Emboldened by this development, Goile took charge and began to deploy reconnaissance units to assess the tactical situation. He sent Selpla and her team back to Goblinopolis on the next carriage for their own protection, despite Selpla’s protestations. “This is no place for civilians,” he said to her, “This is a war zone.”
The titans reported that only the uppermost level was safe; below that the mutated deepdrakes were running rampant. The descriptions he was getting of the size and capabilities of the deepdrakes were difficult to take seriously, so he sent photographic units in as part of the recon effort.
The first recon unit was ambushed and barely made it out sans casualties. They got only blurry pictures of fearsome creatures that were much larger and more vicious than the deepdrakes in Goile’s cryptozoology reference manual. The colonel realized quickly that he was dealing with a more significant foe that he’d anticipated. He pulled the recon units back and ordered the fire teams to assemble.
Once he had four full strike teams and a reserve in place, Goile ordered them inserted but to advance no further than one kilometer without further orders. There would be two center units and one on each flank; the reserve would remain at center rear unless needed. They were equipped with high-power disruptor rifles, flame- throwers, and stunglobe launchers. The center units were under the command of Lieutenants Jawata and Soturi, both outstanding young officers only recently graduated from the Royal Military Academy. The expeditionary fire team force itself was commanded by Captain Diqlosse, who preferred to lead from the rear. “I can get a broader view of the battle front from there,” he was fond of explaining. The argument would be more convincing were he not usually behind a huge heavily-armored rolling pavise.
The deepdrakes were on the move as the fire teams inserted. They appeared intent on making it to the surface, in contrast to their non-mutated brethren who preferred underground lairs. They were huge—even larger than the sentient companions to Phaeon Timeskin—and their teeth and claws seemed made of some hardened metal rather than enamel and keratin. The creatures were, in addition, fearless and insanely aggressive.
The first contact came when strike team center right was attacked by a pair of deepdrakes that appeared suddenly over a small rise in the footpath. The monsters were on them in a heartbeat, slashing and biting with great effect. Four soldiers were mutilated almost immediately, before anyone could squeeze off a shot. The disruptors offered little deterrent. Flame throwers were somewhat more effective, but the collateral damage in terms of ‘friendly fire’ was unacceptably high at close quarters. The stunglobes were equally impractical here. They set their disruptors on full power and concentrated on first disabling the creatures, then finishing them off with bayonets.
Once the first two deepdrakes were finally dead, Captain Diqlosse gave the order to collect casualties and withdraw. They had suffered three fatalities and four wounded. The kill ratio was unacceptably low; they needed to change tactics. Colonel Goile did not take the encounter well. He lined his troops up and dressed them down for ten fist-palming minutes, pointing to the sheet- covered litters where the casualties lay with a rage-quivering finger.
The regroup effort was abbreviated, however, because the deepdrakes finally made it to the surface and began to spill out over the countryside. Goile was under strict orders to contain them to titan lands. He sent an entire regiment after the escapees and planted another at the entrance to prevent any further monsters from exiting alive.
Fifteen hundred soldiers seems like a lot of firepower, but when two hundred five meter long flesh-rending monstrosities suddenly bubble up out of a huge hole in the ground, that perception is fluid. Not only were the mutant deepdrakes huge and well-armed, they were deceptively quick. Worse, they could tear a soldier completely in half with one bite. Goile lost a dozen troops before he could devise an effective counter-attack.
He assigned squads of five to each monster. Two aimed for the eyes, two went for the hind legs to limit mobility, and the last concentrated on severing or severely damaging the spinal cord. Once the beast was down, all five charged with elongated electrified leaf-tip bayonets and stabbed until it stopped moving. It was lethal, blood-soaking work.
At first the deepdrakes were emerging from the city entrance as singles or pairs; they were not too terribly difficult to dispatch like this. After the first twenty or so had been taken out, there was a sudden surge as they began to escape in larger, more difficult to handle groups of four and five. Groile and Diqlosse adopted hammer and anvil tactics to trap and slaughter them, but occasionally one dodged the columns and had to be hunted down individually.
As the day wore on, the seemingly never-ending stream of mutated deepdrakes finally began to thin out. The soldiers were wearing down by now as well, as the area within a hundred meters of the entrance was waist-high in gore and mutilated bodies from both sides of the conflict. They were so closely intermingled that in places it was impossible to tell whose remains you were looking at. According to the recon sergeant, only three of the monstrosities had escaped into the countryside.
Col. Goile ordered five strike teams with two all-terrain prams each to fan out and eliminate the escapees. Failure was not an option. They had highly-trained predator avians with them to act as aerial scouts. For several hours they combed the area in ever- widening circles, searching for the fugitive deepdrakes. When one was found, all forces in that sector—usually two strike teams— converged on it. Even with two fully-equipped combat units the battles were quite bloody, protracted, and casualty-laden.
When at last the final mutant drake lay twitching in its death- throes on the blood-saturated ground, the strike teams conveyed their wounded and deceased back to Col. Goile’s field headquarters. The hardened battle veteran shook his head in dismay at the extensive casualty list. They had accomplished their mission, but at a terrible price. Worse, they had no guarantee that there weren’t more deepdrakes waiting far down in the labyrinthine spaces beneath Hellehoell.
When what was left of the 3rd Brigade mustered in front of the entrance to the titan cities, Tartag and a small delegation came out to express their sincere gratitude to Col. Goile for the sacrifices his people had made on behalf of the titans. Goile wasn’t having any of it. He just turned his back on the titan emissary and drove away. Tartag restrained his impulse toward anger, reminding himself that Goile had just lost dozens of troops and was in no mood to be sociable, or even, apparently, to exhibit basic courtesy. The colonel no doubt blamed the titans for releasing the monsters in the first place, and perhaps he had a point there. Tartag decided therefore not to lodge an official complaint against Goile’s behavior.
Goile attended each and every memorial service for his fallen troops; he had done so for his entire career as an officer. He was angry at the titans, as Tartag had guessed. He regarded them as foreigners who had moved into Tragacanth uninvited and irresponsibly released a terrible plague that his soldiers had died to stamp out. There were several dozen sets of grieving relatives and friends because the titans had been careless, in his view. Colonel Goile was the consummate professional soldier: an officer who followed orders to the letter.
But he did not forget, nor did he forgive.
Chapter the Seventeenth
in which an ancient being relocates while Tol receives a secret mission
Phaeon was sorely troubled by the reports of deepdrakes taking on new forms and turning feral. They were of his making, after all, and he had not intended for them to mutate. Biology, he concluded, was easy; it was magic which added that layer of uncertainty and difficulty to creation. He dispatched the sentients to round up as many as possible and drive them into the lower caves where they could be contained. There he would root out and destroy any mutants.
In the end perhaps three hundred total mutants escaped the roundup and spilled out onto the surface, but the sentient deepdrakes managed to corral and imprison several thousand of their mutated brethren far below. After Phaeon had eliminated
them—or in the case of drakes whose mutation process had stalled, reversed it and brought them back to their original condition— there were fewer than a hundred wild deepdrakes remaining, not counting the handful of sentients, who were not affected by the runaway mutations.
Phaeon was saddened by this development, but he decided not to create any further creatures here. He had not taken into account the potential for disastrous unforeseen consequences on a planet embedded in the dark energetic continuum. Perhaps he would do well simply to move on to another world, one far from magic entanglements. He sighed and looked around him.
“Come, Fontaric. Gather your brethren. It is time we migrated to a new home.”
“Shall I assemble also the wild drakes?”
“We shall leave them here to live or die in this, their native world, and create a new race when we are settled on the next.”
“Will they survive without us?”
“Yes. I have given them the skill and the means to do so. While they will no longer regenerate, there is abundant food for them in the lower caves, as there exist multiple colonies of the rodents on which they thrive scattered all around the perimeter of their lair. I have seen to it that the members of these prey colonies are fecund and well-supplied with fodder for at least the next few centums.”
“And us? What will become of us?”
“You will revert to your base forms during the transfer. I will decide how you will appear when we reach our new home.”
“Then we are ready, master.”
Phaeon stretched out his hands, palms up and curled inward. He brought them slowly together. When the palms touched there was a blinding flash of light and a noise like a huge space rock hurtling through the atmosphere. When the light faded, Phaeon, the sentient deepdrakes, and the lush appointments were all gone. Only a simple, rough-hewn cave remained.
A starship approaching N’plork at that moment would have seen a ball of pure energy launch from a spot directly over Hellehoell and speed away, disappearing rapidly into the inky blackness of interstellar space. There wasn’t any such ship, in fact, so no one off- planet witnessed Phaeon Timeskin, one of the oldest intelligences in this current multiverse, as he sought out a new world far from the influence of magic to call home.
Tol sat in his fancy-schmancy office in Justice Hall and watched the reports of fierce fighting in Ferroc Norda between the Civil Defense troops and what he recognized as mutated deepdrakes, although the media insisted on calling them ‘dragons.’ He wondered what sort of event could have prompted the mutations. The press seemed to think that the titans were somehow to blame, but Tol couldn’t decide if that was based on a kernel of truth or just a manifestation of latent xenophobia. It was easy to fear the titans, especially with generations of rumors and legends surrounding them. Tol steadfastly refused to allow himself to be led down this toxic path. The titans he’d met had been intelligent, rational, and courteous. He was going to regard all titans that way unless he had good cause to change.
There was another item that caught his eye: a large, intense fireball of some sort was launched from a mountainside not far from the epicenter of the fighting near the entrance to the titan enclave of Hellehoell. It headed up rapidly and apparently was able to make escape velocity. Investigators could find no trace of the launch site, based on a reverse calculation of its trajectory. No burned vegetation, no scorch marks, no disturbed soil. The verdict? Magic. Convenient, all-encompassing, and despite that very probably accurate in this instance.
A high-pitched bell rang three times on the other side of his office: secure message coming in. He rolled over in his fancy high- backed office chair and stared at the communiqué. It made him frown in consternation:
From: Aspet I, King of Tragacanth
To: Sir Tol-u-ol of Sebacea, Special Investigator, Royal EE Branch
Assignment:
Capture or neutralize Esfina Frem. Last known location: Goblinopolis, but intelligence suggests she may have returned to Solemadrina. She is wanted for conspiracy to commit murder of a member of the Royal Family and state espionage. This is an Alpha Priority/Royal Family-only matter. You are authorized whatever funds and equipment you deem necessary to carry out the mission. You will report directly to me. A courier pouch will arrive with diplomatic credentials so that you may travel internationally under guise of diplomatic service. Remember that any false steps while deployed may result in an ugly international incident. Stay smart and be safe.
--message ends--
Capture or neutralize. That was unusual language, coming from Aspet. He guessed the king didn’t want to bring himself to order Tol directly to off someone if need be. They’d known all along that this Frem was involved up to her eye ridges in the plot against Boogla; why the sudden urgency to have her ‘neutralized?’ Though Tol didn’t relish the role of King’s Assassin, he was challenged by the whole cloak and dagger thing. Very different from the overt approach he’d almost always taken as a street cop.
As Tol considered his brother’s full intent, it suddenly hit him that he was automatically thinking of Aspet as his supervisor—and therefore as king—for the first time. It was an odd sort of realization, like finding out that the hat you had been wearing for many years was actually intended as a boot or an apron.
That surreal detour was mercifully brief and soon he was mentally back on mission. Tracking someone within Tragacanthan jurisdiction and outside those boundaries were two decidedly different propositions, it seemed to Tol. He really didn’t know much of anything about international espionage; he was just a simple city beat cop with a fancy title. He decided to drop in on an old partner who had left the force years ago to work for the Tragacanthan squad of the Trans-national Edict Enforcement Cooperative, or TEEC. If anyone knew about this stuff, he should.
Anbat Yemmilla, or Yemmy, was ancient, and even more grizzled than Tol. He glanced up when Tol walked into his office and grunted. “Heya, youngster. Heard you went and got yourself knighted. Good work, I guess.”
Tol shrugged. “Hi, Yemmy. It is what it is. I need some advice.”
“Pull up a chair. What’s going down?”
Tol related a condensed version of events leading up to this visit, carefully circumnavigating the nature of his orders regarding the perpetrator. “So,” he finished up, “I need some tutoring on how to conduct, um, ‘EE operations’ OTRAG.”
Yemmy leaned back, put his feet up on his desk, and regarded his former partner for a moment before replying.
“Do it quietly, in a private place, then leave the body in a position where detection of the event will be put off as long as possible. Alternatively, use a delayed-effect method like toxins.”
Tol was momentarily taken aback by the old goblin’s candor and the ease with which he deduced Tol’s true mission, but then grinned. “So, you got any? Toxins, I mean.”
“Smek, no. Those substances are illegal to possess by international treaty. I do have some small vials of liquid intended for an entirely different purpose that could, in a pinch, be repurposed by a clever and enterprising special investigator on an official mission, though.” He handed a small leather pouch with six glass bottles in it to Tol. “Inside is a short description of each and its most effective route of application. Be careful: as with all other weapons, these can’t tell the difference between the good guys and the bad.”
Tol was thanking him when he suddenly stopped at looked at Yemmy suspiciously. “How is it you come to have these…substances all packed up and ready to go?”
“TEEC trains with them fairly regularly. We conducted a live exercise less than a fortnight ago and this kit is leftover from that. I honestly don’t know if any of these has ever been put to use in the field by an authorized EE agent, however. Not many have been so authorized. I do know that all of these substances have been used to kill multiple people over the years. They exhibit proven lethality for all races.”
“Comes with an instruction manual, eh? How handy.”
�
��Of sorts, yes. Nothing in depth, but enough to get the job done.”
Tol looked at the thin booklet for a moment before sliding it back into the pouch.
“Alrighty, then. I guess I have my weapon of choice. Now I just have to work out how to justify from a moral standpoint knocking off an unarmed, unresisting person.”
“Authority to eliminate a civilian enemy of Tragacanth can come only from the king himself. He must have told you why this person warranted such action.”
“Yeah, I suppose he did. I don’t think I’m going to get comfortable with this sort of stuff any time soon,” Tol sighed.
“Which is exactly why he chose you for the mission. Those who become comfortable with killing are no longer trustworthy to kill only when ordered. Killing a sentient being should be repugnant and difficult, no matter their crimes.”
Tol left Yemmy’s office with lethal weapons and words of wisdom. Now if he could just get over his misgivings concerning the mission itself. He had seen firsthand the aftermath of the attempt on Boogla’s life and he understood why Aspet wanted the mastermind eliminated, but there was more to this than simple justice: Aspet really wanted vengeance. As king, however, he was by the rules of their society within his rights to seek it. Tol had one of those dumbstruck moments when it sank in that his little brother, his ‘Pet,’ could legally order a foreign national assassinated. He scratched his neck beneath the left ear the way he always did when the world was hard to understand and grunted at the wonder of it all.
After verifying that Frem had not been seen in Goblinopolis since the attack on the Royal Palace, Tol set sail once more for Solemadrina.This time, however, he booked a first-class cabin aboard a sleek, comfortable passenger vessel, the Avvolli. He’d always wanted to travel in style—and posing as a wealthy entrepreneur was a decent cover. He’d decided, rather than a diplomat, to play the role of an agricultural supplies broker. He was no expert at either, but his years of experience in the feed store as a youngster at least taught him the required lingo for the latter.
Gathering of the Titans: The Tol Chronicles Book 2 Page 19