The barrier vanished, and the Archon regarded me.
“The human female presumed to take arms against me,” said the Archon in the Elven tongue. “Kill it.”
I stepped back, expecting the orcs to open fire, planning to dodge behind a bookshelf for cover. Instead one of the orcs plucked something from his harness and flung it at me, something small and oblong and a dull shade of green…
A grenade.
I threw myself into the next aisle of bookshelves. The blast would likely knock over at least some of the shelves, and I didn’t want to find myself buried beneath a pile of books with half my bones broken. A thick, heavy-looking table stood in the next aisle. I threw myself under the table and rolled into a ball, my face buried in my knees, my hands gripping the back of my head, the gun propped against my side.
An instant later the grenade went off.
There was a crack, and then a shredding, ripping sound as the explosion tore through a hundred paperback books at once. A crash filled my ears as some of the shelves toppled over, more books sliding to the floor, and I looked up to see a haze of smoke filling the shop, ripped pages fluttering through the air like dry leaves. Fortunately, the shelves had soaked up most of the explosion and all of the shrapnel, and the thick table had shielded me from the rest.
But the Archon and his pet orcs didn’t know that, did they?
I rolled to my feet, grabbing the AK-47. I stepped against the wall and took a deep breath as the orcs crashed into the shop. My fingers settled into a steady grip on the weapon.
Then I took a deep breath and summoned magic, vanishing in a Cloak spell.
The orcs emerged from the smoke, moving in the careful, quick movements of professional soldiers. Guns didn’t work in the Shadowlands, but the orcs had clearly trained with the weapons. They covered each other, and didn’t do anything stupid like accidentally point their weapons at each other or bunch up where someone could take them out with a quick burst of automatic gunfire. The Archon, by contrast, moved sloppily, not bothering to cover himself or his orcs. He didn’t even have a gun.
Of course, since bullets would not harm him, he could afford to be sloppy.
The Archon stopped at the burn mark on the carpet, damaged books crinkling beneath his boots.
“Where is the female?” demanded the Archon. “The explosion should have killed her.”
“Unknown, master,” said one of the orcs. “She had time enough to elude the blast.”
“Then find her,” said the Archon, his exasperation plain. “The plan requires that we secure the building. The girl killed the first scout. Plainly she is dangerous.”
It was hard to read the orcs’ alien faces, but I had seen similar expressions on the faces of men who thought their boss was an idiot.
“It will be done, master,” said the orc who had spoken earlier. Maybe he was a sergeant or a corporal or something. “What shall we do if we encounter any humans?”
“Kill the males and the children,” said the Archon. “If the females do not resist, take them captive. They will make a useful gift for our allies.”
I heard the orc sergeant or corporal or whatever he was gave a little sigh, but he nodded and spoke to the other two orcs in a snarling, grating language. Likely it was the native tongue of the orcs. The orc sergeant pointed, and the other two soldiers moved forward, AK-47s pointed towards the café area. Their backs were to me, even the Archon, and none of them looked over their shoulders.
It was perfect.
I had practiced moving my arms while Cloaked, and it was time to put that experience to use. Keeping a Cloak spell in place is an effort, a bit like holding heavy weights over your head, and aiming the big gun was a challenge.
But I did it. When practicing, I had never thought about shooting while Cloaked. It proved to surprisingly effective.
I squeezed the trigger, and the AK-47 jolted. The man who had instructed me in firearms had said that the AK-47 was a resilient weapon because you could drag it through dust and sand without jamming the gun, but the flip side of that coin was that the AK-47 wasn’t supremely accurate because the parts didn’t have the precise tolerance of, say, a long-distance sniper rifle.
Of course, from three yards away, that didn’t matter.
I hit the orc sergeant in the back of his head, and the rear third of his skull dissolved into a mist of blue blood and gray brain matter. The orcs dove for cover, and I caught a second solider in the head as he ducked for the nearest bookshelf. The Archon turned, eyes narrowed, and started to cast a spell. He couldn’t see me, but if he realized what was happening, he might try to dispel my Cloak.
I shifted my aim and squeezed the trigger, catching a third orc in the right leg. The orcish soldier roared in fury and spun, spraying shots at random into the wall next to me. I wanted to duck for cover, but instead I aimed again and fired. My shot caught him in the forehead, and his head snapped backwards. The orc fell into a shelf of romance novels set in 17th century England, and both soldier and shelf collapsed to the floor.
The recoil from the shot knocked me back a step, and the Cloak collapsed with a flicker of silver light. The final orc turned to face me, but my weapon was already raised, and that gave me a crucial half-second. Before he could line up his gun, I squeezed my trigger three times. My first shot hit him the in the chest and rebounded from his ballistic vest. The hit staggered him enough that the bullet that would have caved in my skull instead smacked into a row of paperbacks behind me. My second shot tore through his neck in a spray of blue droplets, and the third hit him in the forehead. The orcish soldier fell, joining his comrades in the pool of blue orcish blood spreading across the carpet.
Right about then the Archon finished his spell, a pulse of gray light flaring from the fingers of his right hand, and I suddenly felt his thoughts forcing their way into my head.
He hadn’t been trying to dispel my Cloak at all.
My very first day of school, a long time ago, I had seen a video. By the decree of the High Queen, every student saw that video on their first day of school. It was from the year 2013, the Year One of the Conquest, and showed the chambers of the United States Congress in Washington DC. In that video, the High Queen and her chief nobles stood at the Speaker’s podium, overlooking the President and his cabinet, Congress, and most of the chief officials of the United States government at the time.
And one by one, under the command of the High Queen’s magic, the various officials marched to the podium, lifted a pistol to their heads, and blew their brains out. Some of them had tried to fight the spell, shouting threats and curses. Most of them had begged for their lives, sobbing as they promised to give the High Queen whatever she wanted, and quite a few had offered the lives of everyone in their district or state in exchange for their own. None of that mattered, and the High Queen had forced them all to take their own lives. I still remembered my kindergarten teacher’s glowing expression as she explained how wicked and corrupt the government had been before the Conquest, how the High Queen now ensured that only honest men and women could run for office.
The Archon was using the same spell on me, his magic hammering at my mind and commanding me to submit.
“Drop your weapon and get on your knees,” said the Elf.
I wavered on my feet, trying to fight the mental attack, and I realized something.
The Archon was trying to control my mind…but he kind of sucked at it.
Morvilind had taught me the basics of defending myself from mental magic. I don’t think he had wanted to do it, but he couldn’t have taught me Masking and Cloaking spells without it, just as a drill sergeant couldn’t teach his recruits how to do push-ups without making them stronger. So I recognized what the Archon was doing.
Or, at least, what he was trying to do. I knew how to block it. Someone like Morvilind or the Knight of Grayhold could have blasted through my defenses without trying. This Archon, though…with an effort of will I held him at bay.
“Drop your w
eapon and get on your knees!” shouted the Archon, his face tightening with strain.
Neither the AK-47 or my revolver would do anything against the Elf. Yet I had spells that could hurt him. If the Archon realized that, he would ward himself against any magic I could use against him, or simply conjure a lightning bolt to kill me.
I had to play along.
I dropped the AK-47, falling to my knees, my expression blank.
“Better,” said the Archon, shaking his head with irritation. “Your limited intellect must have given you a measure of resistance to the spell.”
I said nothing, staring slack-jawed at him.
“Why are you here?” said the Archon.
“To purchase books,” I said in a flat voice. I wonder if it would dawn on him that he had questioned me in the Elven language, and I had answered him in the same tongue. He didn’t seem to notice. Apparently James and Lucy were right, and God was indeed merciful, because I had been attacked by the dumbest Archon on the Elven homeworld.
“No, why are you here?” said the Archon.
“To…purchase books?” I said, feigning confusion. I started to gather together the power for a spell. I had one chance to do this right, and if I screwed it up, the Archon would kill me at once.
The Archon made an aggrieved sound, his large eyes narrowing. “Not your cover story. You are obviously a soldier. Else how did you dispose of my scouts?” He flicked a disdainful hand at the dead orcs. “I suppose it shows the desperation of the High Queen that she would train human females to fight in her armies. She might as well try to teach donkeys to fly.”
I gazed at him with a blank expression, keeping my arms loose at my sides, but the fingers of my right hand flexed as I prepared a spell. If the Archon came just a little closer…
“Answer the question!” demanded the Archon.
I blinked. “What question?”
The Archon started to snarl an answer at me, and then stopped. Likely he realized that he had been ranting rather than interrogating me.
“How did you kill my scouts?” said the Archon.
“I shot them,” I said.
He let out a furious sound of exasperation and stalked forward. “You must have known that we were coming. How? Did those idiot Rebels betray us? The Assembly holds too many fools who think the humans make useful tools, that they can be converted to the true religion rather than the superstitions of the Protector. Or did that bitch Tarlia prepare for our arrival?”
“I do not know the answer,” I said. “I came here to buy books. Then the blue men attacked. I shot one with my pistol, and then shot the others with the gun the first blue man dropped. I don’t know about the rest of that.”
“Useless,” said the Archon. “Though fiercer than I expected.” He glanced towards the entrance to the mall, nodded to himself, and started to cast a spell, fire snarling to life in his fingers. “Perhaps I understand why Tarlia enslaved your race. For short-lived vermin, you are remarkably deadly fighters…”
“You talk too damned much,” I said.
The Archon frowned, his gaze snapping toward me, which was exactly what I needed him to do.
I surged to my feet, thrusting my hand at his face, and the globe of lightning I had summoned burst from my palm. The Shadow Hunter Corvus had taught me the spell in exchange for saving his life several months ago, and I wasn’t as skilled with it as I would like. Yet I had practiced diligently, and at this range, I couldn’t miss.
The globe slammed into the Archon’s face, and his head snapped backwards, his hair catching on fire, the skin of his face and neck charring and blackening. The Elf let out a horrid, agonized shriek, and I cast the spell again, throwing another blast into his chest. There was a thunderclap as the globe sank into his torso, the golden three-headed dragon upon his uniform coat burning away, and the Archon’s body heaved as if he had touched a stripped wire. He slumped against the book-strewn floor, the stench of charred meat rising from the burned ruins of his face.
I didn’t know if the first globe had killed him or the second, but I did know that he wasn’t getting up again.
“Moron,” I muttered, looking at the corpse. I shook my head to clear it, my mind buzzing with the exertion of casting three spells in quick sequence. I had gotten lucky, but I really didn’t want to push my luck further. Best to find Russell and get the hell out of here before…
I turned my head, and my luck ran out.
Another orcish soldier stood in the entrance to the mall, his hard eyes fixed upon me. An AK-47 rested in his hands, and he was already swinging the barrel towards me. I started to dodge, hoping to throw myself behind one of the shelves, but it was too late. The orcish soldier had me dead to rights, and the only way he could miss was if he was totally incompetent…
A gunshot rang out, and the orc’s forehead exploded in a spray of blue gore.
Or if I was really, really lucky.
I whirled, stunned, and saw Russel crouched behind one of the fallen bookshelves, the dropped AK-47 of an orcish soldier propped on the edge for greater stability. While I had confronted the Archon, he had crept up behind us, found the gun, and shot the orc before the soldier killed me.
My first reaction was intense annoyance. I had told him to hide under the table. Why the hell hadn’t he listened to me? He could have been shot!
Then I realized the absurdity of that. If he hadn’t disobeyed me, the orc would have shot me. All the dangers I had faced, all the perils I had escaped, and if not for Russell some damned orc would have shot me dead in the Ducal Mall.
I met his gaze, and I noticed how calm he looked, how steady his hands were.
A surge of fierce pride went through me.
Well, why shouldn’t he have some steel in his spine? He was my brother.
Chapter 3: No One Left Behind
I stooped, grabbed my discarded AK-47, and stuffed one more magazine into my coat, if only to balance out the weight. One of the dead orcs still had a pair of grenades on his harness, so I relieved the dead orc of the explosives. Russell, I noted with approval, kept the entrance to the mall covered as I looted the dead. In the distance I heard the rumble of explosions and lots of gunfire echoing through the mall’s wide concourses, but none of it seemed nearby. The idiot Archon and his orcs must have been sent to scout this wing of the Ducal Mall, and I didn’t think they’d had a chance to report back to their commander before Russell and I killed them all.
Which meant if we acted quickly, we could get out of here before more orcs found us.
“I told you to hide under the table,” I said.
“I did,” said Russell. “Then I heard a lot of shooting, and Lydia freaked out and ran into the back. It got quiet all of a sudden, and I heard you talking to someone. I didn’t know you spoke Elven.”
“Yep,” I said, straightening up as I checked over the AK-47.
“The Elf…is that an Archon?” said Russell.
“Yep,” I said again. “We should…”
“I didn’t know you spoke Elven,” said Russell.
“I had to learn it as part of my duties for Lord Morvilind,” I said. For once, that was the literal, exact truth. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”
Russell nodded and got to his feet. He held the gun competently enough, his finger remaining on the trigger, the barrel pointed towards the mall concourse if any more orcs or Archons displayed themselves. I thought I would need to give him a lecture about gun handling, but he knew what he was doing. He wouldn’t have been able to kill the orc otherwise.
“Where did you learn to handle a gun?” I said.
“Rifle club,” said Russell, glancing at the dead Archon. He blinked in bewilderment. “How did you kill him? Bullets don’t work on Elves. There was this light in your hand…”
“Um,” I said. He’d seen me use magic, and I wasn’t about to tell him about that. “Thermite.”
“Thermite?” said Russell.
“I got lucky,” I said, which was also true. �
�One of the orcs had some thermite on him. They must have been planning to burn the bookstore. All that paper.” I waved a hand at the shelves. “I knew bullets wouldn’t work on an Archon, so I thought I’d try fire. Looks like I was right.”
Technically, I had electrocuted him, though the burns on what remained of his face looked bad enough.
“Shouldn’t that have burned your fingers off?” said Russell.
“Yep,” I said. “Lucky, remember? You can ask me all the questions you want when we get home.” I looked at the entrance for a moment. “Concourse seems deserted. There’s a fire escape four stores down. That should take us right out to the parking lot, and then we can get to my bike. If we hurry, we can get out before anyone sees us.”
“We can’t go that way,” said Russell.
“Why not?” I said.
“We have to go back and make sure Lydia gets out,” said Russell.
“Lydia?” I said, confused. Then I remembered. Russell’s date, the girl who had made my coffee wrong. “She’s probably hiding behind the counter.”
“No, she’s not,” said Russell. “I told her to stay behind the counter, but she didn’t listen.”
“She didn’t listen?” I said. “Gosh, that must have been frustrating.”
He missed the subtext. “She panicked and ran into the stock room. I think she’s hiding back there.”
“Then she can keep hiding there,” I said. “We need to go.”
“We have to take her with us,” said Russell. “If she stays here, she’s going to get killed.”
“Then she can run like hell, which is what we are going to do,” I said. “This mall’s turned into a war zone, and sooner or later Homeland Security or Duke Tamirlas is going to show up and blow it to pieces. We need to be long gone by then.”
“We have to make sure Lydia gets out,” said Russell. “We have a responsibility. I’m not leaving her to get killed.”
A wave of irritated frustration went through me. God, had he always been so stubborn? Maybe he had picked it up from me.
“I don’t give a damn about Lydia,” I snapped. “You are not getting killed here, and I am getting you out. Lydia can take care of herself.”
Cloak Games: Omnibus One Page 36
