by M. J Kreyzer
“And you said my tactics were too extreme.” He said with a discomforting smile. “All of you. Complaint after complaint about how sick I am and how perverted I am yet here I stand having done what all of you combined could never do how many decades?”
None of them gave any kind of emotional response. Frenz’s words were bothering them, though. That much was clear. The fact that none of them had the courage to stop him was like sustenance to Frenz.
“Praemon is back under our control for the first time in over four years.” Frenz went on, completely pleased with himself. “The biggest threat to the Commune has been disrupted in every way and now it’s become a simple matter of tracking down the Darks that escaped Praemon. We’ve got a good portion of the Legionnaire navy scouring the Byfayne mountains and have dozens of Forge tank emplacements set up along a large percentage of mountain tops in that region. They pick up a life signature that matches or’s similar to any homosapien be they human, Vampire, untransformed werewolf, Barbarian or Durant and they’ll blow whosever guts they are all over the hillside. All surrounding cities have been restocked with troops from the International Army and the First Legionnaire and are keeping a close eye on everybody who enters or leaves those cities. We’ve got all shipping routes being tightly monitored with routine checkpoints along the major railways. As for the prisoners…” Frenz stopped himself, looking away from Trey and thinking to himself. He zoned out and smiled, as though remembering a funny joke and rethought his previous statement. “Talking about prisoner treatment would be irrelevant now, wouldn’t it?”
“Most of those people weren’t even Darks, General.” Lynch stated firmly. “There are thousands of innocent people lying slaughtered in Praemon. There’s absolutely no way that we’ll be able hide that from the rest of the citizenry.”
“Then we play the blame game like we always have.” Frenz replied nonchalantly. “Just plant a headline saying ‘Darks Mercilessly Slaughter Thousands’ and put it in every major newspaper, slap a news story on the evening news, start a ‘Praemon Relief Fund’ back with our usual celebrity pals with all contributions going towards the poor and unfortunate escapees and call it good. In fact, with something like that it’d make the remaining Darks look worse and make us look even better. They’ll watch and read all that crap, say ‘Those poor, poor people’, send the money in. We collect the money and… Hell, we could even make a few bucks off of this.”
“What about the Dark sleeper cells?” Lynch asked, moving the conversation along. “The Dark followers, the Relias disciples, how do you plan on eliminating them?”
Frenz intertwined his fingers on the tabletop and shrugged. “Monitor phone calls, Subnet messages, make raids on suspected hideouts, typical detective work. But I think you’re getting away from the main point.”
“Which is?”
“That the Darks have been destroyed.” Frenz said with a condescending smile. “They’re gone. Finished. And now all we have left is-“
“Luke Semprys is still alive.” Lynch stated firmly, the tone of his voice making it perfectly clear he still regarded Frenz as a failure. “The Ditrinity is still alive. You haven’t killed them. They aren’t Darks. They have their own plans, and until they’re dead you haven’t won yet.”
That was the worst thing President Lynch could’ve said. Of course Frenz knew that Luke was still out there. What, had he been living in a hole? The fact that he had to bring it up made Frenz want to rip his chest open.
“Semprys and his groupies are just another speed bump that we’re going to have to deal with.” Frenz said, controlling his tongue. “Give me time and I’ll deal with it.”
Lynch nodded and said nothing.
“And what happens when he starts coming after us!” Count Valkner interjected. “If he’s having that much fun with the Legionnaire then think of what he’d do with one of us!”
“Shut your mouth!” Frenz yelled, the vein in his neck pulsing. “The Counts have more stabilizers in their use than the entire Legionnaire!”
“That’s a lie!”
“It’s hyperbole, you dumb prick!”
“Enough!” Lynch said, saying what he had to only loud enough to be heard. Valkner and Frenz went quiet, though the Count cowered and Frenz boiled. Lynch was calm and collected and showed no signs of discomfort. “Now, what are you going to do with Luke Semprys?”
“What you think!” Frenz replied, his temper going further from his control. “I’m going to find him and rip his lungs out!”
“Stop blowing your own whistle and just tell me how you plan on tracking him down.”
Frenz stopped speaking. He hated the man; he hated President Lynch almost as much as he hated Luke. There was something about Lynch that just pissed Frenz right off. For one thing, it seemed that Lynch was completely impervious to Frenz’s attempts at telepathy and mind control; he was one of the few suffered nothing from Frenz’s mental assaults.
“We have a mole.” Frenz growled as he controlled his breathing. “Several, actually. One we keep for good measure and the other we’ve only barely acquired. But he’s told us all we need to know to find both the Ditrinity and whoever it is they’re escorting.”
His face remaining stern, is was clear that Lynch was still skeptical.
“We’re right behind them.” Frenz said, a quiet growl issuing from his throat. “There’s only a few places in the Pretoratan that they can go and we’re running out of places to look. We’ll find them, alright? We’ll find them, and every last one of them will die.”
Chapter 19
“Everybody up!” Luke shouted as he slid out of the sloping chute onto the tunnel floor. There was a hollow clap as he landed right next to Pitt’s head, tearing him screaming from his sleep. Scarlet flecks speckled his entire figure, covering his long coat, running up his arms while dried blood stuck to his left cheek. “We’re moving in ten minutes so I want everybody to be packed and on the surface as soon as possible.”
The members of Rush groaned as they pulled themselves exhaustedly from their beds. Immediately Luke located Tess, seeing only her head visible beyond the edge of the small tunnel she slept in. It was encouraging to see that her face was hopeful upon his arrival. But seeing him looking at her caused Tess to withdraw herself and gather up her things as though she hadn’t even noticed him standing there.
Groggily they obeyed, pulling their gear together, rolling up their bedding, and fastening up their packs in preparation for the journey. As they readied themselves Luke studied the new group to give himself an idea as of what he could expect.
It was pathetically obvious that Seraphine would be a bit of a burden. She was the reason that this entire operation was taking place, sure, but getting her through the kind of terrain they would be traversing while being pursued by the Legionnaire would be a full-time job all on its own; even if the operation didn’t depend on her, it would be a taxing effort to undertake what they had to. But again, the success of the operation depended entirely on her so it was an inconvenience that they would just have to endure.
Folding up her bedding in an abnormally slow fashion was Tess. It was obvious that she was making deliberate efforts to ignore his presence. Luke could read her emotions clearly off her face though; acting was something that Luke’s gene pool lacked. Regardless of what her reaction to his presence might be, it was an indescribable feeling just seeing her alive and well. There was no prayer that Luke could possibly utter that could convey his gratitude for her survival at Praemon and her evading capture for as long as she had. Her thoughts were muddled though and it was obvious she was blocking his telepathy. It was the most basic method for blocking telepathy; erratic and random thought. They’d have time later to talk though.
Serenity Blake was somebody that Luke knew would be one of Rush’s stronger points. She was well-armed, determined, and judging by her body she was very much an athlete. On top of that she was a Scarsborough; chances were she could put up quite a fight. But more than that, she had a
future that made Luke more aware of her abilities than she was.
The other three were strangers to Luke, but he what information he needed from shallow mind-reading. The weird shaped Demolitionist was Trennan van Kristik. With his laugh quiet, Luke took a moment of silent and humorous reflection on how a man with that kind of physique was able to survive in the First Legionnaire. He looked through what had happened in the man’s recent memory and, from what he could see, Kristik was stubborn but cooperative and productive when the occasion absolutely called for it. Then there was the shorter kid. He was young, probably annoying, but smart, brilliant actually, and care-free for the most part.
But the big one might prove to be trouble. He was too stupid to know he wasn’t smart. But what was worse was that he had an ego: a big one. It wasn’t uncommon for Berserkers and Monoliths to get smug and over-confident because of their size; most people in the world barely reached six foot and being twice as tall as the average person would tend to inflate one’s ego. There was even a psychological term that had been invented for those types of pervading mindsets: Acute Big-man Syndrome.
A cluster of pebbles tumbled down the chute to the surface. Luke sidestepped and Hendrick slid out of the chute, landing in a crouch and getting to his feet.
“Careful,” Hendrick said while elbowing Luke in the side. “the big one’s a bit of a douche.”
With his puffed out chest and the challenging glares Muldoon kept giving them, Luke folded his arms and hummed. “Noted. Alright,” he said loudly. “After Ranjak and Thompson bought it which one of you took charge of Rush?”
Pitt’s hand made it halfway in the air as Muldoon’s voice stopped him short.
“That’s me. I’m the one who took charge of Rush.”
“In complete sentences too!” Hendrick exclaimed in accompaniment to his clapping. “And watch the decibels, we’re in a small space here.”
“Get over here.” Luke said, waving Muldoon over. Kristik came with him and the rest of the group gathered around.
“What ya need?”
“Your plan.” Luke said as he moved over to the side of the cave, finding a branching tunnel and sitting down on its edge. “I know what your objective is. What I want is you to tell me how you’re getting there and any other-“
“I thought that you were-“
“Shut up when I’m talking.” Luke said quickly. “You got a map or something we can look at?”
Muldoon immediately shook his head. He folded his arms indignantly and glared at Luke. Luke saw his indignation but didn’t really care. With almost every Berserker and especially the Monoliths that he had dealt with, he had put up with this kind of behavior. If Muldoon was anything like those others then he’d be doing whatever he could to achieve some sort of dominance over Luke.
“You.” Luke went on, turning to Pitt and gesturing towards Muldoon. “Does he have a map?”
Pitt laughed, reclining on the curving tunnel floor as he pointed towards Muldoon’s pack. “Pull the map out.” Amidst vain attempts at subduing his mirth, Pitt looked around at everybody. “He highlighted the route in bright red just in case he couldn’t pick up on the thick black marker that Thompson had laid down.”
Luke faced Muldoon again, not at all surprised at his antagonism. After taking a moment to give Pitt a dirty look, Muldoon pulled his pack from his shoulders and dropped it on the floor. He pulled the top open and sorted through the pack’s contents. The pack was as big as Luke but it was surprising how fast Muldoon was able to find it; it looked like it was sitting just on the surface. Begrudgingly, Muldoon handed the map over to Luke. He snatched it from Muldoon’s hand, found an empty space on the floor and spread it out.
It was a map of the entire Pretoratan province; they were somewhere in the upper left corner to the southwest of Praemon. Pyre, their objective, was in the lower right. There were crude marks of varying colors that were scattered across the map: misshapen circles, crooked lines, hastily placed dots. Everybody knelt around the map as Luke examined it himself, reaching satisfaction and beginning his questioning.
“I’m not exactly a geographical expert on the Pretoratan so somebody enlighten me what’s going on here.”
Pitt pulled himself closer and stopped. He looked over to Muldoon who sat in silence and averted his eyes like a pouting child. Pitt cocked his head, accepting the fact that Muldoon wouldn’t be providing the explanation and pointed a finger down at the map.
“It doesn’t take a genius to know that we’re about… here.” Pitt said, pointing to the green area to the southwest of Praemon. “That’s including my estimate of where we ended up after our chipper subterranean excursion.”
Only a few people were able to make it into the circle. Sable, Hendrick, Luke and Morlo formed one half of the circle and Kristik, Muldoon, Pitt and Serenity formed the other half. The others stood silently behind the group and paid attention; none of them were educated on the surrounding area either.
“Now Thompson went through this pretty fast but I think I was able to pick up a general sense of what’s around here.” Pitt said, scratching the patchy stubble that was starting to grow on his chin. He set a finger down on the red line just beyond where he had guessed them to be. “Right here is where our first stop was going to be.” Pitt rested back and yawned, rubbed some of the sleep from his eyes and went on. “We were supposed to restock our food in Hyli- right here- but after Praemon the Legionnaires have most likely set up some pretty strict checkpoints to make sure that the Darks can’t take refuge in the surrounding cities.”
Luke looked the map over and quickly considered what Pitt had explained. “So how long can you make your food stores last?”
“Well,” Pitt answered. “That depends. We barely grabbed anything on our way out. Got enough for two, maybe three days. Our next stop was down this way in Leramato where we had a contact waiting for us.”
“And who is he?”
“He’s an Enforcer.” Said Pitt. “Came over from the south-central Marsecta area with a few pals. Alighieri apparently lined him up for us and has some stolen Mysto-class battlecruiser and he’s gonna sneak us in to Pyre on it.”
“Better plan than I thought.” Luke admitted, examining the map further.
“It’s another seventy to eighty miles before we get out of the Byfayne mountains and get into the Bremmonni Badlands.” Pitt said, pointing out the areas of which he spoke on the map. “Once we get to that point we’re going to have to get creative on how we cover those last ten miles to Leramato. There’s nothing to give us cover there. Bremmonni is-“
“I know the badlands.” Luke said, looking the map over and noticing a large circled area to the northwest with lines crossing through it. “What’s that?”
Pitt gave Luke a sly, questioning look. “What, I thought you knew the area.”
Luke tapped his finger on the map. “Just tell me.”
“Looks like I know something you don’t.” Pitt muttered. “So, anyway, when we were planning this out Alighieri left us a little buffer zone, or an area where we could alter our path to avoid unforeseeable and potentially dangerous situations. So this area …” Pitt pointed to two blue lines on either side of the path that had been drawn for them. “This is the area that is safe for us to travel. We know that Legionnaire encampments are relatively sparse in those areas and we should… or should’ve before they invaded Praemon… be able to pass through without seeing any Legionnaires. The areas outside those blue lines indicate areas where we aren’t sure are safe and probably shouldn’t venture into.”
“Okay,” Luke replied, the tone of his voice suggesting that Pitt’s reply wasn’t the answer he was looking for. “But that’s not what I asked. What’s the big red circle f-“
“The big red circle is-“
“Stop interrupting m-“
“You stop interrupting me!”
With an irritated groan Luke stopped himself from throttling the kid until his legs stopped kicking. He quickly regained his compos
ure and motioned for Pitt to continue.
“Thank you.” Pitt said. “So what were we… the red circle. Right. Anyway, the red circle is a place where we absolutely cannot go.”
Looking the map over, Sable broke the glance and looked to Pitt. “Why? What’s in that area?”
“Bad things.” Kristik said, his voice snappy. “Biggum bad things.”
“This right here is the Sestik Mountain Range.” Pitt said, returning Sable’s glance. “We’re talking some crazy crap.”
Hendrick leaned in closer. “What kinda crazy crap we talkin’ here?”
“The craziest.” Pitt said bluntly. “You think that the Legionnaire’s bad, just wait til you hear about this little place here. Starting right about here,” Pitt pointed to the bottom edge of the circle. “That’s where the mountains and the badlands start crawling with all sorts of demonic critters. Styklers, carnivorous Quos, those are just the beginning. I’m talking Hoppers, those nasty little armless lizards that live in hives, grow as big as a wolf and’ll use your body for an edible nest. There’s Wylsks-“
“Wylsks?” Serenity asked.
“Cannibals. Predators.” Pitt elaborated. “Nocturnal. Tall humanoids with an eerie blue skin with bean-pole legs and pot-bellies. Nobody knows much because anybody who’s tried to study them disappears or their bodies are found with only a few of the parts left that they think are icky.”
Seraphine shuddered and squeezed herself tighter. Luke frowned. He knew the Sestiks. He’d heard horror stories about them from dozens of travelers over the years.
“Razorbacks?” He asked after a moment of thought.