by Jack Conner
“Cloire,” he said, and smiled sadly.
She tried to hold back the tears. How handsome he looked. How wretched and pitiful. A man she should’ve loved all along, but had never had the guts to let herself, and now here he was, a slave to two of the most evil beings that had ever walked the earth.
“Byron,” she said.
For an aching moment, their eyes met, and then he turned his attention back to the scope of his missile. Now wasn’t the right time, she knew. Mauchlery wouldn’t even be in the tower yet, not until he got the all-clear signal, but there were enough shades in the Courtyard ... not as many as Junger and Jagoda had hoped for, not the massacre of their dreams ... but it would do. Better a small massacre than none at all. And it might be just enough to weaken the Castle so their pet Maleasoel could win it for them.
“No!” Cloire shouted. “Byron, don’t do it.”
His finger tightened on the trigger, as did hers.
He was fighting it, she could tell. His whole body twitched and spasmed, as if a marionette had suddenly become alive and was trying to break free of the strings that operated it. He turned back to her, tears standing out in his eyes.
“Byron,” she said, her voice a croak. “Don’t. For me.”
His finger twitched on the trigger, but not hard enough to pull it. The Balaklava were trying, but he was pushing them out. For now.
“Cloire ... I ...”
The Balaklava won back control of him. On a dime the launcher was up to his shoulder and aimed out the window again. Just as fast, her aim readjusted.
Do it. End it now.
Her one hand trembled and the gun nearly slipped from her grip she was sweating so hard. Any minute now the cavalry would arrive, and she couldn’t bear that. This was a private thing, a thing she had to do herself.
“Give me the nuke,” she said. “They’ll kill you if you don’t.”
He gave her a mirthless smile. “I’m already dead, hon. Nothing can change that.”
Slowly, fighting for every inch, he stepped toward one of the large vaulted windows, the one which the large wheeled missile launcher had been rolled to. The one that Francois Mauchlery would’ve been flung from had he not told Roche Sarnova a lie.
He edged around the great bulk of the launcher, and it struck her as ironic that such a large contraption could not do near the damage that that small, long stalk of weapon he held tightly to his breast could. Once at the window, he looked down into the chasm below.
She could hear footsteps behind her, many of them, and knew she and Byron didn’t have much time.
“Goodbye, Cloire.”
Seeing him there, perched on the edge of the window, she suddenly leapt forward. She slipped in a puddle of blood and went down. She looked up at him, at that handsome face and large from, that reddish hair sprinkled with snow.
“Don’t!”
“It’s the only way.” His eyes grew sharp as he saw soldiers crowding in through the door.
At once, Harry was kneeling by Cloire’s side, helping her to her feet. It seemed that twenty soldiers were in the room now, all with their rifles pointed at Byron.
“Throw down the nuke, damn you! Throw it down and we’ll let you live.”
Sadly, the big man shook his head, his eyes never leaving Cloire’s.
His lips cracked into a thin smile. “I love—”
Twenty guns ripped loudly in the still chamber, as the soldiers realized Byron’s intention. They hoped to salvage the nuke, but that wouldn’t happen if Byron took it over the side with him.
As the bullets tore into him, Byron’s smile did not falter, nor did his grip on the missile. As if in slow motion, he fell backwards out of the arched window and into the snowstorm. As he plummeted into the abyss, the only sound in the room was that of ice smacking against stone.
Chapter 7
Gently, Harry led her down through the levels of the tower. She was unusually quiet and only stopped once, on the sixth floor, to ask after Popescu. When Harry shook his head, she just nodded and let him lead her away from the carnage.
They left the dark tower and headed over the catwalks toward the Upper Courtyard. The wind chilled Harry to the bone even in his heavy jacket, but the warmth of Cloire’s body, however mutilated, more than made up for it.
As he neared the Upper Courtyard, where Mauchlery would shortly beginning his speech, Harry thought to say something to Cloire but knew that words couldn’t help her, not now. He only hoped that his touch would do what words could not. Below, winds angled down off the high walls and ruffled through the garden and hedge-maze of the empty Northern Courtyards. The fountains spouted water that trapped the starlight. Above, a warm but pale light broke away from a moon bloated like a drowned corpse, surrounding Harry and Cloire in an eerie bone-colored glow that was strangely comforting. All he could think of now was Cloire, and the depth of the emotion he felt toward her swept him away as the beautiful scenery above him and below him could not.
Harry, whispered Ruegger in his head. The Darkling’s telepathic voice was also unusually subdued, as if he had seen Byron’s final stand through Harry’s eyes.
Yes, Ruegger, I’m here.
I saw what happened. Do you forgive my intrusion?
Stop it, Ruegger. When those missiles and bullets were whizzing by, I moved pretty damned quick, as if someone else were pulling my strings, trying to save my middle-aged ass. Don’t apologize for it, Ruegger. Hell, I should be thanking you.
Still.
Anyway, Byron’s down, and the nuke with him. Mauchlery can give his damned speech.
I’d no idea Junger and Jagoda would guard Byron with a whole battlement-full of deaders.
Does seem queer, doesn’t it?
It does. Anyway, Harry, I just wanted to send my ... our gratitude, and MY love and ... you know what I mean.
I know.
Thank Cloire for me. And give her my condolences. I’m not sure whether I’ll be seeing the two of you again or not. If fighting breaks out, just duck and cover. You’ve been through enough and if somehow I do manage to live till dawn, I’d like you to be around then, too.
Gotcha.
Remember, Harry. Duck and cover. And take care of your girl. Ruegger out.
Harry smiled tiredly, but the Darkling slipped from his mind as Cloire’s grip about his waist tightened.
“What ...?” she asked. “We’re going to the Courtyard?”
“I just thought ... after what we’ve been through, we might as well see the results, what Mauchlery has to say.”
“Harry, the last thing I want to do is listen to that fucking kavasari address his people. I wanna sit with you and have a drink ... and that’s about it. Whatever it is he has to say, we’ll hear about it later. Also, I’m bullet-ridden and missing most of an arm. I need to stop off—at Rosie’s—and heal myself. Then let’s you and me get knockered, okay?”
He grinned and kissed her ear. “Sounds like the best thing I’ve heard all day.”
* * *
On the far side of the mountain, at the bottom of the lake down-slope of the Sabo’s entrance, a ghostly scene played out.
Just above the silty bottom floated nine dragons of all different breeds and races, swimming like amorphous phantoms. Long sharp tails and billowing wings flap-swimming, the nine moved in a giant circle around the edges of the lake.
Ruegger sat astride Montalvo, a great red dragon almost as large and fiery-tempered as Gethraul, upon whom Roche Sarnova perched.
Kharker had been right. The dragons were arrogant and resentful creatures, for the most part. Unfortunately, the most arrogant and resentful tended to be the largest—the very ones the coven had hoped to woo.
Montalvo had agreed to join the coven, but it was clear that the dragon didn’t care which armies he torched. At least he was willing to fight, though, and also (albeit very reluctantly) willing to let one of the coven into his mind, even if this was just a means by which to get the hell out of the Lair. He probably
would’ve done or said anything to be shed of that place. Thus it had fallen to Ruegger to control him.
Out of the twenty-six dragons, only fourteen had volunteered to help the coven, but Roche had looked them over and said that five were too small and scrawny (although he hadn’t used those exact words) to survive battle with three deadly armies, and he wouldn’t risk their lives for naught. He’d gently turned them down, leaving the coven with these nine. Gethraul and Damara, because of his great size and strength and her because of her great telepathic skills and acceptance of the cause. Nakara, the artistic black dragon, who was also quite powerful—and two of his buddies who had been recruited to the cause. One of these, a big flaming pink dragon named Yazback, had not been wooed so easily, and it was this one that Sophia rode, not without a sense of ironic pleasure. Kharker had chosen a great brown named Shalung, a burly and bristly wyrm he’d personally trapped and who held a fierce resentment toward the Hunter. Nonetheless, Shalung had been keen on the idea of flying free. Jean-Pierre had, with some amusement, selected a sleek but powerfully built white dragon by the name of Draekshar, who burned with a fierce desire for battle … but, like Montalvo, cared little who the battle was fought against. For her part, Danielle rode a small and crafty dragon that could not really be trusted, a dragon not striped but shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow. She was called Majestica.
Of the nine dragons, only Damara, Nakara and one of Nakara’s friends (another black dragon named Venator) were not ridden or mentally controlled. They were the only true believers in the cause; the other six were simply mercenaries.
Ruegger didn’t know if he or any of the others had the power to stop a dragon (at least by themselves) from doing what it wanted to do. The only exception seemed Roche, who was old and had been unknowingly ingesting kavasari blood for three thousand years. Not only that, but he seemed to be on pretty good terms with Gethraul, as he was the one that visited the dragons most often.
When Ruegger learned from Harry’s mind that Byron and his missile were no longer a problem, he relayed this to Montalvo. Montie wasn’t a strong telepath, but he proved strong enough to get Gethraul’s attention, and when Geth asked, Montalvo told what Ruegger had said, then relayed the information back to Sarnova.
Sarnova saluted Ruegger, then relayed a message to Gethraul. As per plan, Geth would send the all-clear signal to Mauchlery, who would proceed with the speech.
Meanwhile, the coven and the nine dragons were stuck at the bottom of the lake, the Ambassador’s ace in the hole, until they were called for.
Ruegger exchanged a look with Danielle atop her rainbow dragon (a rainbow that shifted hypnotically with every subtle movement Majestica made) and saw from her expression that she felt the same way: waiting sucked.
Rueg, called Montalvo in the red wyrm’s arrogant mind-voice. For a moment, Ruegger was too stunned to speak, and then his face split into a smile as he turned to Danielle and saw her nodding. Yes, they could talk through these dragons after a fashion.
Dani, he sent back, experimentally.
Danielle offered a small laugh. Don’t sound much like yourself, she sent. What, you got a dragon in your throat?
Look who’s talking. Remember, it’s Montie’s voice I’m hearing, not yours.
Yeah, and to me you sound like a girl dragon. Kind of saucy, actually. Anyway, what happened with Harry and Cloire? I guessed by Roche’s expression that they’d found Byron.
Byron died nobly, Ruegger told her. He leapt into the chasm and took the nuke with him.
Jesus. I hope Cloire wasn’t around to see it.
She was, and Harry too. I think if it hadn’t been for Cloire getting there first, Byron would’ve fired the thing anyway. Strange, isn’t it? That the woman that refuses love at all costs is the one that saves the Castle and hopefully Roche’s Jerusalem through the very thing she despises.
Yeah.
The really strange thing was that Byron was in the top of the northeast tower, the tallest one, and Cloire and the Castle soldiers had to fight their way through a whole battlement full of zombies to reach him.
Why’s that strange? I mean, the nuke was precious to Junger and Jagoda. They’d want to keep it under heavy guard.
True. But a whole tower? That number of zombies could’ve attracted more attention that it rebuffed. To me, it just seems too much like—
Like what?
I hate to say it, but it seems like Junger and Jagoda staged that whole thing, or at least provided a conspicuous target that might conceal a less conspicuous one.
How’s that old song go? ‘Paranoia will destroy ya’?
I hope so, but …
Danielle frowned. You think the real nuke’s still out there.
Yeah.
Is there anything we can do about it?
Mauchlery will have begun his speech by now, or nearly so. Too late to call retreat.
She waited for a long moment. Ruegger, you’re right about a lot of things, but you’re wrong from time to time, too. She seemed to sigh, and in Ruegger’s mind it echoed like the sound of the dragon that relayed it. Let now be one of those times.
* * *
When Francois Mauchlery heard Gethraul’s message, he glanced out of the thirty-foot high double oak doors (now open) that led out into the Upper Courtyard. He could see the crowd through the open doors and the great windows to either side of them and knew that everyone that could come, had. Or nearly so. As he stood to the side of the door surrounded by his elite guards, still more shades drifted out from the Castle and into the Courtyard. At the far end of it rose the ivory tower from which he would address his and Roche’s subjects.
Suddenly, a horrible disquiet descended on him. He hadn’t delivered a speech in front of so large an audience in thousands of years, not since he’d been the king of all immortals. Power. He’d wielded it deftly, but in his hands it had become a double-edged blade, so slowly he had hardly noticed. Only when he could no longer see anything but the trappings of evil did he see himself for what he was. A monster beyond reckoning, the tyrant of a cruel and bloodthirsty empire. It had taken him many years to realize his folly, or as his critics then put it, to grow weak and feeble. When he’d been barren, everyone had bent to his every whim, but when he’d grown pregnant with conscience, he knew (and so did they) that his time had come.
And now he was here again. A Dark Lord, leader of a large percentage of the immortals that roamed the world. More, now; after he had instigated the Scouring, many unworthy shades had been laid to rest, which in turn had inspired numerous uprisings and coups. He didn’t regret the Scouring, however; those shades needed to die. They’d been infecting the Community with their poisonous ways and would’ve, if left to their own devices, have made immortals even more intolerable to humans than they were now, thus making a someday Jerusalem of the Undead very unlikely indeed. But, now looking at it from a different perspective, he realized that he was now the leader of maybe a third of all shades in the world, maybe more. He held true power in the palm of his hand. After so many centuries ...
As Ruegger had said, it had come full circle.
Francois wondered, briefly, if he could still deliver the speech he and Roche had devised ... or if he would announce to all those assembled that Roche Sarnova was no more and he was the one and only Dark Lord now.
As he led his elite guards out through the large oaken doors and into the refreshing cool of the night outside, he couldn’t help but feel a trickle of sweat run down his back.
The crowd melted away before him, and he was reminded that most of them, if not all, now saw him for the kavasari that he was. He didn’t know what, if any, impact this would have on the speech, and the vote, and he hoped the restrained fear and hatred he observed on every fifth face wouldn’t tip the scales too greatly.
He could understand; many of them had lived in the Castle since its foundation, and some had known him even before that, when Roche had lived in Egypt and had based his operations there. F
rancois had betrayed them, had lied for thousands of years. How could he not expect their anger, and forgive it as well?
Not only that, but he’d overthrown their much-beloved leader and even those that had plotted against Roche would probably still consider Francois a turncoat of the highest order. Even the ones that had begged him to do it.
Preoccupied as he was with these thoughts, he didn’t even notice the snow until he was halfway toward his goal. It fell on the Courtyard lightly, settling on the Ambassador’s shoulders like cold absolution. He wrestled comfort from that, that icy whiteness that could conceal flaws and brighten the darkest of nights, and marched on.
When he reached the tower, he was surprised at the relief he felt to be out from under his subjects’ gazes, and he paused a moment to let the world settle under him. When he felt steady, he mounted the spiral staircase to the top level, where four more guards waited—as well as Robby, the human that would be receiving the immortals’ votes. He nodded at the guards and Robby, then, the human at his side, stepped forward onto the ornate balcony from which Roche Sarnova had given the cry to arms and wrapped his hands about the elaborately detailed balustrade. Snow settled in his hair and eyebrows.
He jerked his hands away from the balustrade, fearing his subjects would think his leaning on it a sign of weakness, and gave his audience a bow.
“Welcome, friends,” he called, his voice echoing off the stone walls on all sides, letting his eyes trail over the shades (two hundred strong, plus over a thousand human servants and slaves) and giving himself a moment to study them.
At the front clustered the newest dwellers of the Castle, mostly shades fleeing the war to seek protection in the Castle, but also several groups of fighting men (such as the ones from Ireland) that had come to Roche more for reinforcements than shelter. Further away stood the long-time denizens, the ones that had known him the longest, and it was from this group that he saw the hardest and most immovable eyes. Beyond them were tourists and reporters, the retired Castle soldiers, and at the outer edge, leaning against the far wall, a half dozen members of the Funhouse of the Forsaken.