Demon in White

by Christopher Ruocchio

A crown, he’d said. A crown? Yes. It were silver.

  I saw once again the silver-crowned demon from my visions, him with the host of monsters at his back and the galaxy burned behind him. No doubt remained in my mind that he was Syriani Dorayaica, the Scourge of Earth.

  “He is Shiomu,” Iubalu said.

  “The Prophet?” I asked.

  “He knows the future!” the vayadan general intoned. “He has spoken with the Watchers! With the great ones who dwell in the night!”

  “The Quiet?” I asked, stepping forward back into the hold.

  A bolt of violet light split the darkness, which closed behind like the crashing of the sea.

  Whirling, I saw one of my men had fired at the roof above. His plasma burner was still smoking in the thin air. “Hold your fire!” I said.

  Something scraped in the vaults above, and the words came in our ears, taunting, “You missed me, hurati.”

  Asking in Cielcin so I knew I would not be misunderstood, I asked, “Dein belutono ba-Caihanarin ne?”

  What do you know about the Watchers? The Quiet?

  “Speak not their name!” the vayadan shrieked.

  The sky fell an instant later. There came a flash of red light and an instant after a mighty crash sounded. On instinct I kindled my blade and swept the point forward in anticipation of my leaping foe. But when the flash cleared and the ringing faded to silence, I saw it was only the wreckage of one of the cranes. Three of my men turned and fired up into the tangle of catwalks and gantries, the flash of their guns lighting up the gloom.

  But there was nothing to shoot at. Nothing above.

  One of the maintenance grates beside us exploded, metal grillwork snarling upward. Before I could process what was happening, a white blur erupted from beneath us and something swept down upon my men. My eyes were an instant catching up. The blur was Iubalu. I had a faint moment of reflection, realizing that if one of these chimeric demons had come for Cade and his men, as well, there was more than one aboard. I saw its arm, white as Death, saw the long blade extruded from its wrist, the clawed finger folded down and out of the way. The stunned hoplite just stood there, shoulders tight, unmoving.

  The creature had moved so fast the shield had blocked a sword strike. We stood there a moment, humans and Pale machine alike: a grim burlesque tableau. For an instant. No one moved. No one dared to.

  But the moment passed. Time, Ever-Fleeting, does not stop.

  Siran, always cool and level-headed, fired.

  The shot flashed in the hall, broke against the alien’s shield with a rippling of fractal light. Shielded, of course the creature was shielded. I felt my teeth clench. Iubalu turned its eyeless head toward Siran and me, black and glassy teeth shining as it leered—and leaped.

  “Back!” I shouted, hurling myself aside. Siran had just enough time to pivot behind a stanchion that supported the walkways above. One of Iubalu’s four arms swept in a flat arc, white sword flashing. The zircon blade pinged off the steel and titanium of the stanchion with a bell-like chime, and it extended an identical blade from a second arm, which it hooked round the pillar even as Siran leaped away. Our shields were forcing it to move slower than it could. That was something, but it was something that would matter only so long as our shields held. With a third arm it uncoiled a nahute that hung from its belt and hurled it into the air. Shielded as we were, the drone was not immediately a threat, but it would split our attention at a time when we could not afford distractions. Two of our men circled round behind it, but a port opened in the demon’s shoulder and opened fire. Plasma spat out, tracking the two hoplites even though Iubalu did not turn its head to look. It had eyes all round its head, I realized, and some machine daimon within helped its once-organic consciousness keep track of the images through all those extra eyes. But the plasma broke against our hoplites’ shields, and one drew close enough to get off a shot inside the monster’s energy curtain. It left a black, smoking mark on the white enamel of the creature’s armor. No good.

  An instant later Iubalu whirled into a dancing low kick that brought one clawed metal foot up into the man’s chin. I felt rather than heard the man’s neck break as his body was lifted wholly from the floor and flew up and out of sight to strike the distant ceiling. Where he landed I never knew, for a moment later the machine demon spun from its kick into an over-handed punch that flattened the second hoplite, crumpling him like an old can. His suit’s underlayment took the worst of the blow, hardening to protect his organs, but the fellow hit the deck and skidded away forty feet. Fifty.

  Snarling, it turned its lidless gaze on me, lips peeling back from dead gums. One metal fist clenched, folded down from the wrist. A blade white and sharp and stinging sprang forth, long as Iubalu’s too-long forearm, long almost as an Irchtani zitraa.

  “Shiomu iunane o-okun darathar,” it said. The Shiomu wants you alive. “But he didn’t say I couldn’t break you first.”

  The blade moved faster than I could track. Too fast. It pinged off my shield, sending a thunderclap through the thin air of the hold.

  Siran shouted something over the line and shots rang out. Plasma broke uselessly over the vayadan’s shields. Only then did I understand her. “Use your lances! Lances!” That made sense. An energy lance’s beam would drain a shield faster than plasma or kinetic weapons ever could.

  As if in answer to this, Iubalu’s shoulder gun turned and shot over my head at the men behind me. I’d lost track of the nahute; it must be among the men behind me, or else was circling above. I offered no reply to the Cielcin leader, but thrust at the creature’s midsection. Iubalu pivoted, stepping back, and brushed the blade aside with the edge of its forearm.

  Just as I’d feared: its body was adamant, forged of the same long-chain carbon molecules common in starship hulls. Nothing, not even highmatter, could cut it.

  That impossibly huge smile widened, and a short rush of air groaned past its teeth. Then it raised its sword arm yet again and swung. Slower now. Slow enough to pass through my shield if it struck me. I ducked, wove under the strike, and swung around to the outside. I kept my sword up as I did so and drew the liquid blue blade across the creature’s white one. Highmatter met ceramic, and my sword sliced the Cielcin’s off near the base, and the white weapon went spinning to clatter against the wall of the hold.

  “Hadrian!” Siran’s voice sounded in my ear, “Move!”

  Without hesitation I threw myself back toward the wall, putting a good three meters between myself and the demon before I heard the earth-splitting bang of a grenade. Regaining my feet and my composure, I turned to see the cloud of shrapnel and plasma vapor that drifted where the Cielcin machine had been a moment before. I beheld its distended, humanish profile through the mist: four arms long and trailing, its broken sword still hanging from its wrist. Its smile seemed to float out of the fog, teeth shining like a cat’s in some moonlit jungle of human memory.

  But for the sword I had taken from it, Iubalu seemed unscathed.

  It raised its broken weapon before its face. Surprise? Disbelief? A salute? Or mere detached curiosity? To this day I cannot say. It made a fist, and the white arm released the stump of blade with as little pomp as accompanied the ejection of a plasma burner’s spent heat sink.

  “Oyumn juu ne?” it asked. Is that all?

  And then it was gone, retreating halfway across the hold in a blur of white motion.

  Retreating? Why?

  “Back to the hall!” I shouted, retreating toward the archway.

  A noise like the clap of thunder on a night of rain sounded just behind me, and I knew. Knew the beast had moved so fast it shocked the air. The third and last man of the trias that had accompanied Siran and me screamed and hit the wall ahead with a slap. Even shielded, being struck by an object so massive as the Cielcin chimera at such speeds would be like having a shuttle dropped on you. The man didn’t even have time to
scream.

  Though someone did. A moment later a horrid cry went up, filling the air of the hold and our lines alike. I did not have to turn to know. It had been the second man Iabalu had struck. The nahute had found him.

  I killed his connection to my suit’s comms.

  All three men were dead.

  “Siran! Go!” I shouted, pushing her into the hall. “It’s me it wants! Run!”

  The lights in the hall sprang on in response to our presence, the odd one sputtering or sparking before it went out. The ship shook beneath us—from the fighting outside or the Tamerlane’s distant shelling I could not say. I slammed the door behind me, but I knew.

  Not even four inches of titanium would hold the chimera for long.

  CHAPTER 27

  THE BATTLE OF THE BEAST

  THE CUBICULUM WAS AHEAD, past sealed and unused barrack dorms. There were men there, some of Pallino’s unit. Fifteen men, was it? Two decades? I could not recall, but I couldn’t ask without showing my hand to the beast that followed us—assuming of course that whatever machines it had to augment its senses had not already alerted the vayadan to what lay ahead. Our boots rang on the metal deckplates as we hurried on, chased by the whine and grind of metal as Iubalu worked to open the heavy door behind us.

  I stumbled and leaned on the wall to steady myself. I’d unkindled my blade as we ran. “Udax, where are you?” I rasped into my communicator, one hand on Siran’s shoulder to keep her moving. I knew Iubalu could hear me. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

  The Irchtani’s reply came an instant later, almost shrill. “Busy, human!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I do not know!” he said. “There’s a light flashing out there. They broke off the attack on our port side!”

  One hand still on the wall for balance, I answered, “Alarm.”

  It had to be Cade. The good centurion had made his move in the end.

  “Valka,” I said, rounding a bend in the hall, “Valka, is the ship venting?”

  She was still there. “I’m not sure, I . . .” Her voice felt farther away than it ever had, as though I heard her from the bottom of some fathomless well. “’Tis!”

  I could have sagged against the bulkhead with relief. Cade had succeeded.

  May his soul find peace on Earth.

  The scream of metal followed us up the hall, followed by the steady tap-tap-tapping of iron claws on the decking. Iubalu was coming, following hard on our heels. “Kianuri mnu ne?” came the alien voice behind. “Running?” Then it said something I did not understand, voice coming as a whisper in my ear through my hacked implants. “Uboretata ioman ti-belu sha ba-aetane.” I expected more from one of your Aeta.

  But I had no time to wonder.

  At a signal to Siran, I cut my suit comm completely.

  The time for words was over.

  There! Not twenty yards ahead stood the door to the cubiculum, a circular portal sealed fast. Her comms similarly deactivated, Siran bellowed through her suit speakers, “Open the door!”

  Nothing happened, but we did not slow our pace. The drumming of the metal claws behind came faster, and I imagined the vayadan loping ape-like after us, but I did not turn to see, did not stop to activate my suit’s rearview camera.

  “Open the door!” Siran cried out again. And again, “Open the doors!”

  The third time paid for all. The door opened, and two of our legionnaires stood in it, short lances at the ready. Behind us came a scrabbling, crashing like the panic of the horse knocked off its feet.

  “My lord, get down!” one of the soldiers exclaimed.

  I lurched sidelong into a control niche at my right hand. Siran hit the deck, rolling so she landed on her shoulder with her own lance aimed back the way we had come.

  Iubalu leaped, but its machine frame was too tall and too broad for that narrow space, and its shoulder caught on the wall. It fell short of Siran’s position by several yards, mere feet from me. Siran and the legionnaires all opened fire, energy lances strafing the Cielcin general with their invisible beams. For a moment, I thought I saw the black char of carbon scoring and a thin tongue of smoke.

  I saw my chance. As the chimera struggled to right itself I stepped in and lifted my sword. The highmatter blade shone like a ray of moonlight. I struck, pushing the blade through a smooth cut that skated up the creature’s armored shoulder and struck off the shoulder turret. One of Iubalu’s elbows snapped backward, caught me fully in the solar plexus. The armor took the worst of it, but still the breath was driven from my lungs as I was lifted fully from my feet with enough force to strike the low ceiling.

  “Hadrian!”

  I hit the deck a moment after, my sword carving a hair-fine slash through the wall of the corridor.

  The lights went out. I must have severed a conduit with my fall.

  I wanted nothing, nothing more than to lie there. I could hardly move, hardly breathe.

  But I had to move. Iubalu had nearly found its feet. White hands clamped themselves to runners on the ceiling meant for handholds when the ship was in zero-gee. Like the wreck of some vessel lost at sea hoisted from the depths, Iubalu hauled itself to its feet.

  Move! The word screamed through my every nerve channel, every fiber. Move!

  Slowly, my limbs moving with the creaking slowness of rusting clockwork, I found my hands and knees. My feet. Hands seized me. Gloved hands—not steel. Siran and one of the legionnaires pulled me after them, pulled me toward the cubiculum.

  I was through.

  A moment after I heard the muffled bang of a grenade. Then another. Followed by a hiss and howl of . . . was that pain?

  “I got him!” the soldier exclaimed.

  But the fool had lingered in the archway. White hands emerged from the smoke behind, seized the fellow by both shoulders and yanked him back. He screamed, and the sounds that followed after defied description as limb was rent from limb. I’d found my voice again, and pressing myself against the bulkhead beside the door I shouted, “Open fire!”

  There were at least a dozen men in the chamber, and a dozen men fired, plasma rounds and lance beams streaming through the open door, a declaration of fire.

  Silence a moment. Silence and the distant noise of battle creaking throughout the Merciless’s much-strained superstructure.

  “Did we get him?” one man asked.

  Siran hushed him. I readied my sword.

  A single iron hand clamped down on the lip of the door. Another. A third.

  Iubalu roared. A high, shrieking sound more akin to a predatory bird or some wraith of fantasy than anything. I could not see it, but I could imagine its white helm and impossibly wide smile emerging from the vapors and the smoke.

  “Open fire!” Siran cried again.

  Plasma flared violet, but Iubalu did not stop. It inched forward, white blades clicking into place, extending from its wrists. I wouldn’t have much time. The vayadan’s implants seemed to give it full range of vision. My vantage point by the door would not avail me for long. I’d have to act fast or not at all.

  All thoughts of action vanished the next instant, for there came a faint whining and a mechanical clatter as ports opened in Iubalu’s chest and rockets flared out. Four of our men vanished in an instant, and the end of one of the aisles of fugue creches exploded in a hailstorm of metal and glass. Violet fluid spilled forth, smoking in the chilly air. I needed only for our enemy to take one more step.

  Iubalu took it.

  Its white armor had charred black in places, and though the adamant had endured I took that for a good sign. Its shields were down, drained by all that weapons fire. But it did not matter. My business was not with the demon’s armor, but with the joints between it, with the segments of jointed titanium beneath the carbon armor.

  Common metal was no trouble at all. As I had once long ago
on Vorgossos with the Exalted Calvert, I buried the point of my blade in the ball joint where one of Iubalu’s four arms joined its torso. I twisted the point, gouging the arm loose. It fell with a clatter as I leaped away. Too slow. One of Iubalu’s clawed feet lashed out and clipped my flank, turning my leap into a slide that sent me skidding across the floor.

  But the damage was done. Before Iubalu could turn its attentions back on me, Siran and her men opened fire. The Cielcin leaped, caught a spar that was part of the overhead transport system for the cryonic pods, and leaped over the heads of our men to perch upon the top of one of the rows. Disruptor fire issued from the palms of its three remaining hands, but we were shielded and the weapons did no good.

  Its smile grew steadily wider, and into the air of the hold, it said, “You will pay for that, hurati.”

  I had found my feet again, and though my side ached, I did not think my ribs were broken. Bruised, yes, but intact. In answer, I pointed my sword up toward the enemy. “Come down, then! Come and collect!”

  In contemptuous answer, Iubalu punched down with one of its sword hands and pierced the casket on which it stood, killing the sleeper within.

  “I think I will ask the master for your bones when he is through,” Iubalu declared, speaking as one speaks to a crowd. “Perhaps I will put your skull with the others.”

  Not knowing what to say, I said, “I think not!”

  Then a dark shape streaked up from below and seized Iubalu by the arm. Another followed, and writhing in the air they torqued the chimera off balance and set it to crash from its high place. It happened so fast it took me an instant to realize that for the second time that day Udax had appeared in the critical instant. He and another of his Irchtani perched atop the fugue caskets where Iubalu had stood a moment earlier. The other hefted his plasma rifle—no, his plasma howitzer—and fired. Not a bolt, but a stream of violet flame spewed forth and poured down upon the xenobite, and for a moment I feared the monstrous heat would crack and melt the delicate cryonics equipment in rows to either side—but it did not matter. The Irchtani kept firing, a steady stream of superheated plasma flowing forth like the breath of some neon dragon, so hot and bright my suit’s entoptics cut the glare to a mere fraction of all available light.