Demon in White

by Christopher Ruocchio

  In ages to come, the armchair generals and amateur doctors of war would write about mad Marlowe’s run across the fields of Deira, about his ill-considered defense of the men and women in the tunnels of the starport—and how he failed them. They have written little of the bomb that had claimed fully a third of the Cielcin landing fleet, I note, and less of Aristedes, whose decision not to open the gates perhaps saved thousands of lives. Our sortie had saved no one, but it had struck one hell of a blow against the enemy.

  Alien cannons fired. One of the Sparrowhawks fell and smote the tarmac between our party and the coming tide of the Cielcin host. On an open plain, the xenobites moved faster than any human being could run. They were like cavalry, and though the fire of our guns tore at them, still they came, heedless for their individual lives as ants are heedless but to the needs of their colony. They were like an army of the dead and damned, and did not retreat.

  They were not human.

  Reaching the shadow of the nearest colossus—one of the mighty hexapods—I stopped and turned. Behind us, the nahute fell burning like a heavy rain, torn to shreds by the thunder of our artillery. It wasn’t enough. They fell on us like a wave breaking. Men screamed and fell writhing where they were not shielded. But the line of colossi kept marching, moving past us, their legs like the trunks of almighty trees. Standing clear of the others, I spun my sword like a dervish, slicing through the serpentine machines. Their severed hulks crashed about me, or fell from the sky above. One man stumbled past me, and I had a horrible vision of him trying to pull one of the snakes from his side where it had burrowed into the meat of him.

  He was not alone.

  The Cielcin were almost on us, white swords flashing in the light of the flames behind.

  One of the armored chimeras leaped ahead and above the rest and was blown to pieces by the colossi’s guns. The air cleared a moment around me, and I drew my sword across my face and back to guard, ready for the next—perhaps final—effort, glad at least that Valka was by my side, if heartsick that she was there at all.

  Then the air opened up with a cry fierce and piercing and higher than Pale laughter. Warm air buffeted me, filled with the sound of wings.

  The Irchtani had come.

  Green feathers and gray filled the space above me, and looking back I saw their phalanx like a single pair of mighty wings spread back from the line of colossi to the Wall. Udax and Barda and the rest cut low beneath the nahute and the artillery fire, their zitraa long and sharper than their claws, sharp almost as monofilament, as highmatter. The nahute dove amongst them, and many of our winged allies fell.

  Still more flew, and the flashing of their sabers and the shout of their arms drove the Pale back, and for a moment we stood firm and marshaled our defenses. “Get back in formation!” Pallino shouted on the common band. “Form ranks, you bloody fools!” In the distance, another of the Cielcin towers erupted in flames. The smaller colossus had closed the gap across the open field and opened fire. I could see Cielcin clinging to its legs, trying to climb upward to reach the access hatches on the upper levels.

  Screaming through the air, the few remaining Sparrowhawks circled back, making a run for the huge, solitary landing tower that had arrived last of all. It crouched apart from the main body of the Pale army, nearer the Wall and far off to one side. They dropped in low, carving a trench in the air, guns blazing as they flew straight toward it. I saw the tell-tale flash of a Royse shield as their bullets glanced off. My heart sank. The Cielcin had not shielded any of their vessels save this. Why?

  A moment later, the whole empty landscape between the lighters and the alien landing craft glowed a chalky, granular red. It lasted only an instant. A second or two, no more. By the time I realized what it was, it was gone.

  It was a targeting laser. The weapon came an instant after, a pillar of light and fire a thousand times brighter than the sun, so bright my suit’s entoptics blacked out to save my vision. There was no sound, only the blast wave of heat as the orbital laser scorched the tarmac and burned our ships from the sky. The light returned as the beam faded, and I saw the red streak of molten rock where the weapon had scratched a channel on the tarmac.

  The swarms of nahute had thinned, and—reeling—I staggered from the shadow of the great machine above me. As I watched, the great siege tower opened, disgorging its precious cargo. The machine within shuddered and advanced on mighty treads, pistons like exposed bone working as it moved. The ghastly thing must have been three hundred feet across and more than twice that high, a horror of dark metal and glass. A Cielcin colossus to match our own. The nearest of our colossi opened fire on it, but the impact broke against a shield curtain. More of our stolen praxis.

  With inexorable slowness it advanced, rolling across no man’s land for the gray-white fastness of the Storm Wall.

  “What the hell is that?” asked one of the men.

  What exactly it was did not matter. That it was bent on the Wall told me all I needed to know: that it was a weapon. A ram or bombard meant to crack our fortress open despite our shield and despite the men who defended it.

  “We have to stop it!” I said, seizing Lin by the shoulder.

  “How?” he demanded. “You saw that orbital laser!”

  I clenched my teeth. A Royse shield could stop energy weapons, but a weapon of that magnitude? The personal shields we wore would overload and fry us in an instant if we tried to charge the siege engine. We’d never make it.

  Lin appeared to be thinking the same thing. “We can’t approach on foot.”

  “The colossi?” Valka said, gesturing at the saucer section above our heads.

  “Too slow,” Lorian chipped in. He’d been listening, evidently. “Their shields won’t hold.”

  I cut into the sudden silence, “The Wall’s shield draws energy from the planet’s core.”

  “And from the emergency reactors in the lower level,” Lorian said. “But the inclusion zone only extends about fifty feet from the wall.”

  One could practically hear Lin’s frown through his helmet. “Fifty feet does not give us a great deal of space to work with.” He shook his head.

  “What about the Irchtani?” I asked, remembering the way Udax and his people had carried us away from the ruined stair in the midst of the city. “If we can get above the crawler, they can’t risk using that orbital gun without attacking their own assets.”

  “If we can get above them,” Lin countered. “What’s to stop them shooting you out of the sky the minute you get close?”

  Lorian’s voice overrode the comm. “We’ll make it look like a retreat.”

  * * *

  The colossi firing was our cue. All at once, the mighty war machines advanced, pressing forward toward the remainder of the Cielcin landing towers where they stood—a fleet of rockets—camped at the far edge of the field. All but two of the tripods, which Lorian turned about and ordered after the huge crawler that even then rolled its slow way toward the wall. Pallino once more remained behind to marshal our forces on the ground, orchestrating a steady retreat toward the wall while Lin, Valka, and I—along with a detachment of some thirty men—hurried across no man’s land in the general direction of the Wall.

  Looking back over my shoulder, I saw the colossi marching to engage the enemy, sweeping the perimeter of the field to avoid the pitfalls that had claimed the other. They were like a forest of columns walking, and the fire of their guns fell like red hail upon the enemy. The clouds of nahute contracted, shimmering in the scant light of the eclipse.

  It was almost beautiful.

  “Kithuun-Barda, where are you?” I spoke into my helmet’s pickups, feet pounding the pavement as we ran.

  “Nearly there!” came the croaked reply.

  Shadows moved on the ground before my feet, and looking up I saw the whole phalanx of the Irchtani moving, filling the sky with their wings. There were yet hundr
eds of them, and to a man they’d disengaged with the enemy and were flying back toward the Wall. On we ran, and with every step I expected to see the crimson shine of the targeting laser and feel the cold white flash of light come down and end it all.

  It never did.

  Ahead, the Cielcin crawler rose, black and hideous against the pale stone of the Storm Wall in the distance. All the hallmarks of Cielcin design were on it. It had the look of some fetid organ, all gnarled organic lines and asymmetries, surface fibrous and textured like tissue. From this angle, I could see no armature, no muzzle, no maw.

  “Do you think it’s some kind of plasma bore?” Lin asked, voice ragged as he ran.

  Thinking of the way our boarding craft cut aboard enemy starships, I said, “I don’t know.”

  An explosion sounded behind us, and looking back once more I saw a fury of red flame. One of the colossi was burning. I saw Cielcin fighters leaping from the upper platform, their cloaks afire. A moment later the mighty tripod toppled, crushing men and xenobites alike beneath its bulk.

  Then talons gripped me, and looking up I saw the shape of a black-winged Irchtani stretch wide and pulse. My stomach lurched, and once more I was lifted from the earth, feet dangling uselessly as the bird lifted me with huge wings. How the Irchtani could fly at all I’d no idea. In full kit, I must have weighed twice so much as he.

  Yet fly he did.

  I did not know him, but he bore me up and his brothers after him carried Valka and Lin and our men. We rose and joined the phalanx of the Irchtani as they winged toward the Wall, climbing high and ever higher. I shut my eyes, certain that at any moment the red flash would claim us. But if the dark powers in space above marked our progress, they did not respond.

  Lorian was right. They thought we were just retreating. All we needed to do was get close enough to the crawler before the Cielcin could respond. I opened my eyes again. From above, the tarmac really did look flat, like some artist’s unfinished rendering of a world. The Storm Wall rose ahead, pale face lined with channels that deflected the coriolis winds up and over the ramparts. The crawler was alone, separated from the main body of the Cielcin army by about half a mile of open, flat space. Cannon fire stitched the air around us, and once my guide’s zitraa flashed and sliced a stray nahute in half. The blow jounced me, but the auxiliary held me in his talons and glided lower with the strike.

  Red light flashed behind, and I turned in time to see the horrid beam of white energy blaze and crack the air. I felt the heat wave rush over me and yelled as my guardian dove, speeding forward and down like an arrow loosed from god.

  “Hold on, bashanda!” he said. I gripped his ankles tight, murmuring an aphorism against fear, but no scholiast’s wisdom could quell the mad hammering of my heart. We were almost in free fall then, the two of us and several of those around. I thought I saw Valka in—was that Udax’s grasp? But when I turned my head to see, they had moved. One of the anti-air cannons the xenobites had brought caught one of our fellows, blowing human and Irchtani apart. They died together and plummeted. Once more the red laser painted its target, and I saw our shadows far below. But my guide opened his wings and slowed our descent—heedless of the raw shout in my throat as we lurched upward and away, out of the pillar of fire that blazed from the black star above.

  We circled lower, and for a moment all I could smell was ozone from the laser’s wild ionization. The earth smoldered below, angry and red. Once more, I shut my eyes. We lurched, plunging again.

  “We lost two in that last one,” came Lin’s voice.

  “We’re almost there!” said one of the Irchtani. Was that Barda?

  Against my better judgment, I opened my eyes. We were nearly there. The crawler moved beneath us, a few hundred feet ahead and below. I could see Cielcin moving on the parapets of the craft, pointing and turning weapons toward us. A shot burst against my shield, and my guide twitched, pulling back.

  We dropped fifty feet, falling nearly straight down as the Irchtani holding me tucked his wings. Shots flashed above us, caught an unshielded peltast where he hung in the talons of another Irchtani. The dead man fell, and his guardian peeled away.

  “Let me drop!” I said, slapping the Irchtani on one scaled ankle. About a hundred feet separated me from the deck. Far, but not so far that my suit’s gel layer could not take the impact. I hoped. “Let me drop!”

  “Are you certain?” the bird man carrying me asked.

  I released his ankles, eyed the platform beneath me. Floating there on his wings, I felt a momentary serenity sweep over me. I was apart from the violence, above it—if only so long as no shots sounded my way. The Wall stretched ahead and above, and below the plain of the landing field unrolled to the forest of burning towers and beyond beneath skies that threatened storm.

  “Go!” I said, and reached. Ever the faithful soldier, my guide released me, talons unclicking like part of some jeweled mechanism. Countless Hadrians fell across countless threads of possibility. So many of them died, or broke their legs, or missed the platform entirely. But those tragedies spun off and vanished down spiralling corridors of time that never were.

  I did not die, but hit the deck boots first, knees bent.

  “Black planet!” one of the men above swore. “Did you all see that?”

  A Cielcin marksman looked on, momentarily stunned. But the sword that flashed in my grip reminded it where it was and what was happening, and it leaped back. The shot from its reverse-engineered rifle snapped against my shield, and it thrust the blade-end of the weapon at my eyes. I parried, highmatter parting steel without resistance or sound. I punched out with the blade and put the point clean through my enemy’s chest. It sagged against the rail, and I looked up in time to see another of the fusiliers spin round and train its weapon on me. A white shape fell out of the sky above, and the Cielcin vanished behind it. One of the legionnaires had joined me. And another. Another. The Irchtani circled close, firing one-handed with their long-barreled pistols, falling as they did and flapping back skyward until we fought in the midst of a swirling vortex of green and black feathers.

  There was Udax, claws planted on the level above the catwalk where I stood fighting another of the Pale! And there was Valka, firing from amidst a trias of men on the level below. And there Bassander and Kithuun-Barda side by side, the Mandari’s highmatter sword flashing blue in the dark day.

  “There has to be a hatch somewhere!” I cried, slicing clean through another of the inhuman berserkers. “We have to get inside.” There was no telling what might await us within the alien war machine, but the Wall was growing ever nearer, and we hadn’t much time. In the distance, white light flashed, and looking out I saw the orbital laser slam down upon the crabbed back of one colossus, its beam warped and deflected by the platform’s Royse shield. The weapons platform survived, but I knew its shields could not withstand another blast from Dharan-Tun’s orbital laser. Pallino’s men had engaged the Cielcin surrounding the anti-air guns on the left flank. How small they all seemed, a patch of white shifting against an ocean of Dark!

  We had to move quickly. For all I knew the inside of the crawler would prove another kind of labyrinth, another honeycomb of endless tunnels and blind turns. There wasn’t time. I dove out of the way of another enemy fusilier, pressing myself against the rail. Another of our legionnaires landed behind it, armor rattling, and fired. The Cielcin fell into me, and I shoved it to the ground.

  “Find the way in!” I shouted.

  Away on the horizon, the orbital laser flashed again, striking the shielded colossi. The enemy’s anti-air cannons lay burning upon the field, and Pallino’s men encircled one limb of the Cielcin army. Nahute whipped past me so fast my shield deflected them, and the decking beneath my feet rattled and shook as I clambered down a stair that seemed nearly a ladder.

  “Found a hatch, sir!” came the sound of one of the soldiers. “In back!”

 
I was near the rear, but half a hundred feet of catwalk lay between me and the corner. Fifty feet. And three Cielcin. Shielded, sword in hand, I pressed forward. The first of them held its nahute like a whip, swinging it in slow arcs. I paused. Wielded thus, the drone was even more dangerous, for it moved slow enough that my shield was no good. The Cielcin snapped it toward my face, forcing me to fade. On the second swing, I was ready, and cut the braided metal thing in two. Its owner lashed out with one clawed fist, clouting me on the side of the head. I staggered, but managed to raise my sword in time to catch my attacker in the ribs. Shoving it to one side, I advanced, cutting my way through the next xenobite with almost contemptuous ease. The third threw its nahute at me, and ducking I cut it in two, the still-spinning head tumbling away over the side to strike the pavement three hundred feet below.

  When I reached the rear of the crawler, I had a clear view of our colossi stretched across the horizon. I had a clear view of the flash, too. The Cielcin’s orbital laser struck again, swift and silent. This time it overwhelmed one colossi’s shield. For a moment, I saw the outline of the thing through the scatter of that impossibly bright beam as vision returned to my suit’s entoptics. Saw it crumble to dust. When the light faded and my suit showed me the world as it truly was, there was nothing left. Uncounted tons of metal and an unknown count of men were gone, transformed to atoms and a smoldering pile of molten metal.

  “Lorian!” I rasped, and leaned on the rail with my free hand. “Get those men out of there!” I did not wait for a reply, but met the men who had found the hatch. Bassander Lin appeared as I drew near, and after a brief inspection during which we failed to ascertain the mechanism for opening that alien door, the two of us worked together in cutting our way through. The heavy metal resisted, but the highmatter was sharp enough, and the door fell inward with a bang.