Darkness greeted us, darkness and the sense that we were running out of time.
CHAPTER 84
THE CRAWLER
BASSANDER WENT AHEAD WITH two hoplites. I followed, keeping Valka in front of me so I knew where she was at all times. Behind came several others, Udax and the bird who had carried me among them. Still more remained on the platforms outside, fighting to clear them. The thin light of the false night shone in, illuminating halls like the inside of huge intestines wrought of metal and dark stone. As with so many of the Cielcin constructs I have seen, that machine must once have been some hollowed asteroid converted to foul purpose by the Pale. The walls sweat on either side, and our little party drew close together.
“This isn’t any kind of plasma bore,” I said, looking at the walls. Machinery ran along the inner wall and along the ceiling above, rippling pipes and lengths of conduit. Dials and blinking indicators shone there, though what they portended I could not guess.
Valka lingered by one of these, head cocked. “Pressure gauges?” she asked, prodding one with a finger.
“Hydraulics?” I asked. “They don’t mean to cut through the wall with water, surely?” It was so primitive.
“Could be,” she said. “This thing . . . ’tis big enough to carry a reservoir.”
A shot sounded ahead, and something sparked against the wall. It sounded like a nerve disruptor. That shouldn’t be. The Cielcin did not use nerve disruptors. They did not have them. One of the men beside Bassander raised his lance to fire back, but the captain threw an arm out to stop him. “No beams. There’s no telling what you’d hit.”
“It went around the bend,” Valka said. Her eyes were better than ours.
“We’ll split up,” Lin said. “I’ll take five and go after our friend. Marlowe, you take the bridge.”
I gripped one of the conduits on the wall to steady myself. The shaking I’d felt on the decks outside was more pronounced within. The whole thing reminded me of nothing so much as the uranium mining crawlers on whose backs my family made their fortune.
“We stay together,” I said, not willing to have a repeat of the tragedy on Iubalu’s ship. “I’ll not have any of us getting lost in here. Forget them.” The whole crawler shook again as sounds of fighting from the outside filtered through the walls.
I wished we had mapping drones.
“That’s Barda,” Udax said, shoulders hunched, head cocked as it listened to the Irchtani unit’s channel. “They’re trying to disable the wheels.”
“There must be something like a lift in here,” Valka said. “We need to get to the bottom.”
“Won’t the bridge be high?” Lin asked.
“You’re thinking like a human,” I said in answer.
No lift, but we did find the ladder not long after, bracketed to the outer wall. Two hoplites went first, securing the space below. We followed this level around. Like the level above, it described a U-shape or semi-circle, floors enclosing some larger space—possibly the very reservoir Valka guessed would be there. We moved swiftly, but with caution, so that when two scahari fighters leaped at us from an outer room, they fell quickly. The light from our suit lamps blazed in that dim place, walls so black they were almost green.
“Something’s wrong,” Lin said when we had descended to a third level. “This place should be teeming with soldiers.”
Memory of our first push to board Iubalu’s ship played over and over in my mind, and I found myself watching the walls, expecting false panels to fold back and reveal black-suited foes. None did.
“We know we’re not alone in here,” I said dryly, shifting my unkindled sword in my hand. I’d had enough of crawling round in tunnels to last a lifetime.
The next level down we found what we’d been searching for: a hatch on the inner wall. The crawler had been built like one of those antique nesting dolls, with the encircling halls, hull, and outer fortifications wrapped around a nucleus that doubtless housed the thing’s engines and whatever nasty surprise it held for the Storm Wall and the men and women inside it. This too opened on a wheel-lock, one which took three men to turn. It swung inward, admitting a rush of cool, damp air. The chamber inside stank of ozone and spent gunpowder, electonics and burning stone. I should not have smelled it through my suit, but the seals had taken damage somewhere in all the fighting.
The room stretched the full space of the crawler, levels of catwalks rising in a dense tangle beneath braided cables and bits of machinery bracketed to the convex dome of the ceiling.
Reservoir indeed.
Along the far wall—which was the front of the crawler—I could see a red-lit line of windows, and through them the horned shapes of Cielcin at work operating the great machine. How strange it was, seeing them at a task so mundane, so human. Beneath those windows was a flat expanse of wall that I guessed must be some kind of ramp or outer doors. And dead ahead? The snarling cylinder of a mining drill a hundred feet in diameter stood bracketed to floor and ceiling and hung in the air between like the egg sac of some evil iron spider.
A drill. They meant to drill through the Storm Wall.
Stepping out onto the catwalk near the end of the mining rig, I almost laughed. It was easy to forget how primitive the Pale were, how antiquely industrial. But it was no laughing matter. Primitive or no, it would breach the Wall if we did not stop it.
A disruptor bolt struck my shield.
“That is far enough, my lord!”
I froze.
The voice was high and nasal—and unmistakably human.
Looking up, I saw a man standing on a higher catwalk, looking down on us. He was hairless, and pale almost as a Cielcin, but he was human all the same. He had no horns, and though his eyes were black even at this distance, they were the ordinary eyes of mankind. He had a nose, too: hooked and wicked above thin and pallid lips. Human indeed. Still, there was something wrong about him, as though the god who crafted him had blurred his initial sketch. Everything seemed a little too short, too thin. In a certain light, he might have reminded me of Aristedes. As it was, he only reminded me of an overlarge and emaciated infant, still wet from the birthing vat.
A rush of understanding overtook me, and I said, “You’re with MINOS, aren’t you?” The Extrasolarian company had designed the chimeras for Prince Syriani. It made sense one of their representatives would be present. It explained the Prophet’s willingness and ability to adapt human technologies—like the captured body shields—to its efforts. It had allies.
The man made no expression. “I serve the Prince of Princes.” He took a step to one side, surveying the crowd behind me. “I saw you. At Arae. It’s Lord Marlowe, is it not?”
I thought back to that battle, to the room of dead men we’d found. The bodies the MINOS workers had left behind when they broadcast their minds into space. “Who are you to ask for my name?”
“I am called Urbaine. You met my colleague, Doctor Severine.”
“Severine?” Had that been the name of the doctor on Arae?
“You don’t remember?” Urbaine asked. “She nearly killed you. Or . . . our creations nearly did. No matter.” He turned his back, looking up at the orb behind him. “It was good of you to come in person. The Shiomu will be so pleased. He has looked forward to this meeting for quite some time.”
Bassander Lin fired, but his shot broke on the doctor’s shield. Urbaine did not even notice. Remembering my previous encounter with one of the doctors of MINOS, I switched off my suit’s communications completely and signaled for the others to do the same. Urbaine was an Extrasolarian. There would be machines in his head—like Valka—that could access and control our suits if the villain had a mind. Bassander flashed a hand sign, ordering triases of men along the perimeter catwalks in a search of a stair.
Pushing the familiar horror at the thought the Cielcin wanted me aside, I said, “You should surrender.”
“Surrender? When victory is at hand?” The Extrasolarian turned to look back at me. “Your theatrics are as redundant as your heroics, my lord. All this violence, all this sacrifice . . . and for what? You cannot win. Against what is coming no one can.” He sounded almost like Bartosz, if Bartosz had been triumphant and not teetering on the last abyss of despair.
“What is coming?” I asked.
Urbaine laughed, a high, quiet sound. “You think you are fighting a war?” he said. “You are fighting the end. Your end. There are powers in play you do not understand.”
“The Watchers, do you mean?” I said, and felt a thrill as the man took a step back, stunned.
“So you have some knowledge.” The doctor smiled, though I think he only hid his surprise. “But knowledge is not power, and even if it was there is no power that can avail against Them. We have flourished for twenty thousand years because They had not deigned to notice us. They have noticed now.”
I matched his smile.
“Enough talk, doctor,” came a voice deep as the sea.
What I had taken for part of the machinery shifted, stooped, and became Bahudde. The metal giant loomed out of the dark above, its lone remaining eye red as dying coals.
“Are we in position?” the Extrasolarian asked.
“Nearly.” The crawler shook again. Bahudde looked toward the ceiling. “The yukajjimn and their slaves mean to halt our advance.” I thought that a remarkably bland statement, and wondered if the giant was slow, or if the heavy abstraction MINOS had visited upon its body had warped its mind and made it dumb.
“Eilatono de wo!” Urbaine laughed again. “Let them try! Kill them, general!”
Enough of this, I thought. Before the giant could so much as move, I raised my voice and spoke one short, simple command. “Now, Udax!”
The winged centurion understood me all too well. Udax spread his wings and vaulted into the air, moving faster than the lumbering Bahudde could track. He alighted on the rail above Doctor Urbaine, his cutlass shining in one taloned hand. The zitraa flashed, freeing the Extrasolarian scientist’s head from his shoulders. The headless body stood there a moment as mine had once done, teetered, and fell.
In the instant that followed, Bahudde slammed one man-sized fist down through the catwalk. Udax would have fallen into the giant’s grasp had the centurion not leaped away, winging to the level above and nearer the massive drill. Urbaine’s headless body slid down the ramp and tumbled to the floor fifty feet below.
“Run!” I shouted, spurring Valka on ahead of me. “We have to get above it!”
Our little unit scattered. The few other Irchtani leaped into the air, following the lead of their centurion. Bassander and his men scattered to either side while Valka and I led a small knot of men straight forward. The crawler shook beneath the assault from outside, making us stumble. “Move!” I shouted, praying the metal monster was not on our heels. I had barely survived my battle with Iubalu, had barely survived my first brush with this member of the Iedyr Yemani. If we were to survive this one, we were going to have to be clever.
A man screamed, and I knew Bahudde had seized its first victim. Shots rained down from the Irchtani in the gantry above, peppering the catwalks and the armored goliath below. Bahudde roared, the horrific sound of it scraping at the walls and the inverse dome of the reservoir above our heads. The giant did not dare use its missiles in that enclosed space, could not risk harm to its siege engine. It was an advantage—small though it was.
“Can we destroy the drill?” I asked. I had half a mind to shoot the tank above, but refrained on the off chance the Cielcin planned to cool the drill with something other than water.
Valka shook her head. “Maybe! Or maybe Barda can destroy the wheels!”
We were running out of time, for we were surely within half a mile of the Wall.
A stair rose ahead of us and left. Valka leaped onto its lower rungs just ahead of me, pulling herself up toward the level Urbaine had occupied. We were nearly above the rear of the giant’s arms by then, and the red light of the bridge rose in front of us. Glancing back, I saw Bahudde with one of our men in its huge fingers. As I watched, the vayadan-general slapped the man against the wall. He went limp as a boned fish. Dead, unconscious, paralyzed—none could say. The giant tossed the soldier aside and ripped the catwalk we’d just crossed out with a contemptuous swipe of its hand. The size of those arms! Each must have been three times the height of a man and big around as wine barrels.
It swept the room with its solitary red eye. The damaged linkages in its one shoulder spat sparks into the air as it pointed up at me. “Okun-kih!” it said. “You damaged me!”
A single shot rang out and broke against my shield. Too late, I threw an arm across my face.
“Hadrian!” Valka called from the level above. “Come on!”
I turned to follow. “To the bridge!” I cried. “We have to stop them!” If we could get inside, we could stop the crawler in its tracks, stop the drill and the Cielcin effort to breach the Wall. They might still win a way inside—push through the tunnels in the starport, or overwhelm the defenses on the city side—but if all we did was buy time for the fleet to arrive, it would be worth it. “Go!”
I was halfway up the stairs when the ground vanished beneath me. The catwalk below and the flowing metal of the steps fell away. Valka screamed, and I seized the rail with my left hand. The stair swung, half-pulled free from the structure above. I saw Valka above me. She fired past me at the giant far below. I cast about for some handhold. There was nothing. The level above was out of reach. The staircase clanged as another of the bolts released. I knew I had seconds. There! I leaped out through open air, back toward the drill and the catwalk that ran alongside it for maintenance. The rail caught me about the midsection, and I groaned.
“Hadrian!” Valka cried again. Her voice could not have sounded farther away.
Before I could mount the rail and regain my feet, the catwalk was torn from beneath me. How far I fell was any man’s guess. Sixty feet? Seventy? I landed on my shoulder, suit’s gel layer cushioning my fall. I lay there stunned, stars dancing across the inside of my mask.
Before I could rise—before I could even see straight—iron fingers each big around as the arms of a full-grown man seized about my waist. The lonely red eye descended like a falling star, its twin guttering in the gloom beside it.
“Is this . . . all there is?” the deep voice asked. “No fight? No . . . resistance?” The vayadan-general lifted me bodily from the floor, fingers clamping tighter. “I expected more.”
My arms were still free, and I pounded on the huge hand with my fists and tried to pry the first finger loose. It was useless. I was trapped. Hysteric, my mind raced to the memory of that legionnaire doll I’d seen on the floor of the tramway, for I was as powerless in the giant’s grip as any toy in the hand of its child. I balled up my fists in impotent fury and realized incredibly—impossibly—that my sword was still in my hand.
Against all odds . . . I hadn’t dropped it.
I would have laughed, but the breath had fled my lungs.
“The prince will thank me for this,” Bahudde said, speaking its native tongue. Steel fingers tightened, and I felt my suit straining to protect the flesh within. “I will deliver you to him myself.”
Teeth clenched, I squeezed the hilt of Olorin’s sword. The blade appeared, flashing in the dim. I hewed at Bahudde’s wrist with all my strength. No good. The creature’s hand was adamant, and the highmatter would not bite. Sparks hissed from the damaged linkages in the chimera’s shoulder. I struck again, and the adamant jarred my hand. I almost lost my grip, and winced as Bahudde’s hand tightened further still.
“Iubalu-kih rakunyu ba-okun biqari,” it said, voice deep as the Dark of space. Iubalu was not yours to kill. “She belonged to the prince.” My vision grayed about the edge, and the beating of my
heart was ragged in my ears. My limbs felt heavy. Heavy and uncharacteristically warm. “I should kill you,” Bahudde rumbled, ignoring the impact of weapons fire from the Irchtani and Bassander’s men. Where was Bassander? Where was Valka?
The grayness in my eyes went to black, and I sensed that deeper Dark beneath, howling up to greet me.
I was going to die again.
The pressure vanished, and air and blood rushed back, driving back that final darkness. “But you belong to the prince. Just like me.” It squeezed again, grip shifted higher, and I felt my ribs groan, threatening to form those greenstick fractures that heralded the final breaks. My vision blurred again, and I screamed out all the air in me, praying that my suit would save me from the bone-crushing weight.
It would be easy to let go, to let everything go.
So easy to die. Again.
A white blur fell from on high and struck the giant, clinging to its neck like the apes I’d read about in storybooks as a boy. I saw a flash of blue.
The weight of iron fingers vanished, and I was falling again.
Something heavy crashed to the earth beneath me as I landed, the wind all knocked out of me. My suit worked to force air back into my lungs. My vision cleared steadily. Bahudde’s fingers curled loose around me, the palm—large almost as I was tall—beneath me. Wheezing, I looked up and understood. Bassander Lin stood upon the shoulder of the giant above me, his highmatter sword in hand, its point buried deep in the linkages of the chimera’s damaged shoulder.
He had cut off the giant’s arm.
For a single, beautiful moment he stood like a conqueror atop the statue of a deposed tyrant. Then he was gone, leaping away before Bahudde could seize him with its one remaining hand. He dove wildly through the air, careening toward the floor without any net or hope of salvation—and was caught by two Irchtani who bore him safely to ground.
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