Lazarus Rising

by David Sherman

  De Tomas hesitated. Then, "Damnit, Gorman, take care of them! You don't need me for that! Call out the Lifeguards! Now put your tail between your legs and leave us alone! That is an order, Gorman! Scat, scram, screw off. Now! You understand, you worthless cur?"

  Gorman did not move, only stood there, leering.

  De Tomas had never faced such defiance before, and he exploded. "Gorman, I made you and I can break you, and break you I will if you don't leave now!"

  Gorman stood his ground, his smile gone now. "I'm a dog, am I? Well, Dominic, this dog just grew teeth." He drew his sidearm and fired from the hip. The bolt took off de Tomas's lower jaw and part of his tongue. He stood there, astonished, not comprehending that he'd just been shot. He tried to speak but the air only wheezed through his windpipe. Then he clapped his hands to his mangled, bleeding throat and staggered toward Gorman. The Deputy Leader sidestepped adroitly, and de Tomas crashed over an armchair onto the coffee table, which collapsed under his weight. He lay there, gurgling and gasping for air.

  "Oh, my," Gorman burbled, pleased with himself, "that was easy!" Then solicitously, bending over de Tomas's writhing body, he asked, "How are we doing there, Mr. Leader?" De Tomas only gurgled in reply. "Not so good," Gorman muttered. "Well..." He placed the muzzle of his handgun just behind de Tomas's ear and pressed the firing stud. A burst of fléchettes slammed into de Tomas's skull, and blood, brains, and bone splinters sprayed all over the room. Fragments splattered back onto Gorman, clinging to his clothes and face. "Disgusting," he muttered, holstering his sidearm. He wiped a brain fragment off his cheek and diffidently shook other gore off his uniform.

  Someone banged on the door to the outer office and an anxious voice asked if there was a problem.

  "Stay out of here!" Gorman roared. The banging stopped immediately.

  Next he turned his attention to Comfort. It was now 1808.

  They crouched in the bushes along the dirt road. Bass could clearly see the loading dock and the door, just as Uma had described it. It was hard to believe no one had spotted them. If Lambsblood had talked, they were walking into an ambush for sure. But there was no movement anywhere and it was very quiet. Bass flicked the Talk button on his radio. "Shipper, Shipper, this is Customer. We are at the Store. I say again, we are at the Store, over." Nothing but static. "Mohammed's pointed teeth," Bass muttered, shaking the radio. "Try yours," he told Raipur.

  Raipur got only static on his set too. "The castle's blocking transmissions. These sets are too weak. We wait, Charles, that's all we can do," Raipur said.

  "How long should it take them to get here from the depot?" Colleen asked.

  Bass shrugged. "I don't know. Let's see. They were on their way at 1745 and it's now 1809. I guess it's twenty klicks from the depot to the jumping-off spot the way they went. They ought to be about in position by now, don't you think? How fast can one of those damned Gabriels travel over improved roads anyway?"

  "Fifty kph, tops," Raipur answered.

  "How are the streets around here at this hour?"

  "Heavily clogged out that way," Uma answered.

  Bass was concerned, for reasons he could not have articulated. But he knew his instincts had never betrayed him before. "I'm not waiting, I'm going in now," he said, then stood and trotted down the road toward the loading dock.

  It was 1810.

  Gorman bent over Comfort. He pulled her robe aside and admired her body. No wonder de Tomas wanted this little beauty, he thought. Well, every dog has his day, and this day was his. A battle was coming. He'd just stay here and let the Special Group bloody itself. Whoever won, he'd come out on top. He placed his lips over Comfort's and reached between her legs.

  From far away he heard a dull thud, as if someone had slammed a door. Gorman paused and cocked an ear toward the secret stairway, where the noise seemed to have come from. And now alarms were sounding in the castle. He'd turned his head toward the door when Comfort drove the fruit knife up under his jaw. The keen blade sliced through his tongue and into the roof of his mouth, and Gorman pitched forward. As he did, she shoved the blade in deeper, using both hands. He grunted and managed to stagger to his feet, meanwhile trying to shriek his agony to the world, but the blade had stapled his tongue firmly into his soft palate. Blood flowed out of his mouth in a torrent, huge red drops splattering everywhere. He grabbed the knife handle and yanked the blade out. It clattered harmlessly to the floor. Holding both hands to his mouth, Gorman lurched into the same armchair over which de Tomas had just fallen and plunked down on top of his erstwhile leader.

  Comfort rose to a sitting position, staring at Gorman while clutching her robe about her to hide her nakedness. She felt horrified and triumphant at the same time.

  Gorman crawled away from de Tomas and got to his knees. One knee slid out from under him on the blood-slick rug and he pitched forward onto his face—the pain from his wound was so terrible he didn't realize two of his front teeth were knocked out when he hit the floor.

  It was now 1815.

  The first charge worked perfectly but left the door hanging by a massive hinge. The door itself weighed no less than 120 kilos. Bass physically ripped it away and tossed it over the railing as if it were plywood. He saw stairs covered with debris, which rose into the darkness. Far off, the strident shriek of alarms sounded. He took the steps two at a time for the first five flights. He heard someone following him but did not look back. By the seventh flight his breath was coming in gasps. He hadn't known how out of shape he'd become.

  "Give me the bomb!" Uma shouted as she came up beside him. Wordlessly, he handed her one of the charges. He'd shown everyone how to set them. She raced off up the last three flights of stairs as if riding a thermal.

  Moments later Bass saw a bright flash, and heard a dull thud! Breathing hard, hand-blaster out and ready, he brushed past a grinning Uma and stepped inside.

  The first thing he saw was a room in shambles. The second thing was a man crouching on the floor fumbling with a holster, drawing an ugly-looking fléchette gun. Before he could bring it to bear, Bass fricasseed him.

  The traffic that day was heavy on the beltway, but the column forged on at top speed, causing a number of accidents as commuters dodged the heavy fighting vehicles. Eventually the commuters ahead of them caught on and drove helter-skelter for the sides of the road.

  "Steady, steady!" the battalion commander cautioned over his command net. "Keep your intervals, keep your intervals!"

  "We're almost there!" Major Devi shouted above the roar of the command car's engine. He knew they were making good time. Bass should be in position by now. Just a few more minutes.

  "Just ahead," the colonel's voice crackled in Devi's headset.

  "All right, men! You know what to do! You men in those Gabriels, hold on, we're going cross-country and it'll be a rocky ride!"

  The column of vehicles turned off the main highway, down a steep embankment, and across a farmer's field, bouncing over irrigation ditches, crashing through fences and scattering livestock. A huge cloud of dust rose into the air behind them. If they didn't know we were coming before, Devi thought, they'll sure know it now. They smashed across a secondary road, the Gabriels and APCs leaping a meter or more into the air, sailing over the road and crashing down on the other side. Devi was firmly strapped into his seat but still felt the jar in the fillings in his teeth.

  They came to another road, which ran at a right angle to their column of march. This was it! To the left, no more than five hundred meters down the road, loomed Wayvelsberg Castle. Devi marveled at how Bass had understood it all after just a glimpse at the map.

  "Good hunting!" the battalion commander said, saluting the element that peeled off and headed toward the barracks. "Form a firing line!" the commander ordered, and his Gabriels pulled up on each flank of the command car. The vehicles roared into line behind them. Everything was proceeding perfectly.

  "Range, 457 meters," a gunner announced laconically.

  "Fire one round
on my command and then advance in line of battle," the commander ordered.

  Major Devi peered through his optics at the main entrance of Wayvelsberg Castle. He could clearly see the look of astonishment on the faces of Special Group troops running for cover. One of the Gabriels fired. He counted 1001, 1002—bright flashes temporarily obscured the main gate, followed by the thud-thud-thud of the high-explosive projectiles impacting on and around the front of the building. Sections of the masonry were crumbling but clouds of greasy black smoke hid most of the damage.

  "Forward!" the battalion commander ordered. "Fire when ready!"

  The Special Group commander at the barracks had alerted his men at the first word of the approaching column, and as a result, they were deploying along the road to Wayvelsberg when the armored column appeared on their flank. The two lead Gabriels burst into flames almost immediately from the antiarmor rounds fired at them by the SG. The driver of the foremost vehicle, knowing he was a dead man as the flames roared all around him, made no attempt to get out, but drove on. Just before the fire seared his lungs, he rammed straight into a truckload of SG men; both vehicles exploded in a fireball, blocking the road and cutting the reinforcement column in half.

  The last Gabriel in line, seeing what was happening on the road ahead, dismounted its infantry and drove around the barracks complex and onto the airfield, where its rapid-fire pulse gun wreaked havoc with the parked Hoppers warming up on their pads. The fully loaded aircraft burst into flames as incendiary rounds ripped into them, setting off their fuel tanks and ammo. The exploding air-to-ground rockets on board the burning Hoppers zoomed all over the tarmac, and within seconds the fuel dump went up with an enormous whoosh! A huge column of black smoke rose high above the airfield, orange flames licking hungrily skyward, and then kaboom!—the ammo dump went up.

  The Gabriel commander, a young sergeant, ordered his vehicle to one side of the field and took in the damage. His driver whistled. "We did all that?"

  "Great Dagon be praised," the sergeant muttered. He looked around. He was alone in the burning waste that had been the airfield. No one had followed him from the column, so he assumed they were all engaged along the road. "Come on." He tapped his driver on the helmet. "Let's drive around this mess and onto the road. We'll come up behind the SG and give them a taste of Hell!"

  Meanwhile, back at the road, the supporting infantry, greatly outnumbered by the SG force, dismounted resolutely and returned fire as best they could. Their commander knew they were doomed, but he hoped to delay the reinforcing column long enough so the main body of the battalion could crack Wayvelsberg open.

  Then the fire from the Special Group began to slacken. The column commander peered cautiously over a small mound of dirt. Men in black uniforms were streaming back into the barracks complex. They were retreating! They were bottling themselves up in their barracks! He looked at his watch. It was 1829.

  Zechariah followed Bass into the room. "My God!" he shouted, seeing Comfort covered with blood. He rushed to his daughter's side.

  "Father!" She sat up and threw her arms around him.

  "Lie still, lie still! You're wounded!"

  "No! No, Father! The blood belongs to him." She nodded toward the bodies on the floor. "He shot the Leader, and then I stabbed him, and then—Charles! Charles!" Comfort began to laugh and cry at the same time.

  "Who are these two?" Bass asked, gesturing toward the dead men.

  "Herten Gorman and Dominic de Tomas!" Comfort shouted happily through her tears, "They're dead! They're dead!" She was almost dancing with joy.

  Raipur, weapon at the ready, came through the door, followed closely by Uma. He took in the shambles at a glance, then cautiously opened the door to the outer office. "Oops!" He slammed it shut. "There are men with weapons out there!" he warned Bass.

  From behind them, down the stairwell, they heard the sharp crack! crack! of weapons firing. Seconds later Colleen and Chet stumbled into the room. "Men are coming up the stairs!" Colleen gasped.

  "We got two of them," Chet added, "but there are more coming behind them!"

  Comfort had thrown her arms around Bass, and now he gently removed them. "Not now," he said, and shoved his rifle at her, then drew his sidearm. "You know how to use this. You did a good job with that knife."

  Bass turned to the others. "Chet, Colleen, cover the stairway. Comfort, Uma, you stay as far back from that outer door as you can. Zechariah, Raipur, you come with me. We're going to clear out those guys on the other side." He flicked on his comm. "Shipper, Shipper, this is Customer! We are at Home. I say again, we are at Home. Aw shit, screw this call sign shit! De Tomas and Gorman are dead. I say again, dead. Do you hear me? Over. Goddamnit!" he shouted. "Where the hell are you? We're in! We cut the snake's head off! Where the hell are you people?" Nothing but static. "Damned crap! This high-tech shit never works!" He tossed the comm into a corner.

  "Wait!" Uma shouted. "These charges. They have time fuses. We can set them for a couple of seconds and toss them down the stairs and out there."

  "Good God, woman, good thinking! Quick!" There were two left. "All right, one down the stairs, and I'll toss the other out this door, and then we go through shooting. Then, folks, it's time to fix bayonets!"

  "We don't have bayonets!" Raipur gasped.

  "Simulate, then. Ready?"

  But before they could spring into action there was a series of heavy explosions close by. They could feel the concussions in the floor under their feet. "I believe that is the cavalry," Zechariah said. Raipur looked at him questioningly. "I read that in an old book somewhere," he said, embarrassed.

  Both the outer office and the stairwell were empty. It was 1833.

  Chapter 30

  The Great Hall of Wayvelsberg Castle was an utter shambles. Where great speeches had once inspired thousands and mystic ceremonies of initiation had echoed through the darkened recesses, chaos now ruled. The massive likeness of Heinrich the Fowler had sustained a direct hit and lay in fragments all over the hall. Only Heinrich's massive feet stood intact on their pedestal.

  Gaping holes in the roof and walls, testaments to the work of the Gabriels' gunners, allowed the morning sun to cast its rays like brilliant golden fingers into the farthest corners of the hall. Discarded weapons, clothing, wreckage, and body parts littered the flagstone floor. A Gabriel armored fighting carrier sat just inside the foyer, where it had come to rest after smashing through the fortress's defenders the night before. The barrel of its high-energy pulse gun jutted toward the roof at an impossible angle, and its armor was pitted and buckled from numerous hits. Its rear ramp was down, bloodied first-aid dressings and items of individual equipment could be seen in the troop compartment, and black pools of blood had coagulated on the floor and walls. A sticky smear of lubricants slowly spread from under the Gabriel's broken chassis, and greasy boot prints fanned out from around the ruined behemoth, viscous evidence of the infantry's victorious and bloody passage through Wayvelsberg Castle's portals.

  The smoke of battle hung over the vast emptiness in a hazy pall, most of it concentrated toward the roof, where tendrils gradually filtered out through the holes. The effect of the sunlight casting rays through the smoky veil would have been beautiful were it not for the smell that permeated everything—the reek of high explosive and charred flesh, the dank mustiness of extinguished fires and the fetid odor of ruptured water and sewer lines.

  As word of the castle's fall spread throughout Kingdom in the early hours of the morning, army commanders far and wide sent messages of support and loyalty to General Lambsblood. A battalion of military police was flown in just after the battle to assist in processing prisoners, of whom there were hundreds—demoralized Special Group men, bureaucrats, office workers trapped in the building when the battle started, and de Tomas's cabinet officials. They had been assembled into small groups and put under guard at convenient places in and around the fortress. The civilian workers were taken first, and most of them had been released. The Speci
al Group men meanwhile hunkered in disconsolate bunches, awaiting transportation to a proper prisoner of war compound, where they would be thoroughly interrogated.

  The members of de Tomas's cabinet who had taken refuge in Wayvelsberg the night before were being held separately under heavy guard. They would be the first of the regime to go on trial, and the commander on the scene was taking no chances that any of them might opt out by suicide.

  It took hours to secure Wayvelsberg after its outer defenses were cracked. The infantrymen went room by room, from the dungeons to the roof. What they discovered in the dungeons was shocking, and it went a long way toward explaining why anyone who resisted them afterward was shot without mercy.

  "We're staying right where we are," Bass had told his party. They could hear the battle raging outside, and then in other parts of the building. "Worst thing you can do in a situation like this is go wandering the halls."

  "Charles," Zechariah Brattle said, extending his hand, "God bless you for all that you've done for us!"

  "Hear, hear!" the others shouted. Now that the tension of Comfort's rescue had been broken, they felt giddy on the effects of adrenaline.

  "Charles," Zechariah continued, "God has taken two of the dearest people from me that any man could wish for, but He gave me you, and you saved the one person who can give any meaning to the rest of my life." He hugged Comfort and would have hugged Bass too had the Marine not busied himself with his weapon.

  Embarrassed, Bass finally said, "Well, let's cover up these bodies for now, shall we? This guy lived like a prince." He gestured at the room's plush furnishings. "And if I'm not mistaken, there's a wet bar somewhere around here and probably cigars to boot. Let's look."

  There were, and they found them and enjoyed them, and when at last a haggard infantryman kicked in the door from the outer office, he was astonished to see seven disheveled survivors propped up in the furniture, toasting two bloody corpses covered with drapes torn from the windows.