by Aeryn Leigh
No response.
"Draw me the numbers one to ten in runes if you can?"
The Viking woman knelt, and with her index finger, wrote the runes in a pool of drying human blood. "One through to ten."
Verdammt. They didn’t match. "Who would know this?"
"Magnus," said Lagertha. "And the scribes at Odinsgate."
"Thank you." The Vikings dispersed, and Andrew approached, jaw open, bursting into question after question before Merrion dragged him away, leaving Ella be.
Chapter Ninety-Six
ODIN’S WARRIORS
EVENTUALLY THE MEDICAL stretchers finished moving down the rows of the First and Last and the assault team, both suns long since set.
Ella consulted the medical graphics, which in the time the mobile hospital had been deployed changed colour from green to their now flashing red. They must be running low on supplies or energy, perhaps both. She directed them to the group of huddled prisoners, as the set of runes counting down from the moment she left hit single digits in the top middle of her vision.
Ella felt the nagging suspicion her time here soon would end. Nine minutes? Was that it? Scheissen. She walked over to Merrion and General Versetti and knelt. "I don't think I have much time. Neither do you. More of those creatures will come, attracted by the stench of death, and I don't think you should be here when they do, you know? In the bay at the bottom of the mountain I saw enough abandoned warships to transport you all back to Fairholm. The aliens climbed up the anchor chains from the seabed below. Merrion please, your map?"
Merrion retrieved the silk map and laid it on the floor. Ella extended her left index finger and a massive hunk of pointed metal precisely landed on a section of coastline. "I found the suit here via this entrance. Rob is there, he is doing okay, but in a coma. The entrance is at least one thousand feet above the ground, but you should see the wreckage of our Catalina atop the cliff face. Follow the tunnel." She paused. "If you can." A rune changed. "You must get those captured scientists and the research back to Marietta above all else. Do not drop anchor until you are in deep water."
She stood up. "I must go." She turned. "Tell Amelia I love her." The ground shook as Ella jogged over to the captured prisoners, collapsed the stretchers, picking up the heavy weapon on her way, jumped back onto the balcony and left the cavern, up and through the winding escape tunnel and back to the stubby jet and the star-filled sky.
Ella docked with the wings, heard the drop pods latch, got a green icon, and fell off the cliff, launching hard. The radar pinged and Ella plotted a course for the longships as another rune clicked down as Ella broke the sound barrier, finding Hellsbaene at the rendezvous point, this time slamming to a complete stop, hovering aft of the Viking ship and the astounded crew, her wings softly flapping, before softly landing on the longship, rocking it.
"Magnus? Magnus? There you are. There's not much time." She lifted her arm and pointed in the direction of the stronghold. "Make your way there and offer any assistance you can. Your King lives. Original Norse, can you speak it? Do you have any books with you?"
"Ella?" said Magnus, coming forward. "What kind of books? Old Norse? I have my reference journal that I keep with —"
"Great," she said. "May I see it?"
Magnus rummaged around his sack of personal belongings and retrieved a leather-wrapped tome.
"Hold it up in front of me? Fantastic. Can I borrow it? Crap, don't have any spare hands. Could you wedge it in there? Thanks."
The runes changed, blinking red. "Magnus, you must tell Laurie and Beowulf when you see them I found a room full of these suits and the key to opening is the pendant Amelia made and —" the last rune turned solid red. The rest of her sentence cut off as her legs tensed then jumped, the jet’s motor igniting mid-jump as the force of her leap pushed Hellsbaene deep down into the water and seawater sloshed over the sides, and her great eagle wings unfolded then swept back. For the second time in a day she left Hellsbaene and her crew wondering what the hell just happened as the sonic boom hit.
The flight path took her back to the high mountain cliff face, into the launch tunnel and along it, back to the room of Norse warriors.
Odin's Warriors.
And their Valkyrie, the mother of all Valkyries, sitting on its throne.
Chapter Ninety-Seven
THE LONG WAY
WHAT REMAINED of the forces alive and still walking, fashioned crude stretchers to carry those who couldn't, those even healed by the floating medical things, carried by the woman in the massive plated armour. General Versetti ordered the second manipular to clear a path to the exit, avoiding the fallen monsters and their deadly spikes, and so the throne room emptied in single file, out the long corridor, and into the light of day for the first time in years.
They passed through each of the nine ring wall gates, snaking down the mountain, past abandoned buildings, and guard posts, completely stripped of life and sound, save for the sound of the burning oil refineries, tasked squads looting every single piece of poison gas canisters and equipment they could carry, or dismantle in a hurry, before returning to the long procession.
At the giant main gate, its twin doors open, the First and Last filed out onto the long, multi-pronged jetties, and onto ships tied at berth, and used them to fetch the adrift ships in the bay.
At the very tail end, covering the retreat, as always, the assault team, lost in their own thoughts. Well most of them. Running on sheer nervous energy, sleep deprived, and the dawning realisation of the horrors that somehow, some way, had crawled from the deepest recesses of their nightmares and become physical, become flesh, real and in a way more terrifying, that daemons were here — and they were real.
Ahead of them, the scientists escorted the three-hundred and twelve Inquisition Marines, the only survivors, their will utterly broken, led by their commander, like the rest, their faces white in shock. General Versetti insisted on taking Reg, and only five others, leaving the rest in Laurie's hands, to do with as he thought fit.
Laurie held out his right hand, and could not keep it still. He gripped it with his left and buried it within the folds of his flight jacket, the sheep's wool lining warm, comforting, even as both hands shook. He wore captured Inka uniforms, like the others, their original clothing destroyed in the fighting, or by the medical attention they’d received. Thank Christ he took the jacket off before the last stand.
Out through the cavern, Laurie ordered his team to pick up any spare mags for the MP 40's and even instructed the penitent squad to gather and keep their own war material. For when those things came back, they'd need them.
They entered the corridor, past the cannon broken in two and the smashed gates and at last into fresh air.
Fresher air, anyway, Laurie thought. Waves of exhaustion rolled over him and he sagged.
"You alright mate?" said Mick, looking up.
"Yeah."
"You look like shit."
"You're not so pretty yourself, sunshine."
"I could murder a beer about now."
"Yeah. Be nice." Right at that moment, Laurie wanted nothing more than a quiet hillside, and the company of Skippy. One man, one dog. He looked around at the courtyard, then stared back down the mountain entrance, and finally, turned to Beowulf, last out of the tunnel. "Come on you lot, let's find Hellsbaene and the others."
Hellsbaene waited at the docks, with the remaining longboats, and a contemplative Merrion, who waved from his own Inka warship, docked next to the Oslo. Heading out into the bay, nine Inquisition ships of the line, the whole First and Last, sails at full mast and running with the prevailing winds, the rear warship commandeered by the general. General Versetti dipped her head at him, then turned her back, but not before signalling Merrion to join them, at which point the lieutenant colonel gave one final wave, and rose anchor.
Laurie tilted his head, glad to be rid of her, that command. Whatever happened in the cavern, whatever test she played, he'd lost.
Or won.
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Damn. Bloody hierarchies.
Magnus jumped off the boat, and raced toward them, stopping in front of Beowulf. He caught the words Ella this, Ella that, but the object of his attention lay off to his left. He wandered over to it, and held out a hand. The white aircraft fabric felt cool. The last of the V8’s. Yeah, this would do nicely.
"Lads, we're taking this. Hook this up to Hellsbaene. Scavenge whatever aviation fuel you can find. We're going home. The long way."
Chapter Ninety-Eight
THE VOICE OF COMMAND
IN THE UTTER PITCH BLACK, SS Colonel Grieg awoke screaming, and found he could not move an inch. Alien language blared at him, over and over, a warning phase that would not stop. Every fibre of his being, every pore of his skin, erupted in pain.
Grieg thought he was screaming before.
Now, he screamed.
A picture flashed in front of him, blinking red. The outline of a knight’s medieval suit.
Pain. All the pain.
For the first time in his life, Grieg wanted to die.
OUTSIDE THE POWER ARMOUR, found deep in a cavern centuries earlier, battle-damaged, abandoned, passed down from Emperor to Emperor, the current Emperor of New Spain smiled, and opened the small box of dancing blue. He’d received one final pigeon hawk from his stronghold, the cipher saying just five words: it has fallen to daemons. Very well. So after all this time, the chessboard was nearing its endgame.
Good.
It had been worth it to put the dying, mangled body of the off-worlder into it almost a year ago. An insane, corrupted heathen lifeform deserved another, equally so.
What was even more remarkable, is that over the centuries, inch by inch, the suit had repaired itself, growing new limbs, stumps of new weapons.
And once he’d translated that arcane, Devil-written Norse book, and immersed the suit in seawater, that growth had tripled.
The sphere rose, and in an instant, shot towards the heart of the suit. It activated, as the Emperor spoke fluent, ancient Norse.
The voice of command.
AND FOR NOW — it obeyed.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
KEEP WORKING
THE ARMOURED SUIT opened with a hiss, blooming outward, and Ella fell out, crawling on both hands and one knee to the edge of the platform and threw up, dry heaving until her stomach hurt too much to take another breath, and rolled onto her back, the stone cold against her bare skin.
What had happened. What just happened. She put her right hand into her mouth and pulled the gauntlet off with her teeth, then the other, hands running over her belly, the stump of her leg, smooth and hairless both. Next to the crude stretcher she'd made, lying on top neatly, was her flight jacket, minus one sleeve.
She hobbled over, and clothed herself, tied a wool blanket around her waist, and teeth clamped together, a little while later, opened Magnus's journal, and with Amelia's letter, got to work, munching on dried fish.
Chapter One Hundred
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
DANIEL SLID the final ground lens into place, standing on tip toes to reach the end of the fourteen-foot long cast-iron telescope. In between the cast iron cylindrical segments, each narrowing in diameter moving back to the viewing eyeport mounted at right angles on the base, brass sleeve rings held the magnifying lenses and light-proofing overlays and the more delicate adjustment mechanisms.
The biggest ever telescope constructed on Elysium pointed directly at the full moon, barely a cloud in the sky.
Even without the brightness of the moon, Dan thought, the absolute lack of light pollution and smog let the myriad galaxies above dazzle. Especially the Milky Way, and only now after all these months on Elysium, could Daniel look upon it, the galaxy in reverse, and not shiver in, well, the utter wrongness of it all.
General Marietta and Amelia, and the rest of Damage Inc. and by the distant but growing in number revellers climbing up the mountainside, half of Fairholm, had decided to come watch the latest moon-seekers to go mad, still celebrating the Inquisition retreat.
They gathered at the base of the observatory, quite enjoying the festivities of such an auspicious occasion, the first time such an huge scientific undertaking was being undertaken on the planet. At least Marietta was unconvinced by the horror tales. And Lucius. Abe however tried convincing him not to, note after note imploring him to stop.
Daniel heard the tales. Oh boy, had he heard the tales, his ears practically chewed off the moment him and Andrew announced their scientific mission, even by random folks on the street. Men gazing up at the moon, from their own telescopes brought from Earth, or had built for them, gazing up — and suddenly going mad, burning them, smashing them to the ground, becoming jabbering, drooling wrecks for the remainder of their pitiful days. Or becoming utterly catatonic, non-responsive, the lights are on but nobody’s home. Daniel shook his head.
What would primitive, uncultured minds expect otherwise? They were men from the Twentieth Century, not souls right from the Middle Ages with their primitive superstitions.
The last brass housing clicked tight into place.
He walked around the wooden mounts holding the telescope, to the viewing eye. In the small, reflected adjustment mirror, he could see the moon, a little fuzzy. "Lucius," he called out, "a hand with the focusing rings?"
Lucius climbed up the small ladder onto the platform. "Which one?"
"The third ring, please." He stooped over, craning his neck forward and with one hand over his left eye, nestled the right side of his face snugly into the viewing cup. The huge reflection of the moon stared at him. Still completely out of focus. "Lucius, just twist three notches clockwise please?"
A tiny bit better. "The next fourth ring, could you twist that one notch anti-clockwise." The moon was that big it filled the entire eyepiece. Half circles, the splattering of craters, all still blurry. "One more notch anti clockwise," said Dan. Through the eyepiece pressed against his cheek he could feel the mechanical vibration as brass metalwork clicked into place.
Clarity. The craters and lunar plains swam crisply into view. He reached down, and spun the cast iron handle, and spiral gears coated with crude grease inched the telescope around on its axis.
Daniel's heart thumped. This was it. At last they’d be able to see clearly what those strange markings were on the moon, every full moon. "Martians," Mick had said when they’d discussed it one morning around the breakfast table months earlier. "Giant space lizards!" exclaimed Amelia, getting onboard with the excitement, if not the spirit. Martian canals. Both Daniel and Andrew knew the water canals of Mars were just figments of imagination and over-imaginative pulp science-fiction writers. Modern astronomy had proved it so. Now, after all his time, finally they might have a clearer answer as to how in God's hell did they get here? Who brought them here? How?
Why?
He saw the faint beginning of a straight line. His heart hammered, the words catching in his throat. He spun the helical gear a few rotations more. A wall. A thick wall with what looked like gun turrets. A wall with gun turrets on the moon. Tiny craters lined even that, the construction dimpled with micro crater impacts. How old was that? .Another quarter turn. Daniel ripped his head away, looked up at the moon above, then slammed his head forward again, right into the eyecup, not noticing the outside ridges pressing so hard against his facial muscles it hurt. In the interior courtyard, past rows upon rows of rocketships and spacecraft parked neatly aligned, an arena. In a grand coliseum, for that what it could only be, was a festival, a vast collection of armoured figures, spacemen wearing spacesuits, creatures with five arms, three arms, six legs, two legs, all carrying colourful flags and banners and weapons, all milling around a simply enormous three-dimensional projection beamed right into the middle of the arena.
The projection changed, zooming down, to show a black man, in a simple brown tunic and linen pants, standing on a wooden platform, next to a iron and brass telescope, looking up at the heavens. Daniel very slowly, very
carefully, lifted up his right hand and through the optic sight saw the figure’s right hand do the same. He waved. It waved. Daniel could not breathe. He tried, but the air would just not come out.
Next to the projection, two armoured figures started fighting in the arena, sparks flying as weapons clashed, then one fell to the ground, arms raised in surrender. Yielding. The victor helped the fallen being up. Something flashed red. The display instantly changed.
From swirling tendrils of blue they coalesced into bright blue words.
English words.
We.
Love.
Skippy!
He felt a hand on his shoulder, heard the words.
"Daniel. What is it? What do you see?"
With some supreme effort of being he pulled himself away. "Look," he stammered, into the worried face of General Marietta right next to him. "Look."
General Marietta crouched down, and looked into the viewfinder. "Incredible," she said. "Who would have imagined you could see the craters on the surface of the moon with such glorious detail. You have quite outdone yourself, Daniel."
"But the fortifications! The arena! Can't you see them?!"
"No?" said Marietta, lifting up. Lucius joined her, both with worried expressions.
"Here! They’re right there!" He nudged Lucius aside, and stuck his head back onto the viewfinder. The arena began to shimmer, becoming more translucent, nothing but craters and moon dust. Saw creatures waving at him as they flickered out. He blinked. The surface of the moon was yet again, boring, normal, full of impact craters. In the last fraction of a second, two heartbeats before Daniel started screaming, the moon winked.
Chapter One Hundred One
A FAMILIAR VISITOR
AMELIA OPENED HER EYES, and blinked. Fang still snored, and Zia purred, both oblivious to the small blue sphere, dancing in the middle of the dark room. The smell of air after a massive storm on a hot, summer's day.