by David Weber
“Okay,” he said, crooking the petrifiying finger. “Now talk.”
At first, what the benan was saying was only a low, unintelligible gabble. But after a moment, bits and pieces began to join together.
“. . . temple . . . priests . . . death . . . serve . . . sacrifice . . . serve the worshipers . . . feast.”
“Oh, shit.”
Roger pulled up the two translations, and the difference was immediately apparent. In the kernel, the word “sadak,” when used in the context of the priests, was translated as “Servant.” When the kernel was dumped, though, it translated as “sacrifice.” In fact, there was an entire series of synonym and thematic biases built into the system, but changing a few words around and removing a syntactic bias made everything clear.
Including why the Lemmar refused to be captured.
He punched the changes into his toot with the flashing speed of direct neural interfacing, then reloaded the corrected kernel and turned slowly back to the Scourge and the High Priest.
“We have determined the problem with our translator. What you want is a human sacrifice. Which will then be shared as a feast among your worshipers. The body and blood, so to speak.”
“Oh, shit,” Kosutic whispered, and grimaced as she took another look at the guards. “I knew I didn’t like these guys. They’re Papists! Man, I hate fanatics!”
“We recognize that certain lesser peoples refuse to accept this rite,” Sor Teb replied, with a gesture of contempt at Cord and the swathed Pedi. “But humans are, after all, civilized.”
“Civilized,” Despreaux whispered. She was too well-trained to actually check a weapon, and she could feel the stillness that had descended over the troopers behind her. Each of them was very carefully not reaching for a weapon. They were carefully not counting their rounds, or ensuring that their bayonets were loose in the sheaths. Not, at least, on the outside.
Roger reached slowly into a pouch and extracted a thin leather band. Then he tossed his hair behind him and bound it slowly into a ponytail.
“And if we politely decline this invitation?” he asked, pulling his locks into place one by one as he smoothed the hair on the top of his head. Behind him, O’Casey drew a surreptitious breath and made sure her weight was balanced on her toes.
Sor Teb glanced at the High Priest, now apparently asleep on his stool, then back at the humans.
“My guards in this room outnumber you, and I have over a hundred in the corridors. At a word, you are all Servants. And then I will take all of the rest of you at the docks, and the people will know that it was the Scourge which brought humans to the God at last.”
His false-hands moved in a complicated shrug which signified total confidence.
“Or,” he continued, “you may surrender a single sacrifice of your choice. That will suffice for my purposes . . . and the God’s, of course. But either way, I will have the Servant I require, and the people will know it. Those are your only alternatives.”
“Really?” Roger said quietly, calmly, as he tugged one last time on his ponytail to tighten it down. “Hmmm. A binary solution set. Just one problem with your plans.”
“What?” Teb’s eyes narrowed, and Roger smiled gently.
“You’ve never seen me move.”
The prince and his bodyguards had blasted their way through half a dozen city-states on their bloody march across Marduk. Roger knew he could depend upon them to do their job and back him up. So as his hands descended to the pistols holstered at his side, he concentrated solely on what was in his own field of view.
The local arquebuses weren’t particularly accurate, and the Marines’ uniforms were designed to protect against high-velocity projectiles by hardening to spread the impact over a wide area. Neither Roger nor O’Casey, however, were wearing helmets, so an unlucky hit from one of the arquebuses would be fatal. And Cord and Pedi were completely unarmored.
The first target, therefore, was the arquebusier to the left of the throne. The High Priest was no threat, and hitting the target to the left would permit Roger to track right and take Sor Teb with the next shot.
But by the time Roger had shifted targets, before the headless body had even had time to start to fall, Sor Teb had just moved. Roger had heard the Marines comment on his own speed, often in hushed tones. Now he understood why. When you see someone who is preternaturally fast—Rastar was one such—it is awe-inspiring. and Sor Teb, it turned out, was preternaturally fast at surviving. The councilor was behind the throne and out a side door before anyone besides the prince could target him.
But that didn’t mean people were sitting on their hands.
Kosutic dropped the muzzle of her bead rifle and took down the arquebusier to the right of the throne even as the Scourge guards along the walls flung themselves forward. Their primary weapon seemed to be double sticks. The long rods were nearly as thick as a human’s forearm, and the guards wielded them with precision. One of them descended towards the sergeant major’s forearm, obviously intending to disarm her, but it was abruptly blocked by a short sword.
“Mudh Hemh!” Pedi screamed like a damnbeast and spun in place, flinging off her sumei as both swords appeared. She chopped down, to take all of the fingers off one of the guard’s hands, then swept upward to gut him like a fish.
“The vales!!”
The astonished guards recoiled at the sight of the blades and frosted horns. Humans were unknown bogeymen from beyond even the farthest reaches of the valley, but the Shin were always there. And never underestimated. Even the females.
“Shin!!!”
The Mardukan female spun again, blocking another blow directed at her from behind and back-kicking the guard in the groin. She turned towards the throne, where the majority of the surviving guards had clustered in defense of the High Priest, and spat.
“TIME TO MEET THE FIRE, BOYS!”
“Boots and saddles!”
Pahner shot to his feet, rubbing an ear as the shout over his helmet commo systems rocketed him upright.
“Your Highness?” he called, heading for the door of his office while the sudden icy calm of a man who’s seen too many emergencies—and has just heard the unmistakable sound of rifle volleys in the background of a truncated radio call—flooded through him.
“To all units, Bravo Company relay! Terminate all Krath guards in view with extreme prejudice. Do this NOW!”
Pahner heard screams from the warehouse, and firing broke out as he hit the door. Two Krath guards were attacking one of the Diaspran infantry by the main doors, but two shots took them down before the captain could even draw his sidearm. All the others in sight had already been dealt with.
“Prince Roger, this is Captain Pahner,” he said calmly as he strode towards the piles of gear that were half ready for loading. “What’s happening?”
“Servants are human sacrifices,” Kosutic cut in on the command circuit, panting. In the background, Pahner heard a knife-hitting-a-melon sound with which the entire company had become all too familiar. “We’re trying to fight our way out of the Temple. For some reason, they’re just a bit ticked with us.”
“That might be because Pedi Karuse cut her way through to the High Priest on our way out of the room,” Roger said with a grunt against the background of a fading scream. “Fortunately, all the guards have been unarmored so far. We’re conserving ammo by quite literally cutting our way out. But Sor Teb got away, dammit! He set us up.”
“We’re on our way,” Pahner said, gesturing for the teams to drop what they were doing. The most vital equipment had already been packed for a run, most of it loaded into large, hard-sided leather trunks with multiple carrying rings, so that they could be easily on-loaded and off-loaded from pack animals. The remainder was food and other similar nonvital items that could be seized on the way. It was cold, but if you had bullets, you could always get beans.
“Negative!” Roger snapped. “We’re heading for the city’s main gate. You know the drill—Vashin to take the gate,
flying columns to secure the intersections and block response, tell the ships to head for K’Vaern’s Cove, and the rest all run like hell for the gates. We’re going to join up in that vicinity. If you try to cut your way into the Temple, we’ll never make it. Follow the plan, Captain. That’s an order.”
“Tell me you can fight your way out, Your Highness,” the captain grated. “Tell me that.”
“Hold one,” Roger responded. Behind his voice, someone else bellowed in rage. The bellow grew louder, as if the throat from whence it sprang was charging towards Roger, but then the sound was cut abruptly short, and Pahner heard a thump, and a spraying sound.
“Pthah! Just make sure you bring a pocking towel.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Temu Jin strode up to the last few meters of path and nodded to the Mardukan waiting for him. The Shin chieftain was middle-aged for one of the locals, calm and closed faced. He propped himself on the long ax which was his symbol of office—the symbol which had permitted him to pass more or less unmolested through the intervening tribes.
Now the chieftain leaned forward and fixed the human with a glare.
“I have traveled two weeks from my home for you, Temu Jin,” he growled. “I have done this while my people are in jeopardy, when the young warriors are questioning my utility. I have done this because you indicated that it was vital that we meet. All I can say is that it had better be important.”
“Decide for yourself,” Jin said. “Humans have landed in Kirsti.”
“That is not important!” the chieftain snapped. “Everything passes through Kirsti sooner or later, as I know all too well.”
“Ah, but what humans?” Jim replied. “These humans did not travel to Kirsti from our base here. They arrived aboard ships—ships built here on Marduk, which crossed the sea to reach this continent.”
“And what of that?” the chieftain demanded. “Why should the fact that they floated across the water rather than flew through the air excite me?”
“As I’ve told you, the Empire is not going to look kindly upon the Krath when I finally get word to my superiors. But I don’t know when that will be. These humans could help in getting the word out.”
“Why? Why these humans and not the waifs you have already dumped upon us?”
“These humans are . . . important,” Jin temporized. “But they’ll need some support.”
“Of course. Don’t they always?” the chief grumped. “What now?”
“I’ll send you some packages. Ammunition and some essential spare parts they could probably use. Also some modern weapons. If you can make contact with them, it will greatly benefit us. It would be even better if you could woo them away from the Krath and into the Shin lands.”
“What? No blankets? No ‘sleeping bags’? No insect repellent?” the chief gave a Mardukan snort. “I hope that your superiors come to your aid soon—all these visitors are becoming tiring. As to ‘wooing them away from the Krath,’ I can send out the word to the clan-Chiefs, but it will be up to them individually. And they don’t think much of humans. Only if they come directly to my lands will it be possible for me to ensure their safety.”
“I think you’ll find these folk a bit different,” Jin said grimly. “And I doubt they’ll need much looking after. Among other things, at least some of them are Marines.”
“Marines?” the chief scoffed. “These are your space warriors, yes? Warriors we have aplenty.”
“You don’t have Imperial Marines,” Jin cautioned. “And if they’re the Marines I think they are, you don’t have anything close.”
The chieftain regarded him balefully for moment, then rubbed his horns in thought.
“Anybody have any idea where we are?” Roger asked. His stripped-down command group stood at the intersection of five dome-roofed corridors. A single oil lamp gave miserly illumination, and the prince idly wiped blood from his sword blade as he looked about himself.
They had lost their pursuers, mostly by leaving field expedient booby traps behind. After the first few explosions, the Scourge guards had become remarkably circumspect in their chasing. But that didn’t help the fugitives find their way out of the palace. Or to the gates. Their helmet systems could tell them where they were in reference to their starting point and the gates their bug-out plans specified as their way out of the city, as well as which direction they were headed, but that was of strictly limited utility. The temple had backed onto the outer wall of the city, so there was probably a connection between where they stood and the walls’ defenses—like the gates they needed. But they couldn’t tell which of the myriad corridors would get them there.
“We’re about a hundred meters below the gates,” Kosutic pointed out, looking at the various corridors with him. “And still to the south. I think we need to head northeast and up.”
“Uh-huh. Unfortunately,” Roger noted, “that still leaves two.”
“Eenie-meenie-miney-moe,” the sergeant major said. “Chim, take the left corridor.”
“Yes, Sergeant Major,” the Vashin replied. “It smells like the kitchens are ahead.”
“It does,” Roger agreed uneasily. “A bit.” Chim was right, a distinct odor of cooking came down the passageway to them, but it was overlaid by a fetid, iron smell that was unpleasantly familiar.
The corridor was a five-meter high arch, leading into darkness. Unlike the intersection, it lacked even the dimness of an oil lamp. The Marines’ helmet vision systems let them see clearly even under those conditions, but did nothing for the Mardukans in the party—or for Roger or O’Casey, neither of them had brought helmets to what was supposed to be a diplomatic conference—so the Marines turned on the lights mounted on their rifles. The lights’ white spots seemed to reveal and conceal in equal measure, for the walls were of basalt blocks, which seemed to swallow the light. The complex interplay of lights and dark lent an additional air of unreality to their flight, but at least the natives (and Roger) could see something.
After perhaps a dozen meters, the corridor terminated in a heavy wooden door. Fortunately, it was bolted on their side, and Chim waved one of the Diasprans forward to pull the bolt. As soon as the door opened, the Vashin nobleman darted through the opening, his pistol held in a two-handed grip. The rest of the Vashin poured through behind him, and Roger heard the blast of arquebuses, answered by pistol cracks and a bellow of rage.
The prince followed before the echoes of the pistol shots could fade, and as he stepped through the door, the reason for the bellow was obvious. The large room beyond was filled with bone pits. He could see a group of Krath Servants escaping through the far door, leaving the baskets of ash and bone they’d been carrying spilled across the floor.
Chim was down as well, caught in a death grip with one of the four guards. The smell in the room was much stronger than it had been in the corridor—a mixture of rotting meat and charred bone that caused Roger to flash back to Voitan. He swallowed his gorge and checked to make sure everyone else was okay. When he glanced sideways at Pedi, she seemed strangely unaffected. She simply glanced at the charnel pits, then looked away.
“You don’t seem too broken up,” Roger said. “This is . . . foul.”
“Sometimes you get the priests,” Pedi replied. “Sometimes they get you. We don’t eat them, but we don’t let any we capture live, either.”
Cord’s benan headed for the far door, but Roger put a hand on her shoulder.
“Let the professionals go through first. Any idea what’s on the other side?”
“Not many come out of the Fire,” Pedi pointed out. “But with the pits here, the kitchens should be to the right, and the sanctuary up and to the left.”
“Sergeant Major,” Roger said, gesturing at the door. “Head for the sanctuary. It’s got to have public access, and that means a primary point of entry . . . and exit. That makes it our best chance to find a way out of this damned maze quickly.”
“Yes, Sir,” Kosutic said. She put her hand on the closed door’s bar and
glanced at the other grim-faced warriors crowding around the prince. “Let’s dance.”
The corridors beyond were more of the same black basalt, drinking the light from the Marines’ lights. A few more meters brought them to a narrow staircase up and to the right. Kosutic flashed a light up it, then climbed its treads with quick, silent steps. At the top, she found another heavy wooden door, this one with red light coming under it, and she cocked her head as she listened to the loud, atonal chanting coming from above.
“Lord, I hate Papists,” she muttered, checking her ammunition pouches and fixing her bayonet. Then she drew a belt knife as Roger arrived beside her. “We really should have brought shotguns for this, Your Highness.”
“Needs must,” Roger replied. He left his bead pistol holstered, conserving its ammunition against a more critical need, and balanced a black powder revolver in his left hand. “Do it.”
The sergeant major slid her knife into the crevice where the bar should be, and moved it upwards. The monomolecular blade sliced effortlessly through the locking device, the door sprang loose on its hinges, and she pushed forward into Hell.
The nave of the temple was packed with worshipers, females on one side, males on the other. Worship in the High Temple was clearly only for the well-to-do of Kirsti’s society—most of the worshipers were not only clad in elaborate gowns and robes, but wore heavy jewelry, as well.
A double line of “Servants” ran down the centerline of the temple, surrounded by guards. The line led up to the sacrificial area, where three teams of priests were involved in mass slaughter. The priests wore elaborate gowns, rich with gold thread, and caps of gold and black opal that simulated volcanoes, and the decorations of the temple were of the finest. The walls were shot through with semi-precious gems and gold foil, adorned again and again with the repeating motif of the sacred Fire. All in all, it was a barbaric and terrible sight, made all the worse by the heavy leather aprons that the priests also wore. Of course, if they hadn’t worn them, the gore from their butchery would have ruined the pretty gold thread.