The Great Game Trilogy

by O. J. Lowe

  Her smile was back, wider than ever. Truly it was a creepy expression, Roper decided as he watched her stood there like a statue, only the barest hint of animation except when it suited her. “I did it. I found the Divines. Well, most of them. I found my way into their home, found their secrets and well, it made me realise one thing. There’s all that knowledge, all that power and a truly shocking lack of desire to use it. I concluded being human might not be all it’s cracked up to be. But divinity, well that surely has just as many drawbacks. I detest apathy and I saw it in spades up there.” She threw out both arms and her smile threatened to crack open her face. “Truly, I desired to be something more. Not one or the other. Something new. Something worthy. This little interruption, well I suppose you could say it is to announce my ascension. Worship, I don’t expect that. Not yet. One day, you might worship me as you might Gilgarus or Melarius or Griselle. But you know what you should do? You should fear me. Starting today, I’m the new boss.”

  “Is she serious with this?” Okocha asked. “Is it even possible what she’s on about here?” He sagged back in his seat, shaking his head. “I miss the simple life.”

  “You and me both,” Noorland agreed. “I don’t have a buggering clue anymore. This whole world isn’t what it used to be.”

  “Al.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What if it’s not rubbish? What if she’s telling the truth?”

  Noorland said nothing. Just stared at the screen, his eyes flickering back and forth. Finally, he sighed. “If she is, then we really are so screwed, I can’t even imagine it. Who’s already on site?”

  “Roper, Montgomery, Wade, Sullivan, Caldwell, Khan… Oh and the director. Brendan as well. Hopelessly outnumbered.” He sagged back in his seat, shaking his head.

  “Shit, this is going to turn into a bloodbath,” Noorland said. “Hopefully she keeps talking until Derenko and his team can get there.”

  Neither of them voiced the fears they were both privately feeling, knowing even with Derenko’s team, the numbers might still be too great for them to counter effectively. Instead, Okocha studied a screen in front of him and hissed angrily. “Reinforcements have been delayed,” he said thickly. “We’re trying to get other Unisco teams on site, but these fuckers are in the streets as well as the stadium. It’s turning into a bloodbath out there. This gets better and bloody better!”

  “You should fear me,” Claudia repeated. “Because you don’t know what I’m capable of yet. You should fear for your lives, for your families, for your homes and your livelihoods, everything you hold dear. Because there will be no respite. I am going to change the world. There will be a remaking. And you might just live through it. Remember, as far as you’re concerned, I’m the ultimate authority now. There is no other. I trump your kings and your presidents, I trump those unworthy for your worship and your love.” Some people did start to jeer again, and she let out a cruel laugh. “Of course, I understand some of you might reject that notion. After all, the faith is strong. It wouldn’t have survived this long was it not. And I realised that even though I make the offer of the carrot to you, some of you will inevitably prefer the stick. That’s what you are. Stubborn, arrogant, unwilling to accept change. So, a warning, shall we?”

  All around the stadium, flashes of light were appearing, spirits forming into existence. Somehow Nick knew what was coming even before they were fully formed. Those slathering jaws, the three curved horns protruding from the canine heads, the onyx black fur and the muscular bodies, dozens upon dozens and dozens of the same identical spirits. Doom dogs, everyone knew about them, though some people called them devil hounds instead. They were supposed to only be a myth.

  Oh, we’re fucked!

  “But that is just the appetiser,” Claudia continued. The hounds hadn’t attacked yet, maybe they were awaiting her order. She looked ready to give it, her eyes now manic and her hair wild. Something had snapped in her, maybe it was the idea of an audience, maybe something hadn’t been right to start with. Either way, she was lapping all the attention up, the fear and the hatred, the pure nervous shock emanating all around the stadium. “For those who truly doubt my claim as the ruler of the new world order, I show you this. The main event. I will show you fear as for the first time in millennia, a god walks these kingdoms.” Beneath her feet, the ground had started to crack and splinter, smoke billowing up around her. Scott and Theo moved to bring back their spirits, they’d already started to edge away from the battlefield. Both looked understandably worried about being closest to Claudia as a great head poked out of the ground, lizard-like and coal black with a scarlet patterning across it, pushing through the earth like it was water. As it pulled its body up out of the hole, it continued to grow and grow, from the size of a speeder, to the size of a house, to almost the size of one of the huge island hotels.

  “I give you Cacaxis!”

  She was out of the way in no time at all as giant clawed hands ripped away at the earth, tearing at it like it was paper, this time the panic was real and people in the lower rows of the stadium were starting to flee, the threat of the doom dogs and the men with blasters suddenly a very distant second place to the giant spirit in front of them. And that was when everything went to absolute madness, laser fire and flames suddenly everywhere, found himself amidst a maelstrom of activity, he could hear spirits forming into existence, he should have guessed some people would run while some would fight and before he knew it, he had one of the armed men in his sights, close enough to reach. Nick moved, gave him a brutal left-handed punch to the throat putting him down on the ground, hard, a boot to the face and he found one of the weapons in his hands. BRO-60 assault rifle. Just what he’d always wanted. Good enough for despots, not good enough for Unisco. Irony, if nothing else.

  Beyond that, he didn’t think, just put two of the closest guards down with well-placed shots neither saw coming. Somewhere around the arena, he heard in a dozen different places the hiss and roar of something vaguely familiar and as he allowed himself a second to look up, he saw a dozen different blades of light and energy light up around the stadium.

  Fuck! This could be good, or it could be really, really bad. He’d seen those weapons before. Memories of his encounter with Wim Carson were still in his head. Either way he couldn’t worry about that right now. Cacaxis was roaring, swiping at the structure of the stadium with front legs the size of mag-rail carriages, each bow shattering stone and metal. It let loose a uniblast into the higher echelons of the stands, punching a ragged burnt hole straight through. The thing stank like sweat and steel, smoke and smog and no matter how much he tried to ignore it, it was permeating into his head.

  Hmm… He continued to fire, trying to pick off any guards close by, trying to keep out an eye for any of the doom dogs. Get swamped by them and he would be in trouble, some of the crowd had stood to fight around him and their spirits were keeping them at bay, but always there would be more of them.

  He grabbed his summoner, slipped a crystal in, a very distinctive crystal and activated it. Unialiv appeared, springing into action immediately at the command and grabbed one of the dogs by the scruff of the neck. Nick jerked his head towards Cacaxis and the spirit pitched it neat, hurled it straight towards the giant lizard. Perfect throw, it hit Cacaxis and bounced off its shoulder, sliding into the abyss below its feet.

  “Unialiv,” Nick said. He might need to give it another name, amidst everything that had happened, it had been the furthest thing from his mind. This was the first time he had even unleashed it, not even thought of modifying it, but he had a feeling it might be immune to it. As it turned to him, he could see the hole in its chest that had failed to heal where he’d stabbed it with Sharon’s weapon “See if you can do something about that big lizard. Anything. Just try and distract it for a few moments.”

  Two roars rang out, the first proud and loud but ultimately drowned by the second one as the great black dragon swept down and sprayed Cacaxis’ back with orange energy, leaving burn
s on the scales but doing little other damage.

  Bakaru!

  Nick glanced up, saw Wade stood on the upper tier of the stands, pistol in one hand, other at his ear barking out orders, summoner hung around his neck. He fumbled his own earpiece out of his pocket, just as he saw Wade’s arm rise, his X7 bounce three times and one of the Coppinger soldiers went down. All the way across the stands, small pockets of resistance had broken out, any Unisco agents among the crowd, any callers with the stomach for a scrap; all of them doing what they could to survive. He shoved his earpiece in and caught the back end of a conversation.

  “… Down here, need a wider entrance,” Derenko was yelling. “Beresutzky, take that wall down. Everyone, please remain calm!” He heard a trumpet, followed by crashing and screaming, roars and bellows. It sounded just as bad outside as it did in here.

  “You here, Roper?” Wade asked. “You want to double team this big son of a bitch?” Even from a distance, he saw him jerk his head towards Cacaxis.

  “Think that’s blasphemy?” Sullivan. “Where’s Brendan and Arnholt?”

  “Last I heard, they were in the studio with Khan!” Somewhere in the stadium, Montgomery was panting heavily. Laser fire spotted the sound waves around her communication. “I’m going to try and get to them.”

  “Wade, it’d be my pleasure,” Nick said. “Anyone who can take out these damn dogs, get on it. They’re the real problem.” He ducked a shot, let out a flurry of return fire one-handed over a cluster of melting seat. “Don’t let them swarm you or you’re done for!” Above him, Unialiv shot into the air, both arms out in front of him and struck hard into Cacaxis’ throat, a blow which brought a hiss from those huge jaws as it staggered backwards. If it fell and hit the stands, there’d be even more trouble. It was easily heavy enough to crush anyone beneath it.

  He had to hurl himself backwards, jump over some seating and come to a painful landing on the hard floor, a hot fire jarring up his ribs as he caught it against a sharp-edged step. Still the alternative had been getting shot so he couldn’t complain too much, he’d seen the blaster fire out the corner of his vision and reacted accordingly. Fighting on two fronts was hard, very hard. Being honest, it was almost impossible, especially when your life depended on it.

  Deep breath, Nick heard a crash and a more muted roar, temporary silence from Cacaxis, the metal around its great head ringing as Unialiv smote it a great blow to the face. A mental cheer, he soon found himself flinching as the giant lizard let loose a burst of iron tinged fire towards his spirit. Perhaps he shouldn’t have worried. Unialiv spun away gracefully, formed a blade of pure green energy and struck at the face, the air thick with smoke from its great mouth. Wade and Bakaru were still circling, hitting the giant lizard with attacks with its attention elsewhere, keeping out of range of any counter-attacks when its focus turned back to them. Now Theobald Jameson had entered the fight against Cacaxis, Nick could see him and his great green anklo stood several tiers down, firing barrages of razor sharp leaves and forest-based attacks against it. Roots grew from the shattered ground, locked around its feet and prevented it from moving, at least for the moment.

  Go for the eyes, go for the eyes, he willed silently towards Unialiv. If you can! Slowly, he allowed himself to peep over the seating, trying to spot the guy who’d been aiming for him, weapon aimed first. He needn’t have worried, one of the people with the laser swords had cut him down, Nick saw him… He thought it was a him… throw a salute. That was all the cover he needed, he rose to his feet and emptied the BRO-60 in the direction of several doom dogs nearby, cutting them down, allowing a group of cornered spectators the chance to flee. Some of them were burned and bloody, they’d need to be able to make their own way out though, he was needed here. By the sounds of it, the rest of Unisco were trying to organise an escape route, the people just needed to survive long enough to get to it. He scooped up a new rifle from a fallen corpse, turned and saw Lysa Montgomery running towards him, unarmed and a trail of shots following her, three of the black-clad figures locking in on her. He raised the weapon, fired again and again. Then it was two. Then one.

  She came to a halt, out of breath but still with a defiant look in her eyes. She reached down, scooped up a discarded BRO-60 and ran a quick check. “Bastards,” she said. “They’re taking liberties here, aren’t they? They’re not going to be allowed to get away with this. I mean, the whole five kingdoms pretty much just saw this…”

  Lysa tailed off as Nick shook his head sadly. “Think that…”

  She fired behind him, he ducked down instinctively, saw one of the attackers fall under the blasts. A dozen new wounds filled his body. “Oh, look out,” she added. “By the way.” He rolled his eyes, shook his head. He’d have rebuked her, didn’t have the heart to do it right now. Too much else to worry about.

  “Think that was the whole point of this little exercise,” he said. “Cover me, I’m going to find the director and Brendan. They were in the studio.” Nick drew a deep breath, glanced around then started to run, sprinting up the stairs. Behind him, Lysa’s weapon started to fire again. At the top, a trio of doom dogs came running to greet him, slather prominent in their smoky pointed muzzles, he activated his summoner and sent Empson at them, the penguin gracefully darting into existence, cutting two of them in half with razor-edged flippers before crushing the third hard against a wall with a torrent blast of water. Summoning the bird back, Nick continued to run. Cacaxis was in issue, but not his any longer. He’d left Unialiv the instructions to keep attacking. It might be a fool’s errand, but it was all he could do right now. That spirit would have to look after himself for the time being.

  Bakaru caught a glancing blow, suddenly the two of them were going down and Wade found himself stood back to back with Theobald Jameson, his anklo still attacking the apparently invulnerable foe.

  Nothing is invulnerable, he told himself. And we don’t need to win, just drive it away.

  Jameson looked ragged, a streak of blood running down his face, clothes ripped and covered in dust. But still his eyes burned with fury and defiance, Wade could almost feel it radiating from him like fire. He was more than angry, he was incandescent with rage and Wade could see it in the way he was fighting. He wanted to put it down, more than that, he wanted to hurt it in the process. Whatever else might happen, he wasn’t to be upstaged by a youngster when it came to deal the hurt. He withdrew Bakaru, sent out Thracia. As sea serpents went, this one was decidedly on the large side, blue and cream scales covering a huge body that scraped over seats, crushing them down. Thracia’s mouth was so large, she couldn’t even close it, filled with needle sharp fangs. Her face looked like one of those ancient Burykian masks, all frills and frippery, the basis for the masks in fact he believed. He’d found her in the seas around the Burykian mainland a long time ago, she’d been one of his first spirits.

  Aiming for the eyes, she curled her neck back, strained upwards and fired a uniblast straight at Cacaxis’ face. Always nice to let a fresh fighter into the fray. Cacaxis wasn’t invulnerable, it just wasn’t falling. So much damage had been inflicted upon it, great sheathes of skin and flesh torn away, sometimes it gave the impression of wobbling although Wade wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or not. Either way, it had to be doing something. They’d pumped enough attacks into the damn thing to win an entire tournament, yet still it stood.

  Nick’s spirit continued to buzz about its head, still distracting it, still running air support. He didn’t want to think what might happen if that thing went down and Cacaxis was allowed to bring its full attention onto the two of them. That was perhaps the only thing that had let them survive unscathed as long as they had, that it was distracted.

  In the studio, they had the best view of it all. Arnholt, Brendan, Pree Khan had all looked at each other as the great leather skinned bird had flown down and disabled both spirits. The power had faded moments later but still they could see. Hearing it had been difficult but they’d caught the gist. Arnholt had
looked haunted by the appearance, but he’d shaken it off enough to unbutton his jacket. All three of them were armed. They hadn’t expected anything but none of them had wanted to take chances. As the armed men and the doom dogs had appeared around the stadium, the feeling of terror had only grown. It was palpable even up in the observation box where they’d sat. Two of the armed men had tried breaking into the studio, Carlton Bond had screamed in fear until Pree Khan had shot them both in quick succession, neither of them registering what had happened until they were on the floor, bleeding out.

  “We need a plan,” Arnholt said. “We can’t just hide here…”

  He tailed off as the dozen kjarnblades roared into life, all around the stadium. Khan looked particularly interested at that sight, tearing her gaze away from the door and towards the overlook window. “What the hells?” she said, her voice laced with shock.

  “Baxter,” Arnholt said knowingly. “Cunning bastard.”

  Below them, it was chaos, Brendan had slipped a Unisco earpiece into his ear and could hear every transmission going around the area. His brow furrowed. “Derenko’s got them mobilised. They’ll be here soon. They’re going to try and secure the exits, get as many people out as possible.”

  “The guys with the blasters aren’t the problem,” Khan said, continuing to watch the carnage below. The lower tiers of the stadium were dripping with blood, human and spirit, all running straight down towards the giant crater left behind by Cacaxis, a veritable lake flowing towards the hole. “If those doom dogs keep coming, they’re going to get swamped sooner or later.” One of the figures bearing a glowing kjarnblade moved through a crowd of them, cut a half dozen down in quick succession but already more were materialising out of nowhere.