The Ardoon King Page 68

  Chapter 66: Rescue

  The Peth above Ben and Vedeus were, in fact, still digging. They had never stopped. Unfortunately, they had made little progress. The blizzard had made moving the heavy debris almost impossible, even with the ancient, unreliable farm tractor they’d located. The ropes broke. The chains slipped. An ill-conceived notion to use a section of a fallen power line resulted in one man’s ugly death when the line snapped.

  The king was almost certainly dead, as was their commander, and the dig seemed futile. Yet they were spurred on by knowledge that a coup was underway at Steepleguard. Their radio communications down as a result of persistently bad weather, they learned about the plot in a curious fashion. A man had been spotted trying to sneak past their perimeter. He’d been shot, but not mortally, and the Peth initially believed he was just a starving Ardoon survivor intent upon stealing food.

  Upon closer inspection they found that the man bore the tattoos of an elite Peth sniper unit, the Turzakas, and that he carried with him a sophisticated sniper’s rifle. Upon interrogation the man admitted to having been hired by Porazo to come to the site and ensure that the king was, in fact, dead. If the sniper saw that the king had been rescued, Porazo’s man was to put a bullet in his head.

  The sniper had been singularly unfortunate, however, having fallen into a nearby pond that was sheathed in a thin layer of ice and concealed by snow. His hands and feet black with frostbite, the desperate Peth had crawled on his elbows for half a mile to the squadron’s perimeter. He had no particular plan at that point, except to survive, and if the opportunity presented itself, to complete his mission, as difficult as that would be with frozen fingers.

  Having seen that the king could not be rescued, the sniper was forthcoming about his mission, relishing in the king’s death despite his failure to cause it. The leader of the squadron’s survivors, Corporal Hadley, was as stunned as the Peth around him. How was it possible that one of the king’s own had turned against him? But the sniper revealed to them that he was Maqtu, one of the rebels who had supported Lord Moros’s failed usurping of the Fifth Kingdom the night of the apocalypse. He was alive because the “foolish Ardoon” and “false king” had pardoned any Maqtu survivors who swore allegiance to him and his “whore wife.”

  That was always the dilemma with Peth. They were fiercely obedient to those individuals they considered their rightful superiors. Yet it was impossible to see into their hearts. In times of turmoil, it was impossible for a king to be certain of the loyalty of any Peth not born under his flag. A Peth’s oath of allegiance meant nothing if, deep in his heart, he believed his new ruler to be illegitimate.

  The sniper had been drawn and quartered, a rather pointless exercise since the man’s arms and legs were very near to falling off from frostbite anyway. His appearance and announcement of a coup did, however, give the weary survivors of the expedition new impetus to rescue their king. Even his body would have value, if they could transport it to Steepleguard to rally the fallen man’s faithful followers.

  It was a very near thing.

  Vedeus had done as instructed, holding the Cicada image of the damaged glyphs up to the cave wall. After some minor adjustments, he got the size and location right, and was awarded with the appearance of a familiar green dot overhead. As before, it began to slowly circle the room, the air filling with electricity.

  It was only then that he realized he had no way of keeping the tablet in the right position aside from holding it there with his hands while he was standing atop a ladder. That meant he was fated to not only be in the cave if and when the next creature materialized, he was also fated to be standing on a ladder against the wall right in front of it.

  Recognizing this, he removed the tablet and climbed down the ladder. The green dot faded into nothingness as he grabbed his now unconscious king and dragged him to the pocket between the cave and block walls that they hoped might protect them. When Ben’s body was in place, the Peth climbed the ladder again, each rung taking long seconds to ascend as he gasped for breathable air that was not there. His face was soaked in sweat, as were his hands, and he almost dropped the Cicada. He caught it but nearly fell off the ladder.

  Nearly delirious, the Peth used his last reserves of energy to hoist the Cicada into position and activate it. He waited for the green dot, and when it appeared, he lowered his head to watch the chamber below.

  The green dot became a green line the room erupted in an eerie pink hue. The glyphs in front of him, and behind the block walls, were glowing a bright red and by some trick of the light seemed to be moving. The air was slowly filled with electricity.

  “Come on, you bastard,” he mumbled. “Come on. I can’t stand here all day…”

  He smiled bitterly when he heard the first distant roar. “There you are. Come on, then. Come to Daddy…”

  Above him, Corporal Hadley felt the first rumble.

  “Gods,” he exclaimed, looking at the men around him, all of whom had shovels or picks in their hands. “Not again!”

  The rumble became a miniature earthquake. The snow at the feet of the survivors began to move.

  “Run!” screamed the corporal, smelling the ozone in the air.

  Vedeus would never remember exactly what happened. His memory recorded subsequent events in high speed with long intermissions between scenes. He remembered standing on the ladder, and then diving, and then lying atop Ben’s unconscious form. He remembered the roars, the powerful electrical shock that almost caused him to black out, and the falling blocks. Then he saw the sky and felt the cold, fresh air rush into his lungs, and he wheezed and laughed and coughed and wheezed some more.

  He remembered pulling the flare gun from his cargo pocket with a shaky hand, and the twinkling flare that floated above him, and the black mass that cast the land below into shadow.

  “Flare!” shouted the forward lookout.

  Disparthian and Fiela ran forward. They arrived just in time to see the dazzling white and luminescent object floating back toward the ground, a trail of smoke wafting behind it. Before either could speak, a second lookout shouted, “Movement below! Uniforms, weapons…it’s Peth! It’s the Kings’ Squadron!”

  “They’re running,” said Fiela, seeing the figures three hundred feet below them. “They’re panicked. Something-”

  “There!” yelled the first lookout. “Gods, what is that thing?”

  Disparthian moved to the man’s side and raised his binoculars. When he finally located the creature, his heart skipped a beat. He had been compelled to recognize the existence of the temple monsters after speaking with Fiela and the survivors of the wounded squadron. Their accounts were very specific, and the chopped-up bodies gave weight to the survivors’ descriptions of how the unspeakable thing killed its prey. Their accounts also jived with the reports made by the King’s Squadron weeks ago and the desperate transmission made by the unknown Peth unit before that. All had described monsters. The evidence that such creatures existed was overwhelming.

  Still, seeing such a beast in person brought the reality home.

  Fiela was next to him. “Diz,” she said in a firm voice, “drop a rope. I’m going down.”

  “Annasa-”

  “Drop a rope or I’ll jump,” the girl said.

  Disparthian wondered if even the fabled Edimmu could survive a fall of three hundred feet. Probably, but not without injury. It was a pointless calculation in any event. He knew she would, in fact, jump, even into the bowels of hell, if it meant finding her husband.

  “As you say. Pilot, drop us down to fifty meters.” He turned to a Peth behind him. “Take the queen to the launch platform. Send a fire team down with her.”

  The subordinate did not have an opportunity to respond. Fiela was already dragging the man to their destination.

  Disparthian turned to his newly-assigned weapons officer. “Are the pods manned?”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Weapons live, then. I don’t want that beast anywhe
re near the queen.”

  “Sir,” said the weapons officer, “if the creature attacks the squadron-”

  “Preserve the queen at all costs. The gunners will not be held accountable for friendly losses. Is that understood?”

  The man nodded. “As you say, Lord.”

  Ben thought this new dream the best yet. He dreamt that his crazy plan had worked, and that he and Vedeus were now propped up against the edge of giant crater and staring together at a brilliant blue sky, fresh air feeling their lungs. He also dreamt that he heard gunfire and screams and the creature’s roars, but that was to be expected.

  For a brief moment the fallen king thought he might not be dreaming. What if his plan really had worked? The hope was short-lived. This could not be reality. There were too many aberrations, foremost of which was the gargantuan, triangular UFO hovering above him. There was no way that was real. The dream became even more ludicrous when he saw ropes being tossed from the UFO. Aliens would use transporters, he knew. Or gravitation waves, maybe. Or hovering platforms. They certainly wouldn’t descend to the planet using ropes!

  The cherry on the icing was the appearance of the aliens themselves. They looked human. Hell, one of them even looked like Fiela, shooting down the rope head first so fast that she might as well be in free-fall. The other aliens, larger and in black combat armor, slid down the ropes in the proper manner - feet first. They still moved pretty damn fast, though.

  Ben watched as the monster he had released into the world sprung into the air. Though he knew it was a dream, he still felt fear. The thing’s trajectory meant it would land atop the alien that looked like Fiela, and he didn’t want the girl to die, even in his dream. He had watched Fiela die in another dream. He couldn’t bear to see it again.

  He saw the others on the ropes level their weapons, even as they slid toward the earth, and fire at the beast. It was pointless, of course. Ben knew the thing couldn’t be killed by bullets or even grenades.

  Then the dream took a peculiar turn. He heard the sound of something that sounded like a jet engine warming up. It was a sound he’d heard many times on tarmacs around the world. It was the sound a jet aircraft’s engines made when it was first engaged, just before the aircraft began moving forward and accelerating down a runway. After that, Ben heard what sounded like a circular saw burping. That was a sound he was familiar with, too. He’d heard it many times in Afghanistan, in the real world.

  It was the sound made by an Avenger rotary cannon.

  Or perhaps, two of them?

  The dream played along with his hypothesis. A yellow line appeared in middle of the sky. It ran directly between the UFO and the creature. Then a second line appeared.

  Then a third.

  Ben stifled a laugh. Apparently bullets could hurt the creature, after all. They just had to be very large bullets – 30mm, for example – and they had to be hurled at a rate of 4,200 per second. Three guns meant 12,600 rounds were striking the monster at once and at a speed of around a thousand meters per second. The monster’s forward trajectory came to an abrupt halt as the three glowing yellow lines converged on it. It was still in the air when it was blown to pieces.

  “I hope that’s ours,” said Vedeus, next to him.

  “I bet it’s from Orion,” said Ben.

  “What, Anax?”

  “You know. Orion.” Ben looked at the man.

  “Anax, are you quite right in the head?”

  “A dangerous question to ask a king,” replied Ben. But at that moment he felt pain. Real pain. His foot throbbed. Nausea washed over him. He groaned and slumped to one side, willing himself to vomit but unable to. Acrid-tasting bile dribbled from his mouth.

  “Mutu!” screamed someone from far away.

  That’s nice, he thought, just before the world went dark.