Rameses gawked. He dithered, his eyes moving back and forth from the shambling wreck of Zahir to the infuriated Tamerlane.
Then, as Arani prepared to take another shot before leading the troops down into the throne room in one last act of defiance, several things happened at once:
The air a short distance away swirled about, slowly forming a vertical circle of clouds and light.
Rameses, not seeing this, focused his attention on Tamerlane and started forward again, the sword up and ready to strike.
And Tamerlane, his rage overtaking him yet still somehow allowing him enough sanity to remember the other job that needed doing, grasped the lip of the golden basin with both hands. Acting purely on instinct and anger, but with all the strength he possessed, he lifted the edge of the cauldron and tipped it over in the direction of Rameses and Zahir.
A wave of sloshing, foaming, raw cosmic energy poured out. The leading edge struck Rameses and bore him back and away. Then it washed over the zombie-like form of Zahir, and the already-ragged figure screamed in agony. As the energies engulfed him, his flesh bubbled and boiled away. A second later, the wave had passed, leaving behind only his bones, which began to crumble to dust. Within seconds only a charred spot remained where once the vizier had stood.
Rameses, regaining his footing and protected from the onslaught by the cosmic armor, gaped at the rapidly diminishing remains of Zahir—a god he had believed could never die. “The fountain,” he murmured, realizing the truth. “The energies. They were not tuned. In their raw state, they can destroy even a god.” He looked down at himself. “Only the armor saved me,” he exclaimed, patting himself all over as if to be sure all his parts were still there. “Only the armor…”
Tamerlane ignored all of this. His fury was undiminished. He started toward Rameses, even as Arani and Elaro and the rest of the company rushed down from the balcony to help.
Rameses stood in his gleaming crimson armor, the mighty Sword of Baranak clutched in his hand. He regarded Tamerlane and laughed heartily. “You—you attack me, General?” he asked, incredulous. “I wear the armor of the gods. I wield the mightiest weapon in the galaxy. I am a living god! And you—you—are unarmed.” He laughed again. “Why in the name of Those Who Remain should I fear you?”
“Because I can make you burn,” Tamerlane barked. He gestured with his right hand and flames leapt up across Rameses’ back and the side of his head.
The governor of Ahknaton scoffed, ignoring the fire, entirely untroubled by it. “Your meager powers do not concern me, Ezekial,” he said. “Start all the fires you like. Inside this armor, I cannot be harmed!” He plodded forward, raising the sword high. “But I can certainly harm you!”
Colonel Arani and her team rushed down the stairs and onto the floor of the throne room. They had expected to encounter resistance from the Sand Kings, but only a scant half-dozen of Rameses’ soldiers occupied the vast chamber—and those stood still as statues, staring off into space.
Arani and Elaro gawked at the heavily armed and armored ceremonial guardsmen for a moment, uncertain of what to make of them. Then, concluding that, for whatever reason, they did not represent a threat—at least for the moment—they dashed past them towards Tamerlane.
The general saw them coming out of the corner of his eye, even as he kept the other glued on the advancing Rameses. He waved them away. “The princess,” he shouted to them. “See to her. See if it’s not too late!”
Arani hesitated, then complied. She ran to where the young girl lay on the platform, her entire body surrounded by a bright red glow. “I don’t know,” she called, almost frantic as she beheld the horror that was occurring before her. “I have no way of knowing.” She turned to Titus Elaro, who stood behind her, looking on with an expression of disgust. “What can we do?”
Sister Delain appeared between them suddenly, as if she’d been conjured like some ghost or spirit of the netherworld. She raised one hand, palm facing outward in the direction of the little girl. “It is as I feared,” she murmured, her voice barely audible. “This process—it is alien to me.” She looked up at Arani, despair evident on her face. “It may well be irreversible now.”
“Try something,” Elaro almost shouted.
Arani put a hand on his arm to calm him, then said to Delain, “Do what you can. We may not have much time before Rameses’ army rushes in here.”
Frowning but nodding, Delain moved closer to the glowing girl and bent over her, hands moving in gestures both subtle and complex.
Meanwhile the other soldiers that had come down with Arani from the balcony moved quickly up behind Tamerlane, seeking to help him against the armored enemy. Again Tamerlane motioned them back, even as he slowly gave ground himself.
“You retreat,” Rameses laughed.
“I stall for time,” Tamerlane replied.
“Time?” Rameses regarded him with an expression that portrayed mostly scorn and contempt, but revealed a slight degree of curiosity. “Time for what?”
“For them,” Tamerlane said. He nodded toward the spot in midair nearby that was currently in the process of rending itself open.
Rameses, sensing a trick, hesitated for only a second. Then he turned his head quickly and looked. He gasped.
Lightning was flaring out of a hole ripped in the fabric of spacetime. A dimensional rift had been torn open in the midst of his throne room, and to Rameses’ shock and horror, a veritable army was rushing through. Men and women alike, their faces bore grim determination if not outright fanaticism. Their black uniforms shone in the light of the chamber’s artificial illumination and open flames, and the golden eye insignia on each of their chests was unmistakable.
It was the II Legion—the Sons of Terra. And at their head, the infamous commander himself, General Ioan “The Unyielding” Iapetus, led the way. Beside him walked the Ecclesiarch, Teluria, in her red robes and hood, very obviously unhappy to be there. Iapetus held a pistol in his right hand, aimed casually in her general direction.
Rameses gawked at the intruders, and he stopped his advance. The sword drooped slightly in his hand as he fully appreciated exactly who had invaded his inner sanctum. “You—!” he managed at last. Anger and resentment almost overtook him. “You!”
“Us,” Iapetus said. Then, more formally, “We are the Sons of Terra,” he intoned. “And in the name of sacred Mother Earth, Governor Amon Rameses, we are here to accept your surrender.” He smiled his cruel smile. “And if, as I hope, you choose not to surrender, we are here to render you very, very dead.”
3
Chaos reigned in the throne room.
Only seconds after the Sons of Terra appeared, pouring in through the portal, the six elite guardsmen of Rameses awoke. Seeing the intruders, the six let loose with their power rifles and energy lances. The blasts cut into the leading edge of the Sons’ line.
The Sons scarcely seemed to notice. Their numbers were too great, their focus too intense. They closed up their ranks and opened fire.
The exceptional nature of the elite guardsmen’s armor protected them for somewhat longer than an average trooper’s suit would’ve, allowing a mere six to hold out for over a minute rather than only seconds. Soon enough, however, the unyielding barrage of firepower from the Sons’ guns began to have an impact. First one and then another of the guardsmen went down before the onslaught, gold and enamel armor shredded by particle beams, slugs and energy bolts.
Rameses, reeling from this unexpected intrusion into his throne room, his palace, and his world, retreated in confusion. Tamerlane was almost entirely forgotten to him now. His focus instead was on Iapetus—hated, despised Iapetus, with his arrogance and his condescension and his cursed legion. A legion that now seemed to be transporting its entirety right here onto Ahknaton.
“I still have the sword,” he reminded himself as he backed away. “And this armor. And—” He turned and looked about. “—my own legion,” he finished, frowning, looking around as if realizing for the first
time that no other troops were present in the chamber. “What?” he asked no one. “Where—where are the—?”
And then he remembered. Remembered the man in black sending them away, closing the door behind them. Leaving him here with only six guardsmen to protect him.
“Guards!” he cried, running for the entrance. “Come to me! You are needed!” He reached the doors and fought the locks, attempting to force them open. Something had been done to them; something had fused them solid.
The man in black, he realized. He did this.
A part of him—buried deep, deep down inside—wanted to scream in defiance. But he couldn’t. He simply could not. He was incapable of fully formulating coherent thoughts one way or the other about the man in bl—about—about that man who—about—
Shaking his head as if lost in a fog, Rameses shouted wordless anger and raised the Sword of Baranak. He swung it around and down against the doors. Lightning flared and sparks flew, but Goraddon’s seals held.
“Sand Kings!” the mad governor shouted. “I need you!” He swung the sword again, and the sound of its impact resounded like a thunderbolt within the confines of the throne room.
“General,” Arani called a few moments earlier. “We need you!”
Next to her, Delain ceased her efforts and leaned heavily against a column, almost fainting from exhaustion. The body of the princess lay unmoving and unchanged on the flat platform, a red glow still surrounding it.
Tamerlane had thought to pursue Rameses, but with the chamber rapidly filling with II Legion troops and with Arani calling him, he decided to let Iapetus have first crack at finishing off the governor. He hurried over to where the colonel and her little entourage were gathered around the platform.
“I cannot do it,” Delain managed to get out as she gasped for breath. Her black hood was pulled completely back and sweat ran down her pale, smooth face.
“Then what—” Tamerlane began.
“She has an idea,” Arani said, interrupting her commanding officer. “Sir.”
Tamerlane looked from the colonel to the Inquisitor. “Well?” he asked, impatient.
“The demonform has not yet fully manifested into our plane of reality,” Delain said. “I can open a way into its dimension, but I am unable to harm it—or affect it at all, really—once I do so.”
Tamerlane took this in and nodded. “Alright. And?”
Arani looked at him. “You’re the answer.”
“Me?”
“Your fire.”
Tamerlane took this in, blinking. He thought he understood, more or less. “Very well,” he said. “What do I do?”
Delain quickly explained. Then, even as energy blasts and tracers sliced their way back and forth across the huge chamber, the three of them got to work.
“Wait, wait,” Delain whispered, leaning close over the body of the princess. “Be ready...”
Tamerlane gritted his teeth. The thought of a demon lord mere inches away from Delain made his skin crawl. And—if they were successful in this impromptu exorcism, would the creature erupt right out of the little girl’s body, doing the gods knew what harm as it did so, and would it immediately attack those nearest to it, namely Arani, Elaro, Delain, and him?
Tamerlane inhaled deeply and tried to put such thoughts out of his head. This little girl was the only living heir to the throne, as far as he or anyone knew. With Nakamura very obviously dead, there was no one else left to pull the disintegrating Empire back together. No wonder Rameses wanted her under his control! She had to be saved—freed—no matter the cost to him or anyone else. “I’m ready,” he breathed. “Just tell me when.”
As Arani and Elaro stood guard over them both, Delain shook her head, continuing to chant as she moved her fingers in complex gestures above the little girl’s comatose body. “Wait,” she hissed, between incantations. “Wait—”
The plan as the Inquisitor lady had explained it was simple enough—yet insanely dangerous. Delain would open a small dimensional portal through the girl and directly into the underverse from whence the demon lord had been summoned, and where most of its metaphysical body likely still resided. Tamerlane’s job was to unleash a blast of his cosmic fire through the girl and into the portal, with the goal of driving the rest of the demon out of the princess and back down the hole into its own realm. Theoretically the fire would travel within and along the pathway of the portal and would not touch or harm the girl’s physical body. Also theoretically, the demon would be trapped in its own dimension once again, as it had been before the late Emperor and his party had brought it and its brethren back. That was entirely too much “theoretically” for Tamerlane, but what else could he do? It was all well outside of his base of expertise. And in truth there were only a couple of variables: Would Tamerlane’s flames be enough to dislodge the monster, or would it all be for naught? And, of course, would the fire truly pass harmlessly through the little girl and not harm her—or would Tamerlane himself be the one who actually killed her?
None of them had any way of knowing, and no time to experiment. So they did the only thing they could: They tried it anyway.
The Inquisitor ceased her incantations and curled her fingers into a tight fist. She gritted her teeth and grunted. At that moment, a swirl of light formed directly above the little girl’s chest.
“Now!” shouted Delain.
Carefully containing and regulating it—and grateful that he’d spent so much time in recent weeks refining those abilities—Tamerlane poured a column of flame down the narrow tunnel of light, and directly into the little body that lay before him.
The princess opened her eyes and screamed.
Unnerved, Tamerlane gasped and stepped back, the fire instantly cut off. Delain stopped her gestures and opened her hands, palms outward, toward the girl. She was breathing heavily.
Princess Marens cried out once again, then collapsed limply onto the palanquin.
“Did it work?” Tamerlane demanded, moving instantly to the girl’s side. He took her hand, feeling for her pulse. “Was that enough? When she screamed, I—”
“I—I do not know,” Delain gasped, sweat now pouring from her brow.
“How will we know? When will we know?” Arani demanded.
The Inquisitor recovered enough to give the colonel a sharp look. Under normal circumstances, no one would ever dream of speaking that way to an official of the Holy Inquisition. The present circumstances being the farthest thing from normal, however, Delain appeared to take the questioning in stride. “I’m sorry,” she managed to say, her voice ragged, “I simply don’t know. All we can do is wait and see.”
“That’s not good enough!” Arani almost shouted. “This little girl—”
Tamerlane leaned in between them. “Colonel Arani. I appreciate your concern for the Princess. But I believe your energy and passion could be put to better use.” He nodded toward the horde of black-clad Sons of Terra still swarming into the throne room, their guns blasting away at the remaining two guardsmen, who had taken cover behind marble columns. “Unless you believe General Iapetus will be easy to manage once this is all over.”
Arani looked at him. She blinked. “I understand, General. My apologies.” She turned to Delain. “To you as well, Inquisitor. I shouldn’t have—”
Delain raised a hand and shook her head. “It’s alright, Colonel. I fully appreciate your concern.” Then she looked back at the girl. She frowned. “The red glow is gone.”
“That’s good—right?” Tamerlane asked, looking from Delain to Arani and back.
“I suppose so, but—”
Delain was interrupted by Titus Elaro, who leaned in front of Tamerlane, his blast pistol unholstered and in hand. “General,” he said urgently, “the Sand Kings. They’re in.”
Tamerlane looked up. He absorbed the tactical situation instantly.
As the last of the elite guardsmen held the Sons of Terra assault force off, Rameses had finally managed to unseal the massive double doors at the end
of the throne room. The twin portals burst open and an army of Egyptian-styled soldiers rushed in, past the exhausted Rameses. Still clad in his crimson armor, he stood off to the side, the sword resting tip-down on the floor as he leaned upon it like a walking stick.
“Kill them!” he shouted, pointing at the II Legion troops in their black and gold. “Kill the intruders!”
The two armies sized one another up in less than a second, Sand Kings on one side and Sons of Terra on the other, and then the guns of both sides opened fire. The throne room became a killing zone. The Battle for Ahknaton was truly engaged.
4
As the Sand Kings in their red and blue enameled body armor charged into the throne room, General Iapetus and his unwilling companion moved quickly aside, seeking cover. The need to lead from the front was now over, and the priority became simply to survive the conflict. Victory would be nice, too, but survival above all else.
“You will suffer for this,” Teluria growled at him. Her dark red robes were pulled tightly against herself and her hood nearly obscured her face as well as the rest of her head. “No one treats me this way.”
“Obviously someone does, since I’m doing it presently,” Iapetus replied as he pulled her behind a column. The god-slayer pistol rested loosely but comfortably in his hand, and it wasn’t exactly aimed at Teluria—but it wasn’t exactly aimed anywhere else, either. “Just be patient and we will be finished here shortly.”
“What if you don’t win?” the woman hissed vindictively. “What if Rameses beats your army?”
Iapetus snorted. “I seriously doubt that outcome is a likely possibility.” He offered her a half-shrug. “But, should it somehow occur, I will need you to open a way out of here for us, and in record time.” He smiled. “That’s the main reason I’ve had to impose upon you to stay close to me a little longer.”
The Shattering: Omnibus Page 57
