The Great Game Trilogy

by O. J. Lowe

  “You bitch!”

  “The blood of the man who would be king,” Claudia said, looking up at the shrine. “Do you see it, Ronald? Do you know what this is?”

  Ritellia turned, looked up at the statue of Kalqus and when he spoke, it was with a voice filled with scorn. “Is this why you brought me down here? To stare at relics?”

  “No,” the Mistress said softly. “I brought you down here to remove one unwanted relic from the world. It’s all down to interpretation. Blut never could work this thing out, perhaps his passing was a blessing with hindsight. Alana…”

  This was the moment, now it had arrived she was suddenly unsure, yet it still needed to be done. Stepping over to the Mistress’ side, she handed her the blaster and took the ceremonial dagger from her, a beautiful piece of weaponry really, she found herself noticing the curve of the blade and the ivory polished handle as she moved to Ritellia. She’d waited for this moment, she steadied herself and dug it in deep, his eyes widening in surprise as she twisted it in his guts. Not content with a single stab, she thrust in again and again until his front was a mess of scarlet, blood gushing over her. Soon his legs gave out and as he dropped to his knees, she saw the pleading look in his eyes, the way his mouth opened ever so slightly with a beseeching look. It was to be the last sound he ever made, she slashed open his throat and stepped back, letting his body fall. It felt like blood covered every square inch of floor beneath the shrine, Ritellia’s final breath coming out as one ragged bellow, his final movements little more than spasms before ultimately, he gave one final twitch and went still.

  “Out of death comes life,” Claudia said softly. “The price is paid, the bargain is struck, the king is dead, long live the queen.” She clapped her hands together, the next words from her mouth Alana couldn’t even come close to understanding. They sounded like a mixture of coughs, splutters and barks with the occasional howl thrown in. She could have sworn Ritellia’s blood started to shine, just for a moment.

  “This isn’t going to work,” Okocha said, looking at imagery from the team on site at the stadium. They’d relayed the tactical information about the pillars containing the spirit projectors, Aldiss and Leclerc had made efforts to try and get to one of them, either knocking it out or pulling it down. Their spirits had soared for the peak of the pillars, Aldiss’ being a huge scarlet eagle, Leclerc hanging from the claws a huge bat, grabbed by the forearms. No sooner had they got within twenty feet of the projector, fresh doom dogs materialised below it, more than thirty streams of white hot fire shooting into the air, a web of destruction and death driving the two spirits back. “They can’t get close enough. Defence matrix.”

  “Can’t we get more people up there to deal with the dogs?” Nkolou asked. She’d made her way into the action centre, a blaster strapped to her hip, having woken for the crisis. “Seems like the best…”

  “We’re spread too thin,” Noorland said. “If we had more people, we might be able to do it. Most of our people on the ground are tied up ensuring that civilians get out of there alive. We can’t divert those resources.”

  “You take one of these towers out, you’re making the problem smaller,” Nkolou said. “It’s standard warfare. Before you hit the enemy, you hit their resources, they can’t hit you back as hard if they’re already hurting.”

  “That doesn’t work if you’re the one being ambushed,” Okocha said. “They really pulled a fast one on us.”

  “If I had a ship, I could blast it,” Nkolou offered. “Direct hit from a HAX, they’d go up in smoke.” The images showed Aldiss’ eagle hit the ground and vanish, Aldiss rolled away, clearly struggling but he managed to get halfway to his feet before the first doom dog was on him, jumping on his back and tackling him to the rooftop.

  “Fuck!” Okocha shouted, the image showing the spray of blood erupting as the dog bit down, they could hear Aldiss’ screams. “You’re right, I’ll just pull a fucking HAX out of my damn pocket, shall I?”

  “No need for that,” Noorland said thoughtfully. “She might be onto something with what she said. We still have a hoverjet outside.”

  “It’s not armed though,” Okocha said, suddenly deadly calm again. “That thing couldn’t win a fight with an oversized pigeon unless it got sucked into the engine.” Noorland’s response was to head for the exit. A few seconds later, Nkolou followed him and Okocha swore loudly. This day felt like it had been coming, one where all the bad shit on the island finally reached a breaking point and now the bill had become due.

  In the confines of the spirit bout arena, it was considered proper conduct to be able to release a spirit anywhere within the boundaries of the battlefield on the condition its feet touched the ground when it appeared. Letting it materialise several feet above your opponent so it dropped on them was considered unsporting behaviour of the highest order and usually lead to disqualification.

  Spirit battling outside the arena held no such rules, Wade noticed. Cacaxis went down, face hit the dirt hard, something stumpy and silver stood proudly on the back of its head. He narrowed his eyes, studied the four-armed figure. It couldn’t be called humanoid. Only perhaps in the vaguest sense of the term. It was made of what looked like organic steel, a crude face scratched into the surface of the top part of its body, the effect strangely disturbing. Simultaneously it gave the impression of both blindness and an intense gaze, a contrast in experiences he’d never thought he’d see. Each of the four arms ended in thick metal claws, its legs shorter than each of the arms. It was amazing really that it could stand upright for any length of time. He’d seen the golem before, quite a while ago now. There’d been a few modifications made, but it was the same Iron-1 Ruud Baxter had fashioned for himself a very long time ago. The man himself stood high above them, peering down from the roof of the stadium. Wade could see him through the glasses, he raised a hand and waved. He knew Baxter could see him, at least until Cacaxis rose again, reared up like a ship in a storm, hurling Iron-1 into the stands, rounded on Wade and Theo with brutal anger. If the fight had gone out of it before, it was back now, roused with furious aggression.

  Wade swallowed, reaching for another container crystal. This might yet still be tricky.

  Nick ran, not entirely sure where he was going, all he could do was follow the general direction Rocastle had gone and hope for the best. It was all okay giving an instruction like Brendan had done, but sometimes you needed the means to be able to follow it through. That said, he was nothing if not resourceful. He’d hunt him down. Somewhere in this carnage, Rocastle was running. Finding him would always be the tricky part. He pulled up short, ducked a rifle butt swung at his face and tackled the attacker, smashing him into a wall. He yelled in pain, drew out a knife and swung at him, Nick twisted back, caught his wrist and broke it. That yell of pain became a screech, he flung out an elbow and sent his foe crashing to the ground, knocking his mask away. He knew that face, even if he didn’t have time to dwell on it, he didn’t know too many Varykian people, but he knew that one. He’d seen him twice in recent weeks, not just at the tournament but also on Coppinger’s ship. One of Rocastle’s special soldiers, Claudia had called them. Angels of Death? Something like that. Anything to be melodramatic apparently.

  What drew his eye was the clip on Ulikku’s belt, he reached down and snapped it off, looked at it with interest. He knew what it was only too well. When large scale spirit projectors were used in battle, the side employing them outfitted their own side with tags like these, ordinary-looking, unremarkable tags but containing a powerful pheromone inside which masked their presence to those spirits, marked them as friendly, meant the spirits sent rampant on the battlefield didn’t accidentally attack them. He clipped it onto his own belt, put his finger to his ear and radioed the new information over, anything to turn the tide. It might buy people an extra few moments to deal with the hoards if they had an advantage.

  Nick looked up, weapon rising at the same time as he heard approaching battle, an ice cat firing cold beams at
two oncoming doom dogs. The caller… Jacobs… Nick could see he was trying to get away, failing miserably until Nick stepped in front of him and for a moment he saw their confusion in their eyes. Right up until the moment he put a flurry of shots between them. The bodies faded immediately.

  “Shit!” Pete swore. “Where the fuck did you learn how to do that?”

  “Never mind,” Nick said. “You see Harvey Rocastle anywhere?” He didn’t have time to be subtle. Pete’s eyes widened in shock.

  “As it happens…” he grunted. “We saw him, he came for us… Me, Matt, Sam… Mia! Where’s Mia! He had a blaster!”

  “Yeah, so do I,” Nick replied grimly, hefting the weight of it in his hands. Mia Arnholt. It couldn’t be, could it? He’d pulled that trick before, was he really doing it again? Rocastle had shot her father, was it even possible he was pushing his own agenda in all this? Coppinger couldn’t know, surely. Or maybe it had been a hit on the director of Unisco and Rocastle had enjoyed a spectacular run of coincidence. “Where were you? Show me!”

  Something in his voice must have told Pete he wasn’t joking, not in the mood for playing about. He followed him, saw the Vazaran kid on the ground first, still breathing but shallow. He smelled like overcooked meat, smoke rising from the charred mess which had been his back not so long ago. Matt Arnholt looked in better shape, he had a welt the size of an egg above one eye, blood running down his face, but he’d live. “He… He took her,” Matt said. He sounded numb, like he was in shock. “Grabbed her and ran. We fought but he tore through us like we weren’t there.”

  This suddenly had the potential to turn ugly, Nick realised. Uglier than it already was. If they were taking hostages… He needed to get her back. She’d be where Rocastle was. He could kill two birds. Far too many had already died here to let her go. And there were plenty who loved her. He sighed. If this was how it had to be, so be it. He’d been unable to save Sharon. He wasn’t going to let Mia Arnholt die as well, if he could help it. Her loved ones didn’t deserve to feel sickness crawling through them the way he had in recent days.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, wishing he was as confident as he sounded. “I’ll take care of it. Get yourselves out of here! Now! Get to safety. Once you get out the stadium, you should be free of the doom dogs.” He pointed to the tag. “You see any bodies, grab these tags and hold them yourselves. You SHOULD be okay with them but keep your wits about you.”

  “Errr… What about Scott?!” Matt asked. “He was here already. Found us before you did, he already went after them both.”

  Nick swore viciously. Little idiot! This was going to be hard enough to do without introducing a have-a-go hero into the mix. It should be left to the professionals. Last thing he needed was his quarry having two hostages in the mix. “Fine,” he growled before turning for the exit. He was already running through the possibilities in his mind. Like as not, they wouldn’t be going for the aeroport. Flying in would be reckless, the Vazaran military might not be the quickest to mobilise, but they surely had to be on their way, Okocha and Noorland had to have already gotten in touch. Which left the docks. A boat could sneak in and out of here, would probably have more chance of leaving undetected by the arriving rescue force.

  Either way, they’d taken a risk, the way he was taking a risk heading for the docks. There was no guarantee they were going to make it out of here unscathed and yet they’d come anyway. There had to be something they were all missing. He saw the figure rush in front of him all too late, could only react with evasion rather than complete avoidance, he felt the shots burn through his side. Fire coursed up his body, he let out a yell and emptied the power pack of his rifle straight into the shooter’s face, a rather petulant act but one that felt so good for a tiny moment.

  Can’t stop… Won’t stop…

  Running hurt like the hells but he wasn’t about to give up, too much at stake for that.

  “Want to tell me what the great plan is?” Nkolou asked, following Noorland out to the hoverjet. “You heard Will, this thing doesn’t have any weapons. You can’t shoot it down from here.”

  “I know,” Noorland said. “I just want a…” He almost tripped over the words. “I just want a tactical appraisal of the situation, one gained first hand. You should know this, always trust your eyes over what the machines tell you.”

  “It’s not going to tell you anything different,” Nkolou said gently. “You know that.”

  “No, it’s not going to answer my question,” Noorland insisted, pulling the hatch door open. He was half inside when he felt Nkolou’s hand on his arm, trying to stop him. He gulped. “Please, don’t stop me”

  “What question do you need answering?” she insisted. “Whatever it is, it’s not worth it. You’re hiding something.”

  “That’s not true, Lieutenant Nkolou,” Noorland replied. “Unisco doctrine. First thing they teach you in the academy. It’s always worth it. No matter what it costs, no matter the price you need to pay, it is always worth it. Freedom isn’t free, and lives are cheap in these five kingdoms. Somewhere, somehow it never quite adds up to how you want it to. Maths is a cruel bitch.”

  Her eyes widened. “So…”

  “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  “Damnit, if you’re going to fly in on some sort of suicide mission, it should be me!” she bellowed. “I’m a better pilot than you, I should be the one who dies in a cockpit. I’m more expendable than you.”

  Noorland shook his head. “No, you really aren’t. You don’t want to die. I’ve already made my peace with this. It’s happening. If I can make it a little bit safer, give my life so that others can live, it’s a good way to go.”

  “I won’t let you…” Nkolou started to say before Noorland’s fist flashed out, caught her a glancing blow across the side of the mouth and dropped her to the ground. She tried to spring up, he caught her kick and twisted her back down unceremoniously.

  “You can’t win,” he said. “Just…” She tried again, he snapped out his hand in a chopping motion, caught her by the neck and squeezed, applying pressure to various spots until she dropped like a sack of potatoes, not permanently harmed but down for the moment. “Stay down!”

  It wasn’t even like she was unconscious, just momentarily unable to move any part of her body. He saw the anger in her eyes, tried not to look as he scooped her up and placed her out the way like she was a mere child. Alvin Noorland didn’t look back as he made his way back to the cockpit of the hoverjet. This was the way it had to be.

  He’d been right!

  There!

  Nick could see them all, a boat far below, fast bastard by the looks of it and there were some humanoid shapes nearby too distant to make them out entirely. He picked up his pace, every step fresh fire in his side and as much as he tried to ignore it, shut it out, each second it became harder. He took the hundred and three steps two at a time, trying not to think about what would happen if he missed a step or tripped. Halfway down, he looked up, saw the distinctive blue jacket Scott Taylor had worn during the bout worn by one of the figures.

  Come on!

  He forced himself to pick up the pace, working as hard as he physically could to get there, jumping the last three steps. Landing brought fresh new agony, he had to fight to stay on his feet and keep going. The docks were close now, he could see them both, Taylor and… Rocastle! Coppinger was nowhere to be seen for the moment but he could see Arnholt’s daughter as well, being held by a seven-foot-tall troll who had a big fat arm around her neck. It looked ready to squeeze at any given moment, he got close enough and he could hear the conversation.

  “Let her go!” Scott was pleading. “Or…”

  The look on Rocastle’s face bore full testament to sadism, ghoulish and gloating at the same time. “Or what, lamb chop? You come any closer and I’ll see her snapped like a twig. She…”

  Nick slowed to a walk, took the three steps to the dock very deliberately and strolled into view, Arnholt’s X7 pointed at th
e fat man. “Or we could play this another way,” he said, voice filled with authority. “Let her go, Harvey. You’re under arrest for conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to treason, kidnap, resisting arrest, attempted murder at the very least of Prideaux Khan, Brendan King and Terrence Arnholt as well as the murder of Carlton Bond. If you go quietly now, they might not give you the chair. If you don’t, I’ll put you down like the mad dog you are!”

  Other than the sob let out by the stricken-looking Mia when he named her father, the silence was deafening. Rocastle even looked to be chewing it over for a moment until his face broke into a grin. “Mad dog?” he said. “I like that. I like that a lot. Think I might get it in tattoo form. The question is, what are you going to do if I refuse? You shoot me, my cool Cacalti will kill that cunt right there, probably the boy…” Scott glowered at that. “And maybe even you. You’re not fast enough to save them all.” His face split open malevolently into a grin. “Just like you couldn’t save your own woman!”

  He nearly pulled the trigger right there and then, was mentally preparing for the sight of seeing his head snap back with a hole in the middle, a red third eye. Still Nick refrained. Just. Just. Would have been so easy. “She didn’t die well, you know,” Rocastle continued. “It was heart-breaking. Well if you care about that sort of stuff anyway. She cried your name. Wanted to know where you were. And you weren’t there!” The last few words had a definite note of sing-song in them and Nick struggled to keep his finger off the trigger. He should pull it, he’d been given the order and yet he couldn’t. Rocastle was right. He wasn’t about to let more people die, even though he knew full well Rocastle deserved shooting in the back of the head and letting the ocean take care of the body.