John Ringo - Council Wars 03 - Against the Tide

by Against the Tide(lit)

  Edmund let out a curse and activated his armor. He'd been saving the charge for desperate times and these seemed desperate enough. It began to glow blue and he felt the fatigue wash away as nannites scoured his body of toxins, enhancing his strength and speed. Not as good as the old days, when he'd first met the gunny and they'd been young idiots trying to bring some order to the shambles that was Anarchia. But good enough.

  * * *

  The general waved the archers forward to the parapet and looked over, searching for the UFS commander. It took him a moment to find him in the pile of bodies. Edmund was a blur. He appeared to have Gunny Rutherford over his back and was wading through the orcs as if they weren't there, headed for the right-hand bastion.

  "Ropes!" the general yelled, pointing to the remaining legionnaires. Some of them had gotten some movement room, if only because Edmund had killed everything in front of them. "Archers!"

  * * *

  The portals were metal set in concrete blocks. They were well stabilized but six or eight Blood Lords could generally push one down.

  Lieutenant Sivula stepped back and brushed his hands together, just as there was a thump from underneath the fallen portal.

  "That's gotta hurt," he said, wincing. For the orcs that had been running through the portals, it had to be like running face first into a brick wall. However, the blocks left a certain amount of space underneath and he could see hands starting to scrabble around the edges. "Ah, weel, now, that's not on," he muttered drawing his sword and stabbing under the gate. He was rewarded with a howl and smiled. "Sorry!"

  Chapter Thirty-five

  "Oh. shit," Conner said as the last portal was tipped over. He could see figures swarming over the south wall, where the orcs, attacked from in front and behind, were running around uselessly. Speaking of useless, the last of the main force was just about through the north gate and they were being followed by a line of legionnaires. He could picture what was going to happen in his mind's eye. They'd take the gate, shut it, and then the New Destiny force would be trapped on the outside, caught between two legions.

  "Indirect approach," Rachel said. "Strike where your enemy is vulnerable. Gotta hand it to Daddy. If you don't, he'll take it anyway."

  "Right," Conner said, his face firming. "We're out of here."

  "What?" General Kossin snapped. "Just like that?"

  "Just like that," Conner said. "You can handle the rest. You've still got more forces than the legionnaires. But Miss Ghorbani and I are out of here. Roc. Bring her."

  * * *

  Rachel stumbled forward at a hard shove and looked over her shoulder at the elf-thing.

  "I'm going, I'm going," she muttered, following Conner down the stairs. His tent was in the northeast quadrant, which was still free of UFS forces. She looked around, desperately, but he was careful to avoid the Blood Lords headed for the gate. He had his back to her but she could see the glitter of a personal protection field. She touched her chest and grimaced, looking to the west where she knew safety lay. Only a few meters. Only a few.

  "Don't," Roc growled, touching her in the back. "Go."

  She looked down one of the streets of tents and saw a familiar figure trotting to the north.

  "HERZER!"

  * * *

  For the next step, Herzer had to see. He'd headed for the north gate, which he could see Blood Lords fighting for. There weren't many defenders and as he watched the gates started to swing shut. From up on the command tower he'd be able to see how the rest of the battle was going. Down here it was total chaos, but a chaos that Colonel Heiskanen could handle, not to mention General Magalong. But what happened next would be the key.

  He was about sixty yards from the gate when he heard his name shouted to the right.

  "Rachel?"

  * * *

  "Great," Conner said, shaking his head. "The heroic rescuer. Roc. Take him." Conner waved to drop his personal protection field and grabbed Rachel by the wrist. "Come on, bitch."

  * * *

  "Herzer!" Rachel shouted, digging at the steel-like vise around her wrist. "Elf, Herzer! ELF!"

  * * *

  The. thing charging him was a demon and it was fast. He raised his shield to block the first lightning blow and the sword of the thing nearly clove it in half. He darted in, thinking that with that much extension it would be off-balance but the blow that hit him came out of nowhere, knocking him to his knees. He rolled backwards and up, managing to get his prosthetic up and catch the sword in it with a shock that ran down his arm and through his whole body. But the hand wasn't steel, it was adamantine, and it gripped the sword for a moment, binding it, as the thing yanked at it, nearly yanking him off his feet. He tried to dodge under the sword and get his own weapon in play but the thing had far too much length of arm for that to work. Finally it got its weapon free and he backed away, watching Rachel being dragged towards a tent, helpless to save her as he'd been helpless to save her mother.

  The thing looked at him for a moment, cocking its head to the side and then raised the sword for a blow he knew he could neither dodge nor block.

  "Not so," Bast said, striking from the thing's unprotected side.

  The monster moved faster than the eye could see, but the blow from the light saber still opened up a gash on its ribs, cutting through the mail that armored it like tinfoil. The thing leapt backward again, considering its new foe.

  "Go to Rachel," Bast said. "This one is mine."

  Herzer didn't even nod, just started running.

  * * *

  "Quit struggling, bitch!" Conner shouted, dragging Rachel closer and grabbing her by the hair, then slapping her on the side of the head.

  Rachel saw stars for a moment and then shook her head, trying to clear it. Suddenly, Conner had her in a chokehold and a knife had appeared in his hand.

  "Take one step closer and she dies."

  * * *

  Herzer tossed the sword in the air, weighing his chances. The man was much larger than Rachel and although he was trying to use her as a shield there was a fair amount in the open. And Herzer was pretty good at throwing a sword. Pretty good.

  "Don't try it," the man said. "You're not that good. I know."

  "You're. Conner," Herzer said, quietly. Rachel's face was frightened but set, her hands clasped to her breast.

  "Yes, and that means you know I won't hesitate to kill her," Conner replied. "Take one step closer and she dies right in front of your eyes."

  "Take one step back and I'll take the chance," Herzer said. "I won't have her disappear."

  "We're both going to disappear," Conner laughed. "I can port out at any time."

  "If you could teleport, you would have already," Herzer replied, pointedly not watching Rachel. "Leave her and you can go free."

  "No chance," Conner said, stepping back and dragging at Rachel.

  "Conner," Herzer said, conversationally. "There's something you really need to know."

  "What?" Conner said, suspiciously.

  "I'm not the one you should be afraid of," Herzer said, gesturing with the sword over Conner's shoulder.

  "Don't give me that," Conner said, taking a step back. "That's the oldest trick in the."

  * * *

  Rachel felt herself thrown forward as sixty kilos of enraged housecat landed on the agent's back. Conner let out a scream and stabbed backwards with his knife but Rachel was nearly as fast. The scalpel came out and stabbed downward with the precision of a wasp killing a spider. It withdrew from his leg in a fountain of arterial blood.

  "That was your femoral artery," she said in a light tone. "And femoral nerve, which is why you're experiencing so much pain at the moment." She stepped forward and looked at the staggering agent for a moment, and then drove the scalpel into his stomach and upward.

  "That will have gotten your liver along with various blood vessels," she added, conversationally, as the agent finally fell to his knees and then face, the cat continuing to rake his back with hind-claws. Azure finall
y shifted the grip of his jaws and closed them on the agent's neck with a snap of something breaking.

  "That would have been your trachea," Rachel added calmly. "So in my professional medical opinion, you're going to die of lack of respiration before you bleed to death."

  * * *

  When the prey was finally still Azure lifted his muzzle from the agent's neck and mewed at his human.

  "Good kitty," Rachel said, rubbing him on the bottom of his bloody jowls. "Good kitty."

  * * *

  "This is a bit hot," General Lepheimer said, looking down at the mass of orcs that were swarming First Legion's hastily formed parapet.

  "Yes, it is," Edmund said, pulling out his watch and then looking up at the sun. "Wouldn't you say it's just before noon?"

  "About that," the First Legion commander replied. "I mean, there's quite a lot of them."

  "Yes, there are," Edmund replied. The main mass of the orcs from the portal had hit the parapet like a wave and the rest had joined in since trying to attack their own former defenses didn't seem to be working. If there was any control over the battle on the New Destiny side it was not apparent.

  "The archers are getting tired," Lepheimer pointed out. "And we're rather severely outnumbered."

  "That we are," Edmund agreed.

  "And they're pressing around to the right flank," General Lepheimer continued, pointing towards the end of the ridge where orcs could be seen spreading out and heading up the grass covered hill.

  "Yep," Edmund said.

  "General, why are you so. calm about that?"

  "Hold it," Edmund said, glancing to the east then taking off his helmet. He lay down on the parapet and pressed his ear against the wood then smiled. "Oh, well," he said, standing back up and brushing off his armor, "close enough for government work."

  "What?" Lepheimer asked as he handed back the helmet.

  "You hear it?" Edmund said, smiling.

  "No?" the general said, clearly out of his depth. Then over the sound of the battle he did hear it. Or, rather, feel it. A rumbling in the ground. "What the hell is that?"

  "That," Edmund said, turning and pointing to the right flank.

  Over the hill a tide of horsemen appeared, long lances shining in the sun. They didn't even stop their canter, simply dressed ranks on the move, locked in knee to knee and sped into a gallop as the long lances lowered to the attack and a great cry rose from six thousand throats.

  "KENTIA!"

  "Make signal to both legions," Edmund said, buckling his helmet. "Advance to attack."

  Epilogue

  "How long has this been going on?" Edmund asked, as Bast and the big. thing separated.

  "Couple of hours," Herzer said.

  "You know there's a battle going on, right?" Edmund asked.

  "Couldn't be that important if you're here," Herzer pointed out. "Hey, Kane, glad you could join in the fun."

  "Fun," Kane said. "I just rode damned near two thousand klicks. I'm not sure I can dismount."

  "Well, it's the journey that counts, right?" Herzer said.

  "Gunny Rutherford bought it," Edmund said as Bast flashed in and out, stinging the thing and opening up another rent in its tattered armor.

  "I'm sorry," Herzer said, quietly.

  "Holding the line while the parapet was being finished."

  "It's how he would have wanted to go," Herzer said with a shrug. The elf-thing managed to tag Bast, hard and she backed away, favoring her arm.

  "Bullshit," Edmund growled. "He wanted to die from a stroke while lying in a hammock being fellated by a sixteen-year-old redhead named Tracy."

  Herzer thought about that for a long time and then looked at Edmund for the first time since he'd arrived.

  "Why Tracy?" he asked.

  "I have no idea," Edmund replied. "He was pretty drunk when he told me that. But it's the sort of thing that sticks in your mind. And I never worked up the balls to ask him. I wish now that I had."

  The two combatants separated and Herzer held out his hand. One of the watching Blood Lords slapped a water bottle in it and he tossed it to the elf-thing. Edmund had noticed the pile of them and wondered about it.

  "Very. something," Edmund said. "Noble, I guess. Stupid, maybe."

  "Bast insisted," Herzer replied. Bast had accepted a bottle from Rachel and drained it, tossing it aside and checking over her sword. The elf-thing's was heavily notched but hers was unblemished.

  "So, how long is this going to go on?" Megan said, walking up and slipping her hand under Herzer's arm.

  "Bast said something about stopping at nightfall," Herzer replied. "Get some rest and food and start again in the morning."

  "So what's it to be?" Megan asked, aghast. "Two immortals locked in an epic battle until the end of time?"

  "Unless one of them gives up," Herzer said, shrugging.

  "Nope, not on," Edmund said. "That thing got a name?"

  "Roc," Herzer replied.

  "Roc," Edmund said, holding up a hand as he walked past it over to Bast. "Hang on a bit, we've got to pow-wow. Hey, Bast," Edmund continued. "Nice suit."

  "Edmund," Bast said, nodding at him and rubbing her left arm. "The battle went well?"

  "The usual problems," Edmund said, shrugging. "Bast, we've got other things to do."

  "I don't," Bast said.

  "No, but we can't simply set aside part of the camp as an arena," Edmund replied. "Are you going to win this, soon?"

  "If I were a true elf, yes," Bast said, frowning. "He has not the gaslan. Of all the things they have done to him, separating him from the gaslan is probably the worst. To create a fighting machine and take away its greatest strength. madness!"

  "That would be Celine," Edmund sighed. "Gaslan?"

  "Elf thing," Bast said, shrugging. "Hard to translate. To know of the way of battle. To know the myriad ways that battle may go and to choose among them for the one most right. You have it, a little. So does Herzer, I sensed it in him from the beginning. All elves have it, much. True elf would have won by now. But I have not the mass. I can touch him, but not penetrate. He can, sometimes, touch me. But rarely and then I have the armor."

  "You've certainly carved him," Edmund said, looking at the rents in the armor and the blood that covered the thing.

  "To laugh," Bast said, merrily. "Fast heal do elves. Fast heal do. those," she added, pointing at Roc. "No, must penetrate and cannot, until one of us tires much. May be him, may be me. Not today. Tomorrow. Afternoon. Maybe day after."

  "Nah, ain't gonna go that way," Edmund said, shaking his head. "Sorry." He turned to the monster. "Roc?"

  The thing, which had been glaring at the Blood Lords, looked at him and nodded.

  "In about ten minutes, I'm going to have about a hundred archers here," Edmund said. "Now, the rest of these people are all noble about this stuff. I'm not. I don't think you are, either. You'll probably catch some arrows and deflect others, but in the end we're going to fill you as full of arrows as an armory. Understand?"

  "Yes," the beast answered.

  "You can surrender and we'll find a nice little fortress for you to haunt, or you can die. Your choice."

  Roc fingered his sword for a moment and then pointed it to the ground. He stepped forward, provoking a rustle from the watching Blood Lords, and then took a knee, his head bowed.

  "That one," he said, pointing at Bast. "To that one will I give my life. She is worthy."

  Bast walked over to him, keeping carefully to the off side of the sword and slipped her saber under his chin.

  "Look at me," she said. "Adano."

  The beast looked up at her with hate-filled eyes.

  "Who binds you?" she asked.

  "I am bound to the name of my lady, Celine," the beast answered, angrily.

  "You were bound to another name, once," she said, offering her hand and bringing the beast to his feet. She barely came to his waist. "I swear that you can be bound to Her again," she added, placing her left hand on his chest. "Aso mua,
shato moas latan."

  And they vanished.

  "What just happened?" Herzer said. "Did they port?"

  "Mother?" Megan said. "Was that a teleport?"