I glanced at Hank, my thoughts running a million miles an hour. I had debriefed him on Madame Sophia, and pegged Mizar as ‘the Emperor’. What if I was wrong, though? What if Sinclair was our Emperor. God! What a mess.
“Later,” Mizar said, and smiled a falsely confident smile.
Later? The son of a bitch wanted to try something he knew I wouldn’t agree with. “You’re not thinking of charging Enkidu’s army, are you?”
“Nothing of the sort,” he said. “Keep your metasense sharp, though. It’s time.” It’s time for him to do what I had ordered him to do – come up with something different.
With that, he got up and ran, crouching and under cover, a slow circle of the fight on the north side of the Autumn Hills ruins. I glanced at Gilgamesh and knew it was ‘time’ because Hank had finished with him. Bleeding stopped, skin patched, blood regenerated, the works. Hank fell back, hands shaking and sweating profusely. He needed food and juice. A twenty year younger body wouldn’t hurt, either. Yes, he was doing his damned best to kill himself with the juice.
I wouldn’t put Gilgamesh in a physical fight in his condition, but then again, he wouldn’t be in a physical fight anyway. I smiled at him and moved to the next bit of cover, an abandoned Caddy. If anything happened to me while I dealt with Mizar, he would be in overall command.
Mizar passed Mary Sibrian, where she hunkered down next to Tom, behind a flipped pickup truck, and picked her up physically by the neck. She took a second to get her feet under her, and then followed him.
Dawn peeked over the hills to our east, lighting the thin morning fog. With our two main hidden backup groups hidden no longer, the tension between us and Bass’s Hunter group ratcheted one level higher. We didn’t give them much wiggle room, and soon they would come after us, regardless of the odds.
With Emperor Caveworm’s help, we would win that fight. On the other side of the ruins, one good Hunter charge and Enkidu and his forces would be out of my trap. Keaton’s people and the Duende group weren’t close to large enough to stop him.
Mizar headed around the Inferno Rest Home rubble, toward Enkidu.
I licked my lips, and made a command decision. “Follow Mizar,” I told the rest of my family. Sky rustled after me, and hid us in the foggy morning light. Lori finished her work and began quietly moving forward, lost in her own thoughts, as spooked as Gail by the assassinations. Lori lightly rubbed a spot on her chest, where she once caught a Monster round.
We could afford this diversion. Bass’s Hunters wouldn’t be going anywhere. We could charge later.
I decided to trust Mizar.
Emperor Caveworm
“Treachery, from the Commander?” Hunter Tarn said. He lay flat on the rocky ground, at least as flat as the pitched slope of the bluff permitted.
“I’m not sure,” the Emperor said from the shelter of the Hunter’s massive moose form. “She didn’t agree to stay on the line with Hecate and her group, and those new reinforcements that just appeared out of nowhere more than make up for her moving.”
Puzzling out the Commander’s actions certainly beat listening to Del’s blow-by-blow description of her family’s part in the war. On the other side. Boring, boring, boring, especially when Del made up the details she couldn’t metasense, such as “Promise frowns as a spray of bullets flies by.” Proud as she was of how well they were doing – that is, no casualties yet – the Emperor decided it was a good thing Del wasn’t trying to earn her living with her prose.
The Emperor pointed. “See that brunette, there, indistinct because of sensory futzes?”
“Yes.”
“That’s Focus Rickenbach. The Director.”
Tarn whistled at the quality of the Focus’s metasense shields. No mere Focus, eh? “That’s Armenigar,” Tarn said, pointing in a slightly different direction. “So she survived. Why’s she riding that Monster?”
“Battle damage, lost limbs, the usual,” Del said. “I think we should surrender.”
“Huntress Sokolnik!”
“Emperor, I know you want to fight Hecate. That transcends the Law. But staying Emperor? Surely that’s the Law talking.”
“I hear you,” the Emperor said. “The answer is ‘no’. I have no authority to surrender to. We haven’t yet fought the Commander and her troops. If they attack us, we shall defend ourselves.”
He could sense that the young Arm didn’t agree with his decision.
“Come over here, Arête,” he said, and made it an order. “Make sure I’m hidden from the enemy.”
“Yes, sir,” Arête said.
Now the young Arm fumed. She couldn’t balk his orders without abandoning Arête.
Gilgamesh
“What the fuck are you doing over here?” Carol said. “We got you healed to command, not go haring off with us.” He brushed past two crouching Inferno soldiers, keeping an eye out for the Man’s helicopter.
“Too many commanders, not enough troops,” Gilgamesh said. “I felt the pull to be with the family.”
Carol swiveled her head, and growled predator. Yes, Gail and her entire bodyguard entourage followed them as they moved around the edge of the rubble.
“We’re in uncharted waters again, Carol,” Gilgamesh said. “Don’t you feel it?”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “No. I chose to follow Mizar.”
Gilgamesh shrugged.
“And I refuse to believe our household superfuckingorganism is influencing this in any way.”
Lori smiled and continued forward. The crowd parted for her like the Red Sea for Moses.
“What is our dear and slightly still too uncivilized Chimera-mate up to, anyway?” Gail asked, when she caught up. “What were you talking about when you got so rudely interrupted?”
“I don’t have any fucking idea,” Carol said. “He’s come up with some trick or something to stop the fight, but he won’t tell me what it is. He promised it isn’t a suicide charge or anything similar and military.” Carol’s voice lowered. “If it is, this experiment’s over and he’s a goddamned bear rug.”
Gilgamesh stopped as if someone hit his head with a sledgehammer. He knew exactly what Mizar wanted. That was his responsibility, dammit! Hell, Mizar would need his help, despite his recently healed wounds. He took off at a dead run, trying not to think of the fact he likely just got shot by a Monster-stopper bullet simply to keep him from helping Mizar. He kept Mizar in his metasense and cleared the way through the milling army with his charisma. He wasn’t as effective as Lori, but he made rapid progress.
People scattered in his wake, because Carol followed at his heels, jogging, muttering nasties at him and using her predator. Comparing him to Sky. And Gail. And Lori. And cursing the whole idea of Major Transform heroics.
Perhaps his Tiamat needed to look into a mirror again, someday soon.
“Straw boss, you have the weapons, watch the air,” Gilgamesh sent, over his walkie.
“Already figured that one out, kiddo,” she sent back. Which didn’t surprise him at all.
“I challenge you, Enkidu,” Mizar said, an earth-shaking Chimeraic roar.
“You are no longer fit to lead the Hunters,” Mary Sibrian said into the crowd of Hunters, as she stood in her red silks at Mizar’s side. They climbed up on a rocky outcropping at the edge of the line, on the northeast side of the Oak Valley complex. They weren’t where they appeared to the eyes and metasense to be, one of Mizar’s better tricks. Hell, they weren’t even where they smelled to be. “You let the Law get twisted and broken by Arm Bass, who you call Huntress Hecate, and she now commands as much as you do.” Her voice was the rich music of a trained singer.
“Even I could command the Hunters better than you, ‘General’,” Duke Hoskins said, using the sneering voice he regularly aimed at normals and lesser-ranked Transforms. He had joined them when he saw Mizar pass by; he too understood Mizar’s plan. “You’re a loser. You only win when you go up against defenseless Focuses.”
Gilgamesh climbed up on th
e boulder with the three, fighting panic from the situation and pain from the recently healed wound. What if the Man found a way to take another shot at him? Mizar’s protections weren’t perfect, and unlike the rest of them, in his current condition, a near miss could take him down.
Ah, the mirror! He reached into the pocket and brought out the vision-skewing mirror, the one he got from Thomas the Dreamer, back in Chicago, in return for a case of battle golf bombs. The mirror made Gilgamesh appear to be several feet to either the left or right of his real position. He had saved the mirror for his next close contact battle, not for use against enemy snipers making impossible shots.
Guess that would show him.
From on top of the outcrop, he saw into the milling Hunters, their Guys, Gals and Monsters, and the living terror of the Hunter illusionary ghosts. Several of the Guys and Gals aimed firearms at them, but no one in the Hunter pack moved. All their eyes were on Mizar. Gilgamesh couldn’t see Enkidu among them.
“I made you, Enkidu, I share responsibility for your actions, and your depredations sicken me. Are you afraid to show yourself to a mere Crow?” Gilgamesh said, as loud a shout as he could manage. Several of the illusory Hunter ghosts turned and looked at him, and he quailed. As far as he knew, the Hunter ghosts couldn’t affect the real world, but they were still terrifying. He pulled desperately on the family tags, and barely quieted his terror.
Gilgamesh’s shout attracted Enkidu’s attention. Enkidu stood from where he helped a group of near human form Hunters clear rubble off their trapped comrades. He shook dust from his fur and strode forward on all fours, still in his full combat form, the great piebald wolf. Enkidu didn’t appear damaged by the fight.
“A challenge from you idiots?” Enkidu said, and then laughed. The Hunters laughed with him. “I’ll drink the blood of every damned one of you. You’re too weak and your minds are addled. When we’ve recovered from your treachery, we’ll destroy you!”
Enkidu roared, and the Hunters roared with him. The Terror fought and tore at Gilgamesh’s sanity, opening old mental wounds he thought long healed. In his mind, he saw Melanie’s face as she told him she would be fine, but that she lost the baby. In his mind, he saw the ruins of the Branton, the destruction meted out in Chicago.
The Terror was for someone else, not for him. He threw it off.
“Never again,” Gilgamesh said, whispering to himself. Enkidu’s war against the weak and helpless stopped here.
“A leader doesn’t hide behind his minions,” Mary Sibrian said. “Any man I’d respect defends his leadership when he’s challenged. Your failure is obvious to anyone who has eyes. Your enemies see it. Even your comrades recognize it, in the dust they taste today, and in all the times they’ve followed you into war.” Sibrian and Enkidu shared a juice link, but for the first time, the Cause used the linkage effectively. The shock of Mary’s presence and words froze Enkidu in place. Her Arm predator-backed words disturbed his thoughts of war and battle tactics. Engaged the side of him he denied.
“I challenge you in my human form, Hunter,” Mizar said. Gilgamesh could practically see Enkidu’s head spinning from the difficulty of confronting both Mizar and Sibrian at once. “I challenge you in your beastly combat form, which won’t help you at all. Your leadership is suspect, fractured, ill, and divided. A Crow sneers at your orders and proclaims himself Emperor over all Hunters. A Crow! A Huntress has risen to command in your name, an Arm who commands Hunters! Your Colonels, your most trusted officers, even they conspire against you! How much farther can you fall and still claim to be the Hunters’ General? Look at the hill on the other side of the road, where a Pack Mistress – a Focus! – stands in broad daylight, commanding Hunters by the side of a Monster Crow.”
Gilgamesh looked, and beside the ruins of Sinclair stood Focus Elspeth, illuminated by a rising sun whose light so far only touched the high places. She raised her arms to the crowd from a thousand feet away.
The Hunters around Enkidu backed away from him, including the ghostly Hunters. Some Hunters more than backed away, and took their packs and started to climb on the rubble and ruins of the nursing home. Enkidu didn’t miss the quiet retreats, but his hot glare only held those Hunters closest to him. One of those around him, a reptilian Hunter, snapped at Enkidu in challenge himself, quieted only after Enkidu backhanded him in the head.
“The Law is a lie, Enkidu,” Gilgamesh said, repeating the Progenitor’s constant whisper. “The Law failed you.” Enkidu’s head snapped toward Gilgamesh, but Enkidu quailed, not him. Gilgamesh realized he shouldn’t discount his own effect on Enkidu. Enkidu couldn’t ignore the Crow who nursed him through his transformation. The great piebald wolf twitched in uncertainty, buffeted by Hoskins, Mizar and Gilgamesh, all while pinned in place by Mary Sibrian.
Mizar leapt forward, inside the circle of living and dead now surrounding Enkidu. “The Law has indeed failed you. Look at me, look! I am the Chimera. I need no Law. I’m not a Noble. I am Chimera only! The Law Has Failed. It isn’t necessary. Look at me!”
Enkidu looked, as did the other Hunters.
“I am Mizar! I lead all Chimeras! The Law is a lie!”
Behind Gilgamesh, people began to chant his words. “The Law is a lie! The Law is a lie!” Goosebumps covered Gilgamesh’s skin, and sudden sense made him sidle over to Duke Hoskins. Duke Hoskins glanced at Gilgamesh and nodded. “He found grounds for a challenge.” Then he turned back to face Enkidu and bellowed at earth-rumbling volume “The Law is a lie!”
Of course, Gilgamesh thought. Mizar and Enkidu were Chimeras. A challenge needed grounds. “The Law is a lie!” he shouted.
“The Law is a lie! The Law is a lie!” The chant grew louder and louder, as it echoed through the lines of the Commander’s army, on the mouths of all the normals, Transforms, and Major Transforms. Gilgamesh blinked as the near dawn dimmed and the night sky appeared again, and in the false night sky the disdainful aurora of the Progenitors showed. Gilgamesh turned to his left, and as he expected, the Commander stood by his side, along with Gail, Sky and Lori. Working juice and dross together, led by the Commander, they amplified the message of the lie of the Law to the point where several of the Hunters bowed in their places, as did scores of their Monster women. The Hunter illusion ghosts opened their mouths to roar, but no sound, no Terror, came out. On the rubble behind the combatants, Bass’s Monsters, Hunters and others climbed up to watch, though Bass herself did not appear.
Enkidu leapt, and Mizar stepped forward to grapple with him.
“It’s the end of the beginning.”
Dolores Sokolnik
“They’re fighting,” Del said.
“Let me use your eyes,” the Emperor said. Del thought for a moment, then stepped over and touched the Emperor’s back. Behind and above, ignoring Arm protocols, Billington’s Arm pack stood and watched. From the roof of a suburban house less than a thousand feet away from the fight, Keaton stood with Focus Biggioni and a living shadow. Guru Shadow. All of them stood out in the open. Standing far too close to them was Colonel Loess and the Hunter and pack members of Enkidu’s stealth squad, the one the Emperor claimed he had suborned. They watched as well, though they didn’t let go of their captured opponents, which included a Focus and a Crow Del didn’t recognize. Del suspected the fight went worse for the defenders than it initially appeared. Even some of the defenders on the far side of the nursing home climbed up on the rubble, almost within touching distance of the Hunters and Monsters, and watched.
“You want to surrender?” Del said to the Emperor, while watching the loud-voiced Chimera who named himself Mizar. “Surrender to him.” He would make one hell of an Arm, able to fight with such talent and grace in his human form, Del thought. Mizar must be unstoppable, utterly unstoppable, in his beastly combat form. He must be Beast, the Chimera the Commander went to the Yukon to fetch. The emotion that overcame her was awe.
“No questions about that,” Emperor Caveworm said. “To a Chimera like that, you surrender. He�
��s magnificent. What are they all shouting?”
“They shout ‘The Law is a lie’, sir,” Pack Mistress Elspeth said.
“Now do they? Of course it’s a lie. What lies have they given themselves over to, though? The invincibility of the Commander, perhaps? Or the inevitability of the Cause? We who were betrayed, who have seen so many lies, know better.”
“Not everything is a lie, sir,” Del said. There, on the rubble pile, guarded by two feline Monsters, stood a Focus. Del narrowed her eyes, so that all she saw was Focus Hargrove. “Was Beth a lie, sir?”
“Damn you, Del,” Emperor Caveworm said, his voice low, very low and quiet. Still with his sight slaved to Del’s eyes. “Damn you.” He paused for a moment. “Have Arête start the process on us. Of course the Law is a lie.”
Carol Hancock
There was a quality of slow motion disaster in this fight. Events slipped away from me, my world ended, my entire life since my transformation falling in defeat. From her bed in the medic area, next to Sir Dan Freeman’s bed, Amy Haggerty, her left shoulder nearly blown off her body by the Man, held Hank’s hands in hers, and meditated. Someone must have ferried Hank back to the medic area after Mizar and the rest of us took off. She healed herself, using her skills and Hank’s knowledge, as Hank had hit the wall, too fatigued now to heal others after exhausting his juice use limits for the second time in one day. He learned an important lesson about the limitations of his Transform capabilities today. Amy? She wanted back on the field of battle before the fight ended, but it would never happen. “Sinclair said that the Chimeras define the civilization, Hank,” she said. “We’re being defined right now.”
Keaton and the cadaverous Colonel Loess stood twenty feet apart, watching the fight but with one eye on the other. Keaton’s right hand gripped the neck of a Crow marked by the Law, the talented Crow who had recently stabilized the stealth capabilities of the Hunters’ crack stealth squad. Colonel Loess returned the favor, having found a way to capture Focus Mimi Minton and Crow Flowerpot with his powerful Chimera charisma. Those two stood with the enemy, eyes glazed over.
An Age Without A Name (The Cause Book 5) Page 38