King's Sacrifice (62 page)

Odd, Maigrey
thought. Why not lasguns? Beam rifles? Far deadlier, far less need
for accuracy.

"Hold your
fire!" she commanded, though there was really no need. Agis and
Sparafucile were expert enough to realize that the mind-dead could
only shoot blindly into the darkness. Returning fire from this
distance would do little damage to the enemy, give away their
position.

More bolts shot
past, striking the walls, the ceiling, clattering on the rock floor.

Maigrey had
switched the bloodsword from offensive to defensive, dimming its
bright light, using it to shield herself and Brother Daniel, who had
been instructed to keep close behind her. But, she realized, she need
not waste the energy.

Either these
mind-dead were terrible shots or they were purposefully firing so as
not to hit anything.

Ah, but you
mustn't die, my dear. That wouldn't suit my plans at all.

You better kill
me, Abdiel. Now, when you have the chance.

Maigrey crouched
behind the barricade. Bolts slammed into it, whistled above it.
Brother Daniel huddled beside her.

Sparafucile put
his hand on the priest's shoulder, shoved him roughly to the floor.

"Priest, he
down!" the assassin ordered.

Brother Daniel
meekly obeyed. Maigrey took a grenade from her belt, intending to lob
it over the barricade. The half-breed stopped her.

"No good.
Fall in water. Make only big splash."

Water again.
"I've got to see what it's like in there," Maigrey said
irritably. "Agis, cover me. Make them keep their heads down
while I take a look."

The centurion
lifted the beam rifle, positioned it on the top of the rock
barricade, and fired.

The result was
completely, totally unexpected.

A roaring sound,
an explosion. Clouds of flame, that roiled out of the cavern, burst
over the barricade.

Agis dropped the
beam rifle, ducked behind the barricade, pulled Maigrey down with
him. She had the vague impression of Sparafucile hurling himself to
the floor.

Maigrey covered
her face, her eyes, wished desperately she could cover her ears.
Screams—the screams of humans being burned alive—rose
horribly above the crackling and hissing of the fire. From somewhere
near her, Brother Daniel, voice breaking, prayed for the souls of the
dying.

In an instant it
was over.

The screams were
silenced. The flames died to the flickering, wavering yellow light
they'd seen earlier.

"My lady!"
Agis, face black with soot, leaned over her.

She coughed,
pushed him aside. Sitting up, she glanced around dazedly. "What
. . . happened?" she managed to gasp.

Sparafucile
peered cautiously over the barricade. The half-breed's deformed face
was awed. "Look, lady-mine!"

Yellow flames
flickered on the surface of a small lake, located at the far end of a
domed cavern room. Scattered around the floor in front of the water
lay the charred remains of the mind-dead, perhaps as many as twenty.
The bodies were burned beyond recognition. It was obvious, from the
distorted postures, that each had died in agony.

"Dear God,
have mercy!" Brother Daniel whispered.

"I fired
and . . . the room exploded," said Agis, shaken out of his
accustomed stoic calm. He looked down perplexedly at the beam rifle.
"I never saw one do that before."

"Oil,"
said Maigrey, sniffing. Running her fingers along the surface of the
rock barricade, she held them to the feint glow of the light. "It's
on the surface of the water, maybe on the walls themselves. That's
why they were using bolt weapons."

"But they
knew," Agis protested. "They had to know we'd use laser
fire—"

"They
didn't know," Maigrey said softly, sliding back down behind the
barricade. "But
he
knew.
He
sent them to die like
that."

"It not
make sense," remarked Sparafucile, rubbing a grizzled chin.
"There were many of them, they could have killed one, maybe two
of us."

"He doesn't
want us to die," Maigrey said flatly. "At least not yet.
Not now." She tried to tell herself it didn't matter how these
poor, wretched, trapped souls of his died. She would have been forced
to kill the mind-dead anyway. God's children. Abdiel had done them a
fevor.

It does
matter, doesn't it, my dear? You hear their screams echo in your
head. Your spirit sinks. Your energy seeps away. And you are right
about one thing, Lady Maigrey. I don't want you to die. And don't you
wonder why? You should, my dear. You really should.

Maigrey rose to
her feet. She couldn't believe, suddenly, how tired she was.

"We'd
better keep going. No, Brother Daniel," she added. "There's
no time for that. Besides, their souls are resting in fer more peace
now than the wretches ever knew when they were alive."

Agis picked up
his beam rifle.

"I think
you not use that anymore, eh?" said Sparafucile, grinning.

"I think
you're right," agreed Agis ruefully and slung the rifle over his
shoulder.

"Ancient
weapons best, anyway. Never fail you. Never need charging. Only
sharpened."

The half-breed
flicked his wrist. A gleaming knife slid out into his palm, the blade
appearing in his hand like a sixth finger. He flipped the knife in
the air, expertly caught it, thrust it back into his belt, from which
protruded the hilts of several more "ancient weapons."

"These
won't do us much good against Corasians," observed the
centurion.

"They're
better than nothing," Maigrey said wearily. "It doesn't—"
She stopped, bit her hp.

It doesn't
matter what weapons you carry, isn't that what you were about to tell
them, my dear? How true. I want you alive, not them. You'll watch
them die, one by one, with the knowledge that you brought them to
their deaths! And the loss of each will drain you that much more.

"Let's go,"
Maigrey said, and moved around the barricade into the cavern lit by
the fiery water, the cavern that smelled of oil and burned flesh.

She picked her
way among the bodies, refusing to look at them, refusing to hear the
echo of their screams. She wished she could refuse to play Abdiel's
game, because he was good. He was getting to her. Why wasn't he going
to kill her? Surely, he must know that if she reached Sagan, the two
of them would destroy him. Yet Abdiel didn't even appear to feel
threatened! What did he have that he knew she feared more than death?
. . .

She crossed the
cavern room, the others coming behind her, reached the entrance to
another passageway, sloping downward. Beyond it she could see a
cavern chamber, larger than the one in which they stood. Nuke lamps
hung from the ceiling. The room was filled with machines of some
sort, working busily, to judge by the noise and vibration beneath
their feet. Beyond that room she'd find Sagan. . . .

Yes, go. Wake
Sagan. Bring him back to life. He will not thank you, my dear. The
life you both face is a terrible one.

Notice I said
"life" you face, Lady Maigrey. Not death. I have no
intention of killing you, though you must kill me.

And that may
not be so easy. But by all means, keep trying, my dear. Only the dead
are without hope.

The dead, and
those who wish they were dead.

"The
serpent's tooth," said Maigrey.

She stopped in
the entrance, unable to move, staring into the darkness. At last, she
understood.

The others
looked at her, looked uneasily at each other. She began to shake,
leaned against the oil-slick wall. Agis started to go to her aid, but
Brother Daniel stopped him.

"No, this
is her battle. We cannot help her. We cannot defend her."

The serpent's
tooth. Now you understand. The two of you—Sagan,
yourself—infected by the poison.

What will
happen to the two of you? You will return to your galaxy. You will
travel from planet to planet, and from each begins to come rumors of
the atrocities you will commit. Torture, rape, mass murder,
cannibalism—your crimes will grow ever more heinous. And who
can stop you? The power of the Blood Royal is yours to command! You
are superhuman— devils, demons.

The people
curse your names, curse the Guardians, curse the Blood Royal.

But, as much
as you horrify others, even more do you horrify yourselves. Half of
you, sane, watches the other half turn into a homicidal maniac. You
long to die; the instinct of survival is strong, however. When at
last they do manage to trap you, they will drag you to your
execution, struggling and shrieking like the cowards you are.

And the
people of the galaxy, friends, relatives of those you butchered, will
watch you die and rejoice in the final downfall of the last of the
Guardians.

Maigrey drew a
deep, shivering breath, pushed herself away from the wall. "We
haven't fallen yet!" she said to the empty darkness. "Derek
and I! Together, we will fulfill our destiny and destroy you!"

There is that
possibility. It is the risk I run and well worth it for such a
reward. But for you there is no risk, Lady Maigrey. There is only a
terrible choice. For if you rescue the Warlord and if by some chance,
you two destroy me, Derek Sagan will fulfill his destiny and destroy
you!

Xris and his
squad ambushed the Corasians in a largish tunnel, located on the
opposite side of the room with the fiery lake. Cover was practically
nonexistent, but Xris didn't dare use his missiles around the
oil-slick water. The commandos squeezed into niches, crannies, hid
themselves behind places where the rock jutted out, and waited.

If this doesn't
work, Xris thought, arming his weapons hand with his
specially-designed missiles, we can kiss ourselves good-bye. He
counted, by the sound, ten soldiers. And he only had ten missiles.

The Corasians
trundled into the passageway. The moment the lead alien gave a sign
that it had, with its sophisticated sensing device, detected the
danger, Xris lifted his weapons hand, fired. The missile rocketed
directly into the robot "head".

The Corasian
exploded. Its casing blew apart, electronic arcs crackled and surged
around it. But the alien inside wasn't dead. The fiery red ameboid
body slid to the floor. His men began to fire bolts at it. They might
have thrown rocks.

The other
Corasians were firing now. Laser beams streaked through the darkness.
A blast caught Britt in the leg, knocked him off his feet. The red
blob, pulsing with horrible life, slithered toward him.

Cursing bitterly
beneath his breath, Xris prepared to fire again.

This means we
come up short. This means we're finished. This means . . .

A laser beam
streaked past him, shattered the rock wall behind him. Xris didn't
even duck. Was it imagination? A trick of the eyes, half-blinded by
the energy bursts? Or was the Corasian dying.

"Xris! You
killed it!" Lee shouted. "Hit 'em again! Hit 'em again!"

The cyborg
kicked aside shattered pieces of steelglass casing, prodded the
slowly darkening blob that had once been inside it with the toe of
his boot.

"That's the
last one," said Lee, coming up behind him. "At least we
know now those missiles of yours work."

"Yeah,"
Xris muttered, spitting tobacco, "everyone in the whole goddam
place knows they work."

"You got
any idea where we are? How far we need to go?"

Xris activated
the small screen on his cybernetic arm, consulted the diagram. "Not
far, according to this. But it's going to seem a lot farther if every
Corasian in the place stands between it and us."

Turning, he
walked back to the cavern room entrance. Britt sat propped up against
a wall. The flickering firelight glistened on sweat that covered his
face. His eyes were closed. Raoul was packing up a medi-kit.

"How's that
leg?" Xris asked, kneeling beside him.

Britt opened his
eyes, tried to smile. He swallowed, grit his teeth. "Fine. I'm
just . . . taking a little rest. But I'll be ready to move out when
you give the word. Boy, those missiles of yours are really
something."

"Too bad I
didn't bring more."

"Say, could
I bum a twist?"

"You're
quitting. Remember?"

Britt grinned
weakly. "Yeah, this'll be my last one."

Xris handed over
a twist, lit it for him. "Guess the lady won't mind if we smoke
now."

He stood up in
response to a look from Raoul, who drew him off to one side.

"The Little
One says the man is lying. He is not fine," Raoul stated,
shaking his head.

"I know
he's lying! He knows he's lying! If that's all you've got to tell me,
we don't have time—"

"If you
please, I've frozen the injured portion of the leg," continued
the Loti, "and stopped the bleeding, but that is only temporary.
He should not be moved—"

"We're not
leaving him behind. You know what those things would do to him.
They'd eat him alive! After they made him talk."

Raoul lowered
his voice. "I am aware of that. And I have with me a certain
drug—"

Xris grabbed
hold of the Loti by the collar of the red jumpsuit, twisted, half
choking him. "Don't even think it!" he said softly,
lethally.

Releasing his
grip, he shoved the Loti away. "We'll work out something."

"I was
about to say, before you got emotional"—Raoul, mildly
offended, smoothed his wrinkled clothes—"that I have a
drug that will kill any sensation of pain. Your friend would be under
the illusion that the leg was fine. Of course, what harm he will do
to himself while walking on it is—"

"—a
damn sight better than the harm that will come if we left him. Go
ahead. Give him the drug. And, thanks," Xris added grudgingly.
"I'm sorry if I was rough on you. But I thought—"