Sorrow's Fall

by Helen Allan

  “Later, after this mission, we will have time to answer all your questions, Sorrow,” he said firmly, ignoring her insistence that he tell her more, “you need to trust me for the next 24 hours – can you do that?”

  Sorrow nodded and stopped questioning, determined to follow his orders to the letter, as it seemed his men did - both those on the side of the gods, and those in the resistance, but her mind was uneasy.

  ‘And that is just the thing,’ she thought, ‘I don’t fully trust him, how can I? He lives a life here of lies and subterfuge, just as he did on Avalona. And yet, I came here, didn’t I?’

  Now as they strode the corridors of power, the centre of armed force coordination known as The Fist, she looked through the vast columns to the paved quadrants below and gasped at the enormous army spread out before her, all Gharials, all standing to attention, fully armed and in uniform.

  “What are they doing?” she whispered to Judgement as he continued to stride towards their destination.

  “They await their turn to jump through the next portals, for the other-world expansion,” he murmured, his lips barely moving.

  “Which world are they invading now?”

  “There are two,” he replied, pausing to nod at a passing guard.

  “Is one of them the portal we plan to blow today?”

  “No.”

  “Judge,” she hissed, “there must be fifty to one hundred thousand soldiers down there; I’ve never seen so many. Wherever they go, they are a formidable force. The planets they invade are doomed.”

  “Yes.”

  Sorrow stopped in her tracks and stared at his back, her halt so sudden that Jury collided with her buttocks, giving a small “oomph” as he stopped. So far, although it had only been a few hours since they had met, the boy had still not spoken a word to her, just stared.

  Judgement turned and walked two brisk strides back to Sorrow, gripping her arm hard and focussing his piercing, angry gaze on her.

  “Do you not understand the risk I take bringing you here? I am still the commander of a large force. If any should suspect that I lead the resistance…”

  “But why?” Sorrow frowned, pulling her arm from his strong fingers, “why are you focussing on a lesser gate? Why not the one they plan to use to invade other worlds?”

  “Because,” he turned and spoke quietly as he walked, Sorrow hot on his heels, “I need them to invade the other planets, Sorrow. If I am to take over this planet, destroy the Gharial once and for all, stop all future invasions, then the strength and bulk of their army must leave here – never to return.”

  “Oh my God,” Sorrow breathed out heavily, “you are sacrificing some planets, to save others?”

  “What other option do we have?”

  “And this is what you have done? Every year for the past five years?”

  He made no reply.

  Sorrow despaired as she looked across the landscape. It was covered, as far as the eye could see in troops now marching in an orderly fashion towards the bright blue portals shimmering on the horizon. Far beyond the portals, she could see another series of buildings, a white city, towering above the desert landscape and shimmering in the heat, it almost looked like a mirage. To the right of the distant city, across the desert plains, more troops were moving like a dark, rolling wave.

  “What have we done?” she whispered.

  “There will be time for despair, for guilt or whatever else is in your heart later, woman,” Judgment muttered, “but if you are still with me, now is the time to keep your mouth shut and listen.”

  Sorrow frowned and turned her head from the troops to the corridor, to tell him to keep a civil tongue in his head, or to fuck himself, perhaps both, but her words froze on her lips as she saw a God striding towards them.

  “My Lord Tefnut,” Judgment bowed, “an honour.”

  The god flicked his eyes over Judgment and Sorrow, ignoring Jury, and swept past in a flurry of white robes, not stopping or acknowledging the salutation.

  As his footsteps receded into the distance, Sorrow turned and cast a quick look at his retreating form.

  ‘As creepy in real life as in the memories I received in the regeneration tank.’

  “Have you ever seen Shu? His twin sister?”

  “No,” he frowned “never.”

  Their conversation drew to a halt as they turned a corner and stood before two huge timber doors, taller than the average house, they featured engraved and silver-inlaid hieroglyphics all over and two long silver handles, curved, like a pair of giant metal mammoth tusks.

  “This is the heart of The Fist,” he murmured, “take in all you can.”

  Sorrow read the hieroglyphs as Judgment pushed open the doors.

  ‘Enter the door of destruction; the Fist of the Gods aimed by the Finger of fate.’

  ‘They really are insane,’ she thought as she stood behind Judgment and looked at the huge, round conference table before them, where thirty or more commanders sat. Others stood at screens, and around smaller tables, perusing maps and outlining strategy. On one electronic screen, Sorrow could see a projection of various landscapes being shown on rotation – none looked like any planet she had yet seen.

  “Judgment,” an officer approached, saluting, “your mission proceeds to plan?”

  “It does,” he returned the salute and nodded, “our guards are in place. We are ready for any attack on the gates this year.”

  Sorrow kept her eyes down, lest they reveal her shock.

  “This is the first year you are in sole charge of them,” the officer replied, “do not fail me in your assertion.”

  “Failure is not an option,” Judgment replied, “the outbound gates our troops depart through will be guarded with my life, I guarantee it. Of course, we cannot anticipate what the resistance might throw at the others. Still, I am prepared.”

  “The main thing is to ensure our invasion is not interrupted,” the officer nodded.

  “Exactly,” Judgment smiled, “and it will not be.”

  “Good. Proceed.” The officer saluted again and turned on his heel.

  “Thank you, Sir,” Judgment returned the salute to his officer’s back and made a slow turn, detouring to the right, to where a screen was showing the planets, and another showing the engineering being undertaken on several prototype pods. Others showed the interiors and loading capacity of craft already in production and operation.

  “Do you need something?” another officer frowned.

  “Just confirming the spacecraft are prepared for the defence of the gates this afternoon,” Judgment said, his voice deep, commanding.

  “They are ready,” the officer frowned.

  “And your pilots?”

  “The same you briefed last week, there have been no changes to the staffing.”

  “Good,” Judgment saluted and turned.

  As they left the room, Sorrow cast another surreptitious glance at the aircraft design. It looked to her like they still had not built pods, but rather, more traditional engine-driven aircraft, not sentient. They could, therefore, if they were smaller, have been flown into a portal to blow it up. These, though, were too large.

  She wondered how Judgment had managed to blow three portals without spacecraft.

  Landing as she had with just one day left before the portals closed, she had been swept up in the preparations already underway by the resistance and had not yet had a chance to be briefed on the content of those plans.

  Something she planned to rectify as soon as she had Judgment alone.

  3

  There was no creeping up, no hiding or surprise attack.

  When the resistance attacked the fourth gate, they did it with speed, courage and fierce determination.

  And they paid for it with their lives.

  Sorrow spun to her right as several hundred Gharial, ostensibly led by Judgment, charged her line.

  Behind them, Judgment’s resistance second in command, Truth, and his men riding their findailes
bore down to close the net. The bait, Sorrow in her Earthborn grey and blue uniform, having been taken as Judge had said it would.

  Seeing the Gharials charge, Sorrow knelt and fired into the oncoming line. She felled three within seconds, falling to the dirt face-first and avoiding their shots, she drew her weapon and rolling over, sprung back to her feet, stabbing a fourth in the stomach as his jaws snapped for her face. Grimacing she spun and stabbed another in the eye as it lunged for her, green blood spurting out onto her uniform as she withdrew her sword in one swift motion and backhanded it across the creature’s neck.

  Hacking, kicking and stabbing, she fought the creatures with single-minded precision, noting these were fitter, healthier, but still no better trained in close hand-to-hand combat than those she had fought on Avalona or Heaven. En masse, with weapons, they were formidable, but against highly-trained fighters, their only advantage was sheer numbers.

  As she fought, the sounds of shouting, laser fire and screams were suddenly drowned out by the roar of engines as two large airships erupted from where they had been buried, concealed beneath the sand, not 400 metres from where she stood.

  Sorrow braced herself as the ground shook and sand whirled through the air, forcing her to squint. Fortunately, the Gharial also were hindered by the swirling dust and sand, and many turned to run as the airships began to fire indiscriminately into the resistance and Judgment’s Gharial troops, killing all in their path.

  Cursing, Sorrow spun to run from the ships and the deadly spray of laser beams. Sprinting in the opposite direction to the Gharial, away from the gates, she heard her name called and looking over her shoulder; she saw Ib and Judgement were about to overtake her.

  “Jump,” Judgement commanded as he reached down and, gripping her by the forearm, pulled her powerfully up behind him.

  Sorrow held tight to his waist as Ib raced across the desert sands, back the way they had come towards the mountains, followed by about fifty of the resistance, also riding findailes. As they flew across the hot sand, the sound of the aircraft following them, lasers firing all around, Judgment shouted an order and elbowed Sorrow in the ribs, propelling her off the back of Ib.

  She hit the ground hard, gasping in pain from the blow to her side, as she watched Judgement and Ib spin around and race back the way they had come, towards the aircraft and the portals.

  “Judge, what the fuck?” Sorrow screamed, “what are you doing?”

  She rose on unsteady legs, prepared to run back, to follow Judgment, when she tackled from behind around her thighs.

  “Get down,” a small voice said, as little arms wrapped firmly around her legs.

  Sorrow looked down to see Jury frantically plucking at her uniform with his small fingers and trying to pull her towards a nearby boulder. Looking around, she noticed many other resistance leaders had laid down, using their findailes as living shields, except for Truth, who spun his findaile and raced after Judgement.

  “What is Judge doing?” she shouted to the boy. Amid the noise of the aircraft and the battle, she wondered if he would hear her, or even answer her.

  “What we need to do,” he said.

  Sorrow scowled and watched as Truth and Judgment made it, neck and neck, underneath the first of the aircraft and the hatch of the vessel opened, dropping out a round, white object the size of a bar fridge.

  She continued to hold her breath as Judge fired at those around, killing surprised Gharials one after the other, shielding Truth as he hefted the object onto his findaile and turned its head towards the nearest gate.

  Sorrow’s eyes widened when she saw that the gate was spilling out people. Humans. Men were pouring through in a long stream, most dressed in medieval-type garb, some even in full armour.

  “Earth,” she shouted, “that is the Earth gateway.”

  The boy next to her said nothing, but taking her hand, he rolled the boulder aside and motioned for her to jump into a deep hole the rock had previously concealed.

  “What? No,” Sorrow shook her head and tried to pull her hand away.

  “We go now,” Jury shouted, his small face showing his fear and worry that she would not do as he told her, “this tunnel leads back into the mountain. We must go.”

  “No,” Sorrow shook her head, moving back as resistance fighters and findaile began to crawl on their bellies past her and drop down into the hole.

  “You’ll die if you stay,” another soldier said to her as he followed his findaile down.

  Sorrow looked to where he had pointed and gasped.

  Truth was almost at the portal. He had fought his way through the gharials and past the incoming streams of humans who fell in droves to the lasers of the gharials and the shots from the aircraft, and Sorrow could see what he was going to do.

  “Oh no,” she breathed, as he and his findaile reached the shimmering portal. She watched, frozen, knowing there was nothing she could do to save the humans. It was clear Truth was going to sacrifice himself and his findaile to close this portal in the only way he could – the white object the aircraft had dropped was a bomb.

  She knew now why Judgment had questioned the staffing of the spacecraft; he must have a conspirator onboard, primed to release the bomb to the resistance at a specified time.

  As Truth’s findaile galloped through the gate, Sorrow stood transfixed, but suddenly shrieked as a large, dark shape smashed into her from the right, and she fell down the hole.

  Landing on her side, hard, besides her furry saviour, she didn’t have time to catch a breath as she stared up at the section of sky visible through the hole and saw everything turn bright blue as the ground shuddered, the portal blown in a massive explosion.

  She knew, having witnessed such an explosion on Heaven, that everything for a three-mile radius would be flattened.

  Still lying on her back, she turned her head and caught Judgment’s eye, watching silently as he pushed himself to his feet and he and Ib launched themselves back out of the hole, and into the chaos.

  The mood was sombre back in the mountain cavern, the resistance’ headquarters, and Sorrow was alone in the pools, bar one companion.

  The home of the resistance was a network of caves and tunnels inside a mountain. Small, subterranean rivers pooled here and there in the network, some warm, and all bubbling a constant stream of pure oxygen into the air.

  For someone from Earth, the water seemed like a giant spa bath, the air invigorating and refreshing. It was one of these that Sorrow now bathed, soaking her tired and sore muscles. Apart from bruised ribs, courtesy of Judgment’s elbow, and a bruised arm, where she had landed after falling in the hole, she was unhurt.

  She was determined to give Judgment a piece of her mind for knocking her off Ib when he returned, but he had yet to come back from the mission. Another soldier had told her it would likely be a few days. He had to manage his troops, mop up some Gharial, and report to The Fist before he would be able to slip away.

  In the meantime, the resistance would re-group, tend their wounds and set about getting their preparations ready for the next portal battle – in twelve liquefy. When, no doubt, Gharial security would be tightened even further around each gateway.

  This was also something Sorrow wanted to discuss with Judgment; she was sure there must be another way to close the portals without sacrificing good men and their findailes. And she wanted to put a stop to the armies leaving to invade new worlds. Just how she wasn’t sure yet – but she felt there must be a better way.

  She smiled now across at Jury as he sat at the edge of the pool staring at her.

  “Why don’t you come in? The water is warm; I don’t bite.”

  The boy said nothing, just continued to stare.

  “I know,” Sorrow sighed, “you have never seen a woman before. But we are just like you; we only look a little different on the outside.”

  The boy still said nothing, and Sorrow shook her head and continued to rinse out her suit. She only had the one, and she wanted to ensure sh
e got out all the green gharial blood and red desert sand. All the rest of her supplies, her clothes from Earth, perfume, books, the special things her mother had taken the time to pack for her and throw through the portal, all were now in the hands of the Nãga who captured her when she first landed. She sighed, thinking how nice it would be to slip into fresh underwear and a comfortable tracksuit, even jeans and a t-shirt would be preferable to staying in her battle uniform. A bit of deodorant wouldn’t go astray either; she thought ruefully as she sniffed under her arms disdainfully.

  “If you throw me your suit, I will wash it for you,” she offered as she finished rinsing her own and put it in a crumped heap on the edge of the pond.

  The boy scurried away, returning a few minutes later wearing his ‘good’ suit, the red one he had worn to The Fist – his old suit, the one he had worn in battle, he handed to her, still saying nothing. It was dusty and torn, as she had noticed the first time she saw him, but it did not have any blood on it.

  “Thank you,” Sorrow smiled.

  She dipped the suit into the warm water and scrubbed it.

  “So,” she said as she scoured, “since you won’t talk to me, I’ll talk to you. I noticed each of the red soldiers has two or three little boys following them. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest you are either siblings or trainees. Judge only has you, so maybe leaders only have one trainee, again, I’m just surmising here. You all seem to range in ages from four to twelve; I don’t see any younger or older. So again, just guessing, you come, train and then go somewhere else. I don’t know where you come from though…of course if you were to talk to me I could learn more, but, since you won’t….”

  “I have seen a woman,” the boy said, quietly.

  Sorrow smiled and continued to scrub, not wanting to frighten him by responding or questioning him, waiting to see if he would say more.

  “I have seen a woman,” he said again.