The Empire of the Zon

by R. M. Burgess

  Deirdre and Andromache rode the antigravity down together, since Hildegard stayed behind to do a retirement interview with Yukia and receive open channels from the comm. Their entourages would follow them down after a discreet interval.

  As soon as they began their fall, Andromache took Deirdre’s arm, affecting to need support. She looked up at her taller rival and smiled.

  “Deirdre, we have been friends our whole lives. I just had a vision of the holiday we took together in Aurora with the girls. When was it, almost twenty years ago? You had just been promoted to First Principal, one of the youngest ever. And I was Arch Priestess of Cognis. Caitlin and Althea were little girls, playing together in the waves and building sandcastles, while we talked of our plans for the Sisterhood. I hope we can get through this election with our friendship intact and then work together to realize those plans.”

  “Those are happy memories,” Deirdre said, with a trace of wistfulness. “But we cannot bring them back.” She put her hand on her opponent’s smooth cheek. “The Sisterhood is in grave danger, Andromache. Our superiority over the barbarians is wafer thin, held in place mostly by their beliefs. They outnumber us almost a hundred to one—if they sense weakness, they will strike at us immediately. Hildegard and you just do not see that.”

  “We will have to agree to disagree, Deirdre,” said Andromache mildly before they parted.

  Later that night, Deirdre stood on her balcony and looked back the Confederation Tower. When she had forced the election, she had hoped that Shobar’s provocations would drive the vote in her favor. She had underestimated the extent of Vivia’s loathing for her—she had not expected her to throw her weight so completely behind Andromache. I’ll wait till noon tomorrow, and then I’ll break the story of Hildegard’s son, she thought. Then I’ll get my poll workers to play video of the attacks on the Utrean Residency.

  THIRTEEN

  PRAEFECTA LAKSA VERTINA peered through her longvision down into the depths of the Steefen ravine. She swept the area that Centuria Ling Mae had pointed out a dozen times, but she could not see what was being pointed out to her. She had done her corrective auto-surgery in the morning, but it seemed to have less effect every day. Goddess Ma, how I hate getting old, she thought. She could see Ling Mae watching her out of the corner of her eye and hated the petite, slant-eyed huntress for her youth and vitality.

  “I am sorry, Centuria,” she confessed. “I still cannot see what you are referring to.”

  “Praefecta Laksa, we have seen movement down there below the Ice Bridge cataract for the last two days,” Ling Mae said patiently. “I would like clearance to send out an airboat to do some reconnaissance and get us some video.”

  “Centuria, I am retired; I do not command you,” Laksa said diffidently. “You must make your own decision or contact your captain on the comm.”

  “I know, but I would like to take advantage of your long years of experience,” said Ling Mae. “I have never held a combat command. All of us in the Legions have heard about your actions during the War of Brigon Succession.”

  Laksa was flattered. Since her retirement she had grown used to being treated with condescension by active-duty huntresses.

  “Well, I cannot fault your thinking, Centuria,” she said now. “Send out a reconnaissance mission. However, if you think there is really someone out there, I would send two airboats, with one flying cover at a higher altitude.”

  Ling Mae put her hand on her heart.

  “I hear and obey, Praefecta,” she said, her words music to Laksa’s ears.

  BRENDEL NEVISINA WAS in a bar in Upper Town with two other airboat crewwomen, pounding her beer mug on the table in time to the gwendell player. Ostracis had been boring so far, and it was difficult to get used to all the old and fat women as well as the relative poverty of the environment. She spent most of her free time watching holograms on the comm and hanging out with other air crew. Her mother called her once a day, and she had to keep assuring her that there was no danger.

  When her comm channel pinged, she thought it was her mother, but she was surprised to see her seignora.

  “Officia Brendel,” she said seriously. “We have been ordered to run a low-level recon mission just below the Ice Bridge cataract. I see you are in a bar. Are you sober enough to join me?”

  Brendel tapped her wrist bracer to open the analyzer and breathed into it. The results were well in the green zone and were simultaneously visible to her seignora.

  “I was just halfway through my first beer, Seignora,” she said cheerily. “I am delighted to fly on your wing. When do we start?”

  “Immediately,” said her seignora, and she cut the channel without further ado.

  An hour later, Brendel was at the controls of her airboat, lifting off from the landing area by the Keep. Her seignora was already airborne and climbing sharply out of the ravine. Even in a small airboat, the confines of the narrow cleft valley were constrictive, and Brendel marveled at how her mother had been able to sail in and out in the huge Thetis.

  She climbed steeply after her seignora and dutifully took up her position on her wing. She reported their presence on the comm, and the two airboats circled back toward the Ice Bridge cataract.

  “I am going down to get some video,” said her seignora over the comm. “Stay up here and cover me.”

  “I hear and obey, Seignora,” said Brendel sunnily.

  “And get serious. This is not a joyride.”

  “I hear and obey,” Brendel said again, this time with much more gravity. She armed her hull-mounted ’grators and activated the video scan to follow her seignora’s airboat as it spiraled down into the narrow ravine. She watched the airboat as it flew below the cataract. Laksa, Ling Mae, and the watch on the Ravine Wall all followed the progress of the airboats through their long-visions. They were joined by dozens of curious Ostracis inhabitants on the icy walls of the citadel.

  The cataract was a concentrated cascade of water overtopped by a natural bridge of rock that was ice-covered for much of the year. It then fell a hundred meters into a broader gorge, and the Steefen changed from a fast-flowing torrent of whitewater above the cataract to a wider, slower-moving river below it. The valley began to widen out from this point as well and had banks that could be traversed much more easily.

  As her seignora’s airboat sank below the level of the cataract into the wider valley, it was out of the line of sight of the citadel, so Brendel fed video from her scanners into the comm. While the watchers on the citadel walls could no longer see the airboat through their longvisions, they could see her on the comm. It was extraordinarily difficult flying, calling for extreme precision and steady nerves. Brendel watched with dreadful fascination as air currents buffeted the airboat, almost driving her into the canyon walls on numerous occasions. She was so intent on watching the airboat that she disregarded the video feed that her seignora was providing.

  So when it happened, it took her completely by surprise. There was a sudden explosion, and her seignora’s airboat disintegrated, falling in burning fragments into the lower river, where they were rapidly extinguished. Her training told her to dive to look for survivors. But Brendel was frozen by panic, her airboat still flying straight and level.

  “Pull up and take evasive action, Officia Brendel!” Ling Mae’s sharp voice came through an open comm channel, galvanizing her into action. “That was a ’grator that took out your seignora! Climb out of range immediately.”

  Brendel threw the throttles wide open, jammed on the control surfaces, and jockeyed the wheel to put the airboat into a corkscrewing climb. Before her unbelieving eyes, she saw the telltale white contrails of ’grator blasts just miss her hull to starboard. This is impossible, she thought. Only the Sisterhood has ’grators!

  SUETERI MAKHRINA LOOKED with horror at the disintegrating airboat.

  “That was incredibly stupid on so many levels,” she cried. “Now you have revealed our position to the citadel! And we had agreed that we would take Ostr
acis with a minimum of casualties. We have shown you the tunnel to get your men around the citadel and approach it on its weak upper slopes. So this was completely unnecessary!”

  “Oh, but huntress, that just felt so good!” said her companion on the Ice Bridge, Cheval Nestar Crogus, grinning lazily. He was the commander of Shobar’s Skull Watch, a man of medium height and slim build, with a brown beard flecked with gray and a shaven head. His brown eyes were deceptively mild, concealing his vicious nature. He was Shobar’s attack dog and loved nothing more than the infliction of pain and suffering.

  “You have no idea how many years I have waited to shoot down a Zon airboat. What a shame I missed the other one. Besides, it is almost the precise time I planned to signal our troops on the upper slopes to launch their attack. What better signal could I have given them?” He smiled and patted her cheek.

  “I was not told—” she began.

  “There are many things you were not told, huntress,” he said coldly. He walked from the Ice Bridge to the beginning of the narrow path that led all the way up to the Ravine Gate of the citadel. He drew out a long-vision he had taken from Sueteri and looked up above the citadel. He could see his men shimmying down fixed ropes to land on the lightly defended upper ramparts of the citadel. He turned to the men-at-arms waiting behind him.

  “Let us move up to storm the citadel,” he said loudly. “Let us join our brothers in battle!”

  The men-at-arms raised a cheer, and they began their trek up the path.

  “You may join us if you wish, huntress,” said Nestar over his shoulder to Sueteri. She hesitated before joining the procession up the path.

  LAKSA AND LING Mae looked with horror at the hundreds of warriors swarming over the upper ramparts into Upper Town. The few huntresses there managed to mow down a few dozen men-at-arms, but some of the attackers had laser pistols and ’grators and used them to good effect. The huntresses were quickly overwhelmed, some shot but others simply hacked to pieces by the sheer weight of numbers.

  “Fall back to the Keep and lock down the upper gates,” called Laksa into the comm. “Any constabulary huntresses that read me, make your way to the Keep with your weapons and enter through the lower gates.”

  Ling Mae looked at the seignora of the watch. She was a regular Pentheselia Legion officer from the Thetis, solid and dependable.

  “Take two officea and destroy the two remaining airboats,” she said urgently. “There is no time to find the crews now, and we cannot risk them falling into enemy hands.”

  The seignora put her hand on her heart, saying, “I hear and obey,” and left on the double, followed by two of her watch. As they ran, they set the power on their light ’grators.

  “Get your huntresses to set up a line from the Keep along the Dividing Stream,” said Laksa to Ling Mae. “We must try and defend Lower Town. There are too many of the enemy in Upper Town, we cannot defend it now. But if we hold the Keep, we may be able to use it as a base for a counter-attack.”

  Ling Mae nodded and rapped out a series of orders into the comm. Then she turned to Laksa and pointed down into the ravine.

  “We have another prong of the attack coming up the ravine,” she said, trying but failing to keep her voice from rising. “We must take precautions against the citadel being lost. Get some of the retired huntresses of your constabulary to destroy all the batteries.”

  Laksa nodded, her face worried.

  “I am afraid you are right,” she said. She opened a comm channel to the constable on duty and said, “Take a few batteries into the Keep and bring a few to the Ravine Wall. Destroy all the others.”

  Almost on cue there was ’grator blast from down in the ravine, and a huge mass of masonry spilt off the Ravine Wall.

  “It will be difficult to hold the citadel,” said Laksa to Ling Mae. “It looks like we are outnumbered more than five to one, and the enemy has our weapons.”

  “Well, for now we will fight,” said Ling Mae, gritting her teeth.

  She took up a position behind a huntress of her watch, who was depressing the barrel of a heavy ’grator.

  “A narrow beam, officia,” she said to her. “Save your power, we don’t have many fresh batteries. Take out the leading men-at-arms. Use your sights to try and hit the man with the ’grator.”

  Ling Mae put her own light ’grator on a crenel and sighted. Setting it to a narrow beam, she vaporized three men-at-arms in quick succession. Then she saw the man with the ’grator and lined up on him. By some sixth sense, he threw himself behind one of his fellows at the last minute—her shot vaporized the man in front of him. The grim reality of the numbers was sinking in. There were hundreds of men already in the citadel, and only about half of her huntresses from the Thetis had managed to get into some form of organized resistance. Those that had were deployed along the Dividing Stream to try and protect Lower Town. And there were hundreds more of the enemy coming up the ravine path. She had eight huntresses of the watch on the Ravine Wall, and she had called up another squad.

  She knew that they did not have enough power on the wall to take out the men coming up one at a time. Her own light ’grator only had enough power for about a dozen more narrow beam blasts. She knew that her fellow huntresses were metering their shots, trying to make each one count.

  Then her worst fears were confirmed. Almost simultaneously she heard two fresh ’grator blasts. One was behind her, and rubble poured out of one of the walls of the Keep in Upper Town. The other came from the ravine and hit the same section of the wall as the first. This time the weakened wall section collapsed, leaving a yawning gap just by the Ravine Gate. The citadel was open to the attackers from below.

  The huntress manning the heavy ’grator looked up from her weapon. In the starlight reflected off the snow, Ling Mae could see the barrel was black from repeated firing and so hot that it hissed as the wind blew snowflakes onto it.

  “Centuria Ling Mae,” she said formally, discipline intact even in extremis. “I have enough power for one medium-beam shot. Shall I try and take out the path? There’s a bit of an overhang just before the path approaches the Ravine Gate.”

  “Yes, try to take it,” Ling Mae said readily. “We may be able to delay them enough to gain control of the citadel.”

  She waited with bated breath as her huntress aimed and squeezed the trigger. There was a rumble and a flash and a cloud of rock and snow as the beam struck home. As it cleared, there were sighs of relief along the wall. It was an excellent shot, and just a narrow ledge remained, connecting the lower path to the trail leading up the Ravine Gate.

  Ling Mae put her arm around her and squeezed her tight.

  “A brilliant shot, officia,” she said warmly. “You have stymied the attack from below.”

  The huntress beamed with pleasure but tried to look modest. She drew her light ’grator from her shoulder harness. Both she and Ling Mae rested their light ’grators on the merlons and waited for the attackers to appear at the narrow rock shelf. The path was so narrow now they could pick them off at their leisure. As they waited they heard screams coming from Upper Town. Laksa turned her longvision uphill, and her mouth tightened. She tapped Ling Mae on the shoulder.

  “They are raping the women in Upper Town,” she said furiously. “I wish that we could castrate them!”

  “I’d settle for vaporizing them,” said Ling Mae, through her teeth.

  NESTAR SUMMONED THE captain of the point unit, who squeezed by several men-at-arms to make his way back. Sueteri was further back along the path, waiting to hear what Nestar would say.

  “What has happened up the path?” Nestar asked roughly.

  “The huntresses have hit a narrow section of the path, Cheval,” said the captain. “A large section of the path has been destroyed, with only a very narrow ledge remaining. It can be traversed, but with great difficulty and only by one man at a time. Anyone on the ledge is a sitting duck for the huntresses on the citadel walls.”

  “Take twenty men,” said Nes
tar without hesitation. “Send them up the ledge one at a time, to make the huntresses think we are pressing on with this attack. The rest of us will take the tunnel and join our brothers in pressing the attack from the upper slopes.”

  “But, Cheval, that will mean certain death for the men we send onto the ledge,” protested the captain.

  “So?” Nestar’s question was put in a low voice, but it was loaded. His mien remained unruffled, but his captain knew that his life would be forfeit if he did not obey immediately.

  So he merely said, “Yes, sir,” and turned to go back to the head of the column and select the cannon fodder.

  The tunnel entrance was a few hundred meters above the Ice Bridge cataract. It had been invisible, concealed by a very natural-looking rock fall of boulders. However, Sueteri, Dushka, and the other Zon collaborators had led Nestar and his men to it. They had torn the rock fall aside and pushed the boulders off the path into the river far below. Now Nestar sent another of his captains to lead the men-at-arms into the tunnel. The tunnel was well constructed, with smooth floors, though the walls were rough. It was high enough for the men to walk upright and almost wide enough for them to walk comfortably.

  The tunnel was over a kilometer long, unlighted and angled sharply upward as it climbed through the mountain. The men lit burning torches, and by the time they were halfway through, the air was growing quite foul. Sueteri found herself coughing and bent over double to try and breathe the cleaner air at waist level and below. She finally emerged from the tunnel onto an open slope above the citadel, just behind Nestar. The first sound she heard was the screaming from Upper Town. She cringed.

  “Follow our brothers into battle!” called Nestar loudly. “The citadel is ripe for plucking; it will soon be ours!”

  With wild yells, the Utreans charged down the slope. The earlier attacks had already pushed the defenders into the interior of the citadel, so the men-at-arms entered it unmolested.