bit, so that he and the projectile would arrive at the same point at the same time. With a laser, she didn’t need to, and from this point of vantage, on a clear day like today, she didn’t need to worry about leaves or fog interfering with the laser’s deadly light. Life, she thought, was all about choices, and this one was going to ruin the Star Colonel’s day for him.
“Turn again, turn again, turn again I pray ye. . . .”
She took a breath, let half of it out, held what remained. Her finger tightened on the trigger. The laser’s beam flashed out like a reddened spear.
“For if ye burn Auchidoon, Huntley he will slay ye.”
The Star Colonel twisted and slid down in the hatch of his tank, half of his head burnt away. Lexa closed her eyes, then looked through the sights again. Another vehicle was rounding the bend. The first tank had slowed and turned off the road.
Time to move to another location.
Lexa rolled away from the edge of the cliff, careful not to skyline herself. As soon as she was out of sight from the road, she rose and moved rapidly away. She was still humming.
“As I came in by Fiddich side, on a May morning, Auchidoon was in a blaze, an hour before the dawning.”
In her field headquarters at Tara DropPort, Anastasia Kerensky wat
ched the real-time display on the big tri-vid as her troops drove up the road toward Castle Northwind. With the Highlanders now in full retreat out of the city and scattering into the mountains, she had been able to detach a special armored column and give them specific orders: fulfill her angry promise to Tara Campbell by seizing Castle Northwind and claiming it for the Steel Wolves as spoils of war.
Now, in the first light of early morning, the column had reached the cut leading up to the castle. Their progress was relayed back to those watching at headquarters by a camera in the third tank back from the head of the column—progress that in the past few minutes had slowed to a crawl.
“What is the reason for the delay?” Anastasia demanded. “And where is Star Colonel Ulan?”
The face on the video terminal replied, “The Star Colonel is dead, Galaxy Commander.”
“What happened?”
“We have been taking sporadic sniper fire, Galaxy Commander.”
“Has there been any serious resistance, outside of the sniper fire?”
“None.”
“Then carry on.”
The Warrior saluted, and shortly afterward the column began moving again. The picture in the headquarters display was impressive, even through the flat pickup from a single camera. The castle lay before them, cradled in its glacial valley, its gray bulk touched with a pink glow from the sun rising beyond the mountain peaks. Tendrils of fog rose from the lake at the castle’s foot, and the banners of Northwind and The Republic snapped crisply from the upper towers.
The camera shook as the main gun on the Condor fired.
“Resistance remains light, Galaxy Commander,”
“Good. I want you to capture that castle. In whole. Intact. I have plans for it.”
“Galaxy Commander, it shall be done.”
No sooner had he spoken than lights twinkled along the side of the northern mountain, among the shadows of the conifers below the timberline. A moment later, geysers of earth rose among the troops and tanks of the advancing Wolves. A volley of short- and medium-range missiles from the armor column’s missile carriers replied, departing in a roar like a high wind. A moment later, red fireballs blossomed in the darkness under the trees. “As I said, resistance is—”
The man twitched and fell, blood running from his mouth. For a moment the camera pointed at the ground. Then someone picked it up, and a new man stood in front of the camera.
“Galaxy Commander, this is Star Captain Dane. Star Captain Jothan is now commanding. He asked me to take over this duty. We are about to assault the castle.”
Behind Star Captain Dane in the video display, Anastasia could see the scurry of troops heading to the main gate, running in open formation across the field. From either side, over the walls, jump-armored Clan Warriors launched themselves in perfect ballistic trajectories. By the time the running troopers in front had reached the gate, it had been opened for them from within.
“Courtyard, open, light resistance,” another voice said, this time with no video accompanying the audio feed. The camera stayed fixed on the castle’s exterior, its telephoto lens bringing the far-distant action close to the cameraman’s point of view. “Stairway right and left. First squad left, third right. Second squad taking covering position by the door. Moving up reserves, specialists forward. Locked door second level. Setting breaching charges.”
The sound of a leaden thud came from the remote audio pickup. An instant later, the same sound came from the microphone held in the field by Star Captain Dane. “Door breached”—the sounds of automatic weapons fire—“room secured. Resistance light. Moving in.”
They cleared the castle, room by room. The camera fixed on the castle exterior still showed the banners flying on the parapets. One by one the flags of Northwind came down, and were replaced with the banners of the Steel Wolves.
“Entering final tower,” came the audio-pickup voice. “Stairway clear.”
An explosion. A different voice continued. “Medics up! Stairway now clear. Continuing up. Door. Door is—unlocked. Entering top chamber.”
From the field, one Northwind Highland banner remained, atop a lofty tower, far back in the center of the castle.
“Appears to be a bedchamber. No one present. Here now, what’s this?”
The voice inside the castle sounded curious, bemused.
The camera outside showed a light blossoming in that topmost room. The windows filled with light, and the walls expanded. Smoke wreathed the turrets. A noise like thunder, or like surf pounding against cliffs, swept over the field. Smoke, dark and thick, shot through with yellow flames, sprouted where the castle stood. For a moment a castle of fire and light, with walls of smoke, stood against the mist and the mountains. Then it collapsed, with a noise so loud that the microphone could not record it, and in dead silence Castle Northwind vanished.
The camera whipped around, back the way the Steel Wolves had come. From the mouth of the steep valley, between two cliffs, smoke and flame and rock dust were pouring as the mountains on either side were moved together in crumbling avalanches. The camera went back to Star Captain Dane. Blood ran from his nose and ears, a mark of the explosion’s concussive force. He moved his mouth, but no sound came out.
Anastasia could read his lips, though: “We’re trapped.”
She turned away.
“Send troops out into the city,” she said. “Have them set fire to everything that can burn. Then all forces gather at the DropPort. Let the Countess of Northwind keep the ruins, if she would sooner turn everything she loves into rubble, rather than have it fall into my hands. We are leaving this cursed planet and taking ship for Terra.
“We are the Warriors that Nicholas Kerensky made for this purpose, and we are going home.”
Contents
PART ONE Lurking: November–December 3133
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
PART TWO Hunting: December 3133–February 3134
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
PART THREE Burning: February 3134
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Truth and Shadows Page 20