by Aeryn Leigh
And with a final twinkle of falling brass, Betty was out.
A hush fell upon them, as the faint whine of an electromagnetic discharge rose in both pitch and intensity.
"Griffin, let's go," yelled Laurie, leaping up and grabbing the canvas bag, wrapping it around the hot pinging end of Betty's barrel. They frantically moved position just as another energy beam lanced out, vaporising half the tree trunk they'd just used as cover. With a retort that sounded like Odin’s own shotgun going off, the fifty-foot-high tree snapped and crashed to the earth.
The giant started moving again, crawling on its elbows, this time in a straight line toward their moored ships.
ELLA EJECTED the spent rifle cartridge and inserted a fresh round. The giant resolutely kept on, a picture of determination. Through the scope, she sighted the head, saw the damaged core that the armour-piercing rounds had wreaked inside, blue sparks spitting, and for the briefest moment, felt sorry for it. How long had it been doing this, standing guard, long enough for moss and lichen and a verdammt bird's nest to accumulate on its shoulder? Even right to the end, it refused to give up. Her eyes welled in recognition.
The sun burst through a break in the clouds, even as it rained, and shone upon the field. She slowed her breathing, and the rainbow formed, and the giant's head twisted in the kaleidoscope of colours, right at her, right into her.
End this, Valkyrie kin. It is time for another.
Ella rose and ran across the field, not thinking, with the roar of blood in her veins, dashing straight to the metal giant, and put the tip of Helena into the jagged armoured skull, pulled both triggers with a rebel yell and a deafening blast and the ancient war machine at last, stopped.
Free.
Chapter Forty-One
LET THERE BE LIGHT
DEEP in the heart of the mountain no lights had bloomed for two millennia. Countless generations of tiny invertebrates and small creatures had evolved with no functioning eyeballs whatsoever, locked in a cycle of hunter and prey with every other sense bar visual.
Now there was light.
The ball of hovering blue light, a fraction of a millimetre across, shone with a brilliance belying its small size. It moved slowly, in a horizontal spiral, corkscrewing around the objects in the centre of the cavern, and as it passed by, ancient holographic displays came into life, writhing three-dimensional knots unlocking wards on the circle of containers, a storage ring preserved for over two thousand years.
Stasis fields ended.
The programme complete, the floating blue sphere faded into the black from which it had come.
In the total dark, within the container’s now open sides, they awoke.
Chapter Forty-Two
BURIAL MOUND
"WE NEED to make camp here tonight," said Laurie. The scout party stood in a group in front of the downed war machine.
"Camp here? You crazy, Laurie?" said Mick.
"And why is that, Laurie?" said Ella.
"I am not sure why," said Laurie. "When it died — bugger it, I don't know why, I heard a voice in my head — anyway, this position is much more defensible than going back and spending the night back on the main river."
Beowulf grunted. He turned to face what remained of his kin. "Get back to the ships and inform them we've found safe passage through and a place to camp tonight. Look for the bonfire."
"Mick and Merrion? Scout the perimeter if you would please? Ella, Beowulf, Griffin? Go check out the burial mound."
And with that they split up, leaving two old, ancient, creaking war machines behind.
"THE OLD MAN IS GETTING SENTIMENTAL," said Mick.
"And why do you suppose that is?" said Merrion, as they walked back to the tree line to begin their perimeter sweep. "Of all the things you can call Lawrence John, sentimental is not one that would immediately spring to mind."
"Yeah, which is why, mate, it makes it weirder."
"So how long have you known him?"
"Eight, nine years. I first met the bloke in a little war before the last big one we ended up being sucked through." Merrion said nothing. "He was a crazy bastard then and is still a crazy bastard now."
THE RAIN EASED UP, now no more than a light shower. Laurie stooped down and picked up the bird’s nest which had tumbled to the ground when the warrior fell. Lichen and moss covered the upper torso and shoulders. But not, he noticed, did any of it cover critical components. Whatever maintenance programs it had followed, cleaning lichen and moss off non-critical areas hadn't been a priority for it.
Some of that lichen was old. Centuries upon centuries upon a goddamn long time.
Laurie recognised an old veteran when he saw one. One old warrior to another. Its sword was still in its left fist. But what was that on the blade? He shifted his head slightly to get a better angle, and stopped. Why is it whenever you solve one problem another immediately springs up?
Ella couldn't believe her eyes. Standing on top of the rim of the burial mound, in the rain, she realised that's exactly what it was.
A burial mound of the dead. The creature, or giant, whatever the hell it was, had carved out precise floor to ceiling shelves. Upon the circular shelves some fifteen feet high, laid the skulls and trophies of every slain opponent.
Upon the entire smooth floor, Celtic knots had been carved so the entire floor surface was one, complete engraving. On the outer ring was a mural, reminding Ella of an even more esoteric Bayeux Tapestry.
"We're going to have to carry Andrew away by his fingernails," she said.
Griffin turned to Beowulf. "What is it I'm looking at?"
"Bring me Magnus," said the Viking King.
Ella concentrated on the task at hand. She sat cross-legged in the clearing, her back to the fire and facing the line of longships sitting amid the canal, the sun's final rays casting a pretty picture. If Amelia was here she would love it. Ella instantly felt guilty. All afternoon she hadn't thought of her once. The other part of her brain said, well you have been busy. That's no excuse, the first part of her mind said. Ella sighed. She reached forward and opened the two-foot-long aluminium case, lifting its top back so that the leather strap became taut. She picked out the folded piece of red canvas and laid it out flat, then broke apart the M30 Drilling.
MAGNUS and his King stood on the rim top of the burial mound. "What do you make of it?" said Beowulf.
Magnus frowned. "I've only come across this in the most ancient of books. No first-hand accounts are left. No primary sources exist, everything we have in Odinsgate are written accounts of scholar's memories of reading books when they were in turn nothing but fledgling scholars being told oral tales of these books."
"Enlighten me," said Beowulf. "I missed out on a great deal of knowledge as a child thanks to my father and being sent on every fool's errand."
"It is written that when Odin first brought his own kin to this land, he brought thirteen plated warriors, and each had a foot servant. Warriors made of metal and their crude servants were even bigger. What you encountered was probably a servant."
Beowulf twisted his beard braid. And not for the last time, cursed his father and petty politics. A Viking king with such huge gaping holes of knowledge was weak. Pitiful.
Him.
This, he would rectify.
Chapter Forty-Three
THIRTEEN WARRIORS
"SOON AFTER ODIN founded this world, the thirteen warriors set out to defeat an ancient evil which had also claimed this world for their own. Thirteen warriors and their servants — and one Valkyrie Queen. A guardian angel. But it all gets a little hazy. There are many differing accounts. One sage tells it that after defeating their enemies, they fell into a bottomless chasm and were never seen again. Or that Loki betrayed him, scheming for Ragnarok, and all were lost. Another account tells of them also being victorious yet slain by the vanguard of their dead enemies upon returning to their Great Hall, also the location of which is unknown. And even for a scholar such as myself, there are vast number of th
ings which even I do not know."
"You're a scholar?" said Andrew.
"Mostly a technological one," said Magnus, "but yes. A scholar."
"What ancient evil?" said Ella. She didn't dare mention the giant, ah servant, had spoken to her. Perhaps it was her imagination. Its last words circled around her mind again and again. Nobody likes a crazy woman. But then, everyone here was crazy, more or less. She bit her tongue.
"I do not know," said Magnus. "Much knowledge has been lost. There is one book in the great library of Odinsgate, however it is in a language no one has yet been able to understand."
"Or for that matter, decipher," said Merrion.
"You know of this?" said Beowulf.
"Of course," said Merrion, "I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't. It is rumoured that the Emperor himself has a translated copy. What is fact and what is rumour cannot be ascertained easily." Merrion took a sip of wine.
"This book," said Laurie casually, "wouldn't be on Marietta's wish list by any odd chance?"
"Strictly a tertiary objective," said Merrion, grinning.
"Yeah right," said Laurie. "So, Beowulf, what's the go with this servant over there? It's one of yours, right?" Now Laurie sighed. "As diverting as this has been, let's set watches for the night." And to himself he added, not that we'd have a Hades' chance in Hell if one more of the things turns up in the wee hours of the night.
MOST OF THEM slept in the familiarity and comfort of their hammocks on the longships that night, but a few did sleep next to the campfire's warmth. Magnus and Andrew however spent until the darkest hours copying as much of the mural art as they could in the light drizzle, after throwing a rope ladder down with a half dozen torches.
At the campfire, Mick gently nudged Griffin's shoulder with his foot. "C'mon, champ," he said, "your turn." Griffin hadn't slept much, nagging thoughts keeping him awake most of the night, particularly why the necklace around his neck had got warm suddenly.
The last watch before daybreak. Griffin stood up, yawned, and stretched. He reached down and picked up the MP 40, slung the gun over his shoulder, checked that Betty still lay in her waterproof oilskins, and made his way down to where the warrior's servant laid. He waved to the pair of Vikings on the other side of the clearing, also starting their own watch.
When he reached the servant, he sat on its foot. The metal was cold when he placed his hand upon it. He could not recognise the metal, as it warmed instantly. Griffin reached into his shirt and pulled out the pendant gifted him, and examined it. A simple, brass teardrop, the width and thickness of his thumb. Just brass, nothing else. He lifted it over his neck and placed it in one palm, and looked toward the west, back to where home was, his new home, his hands in his lap, a hooded figure in waterproofs.
Griffin sat there as the rain began to fall until the daybreak. Mick called out for him from the encampment. He placed his hands down beside him to lift himself off and as he did, the brass pendant tinkled. He heard a slight creaking sound and watched as behind him the giant's left fist unfolded.
The sword fell at Griffin's feet.
THE MOLECULES of dead flesh and decaying blood wafted through mountain air currents. Through crevices and fissures at points no wider than a finger, where light had not reached for eons. On three-and-a-half-thousand corpses they feasted, fed, and multiplied following the prime directive of all life, by following the scent. Survive. The pile of bodies preserved in the near subzero state in the mountain cliffs provided meat and sustenance, but the oxygen levels weren't optimal. They couldn't reach a fully-grown size. Allowing for this world's gravity and oxygen concentration their present size would have to suffice.
For now.
Survive.
Breed.
Survive.
ELLA RUBBED the sleep out of her eyes. She peered over the side of the Oslo and swung herself out of the hammock. What on Earth is Griffin carrying? She craned her neck forward. She jumped off the boat, landing in the soft soil and ran toward Griffin. A small group formed around him, as he dragged the twelve-foot-long sword back to the awaiting boats.
"You can't be serious?" said Laurie, his mouth full of dried fish.
"Reckon I am," smiled Griffin, and pointed toward Laurie's sword. "You call that a knife? Now this is a knife. Mate."
Chapter Forty-Four
ROW, EAT, SLEEP, REPEAT
BEOWULF THREW the torch onto the small funeral pyre, the only remnants of the dead Viking being her legs from the calves down to her boots, the rest of the warrior vaporised, but the pyre also honoured the warriors on the longship obliterated by the Inquisition's Fifth Fleet.
Soon the fire became an inferno, and with that, the raiding party continued, into the now pouring rain.
Hellsbaene led by oar power, her mainsail and mast stowed. Travelling a few hundred feet ahead, she reached the adjoining river, then continued downstream. The second river was free and clear of shipwrecks, or for that matter, any detritus at all.
"So that mechanical creature dragged all the ships it destroyed on this river down the canal and deposited them on the other?" Andrew stroked his goatee. "It did seem rather orderly about it all." He leaned back against Hellsbaene's side, his hands full of spanners, crouched under the tarpaulin covering the engines. Rain splattered off, a staccato of falling liquid.
"Following its orders right to the end," said Magnus. "Pass the three-eighths wrench." The connecting plate between the B-17 turbocharger and the Merlin supercharger intake manifold on the Number Two engine for some reason kept on shaking loose.
"I only wish we could have taken it with us for future study."
"Maybe on the way back." And there is a lot to study. Magnus wasn't worried by the mechanical servant. With a spanner in each hand he tightened the end bolt once more. What was worrying, and guaranteed Magnus little sleep for the near future to come, was the last third of the engraved mural.
THE INQUISITION FLEET could not be seen in any direction. The eight vessels exited the river mouth and continued east, and the rain never stopped, not that day, or the following days.
Adding to their woes, a strong headwind developed, and any progress came from the oars, the work hard and back-breaking, even for the experienced seafaring Vikings.
Tempers frayed.
Ella remembered little, falling into exhausted slumber at the end of every stint at the oars aboard the Oslo. The week became a blur. Row, eat, sleep, poo, eat, row, repeat.
Everything was sodden.
At some point, they passed the continent's cape, the winds howling into their face, the rain almost vertical, and the journey became easier. The fleet tacked into the wind, and ran south-east down the coastline.
The pirate city lay abandoned, great swathes of it destroyed. Merrion led a small scavenging party to gather what remained, any food or water but it proved barely enough to cover the rest of the trip to the Emperor's Lair, let alone the journey back, his usual smile gone when he returned.
Then they passed into open waters, on the final stretch to their objective.
Chapter Forty-Five
VERDAMMT SOLLST DU SEIN
WITH THE ARRIVAL of the Viking refugees from Odinsgate, the Inquisition sealed off passage to the Bay of Harmony, and thereby Fairholm, a triple line of warships enforcing the blockade.
Marietta lowered her telescope, and contemplated the state of Fairholm from high up on the observatory flak tower. Her city was a circus. Having never seen a circus, she relied on the ancient Johnson's dictionary in her treasured library. But the 1755 Earth definition remained true. On open space, in a pleasant valley, doth give a pleasant spectacle of running hordes this way and that.
People from all over Elysium found their way here, Inquisition forces at their backs. Herded. No other way to define the enemy's behaviour. Kill outright those who resisted, who fired back. Let go those who did not.
A migraine thrummed in her head. Food rationing, already in place, became tighter. Fishing vessels venturing into the midd
le of the large bay received one warning shot, before being annihilated in a curtain of artillery fire. As a result, every person, adult or child, who could hold a fishing line, did so from the jetties, beach, and rocky coasts. Hell, she saw one kid dangling a line in the city fountain, a Hail Mary if there ever was one.
That is, anyone not involved in armaments production, oil refining, working the farms and fields, feeding the nitrate beds, or producing small arms. Yet, every street lay jammed full of humanity, houses overflowing. Over thirty thousand people, with food for ten. And high above the city, seagulls and seabirds flocked, fighting for what fish offal remained.
A horn blasted, signalling yet another bombing raid. She put her hands over her eyes for a moment, her thoughts dark, twisted, hateful.
The anger passed, then she ran for the exit ladder, again the leader of the Republic, the last free nation of Elysium.
ELLA PACED up and down the length of the longship, albeit in a very haphazard, zigzagged kind of line. The fleet sat idle in open waters for the second day in a row, the weather far too severe to even entertain the idea of launching all three aeroplanes. In all directions, there was nothing bar blue ocean, except for the top of a mountain peeking over the horizon. Their objective.
They'd be flying over that. I wish this verdammt rain would just go away. At least when they were rowing there was something to do. Now that they'd reached their optimal launch site, they were beholden and held to ransom by the fickle gods of weather. Ella tried to damp down the rising panic of being around so many people, her claustrophobic nature rearing its ugly head. She stopped at the midsection of the boat, lifted a section of tarpaulin, and entered the fuselage of the large Catalina.