by David Bishop
"Servants?" Spatchcock laughed.
"His lover?" Flintlock protested simultaneously.
"Not exactly," Dante said, getting to his feet. "We are travelling companions." He approached Spatchcock and Flintlock, who were arguing with each other about Gylatsen's descriptions of them. "Will you two stop bickering? I need you to stay here, help the monks keep Ivanov and his men out for as long as possible."
Spatchcock jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Those gates won't last long against an Imperial assault. It sounds like the monks outside have already been finished off."
"Do your best, okay?" Dante pleaded. "I'm not asking you to commit suicide, just slow them down. Every minute gained gives me and Mai the chance to find this weapon. Then we can use it on Ivanov."
Flintlock clutched his sidearm in one hand and his dagger in the other. "Alright, but the second those gates start going, so do we."
"Master Nikolai, we must go!" Gylatsen called. The monk was already leading Mai into the nearest building, one hand waving for Dante to follow.
Khumbu felt the last of his brethren die in the snow beyond the citadel wall. The old monk lit a yak-butter candle for the fallen soul, the eighth such flame that he had created in the last few minutes. How many more must die to keep our secret, he wondered? Could the outsiders be stopped, or would this day be the last time a living goddess resided upon the sacred mountain? The sound of hurried footsteps was getting closer. Khumbu rocked back from his knees on to his feet, then rose to a standing position, his joints creaking at the effort.
Knocking resounded at the door of his cell. "Brother Khumbu, it's Gylatsen. There is someone here to see you. He is one of the Romanovs and he bears the sign of the Mukari."
"Praise be to the goddess!" Khumbu whispered thankfully. "Bring him to me, Gylatsen. Bring him in." Khumbu heard the young monk usher in one person, then another, before entering the small stone chamber himself. "I hear three sets of footsteps. Who is my other visitor?" Khumbu was shocked when he heard a female voice, and even more shocked by what she had to say.
"I am known as Mai Tsai, but you called me by another name, didn't you?" she said quietly. "Once you called me goddess."
The Imperial Black had tried everything within their power to open the citadel gates. The brute force of two-dozen men had made no difference. Shooting at the gates was no more effective, every bullet bouncing back at them. Even explosives made little difference, beyond charring the wood and blackening the gold panels. Finally, Ivanov nodded to his second-in-command. The Enforcer punched the concealed control button on his chest, powering up the exo-skeleton. Artificial energy surged through his body, tendons of power creating junctures between the adjoining plates of body armour. Satisfied the equipment was working, even in such cold conditions, the major charged head first at the gates.
The effect was remarkable. A single blow knocked the two huge slabs of wood out of shape. His second blow destroyed whatever mechanism was locking the gates together. A third blow shattered them completely, reducing most of the wood to kindling. From within came a volley of gunfire and bolts of purple electricity, but both sides knew this battle was nearly over.
The Enforcer stood aside and bowed to his commanding officer. Ivanov smiled gratefully, then commanded his troops to return fire against those within. "The citadel is ours, men. Forward to glory! Forward to victory!"
"This is impossible," Khumbu protested. "What is she doing here? It is forbidden for one of her kind to return to this place!"
"I do not understand," Gylatsen said, looking to Dante for guidance.
"Mai used to be the Mukari, your living goddess," he replied.
"How can this be?" Gylatsen wondered. "Brother Khumbu?"
The old monk pointed at Mai with a wavering, bony finger. "She must leave, now! She will bring doom upon us all!"
"If it's doom you're expecting, it has already arrived," Dante said. "There are three hundred Imperials smashing their way into the citadel right now, led by the cruellest, most sadistic man on the planet - excluding the Tsar."
"Khumbu probably runs both of them a close third," Mai spat angrily. She glared at Gylatsen. "Do you know what your leader did to me, him and his brethren? Once they'd decided I was no longer fit to be the Mukari, they cast me out of your little paradise. But that wasn't enough for them. No, they invaded my thoughts, tore every memory they could from my brain. Khumbu and his holy men raped my mind, over and over and over. It wasn't enough to steal away the experience of having been a living goddess - they also gouged out memories of my family, my parents. Then, once they had finished with me, the noble Khumbu took me down the mountain and sold me to a slave trader for eight roubles. I was worth less to him than a pound of salt. That's how your precious leader treats his goddess, Gylatsen!"
"Brother Khumbu, is this true?"
The old man shook his head. "I did what I did for the good of us all..."
"What about my good? What about my rights?" Mai demanded furiously. "Is that how you reward someone who was your living goddess for eight years - by ravaging her mind, by filling it with such pain and torment she cannot bear to come back here, so she can never discover the truth? Tell me I'm wrong, Khumbu! Tell your brethren I'm wrong!"
"You are not wrong, sister," another voice replied. "Khumbu cast you out of this hallowed place, as he casts out all Mukari once they reach the age of womanhood. As he would have cast me out, in time." A young girl walked into the crowded chamber, one hand holding up the hem of her red and gold robes to stop from tripping over them. As she spoke, Khumbu and Gylatsen dropped to their knees, bowing before her, their hands clasped together in supplication.
"Goddess, you should not be away from the throne room," Khumbu urged.
"Perhaps not, but I wanted to see more of the citadel, while I still could. The end is upon us, but we all have our parts to play."
"Does she always speak in riddles?" Dante wondered out loud.
That girl has the power of a goddess, the Crest interjected. You would do well not to anger her.
"You must be Dante," the Mukari said. "Your Crest is as bossy as mine."
"You can hear it too?"
I also bear a Crest, the girl said inside Dante's thoughts, but mine has a different purpose than yours. A purpose that will become clear all too soon.
A series of thunderous noises boomed through the citadel - once, twice, then a third time. The Mukari listened to them, her face filled with sadness. "The gates have given way before the Imperial onslaught. The blackness is upon us, and death follows close behind. It is time I went back to the throne room. Khumbu, you choose to come with me."
"I choose, goddess?"
The girl hitched up her robes again, preparing to leave the stone cell. "This is what will happen. You can stay here if you wish, or go with the others to launch a counter-attack against the invaders."
"No, I will guard you in the throne room," Khumbu decided.
"The choice is made, as it always was," the Mukari said. She smiled at the others. "I will see you soon enough." Then she was gone, Khumbu hurrying after her.
"Weird," Dante commented. "It's like she knows what is going to happen, before it happens."
"She has always known," Gylatsen said. "That is her burden as the Mukari, to know the future as you know the past. To her the past, present and future are one and the same. What must be, will be - it is inevitable."
"So what do we do now?"
Mai pulled a fresh handful of throwing stars from her bandolier and strode to the doorway. "We launch a counter-attack, of course. Coming?"
FOURTEEN
"War loves blood."
- Russian proverb
"A typical Himalayan monastery or holy palace is divided into three levels. The ground floor is devoted to places of worship and functional rooms such as kitchens. The middle level is given over to individual cells for each of the monks or priests that reside within the structure. Finally, the top floor is reserved for the holiest individual of
all, with various adjoining antechambers and places of meditation."
- Extract from Secret Destinations of the Empire,
by Mikhail Palinski
Spatchcock ran as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. He had become separated from Flintlock in the chaos caused by the sudden implosion of the citadel gates. Both men had decided that staying alive was more important than trying to hold back the Imperial Black's inevitable advance. Spatchcock shouted at the four monks guarding the entrance to follow his example, but they remained in place, their psychic energy keeping the soldiers at bay temporarily. "Well, we tried," he called over his shoulder to Flintlock. But the blond Brit had already fled inside, so Spatchcock did the same.
He sprinted through a room filled with burning candles and religious icons, resisting the urge to pocket what looked like a gold statue. There was a time for looting and a time for saving your own skin. Spatchcock was not a religious man, but decided displeasing whatever deities looked after this place probably wasn't the best of ideas.
The next room he entered was a dining hall, with long wooden tables and benches neatly lined up for the next meal. He dodged round these and ducked through a darkened doorway. Beyond was the kitchen, if the smell of cooking oils and spices were to be trusted. Spatchcock squinted to see better, his eyes still adjusting from having been outside in the blazing sunshine. A haunch of cooked meat sat atop a bench, steam rising slowly from it. Can't remember the last time I ate, Spatchcock thought. He searched his surroundings for a knife or any kind of blade. Finding nothing of use, he tore at the flesh with his grubby fingernails instead, saliva dribbling down his jowls. Finally he freed a hunk of meat from the joint and shoved it into his mouth.
"Ahh, that's good," he enthused while masticating furiously, his mouth hanging open. "I haven't tasted anything that good since-"
Out in the dining hall, the wooden legs of a bench scraped across the stone floor. Spatchcock froze, half-chewed flesh hanging from his lips. It could be one of the monks - or it could be one of the Imperials. They'll have finished off the old guys in orange by now, he thought. They could already be searching the building.
Spatchcock saw a shadow in the doorway and threw himself to the floor, retrieving the tiny pistol from inside his trousers. He scrambled across the floor, his eyes watching the doorway. Another bench scraped across the dining room floor and someone cursed. They were close. Any second, any second now...
"Spatch? I say, old boy. Are you in there?"
"Flintlock!" Spatchcock exclaimed, standing up. He walked over to the doorway, pocketing his pistol. "I almost fired, you stupid bastard! I thought you were one of the Imperials."
The Brit stepped into view with another figure behind him, holding a gun to Flintlock's head. Before Spatchcock could react, a second soldier appeared, his weapon aimed and ready to fire. "Sorry, old boy," Flintlock said apologetically. "These chaps got the drop on me. Said they'd blow my brains out if I didn't help them. Haven't seen Dante, have you?"
"No," Spatchcock scowled. A third Imperial emerged from the darkness behind Spatchcock and nudged him in the back with a gun barrel.
"Outside," the soldier commanded, reaching into Spatchcock's pocket to remove his small pistol. "Our commander will want to interrogate you personally."
"Your commander?"
"General Vassily Ivanov."
"Ivanov the Terrible," Flintlock said nervously.
"So the avalanche didn't get him?" Spatchcock enquired. "Shame." He got a rifle butt in the back of his head that sent him staggering into Flintlock.
"I say," the former aristocrat protested. "There's no need for that!"
The soldier advanced on him, rifle butt raised and ready to strike the Brit too. "We decide what is needed now, not you. Move!"
Dante found a window on the second level overlooking the broken gates where soldiers were still marching into the citadel. "Time to even the odds a little," Dante muttered, taking aim with his Huntsman 5000. He began firing rapidly, knowing his weapon would correct any flaws in his aim. By the time the Imperials began returning fire, Dante had downed three-dozen of their number and dived out of view. He scuttled along the corridor, keeping below the windows, before popping up at the other end and opening fire again. The soldiers reacted more quickly this time, his element of surprise lessened, but Dante had still killed another twenty before he was forced out of harm's way. Two more attempts netted a dozen more men in total, by which time the remaining soldiers had made it safely inside the citadel. From now on the fighting would have to be hand-to-hand, Dante decided. He hid his rifle behind a small shrine, then ran to the nearest staircase, his cyborganic swords extruding themselves from each fist.
Mai was waiting at the bottom of the steps. Between her and nearest doorway was an uneven pile of Imperial Black corpses, which had all been killed by throwing stars. Mai was holding a short-bladed sword in each hand, the razor-sharp edges of each weapon not yet sullied by blood. She smiled at Dante. "What took you so long?"
"You know how it is - places to see, Imperials to shoot. You've been busy in my absence. Where's Gylatsen?"
The monk came through the outer doorway at speed, leaping over the pile of dead invaders with ease. "They're coming!" he shouted as he ran past. "I delayed them as long as I could. I'm going to the throne room."
"How many are coming?" Dante called after him.
"Plenty," Mai replied, pointing out the door. At least a hundred Imperial troopers were storming towards them, weapons drawn and ready to fire.
"Good, I've got a score to settle with these bastards," Dante muttered. "For Rudinshtein!" he roared, charging at the oncoming soldiers. Mai was one step behind him, her blades flashing through the air, hungry for blood.
Khumbu paced back and forth inside the throne room, the sounds of death drifting up from below. The Mukari sat on the floor, playing with a wooden elephant, talking to it softly under her breath. At last the monk could stand the tension no longer. "How can you do that now, of all times, goddess?"
The Mukari looked at him with sad eyes. "You always forget, Khumbu. I may be your goddess, but I'm also a child. I like to play with my toys. Besides, this is what I am doing when the soldiers break down that door."
"You've seen that?"
"Of course, how could I not? Did I not prophesise all of this to you? "It is the outsiders who bring death to this place. 'The gates of the Forbidden Citadel shall fall and there is nothing any of us can do to stop that.' I said those words to you in this room, not so many days ago. Now the darkness is here." The Mukari went back to playing with her wooden elephant. "Beyond that I see no further."
"General, we have captured two of the outsiders from the plateau!"
Ivanov heard the soldier's voice and smiled. Excellent. Killing Dante would the culmination of three years' endeavour in that tiresome backwater Rudinshtein, he thought. But before the Romanov whelp dies I plan to extract the maximum amount of pleasure from torturing him. When he is beaten and broken and utterly spent, only then shall I take off his head. Perhaps I shall impale his rotting skull on the tip of a spike and have it paraded through the streets of Rudinshtein, one final indignity to crush any rebellion in the hearts of that lice-ridden rabble.
The general pivoted on his heels to discover his moment of pleasure was not yet at hand. His soldiers proudly clutched the collars of two men, one with an odour to equal any battlefield latrine, the other displaying a haughty, upturned nose that cried out to be punched. "What are these... dregs?"
"They were with Dante when he entered the citadel, sir," one of the soldiers said, his face crestfallen. "We thought you might wish to interrogate them."
"You thought? You thought?" Ivanov raged. "Since when did I encourage my men to think? If I wanted a regiment of philosophers, I would not have recruited a thousand of the Empire's worst scum to fill my ranks, would I?"
"No, sir."
"I wouldn't sully the heel of my boot on these pieces of excrement! Get them out of my
sight. Now!"
"Yes, sir!" The soldiers snapped to attention, then bundled the prisoners away, eager to put as much distance between them and the general as quickly as possible. "You made us look bad," one of the soldiers hissed at Spatchcock and Flintlock. "You'll pay for that."
"What a shame," the Brit replied cheerily. "And I was so looking forward to having a chat with the mighty Ivanov the Terrible."
"Me too," Spatchcock agreed. "I was going to tell him about that bag of gold coins I hid down the front of your trousers."
Flintlock looked at his companion as if he were insane. "Spatch, old boy, what are you talking about? There's nothing down the front of my trousers."
"You can say that again."
"Shut up and keep moving," a soldier warned, shoving his rifle butt into Spatchcock's back.
Dante cut a swathe through the first five Imperials that crossed his path, his cyborganic blades severing hands, arms and even the head of one unfortunate soldier. Mai was just as effective, the shorter blades of her weapons enabling the Oriental assassin to stab as well as slice her targets. Together the duo fought the Imperial onslaught to a standstill, using the soldiers' own numbers against them. The battle was taking place in a narrow corridor, so only three or four men were able to take on the duo at once. Those in front blocked anyone behind them from shooting at Dante or Mai, while the close quarters combat made rifles all but useless.
Realising the folly of their frontal assault, a veteran soldier shouted to his comrades to use bayonets and other blades against the enemy. Dante smiled at the order. That's right, he thought. Fight us on our own terms. He leaped atop the corpses of the fallen Imperials, using their bodies to gain superior height over the next wave of soldiers. Several troopers charged at him, bayonets fixed to their rifles, a war cry on their lips. Dante, evasive action!
