Cadmian's Choice

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Cadmian's Choice Page 54

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.


  A thin line of smoke issued from the cliffside to the south of Dainyl, and within moments, the third squad Myrmidons began to make passes over the area. It took two passes by the entire squad before the plume of smoke dwindled away to the faintest haze.

  Another bombardment run by second squad, and even more of the roof timbers of the outbuilding had been revealed, and in several places, there were gaping holes in the roof.

  Dainyl turned and called up the slope. “Hyksant! Take the keg of brimstone and hit the timbers on the outbuilding!”

  “Galya! Stand by!” Hyksant relayed the order.

  The petite Myrmidon slipped into the silver saddle. Her pteridon grasped a keg, then burst skyward, before gliding eastward away from the cliff.

  Dainyl watched. The keg struck one of the exposed timbers, close to the ridgeline, and brimstone oozed across the timbers and began to drip below. Dainyl lifted his lance and concentrated. It took two bursts before a section of the roof burst into flame.

  Galya continued to circle the building, her skylance at the ready.

  In moments, the entire upper section of the building was in flames. The Myrmidons of second squad had stopped their bombardment and took over the patrol above the building, while Galya returned and landed her pteridon on the cliff above Dainyl, rejoining the rest of first squad.

  Dainyl forced himself to shift his attention back to the vitreous channel. “Another load of brimstone!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As he waited for the black and gooey mess to slide and ooze down to him, Dainyl studied the situation. Before long the rebels would have to leave the outbuilding, assuming that any remained there. Once that was resolved, he could devote his full energies to the tunnel complex below.

  Despite the mounting heat, both from the sun and from the fires below and behind his shields, the brimstone coming down the channel was sluggish. Dainyl triggered the lance briefly, targeting the section of the channel below the brimstone, and the heated stone seemed to help, but it seemed to take forever before the first of the black mass reached the lip of the channel.

  Dainyl had to swallow hard not to choke on the smoke that escaped as he shifted his shields to allow all the brimstone past them and to fall, flaming, into the slit that had widened under the impact of flame and shields. He still found himself coughing, and close to choking, wishing for the slightest breeze to blow the noxious smoke that had escaped his shields away from him.

  There was no breeze, and even the wingbeats of the pteridons of third squad, passing overhead on their continuing efforts to seal the vents and slots of the complex, did not generate enough movement of air to reach Dainyl.

  With a rumbling crunch, part of the roof on the flaming building collapsed.

  Within moments, two figures in black and silver ran from the building. The first made it a good hundred yards before being flamed by one of the Myrmidons from squad four—the second less than fifty.

  A lightflame flared from the building, narrowly missing the second fourth squad pteridon as it recovered from the attack on the fleeing rebels. The three circling fourth squad Myrmidons all fired at the building. Because the main entry was on the east side, blocked from Dainyl’s view, he couldn’t see exactly what happened. He just heard the explosion and watched part of the east side of the redstone building sag away from him.

  He forced his concentration back to the brimstone he was flaming and forcing downward into the tunnel complex. He thought he sensed more deaths from the burning building, but he continued his efforts to force the smoke and gases downward.

  The stones of the southwest corner of the redstone building crumbled, and then the rest of the structure began to settle in upon itself. Three more rebel alectors ran from the structure and were flamed down. Dainyl had the sense that there would not be any more rebels emerging from the ruins.

  He turned his full attention back to forcing fire and brimstone into the tunnels. Before long, black and gray smoke began to seep, then pour out of the main front entrance to the cavern complex. Dainyl could not see the recessed archway directly, but the increase in smoke suggested that someone had opened the main doors.

  One of the squad four pteridons swooped down, and the Myrmidon fired her lance into the entrance. The amount of smoke decreased, but not entirely.

  A line of light flashed up from the entrance to the cavern section of the complex, but by the time one of the Myrmidons from fourth squad reacted, the weapon had been retracted well inside the stone archway.

  “What’s in the channel is all that there is, sir!” called Galya from the clifftop.

  “Thank you.”

  Dainyl waited until the last of the tallows and oils flowed past him, and he eased them through his shields and let them drop, flaming, into the holocaust he sensed building in the rock-walled tunnels below.

  Then he finally released his shields, thankful he had not been required to use all his abilities and strength there, took his lance, and began to climb back up the rocky incline to where his pteridon waited.

  Galya greeted him as he paused at the top.

  “You look hot, sir.”

  “It is hot down there.” He glanced to Hyksant. “We’re going down. Now!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Dainyl mounted the pteridon, checked everything, then raised his arm. “Lift off.”

  “First squad, lift off. Follow the submarshal!”

  Dainyl concentrated. Down…as close to the cliff as possible…north of the entrance… The pteridon banked and then swept down, heading southward, then flaring, and coming to a halt less than twenty yards north of the entrance from where smoke seeped into the noon sky.

  Dainyl vaulted down to the sandy ground, skylance in hand, and hurried forward to the corner of the cliff, just short of the recessed archway cut into the stone. There he waited for the remainder of first squad to rejoin him.

  Galya appeared next, then Hyksant, and the other two.

  “You need to use the lances sparingly, and against anyone you can.” He added quickly. “Without hitting me.”

  Skylance in hand, he rushed around the corner, triggering the lance at the doorway at the end of the short tunnel.

  A blast of Talent energy sheeted around him, blocked by his shields. He triggered the skylance for a second brief burst, and then a third, moving forward toward the Talent-shielded doorway that was half-ajar and from behind which gouts of brimstone smoke intermittently puffed and then died away, before streaming out again.

  Another burst of Talent energy, not quite so strong as the previous blast, smashed at him, the impact on his shields slowing him. He fired again, trying to use his Talent to bend the energy around the corner. He sensed another death and fired again, this time with his sidearm, using the same technique.

  A figure jumped to one side, holding a silvery dagger that Dainyl recognized too well. Two skylance blasts flared past Dainyl and converged on the rebel. The ancient sword-lance fell to the stones.

  Dainyl crashed into the door full-strength, forcing it back.

  More lightbeams flared back and forth, and Dainyl felt a Myrmidon behind him die.

  He fired his sidearm again, and for a moment, there was stillness. He could sense no one nearby and slipped past the open door in to the entry hall, not more than five yards square behind the door. It was empty. Several separate piles of silver and black alector’s uniforms and boots lay scattered across the stones.

  The stench of brimstone was almost unbearable.

  Dainyl smiled coldly, then used a set of partial screens to press the smoke and gas back down the corridor. Behind his shields, he moved forward, but he no longer sensed anyone nearby.

  The huge hall or meeting room to his right was empty, filled with the remnants of brimstone and smoke. Silver and black tunics, boots and clothes lay everywhere.

  Dainyl halted, then turned to Hyksant. “I don’t think there’s anyone left, but take the rest of the squad and check. Be careful.”

  “Yes,
sir.” The faintest smile crossed the undercaptain’s lips.

  “Don’t say it,” Dainyl said, knowing what Hyksant was doubtless thinking about a submarshal who led a charge against a half-fortified entrance. The only problem was that only Dainyl had shields strong enough to do it. Still, if someone hadn’t flamed the rebel with the sword-lance…

  He turned quickly and headed back to the entry area. The ancient weapon lay against the stones on one side of the outer entry tunnel. He picked it up carefully, sensing the cruel power in it, a hunger for…what? The lifeforce of alectors?

  Should he keep it? He shook his head. Every alector who had tried to use it was dead. Dainyl didn’t care for those odds.

  “What is it?”

  Galya’s words roused him from his consideration.

  “A deadly ancient weapon. Find somewhere to tuck it away for now. Better yet, bury it, and don’t tell anyone where. Even the slightest cut can be fatal to an alector, including whoever carries it.” He set the weapon on the waist-high narrow stone ledge, a stone wainscoting. “Wrap it in something, too.” He paused. “I thought…”

  “The undercaptain detailed me to you, sir.”

  Dainyl started to nod, then caught sight of an alcove just inside and partly hidden by the door he had earlier forced. He stepped forward and eased the door away from the stone. Just inside the alcove were two of the lightcannon, sitting on small handcarts.

  “Let’s get them out into the sunlight,” Dainyl said, “out in the open.” He wheeled one, heavy as it was, down the stone corridor and out into the hazy and smoky heat of early afternoon. With greater effort, Galya wheeled the other one after him.

  Kneeling beside the one, he inspected it quickly, but minutely, with his Talent as well as his eyes. One aspect caught his eye immediately. The power level was only set halfway up. That confirmed his suspicion that the rebels had been trying to destroy Myrmidons and not pteridons. It also confirmed his suspicions about the lack of truth in what Zelyert and Asulet had told him about the destruction of pteridons.

  Fhentyl and two other pteridons touched down in the open space directly to the east of the entry to the cavern spaces. Fhentyl hurried to meet Dainyl, who stood.

  “Is there anyone…?” began the captain.

  “Hyksant is checking, but I don’t think so. There wasn’t as much resistance as I’d expected. There aren’t any supplies left either, not to speak of.”

  At the sound of boots, both officers turned.

  Hyksant stepped into the sunlight. His face was pale and drawn. “There…there must have been hundreds of them. Hundreds.”

  “Are there any survivors?” asked Fhentyl.

  The undercaptain shook his head. “I don’t think we killed them all, though. Most of those in the back corridors—there was dust and smoke on the tunics and boots. They’d been there for a while.”

  For a while? Dainyl shook his head. “I don’t see how we could have killed so many by anything we did before today.”

  Even Fhentyl looked puzzled. “There isn’t much in the way of supplies, but there is some food—or was until the fire got to it. And they wouldn’t have killed their own.”

  “I don’t think so.” After a moment, Dainyl looked directly at Fhentyl. “Have someone count the dead—the tunics and boots. Then collect them and stack them in the main chamber of the front archway. I need to check out a few things, as quickly as I can. Just leave these lightcannon here for a moment, but don’t touch them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As he walked back through the curved corridor that he felt led to the Table chamber, Dainyl kept puzzling over what Hyksant had discovered. What could have killed so many? Certainly, the first attacks hadn’t sealed the complex enough to suffocate hundreds. The only other thing he had done had been to shut down the Table. Had the suddenness of that…?

  He almost stopped walking. The ancient soarer had talked about the need for ties directly to Acorus, about changing if he wanted to survive. That one time, for an instant, she had shown him lifethreads stretching to…where? Back to Ifryn? Even Lystrana had pointed out that alectors were linked to the world only indirectly and through the dual scepters and the Master Scepter. Could it be that the links for more recent alectors arriving on Acorus were more susceptible to disruption and that, if they had translated directly from Ifryn to Hyalt, he had inadvertently severed those links by his violent shutdown of the Hyalt Table?

  He forced himself to keep walking, disturbed by the potential implications, until he reached the normally hidden doorway that led to the Table chamber. The odor of smoke and sulfur remained strong as he stepped inside.

  The Table remained inert, looking and feeling like a black stone oblong. Even the normally mirrored surface was black. He released the low-level shields he’d been holding and continued to survey the chamber. Three sets of boots and clothing remained, in discrete piles around the Table. He kept searching, but found no papers, and no documents, nothing to indicate where the rebels had come from or who might have supported them. He doubted that, one way or the other, there would be any evidence in the ruins of the redstone building.

  “Submarshal! Submarshal! There are pteridons coming!” Galya stood in the doorway.

  Dainyl turned and ran for the front entrance.

  Fhentyl was standing just outside. “You can’t see them from here, but Arylra reported them. They’re just above the horizon to the southwest, a full company.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Dainyl replied. Not pleased, but hardly surprised.

  “What company are they?” asked Fhentyl. “You’re acting like they’re with the rebels.”

  “I’d judge that they are, and I’d wager that it’s Seventh Company out of Dulka. Captain Veluara has some ties to the rebels.”

  “Is the entire east of Corus rebelling?” Fhentyl looked appalled.

  “No. The Myrmidons at Lysia are loyal, and Third and Fourth Company are too far away to have flown here. I’ve already had trouble with Dulka.” Everything Dainyl said was true, but he hoped Fhentyl didn’t analyze his words too closely.

  “But…”

  “Get your squads airborne. Circle over the cliff top and to the west, so that they have to come over the entrance to the tunnels here. I’ll join you later, but I want to try something with those lightcannon.”

  “Are you certain you don’t want anyone here, sir?”

  “Absolutely.” Dainyl paused, then added. “Keep the pteridons fairly low as long as you can.”

  “You’re really going to try the lightcannon?”

  “Try is the appropriate word,” Dainyl replied. “I don’t think they’ll expect it, and if I can hit their captain, that might disorganize them a bit.”

  “You think they’ll surrender?”

  “No. I think they’ve all been told that we’re the rebels, and seeing the mess we made of the complex here, they won’t be inclined to think otherwise, no matter what we say.”

  Fhentyl frowned. “Hate to see Myrmidon against Myrmidon.”

  “You think I like it?” countered Dainyl. “I warned the marshal about what was happening in Dulka and Hyalt months ago. Until two weeks ago, he seemed to feel matters would work out. You need to get the company airborne. We can talk about how this happened later.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dainyl waited until Fifth Company had all departed, rising into the afternoon sky, then stepped farther out. Over here…close to the cliff. The pteridon obediently used wings and Talent to place itself less than ten yards from the cliff entrance.

  Dainyl positioned the pair of lightcannon just inside the stone archway and angled the discharge formulators upward to where he thought the oncoming pteridons might appear on their course toward Fifth Company. Then he turned the power lever all the way up. From what he’d observed and what he sensed, he’d only have one or two shots with each lightcannon before it exhausted its stored energy. Then, he settled back to wait for the oncoming Seventh Company.

  By a
ll rights, Veluara should be the lead flier, or one of the two at the point of the wedge. He might be able to tell, if the pteridons approached low enough. If not, he’d take out the leaders and then try to finish the job with his own pteridon and skylance.

  Less than a quarter glass passed before he saw the wide wedge of Seventh Company. He glanced back to the west, but the cliff blocked any view of Fifth Company, and that meant that Fhentyl was hanging back far enough to give Dainyl a good shot—he hoped.

  Dainyl forced himself to wait until the lead pteridon was just short of directly overhead before he pressed the firing stud, extending his Talent to guide the light-bolt.

  The flare was brighter, far brighter, than he’d thought, and his eyes watered. Even before he could see again, he had felt the double flash of the dissipation of purpled lifeforce. Both flier and pteridon had vanished—near instantly.

  Dainyl moved to the second lightcannon, aiming it at the pteridon that had been flying wing on the leader. The second flare was equally bright, and the results the same.

  The Seventh Company formation broke, peeling back away from the cliff.

  Dainyl checked the lightcannon, but neither showed any power remaining, and he wasted no time in running to his pteridon and scrambling into the silver saddle and harness.

  Up…fast pursuit!

  The pteridon flashed skyward. Dainyl could sense the lifeforce drain, the very squandering of resources that Shastylt had warned against, but Dainyl didn’t see any alternatives at the moment.

  A pair of the Seventh Company pteridons converged on him, trying to swoop down on him from their higher altitude.

  Dainyl waited until the last moment before throwing up his strongest shields, then triggering his lance, boosting and directing the blast at the Myrmidon he recognized—Undercaptain Klynd.

  While Klynd’s lightbolt sheeted around Dainyl, the submarshal’s fire slammed through the undercaptain’s far weaker shields. In moments, Klynd’s uniform fluttered downward through the sky, and his pteridon grasped the skylance before climbing and circling away.

 

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