Bottichea had not been born much luckier: her eyes were twice the normal human size, and she actually reminded Threo of Okono's robot. You poor girl, he thought, watching her terrified yet grotesque eyes bulging halfway out of their sockets. If only the cure had come earlier, just one generation earlier...
Awonso shook Threo's shoulder. "Look alive! More soldiers are coming from the canal. We've got to get inside now!"
"You'd better hide," Threo said to the trembling Leper women, and followed Awonso toward the arched marble doorpost.
"Kiti-mo-fan!"
Okono, wearing Bottichea's veil, pointed to the stairway, and her robot scurried across to the foot of the stairs. The captain of the palace guard saw the robot's laser shoot straight at his masked face, and felt the hot point of light burn the mask away. He aimed his rifle-barrel down at the strange machine, in one last futile gesture...
And a volley of bullets from the robot's gun ended his life.
"Guns empty!" peeped the robot, smoke coming out of its empty eye sockets. "Need more bullets! All targets gone!"
Kensabur tore off the dress he had borrowed from the noblewoman, and the mask of Gradischa. Okono wanted to advance, but he held her back with one arm. "Take off that thing. How do women stand wearing these dresses? I could barely move."
Okono removed the veil and bared her teeth at him, but she had no time for a witty reply. Awonso and Threo came to join them, and warned of the approaching reinforcements.
"I must find my armor," Kensabur said. "Can you three hold this position while I go upstairs?"
Somewhere in the wrecked hallway, a wounded man moaned for help. More than ever, Threo wanted to be a doctor and nothing else.
"I have to go find Sarastos," he said. "He can help us. I talked to him this morning. He knows everything that goes on, and he let me vaccinate him."
Kensabur nodded. "Fine. Go get him. Awonso, you grab all rifles you can get and hold this entrance. My lady, are you ready to prove your heritage one more time?"
Okono did the improbable - she smiled, and not in a pleasant way. "Let's go."
She rushed with him up the stairway, followed by Kiti-Mo. Threo ran in the other direction, toward the city lord's wing of the palace.
Awonso was left alone in the hallway. He could think of no clever ruse to get him out of this pinch. But he collected the rifles from the fallen guards with trembling hands, trying not to look at their dust-covered bodies on the floor... trying not to throw up.
Then he heard a chorus of screams and confused voices from outside. He took one rifle and peeked out through a corner of a broken window. And he saw Gradischa and Bottichea, unmasked, hiding their faces to the city troops that were lining up on the courtyard.
"Give us back our faces!" cried the women.
"Go away! Go home! You are not allowed here!" cried the masked soldiers. It sounded as if the men were uncomfortable with by the presence of two unmasked citizens. The two women tried to convince the men, in vain, that their home was the palace. Not one soldier seemed to believe them; without their masks, Gradischa and Bottichea could be anyone.
"And I thought people were crazy back home," Awonso muttered to himself. He placed the rifle-barrel against the windowsill, and waited for the two pleading women to get out his line of sight.
"Please be my friend!" cried the four-legged robot as it ran up the top of the stairs, bumped into the opposite wall, and bounced back and forth between the walls like some overgrown, frightened spider.
The three masked guards fired at the dancing robot from both ends of the corridor, missing several times. Pulses hit the walls with puffs of smoke; some curtains caught fire.
While the guards were distracted by the careening Kiti-Mo, Kensabur and Okono pressed themselves flat against the top of the stairs and fired slow beams at the soldiers' feet.
The rifles snapped and hummed as lines of uninterrupted green light flickered through the smoke and burned the guards' boots. Smoke spouted from burning shoe-leather, and the guards screamed madly, stumbling and tripping as they struggled to pull off their burning boots.
Okono charged at the nearest guard, letting out a high-pitched shriek; her bayonet struck his shoulder and he dropped his rifle.
At the opposite end of the corridor, Kensabur charged past another guard and threw his entire weight against the nearest door. It flew off its hinges and he tumbled inside. It was his own room. In a corner lay the metal chests containing the segments of his armor. He did not have time to assemble it just yet, though...
A barrage of laser fire flickered past the open doorway, passing down the length of the corridor. He took a deep breath, rolled out through the doorway and fired one last beam at the far end of the corridor. There were no screams, but a sickening stench of burnt flesh. He peered in the other direction, and saw Okono rise on unsteady legs, holding a rifle in each hand. All three soldiers lay dead or seriously injured.
"Come here," he shouted, breathing heavily. "Help me find Buchu and Jacob."
A blood-curdling roar from the adjacent wall, followed by a crash when the next door burst outward, told them that Buchu had awakened. The bald man stepped out in the hallway, holding a wooden beam under his arms - ripped from a piece of furniture, judging by the strips of couch upholstery which dangled from its edges. He cast one look at Okono, who was coming at him with two rifles, her hair flowing freely down her shoulders and back, her eyes alive with cold fury, and he turned meek.
Buchu bowed at her, and asked for orders.
"Help Kensabur into his armor," she said. "I shall be downstairs if you need me."
She spun around and headed for the stairway before any of them could ask her to wait. Kiti-Mo came hurtling after her.
Meanwhile, in another wing of the palace, Threo knocked on the locked door to the dwarf's room.
"Sarastos! Are you there? We have to leave!"
Threo pounded on the door again but got no response. He stepped back and fired a high-temperature pulse with his rifle. The lock fizzled and melted, and he broke through the door with a single push.
Sarastos was not in his room. Threo stood catching his breath for a moment, and wondered where the little man could have gone in hiding when the shooting started. Then he saw the open closet door, and the robes and hat of the counselor. It struck him: under ordinary circumstances, the dwarf must never be seen leaving his room in the disguise of Sarastos... so there had to be a secret exit.
He opened all four closets and rapped on their walls until he found the hollow one, and kicked it in. It gave way like paper. And Threo fell through it, out of another closet on the other side of the false wall, and into an adjacent room. In a corner stood the dwarf, holding a single-shot laser pistol which seemed large in his small hands.
"I suppose you want me to follow you out of town," the dwarf said. "That would be suicide. I'd rather stay and take my chances. Whoever comes out on the winning side is going to need a counselor. Or a jester."
Threo was disappointed in the man's change of heart.
"And what if staying here means certain death?"
"Prove that, doctor."
"Lord Berluchos... I mean the other Berluchos..." He rubbed his aching head. "He fled to the harbor. You know him better than we do. Will he fight or flee? Who is he, anyway? A jealous relative of the ruling family?"
The dwarf sighed and lowered his gun.
"That is a long story... which I swear I will tell you, if we live through this day. No, he will not flee the city. Where could he go? Once rumor gets out that this is a city of Lepers, he is going to be a hunted man. I doubt that even the real Lepers, the tribes of the wilderness, would welcome him. He has Vanitia's army on his side, as long as they think he is defending the city. And they still think he is the city lord, don't you doubt it."
"The robots I saw guarding the old city lord, are they under Berluchos' command?"
The dwarf scoffed - a sound of resignation. "There haven't been any robots in this city for
at least a generation. They are just another act, played by people with vested interests."
"And the guilds? The people who should maintain your machines, the robots, the power plant?"
"The guilds still exist, but I think the masks and all the pretense have gone to their heads. The arts and crafts do not prosper in a city of lies. Some of the guild-members are our trade emissaries, and pretend to be robots."
From the harbor came a faint rumble, and the dwarf was alarmed. "Oh no. I feared this would happen if he was pushed far enough. Berluchos is quite mad, you know. I tried to warn the old lord..."
They had to step outside to find a view. From a cracked, tall window, Threo could vaguely make out the harbor and the massive gun towers at the ends of the wave-breakers. The towers resembled lighthouses, except for the turrets at the top.
A bright light flashed from the top of the southern tower, and a bright red dot danced across the palace wall outside.
"What's that light? Is it a lighthouse beacon?" Then the answer dawned on him, and he dragged the dwarf with him to the exit. By the orders of Lord Berluchos, the turret was taking aim at the biggest sitting target in the whole city.
"Everybody take cover!" Threo's warning as he entered the great hall came one second before the turret fired its first shot.
Laser-beams make no noise except when they hit solid matter, and are only faintly visible through smoke or gas.
The clear air above the city's rooftops did not sizzle or burn when the first pulse, traveling at the speed of light, passed over them. But a trail of condensed water vapor appeared briefly where the passing beam had heated the air, and quickly faded away.
The first pulse struck the palace wall, and instantly turned a ten-inch section of stone fresco into a ball of superheated gas, which instantly became an explosion, which punched a much larger hole in the guest wing of the palace. The latrines at the far corner were blown sky high, and stinking waste rained down over the courtyard where the city's troops were posted. The troops retreated toward the canal, and waited for the turret's next shot.
Kensabur felt the floor shudder beneath his metal-clad feet; glass and plaster rained down on his blond head, and he feared the floor might collapse under his weight. He had only just got into the cooling suit and the legs of his armor, and was trying to attach the tubes of coolant to the power pack. Buchu struggled to screw the suit's chest and back pieces together.
A man groaned and stirred behind them. He sat up, his face hidden by a mask.
"My head hurts... what's that infernal noise?"
"Jacob? Get up and help me get the suit in order. Quick! And take off that silly mask!"
"Yes, sire," mumbled the man, bared his scarred face, and staggered like a sleepwalker toward the two taller men on the floor. Jacob shook his head, and pried the screwdriver from Buchu's hand. "No no, that is not how we do it in Orbes City. This one goes here , that one goes there ..."
In a few seconds, Jacob had screwed the pieces in place and attached the tubes. "There. Now lift the torso piece over his head. Good man." Kensabur treaded his head and arms through the open sockets. Jacob lifted one arm segment, attached its power cable to the torso, and fitted the segment around the knight's arm like a glove.
A second shot from the gun-tower hit the palace wall, right above the main entrance, and glass shards flew through the air in another explosion. The shockwave tipped the heavy suit of armor over, and Buchu pushed it upright with his bulk.
Jacob coughed and blinked; the three men's faces were caked with dust, and no part of the room seemed untouched by the devastation. Blood seeped out of between his lips. "Bastards. I think they got me. Got me good." He looked calmly down at the sharp window-bar that stuck out through his right side. He had been in battle before. "Right. Now connect the left arm cable to the other socket, twist the arm-piece on, clockwise, into the socket, and the helmet goes on clockwise too. Give the backpack jet a kick if it doesn't start on the first try. Got that?"
Buchu nodded, staring at the squat man's calm, scarred face.
"Good man. Send my overdue wages to my family."
And with that last request, Jacob gently folded over and fell face down on the dusty floor. They looked at the rumpled corpse; Kensabur felt a great emptiness inside and wanted to weep. Then he held out his left arm, and Buchu attached the last few pieces, exactly as Jacob had instructed.
With his toes, Kensabur felt at the control buttons in his boots. Rows of tiny diode lights lit up inside his helmet, indicating that all parts had power: legs, arms, torso, jetpack, weapons. He was ready, one foot taller and ten times stronger.
He walked for the doorway and realized that it was too narrow for him get through. He reached out with the hydraulic power of his arms, punched his armored fists right through the bricks, grabbed the doorframe and tore it off the wall. A section of the wall came down as he walked through it, and the stone floor cracked under his metal feet.
Buchu followed close behind, hunching down, anticipating the next impact to hit the palace.
Chapter 11
When the second pulse from the harbor tower struck the palace, Threo and Okono had joined Awonso in the hallway. The dwarf was there too, hiding behind a column. All four were covered by plaster dust, and with their powdered hair they resembled a company of bewildered lost elderly people.
They covered their heads as a section of the front gates came crashing down over the entrance steps.
The dwarf coughed up dust and said: "I can make a white flag if you want to. Your rifles are quite useless in all this dust."
Kiti-Mo's oblong head peeked up from beneath a fallen column. "My lady? Shall I make a suicide charge against the enemy targets and self-destruct, thereby injuring as many as I can in defense of your life?"
"No," she said.
A voice from outside called for their surrender.
"Give yourself up," Threo told her. "Please."
Okono's eyes, when she faced him, were bottomless pools of black set in luminous whites against the plaster dust that covered her face and lips.
"You said our sense of honor is twisted, doctor. Let me show you precisely how twisted." She stood up, a rifle in each hand, but their weight seemed to drag her down and her resolve was undercut by the trembling of her legs. Tears made dark smudge tracks down her dusty cheeks. "Will you come with me?" she asked Threo. "Or live without me?"
Threo wanted to cry then, so as not to seem unmoved by her bravery, but his eyes were dry and his stomach a tight ball of fear. He tugged at her robe and pulled her back into cover behind the doorpost, and in protest she uttered some ancient curse from the land of her ancestors.
Then the third pulse impacted on the palace, and the entire guest wing collapsed in a cloud of smoke and flame. The smoke billowed down over the stairs, and out through the haze two figures tumbled down the steps, one living and one dead.
The living figure slid on his belly down the stairs with a clattering noise, like a silver statue unmoored. He clutched the banisters and broke the slide, swung around and landed feet-first on the floor at the base of the stairs.
The motors and hydraulics of his armor hissed and whined as he held the banister for support and struggled into an upright stance. Both Awonso and Okono had seen more impressive armor, and better entrances. Always late, just like his father, thought Okono.
"Damn this dust," said Kensabur's loudspeaker voice from the helmet. "It blinds me. Wipe it off, someone - anyone."
Awonso rushed past the open gates. A salvo of laser pulses from the courtyard flickered through the air and missed him by inches. He wiped the thickest layer of dust off the glass section of the knight's helmet.
"Thank you." The knight clamped away to a corner, picked up a large oak table in a pincer-like grip, and held it like a shield before him. "A good man died for my sake today. I have to win this fight, if I am to grant his last wish. Anyone who stands in my way, dies."
He stomped in long strides out the doorway with
the table in front of him, and was met by a smattering hail of laser pulses. They perforated the tabletop; splinters bounced off his armor as the table caught fire and disintegrated piece by piece in his hands.
It took him about ten seconds to march up to the line of firing soldiers, and by then the table had been reduced to a glowing piece of charcoal.
The line of soldiers broke up, as men wearing tin helmets, face-masks and breastplates tried to run; one was brave enough to stab at the knight with his bayonet. The bayonet broke off. Kensabur grabbed him by the arm and tossed him into the cluster of other masked soldiers. The man screamed and his mask came off as he landed on his comrades' backs.
Kensabur noticed that the soldier's face was not deformed at all, and yet he reached for the mask as if his life depended on it. Kensabur pressed the control buttons underneath his toes, and red warning lights lit up inside his helmet; from the outside of his lower arms, two giant razor-sharp scythes slid out.
Then he began to weave his arms from side to side as he marched forward, literally cutting through the opposition - a harvester in the killing fields. Awonso looked away; Threo wrapped his arms around Okono and shielded her eyes from the gruesome sight.
Body parts thudded against the courtyard with a regular rhythm, and the soldiers' screams were silenced one by one, until there was only the thumping noise of Kensabur walking down the courtyard. Then his jetpack came alive. He took off and soared above the canals and rooftops, shimmering in the sunlight.
"There are two big guns," the dwarf said in an exasperated voice. "Even he cannot make it against the both of them, and I have heard what happens when these knights run out of energy. The citizens will tear him apart to protect their secret."
Yngve, AR - Darc Ages 02 - City Of Masks Page 8
