To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh (31 page)

“How much water did they steal?” he asked.

“No, Lord Khan, you misunderstand!” Nikore blurted. He flinched in anticipation of his leader’s wrath. “The rebels have taken possession of the gorge. They drove me out into the desert, then barricaded the entrances with boulders.” His charred face grew more agitated. “I believe they hold it still!”

“What!” Khan reacted volcanically to the news, his unleashed fury startling Joachim, who backed away nervously. But Khan barely noticed the youth’s discomfort, transfixed as he was by Nikore’s disturbing report.

The Azar Gorge had long been key to the colony’s survival, and all the more so as several other desert oases and watering holes had gradually dried up over the years. Without the precious water that bubbled up from the gorge’s hot springs, Fatalis would be forced to rely on the meager supplies of morning dew harvested from the various solar stills installed upon the surface. Worse yet, they might be compelled to venture far into the barren wasteland in search of another rare spring—which might or might not exist!

“No,” Khan declared. Ericsson had gone too far. “This shall not stand.” Khan raised his gloved right fist, clenching it before him. “I have tolerated these incursions for too long. The time has come to dispose of Ericsson and his subversive rabble once and for all.”

“We are with you, Your Excellency!” Joaquin said, sounding just as eager to take the battle to their foes. The other officers seconded his support, and even young Joachim looked ready to wage war in Khan’s name. Vijay Nikore struggled to stand upon his deformed feet.

A superior breed,
Khan thought proudly,
exemplary in strength and spirit!
He was touched by these people’s loyalty, even as he wondered mournfully how many of them he would lose in the conflict to come.
Our numbers diminish with every year. The eels prey on our young. I can scarce afford to lose a single soul….

The Exiles had given him no choice, however. The capture of the gorge demanded a swift and deadly response.

“Let us go to the armory,” he announced. A battle strategy was already forming in his mind, one that he hoped might catch Ericsson unawares. “There are preparations to be made.”

Three hundred years before, on his now-distant homeworld, Khan had found himself locked in mortal combat with his fellow superhumans. Now, on Ceti Alpha V, history seemed to be repeating itself in what Khan fervently prayed would be the final battle of the Eugenics Wars.

Lying prone upon the sand, Khan peered over the crest of a towering sand dune at the enemy’s stronghold. The cold of the desert night penetrated his robes, sinking into his bones. Overhead, roiling clouds blotted out the starlight, so that the only illumination came from the torches and campfires of the sleeping gorge. The wind howled in Khan’s ears; with luck, it would drown out their preparations for tonight’s sneak attack.

For perhaps the first time,
Khan thought,
I am grateful that Ceti Alpha V has no moon
. The inky darkness would be a valuable ally, preventing the Exiles from realizing they were under assault until it was too late.
’Tis now the very witching time of night, when hell itself breathes out contagion to this world….

A handcrafted spyglass, its lenses painstakingly carved from clear volcanic glass, brought the entrance to the gorge within ready view. Nikore had not exaggerated the situation, Khan saw; the northern route into the ravine had been piled high with colossal boulders, of size and number enough to halt even the strongest superman. A robed sentinel, armed with a wooden bow and arrows of bone, patrolled a rocky platform built atop the barricade. Tarps and netting stretched over the top of the canyon, discouraging any attacks from above. Khan had to admit that the Azar Gorge looked ready to withstand any siege.

Khan lowered the spyglass. “It is as we expected,” he informed his troops, who were gathered on the slopes of the dune below him, safely out of view of the Exiles. Joaquin, Ling, Daniel, Zuleika, Hawkins, and some thirteen more adult men and women waited to do battle against the faithless bandits who followed Ericsson. Only four adults, all wounded or disabled to varying degrees, remained back in Fatalis to care for the children—and to preserve the colony should tonight’s campaign end in disaster. Nineteen full-grown superhumans, Khan had judged, should be enough to overcome how ever many Exiles opposed them.

Over his protests, Joachim had been left behind with the other youngsters.
Bad enough,
Khan thought,
that I am putting both of the youth’s parents in jeopardy; I will not risk the future of Fatalis as well
.

Every warrior was armed with a variety of weapons. Khan himself had a Colt automatic pistol, a silver kirpan, a double-edged bronze sword, and five bronze chakrams threaded upon his left arm. All save the pistol were traditional Sikh weapons that he had mastered centuries ago on Earth.

Forging metal under the primitive conditions at Fatalis had not been easy, but five years and superhuman intelligence could accomplish wonders.

“We will proceed as planned,” he announced. Through his visor, his eyes carefully gauged the distance between the top of the dune to the bottom of the barricade. He handed the spyglass over to Joaquin and reached for a carefully wrapped bundle, about the size of a medical tricorder. “Await my signal.”

“Please, Your Excellency,” Joaquin protested once more. “It is too dangerous. Let someone else perform this task!”

Khan shook his head. Five years ago, the night Marla died, he had delegated responsibility for apprehending Ericsson and his co-conspirators to others, and half a decade of bloody conflict had ensued. He would not make that mistake again. “No, my friend. My mind is set. This is something I must do myself.”

The worried bodyguard conceded defeat. “Be careful, Your Excellency.”

“It is Ericsson who should beware,” Khan said grimly, “and all his treacherous renegades.” Clutching the swaddled package closely against his chest, he crept over the crest of the dune and stealthily descended toward the gorge, counting on the blackness of the night and the ever-swirling dust clouds to hide his approach from the sentinel atop the barricade. He darted between wind-sculpted outcroppings of rock until he arrived at the base of the massive wall of boulders blocking the entrance to the gorge. Loose scree shifted alarmingly beneath his boots as he pressed his body into a crack between the bottommost boulders. Torchlight from the watch platform above filtered down through the hazy atmosphere. He could hear
the footsteps of the sentry pacing roughly ten meters above.

Excellent,
Khan thought. So far, he appeared to be undetected. His keen eyes scrutinized the imposing rockpile. Trained as an engineer centuries ago in Delhi, he quickly detected a potential weak spot in the deployment of the boulders.
That will do,
he decided.

Khan gingerly unwrapped the bundle beneath his arm, revealing a metallic food canister equipped with a lengthy fuse. He smiled behind his kaffiyeh as he contemplated the crude, but hopefully effective, bomb.

I trust Kirk would appreciate my ingenuity,
he thought with bitter humor. Like the captain on Cestus III, Khan had taken pains to manufacture gunpowder from native materials: sulfur from deposits found along the banks of the late River Kaur; potassium nitrate from preserved bat guano and, later, human waste; coal extracted from Azar Gorge itself. Khan had been storing the raw materials in the armory for years, awaiting just such a challenge as this.

He wedged the bomb between two pivotal boulders. A spark from his flint ignited the fuse and he dashed for cover. In his haste, however, his heel dislodged a small heap of gravel, which rattled noisily onto the ground.

Khan froze, and glanced upward in alarm. To his dismay, he saw the robed sentinel staring straight down at him. The anonymous Exile reached for an arrow, but Khan’s reflexes were faster still; in an instant, he plucked a chakram from his arm and hurled it with his right hand. The bronze ring spun through the air until its razor-sharp edge sliced into the guard’s throat. The bow dropped from the sentry’s throat as he staggered backward, clutching his throat. A fierce gust of wind carried away his (her?) dying gurgle.

Had anyone noticed him dispatch the guard? Khan had no time to find out. Racing madly across the desert floor, he hurled himself behind a weathered outcropping only seconds before the bomb detonated.

A fiery flash, and thunderous blast, exploded at the base of the barricade, and the entire rockpile came tumbling down amid a rumble of crashing boulders. Smoke and dust rose in choking quantities. Khan heard the screams of injured Exiles.

He did not wait for the dust to settle. “Now!” he bellowed, running out from behind his temporary shelter. He drew his gun with one hand and his sword with the other, no longer afraid to let the enemy hear his voice. “Follow me—in the name of Khan!”

An answering roar, as from the brazen throat of war, arose from behind the dune. A second later, Khan heard the army of Fatalis stampeding down the sandy slope behind him. “For Khan!” they cried in unison. “FOR KHAAAAN!”

They charged the breach, leaping over the shattered remains of the barricade into a scene of utter chaos and disarray. Joaquin and Ling hurled gunpowder grenades into the enemy encampment. Exile bodies went flying as campfires and hot springs blew apart around them. Startled outlaws ran about frantically, snatching up weapons or children or both.

Sheltered by the canyon walls, few of the Exiles wore desert garb. Smoke and flames added to the confusion, along with the searing spray of detonated springs and geysers.

“Where is Ericsson?” Khan demanded over the din. A cloaked figure sprang up before, brandishing an axe, and Khan cut him down with his sword without a second’s
thought. “Ericsson is mine!” he called out to friend and foe alike. Khan had no intention of being cheated of his revenge, not even by Joaquin or the others.

The traitor has overreached himself,
Khan thought triumphantly, savoring the success of their assault so far. As long as the Norseman and his raiders had stayed on the move, staging lightning raids, then disappearing back into the wastes, Khan had never had the troops or resources to track them down. But when Ericsson walled himself up inside the canyon, he had finally given Khan the opportunity to launch a major offensive against the renegades. Now he had them boxed in, trapped in a dead end of their own making.
I hope you enjoyed the water you found here, Harulf Ericsson. For now you will drink deeply of my vengeance!

Khan tossed his visor aside, the better to see the nocturnal melee. Dark eyes searched the bloody scene around him, hunting for his foe. His eager sword cut down Exiles right and left, as the battle for the gorge swiftly evolved into a profusion of hand-to-hand contests being fought all throughout the crowded ravine. Amid the flames and screams, Khan caught fragmentary glimpses of heated combat.

Daniel Katzel squared off against his rebel sister upon an elevated ridge along the eastern wall of the canyon. Their tragic conflict struck Khan as emblematic of the internecine warfare that had turned brother against sister, superhuman against superhuman, for the last five years.

“How could you do it?” Daniel accused her. “Plot against Khan? Betray your oath?”

“Get real!” Amy shot back. “This isn’t
Captain Proton!
Khan was leading us to destruction—and he wasn’t going to step down without a fight!”

The twins were equal in strength and skill, but Daniel had the advantage in weaponry. Amy’s obsidian-tipped spear of bone stood little chance against her brother’s heavy bronze mace; Khan watched out of the corner of his eye, as the sister’s spear shattered before the mace.

A follow-up blow knocked Amy from the ledge. She crashed to the floor of the canyon, where she sprawled motionlessly. Khan could not tell if she was dead or unconscious, nor did he much care. Amy Katzel had made her choice when she allied herself with Marla’s murders. Her fate was her own doing.

An angry shout called his attention elsewhere.

“There you are, Saraj!” Gideon Hawkins cried out. The loyal doctor had cornered Panjabi in a natural culde-sac formed by the craggy cliff face. Hawkins flaunted a trilaser scalpel while his former partner sported only a single sputtering torch. “I can’t believe you double-crossed our colony—and me!”

Khan watched with interest; he had long suspected the one-eared ex-cricket player of supplying Ericsson with the eel that had killed Marla. He would enjoy seeing Panjabi gutted.

“Come and get me, quack,” Panjabi taunted Hawkins. A patch of loose scrub covered the canyon floor between them. The doctor charged forward, just as Khan guessed what was in store.

“Wait!” he called out, but it was too late. The moment his feet hit the scrub, the ground collapsed beneath Hawkins, plunging him into a hidden pit. His panicked shrieks drew
Khan to the scene. Tossing other combatants aside, Khan ran to the edge of the pit and looked down, his eyes widening in horror.

The bottom of the trap was filled with Ceti eels, dozens of them. The scaly mollusks swarmed over the fallen doctor like piranhas, tearing him apart with their vicious pincers. Blood sprayed freely as the eels squealed in excitement.

Some deaths are too foul even for war,
Khan thought in disgust. Raising his gun, he used a precious bullet to put the unfortunate physician out of his misery, just as so many of Hawkins’ patients had been put down. Khan turned his outraged gaze on Panjabi. “Eels again, Saraj?” he snarled. “I should have taken your head instead of your ear!”

He bounded over the pit, landing only centimeters away from Panjabi. The murderous renegade swung his fire-brand, but Khan sliced the torch in half with one swipe of his sword. Shoving his gun back into his belt, he grabbed on to Panjabi and threw him headlong into the pit. New screams escaped the death trap, joining the frenzied squeals of the bloodthirsty eels.

Khan strode away. He was not about to waste a bullet on an Exile.