Gallen turned away in disgust, listening to the clacking jaws, the faint scrabbling of insects. Worse yet, among the corpses, some dead sfuz had bum marks. These were sfuz Gallen had killed only the day before.
Maggie sat at the edge of the stinking pit, put her head in her hands, trembling from weariness.
"Come," Gallen said. "We're not far from their lair. We have to keep moving."
He took them back the way they'd come, past their previous path. Not a dozen yards from where they'd first joined the sfuz trail, they turned a bend, found an opening to a tunnel with a road ten times as wide as the trail they'd been traveling.
The road was trampled hard as cement. The walls rose dozens of meters, and Gallen could see fresh wooden beams shoring the walls of this tunnel. This wasn't just some wild path through the tangle-it was a highway.
We must be near Teeawah, Gallen realized, looking northward along the subterranean highway. There was an odd reek in the air, the sour smell of sfuz hide, almost nauseating in its intensity. Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of sfuz must live here.
As Gallen stumbled onto this thoroughfare, he stood a moment, unsure if he should go forward. How could he hope to reach the city undiscovered?
Yet even as he worried, his mantle picked up a strong, clear radio signal. Dronon were coming, and one of them was relaying a report to its masters. Down the bend, on the highway leading out of the city, lights shone.
Gallen raced back to the narrow trail off the highway, urging Maggie to hide her glow globes, and the small group scurried back down the corridor. In moments the highway tunnel filled with the echoing sounds of a Dronon march, the clicking of mouthfingers over voice'drums, the rattle of weapons against carapaces.
Zeus, Maggie, and the bears scurried farther down their narrow tunnel, squeezing round a corner. Gallen halted far back in the darkness, listening. In the shadows he knelt in the dirt, mouth pressed close to the moldy humus, and peeked out at the highway, letting his mantle capture and illuminate the image.
A Dronon Vanquisher suddenly filled the passage before them, flashed a light over Gallen's head, and fired a pulp gun blindly, just to make certain the passage was clear. Dirt sprinkled down on Gallen, and he dared not move. In half a second, the Dronon moved on, and Gallen saw the marching bodies of others come into view.
The Dronon had come in force. For ten minutes he watched Dronon, hundreds of them, marching in formation, scurrying through the cavern like roaches, weapons at
ready. Twice more, scouts glanced down his long passage, each flashing a strong light into the crevice. Gallen drew back around the corner, out of sight. Sweat poured down
his brow. Gallen seldom became frightened, yet his heart pounded.
When the echo of footsteps dimmed, when the Dronon had passed, Gallen sat, trying to calm himself. Twelve hundred. A contingent of twelve hundred Vanquishers, all armed with incendiary rifles and pulp guns.
Gallen waited, unsure what to do. He didn't want to follow the Dronon. It would be better, perhaps, to put as much distance between himself and the Dronon as possible. But his gut instinct told him that the highway out there led to Teeawah.
He looked back to Maggie for counsel. "What now?" "Follow them," she whispered. "To the city."
Gallen nodded, uncertain. His arms and legs trembled, but not from fear-it was the ground trembling beneath him. Not the deep rumbling of an earthquake, not even the milder reverberations of a mistwife moving through its tunnel. Smaller.
Gallen stilled his breath. Distantly, he heard small-arms fire.
The Dronon firing pulp guns. The concussions caused the tremors. For two solid minutes, the rumbling continued, and Gallen finally recognized a crackling, too. The sharper retorts of incendiary rifles.
A battle raged, nearby. Here, underground, sound wouldn't carry far. Gallen smelled smoke, a smoke he realized might take weeks to clear from the tangle.
Suddenly, down the highway, just outside his little tunnel, the whistling cries of sfuz erupted, rapidly drawing close. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, were fleeing the city, Gallen thought.
But something was wrong. The pitch of their whistles wasn't the high, desperate whine he'd heard before from retreating sfuz, but rather the low cries of hunters.
The Dronon guns had gone silent.
"Damn," Gallen whispered, unprepared for the revelation.
The Dronon had reached Teeawah. And died?
How many sfuz were out there? Twelve hundred Vanquishers, gone just like that.
We're next, he thought.
He turned back, urging the others to flee down the narrow trail. Zeus took little encouragement, retreated the way they'd come. Gallen wondered how safe it would be. Their trail led to a dead end through one corridor and to the mistwives in another.
And the Dronon should be following us, Gallen realized. The Seekers should be on our trail. He couldn't retreat.
But sfuz and the city lay ahead. He couldn't go forward.
When they reached a small chamber where ancient limbs thrust up from the floor, Gallen called a halt. "Zeus, spread some of this down the corridor," he said, tossing Zeus the canister of exploding foam. Zeus took it, disappeared up the trail.
Gallen heard the hiss of foam as Zeus sprayed the floor and walls. In sixty seconds the foam would set; anything that touched it thereafter would explode in a fireball.
"Maggie, you and the bears take cover here between these branches, and break out some food. We need some rest." He indicated the two largest partially petrified tree branches, which thrust up. From behind them, they'd have some protection.
Maggie sat and drew her heavy pistol, a.conventional weapon with high-explosive charges and a silencer. No sooner had she got down than the sfuz found them.
Several dozen charged down the narrow corridor, whistling in anticipation. The sfuz boiled through the cavern opening like ants, grasping the cavern wall with their strong fingers, apparently unmindful of gravity. Some were running along the ceiling, others erupting around walls, while yet others scampered along the floor. They seemed intent on finding their prey, mindless with rage.
Gallen turned, firing his intelligent pistol as rapidly as he could, targeting individual sfuz.
Maggie didn't have time for such niceties. She opened fire with her pistol, blasting as fast as she could squeeze the trigger, counting on the explosive force of her projectiles to rip apart anything in her path.
Maggie's weapon worked well in close quarters. As she fired, sfuz dropped from the ceiling, raining down in bloody gobbets on their kin, their hunting cries turning to death screams.
The black creatures seemed to seethe from the walls, their horrible, Icing, twisted limbs writhing. They curled up on themselves as they died, sometimes kicking out savagely with long limbs. Their dark eyes gleamed, their fangs flashed in the pale light thrown by the firefight, their claws raked the air.
These were not adults, Gallen suddenly realized. These are juveniles and children, smaller than adults, but no less deadly, apparently, for they had just slaughtered a thousand Dronon.
But at what cost? Gallen wondered. How many sfuz died? Gallen took to targeting the sfuz that got past Maggie. Maggie screamed, "Back me! My clip's empty!"
Gallen's own weapon was nearly out of missiles, and in his mind, he practiced drawing his vibro-blade, considered how he might best hold off the sfuz till Maggie could reload. He needn't have worried.
Zeus came charging around the bend, firing his incendiary pistol. He got off three shots before Gallen shouted, "No!"
The plasma from the pistol burned like the sun, setting the ancient detritus along the walls afire. The fierce heat of the blasts was like a furnace burning Gallen's face. Gallen raised his arm to shield himself, to cover his mouth. The smoke that erupted in the chamber was so overwhelming, Gallen feared they would all suffocate before they escaped.
The sfuz retreated. None dared enter this chamber.
Gallen looked back, wond
ering if he could retreat. Zeus had just mined the passage. Explosive foams were seldom used in real campaigns-they were too nondiscriminatory, and couldn't be easily disarmed. In fact, Gallen hadn't brought the solvents needed to disarm the foam.
They couldn't retreat past the foam, nor could they go forward through the blaze. Yet as smoke billowed into the chamber, Gallen knew if they stayed here, they'd suffocate.
He had to close off the passage ahead-conserve the oxygen here. He reached into his weapons pouch, found a heavy grenade, and tossed it toward the corpses of the sfuz.
The grenade exploded, dirt sprayed toward him in the hot wind. The cavern shook. Detritus rained from above, filling Gallen's eyes. He raised his hands to shield his face.
A second explosion rocked the cavern behind. Falling dirt had detonated the foam.
The ground gave way beneath him.
Maggie shrieked.
Gallen grabbed her arm, then they were tumbling, the earth opening to swallow them, an avalanche of dirt and rotted humus storming down upon them.
Chapter Thirty Six
Felph stood beside Lord Karthenor aboard the Dronon vessel Acquiescence, watching the viewscreens on the dome above them, the Dronon cameras displaying hellish nightmares.
In one region deep in the tangle, Dronon Seekers had captured Maggie's scent, only to find that it led down a huge shaft. A giant mistwife rose up to greet the Dronon, and now hundreds of Dronon engaged the monster, trying to fight their way past, with no assurance that Maggie had ever escaped the monster's grasp.
The presence of hundreds of thousands of Dronon in the tangle aroused every mistwife in the region, so that on nearly every screen, the monsters hunted through the tangle, shrieking in pain, madly swatting Dronon who did not fight so bravely as they did mindlessly.
Yet, for the Felph, other screens displayed far more interesting battles. Dronon Vanquishers high in the tangle were blasting through sfuz hunting parties.
The sfuz had the element of surprise. In dozens of places, the creatures boiled out of secret holes by the thousandss or dropped from above or clamered around trees.
The small sfuz were no match in single battle for Vanquishers, with their thick carapaces and heavy battle arms. The sfuz died easily enough. But there were so many, so many, and they were so fast, and they were learning.
The sfuz concentrated not on direct assaults, but upon ambushes and trickery.
Dronon warriors were marching down an apparently safe path, then suddenly dropped into a pit. Another Dronon stepped into a snare, went flying against a tree, his carapace cracking open like a melon. Elsewhere, a Dronon battalion came upon the bodies of scouts who'd been bludgeoned by sfuz who wielded clubs.
In many battles, when a dozen sfuz suddenly dropped from a ceiling, the Dronon instinctively fired their incendiary rifles-the Vanquishers' customary ready weapon. Yet a single shot fired in these close quarters raised choking smoke from the moldering tangle-smoke that strangled the Dronon in minutes. Dronon lungs were less efficient than those of a sfuz or a human.
Indeed, across every monitor, the caverns had begun boiling with dark smoke. In places, dry logs burned out of control. Everywhere on the screens, Dronon were choking, dying by the tens of thousands.
Felph was astonished at the carnage, dismayed to the core of his soul. Tens of thousands of troops died in sfuz attacks, yet Felph saw cameras that focused on only a sixth of the Dronon forces.
Elsewhere, others were also falling prey to the sfuz.
"My god, my god," Karthenor swore, shaking his head in dismay, the rings of his golden mantle tinkling. "Why didn't you warn us?"
Felph shook his head, "I suspected the sfuz had a stronghold, but I never imagined . . ." he answered truthfully.
There were more sfuz than he'd believed possible, perhaps millions of them. He'd envisioned a battle for the city but nothing like this.
Now he saw it had been folly to imagine that he, Gallen, or anyone, would ever reach Teeawah. Folly. Utter folly.
Yet on one monitor, he saw something intriguing. A Dronon contingent marched down a broad highway unlike any he'd ever seen in the tangle, and came to ancient cliffs of sculpted yellow sandstone. The Dronon cameras distorted the colors, giving everything a yellowish hue, but they could not hide the thing Felph hoped to see.
There in the cliffs were holes, thousands on thousands of clooes excavated by Qualeewoohs, each a perfect dark oval.
"There! There!" Felph shouted. "There it is!"
As soon as he had said these words, monstrous black forms began wriggling from the holes, hundreds upon thousands of sfuz, hurling themselves down on the Dronon, boiling from holes one after another, racing across the roof and walls of this vast cavern.
They reminded Felph of spiders, thousands of horrid black spiders seething from their lair.
The Dronon troops began shooting. A firestorm ensued, tracers of white-hot plasma erupting through the dark caverns. Everywhere the sfuz were falling, burning, dying. And for a minute it looked as if the Dronon would take the city. But the sfuz were too many, too many.
The camera caught images of Dronon, struggling beneath dozens of dark forms, thrashing with large battle arms, firing into their own ranks. The camera's holder had several sfuz leap on him from above, and the jumble of images that ensued showed fangs and purple blood flying, flashes of light.
Suddenly the cameraman was free again, and the Dronon continued firing in a desperate attempt to drive off the sfuz. The boiling plasma that issued from the rifles burned in a thousand hot spots, white lights shining, brightening the cavern through layers of dark smoke that crept along the ground, over the ceilings.
The vast chamber was clogged with smoke. Dronon Vanquishers began pumping their legs rapidly, trying to force oxygen into the intake holes on their massive rear legs so they could breathe. The Dronon cameraman tried to retreat from the killing ground, stumbled to the road, and left the camera going. Under the eerie glow of a thousand burning incendiary charges, Felph watched the fearless Vanquishers strangle beneath a roiling wall of smoke.
Felph shook his head in dismay. If the Dronon die, if the Dronon suffocate, the sfuz will, too, he considered.
"These holes?" Karthenor asked, pointing to the clooes on the monitor. "You're sure these are part of the ancient city Gallen is searching for?"
"Indeed!" Felph said. "That is the place."
Karthenor sighed heavily, gauging the damage done, the casualties of the battle, then. turned and shouted over the hum of the room. "Lord Kintiniklintit, have your forces
engage the city. Gallen and Maggie may already be secreted inside."
Lord Felph's jaw dropped in awe. Teeawah had eluded him for six hundred years. Now he saw that it would have eluded him forever.
At this very moment, a window of opportunity opened. The Dronon were liberating the city, but in a day the Dronon would be gone. They'd find Maggie and Gallen and kill them, then withdraw their troops.
In only a few hours, the sfuz who'd drunk from the Waters of Strength would begin rising from the dead, once again begin defending their lair.
The sfuz that infested the ruins would return, feeding off the carnage. Felph would never again be able to mount such an intensive invasion into this region.
But today the Dronon would take the city, probably never realizing what treasure they held.
Today, Feiph could drink from the Waters of Strength.
"Lord Karthenor," Feiph said, "I'd like to go down to the city, now, before your troops demolish the archaeological ruins."
Karthenor turned, studied Feiph with an enigmatic smile. "You want to go there?"
"Indeed," Feiph said. "I've searched for the site for ages. Now I see that once your troops leave, I dare not ever return."
"What are you searching for?" Karthenor asked. By his tone, Felph knew he suspected something.. "Chances are you won't get in or out alive. What could be worth the
risk?"
The great state
sman Kenrand once said, "A politician's greatest asset is his ability to create a facile lie when confronted by constituents." Feiph hoped he was up to the
task.
"I have a dozen clones who await wakening back in my palace. This body is but the raiment I wear. Ifit dies, I'll put on another. But knowledge,, knowledge of the philosophies of the ancient Qualeewoohs, now there is something of abiding worth!" He smiled, with just a bit of a gleam
in his eye, as if he were mad. It was a role he played often, to good advantage.
Karthenor stared down at him, impassive behind his golden mask. The lord fingered his robe, nervously rubbing. the fabric between two fingers.
"Send a Dronon escort with me, if you don't trust me," Felph said. "I have nothing to hide, and nothing to gain. I can be of no further help in this quest. I swear, you know as much about Gallen's whereabouts as I do."
Karthenor frowned. He wouldn't send a guard with Feiph. He was a counselor to the Dronon, but apparently didn't have the authority to order Vanquishers about. Feiph had counted on that. But Karthenor did have resources. He smiled, turned to an elderly slave in a dirty tunic who wore a silver Guide. in his silvering hair. "Thomas Flynn, go with our friend here. Guard him with your life, then make certain he returns safely to me as soon as Maggie is captured."
Karthenor pulled a heavy pistol from his own holster, tossed it to Thomas Flynn. Karthenor • nodded toward a Vanquisher, spoke rapidly into a translator, ordering a shuttle for Felph's and Thomas's use.
Chapter Thirty Seven
The dirt shifted beneath Maggie's feet, and she felt herself sliding. She screamed. Gallen reached, grabbed her arm. Detritus rumbled down from the ceiling. As the ground opened to swallow her, Maggie had but one thought: my baby!
Gallen must have thought of the child, too. As he fell, he pulled her on top of him, to cushion her fall with his own body.
Maggie's breath left her, expecting they'd tumble dozens of meters, but instead the floor dropped only one. Dust iflled the air in a cloud. Maggie squinted through the dust and smoke, spitting dirt out of her mouth.
Lords of the Seventh Swarm, Book 3 of the Golden Queen Series Page 30