The Ardoon King Page 25

  Chapter 23: The Nebraska Massacre

  February 8, Year 2 of the Second Era

  “Is this the right area, Anax?” asked Vedeus, looking at his map.

  It was dusk and Ben had to put on his reading glasses to make out the lines. “Yeah,” he said removing them. “The coordinates allow for a variation of a few hundred meters, and the resection could be dozens of miles off, but this is the right area.”

  Ben surveyed the land around him, confused. If the temple here was anything like the temple in Cash, it would stick out like a sore thumb. The snow here was only an inch or two deep, yet the ground was still white, and Ben had assumed the temple would be black given the apparent importance of the color to the residents of Cash. There was nothing around him but miles of white, rolling land.

  “Send out scouts in every direction. Tell them we’re looking for any indication of new construction or recent combat. Disturbed snow, shell casings, blood, footprints, construction materials – anything. Let’s not attract unwanted attention, though. Enforce light discipline.”

  “As you say, Anax.” Vedeus relayed the command to nearby subordinate officers as Ben dismounted and walked to a nearby tree to answer the call of nature.

  Thirty minutes later, as a full moon began its ascent, one of the scouts returned. She removed her gaiter as she hopped from her horse and strode toward Vedeus. “Captain,” she said, breathing heavily, “To the north there is a pit, and next to the pit a bus and many trucks.”

  “Any signs of combat?”

  “Many.”

  “Gods,” exclaimed Vedeus.

  Though it was dark, the full moon’s reflection off the snow provided adequate illumination for the Peth to survey the area without flashlights. The found scores of vehicles. They were parked haphazardly in a circle around a dark orifice that the scout had called a pit. Upon closer inspection it proved to be the entrance to an underground cave.

  Interspersed among the vehicles were hundreds of body parts. Arms, legs, torsos, and worst of all, heads, their terrified expressions literally frozen in place. The uniforms and weapons scattered about left no doubt that these were members of the ill-fated Peth expedition that had radioed a desperate request for assistance. Dozens of frozen horses, some intact and others in pieces, were interspersed with the remains of their former masters.

  Studying the scene, Ben said, “The dismemberment suggests the Peth were hit by mortar fire, or rockets, but there’s no shrapnel.”

  “The wounds are odd,” replied Vedeus. “The dead seem almost to have been drawn and quartered. The flesh on the limbs is unscathed.”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty weird. How is it that these guys were in a gun battle and yet none of them were hit by a bullet? Their armor doesn’t show any signs of bullet impacts.” He clicked on his night vision goggles and stared at the body parts strewn around him. “Another thing: the limbs are severed in odd places. If they were blown off they’d have come apart at the joints. But here, legs have been sliced apart at mid-thigh and forearms cut into two or more pieces. They look like they’ve been attacked with axes.”

  Vedeus nodded. “Why should their enemy defile the bodies of the men in such a way?”

  “What enemy? The only bodies I see belong to the Peth unit.”

  “Perhaps the enemy collected their dead before departing the area.”

  Ben shook his head. “There’s a lot of valuable stuff lying around - weapons, ammunition, and body armor. There is food in the abandoned packs, and high-end night vision equipment. If the bad guys had taken the time to collect their dead they’d have collected the goodies, too.”

  Turning his horse in a slow circle, Vedeus said, “There is an antenna mast strapped to a bus. The antenna is missing but coax cable runs from the mast into the cave. I will send a team in. Perhaps we can find survivors.”

  “I doubt we’ll find survivors,” Ben replied. “I think we’ve found our temple.”

  Ben and Vedeus watched as the assembled squad popped an illumination flare and tossed it into the cave. It landed on an earthen ramp and rolled a long way before coming to rest on the cave floor. As it burned and hissed, emitting both a bright white light and smoke, those standing outside the glowing rim saw that the chamber far below was perhaps fifty feet wide. Curiously, the rear wall was not a natural formation. It was made of concrete blocks, and seemed to be curved.

  Body parts were strewn everywhere around the entrance. Heads with wide-staring eyes, their irises and pupils white, stared up at the Peth, as if to say, “Come and join us!”

  Ben stood outside, alongside Vedeus, as the first group of Peth entered the cave. The squad returned to the surface in fifteen minutes. The squad leader, a middle-aged man who was missing an eyebrow, removed his goggles and rubbed at his nose, saying, “Forty-three corpses intact. Some Ardoon, some Peth.”

  “What were the Ardoon wearing?” asked Ben.

  “Sir?”

  “Summer clothes or winter?”

  The Peth scratched at gray stubble. “Summer. There are no coats, Anax.”

  “Were the corpses laid out in a circle? In an order that would suggest ritual suicide?”

  “No, Anax, the bodies are thrown about like rag dolls, mostly along the wall. Chopped to pieces, like the Peth above them.”

  That surprised Ben, because it varied from the Cash temple. “When you say ‘wall,’ you mean the cave wall?”

  “No, Anax, a round room has been built inside the natural cavity. The ground, however, is natural, and is pooled with water.” He pointed down at his leg, which was coated in mud up to the knee. “It is not as cold in the cave. The water has not frozen.”

  “Did you find a radio?”

  “No, Anax. The cable was cut. The radio is probably buried in the muck, along with the spare batteries. We were unable to locate it.”

  “Good. Thank you, Sergeant. Carry on.”

  The sergeant bowed stiffly and left.

  “Odd,” said Vedeus as the man departed.

  “Yeah. A whole lot of ‘odd.’ I need a second to think about this.”

  Vedeus went silent, scanning the darkened horizon and the bright stars above, while Ben closed his eyes and contemplated the situation. The remainder of the Peth, having dismounted their horses, were forming a perimeter inside of the circle of vehicles.

  “Okay,” said Ben at last. “Ready to go inside?”