The Empire of the Zon

by R. M. Burgess

  “Give me back my crossbow,” he said, so low that Durga had to crane her neck to hear. “I can take out one just as your Maidens get the other. That way there will be no sound.”

  Durga looked dubious. She looked from Elena to Ielani. They both nodded.

  “All right,” she said, briefly. As he set Nitya down, she pulled his crossbow out of her pack and handed it to him with a bolt. Elena and Ielani quickly scaled the slope above and were soon lost to sight in the darkness. Durga allowed him to squeeze past on her inside, hugging the rock face. He crept closer to the wall and was brought up short by the feeling of cold metal at the base of his skull. He twisted around—it was the barrel of Durga’s laser pistol.

  “Just a hint that you are trying to betray us, and you are a dead man,” she hissed. He nodded mutely and turned to the job at hand.

  He loaded the bolt and wound the crossbow a quarter turn at a time to minimize the sound. Then all three of them waited with bated breath.

  Greghar had the best night vision of the three of them, and he saw the quickly moving shadow before either Durga or Nitya. It was Ielani, dropping down from above the wall. Greghar lined up his shot. He saw Ielani rise up behind her prey, the starlight glinting off her flashing dagger.

  When Ielani expertly stabbed the one sentry, his scuffling boots drew the attention of the other, who whirled around, presenting Greghar with a perfect shot at his broad back. He fired, and the second sentry was dead a split second after the first.

  “Bravo,” whispered Durga in Greghar’s ear. “Perfect timing.”

  Durga, Nitya, and Greghar now quickly got to the base of the wall and found Ielani and Elena above them. They lashed their zircon lassos to merlons and dropped them down, and in a matter of minutes, all five of them were together on top of the wall. They were at the very end of the Ravine Wall, where the flat perch of the Ostracis plateau narrowed to a sharp point. Durga surveyed the length of the wall with her night-enabled long-vision and grunted.

  “They have several dozen men at the Ravine Gate,” she said. “And they have blocked the breach in the Ravine Wall with rubble. I don’t think we can bring in the rest of the squad without raising the alarm.”

  She wrung her hands in frustration.

  “I never expected Diana and Lady Alexandra to be recalled,” she said. “Without an airboat, everything is much, much harder.”

  “We do have an airboat at Simrania,” Elena reminded her. “We could bring out reinforcements and batteries. Probably enough to retake Ostracis.”

  “You mean the ancient Mark II? That old rattletrap! I can’t even remember the last time I flew it…must have been ten years ago. Half the instruments don’t work—you need to fly it by the seat of your pants. And who could pilot it? None of our Maidens have piloted an airboat in years, much less such an unreliable machine.”

  “What about the airship medica?” asked Ielani. “She’s a qualified pilot—I saw wings on her choker.”

  “You mean Dannae Margelina?” asked Durga. “She’s pregnant with twins, on an accelerated gestation. She must be as big as a house by now.”

  “It won’t take much effort to fly straight and level,” said Elena dryly. “Once she gets here, either you or I can take over.”

  “I’ll think about it,” said Durga, without enthusiasm. “We need to do what we came to do first—retrieve Lady Caitlin. We can’t even think about retaking Ostracis till we do that. With her as hostage, the Skull Watch has us over a barrel.”

  “The captain, Guttanar, wanted to present her to Nestar Crogus,” said Greghar, hoping that Durga would believe him now. “She must be in the Keep.”

  “To the Keep, then,” she said, much to Greghar’s relief.

  They used the steps on the inside of the wall, and after crossing a small open area, they came up to the first buildings of Lower Town. Both Lower Town and Upper Town were densely packed with structures. At its height, Ostracis housed almost a hundred thousand Zon. Given its relatively small plateau with no room to grow, almost every bit of flat land had been built upon. Except for the two main boulevards in Upper Town, all the thoroughfares were narrow, winding alleys.

  They entered such a narrow alley now. All three Maidens had their laser pistols drawn and ready. Ostracis clearly lacked power, since all the streetlights were out and all the buildings were in darkness. It was eerie, since they could all sense unseen eyes watching them. The residents of Ostracis had been much abused and were now keeping their heads down and staying out of sight. They proceeded about half a kilometer when they saw their first official building. “Government Benefits Office” read the sign. It had been knocked askew and now hung at an angle. The building had a large set of double doors, but they had been broken, and remnants hung on bent hinges. The wind had blown drifts of snow into the building.

  “Let’s take a look in there,” said Durga, her low tone sounding unnaturally loud.

  All five of them entered. Once inside, the three Maidens tapped their wrist bracers, activating their light beams. Everywhere they saw upended furniture and broken equipment. All the windows were shattered, and snow swirled in from outside.

  “Well, Ostracis has been well and truly sacked,” said Durga grimly. “Just as we heard on the comm.”

  Greghar stopped and sniffed the air, his ranger’s instincts sharply tuned in.

  “There was a fire here recently,” he said. “Follow me.”

  They followed him, shining the powerful lights over his shoulder. He led the way down a corridor and then down a set of winding stairs to an underground basement. Even the stored crates here had been ripped open and ransacked. Stepping over debris, they moved deeper into the subterranean chamber. Suddenly, they saw movement in front of them. Two shadowy figures were scuttling away, seeking concealment behind another pile of broken crates.

  “Stay where you are!” Durga spoke in a normal tone, but her gravelly voice echoed around the basement. All three Maidens had leveled laser pistols, and the two figures froze. They were blinded by the bright lights and looked away. They were two Zon: one was so old that she was bent over, while the other one was young, with auburn curls. The young one supported her older sister.

  “We have done nothing wrong,” said the young one in a frightened voice. “Please don’t hurt us.”

  “We are your sisters—we are here to protect you,” said Durga, exasperated.

  “No one can protect us,” she responded. “We are defenseless and the young huntresses were too few.”

  “We are here to take back Ostracis,” said Durga through her teeth. “But you must help us.”

  “Why should we believe you?” asked the old one querulously. “All those who resisted the Cheval Nestar Crogus are tortured, and most are dead. Their heads are on spikes on the Keep battlements. We don’t know you, and we cannot harm you. Please! Just leave us alone.”

  Durga clicked her teeth in frustration. Nitya came forward till they could see her in the lights.

  “Listen to me,” she said. Her appearance and young voice were much less intimidating than Durga’s. “I know you have suffered, but that is in the past. We ask that you trust us—no one will know that you have met us.”

  “What do you want?” asked the young one suspiciously.

  “Information,” said Durga briefly. “We need to get to the Keep. Where are the barbarians stationed between here and there? And what is the best way to get there while avoiding them?”

  The two Zon looked at each other. Finally, the older one spoke, her voice trembling.

  “You cannot avoid them all. They have men stationed on all the bridges over the Dividing Stream. And the stream itself is still too high and fast to ford.”

  “Which one is the most lightly held?” asked Durga, striving to sound conciliatory.

  “The Flume Bridge up by the cauldron of Mermaid Falls,” she said slowly. “But it is the farthest from the Keep.”

  “Very well,” said Durga, holstering her laser pistol. “Stay out of
sight and tell no one about us—even your sisters. But remember, help is coming.”

  They climbed up out of the basement and resumed their progress along the alley. They were much more careful now and moved in the shadows, making no sound and not speaking. Ostracis was compact, and they reached the Dividing Stream in short order. As their elderly informant had told them, there was a troop of Skull Watch stationed at the bridge with several sentries pacing at both ends. Durga was in the lead. She turned back to them and motioned them into an alley that branched away, screened from the stream by a line of buildings. They retreated into it and continued, checking every so often through the gaps in between buildings that they were still parallel to the stream.

  The Flume Bridge was not hard to recognize. It was at the base of Mermaid Falls, the confluence of the waterfalls that fell from the cliffs onto the Ostracis plateau. The Dividing Stream flowed out of the cauldron of the falls, and the Flume Bridge was the very first one over it. The old woman had been right. There were only two sentries on it, one on each side.

  They gathered around Durga, screened from the bridge by a building. They were too close to risk talking, so she drew her dagger and pantomimed stabbing while tapping Greghar’s crossbow and making a motion indicating “again.” They all nodded.

  Durga reached into her pack and silently handed Greghar his remaining quiver of bolts and then his belt hung with two swords—Caitlin’s sword, Karya, and his own longsword. Finally, she held out his dagger, hilt first. He buckled on the sword belt and, taking the dagger, wordlessly saluted her with it.

  Ielani had disappeared into the darkness. Greghar now entered the building they were sheltering behind. As with most of the buildings they had passed, it had been sacked. The doors and windows were broken, so he entered easily, taking care to avoid crunching over broken glass and other debris. He made his way through a corridor to a room overlooking the Flume Bridge. He loaded his crossbow and drew a bead on the sentry on the far side of the bridge, simultaneously keeping a sharp lookout for Ielani.

  This time when he saw her closing in, he fired. It was a tricky shot, but Greghar made it look easy. As the bolt went home and the sentry fell with a thud, the other one looked over to see what had happened. In a reversal of their earlier action, Ielani now found herself with a wide target, and her dagger found its mark, the sentry able to emit no more than a strangled cry.

  Durga did not waste time with congratulations but quickly led them over the bridge. Just fifteen minutes of careful movement through the shadows brought them to Upper Town Square. Stopping in concealment again, they took stock of their situation. All three of the Maidens had their night long-visions out, and their faces became set as they scanned the battlements, seeing the hundreds of grisly spikes.

  “You will be avenged,” Durga muttered, and Elena and Ielani echoed her.

  Greghar and Nitya were more interested in looking at the Keep itself. The arrow-slit windows on the level just below the battlements were brightly lit. The sounds filtering down indicated raucous feasting to Greghar’s sharp ears. He caught Nitya’s eye and pointed to the lighted windows with a significant look. She nodded and whispered, “Lady Caitlin must be up there.”

  DEIRDRE WAS IN her temporary office in Aurora, seated behind a wide desk, with Alex standing beside her. Yukia and Darbeni sat in facing chairs, along with Yukia’s Aurora-based correspondent. Deirdre looked serious and not very happy.

  “Let me get this straight,” she said sternly. “You want to interview me for Lives of our Sisters. And you want to focus on my role in the recent battles.”

  “Yes, First Principal,” said Yukia earnestly. “We would like to show the seriousness of our situation in Aurora and the heroism of our Legions under your leadership. And especially focus on your leadership by personal example.”

  “Why would Vivia want to show me in a good light? She has never been one of my admirers.”

  “High Mistress Vivia has her personal opinions,” said Yukia with a smile. “But she gives me complete editorial freedom as far as the content of LOS is concerned.”

  “As you know,” continued Darbeni, back now in her modest garb, the magnificent coiffure she had worn at Goset replaced by her normal severe bun. “High Mistress Vivia likes nothing more than free trade. And she realizes that we cannot have free trade without free speech.”

  “I see,” said Deirdre thoughtfully. “Are you telling me that all this is not Vivia’s idea?”

  “Exactly,” said Yukia with gusto. “The whole idea and the production was my idea. It will be great to talk about the battle on the wall where you returned, grievously wounded, in your quest to prevent batteries from falling into barbarian hands. We will have the Guardian squad that retrieved the batteries on hand to add their story. And we will lead with in the server, Franna, who insulted you in the café, to tell us why she was so filled with hatred for the electrae. I understand that she has since visited you in Medical and has become quite a fan of yours.”

  Deirdre did not respond immediately. She thought furiously. What could Vivia possibly gain out of building her up? It just did not make sense. But on the other hand, the opportunity to present both the seriousness of the war as well as the gallantry of the huntresses was too tempting to pass up.

  “I’ll think it over,” she said cautiously. “I’ll let you know soon.”

  “I need to get the video done by today,” said Yukia anxiously. “I have very little unwatched content, and I cannot allow LOS to lose its position on the comm. If we can’t do this by today, I will have to find another story, probably in Atlantic City. I have an airboat at my disposal and can leave at a moment’s notice.”

  “I said I will let you know,” repeated Deirdre. “Within an hour or two.”

  Yukia could get no more out of her. She left with Darbeni and her staffer shortly thereafter.

  Alex came around and sat down in the chair vacated by Darbeni.

  “I don’t like it, ma’am,” she said suspiciously. “I don’t trust Vivia one bit. There has to be an angle they are hiding from us.”

  “What could it be?” mused Deirdre. She ticked possibilities off with her fingers. “First, they may try to spring some disaffected commoners on me and bait me into saying something stupid. Second, they may have gotten to Franna and convinced her, with money or otherwise, to change her mind and attack me again.”

  Alex smiled.

  “That would be just like Vivia and Yukia,” she said. “But we can be prepared for that. I can seal off the interview section of the battlements, so they cannot bring anyone other than the ones they have told us about. As far as Franna is concerned, we can talk to her beforehand and see how she is feeling. She did not strike me as one who conceals her true feelings very well.”

  “Okay, Alex,” said Deirdre decisively. “I think I should do this interview, subject to Yukia giving us the final product to put up. It is imperative that the commoners understand the seriousness of the war, and it will be great to combat their negative views of the electrae. Getting it out on LOS will have much greater impact than anything put on the comm by the electrae.”

  “I doubt if Yukia will give us access to the LOS site,” sniffed Alex.

  However, to Deirdre’s and Alex’s surprise, Yukia and Darbeni meekly agreed to deliver the product to the Legions’ PR office and to give them access to the LOS live site. So it was that two hours later, the entire party debarked from Vivia’s large airboat at the inner wall overlooking the Docks district. Aurora-based huntresses garrisoned this section of the wall, and Alex had a word with their centuria to seal off the perimeter of the interview site, allowing no one else to enter. In addition, the two squads of Guardians who had worked on retrieving the battery crate were on hand in full combat gear. Yukia was expertly directing her local staff as they shot holographic material in bits and pieces that she would later splice together. She did all this seamlessly while talking to her subjects. She had Franna with her now.

  “So, Franna,
I understand that you were quite harsh in your first meeting with First Principal Deirdre,” Yukia said, making sure that she placed her face in the exactly the right position for maximum effect.

  “Indeed, I was,” said Franna, flushing. “And I am quite ashamed of myself now. I had no idea that Princess Deirdre had been so seriously injured in battle, or that she had been so close to death. When I went afterward to see her at Aurora Medical, I met some commoners on the staff there, and they told me all about her bravery.”

  “So what are your thoughts about your mother now?” continued Yukia.

  “As Princess Deirdre said, the sooner we defeat the barbarians here at Aurora, the sooner we can turn our attention to reconquering Ostracis.”

  “Was this change of heart brought about by the First Principal’s actions?”

  “No,” said Franna. “It was brought about by the love the princess has shown me even after I treated her so badly. She is not the haughty aristocrat I expected her to be. Her love for her sisters is so true that she risks her very life for us.”

  Yukia now turned to Deirdre.

  “Franna has a touching faith in you, First Principal,” she said smoothly. “Let us walk up to the top of the wall, and you can tell us about your role in the battle that has made you such a heroine to all here in Aurora. And you can also point out to us precisely where these struggles occurred.”

  Deirdre nodded her acquiescence. Alex led the way up the steps, with Yukia and Franna behind her, followed by Yukia’s staff. Deirdre came next, flexing her stiff shoulder. While she would never admit it, she felt terrible. It had been a major operation to repair her shoulder, requiring a significant amount of metal and muscle graft. It looked perfect, and they had assured her that she would make a complete recovery, but the internal healing process had just begun. It took considerable effort to keep the agony out of her face.

  They set up on the wall, and Alex signaled one of the Guardian squads to come up and set up an inner perimeter. She noticed that Darbeni had stayed down by Vivia’s airboat, under the shelter of the wall. The Guardian seignora came up and stood at Alex’s elbow.