Rune Warrior

by Frank Morin

  He managed to cross most of the distance before the heka noticed. Shouts of alarm rang across the hill and the entrenched enemy opened fire with automatic rifles, spraying the hillside. Bullets ricocheted off the shield, every impact reminding him that his men were not protected as he was.

  More than one enforcer fell, crying out in pain, and those sounds drove Tomas on faster. He would avenge every one of those injuries with fury.

  Pain seared across his left calf as a round caught him beneath the shield that he’d lifted higher in the effort to cross the distance faster. His muscle spasmed and he tumbled to the ground.

  A second bullet caught him in the right side, but his vest caught it. Tomas rolled with the fall, twisting his shield around before more bullets could strike. He sprang back to his feet, roaring with the need to crush the men who had shot him.

  He was close enough that every rifle was turned on him, a steady barrage of bullets that cracked the riot shield, threatening to shatter it entirely.

  Tomas jumped, leaping into that deadly storm of lead, crossing the last ten feet in a flying tackle. He crashed into the center of the heka group, and they all went down in a heap of arms and legs and guns.

  As the heka fighters cursed and continued to fire, not caring if bullets struck companions protected by their rune web, Tomas unleashed his full fury upon them. Striking with hands and feet, he aimed for their hands, knocking weapons flying and keeping those deadly barrels away.

  Then his team arrived. Enforcers swarmed over the heka, howling the Tenth’s centuries’-old battle cry.

  The heka fought viciously, but they weren’t elite warriors, refined in battle with the single purpose of defeating superhuman enemies. The Tenth soldiers knocked their weapons aside and subdued them, using fast-wrap ropes, followed by duct tape and steel-mesh zip ties.

  Anaru appeared with his men as the fighting was winding down. He clobbered one heka to the ground and stood on the screaming fellow as his men tied the man up. He offered Tomas a hand up.

  “Sorry we’re late, Captain, but we found a back door.”

  Tomas laughed softly. “I wish I’d known about that two minutes ago.”

  Anaru shrugged. “This rabble needed to be taken care of. When we took that last position, we discovered they were guarding a concealed hatch. Looks new. I’m guessing it leads into the hidden crypt tunnels.”

  “Good work.” Tomas surveyed the battlefield, peering through the heavy smoke toward Domenico’s team. “Domenico, status?”

  “Just mopping up, sir,” he replied.

  “Casualties?”

  “We lost one in the charge,” Anaru said. “Round to the forehead, just under his helmet.”

  Tomas cursed. He hated losing men, although a charge like that could easily have claimed many more lives. Other reports came in, and the number of wounded rose to eight, but no more deaths were reported.

  “Team three and four, oversee the prisoners,” he ordered. “Team five, help the medics with the wounded. Everyone else on me. We’re going in through Anaru’s back door.”

  Half a minute later, they congregated around a simple steel hatch set into the stone ground. The bolts looked new, the hinges free of rust. A ruined wall blocked it from view until they were nearly standing on top of it. A large stone sat nearby, and by the scuff marks on the ground, it was used to conceal the entrance at least some of the time.

  “Pull it,” Tomas said.

  Anaru hauled up the hatch, and three soldiers tossed flash-bang grenades down as bullets erupted out of the hole. Tomas caught a glimpse of a vertical shaft leading down into darkness.

  As soon as the grenades boomed, Tomas jumped into the hole. He fell twelve feet, easily absorbing the impact. The shaft ended in an entryway to a subterranean room barely bigger than a closet. Three men stood in the room, rubbing at blinded eyes.

  Tomas snapped a handcuff over the first man’s wrist and kicked his feet out from under him. The heka shouted and struggled, but Tomas got his other hand cuffed behind his back before the fighter could recover.

  The other two blindly opened fire with their automatic rifles. Bullets tore the air around Tomas and ricocheted through the narrow space. Unafraid of taking hits from their own bullets, the two filled the tiny room with lead.

  Anaru landed in the entryway, already firing an automatic paintball gun. The big enforcer directed the splattering ammo into the two heka’s faces. They might be immune to harm, but the paint still temporarily blinded them.

  One of them fired a long, continuous burst toward the entryway. Anaru caught several bullets in the torso and fell back against the inner wall with a grunt.

  Tomas rolled under the gunman’s weapon and kicked it out of the man’s hands.

  With a Maori battle cry, Anaru rushed into the room and crash-tackled the other heka off his feet. Several other enforcers jumped down the shaft and within seconds, all three heka were disabled and chained.

  “Are you all right?” Tomas asked Anaru.

  The big man grunted again. “The vest held.”

  “Good. Let’s go.” He shared a fierce grin with his second, riding the rush of life he always felt when engaged in battle.

  Leading two dozen enforcers, Tomas slipped out of the small room into the warren of tunnels of the cryptoporticus. They met no resistance and Tomas got a sense of their position based on the sketch Eirene had provided prior to the mission.

  The tunnels were spread over three levels, with the known cryptoporticus tunnel almost touching the highest. They had landed in the middle level.

  Tomas sent a squad down to clear the lower level, ordered Anaru to lead the squad sweeping the middle level they were on, and he led the final team up a side tunnel toward the top.

  Infrequent fluorescent bulbs secured to the ceiling left much of the tunnel huddled in shadow, but with his enhanced eyesight, he could see well enough. The passage was square, made of weathered, rough-cut stone, with a thick layer of sand on the floor. Long scrape marks ran the center of the tunnel, as if Paul’s forces had shoveled out more debris when they first moved into the hidden complex.

  The cool air smelled stale, as if it had grown bored in the long years it waited to be reopened. Silence reigned except for a distant humming, perhaps from an air exchange or climate control system. Distant gunfire drifted down into the tunnels from above where Domenico led the teams securing the rest of the hill.

  Hopefully the heka wouldn’t realize Tomas’ team had breached their outer perimeter until he located the web.

  No sooner had he made the wish than a pair of heka trotted around the corner of a tunnel just ahead. They didn’t hesitate to swing their rifles toward the intruders.

  Tomas’ team reacted faster.

  He dropped to his knees to allow the men behind him to engage too. They all fired at the same time. The heka fighters were overwhelmed by exploding paintball bullets, bolo nets, and electro-shock darts.

  Tomas left four men to chain the disabled heka while he led the rest of the team in sweeping the rest of the tunnel. The sound of their weapons would alert anyone else in the area. They had to strike fast.

  One man peeked out a nearby steel door, caught sight of Tomas, and ducked back inside as paintball bullets splattered all around him. The door clanged shut and Tomas heard the lock.

  “Set explosives and blow this,” he ordered, then continued down the hall.

  He peeked into the next room, and a hail of bullets nearly took off his head. He glimpsed a large room, well lit, with four heka fighters near the door. Two of them were hunkered behind an M60 machine gun, and were pouring heavy fire through the door. Luckily the bullets tore into the aged stone on the far side of the passage instead of ricocheting around the tunnel.

  More importantly, in that one glimpse, Tomas caught sight of an enormous, four-tiered shelf, covered with dispossessed soulmasks. It looked like four conference tables had been set up one atop the other, with ladders connecting them and soulmasks packed across t
he smooth surfaces of each table. The soulmasks glowed with the blue-white light of activated runes, strapped together into a giant web. Three other heka were scampering across the web, adding more dispossessed souls or inscribing runes.

  The size of the operation amazed him. The web he had sacrificed so many brave British soldiers to disperse during that deadly ride had held perhaps a third as many souls. He couldn’t imagine where Paul had acquired so many souls without triggering investigations into mass missing persons.

  It didn’t matter. He had found the web. It must have taken weeks to prepare such a complex spell.

  It would only take him a few seconds to destroy it.

  “All teams, converge on my position,” he ordered, cringing away from a ricocheting round from the still-firing M60. “And bring every bit of explosive we’ve got.”

  Then the M60 stopped firing and Tomas felt the hairs on his arms standing, the way they did when he was very close to a powerful rune. He swept a hand around the corner of the doorway and smacked into an invisible barrier.

  Tomas cursed softly but with feeling. The enchanters had raised a barrier wall to keep him out.

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  You think I’m scared of Gregorios and his enforcers? Or even the hunters and their Visigoth puppets? I am the greatest hunter the world has ever known. Let them pit their puny enhancements against my runes, and I will plunder their lands, ravish their women, and slaughter them through as many lives as they dare return.

  ~Attila the Hun, Channeler, the day before the Battle of Catalaunian Plains, 451 A.D.

  Sarah retreated from Paul, too tired to run. A deep weariness sapped her strength and her will. His custom counter rune had drained too much of her soul strength.

  Paul followed, his terrifying sword in hand, that infuriating smug smile on his lips. He seemed to enjoy taunting her with the promise of pain as much as he enjoyed delivering it.

  She silently begged Tomas to hurry. Somehow Paul must have anticipated their attack and thwarted Tomas’ efforts. Sarah retreated into the huge, boxy room of the outer sanctum and the truth struck her with stark, unmerciful clarity.

  No one was going to save her. She was on her own, and she wasn’t enough to stop Paul.

  She gathered the last shreds of her defiance and stood tall before Paul. “You think beating up girls is going to get you anywhere in the world?”

  “Only if those girls happen to be mighty rune warriors like you, Sarah,” Paul said. “Didn’t you know that only through the defeat of your mightiest enemies can you reach greatness and realize your true self?”

  “I know who I am,” Sarah said.

  “But I know who you’re about to become,” Paul said, raising his sword. “After you pass through the fires, you will emerge purified and obedient.

  Sarah scrambled away, but he kept pace.

  Eirene appeared behind Paul, carrying Spartacus’ oaken spear. Her crimson cloak was gone, as was her black mask. She wore a leather halter top and skirt, her bare feet silent as she sped across the smooth tile floor, spear poised to strike.

  Paul sensed her approach and spun, deflecting the spear. He lunged and caught Eirene by the throat.

  “You have a job to do,” he said and threw her across the room and through one of the wide doors at either end of the partition wall.

  Sarah sprinted after Eirene. She couldn’t stop Paul alone, but maybe together they stood a chance.

  Eirene tumbled right across the huge, vaulted inner sanctum. The giant hall was lined with more columns and paved with an intricate mosaic in the form of Summanus, their patron god. She came to rest on the far side of the room at the base of a set of stairs that led up to an immense gateway into another chamber.

  Sarah helped Eirene stand, but Paul’s voice turned her back to face him. He stood just inside the inner sanctum, arms thrown wide.

  “I own this memory now,” he shouted.

  Eirene gasped and suddenly she was again dressed in the concealing crimson robe, with black mask affixed. Dozens of battle-robed priests and priestesses appeared on the steps, and an entire army of barbarians coalesced on the far side of the room. The air smelled of blood and incense.

  Spartacus stepped to the front of his forces.

  “What’s going on?” Sarah asked.

  Eirene grimaced. “He’s taken control. I can’t stop him any longer.”

  “What can I do?”

  The Visigoth army screamed war cries and charged across the room, drowning out Eirene’s words.

  The smaller army around them charged, led by the priest named Titus. His eyes and hands burst into purple fire. Sarah hadn’t realized he was a facetaker. Sagittarii filled the air with constant waves of arrows, while the relocated ballistae blasted enemies off their feet. Screams rent the air and echoed endlessly in the cavernous space while the copper scent of blood clung to everything. The armies crashed together and began hacking at each other with wild abandon.

  Eirene didn’t join the fight, but moved to her left. Spartacus detached himself from the rest of his army. He approached with an implacable stride, spear half-raised. His eyes remained fastened on her mask.

  “You cannot conceal yourself from me, daughter of the gorgons.”

  “Concealing was never my intention.”

  Sarah realized she was seeing Eirene’s actual memory. This was how it went down, how she had defeated Spartacus. Watching the powerful gladiator approach, she shuddered to think that Eirene had lived through this. As much as she wanted to see how Eirene had finally beaten him, they couldn’t allow this to happen.

  “Stop it,” she shouted, grabbing Eirene’s shoulder. “Fight him.”

  Eirene unfastened her crimson robe and let it fall at her feet. Beneath it, she again wore only a leather halter-top and skirt. The outfit left her midriff, arms and legs bare. The silvery runes inscribed on her flesh glowed bright in the dim light.

  Spartacus shouted, “You have dishonored her too long!”

  He charged.

  Eirene removed her mask, revealing another woman’s face. She cried out with a different voice. “Spartacus, my love!”

  Only then did Sarah realize Eirene hadn’t killed Iltea all those years before, but had saved her soulmask. She was using it to lure Spartacus in.

  That had been very clever, but it was disastrous right now.

  Spartacus’ assault faltered and he stumbled to a halt nearby. His spear fell to his side and he gazed with incredulous joy at the face of his beloved.

  “Can it be?”

  He took a faltering step forward.

  “Oh, I’ve missed you!”

  Eirene rushed forward and actually embraced Spartacus. He wrapped her in a hug and kissed Iltea fiercely.

  That was gross.

  Then her body convulsed and Spartacus drew back, worried. Iltea’s face erupted out of Eirene’s skull, skin parting to allow her soulmask to fall free. Spartacus gaped and grabbed it. The rainbow mist of her soul caressed his powerful hands.

  Eirene grabbed him while he was distracted, digging into the skin under his jaw with hands burning with the purple fire of her nevron.

  “Together you will greet the eternities.”

  “You can’t,” Sarah cried.

  She kicked Eirene with every ounce of strength, knocking her aside and breaking the connection.

  “No!” Paul shouted. He leaped the fighting army, soaring a hundred feet.

  Sarah retreated from him, forced to back away from Eirene and Spartacus, who were grappling.

  She tried with every ounce of will to summon a weapon, but Paul’s will held sway and her hands stayed empty. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her enhancements, desperately trying to summon just a little more strength.

  The enhancements flickered, then blazed to life. Deep in her soul, she felt an aching emptiness, an exhaustion so deep it terrified her, but she ignored it and drank in the power of the reactivated enhancement burning against her thigh.

  She
opened her eyes and her body shone with quicksilver fluidity. She’d rip Paul apart.

  “Nice try,” Paul said. “Too late.”

  Eirene again gripped Spartacus’ face, standing above his kneeling form with hands and eyes blazing.

  “I’m so sorry,” Eirene whispered.

  She pulled off his face.

  “No!” Sarah shouted, lunging in a futile attempt to turn back time.

  The temple rang like a giant gong and everything fell silent. The battling armies faded away like mist, leaving only Sarah, Eirene, and Paul in the empty temple. Sarah sank to one knee, despairing. Then her eyes rose to the sky, drawn inexorably upward.

  The roof of the temple was gone and in the sky blazed a mighty master rune, burning with silver fire. The power of the image took Sarah’s breath away as it seared itself into her soul. This was a true master rune, a symbol so powerful it shook her and blanked out all thought.

  Just looking at it filled her with strength, replenishing the well of her soul in a heartbeat. It consumed her senses, filling her vision with glittering explosions of light, like fireworks bursting nearby during a snowstorm. The silence rang with silver bells, and a feeling of icy relief trickled down her throat. She smelled strawberries and apple blossoms.

  Then the roof snapped back into place and Sarah leaped to her feet.

  Paul stood several feet away, laughing. He gave her a mock bow.

  “I win,” he said.

  “Not yet.”

  Her fingers morphed into silver daggers and she threw herself at him, intending to take off his head. She passed right through him, skittering across the floor, her metallic skin sparking against the smooth surface.

  Sarah spun but saw nothing but Eirene, who stood motionless, looking at the floor where Spartacus would have fallen.

  Paul’s voice drifted across the room.