Cadmians Choice (70 page)

“Let’s get them out
into the sunlight,” Dainyl said, “out in the open.” He wheeled one, heavy as it
was, down the stone corridor and out into the hazy and smoky heat of early
afternoon. With greater effort, Galya wheeled the other one after him.

Kneeling beside the
one, he inspected it quickly, but minutely, with his Talent as well as his
eyes. One aspect caught his eye immediately. The power level was only set
halfway up. That confirmed his suspicion that the rebels had been trying to
destroy Myrmidons and not pteridons. It also confirmed his suspicions about the
lack of truth in what Zelyert and Asulet had told him about the destruction of
pteridons.

Fhentyl and two other
pteridons touched down in the open space directly to the east of the entry to
the cavern spaces. Fhentyl hurried to meet Dainyl, who stood.

“Is there anyone ...
?” began the captain.

“Hyksant is checking,
but I don’t think so. There wasn’t as much resistance as I’d expected. There
aren’t any supplies left either, not to speak of.”

At the sound of
boots, both officers turned.

Hyksant stepped into
the sunlight. His face was pale and drawn. “There ... there must have been
hundreds of them. Hundreds.”

“Are there any
survivors?” asked Fhentyl.

The undercaptain
shook his head. “I don’t think we killed them all, though. Most of those in the
back corridors—there was dust and smoke on the tunics and boots. They’d been
there for a while.”

For a while? Dainyl
shook his head. “I don’t see how we could have killed so many by anything we
did before today.”

Even Fhentyl looked
puzzled. “There isn’t much in the way of supplies, but there is some food—or
was until the fire got to it. And they wouldn’t have killed their own.”

“I don’t think so.”
After a moment, Dainyl looked directly at Fhentyl. “Have someone count the
dead—the tunics and boots. Then collect them and stack them in the main chamber
of the front archway. I need to check out a few things, as quickly as I can.
Just leave these lightcannon here for a moment, but don’t touch them.”

“Yes, sir.”

As he walked back
through the curved corridor that he felt led to the Table chamber, Dainyl kept
puzzling over what Hyksant had discovered. What could have killed so many?
Certainly, the first attacks hadn’t sealed the complex enough to suffocate
hundreds. The only other thing he had done had been to shut down the Table. Had
the suddenness of that... ?

He almost stopped
walking. The ancient soarer had talked about the need for ties directly to
Acorus, about changing if he wanted to survive. That one time, for an instant,
she had shown him lifethreads stretching to... where? Back to Ifryn? Even
Lystrana had pointed out that alectors were linked to the world only indirectly
and through the dual scepters and the Master Scepter. Could it be that the
links for more recent alectors arriving on Acorus were more susceptible to
disruption and that, if they had translated directly from Ifryn to Hyalt, he
had inadvertently severed those links by his violent shutdown of the Hyalt
Table?

He forced himself to
keep walking, disturbed by the potential implications, until he reached the
normally hidden doorway that led to the Table chamber. The odor of smoke and
sulfur remained strong as he stepped inside.

The Table remained
inert, looking and feeling like a black stone oblong. Even the normally
mirrored surface was black. He released the low-level shields he’d been holding
and continued to survey the chamber. Three sets of boots and clothing remained,
in discrete piles around the Table. He kept searching, but found no papers, and
no documents, nothing to indicate where the rebels had come from or who might
have supported them. He doubted that, one way or the other, there would be any
evidence in the ruins of the redstone building.

“Submarshal!
Submarshal! There are pteridons coming!” Galya stood in the doorway.

Dainyl turned and ran
for the front entrance.

Fhentyl was standing
just outside. “You can’t see them from here, but Arylra reported them. They’re
just above the horizon to the southwest, a full company.”

“I’m not surprised,”
Dainyl replied. Not pleased, but hardly surprised.

“What company are
they?” asked Fhentyl. “You’re acting like they’re with the rebels.”

“I’d judge that they
are, and I’d wager that it’s Seventh Company out of Dulka. Captain Veluara has
some ties to the rebels.”

“Is the entire east
of Coras rebelling?” Fhentyl looked appalled.

“No. The Myrmidons at
Lysia are loyal, and Third and Fourth Company are too far away to have flown
here. I’ve already had trouble with Dulka.” Everything Dainyl said was true,
but he hoped Fhentyl didn’t analyze his words too closely.

“But...”

“Get your squads
airborne. Circle over the cliff top and to the west, so that they have to come
over the entrance to the tunnels here. I’ll join you later, but I want to try
something with those lightcannon.”

“Are you certain you
don’t want anyone here, sir?”

“Absolutely.” Dainyl
paused, then added, “Keep the pteridons fairly low as long as you can.”

“You’re really going
to try the lightcannon?”

“Try is the
appropriate word,” Dainyl replied. “I don’t think they’ll expect it, and if I
can hit their captain, that might disorganize them a bit.”

“You think they’ll
surrender?”

“No. I think they’ve
all been told that we’re the rebels, and seeing the mess we made of the complex
here, they won’t be inclined to think otherwise, no matter what we say.”

Fhentyl frowned. “Hate
to see Myrmidon against Myrmidon.”

“You think I like it?”
countered Dainyl. “I warned the marshal about what was happening in Dulka and
Hyalt months ago. Until two weeks ago, he seemed to feel matters would work
out. You need to get the company airborne. We can talk about how this happened
later.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dainyl waited until
Fifth Company had all departed, rising into the afternoon sky, then stepped
farther out. Over here. .. close to the cliff. The pteridon obediently used
wings and Talent to place itself less than ten yards from the cliff entrance.

Dainyl positioned the
pair of lightcannon just inside the stone archway and angled the discharge
formulators upward to where he thought the oncoming pteridons might appear on
their course toward Fifth Company. Then he turned the power lever all the way
up. From what he’d observed and what he sensed, he’d only have one or two shots
with each lightcannon before it exhausted its stored energy. Then, he settled
back to wait for the oncoming Seventh Company.

By all rights,
Veluara should be the lead flier, or one of the two at the point of the wedge.
He might be able to tell, if the pteridons approached low enough. If not, he’d
take out the leaders and then try to finish the job with his own pteridon and
skylance.

Less than a quarter
glass passed before he saw the wide wedge of Seventh Company. He glanced back
to the west, but the cliff blocked any view of Fifth Company, and that meant
that Fhentyl was hanging back far enough to give Dainyl a good shot—he hoped.

Dainyl forced himself
to wait until the lead pteridon was just short of directly overhead before he
pressed the firing stud, extending his Talent to guide the light-bolt.

The flare was
brighter, far brighter, than he’d thought, and his eyes watered. Even before he
could see again, he had felt the double flash of the dissipation of purpled
life-force. Both flier and pteridon had vanished—near instantly.

Dainyl moved to the
second lightcannon, aiming it at the pteridon that had been flying wing on the
leader. The second flare was equally bright, and the results the same.

The Seventh Company
formation broke, peeling back away from the cliff.

Dainyl checked the
lightcannon, but neither showed any power remaining, and he wasted no time in
running to his pteridon and scrambling into the silver saddle and harness.

Up ... fast pursuit!

The pteridon flashed
skyward. Dainyl could sense the lifeforce drain, the very squandering of
resources that Shastylt had warned against, but Dainyl didn’t see any
alternatives at the moment.

A pair of the Seventh
Company pteridons converged on him, trying to swoop down on him from their
higher altitude.

Dainyl waited until
the last moment before throwing up his strongest shields, then triggering his
lance, boosting and directing the blast at the Myrmidon he
recognized—Undercaptain Klynd.

While Klynd’s
lightbolt sheeted around Dainyl, the submarshal’s fire slammed through the
undercaptain’s far weaker shields. In moments, Klynd’s uniform fluttered
downward through the sky, and his pteridon grasped the skylance before climbing
and circling away.

Keep climbing .. .

The pteridon
responded, and with lance-blasts flying around and past him—few actually even
glancing off his shields—Dainyl was above Seventh Company. To the west, he
could see Fifth Company regrouping into an attack wedge and moving eastward.

Dainyl wanted to end
that battle before it began, and he circled, trying to pick out one of the
squad leaders, amid the conflicting orders as Seventh Company realized that
Fifth Company was also forming for an attack.

After a second
swooping pass and a pull-up, in which he had to fend off more skylance bolts,
Dainyl recognized the uniform and vaguely familiar face of an undercaptain. He
banked and then looped, coming down almost on top of Weltak, before flying
formation to the left of the undercaptain.

“Weltak! Bring them
down, or I’ll destroy every one of you, one at a time!”

The undercaptain’s
eyes widened as he turned his head and recognized Dainyl. “No, sir! Got orders!”

Dainyl lowered his
lance and fired—using Talent to blast through the undercaptain’s comparatively
nonexistent screens. Another set of boots and a uniform fluttered downward
through the skies, and another pteridon wheeled away from the company, climbing
skyward to wait out the battle.

Lyzetta! Would she
listen to reason?

Dainyl made two more
passes before he located the once-junior undercaptain. Then he had to follow
her through a series of dives, loops, and banks. His guts were tight, and his
head was throbbing, before he managed to get close enough to her to shout out, “Undercaptain
Lyzetta! This is Submarshal Dainyl. I’ve taken out all your seniors. You don’t
land your company now, and I’ll take out you and everyone else.”

The undercaptain’s
head jerked upward, and she fired her sky lance.

Dainyl let the blast
sheet around him. He couldn’t hold the shields much longer.

“You fire again, and
you’re dead! Just like Veluara, Klynd,andWeltak!”

She lowered the
lance, helplessly.

“You’ve got a tenth
of a glass. Put them down in formation in front of the burned-out building.”

Dainyl banked away,
climbing westward, before anyone else tried to fire at him.

In moments, he was
flying alongside Fhentyl.

“They’re going to set
down. I’m going down after they’re in formation. Keep circling. If anyone tries
to lift off, flame them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dainyl banked back to
the south to make sure Lyzetta ordered Seventh Company to ground.

More like a quarter
of a glass passed before Dainyl’s pteridon touched down before the remnants of
Seventh Company. He held his shields, although the effort was getting
exhausting, and his fingers trembled, so much so that he laid the skylance
across his thighs, his hands only resting on the weapon. He couldn’t do much
more.

“Lyzetta! Any other
squad leaders forward!”

Two undercaptains
appeared—what Dainyl expected, since he’d killed Weltak, Klynd, and Veluara.
Dainyl looked over the two.

“Whether you know it
or not, you’ve just been part of a rebellion against the Duarch and against the
Marshal of Myrmidons. Regional Alector Rhelyn—he was the RA here in Hyalt—had
been gathering translated alectors from Ifryn as part of a force to take over
Acorus. Before we go any further, I’d like each of you undercaptains, one at a
time, to walk inside the entrance there and look at all the alectors’
shimmersilk uniforms stacked in the large chamber to the left. Lyzetta, you go
first.”

The alectress did not
look at Dainyl, but she did turn and follow his directions. She came back
quickly, her expression frozen.

“Now you.” Dainyl did
not know—or couldn’t recall— the other undercaptain’s name.

When both
undercaptains stood before Dainyl once more, he surveyed them silently before
speaking.

“You and your
pteridons will not return to Dulka. You will accompany me and Fifth Company to
Tempre and then to Dereka.”

“Might we ask why,
sir?” asked Lyzetta.

“Captain Veluara was
part of the rebel group. So is RA Quivaryt. Your old compound is being used as
a base for the rebel alectors. Marshal Shastylt has said that there could be
little as bad as Myrmidons fighting Myrmidons. That will occur again if you
return to Dulka—unless each of you is killed and your place taken by a rebel.
That has already occurred a number of times.”

Lyzetta and the other
squad leader exchanged glances.

“That’s why you’re
coming to Dereka. It’s for your protection as well.”

‘That’s all?” Lyzetta
finally asked.

“You may have to
fight against other rebels. I hope not, but I can’t promise that.” Dainyl was
exhausted. He hoped he could make the flight back to the way station. “You’re
to lift off and follow me to the way station we’re using a base. We’ll leave
tomorrow for Tempre.”

“Sir?”

“There’s nothing left
here,” Dainyl added. “We’ve had the compound under siege for more than a week,
and we ended up flaming it from the inside.”