by Jack Conner
He shouted a few words to his soldiers and marched into the throng of zombies and assorted beasts that skulked about this side of the chamber. Some leered at him; others showed respect. He didn’t care. He cut through their ranks confidently, at last entering into the circle where the two large blackened thrones (made entirely of bone) sat side by side … and upon them, the Balaklava.
“You made good time,” said Junger.
“Thanks.” Now that he was here, Raulf’s confidence faltered, and he found himself at a loss for words. The truth was that he didn’t know how to treat the assassins—with courtesy, diplomacy or command.
Jagoda was playing with an old burlap sack that appeared to be stained all over with blood, some fresh. Raulf allowed himself a moment to wonder about its contents but decided not to fall for the bait.
“Why didn’t your Mistress come herself?” asked the bearded one.
“You’ll have to ask her that. Last I heard you two had raped her and torn off her wings, and now you’re allies?”
“She hasn’t explained that, yet?”
“As a matter of fact, she hasn’t. I’m on a need-to-know basis, it seems.”
“Yes,” murmured Jagoda, his eyes still focused on the burlap sack. A gleam stole into his bloodshot eyes and he threw the sack to Junger. The tusked one received the load, tossed it up in the air a few times and laughed. Just beneath the laughter, Raulf would’ve sworn that he heard a muffled screaming or yelling coming from the sack itself.
Tired of the charade, he said, “What’s in the damned bag?”
“You really want to know?” Junger said.
“Is it pertinent to the reason why I’m here?”
“Not really. Nevertheless ...” Junger reached into the bloody sack and pulled forth the living head of a black-haired man, grasping it by its filthy hair. “Laslo, meet the good captain of Liberty, Raulf D’Aguila. Raulf, meet the man that saved my life: the Chalgid Laslo.”
The head spat something that sounded like “Sinners!”, and both the Balaklava laughed.
“He can’t really talk,” explained Jagoda, “but he’s adapted to his new position to the point that he’s grown cute little lungs at the bottom of his neck. Look closely, there they are. Precious! And right behind that? That’s the spinal cord. He keeps trying to grow it so he can reform himself, but then he wouldn’t make much of a basketball, would he? No, we can’t have that.”
“What the hell is it?” Raulf said.
Junger gashed one side of Laslo’s face with his tusks. The head screamed, a tiny sound that sent cold fingers down Raulf’s back. He didn’t care who this Laslo was, but surely the poor bastard didn’t deserve this.
“He’s our jester,” answered Junger. “What, you don’t like him?”
“Back to the reason why I’m here.”
“Oh,” Jagoda said, running a dark hand through his dreadlocks. “We haven’t forgotten. You wanted the use—or misuse—of some of our children, didn’t you?”
“Don’t play games. You know what this is all about.”
“Subaire. That whole thing.”
“Right. Now ... your zombies?”
“They’ll be waiting for you at the mouth of the Labyrinth.”
Raulf scowled. “Why not here, damn it? That was the deal.”
“Deals change. You requested some zombies, but you want it on your terms—or Malie’s, as the case may be. This is just a way of showing that favors we grant are predisposed to being altered, if we so choose.”
Raulf didn’t belabor the issue. He was sick of the power games Malie and the Balaklava had been playing with each other, but he accepted that the zombies would be waiting for him.
“Thank you,” he made himself say. “Malie and I appreciate your participation.”
“Leaving so soon, Captain?”
“With all due respect, I’m running behind as it is.”
The Balaklava bowed their heads, smiling broadly.
“Thanks for the visit,” said Jagoda.
“And come again soon,” added Junger.
Before they could start tossing that miserable head back and forth again, Captain D’Aguila swiveled smartly and, as quick as diplomacy would allow, made a beeline for the other side of the chamber.
Chapter 12
The station on top of the mountain, referred to as the Red Light Outpost, wasn’t quite what Ruegger had expected.
The building squatted, a low structure made of red bricks weathered by their many years, with a small, thick tower rising from it, from which the red light shone. A skin of white covered both the roof of the tower and its base, lending the scene a feeling of tranquility—a feeling somewhat undermined by the small group of soldiers loitering around the door.
Once they recognized Ruegger and the other newcomers, they moved out from the shelter of the outpost, huddling their shoulders against the wind.
“Greetings,” one of them said, yelling to make himself heard over the roar of the updrafts. “You’re Lord Ruegger and Jean-Pierre? Yes, you’re expected. Please, go inside. The others are already here.”
“Very well,” Ruegger said. The others in his group looked at him expectantly, as if he should be the one to lead the way. He wasn’t sure if he liked that or not, but the cold was starting to creep into even his bones and he was anxious to get indoors. “Okay, let’s go.”
The first room they came to looked to be a barracks of some sort, with perhaps forty cots arranged in neat rows. Everything seemed sterile and military, but Ruegger was comforted by a low throbbing that indicated a heater. As feeling returned to his fingers and ears, he welcomed the sudden warmth. Only a few bulbs lit the room; the only real illumination came from a single torch set into a threshold on the far side of the chamber.
Ruegger and the others crossed to the far corridor and glanced around uncertainly, unsure of which direction to go. They followed the sounds of voices to a cluster of soldiers guarding a door. The soldiers turned toward the group.
“Declare yourselves, please.”
“I’m Ruegger.”
“Good to meet you, sir. Lords Mauchlery, Kharker, and Sarnova are waiting for you inside. Please, enter. Oh—and good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Ruegger glanced at Danielle, who shrugged, and led the way into the guarded room. While the barracks had been neat and orderly, this chamber, a bit smaller, was in complete disarray. Tables laden with maps and diagrams and various papers looked so burdened that they might collapse. Busy soldiers and Council-members ran about, staring at computer monitors, entering reports and conferring with each other tensely.
The air in the room carried a musty odor, as if this place hadn’t been put to such use in quite awhile. As for lighting, there were only the computer monitors and the starlight that flooded the room from the opposite side, where the sliding door to a balcony had been opened. It was on this balcony that Ruegger spied Roche Sarnova and the other lords.
The quartet slipped through the tumult of the room, reached the sliding door and stepped onto the balcony.
“Nice of you to join us,” said Sarnova.
Ruegger already missed the warmth from indoors. “How’s the operation coming?”
“The Libbies haven’t come out of their hole, yet, but our boys are in position—or at least they should be by now—just as you described. More or less. For some of the placements, we couldn’t spare the manpower to position as many men as you wanted.”
“I thought we had an understanding, Roche. We need all those men, more if you could spare them; I thought I made that clear.”
The Dark Lord frowned. “Ruegger, you yourself said they might be expecting this. What if they choose this opportunity to come blasting up out of the catacombs into the castle? We couldn’t risk it. I had to place a substantial number of soldiers down there, just in case.”
“If we didn’t have the manpower, we shouldn’t have started this operation in the first place.”
“We did what was necessary,” Mauchle
ry said. “Your plan is a good one, one that might just stop the coming war, but we had to weigh all the options, and we decided we couldn’t resist a sneak attack.”
Ruegger frowned. Without the number of men he’d suggested, this whole thing could turn into a disaster. Then again, he understood both Mauchlery’s and Sarnova’s fears and respected the two men. After all, they had planned far more battles than he had. He just had to trust their judgment. Slowly, he nodded, and the tension on the balcony eased.
Danielle stared at a human that stood, mute and seemingly vacuous, at Lord Kharker’s side.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
Kharker removed the cigar from his mouth, shared a look with both Mauchlery and Sarnova, and said, “Why, that’s Robby, our radio. Right now he’s under psychic influence, I’m afraid. He and several other mortals you must have passed through in the room back there are serving as our go-betweens.”
“Go-betweens?”
“We can’t use radios,” explained Mauchlery, his high brow furrowed. “Even if we sent encrypted signals, the Libertarians would know we’re out here—and for now, that’s our only advantage, that they don’t know we’re here.”
“Hopefully,” added Ruegger.
“Yes. That’s why the lights are out, so they can’t see us up here.”
“So you’re using humans?” Danielle said in voice that made it clear that she took this new twist as a personal betrayal. “Ruegger, I can’t believe you’d do this.”
“Dani, it was the only way. Trust me.”
“I don’t like this,” she said. “Not at all.”
Sophia rested a hand on the vampiress’s shoulder. “Calm down, honey. He’s just doing what’s necessary.”
“Yeah, well if we’re using humans as radios, what are the computers for?”
“To communicate with the Castle,” Sarnova answered.
“But human radios—why can’t Malie and Subaire communicate the same way? If they did that, they wouldn’t even have to meet at all.”
“They won’t do that,” Sarnova told her. “If they do meet, we’re assuming that it’s because they distrust each other, in addition to reestablishing their plan of attack. The latter they could do through radios, human or otherwise. No. Trust is the issue here, or at least that’s what we’re counting on. Acting under that assumption, as well as the assumption that Subaire and her soldiers have already arrived, she and Maleasoel will have to meet personally, or at least send high-ranking officials to meet on their behalf in order to dispel any such feelings. Communicating telepathically through a mortal wouldn’t provide such satisfaction, if you see what I mean. It all hinges on trust.”
“I still don’t like it,” she said, but she sounded resigned.
Jean-Pierre addressed the Dark Lord: “Have you been able to establish another link with the humans Malie’s keeping?”
“No. She or some of her mindbenders are blocking me out.” He paused, as if puzzling over something that had been troubling him. “It makes me wonder why they didn’t block me out before.”
“You mean … they could’ve lured us here?”
“It’s a possibility. But this is something we had to try. Prudence has its place, but sometimes you must take a chance. If we’re successful, we might thwart the coming attack—might, in fact, win the war. If we’re not, and this is a trap, then we’ll know soon enough. Either way, it’s a risk we have to take.” He looked pointedly at Ruegger. “Even if we had to spread our men a little thin to do it.”
For a moment, they all stood there staring down at the mountain and the valley beyond, and at the stars that winked between the ragged peaks of neighboring mounts. The wind roared, bringing with it the smell of ice and rock, and, far below, Ruegger spotted the small lake he and the Dark Lord had drunk from just a few days before. Just above it, set into the mountain ... if he leaned his head over the railing just so ... yes, there was the boulder that concealed the entrance of the Sabo. Where the Libertarians were.
Ruegger didn’t like fighting this way. Didn’t like distancing himself from a battle he himself had planned. He should be down there leading from the front. Of course, he knew he was needed up here. Just the same, he couldn’t help feeling that from up here the battle would look more like a glorified chess match than anything else. There was the boulder, the slope leading down to the meadow. At the far end of the meadow was where he estimated Subaire to be. And then, of course, the meadow sloped up on one side to greet the mountain—the rocks. The highland. That’s where the combat teams were hiding. The bait, the small units that waited underground outside the boulder and in the meadow around the lake, simply waited for the Libertarians to emerge from the boulder.
It was expected that the Libertarians would not leave the Sabo aboveground but would tunnel beneath the boulder so that if there were any watchers they wouldn’t be seen. The underground units would sense their vibrations, then cause vibrations of their own. The Libbies would pursue, and the bait teams would lead the Libbies to high ground, where the combat teams would attack.
“Now all we have to do is wait,” Kharker said.
“What’s the strategy, exactly?” asked Danielle. “Ruegger didn’t talk much about that.”
This time, it was Mauchlery who answered. “There are several units underground, in the general area of the Sabo’s rear entrance. We’ve assigned them numbers to distinguish them from the attack teams hidden in the rocks, who’ve been assigned Greek letters. The Units are our eyes and ears concerning the Libertarians’ movements; they’ll report to us telepathically through Robby here, and the other humans in the room back there. Also, the Units are our bait.”
“I don’t understand.”
Before the Ambassador could answer, Robby came to life.
“Unit Six reporting, sirs,” he announced.
“Proceed,” said Roche Sarnova.
“We’re receiving vibrations now ... coming from below the boulder.”
“Good. How far underground are they?”
“Um ... just far enough so that the boulder doesn’t collapse on them. Hold ... Yes, the Libbies are moving out, keeping a tight formation.”
“How many are in the group?”
“Hold ... About twenty, sirs. But their formation is tight. Makes it hard to tell for sure.”
A Councilman burst out onto the balcony and breathlessly turned to Sarnova. Then, correcting himself, he swiveled to face Mauchlery. “Units are reporting initial contact, sir.”
“So we’ve heard,” said the Ambassador. “Are all the Teams ready to pounce?”
“Yes, my lord. Almost.”
“Almost?”
“It’s almost done now, sir.”
“If the Libbies discover us before we’re in position ...”
“Yes, sir. They’ll be in position soon.”
“They’d better be.”
“Yes, sir. We’ve just had a message from Team Delta, inquiring as to how much force to use.”
“There have been no changes. Tell them to proceed as planned.”
The Councilman nodded and returned inside.
Lord Kharker patted Robby on the back. “Unit Six, you still there?”
“Yes, my lords. The Libbies are ... fanning out, sirs. Hold ... yes, we can read them clearer now ... about twenty-five, maybe thirty ... branching out in groups of ... three to five ... One is coming toward our position. Please advise.”
Mauchlery and Sarnova exchanged grim looks, then turned toward Ruegger.
“It’s your plan,” the Ambassador said. “You call this one.”
Ruegger had foreseen this eventuality, but in this instance there was little he could do until the attack teams were in position. If Unit Six moved, the Libertarians would feel their vibrations and the jig would be up, but if they stayed and were discovered, they would be killed—and still the jig would be up.
“Unit Six, hold your position,” he said.
“Yes, sirs. Holding ... the group is still coming
toward us ... three of them, I think ... coming closer ... closer ... about twenty feet away ... fifteen ... Hold. They’re still advancing, slower now ... still advancing ... their angle may take them right by us. Please advise.”
“How many men are in Unit Six?” Ruegger asked Sarnova.
“As I recall, you wanted five to a unit, just in case something like this happened. Unfortunately, we couldn’t spare the manpower, so there are only three—except in Six’s case. They report to us directly because they’re the closest to the Sabo, so they were allotted four.”
“Good.” Addressing Unit Six through Robby, Ruegger said, “Wait until you know for sure that they’re going to discover you. If they do, strike first, fast, silently, and incapacitate or kill all of them.”
“Acknowledged. Hold ... they’re less than ten feet from us, but still on a curve ... swinging by ... Hold. Now five feet, still curving ... curving ... Hold. They’re moving swiftly away. Hold ... they’ve stopped ... hold. Moving again ... Sirs, may I speak freely?”
“Proceed,” said Mauchlery.
“I think they suspect we’re here. That launch they just did ... it was like they were trying to flush something out. That’s why they fanned out to begin with, to see if they could force us to give ourselves away.”
“Of course, Sergeant. That’s why we have you down there, don’t forget. You’re supposed to be discovered.”
But not until our forces are in position, Ruegger amended silently. Damn, he hated this. Reports coming in from a mind-controlled human. A battlefield that he couldn’t even see. It made him sick. Robby’s voice sounded disembodied, and the battle to come seemed surreal, somehow insubstantial. Ruegger was just moving pieces on a board.
“Yes, sirs. Hold ... they’re circling again ... a broader circle this time ... moving around us ... curving ... curving ... coming toward us again ... I think they’re going to try another flush.”
“If so, then do as Lord Ruegger instructed. Strike fast, and silent.”
“Yes, sirs. They’re still circling ... their angle is taking them our way ... Hold ... Still coming closer ... fifteen feet ... ten ... closing ...”
