by Terry Mixon
Though his party was still making its way through the crowds, he noticed that the civilians were less inclined to hurry out of their way. These more affluent people believed that they had the right-of-way, and that implied a level of power in their stratum of the social fabric of the horde. These were movers and shakers in their society.
Or at least they thought they were.
It was hard to believe that these people had been an industrialized, advanced civilization only a century ago. They looked as if they belonged in the Middle Ages, of which Kelsey had also read a few books. The clothing styles were strange, but none of them would’ve known anything different during their lifetimes.
It was interesting. Even on Avalon, when the AIs had used their EMP weapons and destroyed all advanced technology, his people had never devolved into this kind of primitive society. They’d remained one civilization, under the rule of Emperor Lucien. They’d kept the manners and education that they could and pulled themselves back out into space. It had taken a while, but they hadn’t lost their identity as a people.
To him, it certainly seemed as if the people of Terra had abandoned their identity in favor of this more primitive and warlike mode of living. He wondered if that was because the AIs were still above their heads and ready to blast any civilization that became too advanced with their kinetic weapons.
In the end, he finally decided that that might be a mystery that he’d never solve.
He was still thinking about that when he noticed another emptied caravan coming around the corner ahead of them. The warriors surrounded the empty pack horses and pulled them down the street back in the direction that Talbot and his people had just come from.
Talbot inclined his head toward them as they passed, and one of the warriors in the group did the same. No words were exchanged, which was just fine by Talbot. He’d rather not risk saying the wrong thing, and frankly, he just wasn’t as bold as Kelsey or Julia. Those two leapt in where angels feared to tread.
He urged his horse to move faster and made a hand gesture to the admiral that they’d be changing course. The other man nodded.
Once he’d made his way around the corner, Talbot saw what he was sure was their ultimate destination. The building in question was squat and made of thick stone blocks. He wasn’t certain what its original purpose had been, but it was now surrounded by guards that were keeping even the entitled populace of the horde city at bay with stern looks and occasional shoves.
The latter was greeted with cries of outrage, but the guards seem unimpressed. A few were forced to show a few inches of blade to send the most pompous scurrying away.
To Talbot, that told a tale. These powerful people were not used to being treated so cavalierly. That meant that whatever was going on here was new. Otherwise, everyone would already be aware of how defensive the guards would be. That made this place the most likely repository of their stolen gear.
As their horses approached the building, one of the guards on foot walked out and held up a hand. This man was older than many of the guards that Talbot had seen so far, his hair iron gray and his beard only containing a few strands of black. His face had two wide scars that went from his hairline on the left side of his face down close to his chin. Both wounds were red and ropey.
“Hold, there,” the man said gruffly. “You must wait until the current group finishes unloading before you can enter.”
Talbot nodded and contented himself with edging closer to the admiral after the guard had returned to his companions.
“With the number of guards around this place, I don’t think we’re going to be able to fight our way out,” he said softly. “Whatever we do inside, we’re going to have to come back out looking as if everything was normal. That might be a little bit difficult if we have to kill a bunch of guards in there.”
The other man smiled sourly. “It’s not as if we have a choice. I doubt very seriously that Lily could get Kelsey’s Raider augmentation back online in just a couple of minutes, even if we found her surgical kit. We’d still never get out of the city alive.
“Our only chance of success is to find the scepter and the supplies that we absolutely must have, stash them in our saddlebags, and then just walk out just like every other group that we’ve passed. Unfortunately, there will be guards inside to keep people from doing exactly what we plan on doing. Count on it.”
Talbot pursed his lips. “Maybe not so many. The people that we’re pretending to be have already been trusted to bring everything in that they’ve captured. I think the mounted warriors are a different, higher caste than the foot soldiers. Maybe even nobility. That might give us the break we need.
“We have to get a jump on the next part of the plan and secure the inside of this building while we conduct our search. I doubt very seriously that the guards on duty are going to allow us to look for what we need.
“Once we do, we’re going to have to figure out how we get out of the city before they discover what we’ve done. I think we can get out of the general area before someone comes along and starts screaming, but that’s not going to get us out of the city.
“We’ll have to get over the wall and past the mounted patrols outside. Once we do, where do we go from there? If we make a break for open country, you can bet they’ll have riders running us down before we get even an hour away.”
Jared looked over toward where the towers of the megacity rose in the distance, dark and empty. “I think the answer is sitting right in front of us. If we can get outside the city walls, we’re going to have to make a break for the megacity. Even with all the bad things we’ve heard about places like that, at least it offers us a chance of survival.”
Talbot had already come to that same conclusion. It wasn’t a happy idea, but no matter what they did, there was going to be a bad outcome. At this particular moment, he’d be happy if they survived to see the sunrise.
Before he could say anything more, another caravan of warriors and packhorses began coming out of the building through the opened doors.
This was it. They’d have one chance to carry this off, and if they failed, each and every one of them would die fighting or at their own hands to avoid capture. The only avenue to survival was success, and he was going to do everything within his power to make sure that his wife and the admiral got away, even if it cost him his own life.
Jared examined everything he could as covertly as possible as they entered the squat building. The exterior walls were significantly thicker than he’d expected, and he’d been expecting them to be thick indeed.
It looked as if the stone blocks used to construct the outer shell were at least a meter thick, and the wall was made up of them stacked four deep. The passage through the wall was about two meters wide. He’d think of it as the foyer, though the term seemed off in the context.
He couldn’t imagine what they were defending against in this primitive environment. Lesser walls would stop most basic attacks, but nothing would stop a kinetic projectile from orbit.
Well, it didn’t matter. What was important now was making note of every guard he could while trying to determine the best method to conduct this operation.
Once they were through the narrow foyer, they came into a larger room with the ceiling supported by pillars of stone even thicker than the blocks that made up the walls. The room seemed to take up the entirety of the building. Lighting inside was provided by a number of smoking torches that cast a flickering yellow glow over everything.
Their smell wasn’t as acrid as he’d have expected. It was actually somewhat pleasant. It made him wonder what they used for an accelerant.
A glance upward showed that the smoke went out through narrow vents in the ceiling. From the amount of soot up there, no one had bothered cleaning inside the room for quite some time.
Half a dozen guards were stationed along the walls at equidistant locations. They weren’t the most interesting contents of the room, however. It looked as if a lot of his people’s gear had alrea
dy been brought in and stored. Piles of everything imaginable were stacked high in every open portion of the floor except for that directly in front of the large, reinforced wooden doors they’d just passed through, the cramped foyer, and the area where the horses now stood.
Searching through those piles to find what they’d need was going to be a huge pain in the ass, and there was absolutely no way they could accomplish that while still under the watchful eyes of the guards.
Even if they took the guards out of play, there was no telling how long it would take to find the Imperial Scepter, much less Lily Stone’s spare medical kit or the requisite supplies for even simple brain surgery.
Interestingly, the center of the room was taken up by what looked like a huge, ornate altar of some kind. The flat surface was made of stone that had been smoothed flat by whatever artisans had created it. The side panels were carved with intricate designs that he couldn’t make out from this distance, but they looked ceremonial.
The purpose of the altar was unimportant. It was a mystery they didn’t have time to solve.
Jared looked over his shoulder and saw a huge wooden beam leaning against the wall in the foyer nearest the doors giving access to the interior of the building. That probably meant the doors could be barred from the inside. That might be useful, if things went downhill.
He wasn’t certain how they could possibly get what they needed and still escape. With the doors open, the exterior guards would certainly hear the sounds of combat. And with no means of silently disabling the interior guards, he wasn’t sure they could even find what they needed, much less escape. It seemed like an impossible task.
Captain Beauchamp edged up beside him and casually dismounted. “Do you see the stone cover at the center of the room?” she asked quietly.
He nodded as he got off his own horse. “It’s some kind of altar, isn’t it?”
The woman shook her head. “It’s a protective cover. I believe this is the treasure house for the horde. That cover probably leads to stairs going deep underground to where they keep their most revered and valued artifacts.”
Jared thought about that and felt his eyes narrow. “Do you think that they dug out the area beneath here specifically for that, or would they have used something that was already present? With the megacity adjacent to this city, there are probably old tunnels down there.”
“Almost certainly the latter. If I were a betting woman, I’d suspect that they walled off an old tunnel and are using part of it for their own purposes. It wouldn’t be accessible to anyone above ground, and not even the people living inside the megacity would be able to break down a formidable barrier.”
Jared smiled. “Then I think that I have a plan. You’re not going to like it. Hell, I don’t like it, but it’s the only chance I see for us to succeed. If I’m right, we can get away clean. If not, well, we’re totally screwed.”
34
Kelsey tried to make sense of the piles of equipment and supplies that surrounded them but couldn’t. It seemed like there was no rhyme or reason about how anything was placed inside the room. It was just unloaded wherever happened to be convenient for the person placing it there. That was going to make searching through the mess much more difficult.
She stepped over and joined Jared as he eyed the guards around the room. “We need to have our noncombatants start unloading, or they’re going to get suspicious,” she said softly. “I can’t tell where anything is in this place. It looks like they brought a bunch of stuff from the crashed pinnaces as well as what we were carrying with us. Sadly, we don’t know if we’re the last caravan, so some of the stuff we’re looking for may not even be here.”
“That’s true,” he agreed. “It’s even possible that something like the scepter was taken to their palace rather than being brought here. That seems like the kind of thing a ruler would be interested in.
“Maybe it’s just me, but it also seems odd that they’d have their treasure vault outside their castle. That’s what Captain Beauchamp thinks that formation in the center of the room is, an access to an underground treasure vault in a walled-off tunnel from the ruined megacity. Well, I think it’s in a section of tunnel. At least I hope it is.”
She shrugged slightly. “If that’s what it is, they must have some reason to do it, because no one would just put their stuff out in the open without a good reason. How are we going to do this?”
As the noncombatants started unloading the horses, Jared covertly directed her attention back toward the doors they’d come through. “See that bar? I’m pretty sure that locks the outer doors from the inside.
“It’s thick, so it’ll hold until they can bring something significant to break it down. The doors are heavy and braced with metal as well. I’d imagine that’s because they’d rather not have somebody stealing all their stuff.
“Commander Cannon, Sean, Carl, and I will get the doors closed and the bar in place. Austin and Ralph can back us up and help with the bar if it’s heavier than it looks.”
He turned slightly to face the interior of the room. “That leaves Julia, Captain Beauchamp, Talbot, Chloe, Elise, Olivia, and yourself to deal with the guards. You got enough ranged firepower that you should be able to take them out before they know what’s going on. Lily will be on standby to help anybody that’s injured. Did I miss anyone?”
She shook her head. “No, that’s everybody. I’ll brief my team on what they’ll be doing. You take your group.”
Kelsey casually walked to each of the designated fighters and told them in short, quiet sentences exactly what she wanted them to do. Each was assigned a specific guard to target with their ranged weapon, if they had one. Talbot had one of her swords, so he should be able to deal with the last one with a few strokes.
With five people wielding bows, they should be able to eliminate the half dozen guards before anyone was hurt. The initial shots would be a complete and utter surprise, so the targets wouldn’t be dodging.
She was much more concerned about Jared and his people getting the door closed and locked. It looked stout, but she was certain that the horde had the means to get in. She’d seen plenty of old Terran vids where doors like that were cracked open with battering rams.
Of more concern was what they’d do once the plan was in motion. If the strange stone structure in the center of the room did lead downstairs, would they be able to get out of this supposed treasure room? If not, then they shouldn’t attack at all.
Yet she already knew that they didn’t really have a choice. This would be their one and only chance to try to recover what they needed and get away, if they could. If the vault was in one of the old tunnels that once had served the megacity, they might even succeed.
Jared was probably right. There had to be hundreds of tunnels running around beneath the ground this close to the place. Maybe thousands. It was very easy to dig deep and place things underground when you had high technology. The towering structures of the megacity were testament to the skills of the builders, and so were the less visible aspects of the old place.
Once she and her people were in position, Kelsey kept an eye on Jared as he and his team stopped unpacking the remaining horses and moved as casually as they could toward the reinforced doors. The guards seemed somewhat confused by their actions but didn’t do anything more than glance at one another.
The one thing she and her people couldn’t do ahead of time was draw or prepare their weapons. That kind of thing would spark a response. They’d have to draw fast and make their first shots count.
The moment that Jared made a gesture to his people and they rushed the doors, Kelsey drew her bow from across her shoulder in one smooth movement, her free hand already grasping an arrow from her quiver and bringing it up to the string.
The guard she’d selected for herself seemed stunned and was slow to react. Her shot took him in the center of the chest. Though his armor did an admirable job of stopping much of the force, at this range the arrow still won. Just to be certai
n, she fired another one into him even as he fell.
Not everybody had been as lucky with their initial shots, but their follow-up arrows were keeping the guards busy even as the enemy drew their weapons and shouted in alarm.
Talbot was rushing his target. She was tempted to fire an arrow at the guard in front of him, but that might be a mistake. She’d have to let her husband fight his own fight. Instead, she shifted her aim to one of the remaining guards and helped bring him down quickly instead.
None of the guards were able to reach her team, except for the one fighting Talbot. That man discovered how outclassed he was after two blows from her man. One of them took the guard’s arm off at the wrist, and the other struck off his head. God, but that was a bloody spectacle.
With all the guards down, she turned and rushed toward the doors.
Jared and his people had them closed and were holding them tight while someone—or more likely several someones—pushed hard on the other side. The tech team was struggling to get the massive bar into the metal holders that secured the doors from opening, but it seemed a little heavy for them.
Without her augmentation, she wasn’t exactly made for the task, but she figured that every little bit would help. Together, they managed to get the massive bar into place with a loud “thunk.”
Everyone stepped back from the door and eyed it warily as the people outside continued slamming against it and shouting. The heavy wooden planks didn’t even quiver.
“That should hold until they bring in something significant to break it down,” Jared said in a tense rush. “Everyone split up and go through the piles. We need to find the Imperial Scepter, Doctor Stone’s spare medical kit, Carl Owlet’s tools, any equipment Carl could find from the pinnaces that hadn’t been burned out by the EMP, and anything else small enough to carry with us while we’re moving fast, but that might help us get to the Imperial Vault.