The Ardoon King Page 2

  Chapter 86: Some Little Thing

  Epilogue

  The Autumn Reality

  Author’s Notes – Book 3?

  Glossary

  Cast of Characters

 

  Prologue:

  China Station 556

  January 4th, Year 2 of the Second Era

  He established his control center on the top floor of the battered remains of the Shanghai World Financial Center. Though the building had once been among the tallest and most majestic structures in the world, soaring nearly five hundred meters into the sky, this day it was an unsightly skeleton of exposed steel beams and concrete - a spiraling tombstone for a billion unclaimed corpses. Black smoke and the putrid particulates of a fallen civilization wafted around it like restless and angry specters. The sky behind it was an ugly, blotchy orange.

  His many dead Ardoon peers had known the man as Zhao Wei, a freelance technical advisor to several companies in Zhongguancun. In reality he had been, and might be for a few hours more, Urukh, Peth-Allati Praetor of the Tenth kingdom of the Nisirtu. The masquerade had ended months ago, when his masters had orchestrated the dissolution of the First Era of humanity.

  I am who I am for a few hours more, meditated Urukh. Belus, grant me at least that.

  He took in a deep breath and grimaced. Even at this great height, the man could still smell the millions of bodies decomposing in the streets below. He spat onto the cracked tile floor and shook his head, as if doing so might rid him of the stench. He had a mask with him but the thing was too damn ungainly to use for more than a few minutes at a time.

  The Peth walked to the portable generator that had been agonizingly hoisted to this highest point, and which powered the post’s two HF transmitters. Urukh found the machine’s steady hum comforting and the smell of its diesel fumes oddly intoxicating. He had no fear of carbon monoxide poisoning. The building no longer had walls.

  Besides, he had more pressing issues.

  “Sir,” said one of his men from behind him. “Both HF radios are functional.”

  The praetor nodded. “Set one up to transmit international Morse code. Transmit voice on the other.”

  There was another roar in the distance and everyone present, including Urukh, cringed. The roar was horrific not only because it was so utterly alien but because it was so astonishingly loud. Urukh had been exposed to a great number of ear-shattering noises in his long career as a warrior, to include the explosion of mortar shells only feet from his prone body. The distant beast’s screams were far more terrifying.

  When the radio operators nodded that they were ready, their commander barked, “Start transmissions now!” The two men pivoted back toward their radio sets as their praetor yelled, “Top Sequence Alpha-Nine-Nine-Nine, Indigo. Urgent. This is Praetor Urukh of the Tenth Kingdom of the Delphic Order of the Nisirtu. China Station 556.”

  As one of the operators spoke hurriedly into a microphone, the other hammered out Morse code with a shaky hand, sweat dripping from his bloodied forehead onto the bouncing key. Urukh walked back to the precipice that had once been guarded by a glass wall and placed the tips of his boots on the edge. As the wind howled around him, the Peth-Allati surveyed the coastline and the black, churning ocean. Eight distant lights marked the location of his forward observation posts. Each contained a squad of Peth armed with a variety of missiles, crew-served weapons, mortars, and rocket launchers.

  These, his remaining forces, were pathetically few in number. He had watched in horror and disbelief as his legion of elite warriors had been reduced to two platoons in less than a week. It was impossible to fathom. The enemy was impossible to fathom.

  If this was the world reborn, it had been better off dead.

  He saw the radio operators watching him, waiting for his next words. Urukh bowed his head and yelled, “Imperium Nisirtu, acta est fabula!”

  In the distance, the ocean swelled. A column of brackish water shot high into the burning sky.

  The thing from the abyss rose.

  Part 1 –

  Anzu gazed at the father of the gods and decided to steal divine supremacy. “I will steal the gods’ Tablet of Destinies and collect the commissions of all the gods. I will take control of the throne and extinguish the divine powers.”

  He patiently plotted an assault, waiting at the entrance to the shrine.

  - The Epic of Anzu, First Millennium BC