The keep’s soldiers glanced about nervously, as if expecting their Keltar to appear and begin railing against them. Then resignedly, one by one, they began to lay down their arms. A loose cheer went up from Grackas’s men. He quickly silenced them and began to supervise gathering the discarded pikes and swords.
Shann allowed herself to settle to the ground. Soldiers parted to make way for her. She could smell their fear. She wanted to grab each of them by the shoulders and shake them. I am not Keltar. Am not...
No time for such indulgences. She singled out Grackas. The commander’s handsome face smiled down at her with newfound approval. “Well played, my Lady.” His sudden use of the title only added to her feeling of discomfort.
She pressed on. “Those who are willing may join your men and help guard the gate. The rest should be transported to the city along with the injured. Any Kelanni who appear at the entrance should be offered the same opportunity. Try to evacuate as many as possible. However, when the signal goes up, you and your men must withdraw immediately. Do not wait for me. Is that clear?”
“Why? Where are you going?”
“Is that clear?” she repeated.
“Yes, it’s clear.”
She saw his confusion and felt a pang of guilt. No time for regrets. No time for goodbyes. She turned abruptly and headed for the entrance. A desperate cry from behind pulled her up short. Over her shoulder, she saw Rael, arm outstretched, eyes filled with anguish. Alondo was restraining him bodily.
Her heart broke and her tears flowed. I’m so sorry.
She ripped the sight from her eyes and forged ahead, down the keep’s dark throat.
<><><><><>
Chapter 50
Doing her best to ignore the ache in her side, Shann quickened her pace, driving towards the heart of the ancient keep.
She rubbed dried tears from her eyes. Rael will be safe, she told herself. Alondo and Patris will see to that.
Leaving them behind was the hardest thing she had ever done. But Lyall was the closest thing she had to a father. She could not just abandon him. She hoped that Rael would understand. And that he would forgive her.
Sconces holding oil-filled lamps lined the walls, pouring forth weak pools of illumination. She kept to the shadows as much as possible, wary of any resistance she might meet, but the bare corridors seemed strangely deserted, like the veins of a gigantic beast emptied of its life’s blood and turned to stone. Perhaps news of the attack had spread and people were in hiding. If she could find them, perhaps she could urge them to get to the gates before it was too late.
She wound her way through the keep’s labyrinthine structure, encountering more dead ends than she could count. Time was running out, and her frustration was growing. She found a set of stairs, climbed up a level, turned a corner, and almost tripped over something lying on the floor.
It was a soldier, face down and unmoving. Bending down, she touched her fingers to the man’s neck, but there were no signs of life. She frowned as possible explanations besieged her, each more unthinkable than the last. Murder? Revolt? Had Keris decided to lead a direct assault on the keep? Had Grackas’s men moved in on their own?
She fought down a wave of nausea and reached out to turn the body for a closer examination. A thin humming sound. She raised her eyes. Before her floated a ball—copper-coloured and set with a glass iris. A watcher. She had seen the hu-man machines twice before—once at the top of the tower of Akalon and again on the island of Helice— and knew what its presence meant. She had been discovered.
She gazed into its crystal depths. There could be no doubt that the one observing her was foe, not friend. I must destroy it.
She rose slowly, trying not to give any clue as to her intention. Before she could react, another contraption drifted around the corner. The watcher moved higher, like a deferential courtier stepping aside for its sovereign.
The second machine was larger, silver in colour and shaped like a flattened cylinder with odd protuberances topped by a tiny, intense red light. It looked like an inverted washtub. Without warning, one of the protuberances erupted in orange fire.
She dived to one side. The beam struck the stone floor behind her, throwing up shards of stone. Scrabbling to get her feet under her, she dashed back around the bend and retreated down the stone steps. Her injury complained bitterly at the renewed exertion. Near the bottom, she slowed and gathered up the courage to check over her shoulder. The machines were not following.
Cautiously, she re-mounted the stairs and approached the bend. She peeked around the corner. The two machines hung in the air, moving slowly up and down as if mocking her with silent laughter. A pencil-thin shaft of cherry-coloured light swept the passageway. She started forward. Another bright orange shaft raked the space in front of her, causing her to pull back.
She crouched down and tried to think. The machines did not seem interested in chasing her down, but neither would they allow her to advance. If Lyall was somewhere beyond this point, there did not seem to be any way to reach him.
“Need a hand?”
The gruff voice made her jump out of her skin. She spun around and was greeted by the repulsive features of the hu-man, McCann. The broad-shouldered creature was bending over her, a half-smile half-hidden beneath his facial bush. Close behind him, she saw the raven-haired, red-cloaked figure of Keris.
Shann’s heart backflipped with joy and confusion. She hissed. “What are you two doing here?”
“I might ask you the same question,” Keris said with a tinge of rebuke. She continued in a more conciliatory tone. “We formed up at the south gate, unchallenged. Then a handful of people began to arrive in ones and twos. They told a disturbing tale. The Prophet is holed up in the audience chamber with the lodestone device, which was bound for Sakara. He is threatening to detonate it and destroy Chalimar if we do not withdraw.”
Shann struggled to digest this latest revelation. “If he sets it off up here, wouldn’t that simply bring down the keep, which is what we are trying to achieve anyway?”
McCann shook his head. “You don’t understand the destructive power of this thing. An explosion this high up will actually increase the blast radius. The entire city and everything in it would almost certainly be obliterated.”
“Are you saying we should retreat?” Shann asked.
Keris stepped between them. “We can’t do that. If we back off now, we lose our only chance to stop him.”
“So, all we have to do,” McCann summarized, “is to make it past any HKs without dying, reach the audience room, shut off the lodestone device before it blows, and then get to one of the gates before the keep falls out of the sky. The Queen of Hearts could do six impossible things before breakfast. Me, I’m just a humble engineer.”
As usual, Shann found herself lost in the maze of his stray thought paths. “HKs?”
“Hunter-Killers. Machines designed for protection from predators and such. My people used them during the war with your people, sixteen years ago. They are programmed to exterminate all life forms that stray into a given area. From the state of that poor fellow, it looks as if they aren’t bothering to differentiate between friend and foe. Wang isn’t taking any chances.”
“He’s killing his own people?” Shann exclaimed.
“The soldiers and Keltar are not his people,” Keris reminded her. “He is Unan-Chinneroth. Hu-man.”
Shann hazarded a glimpse around the corner. The machines hovered greedily. “So how do we get through them?”
Keris straightened her back. “I will draw the machine’s fire while you strike it down.”
McCann shook his head. “I don’t think so. It has multi-targeting capability.”
“Smoke,” Shann blurted out. “If we could blind it somehow...”
“Ingenious, but it won’t work. HK sensors work on the infrared band. They can read heat signatures through smoke... ” He trailed off while the others waited patiently. “Fire. If we could create a sufficiently strong he
at source, it might be enough to confuse or overload its targeting scanners.”
Shann reached into her pouch and extracted one of the silver spheres she had claimed from the fallen Keltar. “Will this do?”
“A Keltar lodestone gas grenade. Perfect. Where’d you... no, never mind. All right, you toss it; then I’ll jump in and disable the HK.”
“I’ve never actually used one of these things,” Shann confessed.
“I’ll do it.” Keris took the sphere from her.
“Okay, Alice in Wonderland, let her rip.”
“My name’s Keris.”
McCann shrugged. “Whatever.”
Keris gave the sphere a deft half-twist and lobbed it past the corner. It impacted the stone floor with a clack and rolled forward, emitting a whine which grew rapidly in pitch and volume. The corridor erupted in light and flame.
As the firestorm died, McCann sprang from cover, grabbed the tub-shaped machine, tore open a panel, and ripped something from its guts. The tiny red light went out, and the HK sank to the ground, settling to one side. The watcher stared at it dolefully, like a beloved pet witnessing the death of its master.
Shann and Keris emerged. Keris prepared to strike the watcher with her staff. “Don’t waste your time,” McCann advised. “They already know we’re here.”
“How many of these machines are there between here and the audience chamber?” Shann asked.
McCann scratched his head. “I dunno. How many more grenades do you have?”
“Two.”
“Then I guess the answer had better be ‘less than three’.”
Keris led the way through the next set of passages. On the way, Shann counted at least half a dozen bodies, one of which was clearly hu-man.
McCann’s face twisted with disgust. “The Captain’s gone crazy. We have to stop him.”
“Let’s keep moving,” Keris urged.
Up another level, and a second brooding HK awaited them. Keris set off the grenade and McCann disabled it before it could get off a shot.
Keris noticed Shann holding her side. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing,” she dismissed. “How much farther to the audience chamber?”
“We’re here.”
Around the next bend, the passage opened up to reveal a heavy, iron-studded set of double doors.
Keris tested them. “They seem to be barred from the inside.”
“I have one more grenade,” Shann pointed out.
Keris shook her head. “Explosive power is insufficient. It wouldn’t put a dent in these doors.”
“Maybe we should knock?”
Keris gave her a look that made her immediately regret the suggestion.
“Wait here. I have an idea.” McCann disappeared back around the corner. He returned, his arms wrapped around the casing of the downed HK. He set it heavily on the floor. It looked a little like a metallic sand scarag.
“What are you doing with that?” Keris demanded.
The engineer was on his knees, fiddling with the machine’s components. “Turning up the heat... I hope... there. Stand back.”
The two Kelanni obeyed as McCann went through a series of final adjustments and then pulled something firmly. A finger of fire struck the doors dead centre, searing wood and scorching iron. It pressed relentlessly, pouring liquid flame into every crack, testing the doors’ resolve.
Finally, McCann shut it off. Keris stepped forward to inspect the soot-black circle, scarred and smoking. Without a word, she raised a boot and kicked the line where the doors met. She kicked again. And again. Wood creaked, then rent, then splintered. Iron groaned, then bowed, then screamed. Bonds shattered and the doors flew apart, laying the audience chamber bare.
Shann’s jaw dropped. The great hall was strewn with rubble: parts of chairs, tables, lampstands, tapestries, and lumps of stone, some on the floor, some floating in the air. It was as if a great cataclysm had engulfed the chamber and then become frozen in time. In one corner, a mixed group of soldiers and lackeys cowered, while others lay on the floor, unmoving. Off to one side stood a handcart containing a bronze globe—a smaller version of the devices they had encountered at the human weapons facility on Helice.
At the end of the hall were two more figures whom she recognised. One was the ugly, round-faced figure of the Prophet, Wang. Next to him stood a tall, fair-haired Kelanni. Lyall. Her heart leaped. He was alive.
In front of them, perched on a platform, a large obsidian-coloured lodestone cannon was aimed directly at the burnt, contorted, smashed-open doors.
Wide-eyed and rooted to the spot, she watched as Lyall opened his mouth and yelled.
“Fire!”
<><><><><>
Chapter 51
“Not so fast, my friend. Let’s see what your compatriots have to say for themselves.” Wang’s voice was high as a bird’s cry and taut as copper wire.
Keris registered the shocked expression on Shann’s face and sympathised. She too was struggling to comprehend the evidence of her eyes and ears. Shann had staunchly maintained that Lyall was working secretly to bring down the Prophet. Had she been wrong? Was it possible that Lyall’s true purpose all along had been to lead them into a trap?
All she could think to do was to try to appeal to whatever shred of sanity the hu-man might have left. “Charles Wang. The keep is lost. Your own people have deserted you. Surrender now.”
Lyall was at the Prophet’s shoulder, leaning into his ear. “See? See, I told you. They will try to manipulate you—play for time. Destroy them. Destroy them now and we can take your shuttle; we can leave here and start your work again in another place where my people cannot interfere.”
Anger rose in Keris like a volcano and died back almost as quickly. Something wasn’t right. As an investigator, she was trained to analyse situations. Motivations. Lyall wanted more than anything to save Aune, his sister, but he must surely realise that the Prophet was on the verge of defeat. There was no reason for him to maintain this stance. It was almost as if... as if she was watching a part of some elaborate drama.
She decided to bide her time and see how it played out.
Shann surged forward, her face streaked with tears. “Lyall, no!”
Keris placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Maybe we can come to some agreement.” The girl stared at her as if she had just said something blasphemous. Keris ignored her. “Let’s work together to end this, so that no more lives are lost.”
Wang threw his head back. His laugh was like an iron bar being dragged over a grating. “Are these the green-skinned losers you’ve teamed up with, Mac? They crack easily under pressure.”
The heavily built hu-man raised his head. “It’s over, Captain. Don’t you see that? We humans marched out into the stars like we owned everything—like everything was there for the taking. Caesar, Cortez, Custer—the lessons of our own history taught us that if you want something you go out and grab it, and you step on anything that gets in your way.
“But we are no longer ants, competing with one another in our own backyard. The universe is a big place. If we stick to our old ways, then sooner or later, it’s humanity that is going to get stepped on.
“Susan is gone, as have so many other people we cared about. Please, Captain. Let’s just put an end to this.”
Wang shook his head in mock sympathy. “You’re a fool, Mac, and you’re going to die a fool’s death. Power. That’s the only thing that counts. The creatures on this planet don’t know what they have. Ergo, they don’t deserve to have it. It’s all a game of survival. And you and your alien friends just lost.”
Smirking victory, he blew on a smouldering lintstock and touched the cannon’s breech with the glowing match.
The world exploded.
~
Keris pushed herself off the floor, shook the dust out of her hair, and discovered, to her great surprise, that she was still alive. Smoke drifted in stubborn swathes. Behind the smoke, something stirred.
Cau
tiously, she got to her feet. A quick self-examination revealed no obvious injuries. Behind her, the grey forms of her two companions were rubbing their eyes. She breathed a sigh of relief and peered forward. The cannon looked as if it had been blown apart. How... ?
Most of the floating objects had disappeared in the blast. She picked her way towards what was left of the platform. The Prophet Wang lay face up, eyes fixed and staring at the final moment of life. Shann hurried past her and knelt beside the prostrate figure of Lyall, cradling his head in her lap. His eyes still held a spark, but it was fading.
In the far corner the observers cowered, too terrified to move. “Go,” Keris shouted at them. “Get to the gates. Now.” They began to move towards the burned and broken doors like herded animals.
She scoured the hall for the lodestone device. The handcart lay on its side. The bronze globe had rolled a short distance, but it appeared to be intact. An orange light on its surface blinked rapidly. She had no idea what it meant. “McCann, can you disarm that thing?”
“I’m on it.” The hu-man strode over to the device and began to examine it intently, as if grateful for the distraction.
She turned back to Shann and Lyall. The girl was stroking his face. Hers was contorted with anguish. “We have to get him out of here.”
Keris pressed her lips together. It was a long way back to the gate, and the keep could fall at any moment.
Lyall’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly.
Shann leaned in closer. “What is it?”
“The... Prophet?” he breathed.
“He is no more,” Keris answered.
The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) Page 111
