Sun

by J. C. Andrijeski

  At that, Jem’s face crumpled for real.

  Jon found himself backing away when the seer began to cry, even before he realized Balidor and Wreg were doing the same thing.

  Jon glanced at Chandre as he retreated deeper in the room. He did a double-take when he did, startled to see tears in her eyes as she watched the two male seers together.

  If Revik or Dalejem noticed, Jon couldn’t tell.

  Revik had his forehead pressed against the other man’s now.

  From their blurred irises and occasional smiles and nods, the two of them were talking in the Barrier again. Jon watched Jem wipe his eyes again, his jaw clenched, his face taut as he nodded, as if listening to something Revik was saying.

  Whatever it was, no one but the two of them could hear.

  52

  BLOOD

  TENZI CROUCHED AGAINST a rock outcropping on the north side of Ship Rock, frowning faintly as he gazed north of a faintly brightening horizon.

  It was just before sunrise.

  A black fly buzzed lazily around him, getting a jump on the day’s heat, annoying him, evading his hand when he swatted at it to keep it away. It never landed, but seemed to hang around his ear, zooming away only to zoom back and annoy him all over again.

  Swatting at it and missing again, he lowered his binoculars, squinting as he tried to make out the long line of red dust with his naked eyes. Raising the organic lenses again, he watched that faint line rising along the length of the horizon, far northwest of the jagged rock formation.

  It was still north of the canyon above the plain where Ship Rock stood.

  It was barely visible, even through the binocs, but he could have sworn it had already grown bigger.

  The dust cloud appeared to be growing, and there was little wind.

  Throughout the night, they’d been monitoring the progress of the Myther Army using infrared, mainly via flyers, since satellites images weren’t as clear at night.

  It was different to see it in person.

  It was different to see it outside the caves, without the distancing intervention of virtual reality, or even just regular digital recordings––even using long-range binocs.

  Touching his ear, Tenzi spoke into his headset.

  “Visual confirmation.” He spoke low despite the distance between him and the approaching dark mass. “Confirms satellite estimates of numbers. Roughly one hundred miles out. They’ve slowed somewhat, so probably a few hours before they reach us.” Pausing, he added, “You might want to tell brother Wreg they’re about sixty miles from the first marker.”

  A female voice rose in his ear.

  “Any sign of flyers?” Chinja said. “Theirs, I mean. Anything they could be masking from our electronics? We haven’t seen much in the sky that hasn’t tracked back to us. The boss said they had a lot of that kind of thing in Rome.”

  Tenzi scanned the horizon with the organic binocs, using motion detection settings to look for anything he might have missed in the air.

  “I don’t see anything. But they’re still pretty far out.” Frowning, he thought about that. “That’s strange though, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t they send scouts ahead, like we did? If they’re piggybacking on supplies from the Rebel and human militaries, as well as whatever Menlim had stockpiled, they should have enough flyers to blanket the skies with them.”

  “It is strange,” Chinja admitted. “Boss doesn’t like it.”

  Tenzi nodded, agreeing silently with the boss.

  He swatted at the black fly, missing it again.

  Raising the binoculars, he squinted at the horizon broken by cliffs on either side. He watched the line of dust, seeing it change shape as it conformed to the shape of the land.

  It definitely looked bigger.

  He still couldn’t see the line of vehicles and people, but he knew it was only a matter of time now that the sun was starting to peek over the horizon. Pausing on something he saw to his right, high up on one of the nearer cliffs, he used the touch ring to zoom in.

  Once he got a bead on what he was seeing, he cursed.

  Checking the cliffs on the other side, he lowered the organic binocs to his lap.

  “I think they have seer hounds,” he told Chinja, touching his ear and thought-sending a sequence of numbers. “Send flyers to the coordinates I just transmitted to confirm. They sent them ahead. They’re coming at us from the cliffs, not the ground, but they should still arrive ahead of the main force.”

  Frowning, still squinting through the binocs, he added, “They likely gave them an alternate approach to avoid our surveillance. They’re fucking loaded with organics.”

  “How many?”

  “A few dozen from the motion detectors. I would expect that number to be highly conservative, though. It’s doubtful I’m seeing all of them.”

  “Diggers?” she said. “What kind of organics do you see on them?”

  “I don’t have enough visual detail to confirm.” He tilted his head in a sideways shrug without lowering the binoculars. “But probably. It makes sense, right?”

  “All right. Hold for a minute.”

  Silence fell over the line.

  The fly buzzed around him again, and he swatted at it, frowning.

  Chinja’s voice rose after only a few seconds.

  “You’d better come down here,” she said. “Boss’s worried you might be in the line of fire, in the event they send missiles ahead to soften the ground. Now that we’ve got visuals confirmed, you can’t do much up there now, anyway. He wants you to––”

  Tenzi’s hand finally connected with the buzzing fly.

  An explosion tore through the dawn light.

  It blew a hole in the stone outcropping where he’d crouched, sending a small avalanche of rock and debris down the side of the craggy formation that was Ship Rock. A ring of blood and body parts was thrown dozens of feet up and down the side of the cliff.

  When the dust settled, the place where Tenzi had knelt, gazing at the horizon, was gone.

  All that remained was a section of scorched and stained red and yellow rock.

  In the sky above rose a thick, mushrooming cloud of black smoke.

  CHEERS ROSE IN the Humvee where Deifilius rode.

  He didn’t lose his grin even when the big tires hit another rock, bumping him up towards the ceiling, but not high enough to hit.

  He continued to smile, looking back at his men as they hooted, laughing and clapping on another on the back as they pointed at the line of black smoke. Deifilius heard them cheering over his headset as well, up and down the line their army cut through these heathen and savage lands, raising dust like dried blood.

  That red-tinted dust now struck him as symbolic.

  First blood had been drawn.

  First blood had been drawn, and it had been on the enemy’s side, not theirs.

  He watched the cloud of black smoke go up, even as he spoke into the headset he wore.

  “Send the diggers in,” he said, his voice holding a thread of his satisfaction. “We’ve confirmed no weapons or soldiers outside the underground structure, so we need the hounds to get digging as soon as possible. We are told most of it is solid rock.”

  His voice rose, growing more sonorous when he added,

  “It is likely they will hide down there, brothers and sisters, like the vermin they are. It is equally likely they will have that dark minion and traitor, the Bridge, working on opening the door they managed to hide from us. We are told this door is deep––too deep for our bombs. We must go after them patiently, with purpose and purity in our hearts. We cannot afford to have any of their leaders escape, other than through the glorious release of death.”

  His words turned grim, carrying an open warning.

  “My friends, do not underestimate this enemy, despite how weak and cowardly they might seem, or how small their numbers compared to our own. Remember, they have the mighty Syrimne d’Gaos with them. Corrupted though his heart may be, by his duplicitous whore of a w
ife, he is a skilled warrior, trained by our own master and the archangels we serve. Moreover, through deception and the Dark Lord’s tricks, they managed to keep this door hidden from us, so their sorcerous tricks are strong. We must pray hard, and fight hard, to ensure our Lord God is triumphant over evil in the end.”

  A silence fell after he spoke.

  Deifilius could almost feel his people realigning with their guiding spirits as he spoke.

  He felt them now, praying to their God, offering their fealty, their very souls to the angel armies who protected this world.

  They were the chosen people.

  They were the guardians of the true inheritors of the race.

  They were the guardians on Earth of the One True God.

  Renewed determination filled his heart at the faith he saw and felt in his own followers. He felt once more humbled at the honor, the responsibility he had been given by not only his own people, but by the silver angels who spoke to him from above.

  “What about the mini-drones?” his driver asked from his left. “The stingers? The tech team wants to know if they should release more of them? Perhaps to guard the hounds?”

  Still looking up into the beauty of those silver, twining strands, Deifilius nodded.

  “Yes.”

  He continued to watch the silver lights, looking for some sign he was wrong, that he should take an alternate route. Seeing none, he nodded again, adding,

  “…Yes, my friend. Release them all. I want them finding ways into that devil’s lair, in addition to guarding the hounds. I want them to find the door, and to do what they can to distract and disrupt the Bridge’s attempts to open it. It will likely take some time for our diggers to break through. The stingers will keep them off-balance and panicked. At best, we might succeed at cutting the evil at its roots, and eliminating the threat where it was birthed.”

  His second-in-command’s voice rose in his ear, a deep-throated purr in Italian.

  “Should we soften the ground first, sir?” Gregorio asked.

  His rough voice was reverent, filled with glorious purpose. At the same time, it matched his career military background, and his still thickly-muscled body.

  Gregorio added, “It might make sense to send the diggers and stingers in after. If the ground is hard, as you say, perhaps a little softening can give our mechanical servants something of a head start?”

  Deifilius thought about his words.

  When his mind didn’t produce a concrete answer, he closed his eyes, asking the silvery angels that swam over his head.

  They answered him.

  Deifilius opened his eyes.

  “Yes,” he said, smiling in satisfaction. “Yes, brother Gregorio. I believe that is a most excellent suggestion. Please proceed.”

  “I live to serve the One True God,” Gregorio intoned. “And you, Brother Deifilius.”

  Deifilius only smiled.

  He loved the faith and loyalty of his people more than words could express.

  Bouncing along in the Humvee, he shifted his eyes to the horizon, and to the craggy, malformed rock that stuck out in the middle of the desert. To his eyes, seen through the light of those silver strands, it looked like an obscene gesture of defiance to the Light.

  These people defiled everything they touched.

  They lived only to corrupt and darken everything they touched––to spit in the face of his God, his people, his holy mission here. They were nothing but filth, living darkness.

  But that was as it should be, too.

  Deifilius had been chosen to rid the Earth of their corruption.

  He would take great pleasure in smashing these cowardly terrorists. In particular, he fully intended to oversee and witness the burning of the Whore of Babylon in the righteousness of his God’s warriors’ holy flames.

  It was his duty.

  It would also be his greatest joy.

  He could think of no greater blessing than to witness the final erasure of God’s enemies from the face of the Earth by his own and God’s hand.

  “TENZI?” CHINJA SHOUTED into the line. “TENZI! Answer me, brother!”

  Jon glanced over at her, frowning.

  He exchanged looks with Wreg when she raised her voice, yelling into the line.

  “TENZI! Brother! Are you there? Did something happen?”

  Garend and Holo looked over as well, frowns on their faces as they raised their eyes from the console they both hung over.

  Dante had reconfigured their visuals in the past half-hour. They had so many drones and satellites looking at the approaching army now, she set up an array of virtual screens showing the different angles and vantage points to most of the room.

  Jon glanced at images sent from a high-flying drone that showed rows and rows of armored vehicles kicking up lines of red dust along the length of the valley floor.

  It looked like a slow-moving storm rolling towards them across the desert.

  “Something’s wrong.” Chinja’s eyes were wide as she stared around at all of them, fear emanating off her light. She met Jon’s gaze, then Wreg’s. “I heard something. It sounded like an explosion. Do we have a drone near us? We need to get eyes on the lookout shelf on the north side. Right now, before––”

  A booming sound echoed above.

  It was loud, seemingly right overhead. It shook the cave walls, bringing a light shower of silt through small cracks in the rock.

  Jon didn’t realize he’d ducked down until the sound started to roll past.

  He found himself near the cave floor in a crouch, breathing hard, arms out, eyes glued to the ceiling. It didn’t occur to him until then that he’d expected the whole cave to collapse from the sheer volume of the sound.

  Still breathing hard, he looked at Wreg.

  His husband assumed more or less the same pose he did. He also stared up at the ceiling and walls, as if assessing their structural integrity.

  When he glanced down, he gave Jon a grim look.

  “We’re damned lucky this is carved out of rock,” he said. “And not dirt.”

  The next explosion had them ducking down again.

  That time, the barrage didn’t let up for a long-feeling number of minutes.

  Explosions pounded the earth above, shaking the walls and floor, throwing humans and seers to the ground. A few screamed, coughing in the falling dust. Jon saw Dante gripping hold of one of the stone pillars, her face white as chalk, with Vikram crouched down over her, shielding her from falling debris. Near them, Jaden panted and ducked, holding up an arm as he half-hid under one of the rock shelves they’d been using for the consoles.

  For a while, most of those explosions felt like they came from straight overhead.

  Then Jon began hearing more to his left and right. The second barrage was clearly still hitting close by, but now somewhat to the north, west, or south of their current position. He crouched through all the secondary hits, too, listening, heart pounding in his chest as he assessed the cave walls and ceilings, bracing for a collapse.

  The structure held.

  He could feel Wreg reacting even more strongly next to him.

  Halfway through, those reactions grew so intense, Jon reached for him, sending pulses of his light to the Chinese seer, trying to calm him and reassure him the only way he knew how.

  While not as claustrophobic as Revik by a long shot, Wreg wasn’t a huge fan of confined spaces during wartime, either. Wreg grumbled it was “those fucking submarines” from World War I that did it to him, a fact Allie still found funny for some reason, at least in the abstract.

  Jon strongly suspected she wouldn’t be laughing about it now.

  Looking around, he realized Revik was no longer in the room. He remembered the Elaerian had gone to the secondary comp room with Cass, Dalejem, Chandre and a few others.

  The booming, thunderous sounds continued, shaking the ground and walls, sending down cascades of silt and red sand, making them cough when the air got thick with red dust. Jon saw a number
of cracks in the rock walls appear and grow wider. At least one he watched widened from a hairline crack in one of the pillars to the width of his smallest finger.

  So far, most of those cracks appeared on the walls and pillars, not the rock-slab ceiling.

  Jon honestly had no idea if that was the good news or bad.

  “Depends how many times they hit us,” Wreg said, half-shouting over another barrage that shook the walls. He switched to Jon’s mind. They’ll have eyes into these caves soon. The humans and their construct can fool their seers, but they can’t fool their machines. Let’s hope our young cousin, Dante, can do better.

  Looking at him, Jon nodded, even as he gripped the big seer’s hand.

  The rumbles were beginning to die down.

  Jon heard one more explosion, but at a slight distance.

  After that, it grew strangely quiet.

  The coughing and murmur of voices grew louder as the silence stretched.

  People began picking themselves off the floor. Most were difficult to identify at first, since everyone was now covered in the same layer of fallen red powder. That powder obscured faces, eyebrows, clothes, shoes, even hair color. A few started brushing off the coating of red dust, coughing to get it out of their mouths, noses and lungs.

  The dust began to swirl and then settle onto the floor of the cave.

  Wreg grabbed Jon’s arm, sending a pulse of warmth.

  Thank you, ilyo, he sent, along with a second, hotter sliver of heat and love. Thank you.

  Jon smiled, kissing his mouth and tasting more of the red dust. The big seer climbed back to his feet, his brow furrowed as he surveyed the damage around them.

  The virtual screens still projected views of the outside on the cave wall, but now those projections were obscured by swirling dust. Walking closer to those screens, Wreg gazed over the line of images depicting the army. It was hard to make out details with all the dust in the air, distorting and swirling through the images, but Wreg was clearly looking for something.

  His dark eyes scanned through the lineup, even as his scowl deepened.

  Whatever he’d wanted to look at, he wasn’t finding it. Turning his head, he gazed around at the humans and seers still picking themselves up off the floor.