“I don’t think so,” said the Dwarf with a frown. “After all, this is just the main chamber of the structure. I am sure there are hidden surprises all through the maze that must run underneath.”
“Crap,” said Jackie, looking at the two men. “You mean we have to go through this again.”
“Oh no, friend Jackie,” said the Dwarf with a smile. “There will be nothing like this in the rest of this structure. Maybe in the others, but not this one. As your people say, we’ve knocked the hell out of this one.
“Now I would suggest we leave here for now, and gather our strength again.”
“That sounds really good to me, sirs,” said Captain Marcus Jordan, walking up to the men. “And I have an idea for the next time.” Everyone looked at the man for a moment. “Flame throwers. We got to have some somewhere. Or we can figure out how to cobble some together. But I don’t want to face those things again without something to burn them, and burn them good.”
That sounded like a good idea to Kurt. He had always thought of flame throwers as a cruel weapon, but fire had proven a powerful weapon against the Trolls. And he really didn’t give a shit what the mummies and other undead felt. Just as long as they were destroyed.
Chapter Seventeen
“So what do we know about this super weapon the strangers used?” asked the Emperor Ellandra Mashara of his staff. The Emperor was in a foul mood, and the staff looked uncomfortably at each other without answer, remembering the quote about messengers being blamed for the message.
“Come now gentlemen,” said the Emperor with a smile that would frighten a knight champion. “I cannot blame you for what the foe has brought with him to this world. But I need to know about what they have that I might devise our response. So speak up.”
“Your majesty,” started one of the younger Ellala in the room, sweat beading on his face despite the chill in the chamber. “From what the few survivors have told us, it is beyond anything we have ever seen.”
“I think that everything they show us is beyond anything we have ever seen,” the Emperor replied with sarcasm dripping from every word. “Now tell me what I don’t know.”
“The witnesses,” continued the young Ellala after a quick swallow, “say that a small sun blossomed over the fortress. They say that the heat, even from fifteen kilometers away, was harsh on their faces, and the light blinding. There was a great wind generated that pulled up trees, even as the heat ignited them. The mage barrier over the fortress resisted for some few seconds, stopping the force of the wind and flame. Then it dropped suddenly, as if it ran out of power to resist, and the heat and blast washed over the fortress and killed everyone who was above ground, as well as many who had taken refuge underground.”
“So it was a very powerful weapon that exploded in the air above the fortress,” stated the Emperor, looking around the table. “And it overpowered the protection afforded by a number of powerful Imperial mages. And what else do we know about their weapons in general?”
“They are powerful enough to destroy a city,” said another councilor, wiping the sweat from his face. “From the sound of it the weapon would wipe A’ataponia from the face of the world.”
“That is also truth,” said the Emperor with a shark like smile. “But not what I am looking for.”
“They are of a material basis, your majesty,” spoke one of the other advisors, another man he did not know well, since the elder ministers had taken to sending subordinates to these meetings.
“And what is meant by that?”
“They are machines, your majesty,” continued the man. “They work well, and are powerful, but they must be made by the hands of the humans. They came from another world. And they have a limited supply of them.”
“That would have to be correct, young man,” said the Emperor with a smile. “If they had, let’s say, hundreds of these things, they would have been throwing them all over the place and we would have lost contact with that portion of the Empire completely. And they probably have more than one, or they would have conserved it for a greater crisis.”
“If they have another they may still be able to hurt us,” said the first speaker.
“But to hurt us is not to defeat us,” said the Emperor, waving a finger in the air. “We will have to weather these weapons for a short while, then we will be able to move in and conquer them.”
“Why not just wait until their weapons no longer work?” said the second speaker. “After all, we have been told that they will eventually cease to function on our world. Why not just wait them out?”
“Because, puppy,” said the Emperor, staring at the man who started to sweat and fidget in his chair, “I choose not to wait until that time. I want these people for my own use. And I cannot abide with them controlling part of my lands.” The Emperor’s voice rose on the last to a roar, and all the assembled looked down or away, afraid to meet their lord and master’s eye.
“I want to know when our own people will be in range to attack this enemy at his heart,” roared the Emperor, his gaze sweeping the table. “And tell your lords that even though they fear to appear before me, I still hold them responsible for the actions of their departments. And the actions of their aides.”
The Emperor paced for a moment in the silent room, then turned back to his subordinates.
“And I want to know how the seed of what the Goddess of Pestilence spread among the strangers is growing. It should have blossomed by now, and should be spreading among them like the scythe of death.”
“Now get you from my presence,” he yelled, his hand sweeping in a gesture of dismissal. “And don’t come back until you have something useful to present.”
The Ellala scrambled to their feet, several knocking chairs over onto the marble floor, in their haste to quit the presence of their master while their souls still dwelt in their bodies.
* * *
Gertrude Heidle had been feeling tired all morning. She knew that she needed to help in the fields, if her people were to continue to survive the coming tribulations. But she had been aching all day, and felt like a fever was coming on. She had never been one to get ill very easily, and so had decided that she would tough it out.
The first indication her fellows had that anything was wrong was when the old woman fell to her knees in the field and began to vomit blood. By the time they got to her she was laying in the dirt, covered in bloody vomit. A quick check showed she was burning with fever. Within minutes she was at the nearby medical clinic run by the American Army. It wasn’t fast enough. She was pronounced dead on arrival. An hour later several more of the workers in her work group were in the clinic, occupying beds as they burned under their own fevers and pustulant blisters formed on their skins.
Beate Terbourg was working as a nurse in that hospital, a volunteer. She got a mask on her face as fast as she could when she saw the older woman come in. She made sure that she had gloves on when she handled the gathering of samples from the dead woman. She warned others that they should do the same. Some listened. Some didn’t. And she prayed for those who ignored her advice.
“I have never seen anything like it,” said one of the German Army doctors, in a conversation with a civilian physician.
“It reminds me of the plagues of the past,” said the civilian doctor. “The pustules. The fever.”
“But the plagues didn’t kill so quickly,” said the Army doctor. “I studied them in school as well, and this is something so unlike them in its rapidity that it terrifies me.”
And terrifies the rest of us as well, thought Beate, looking down on the rictus of death that was the face of the woman. I hope I don’t contract this thing, whatever it is.
An elfin woman walked up to the doctors, looked over at the bed, and said some soft words. She looked over at the doctors and made a sign with her hands.
“Are you familiar with this, my lady?” said the Army doctor to the priestess.
“Not this particular contagion, no,” she said, her eyes s
howing her concern. “But this type of contagion in general, yes. You will find that this was sent by the Goddess of Pestilence, at the command of some powerful priest or mage.”
“And how do we stop this from spreading?” asked the civilian doctor, nodding at the body of Gertrude
“That I cannot tell you,” said the priestess, looking at Beate, puzzlement on her face. “Perhaps what that young woman is doing may help. What do you call that?”
“Universal precautions,” said the civilian doctor, looking over at Beate and giving her a smile. “We use it on our world to make sure that contagions do not spread, especially when we are not sure what we are dealing with.:
“Very smart,” said the priestess. “That will probably help, as a magical contagion is still made up of a physical presence. Particles of life too small to see without the proper spell.”
“And can your magic help?” asked the doctor, watching as two more victims were brought into the triage room and gowned nurses went to work. “Can your Goddess help with this? Maybe fight magic with magic.”
“My Goddess can do some things against this plague,” said the priestess with a frown. “But not enough. She is the Goddess of Life, but healing is not her main strength. I can heal some of the people brought in here.” The beautiful Elf walked over to one of the two humans just brought in, a young man who was not even out of his teens. She said some words and brought her hands up into the air. The hands glowed and she put one on the young man’s forehead, the other on his chest.
Beate could feel the power in the room. I want to be able to do that, she thought, watching as the pustules closed up on the face of the man. I will learn how to do that. I wonder how I go about asking for the training.
The young man opened his eyes, looking confused for a moment. Then his eyes closed and he fell into a deep sleep.
“Can you help more of them?” asked the Army doctor, gesturing toward the older woman.
“No,” said the Conyastaya with a head shake, the fatigue plain on her face. “That took all of my strength. Maybe in some more hours, after I have rested.”
“So what God can help?” asked Beate, walking up to the woman. “I would like to learn how to heal in the manner of your people.”
The priestess smiled at the young German nurse, and looked to the doctors. “It would really help if some of our people could learn your methods. We are reckoned skilled healers on our world, but soon we will not have the instruments to heal much beyond cuts and bruises.”
“Then she wants to learn from the God Yanon, the husband of Arathonia,” said the Elf Princess, giving Beate a smile, then a curious look. “You are the young woman with the cats, are you not?”
“Yes,” said Beate, thinking of momma cat, with the same name as the woman that just died. “Why?”
“There are such beasts on this world,” said the Conyastaya with a head nod. “But the evil empire here wiped them out from this region.”
“Why would they do something like that?” said Beate, feeling anger that anyone would want to harm cats like her Gertrude.
“The cat is the animal sacred to Yanon,” said the Elf. “Filium Phelianus, the Goddess of Disease and Pestilence, who probably sent this disease to strike you, hates the cat, because it is the enemy of the rat, the spreader of pestilence. So the evil ones destroyed all of the animals that they could, until only the larger wildcats survived.
“Yes,” said the Elf, her eyes narrowing as she looked at Beate. “Yes. That might be a sign that you are one that should worship at the altar of Yanon. That you may absorb his skills and his spells, and help your people on this world.”
“I’ve never been much for the religion of my neighbors,” said Beate with a smile. “I’m game. When do we start?”
“As soon as we can get a Priest of Yanon here,” said the Elf woman. “I will make sure it happens. And I will make sure we have as many healers as we can find to help your people,” she said to the doctors. “We will do what we can.”
“That is all we can ask,” said the civilian doctor with a nod. “And it’s time we unleashed our own bag of tricks while we still have them.”
* * *
“So what do you have for me, Colonel Parker?” asked Zachary Taylor, walking into the room and waving the physician to a seat. The doctor gave a brief smile of thanks and took the offered chair.
“We have a situation on our hands, General,” stated the officer commanding the 439th Medical Brigade, or at least those elements of it that had come over the dimensional barrier.
“You know,” said Taylor, grimacing, “I always hated that term. It never means that something is good. Only bad.”
“I won’t mince words, sir,” said the tall light skinned black man, nodding his head. “The situation is mostly bad. But there may be some good in it as well. What we have on our hands is some kind of rapid acting contagion. We’ve located what looks like the offending virus on the portable electron microscopes, and it doesn’t look like anything we brought with us.”
Taylor felt as if his testicles wanted to crawl back into his body as he heard what the man was saying. Biological warfare had always terrified him, even with the attention paid to it by the military. Just the thought that something unseen might be attacking him and his men, killing them silently before they even knew they were under attack.
“How bad?” he finally said as his mind played with the scenario of a plague.
“The contagion itself is very bad,” said the physician, looking for a second at a palm computer he had brought with him. “Like a combination of the worst plagues of Earth. Fever, pustules, hemorrhages. And it spreads like wildfire. Like nothing I’ve ever seen or heard of. One of the Conyastaya healers said it had an evil feel to it, as if it were manufactured by one of the death deities. This Filium. Which might very well be, though I can’t verify that.”
“And what’s the good news?” said Taylor, mentally crossing his fingers. “You said mostly bad, so there has to be some good.”
“The good is that the nanobubbles in our systems seem to destroy this virus just like they do Earth viruses,” said the doctor with a slight smile. “So all of the military personnel, by dint of the inoculations we received on Earth, are immune to this contagion.”
“And the civilians?”
“They, of course are at risk,” said the physician. “But we do have a number of inoculations of the nanobubbles in stock.”
Taylor thought for a moment about the technology that went into the nanobubble system of biological protection. It only really worked against viruses, not having much effect on bacteria. But to viruses it was universally deadly. Made up of a nano scale bubble surrounding a vacuum, the billions of microscopic mines floated through the human system, bouncing off anything they struck. But in striking the small, sharp surfaces of viruses they detonated, destroying the virus particle. They would normally be exhausted by the number of viruses in the human system in a couple of months, but all the armies personnel had received boosters just a week prior to the outbreak of hostilities. And of course medical units would carry more boosters.
“How many?” asked Taylor, hoping that it would be a large number.
“About a hundred thousand units,” said the physician. “And of course that’s all we’ll ever have. Not enough…”
“For everyone,” said Taylor, cutting the doctor off. “But maybe enough for those in critical positions.”
“Would you please define critical positions?” asked the doctor, raising an eyebrow.
“All of our scientists first off,” said the General immediately. “Craftsmen and those with critical knowledge. Medical personnel and anyone working around those with the contagion.”
“What about those who are already ill?”
“What are their chances?” asked the General, his eyes locked on the physician’s. “If given the inoculation right now, what are the chances that a critical case will pull through?”
“Twenty percent,” said the
physician after a moment’s hesitation. “Maybe twenty-five percent. But this is all guesswork, you know.”
“So at best we use a hundred inoculations to save twenty five people,” said the General, rubbing his temples with his right hand and looking down. “Or we use those hundred inoculations to save a hundred healthy people who might or might not come down with the virus.”
The General looked back up and locked eyes with the doctor.
“What would you do?”
“That’s not my call, sir,” answered the physician, shaking his head. “Please don’t ask me to make it.”
The General looked down at his hands and thought for a moment, then sighed and put them on the table.
“Here’s how we’ll do it, then,” said the General. “And before I give my orders, I want you to know that I don’t like them either. But they’re the best chance we have, in my opinion.”
The physician looked at the General intently, relief and concern warring on his features as he realized that the life and death decision was about to be lifted from his shoulders.
“So we save the scientists and craftsmen, and all the people working with the ill. And then we go after those of reproductive age. That will probably leave us with nothing. But I also want you to contact the Conyastaya priests and get them to work on curing anyone else that comes down with the contagion. I assume some of their Gods can work on the problem?”
“I believe they can,” said the physician, nodding. “At least that is what that priestess said. To a limited degree.”
“Some is better than none,” agreed the General. “So get on it and keep me informed.”
“Yes sir,” said the doctor, getting to his feet. “And thank you, sir. I wish we had enough to save everyone, but we don’t. And I will order all of those not inoculated to stay away from those we’ve quarantined. Just because they’re not treated doesn’t mean they’ll come down with it.”
“Take whatever aggressive measures you need to keep it from spreading,” said the General, returning the man’s salute. “And let me know what resources you need to implement whatever measures you decide on.”
Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2 Page 21