Swords of Exodus

by Larry Correia

  There was no pity for this man. He worked for a force of pure evil, and right now that force was my opposition. Even the three good men behind me—and Anders—would have no mercy on him because of who he worked for. In fact, they would have even less pity than Anders. The fact that the functionary was out here because he was being manipulated by Katarina was just too damned bad for him.

  It took me too long to catch up. The snow was packed hard closer to the dwellings by constant stamping of the animals and the residents. He was now on more solid footing, and made really good time to the closest yurt. There was a flash of light as the fur door was opened briefly and a shape moved inside. The smell of spices and perfume hit a moment later.

  Gliding up outside the entry, I listened, but couldn’t hear anything. The fabric walls were surprisingly good at sound dampening. I waited five more minutes for him to get comfortable. There were no sounds from the other yurts, since people who work this hard to survive go to sleep early. I stuffed my night vision set back into my coat. It was handy, but that strap around the back of my head gave me a headache. Luckily there were no dogs barking an alert. Since it had been a long winter, they had probably gotten eaten. Even if the nomads knew I was here, they too were being paid by Kat not to get involved. Montalban money was also the reason they were settled at this particular point, rather than at a lower altitude where life would be a lot less miserable.

  The girl didn’t know when we would take the mark. Kat told her only what she needed to know, and even then probably half of the information she’d been given was false. So even if she talked too much, nothing would come back to incriminate the Exchange. She just knew that during one of these weekly meetings, somebody was going to pay her boyfriend a visit and she wasn’t supposed to do anything about it, other than collect her bonus money.

  Finally, tired of freezing, I decided to enter. I figured five minutes was plenty of time for the two of them to start playing Rogue Businessman and the Nomad’s Daughter. It assumed that the rules to that would be similar to Heidi and the Storm Trooper. They should be plenty distracted by now. I unslung my Remington ACR, checked the Aimpoint sight, and used the attached sound suppressor to part the airlock-like fur entrance. There was one layer, a small spot of dead air, and then a second layer.

  “Going in,” I said into my neck microphone.

  “Go,” said Anders’ voice in my ear.

  Pausing, listening, no response, I pushed through the thick furs and into the dwelling. Slinking in low, quiet as I could be, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the firelight. The interior of the yurt was actually much warmer and comfier than expected. In fact, the heat differential was almost painful. The mark’s fur coat was discarded on the floor. The two occupants had their backs to me, and they were speaking quietly, sitting crosslegged on blankets, staring into the fire, which was not exactly the scene I had expected.

  He was maybe twenty-five, definitely Han Chinese. Anders had been right about the girl. There was no way he was going to stay away. She was beautiful, probably in her late teens. They were holding hands. Either she was as superb an actor as Katarina, all dopey and moon-eyed, or the two really were in love.

  So now I needed to go beat some information out the guy, then kill him.

  Some days I hate my job.

  The furs absorbed any noise my boots might have made as I stalked closer. With my head tilted slightly to favor my good ear, I could hear them clearly now.

  “Come away with me. Please,” he said, the tone of his voice was desperate.

  “I can’t. My people are here, my family. Your home, so far away, as if on the other side of world.” Her Cantonese was rough. He must have been tutoring her.

  “We must leave soon. The Pale Man is evil. You know what he’ll do to me if he finds out about us,” he pleaded. I thought of the grinning skull faces propped up on stakes on the railway into The Crossroads. I’m sure the functionary had seen that kind of thing a few times.

  “I know . . . He has hurt my people before, taken many of us away. But this is my home. I am afraid.”

  “I’ll protect you. I promise,” he vowed with the intensity that only the young and stupid can muster.

  Judging by how badly the functionary flinched, the metal end of my Silencero sound suppressor must have been staggeringly cold against the base of his neck. “You’re in no position to promise anything, kid. Don’t you fucking move.” My Cantonese was pretty rough too, but I think I got the point across. And to think that Jill said I was bad at communicating.

  The girl squealed, leapt to her feet, but tripped on the blankets that she had wrapped around her legs, and fell back down. She rolled over and scrambled on her hands and knees back to the far wall of the dwelling. The functionary didn’t move. He knew damn good and well what the cold metal lump resting on his spine was.

  “So Jihan knows . . . ” he said with resignation, the breath leaving his lungs in one long, painful sigh. Slowly, he turned so he could see me. I kept the gun on him the whole time, until he was staring at my mask. I reached back with my left hand and pulled it down. His eyes widened in surprise. “But you’re not one of Jihan’s men . . . who are you? Bandit! Leave her be. She has nothing. I’m the one you want. Do what you will with me, but please don’t harm the girl. I can—”

  I put my left hand back on my gun’s vertical foregrip, then stabbed the whole gun forward, ramming him in the face hard enough to chip a couple of teeth. “Will you shut up already?” He stumbled back and raised his hands to his bloody lips. I turned my attention to the girl. She had gotten over her initial shock, and was apparently glad to see that I wasn’t a scar-faced slave-soldier. “It’s time.”

  “What?” he mumbled through his hands, glancing between me and his girlfriend. I reached into my coat, pulled out the rubber-banded stack of currency from the Montalban Exchange and tossed it to her.

  She caught it in one hand, and immediately used her thumb to fan through the bills to make sure they were all large denominations. “About time,” she responded. “Now my family can leave frozen shithole.” She stood to leave. “Do what you have to. Tell Mrs. Katarina thanks for money.”

  “But . . . but . . . Lotus Blossom?” The functionary began to cry. “What . . . what are you doing?” He got up and stumbled toward her, pleading.

  Now she was angry. “My people taken away to be slaves by your boss. You think I could love you? Stupid. I was paid to love you. You die now. Serve you right.” She paused long enough to face him, look him squarely in the eye, and then kick him squarely in the balls. It was damn hard too, like she was kicking a field goal. He doubled over. “Goodbye!”

  You can’t really slam a fur door, but she somehow managed to. “That sucks,” I said cheerfully as I shoved him to the ground. “Now let’s talk.”

  “You’re an American?” The functionary responded in English. He moaned for what seemed like forever, then started to cry. “Just kill me. I have no reason to live.” His English was better than my Cantonese.

  “Man, that’s harsh,” said the voice in my ear piece. Phillips.

  “Just shoot him, Lorenzo. That would totally be a mercy killing.” Roland.

  “Guys, stay off the radio,” I hissed. I pointed my gun at the sobbing functionary. “The rope to the compound, is there a code word?”

  “Lotus Blossom!” he shrieked.

  I groaned, and took a seat on the rug. This was going to make for a long evening at this rate, and I had two helicopters full of terrorists and mercenaries waiting on me. “Listen, kid, you’re not the first guy to ever get taken advantage of. That’s just business. I’ve been shafted myself a few times. What’s your name?”

  He took his hands off of his groin long enough to wipe the blood from his lips, and muttered “My name is Wing.”

  “Okay, Wing. I’m going to break this down for you. I heard what you said earlier. Sala Jihan is evil, we both know it, and as soon as he finds out that you’ve been sneaking out to meet that hot littl
e nomad and compromising his security, he’s going to torture you to death. So you help me out, and I’ll go kill him, so you won’t have to worry about it.”

  “You can’t kill the Pale Man.”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure I can. I’m good at killing stuff.”

  “You cannot kill what does not die,” Wing insisted. “The Pale Man will destroy us all. I was a fool to betray him.” Wing started to cry again. He really was afraid of Jihan. “Lotus Blossom! How could she betray me?”

  “Wing. Focus. You’re not helping me, buddy. If you don’t tell me about how to get into the compound, I’m going to hurt you until you do. Do you understand?”

  Wing curled up in a really pathetic fetal position, heartbroken and afraid, and probably nauseous from the nut kick. It was actually kind of sad. I could only imagine that if Jill were here she would probably like . . . comfort him, or something, and within thirty seconds he would be giving me the keys to the front gate of the compound.

  “Hurry up, Lorenzo. Start cutting off his fingers already,” Anders said over the radio.

  “This is your last chance, Wing. You’re pretty much screwed. You either help me, or I kill you. You help me, and I let you go. If I kill Jihan, you’re home free. If I fail, at least you’ve got a head start.”

  “I don’t deserve to live. I’ve been helping a monster. My Lotus Blossom can’t love me because of the evil I’ve done.”

  New strategy. “Then this is your chance to atone for you sins.” He looked at me, confused. “Atone, make up for, say you’re sorry, fix past mistakes. You help me kill Jihan, so we can free the slaves that are her relatives, and then maybe Lotus Blossom will forgive you, and take you back.” It was stupid, but from the look on his face, it seemed to work. “You’ll be a hero. Come on, Wing. Do the right thing.” You idiot.

  The wheels were spinning. “Yes. I will help you. You will still fail, because I don’t think you know what you’re dealing with. At least I can go to her and beg forgiveness.” He smiled through bloodstained teeth. “Then she’ll love me again!”

  “Yeah, sure. That’s awesome. Code word?”

  “The man who lets down the rope, his name is Tausang. He works for me. I just call to him. I pay him as soon as he pulls me up. Don’t yell from the bottom, or the guards will hear you. Wave your arms with the flare in the pocket.” Wing gestured at his coat. “He’ll see the movement, and toss down the rope. When you’re close enough to the top to whisper, call him by name. Otherwise, he’ll cut the rope, and you will die on the rocks below.”

  I could tell he was telling the truth, the poor deluded moron.

  “Now, I’m going to go and find my love. I’ll beg her forgiveness!” Wing stood, a man on a mission. “I know she loves me!”

  “Good luck with that.”

  Wing ran out the exit, not even bothering with his coat, just blundering out into the cold, to go randomly barge into the other yurts. I took off my fancy Goretex, and put on the functionary’s grey fur coat. He was bigger than me, but that meant my gear could still fit beneath. My radio crackled in my ear. “You think he told you the truth?” Anders asked.

  “Roger that. I’m heading for the canyon now.”

  “Why didn’t you kill him?”

  Outside, I could hear someone calling out “Lotus Blossom!” over and over, as well as a few guttural responses in a language I didn’t recognize.

  “I have a feeling somebody else is about to do that for us.” I pulled the stolen coat tight, picked up my rifle, and ducked back into the night.

  I stood at the base of the cliff and slowly waved my arms back and forth, road flare burning red in my hand, casting an unearthly glow on the surroundings. The spot I was standing in was basically a tube cut through the black rock by a long-since-disappeared glacial runoff. Now smooth ice covered the walls and hung in bizarre shapes all around, with a single slash of moonlight visible overhead. Through the gash in the ice was the slick wall that seemed to leap up for nearly a hundred feet before terminating at the back of the compound.

  My rifle was stashed further down the canyon. It was too large to conceal, and the last thing I wanted was for Wing’s accomplice to think something was up and cut the rope while I was halfway up. Anders and the others were coming up behind me, but had to hang back far enough in the darkness to not be spotted.

  “Come on . . . Come on . . .” I whispered, ice crystals forming in my goatee as the vapor from my lungs instantly froze. I had to put away my face mask, and Wing’s bulky coat was not nearly as warm as my previous garment. There had been a scarf with the coat, and I pulled it up over my face to disguise the fact that I wasn’t a twenty-something Chinese man. It still smelled of perfume.

  Wing had really loved the girl. This was unbelievably dangerous. All it would take to end his charade was a single slave soldier happening to patrol this area at the right time, and his whole plan would have been toast. He had done this over and over. With my luck, his accomplice, Tausang, had already bailed, and I was waving this stupid flare at some sniper up there with a Dragunov.

  Finally, a thick hemp rope flailed out of the darkness and landed with a thump against the ice. I tossed the flare and kicked snow over it until I was back in blessed shadow. So either Tausang had seen me, or some slave soldier had a twisted sense of humor. I fashioned a basic harness around my waist, and then gave the rope a tug to indicate readiness.

  The rope was pulled taut, cutting into my midsection. I put my boots against the wall, wrapped my extremely expensive neoprene shooting gloves around the rope, and waited. It would have been faster to just climb, but that would have aroused suspicion. I had no idea what Wing weighed, and hadn’t even thought of the possibility until now that I would be drastically different enough for his accomplice to notice while he hauled me up. I’d left my equipment below, he was bigger than me, but I had a lot more muscle packed onto my frame, so hopefully it was close enough not to matter.

  Now I was up out of the crevasse and dangling in the open moonlight. Somehow the air seemed even colder, or maybe it was just my nerves. The trembling in my hands was either from hypothermia or adrenaline, I wasn’t sure. The rope creaked above, and I bounced slightly as Tausang did something with the line. He probably would hoist me up a bit, and then loop it around something so that if he lost me, I wouldn’t plummet back into the rocks.

  “Looking good, Lorenzo.” Anders could see me. The downside was that if the guys below could, anyone looking over the wall above could too. “The choppers are airborne. They’ll wait until we’re secure before entering the canyon.”

  The pull continued. I would ascend a few feet, and then pause for about thirty seconds, and then ascend another few feet. At this rate, assuming Tausang had good cardiovascular fitness, I was only minutes from the top, and with that thought, a sudden bolt of dread traveled down my spine and lodged in the pit of my stomach. I rummaged through my vest until I found my radio, and clicked the dial over to another predetermined frequency. I really didn’t have time for this, but I needed to hear her voice.

  “Jill, come in.”

  “Lorenzo, I can hear you.”

  “I’m almost at the top. I’ll make this quick.”

  “Go.”

  “. . . ” I stopped. What was I going to say? That this was dangerous? That my odds of survival were low? That there were a million things that could go wrong up there? That if the raid failed her and Reaper needed to flee the country as fast as possible, and not look back? We had talked about all of that before.

  “Lorenzo? Come in.”

  “I . . .” Honestly, I was selfish, weak, uncharacteristically nervous, and had just wanted to hear her voice. The words didn’t come out.

  “I know.”

  The radio was silent. I took a long, deep breath. Cold air filled my lungs and burned.

  Jill’s voice was authoritarian. “Now get your head back in the game. I need you to come back safe. Got it?”

  “Got it. Lorenzo out.” I clicked the
radio back to my team’s channel. For some stupid reason, I felt better. So I relaxed and enjoyed the view.

  The sheer ice wall gave way to black rock laced with fat rivulets of ice, rough enough to actually climb. The lip of the cliff was now just ten feet overhead, and I could hear the grunts of exertion as the rope jerked to another stop and was tied off. A large fur ball, no . . . a head in a hood, appeared over the top, and gazed down at me, as if waiting for something.

  “Tausang,” I hissed, keeping my face driven as deeply into the scarf as possible.

  The shape paused, and the hood tilted slightly to one side. “Password?” he queried softly. Oh, give me a break.

  “Tausang.” I said, louder this time.

  The head disappeared back over the lip, and I prepared myself for the final pull to the top.

  Then I heard something. A metallic click, like a clasp of a folding knife . . .

  Damn it, Wing. Then I heard the sawing. It hadn’t been just addressing his accomplice by name. When I had been interrogating Wing, ‘The rope to the compound, is there a code word?’ I had asked.

  “Lotus blossom. Lotus blossom!” I hissed, but it was too late. The rope was severed.

  Panic. The rope made a hissing noise as it shot across the rock lip, pulled by my weight. My hands shot out, scrambling for purchase, for anything. My gloves struck the black rock. My shoulders screamed as I swung like a pendulum and smashed into the mountain.

  I opened my eyes. By some miracle, I was dangling by my right hand from a tiny lip of stone. A few more feet down and there would have been nothing at all to grab onto. The glove began to slip. I raised my left hand, bit down hard on the glove, tore it off, and barely had time to put my naked skin on the freezing stone and find another groove before I lost my grip. I spat the glove out and watched it tumble. Then I hurried and repeated that with the other glove, and was able to get both hands grasping tiny bits of stone, legs dangling over the abyss.

  I tried to pull, every fiber of my being screaming in pain, fire and electricity scorching through my fingers as the frozen rock cut through my skin, and the outer layer of skin died from the cold. I found a deeper pocket with my left hand, and latched on tight.