The Apocalypse Script (41 page)

“
Is Lord Moros here?” asked a boy
at the front. It was an innocent question. He might as well have
asked if Santa Clause was on the roof.

“
No, child, he is not. He has
dispatched his underlings for this. But I believe he is on his
way.”

“
What shall we do?” asked the
woman standing over him, his mother.

“
I would suggest,” said Lilian,
speaking not only to her, but to everyone in the room, “that you
retire to your rooms, and stay there, until I send for you. I hope
this can be concluded within the hour.”

“
Do you need our assistance?”
yelled an older man from the back of the room. Lilian saw it was
Lord Shadernum, an old but stout former Peth of the Fifth Kingdom
who had once served her father, before the madness. He had to be
nearing ninety, thought Lilian, yet he was still a bear of a man,
with thick white hair and a braided beard and a patch over one eye.
When she was a toddler the man often carried her on his shoulders
around her father’s estates.

Lilian smiled radiantly as the
memories resurfaced. “Lord Shadernum, you are ever loyal, but no.
Fiela is my protector now.”

“
I am willing to work under her!”
yelled the old man, grinning, “or in any position she will have
me!” Coming from anyone else such humor would have been scandalous,
but most of the guests knew that the aging Peth was a favorite of
Lilian’s and could do not wrong. Several in the audience laughed
and the laughter became contagious. Just like that, Lord Shadernum
had swept away all the tension that had been building in the Great
Hall.

“
Any man who can handle my sister
is a man to be reckoned with!” yelled Lilian, which resulted in
additional laughter.

She made a shooing gesture. “Now,
off with the lot of you. We shall reassemble later.”

As directed, the guests began
climbing the various staircases to their rooms above. Some entered
their rooms while others opted to remain outside, looking over the
interior balconies to the floor of the Great Hall to see what would
happen.

Rudger was concerned. The grounds
were oddly quiet. The army of Ardoon servants who had earlier been
running back and forth between the assorted vehicles and the hotel
had evaporated. All of the Lilitu’s guests remained in the
building, presumably gathered in the Great Hall. The grounds, like
the hotel, were lit up like a Christmas tree by the exterior
lights.

Altos and Torbitz, his spies
within the building, had yet to signal that the guests and
principles were present in the Great Hall. Lord Moros had made
clear to the colonel that everyone should be captured at once so
that none of the leaders of the treasonous gathering could escape.
The building was huge and the grounds vast. If the attack commenced
while one of the principles was outside the Great Hall there was a
chance that he and his Peth would never find them.

The prone man cursed as a cold
stream of rainwater found its way into his pants and slowly
trickled down his leg. It was nearing dusk but the angry,
thundering clouds above had long ago blotted out the sun. The rain
seemed to have no end.

Still, he had been in far worse
environments and it was only three minutes before the attack was to
commence. Rudger could feel his adrenaline surging. True, this was
not exactly like rushing into battle against a well-armed foe, but
he and his troops
were
going to make history tonight. This attack against the whore
was - at least in
his
mind - the beginning of the end.

Yesterday the leaders of the three
rebellious Houses had been captured, executed and replaced with
puppets who obeyed the Seven unquestioningly. The only holdout was
the daughter of Sargon and her reckless, delusional allies. While
she was hardly a kingdom unto herself, she remained a wildcard and
a thorn in the Seven’s side. When he had completed his mission
tonight he would be remembered as the hero who had finally crushed
the House of Sargon.

Would the Seven reward him with a
title?
Lord
Rudger? Or Duke? Surely he would merit some reward beyond a
few slaves or consorts. Perhaps a nice patch of land to administer
somewhere near the ocean?

With visions of sandy beaches
swimming in his head, the Peth moved his pistol into the air and
prepared to fire the shot that would signal the start of the
attack. At that moment the front doors of the Great Hall opened.
Through the downpour he could see a man peeking around the door
closest to him.

“
Who is that?” he grumbled to his
second-in-command, Major Unther, Nizrok’s man.

The officer raised his binoculars. “That’s
Altos!”

“
Finally! What is he
signaling?”

“
Nothing yet, Colonel.”

Rudger cursed. “That idiot! Could
he be any more conspicuous?”

Unther said, “Why does he keep
bobbing his head so? Wait! There’s Torbitz!”

Frustrated, Rudger said, “What do
they think they are doing?” He raised his binoculars and saw the
heads of both men peeking around the door. He immediately knew
something was wrong.

“
Their eyes,” he said, but the
other man already saw it.

Altos and Torbitz had no eyes.

As the two soldiers watched in
astonishment, the heads of both spies shot ten feet into the air.
Then the poles the heads were staked on emerged from behind the
door carried by a woman in a scarlet dress. Seemingly without a
care in the world, she carried them to a large planter that
contained a dying plant. Looking up, she manipulated the poles so
that the heads of the two men collided, face to face, their lips
touching. A kiss of death.

Drenched but laughing, the woman
did it again before throwing one of the poles unceremoniously to
the ground and thrusting the bottom of the other into the soft soil
of the planter. That done, she lifted the other pole and repeated
the exercise, ensuring that the two poles crossed and were oriented
so that the eyeless, slack faces atop them faced the hills where
the attackers were concealed.

“
Fiela,” said Rudger as the girl
went back inside, closing the doors behind her.

“
Edimmu
,” said the other
man.

Rudger recovered, saying, “Altos
and Torbitz were sloppy and got caught. It doesn’t
matter.”

“
It will be bad for
morale.”

“
It doesn’t matter,” reiterated
the Peth, knowing the man was right. “It is an easy mission. Let’s
get on with it.”

He raised his pistol and fired into the air.

Lilian and Fiela heard the gunshot.

“
Sister, why didn’t you tell me of
this attack?” asked Fiela, using a tablecloth to wipe blood and
rain from her arms and hands. She stood very close to Lilian in the
Great Hall, out of earshot of those in the balconies
overhead.

“
It is not your battle. You and I
are bystanders.”

“
I do not understand. Surely Lords
Moros and Nizrok have sufficient men to overwhelm us. The doors
will not hold.”

“
We have allies.”

“
Where? No helicopters can fly in
this weather.”

“
Even so.”

Fiela was suddenly hopeful.
“Sister, you have predicted this. Have you hidden away uncle and
our husband to keep them safe?”

“
Do you really think that either
would hide and leave you and me to fend for ourselves?”

“
No,” admitted Fiela. “They cannot
have been captured, either. Surely if Seven had them they would
have been used against us by now.”

“
True,” said the Lilian, hoping
the girl was right and that neither of the men would be led to
Steepleguard’s entrance in chains to compel her to open the
doors.

Would she, she wondered?

The troops moved speedily down
from the seven hills surrounding Steepleguard, rifles to their
shoulders. All was silent except for the sounds of the rain and
boots sloshing through puddles of mud. Not a single shot was fired.
Lord Moros had been wise, acknowledged Rudger, not to share his
plans with anyone other than Lord Nizrok, and to plan the attack
“off-script” without the use of the Ardoon. The surprise would have
been complete if not for Altos and Torbitz.

He reached the main entrance of Steepleguard with
his lead squad and said into his microphone, “All platoons -
status.”

Each of the platoons called in.
Everyone was in position around the building. No shots fired,
nothing unusual to report.

The sky flashed white and a clap
of thunder roared at him not a half-second later. Rudger looked up
instinctively and was jolted to see the two severed heads above
him. They swayed on their poles in all directions like ghastly
full-scale bobble head toys. The colonel angrily pulled both poles
from the planter and tossed them to the side, watching as one of
the heads rolled lazily into a pool of oily water.

Neither he nor any of the troops
were using night vision devices. While the hills were dark, dozens
of lampposts brightly illuminated the entrance to Steepleguard and
the courtyard beyond. Rudger nodded and a squad leader moved slowly
up to the giant doors and pulled gently on both handles. Looking at
Rudger, he shook his head and retreated.

Locked.
So much for doing this the easy way
.
He made a hand signal, directing that the breach team should
prepare to open the door. As they did, he heard a loud electrical
crackle overhead.

“
Colonel Rudger,” came a voice
from the sky that made the troops below cringe. The voice was
female but there was a hollow sound to it as it echoed off the
hills around them. Only then did the commander remember that the
building had a public announcement system and that two of the
speakers were directly overhead.

The Peth was stunned. It was
Lilitu’s voice. It had to be. How had she known his name? The men
and women around Rudger turned to look at him questioningly. They
hadn’t prepared for this scenario. Seeking to assure them, he
nodded confidently as if he, at least, had expected this
possibility.

“
Megaphone,” he ordered with a
snap of his fingers. It took only a few seconds for the instrument
to be produced.

“
Lilitu of Sargon,” he said into
the instrument, “this is Colonel Rudger, Peth-Allati of the Seven
Houses. By authority granted me by the Delphic Order of the
Nisirtu, I command you to open these doors and surrender. If you do
so, you have my word that neither you nor your guests or family
will be harmed.”

This demand was greeted by
silence, except for the sound of the rain slapping the
earth.

Then the woman’s voice returned, saying, “The nobles
present will require more than that to turn themselves over to
you.”

Rudger said, “Nobles will be
allowed to petition for immediate parole and will not be taken
prisoner.” He was required to say this but knew she wouldn’t
believe him. It was an obvious lie.

The electronic voice replied, “The nobles will not
negotiate with a member of the warrior class.”

“
There are no mediators, Lilitu of
Sargon,” Rudger said, “but I assure you that nobles will not be
harmed if you surrender peacefully.”

Several minutes passed. He allowed
the aristocrats inside the building to confer, as their type was
prone to do. The colonel despised this aspect of the operation
because it presented him with an uncontrollable variable. He was
ordered to capture Lilitu and her associates alive but if they were
to fire at him or his troops he would have to fire back and Lilitu
might be killed. Alternatively, Sargon’s daughter might elect to
kill herself. In either event, his mission would be a
failure.

“
I demand a response,” he yelled,
forgetting the megaphone.

The speakers crackled back to
live. “There is one here who we will allow to represent
us.”

At last.
“Name the person!”

“
Lord Disparthian.”

The man wondered if his expression
was as comical as that of the Peth around him. Taking a moment to
collect his thoughts, Rudger said, “Lord Disparthian is not
present.”

“
Is he not?” challenged
Lilitu.

Rudger lowered the megaphone.
“Enough of this,” he said to the breach team. Get these doors
open.”

That was when the first shot was fired and the Peth
to Rudger’s left fell to the ground.

The semi-trailers painted with
an
“Esotopia Bridal Traditions”
logo, flowers and candles had been parked at
Steepleguard for almost two days. Though the trailers had chemical
toilets and were well equipped and reasonably comfortable for
ad-hoc troop carriers, the
6th
Peth-Allati
soldiers inside them were
eager to charge into the fray the moment their platoon leaders
opened the doors.

Disparthian stood at the rear of
one of the trailers, his ear to the large metal doors and a hand up
to caution his troops to remain silent. While he, like his personal
guards, wore high tech body armor, he also wore a ceremonial silver
breastplate engraved with swirls of calligraphic cuneiform. Only
Lords of the Peth were allowed such vanities and the devices were
only to be worn on momentous occasions. In his opinion, this was
one.