by Swanson, Jay
Food supplies had been cut by a tenth already, and by the end of the week the team was certain that they could reduce it to half. The effect would be felt in the belly of every Elandrian within a matter of weeks at the latest.
The combination of the three attacks would result in a cascade effect of disaster for Merodach. The electrical disruptions provided some instant irritation, and, if maintained, would begin to frustrate and infuriate the population if not dealt with effectively. When their sewage began to back up, no one would be left truly unaffected, and then the price for food would skyrocket seemingly out of nowhere, and the tinderbox of revolution would be ready for his spark. They would walk onto that perfectly-set stage and wrest power from Merodach before a people who wanted to do nothing less themselves.
The Hunters with him were eager to get the job done, and what meant most to him was that they actually believed in him. At times he felt like he was the last person on earth they should be putting their trust in, but he knew that what they were doing was right. They needed to put Merodach away. If Keaton wasn't going to do it, and do it properly, he was afraid that it wouldn't happen at all. Or worse, that it would end in a civil war. True revolution was not the goal, but rather a readiness for the necessary change in leadership. Nothing more.
One of his men returned from the inside near the end of their meeting. He looked odd to Keaton in his plain clothes, especially in contrast to the uniformed men around them.
“Sir,” he said as he dropped to a knee to catch his breath. “We've made contact with Phelts.”
“Already?” Keaton had expected it to take days to get through to him.
“He's been waiting for us to arrive, it seems.”
“What did he say?”
“He wants to meet.” The Hunter looked back up at Keaton. “Tonight.”
“Tonight?” Keaton looked at Saltman, who shrugged, before turning back to the Hunter. “Where? Can we trust him?”
“He's headed to an abandoned farmhouse just east of us. He said to meet him in an hour.”
Saltman stood up. “At least he's willing to meet you half way.”
Keaton thought on it for a minute before he stood. “Alright, the rest of you get to it. We don't have time to waste. Saltman, you come with us. I don't want to be the only one who knows what's going on.”
“Sir.” Saltman saluted, followed by the other four Hunters in the room.
They made their way east immediately, Keaton not wanting to waste any time. He needed to return to his own plans with the sewers of Elandir. This was more important though, and he knew it. He just wasn't sure what to expect when he met the man.
The farmhouse stood dark against the dusk that set before it. Keaton could scarcely believe it wasn't a trap set and ready for him. He motioned for Saltman and the plainclothes Hunter to circle around and clear the perimeter before he continued on towards the front door. The path that ran from the dirt road was ill-maintained, much the same as the yard and house itself. Spindly brown grasses reached out towards him as he made his approach. The second story of the square structure sagged on one side; the whole thing looked like it might topple in a stiff breeze.
He walked up the steps carefully, the warped boards creaking dully under his weight. The door was already half open, but Keaton took his time entering the house. The darkness of night was almost all-consuming now, and he jumped when he heard his name spoken from the room to his left.
“I've been waiting only a few minutes. I'm impressed.”
“Who's there?” Keaton said dumbly, mentally slapping his forehead even as he said it.
“Phelts.” A silhouette appeared from the darkness to shake his hand. “I've heard a lot about you, Anders. May I call you Anders?”
“Sure,” Keaton said as he shook the man's hand.
Phelts' wire rim glasses fell down his nose slightly during the exchange, and he had to take a moment to adjust them before he motioned back into the house. “I don't think anyone will mind if we take a seat.”
Saltman and the other Hunter were coming through the back door as they entered the kitchen. Phelts pulled out a rusted metal chair from the low table and sat before he realized that they weren't joining him. “Is there a problem?”
“Did you come alone?” Keaton had to work to keep the edge out of his voice. As important as this man would be to the future of Elandir, he was having a hard time imagining him taking control of the government. He was brave to come out here, that much was certain, but he looked far too much like an accountant to inspire Keaton's faith.
“Yes.” Phelts looked from one man to the next. “I'd rather not risk drawing suspicion. It's easier to slip out by yourself, and I've been surveying the damage to the city for quite some time. No one will ask any questions.”
“You know why we wanted to meet?” Keaton asked as he took a seat.
“For the same reasons I wanted to meet with you, I'm sure.”
“Merodach...” Keaton let the silence linger for a moment.
“Must go.” Phelts nodded. “It's not a mystery, Major Anders. Do I use your rank?”
“Anders alone is fine,” Keaton said. “Why must he go, Phelts?”
“Quinn, please.” Quinn Phelts pushed his glasses back up his nose. “If for no other reason than the fact that he's driving our city into the ground with a prejudice. It's no more difficult than the math, but there are moral and ethical reasons he must go as well. He has become a form of dictator, and the worst form to boot.”
“What happens if we help you get rid of Merodach?” Keaton sat back in the creaking chair as the other two Hunters stood back.
“Oh, you'll help me on that in any case,” Phelts looked at each of them flittingly. “Of that I'm certain. You see in him as much of a danger as I do, and even if you don't catalyze the reactions, they will be happening soon enough. The people are closer to revolt than even Merodach is aware. All they need is a final push, and those uncommitted few will be galvanized to our cause.”
“Then why do you need us?”
“For the same reason you need me.” Phelts pushed his glasses back up his nose again. “Stability. If it wasn't for you, the militia that's forming underground would take some form of martial law into their own hands when the cards fell. I don't want blood running in the streets. Similarly, without me, you have no one with even a breath of legitimacy to put in Merodach's place once you remove him. No one you would want to, in any case.
“Using the agitation of the people to legitimize our coup is good, but we cannot allow that agitation to fester into something more sinister. Into violence, or chaos. I've been thinking on this for quite some time, Anders. There's a reason I supplied the plans to the city to your men long before they even knew they would need them. Because I knew I would need you.”
The next night, Keaton packed his gear and set out with his own team. His meeting with Phelts had gone too late into the night for him to continue to carry out his plan afterward. He hoped that his patience would pay off.
As they set out, the burns and cuts from the week before ached against his armor. They were healing well enough and hardly interrupted his thoughts over his conversation with Phelts. He wouldn't have stayed behind in any case, even if his wounds had been worse; he needed to be with his men. His first impressions of the finance minister seemed to be wrong. Phelts was clever, and obviously strong enough to get as far as he had. He fit the bill of what they needed perfectly, and Keaton knew their fates were now conjoined.
Now they needed to give the city that one final push towards revolt. His first order of business was to interrupt the flow of treated water from the plant to the Elandris. The Loop, which ran under the walls of the city, was where they dumped used water as it flowed out and away from the city.
Three large pipes that ran underground opened directly into the river, if the drawings Keaton had were correct. Two were almost two yards in diameter, easily large enough to swim up. Thankfully Saltman had stashed supplies for nearl
y every type of operation imaginable, including tactical diving gear. They made their way around the city walls, avoiding roads and sticking to the lower terrain as best they could. The port stood off in the north to their right, along the broad banks of the Elandris itself. That could be another good place to cause trouble. He made a mental note for later.
Only about two miles of the Loop actually ran through Elandir; the heavy grates in the water were meant to keep anything save water and fish from entering. But with the right cutting tools, he could get in easily enough.
As they came closer to the walls, he breathed a sigh of relief. The section of wall they would be passing under stood dark; the electrical team had taken the lights out up top possibly only hours before. He was grateful; approaching the walls with the lights on would have been extremely risky. The thought of the massive guns mounted hundreds of feet above chilled him in the late winter air. The snow underneath their feet crunched lightly as they moved; this was going to be a cold night.
Only two of the other Hunters were suited up to do the dive. The rest were tasked with maintaining their escape route. He would take them in through one of the large pipes to where it joined with the smaller one in an underground station. There was a gas line that ran through that station, and that was where they would set a small charge, just enough to collapse and block both water lines. If done properly it would look like the gas line had corroded and erupted in the small space. Even if it didn't pass for an accident, the sabotage would only serve to heighten suspicions and fear once discovered.
If everything went smoothly, the whole team would be well away from the walls by the time it went off. No one should ever suspect them; no one had any reason to, in any case. Lucius. The name flitted into Keaton's thoughts. What did he ever tell Merodach once he discovered I had gone missing?
Suddenly that felt like a very large hole that Keaton had never fully plugged. It was too late to be thinking about it now, however; he had a mission to accomplish.
And then the lights turned back on.
Keaton hit the ground instantly, throwing himself into the low foliage that grew on the island within the Loop. His men did the same, disappearing instantly into the snow. Keaton waited for what felt an age, but nothing happened. The lights had been restored too quickly. Something was awry. The question of whether to abandon the mission or not rose to the top of his thoughts, but he shoved it away. Time was too important not to take some risk. He hissed at his men in the harshly-lit shrubs, and began to crawl slowly for the riverbank.
The slope down to the Loop was devoid of any cover, but quickly darkened into shadow as it dropped. Soon he was at the water's edge, his men slithering silently behind him. He put on his underwater breathing mask and turned on the air. There was little to say; everyone knew the objective and the lay of the mission. More to the point, there was no desire to make noise at all for fear of discovery. Keaton floated himself into the water, followed by the gentle sloshing of the two Hunters accompanying him. He checked his bag one final time for the explosive charge, glanced at his gauges, patted the knife and pistol on his leg and hip, then dropped under the surface.
The water was frigid. It would take a few minutes for his special underwater suit to radiate his own body heat back to him. Until then he would have to fight to control his movements. The extra hundred yards of swimming should help him loosen up at least. They reached the grate and pulled themselves down to its base in the muddy bottom of the river. The one benefit to the lights being on, he reasoned, was that the underwater torch would draw less attention with the glimmering reflection on the surface. At least he could hope as much.
They didn't cut much, just enough space to swim through. The Hunter with the welding torch was called Grimes, if he recalled correctly. The man cut from the top down, making a circle in the mesh of metal. Before he completed it he tied the top section off with plastic cords, so as to keep from leaving any obvious hole. There wasn't much chance of it being seen in any case, but better safe than sorry. He finished cutting and pulled the metal up towards himself, holding it open for the other two to swim through.
Keaton helped him follow, then made for the pipes. They were only another forty yards along on the southern shore of the Loop. He could feel the temperature difference as the new, warmer current rushed out to meet them. They made their way into the nearest pipe, the breadth of the opening giving them plenty of room to enter without fear of banging the sides. This part would be slow going, however, as the pressure coming down the pipe was significantly stronger than the current in the loop. He checked the gauge on his wrist, wanting to make sure they hadn't reached the halfway point on their oxygen yet. The trip back would be faster, but he didn't want to take any unnecessary risks with their air.
This would be a quick job, he had told them. In and out. The lights on the walls were eating at him, however. Perhaps they hadn't been taken out by the electrical team in the end; they could have been cycling the stations to test their repairs. That brought a new worry for that team, and now his team, who lay out in the frozen reeds along the banks of the loop. The men stationed at the mounted guns on top of the wall were almost guaranteed to shoot first under the current circumstances. Getting out of the city without being noticed should be easy. Working their way back to the Elandris under the lights from above would be another issue altogether.
He just wanted to get to the junction ahead now and take out his mouthpiece. There were already too many variables in play. It took them another five minutes of hard swimming to cover ground that would barely take them one on the way back out. When they finally saw lights above them, they sought out the ladders along the wall and rose in unison with their guns at their shoulders. No one presented themselves, so Keaton pulled himself up and onto the concrete slab in front of him. He was breathing hard, but the protests of his wounds had all been silenced by the freezing water.
The room was far larger than the blueprints had detailed. Dozens of pipes ran in here, pouring water into the main channel from what must have been multiple sources. The air smelt of dank ammonia, the sweet smell not fully removed from the murky water. If they were able to block this up effectively, water might even back up into the streets. It would work well. Too well... he realized as he pulled the explosive out of his waterproof bag. If this water hadn't been treated already, it could easily spread disease throughout the city.
It was too late for thoughts like that, however. The mission at hand outweighed the consequences, foreseen or no. He wandered ten feet before he saw the thick gas line running behind a concrete beam overhead. His men moved ahead of him, scanning the area to ensure they were alone.
“Room's a lot bigger than I thought it would be,” said the one whose name he couldn't remember.
“Long too,” Grimes said as he turned on the flashlight on his rifle to peer farther into the darkness. “Thought this was just a junction for two pipes, not the runoff for half the city.”
Keaton set the charge for twenty minutes, plenty of time to disappear. “Let's just hope it moves things along even faster for it.”
“Can't argue with that,” said the other Hunter.
“Sir...” Grimes's voice had gone flat. Then it got quiet. “Can you join me up here, sir?”
Keaton's nerves sparked at the tone in his voice; he knew that tone, even if this man was new to him. The other Hunter covered the exit as he moved forward to join Grimes. He was a big man with broad shoulders, which left Keaton feeling like he had to strain just to see around him. The gurgling and splashing of water gave way slowly to a deeper rumbling noise he recognized from somewhere else.
“What is it?” Keaton crouched and peered around his stone-still soldier.
“There, sir.” Grimes's voice was barely above a hoarse whisper.
And now Keaton understood why. Moving silently in the darkness and spreading into the pipes that ran under the whole city were hundreds of low, black-haired creatures. Each seemed to be moving farther up the large se
wer tunnel slowly, as if uncertain of how to proceed in the water. They looked like they could have been large mountain cats. But Keaton knew better, as did the knot forming in his stomach. The rumbling grew slowly as they began to turn and notice the soldiers.
Keaton reached silently for Grimes's light, shutting it off before signaling the retreat.
“We need to go,” he whispered. “Now.”
“What are they sir?”
“Woads.”
THIRTEEN
ARDIN VITALIS SAT IN THE MIDDLE OF YET MORE CARNAGE, UNABLE TO STOP YET ANOTHER PERSON HE CARED FOR FROM LEAVING HIM. The Fisherman, Cid, was gone. Ardin yelled at first, then cried, the earth shaking around him in response; but now he found himself unable to move. Unable to emote. He simply stared out of bloodshot eyes at the broken corpse of one of the greatest men he had ever known. He had never actually thought this moment was possible, and yet the Cleaver sat feet away from its master, glinting dully through tar-like blood as through a shroud of mourning.
Ardin's hands refused to move, hovering just above the Fisherman, clenching invisible clumps of his fury. His grief would overcome him, that was what he feared now. In the face of the greatest challenge he could ever endure, the one person who had never given up on him was gone. His protector. His friend. The Fisherman had been willing to give his life; now he had given it.
Ardin only grew more tense with every passing moment, his howls of anger silenced only by the tightness in his throat and an unwillingness to move. Memories of his family, of Caspian and Alisia all came rushing over him. The words of the wraith in the asylum entered his mind, accusing him again of leading everyone he loved to their deaths.
