by J M Hemmings
He clicked ‘send’ and then smiled grimly.
‘It is done; the Alliance is officially dead. We will see now who joins with us, and who flees to the ranks of the Rebels. They have no other choice now; outside of these two options, there is only death.’
As Joao was about to reply an electrical sizzle needled both beastwalkers’ skin, so they swung around and raised their weapons. Before they could squeeze the triggers though, a female voice cut through the testosterone-drenched atmosphere.
‘Hrothgar, Joao. Greetings.’
Out of the shadows came Kimiko in her samurai armour, walking with a confident stride. In her hands she was carrying a bow and her katana – part of the costume, yes, but also genuine items and deadly weapons. And now that she had exited the Halloween party, in addition to her samurai weapons a couple of firearms were strapped to her waist and thighs.
Joao could not contain his lust as he stared at her, his eyes locked on the seductive sway of her hips and the shifting of her breasts beneath her armour with each step she took. His eyes roamed over her body, unabashedly drinking in every curve and feminine subtlety, and his men murmured amongst themselves as they too cast blatantly lascivious stares in her direction. Kimiko, however, fired a glance at them that was as cold and sharp as the steel edge of her three-hundred-year-old sword.
‘Keep your dogs on their leashes, Joao,’ she snarled, ‘and I’ll allow them to keep their heads attached to their torsos.’
Hrothgar laughed loudly.
‘Welcome, Snow Leopard, the great samurai!’ he chuckled, his sonorous voice booming through the blood-drenched conference room. ‘Such a bold attitude! But don’t you worry, none of these fine fellows will be laying a finger on you, not under my watch.’
‘Dey m’ boys,’ Joao added, ‘an’ dey listen t’ whatever I tell ‘em.’
‘I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,’ Kimiko replied coldly, pushing through the throng of gangsters. As she entered the room, she could not help but pause and gasp at the extent of the carnage.
‘You’ve done it,’ she murmured, her voice hushed with awe. ‘You’ve actually done it. You’ve killed half of the Huntsmen Board of Directors. These men and women were almost untouchable; they were like gods. Yet now in one fell swoop you’ve done what the Rebels have not been able to do for centuries. Not since the fall of the Eastern Council has there been such an enormous shift in the tide of the Great War.’
Hrothgar bared his bright, too-perfect teeth in a proud grin.
‘I’ll admit, Kimiko, that Sigurd, Joao and I planned this whole thing, but without your help we would not have been able to fully execute it. For that we are exceptionally grateful.’
Kimiko’s eyes remained cold, and the corners of her mouth were turned down in a half-snarl; she could barely contain her disgust.
‘I neither need or want your thanks, slaver. In fact, the less I have to do with you and your scumbag associates the better. You know what goal I’m working toward, and it’s terribly unfortunate that I’ve had to betray my friends in the pursuit of this, but the fact is, they’re fighting for something that I cannot align myself with any longer. They’re fighting for a dream … but that’s all it will ever be. The vision they have in mind for the future of humanity, of this planet, of everything … it simply cannot work. It’s a fantasy, it’s bullshit, and this has been made clear to me, especially in light of the way the world has been going these last few decades. Their hopes, and the teachings of the Council Masters, I now understand to be nothing more than a pipe dream, a vision that cannot possibly exist in this world. I’ve had to swallow an exceptionally bitter pill and accept reality. And that is what has brought me here, to this horrid place.’
‘The Eastern Council were great men and women,’ Hrothgar said, and, surprisingly, a tone of genuine admiration and respect was apparent in his voice. ‘And perhaps if Sigurd and myself had not allied with the Huntsmen to destroy them, things may have turned out differently for the world and for mortals. We may have joined forces, the Eastern Council and our organisation, and thereby destroyed the Huntsmen forever.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Kimiko growled. ‘You chose self-interest over the greater good – as you and Sigurd and all under your banner always have. And I have no doubt in my mind that what you’re doing now is similarly motivated, but in this case your self-interest and my own motivations overlap.’
‘The Council Masters were entirely to blame for their own downfall,’ Hrothgar countered harshly, his eyeshadow-darkened eyes flickering with defensive anger. ‘We offered them our swords and guns, we offered them our partnership as allies to fight against the Huntsmen. But they rejected our aid. Never forget that, Kimiko. Never. Because that’s a fact that your Rebel friends, who hate us so, always conveniently forget.’
Kimiko remained unmoved.
‘They rejected your help because they knew why you were offering your help. They knew that you and your thugs were only out for personal gain, that you only wanted the Huntsmen gone because they were a personal threat to your own goals of empire building and consolidation of power. You and your ilk have always been driven by greed and personal ambition, and those factors alone, and that sort of motivation is entirely antithetical to what drove the Council Masters. What has driven you, through the centuries, has absolutely, fully one hundred percent always been at odds with what drove them, and you know it.’
‘You’re one to talk of honour and the greater good,’ Sigurd scoffed with a haughty sneer, ‘after what you’ve just done.’
‘I need William’s knowledge as much as you do, although for an entirely different reason … as yes, it is the big picture, the long-term future, the greater good. And whether of his own volition, or under the dream-muddied, head-in-the-clouds leadership of the Rebels, that’s never going to happen, simply because they’re unwilling and unable to comprehend cold, hard reality. They’re still idealists to the core, and this dreamy idealism, which is grounded in a hopeless, baseless fantasy of what mortals could be, rather than the uncomfortable reality of how mortals actually think and act. It’s simply incompatible with how I have come to see the nature of humankind, and the direction in which that cancerous nature is taking all life on this planet. The Ancient Powers, which are so sadly needed now, will never be awoken, at least not on Zakaria, Lightning Bird and Njinga’s watch. I know this as well as you, and this is why I’ve had to go to this terrible extreme, to take things into my own hands … and, as odious as it is, to work with you.’
At this point, Joao stepped in and interrupted.
‘This don’ matter now, samurai gal. What matter now’s gettin’ Gisborne, d’ Tiger, an’ killin’ him friends. An’ if your plans be right, him friends be comin’ up d’ stairs in a minute, maybe less. We gots t’ get into position for d’ ambush.’
Hrothgar grinned savagely.
‘Yes … and after we kill them and capture Gisborne, we’ll have all the time in the world for talk. But tonight is for blood, for battle! And that blood will be on our blades, and it will be that of the Rebels. Are you ready, Snow Leopard? Are you ready to fight alongside us and slaughter your former friends?’
Tears rimmed Kimiko’s eyes, and her hands trembled with the force of the overwhelming emotion that was gushing through her veins.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, choking on a knotty sob as she notched an armour-piercing arrow to her bow. ‘I’m ready.’
‘Good. We’ll start by killing their communications.’
Hrothgar walked over to a closet at the end of the room and opened it up. Inside there were no shelves, for the entire interior was taken up with the machinery and circuitry of an enormous electromagnetic pulse generator.
‘The Rebels are about to get complete and permanent radio silence, whether they want it or not, haha! This little treasure is about to fry every single electronic device in this building.’
With his lips twisted into a wicked grin, Hrothgar flipped the switch.
***
‘William! We have to change the plan slightly. Sigurd knew we were coming, and if we continue with the original plan we’ll be sticking our feet right into a very dangerous beartrap.’
William froze in his tracks as Zakaria’s voice crackled through his earpiece.
‘You’re certain, brother?’ he asked.
‘Positively. I’ve already told Awang to move to a different position to cover an alternate path of retreat. What I need you to do now is inform Sharaf that things are changing, and proceed to—’
Before Zakaria could finish, the radio fell abruptly silent.
‘Zakaria! Ahoy, Zakaria, come in!’
No matter what William tried, however, the walkie-talkie remained completely dead. A tide of fear, a liquid rush of alternating frigidity and searing heat, tore through his every vein, tingling its wintery chill on the end of every nerve ending in his body, with its frost shards cutting and biting with icy vehemence, even as invisible fire, like that of a branding iron, scorched his skin from the inside out. With a sinking feeling and the concentrated ponderousness of a cannonball materialising in the pit of his stomach, he knew that he should have expected something to go wrong; however well-thought out plans were, things always went awry. Yet here, in this case, everything had seemed so watertight, and with such meticulous attention paid to every detail, the likelihood of anything going wrong had seemed minimal. Now, however, that wispy sliver of a chance had materialised into a solid and immovable force.
Sharaf was striding up ahead, about to round the corner. His form, melded with the shadows and revealed in half-seconds in the ominous flashing of the red emergency lights, was as that of a phantom, a ghost pushing through the membrane of the present.
‘Sharaf! Wait!’ William hissed, all too conscious of how harsh and intrusive his voice sounded against the looming silence; an open wound billowing out clouds of blood in shark-infested waters.
Sharaf paused, hurling an annoyed glance over his shoulder, the angle of his raised left eyebrow within the eyeholes of the Batmask sharp with the volatile flash point of his temper.
‘Damn it Gisborne, what is it?’
‘We have to stop.’
Sharaf spun about on his heels, his fingers tightening on the grip of his weapon and the contours of his face becoming harder, taking on a geometry of sharpness.
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ he growled. ‘You of all people know how important time is on this mission!’
‘We’ve been compromised. Sigurd knows we’re coming.’
The quiet wrath still burned like a subterranean fire in Sharaf’s eyes, but a subtle clenching of his jaw muscles revealed disquietude behind his façade of bravado.
‘What? How do you know that?!’
‘Zakaria’s just told me, mate. The problem is, the radio died before he could tell me where we’re supposed to go next, and I can’t for the life of me get it to turn back on.’
‘Fucking idiot, you probably forgot to charge the battery,’ Sharaf muttered. ‘Here, let me try mine.’ He unclipped his radio from his belt and fiddled with it for a few moments, the frown of anger on his face deepening when he realised that it was not merely a careless blunder on William’s part that had caused the radio to malfunction.
‘Well that’s just great, isn’t it?’ Sharaf growled, flinging his dead radio away in disgust. ‘Mine’s gone too. I’m guessing Sigurd and his fuckers have used some sort of EMP to disable every piece of tech in this building.’
‘There’s another plan?’ Sharaf spluttered, half astonished, half furious. ‘Why the hell wasn’t I told about it?’
‘Forget about that, brother. Look, I’m as surprised as you are about that, but all that matters now is that Sigurd knows that we’re on our way, and we have to assume that they know which way we’re coming, and where each of us is going to be. If we continue with the current plan, we’ll be walking headlong into a trap of Sigurd’s making … and both you and I know exactly what sort of odds are involved in making it out of that alive.’
Sharaf had obviously had his feathers ruffled and his pride stung, but at the same time he comprehended the urgency of the situation, and was an experienced enough soldier to understand that he would need to follow Zakaria’s new orders … although neither of them knew what they were.
‘Shit,’ Sharaf muttered. ‘I knew I should never have gone along with this madness. I knew it, I fuckin’ knew it!’
‘Look, this doesn’t mean we’re completely screwed,’ William said. ‘We may be up shit creek, but we’ve got a paddle or two, at least.’
‘How so?’
‘You did memorise the blueprint of the building like Zakaria told us to, yeah?’
‘Yes. So?’
‘Since Sigurd and his thugs likely know our plan, well, they’re expecting you on the floor above this one, and me on the floor above that. The thing is, I’m willing to bet that they don’t know that we know that they know our plan. Sorry if that started to sound a little convoluted, but you get what I’m saying, yeah?’
Sharaf nodded slowly, stroking his chin with his thumb and forefinger.
‘I believe I do, yes…’
‘So we can still take ‘em by surprise,’ William said, ‘if we move to a section they’re not expecting us to be in. Sure, it won’t be quite as much of a surprise as our planned Pearl Harbour-style attack out of the blue, but it’ll catch ‘em on their back feet nonetheless. We can turn the tables on our enemies if we act quickly and do the opposite of what they’re expecting us to do.’
Sharaf narrowed his eyes with focus, the corner of his mouth curving upwards as the cogs and gears of his brain whirred with well-oiled speed. After a few moments, he whipped a small dagger out of an ankle sheath and used it to hastily scratch a rough depiction of the few floors above and below them into the drywall.
‘We’re here, and you’re supposed to go here, and I’m meant to head this way,’ he said, tapping the crude architectural drawing with the point of his dagger. ‘But if I head down here, I should be able to rappel out of this window and get down two floors, and then come up behind whoever’s waiting in ambush for me here.’
‘Aye, that’ll work,’ William said. ‘And knowing Zakaria, I imagine that that’s what he’s planned. As for me, I’m thinking I could head up these stairs, and go two floors up. That way I’ll evade the Huntsmen or Alliance fighters who might be waiting for me in my former position. The only problem is the Huntsmen Board Members; without me waiting at my old spot to ambush them, they’ll have a much better chance of escaping.’
‘Not if we create a bottleneck that forces them to go your way,’ Sharaf said.
‘And how do we do that?’
‘You’ve got a couple of grenades, as do I. We just need to collapse some internal walls, which should be easy enough if we place our grenades properly and detonate them simultaneously. Remember, the elevator is down and will be down for a while. They have to take the stairs, and if we blow out the door here and create a blockage, they’ll have to go up your way.’
‘Excellent, let’s do it,’ William said, his heart drumming adrenalin-laced thunder through his chest.
They raced down the corridor, a sense of purpose adding drive and pace to their steps. After turning a few corners, their senses keenly attuned to their surroundings to detect the potential presence of enemies, they reached the doorway that they intended to demolish.
‘This is where we part ways,’ Sharaf said. ‘You know where you’re heading, right?’
‘I do.’
‘Put your grenade in this corner, and I’ll put mine in this one. The combined force of their explosion should be enough to cause the door to collapse, at least partially. On three you pull the pin, got it?’
‘I’m ready.’
‘One, two, three.’
As soon as Sharaf said the word ‘three’ they pulled the pins out of their grenades and stuffed them into their respective corners.
‘You�
��re on your own now, Gisborne.’
‘As are you, brother. Take care, and I’ll see you the other side,’ William said, a trace of hoarseness in his voice betraying the undiluted emotions swirling through his bloodstream.
The men briefly embraced and then they both sprinted off in opposite directions, their bodies dissolving into the undulating pools of red light and black shadows, leaving behind only an ominous silence, streaked with the faintest traces of echoed footsteps and sucked-in wisps of quickened breath … and then, in the dark, two grenades exploded as one.
68
BATTLE PART I
Hrothgar held his battle-axe loosely in his dominant hand – his left – and curled the fingers of his right around the pistol-grip of his sawed-off shotgun, keeping it extended in front of him, its twin barrels punctuating his vision as acutely as cataracts melded to his eyeballs. His forefinger rested lightly on the trigger, his tendons eager to release the fury of the buckshot-filled shells. The other shotgun was tucked into his belt, loaded and ready. Next to him walked the assassin, CC-105, armed with an MP5 submachine gun and clad in a torn business suit taken from the corpse of one of the dead board members. In front of them walked a row of Joao’s troops, each of whom was armed with an M-16 assault rifle.
Because of his towering seven-foot stature, Hrothgar was able to keep his shotgun raised above the heads of Joao’s troops, most of whom were of average height, and he would be able to fire over their heads in the event of a sudden gunfight.
