Warp World (78 page)

A glance at his digifilm told Cerd that Fismar had chosen the most dangerous path for himself. The lieutenant would never say the words aloud, but Cerd suspected his choice was not some heroic gesture. One wrong move here would end everything. For all their bravado, the Kenda were still learning this business of war. A business Fismar had long ago mastered.

“This is the whole fight, right here,” Fismar continued. “Most of the defenders still standing are in this room, we’ve got the numbers and we’re going to surprise them. But all it takes is one karg-up and it’s over for everyone in this damned mountain. So don’t karg-up.”

Cerd latched his chack into place on his back and drew the black blade he had been issued in training. Knife training had been minimal—Fismar’s statement on the matter was that knives were best for opening cans; guns and grenades were for killing. Fortunately, when the time came for knife work he couldn’t have picked a better bunch. Kenda were indeed born with blades in their hands. And what a blade this was! It barely registered, even with his enhanced vision from the visor. They were also razor sharp, and Cerd had yet to see one break no matter how roughly used. These People knew how to make weapons.

Fismar grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him aside a short distance. “Cerd, I need someone to watch the Eti kid. Put Tirnich on that.”

Cerd was about to suggest another name. After all, Tirnich was a Squad Leader and one of their best men. But something in Fismar’s tone stopped him.

“Quick as three, Lieutenant,
” he said
.

Once the frightened young Etiphar was at his side, Cerd stepped down the short drop into the next room, where Prow and Tirnich’s people were getting ready.

“Mascom,” Handlo stepped just in front of Tirnich. He shuffled slightly from foot to foot and held up his blade. “We’re ready.”

“Tirnich?” Cerd craned to see the squad leader. He looked at Handlo, ghostly in his visor. “Step aside, trooper.”

“He’s alright, Mascom, he’s just—” Handlo’s voice trailed off as Cerd pushed him to one side.

Tirnich’s visor was up; he stared blankly at his knife, turning it over and over in his hand.

“Kundara.” Cerd crouched down and flipped up his visor. “Tirnich, look at me.”

“Hey, Cerd.” Tirnich’s mouth slipped into a smile that was not echoed in his eyes.

“We’re going in two minutes,” Cerd said.

“Are we going home?” At the last word, tears gathered, then slid down unchecked, as if Tirnich was unaware he was crying. “I want to take him home. He shouldn’t be so far from the Big Water.”

Cerd reached down and squeezed his shoulder. “Tirnich, I need you to hold here. I need you to keep Hephier safe until we’re finished. Can you do that?”

Tirnich looked up and a flicker returned to the dead eyes as he nodded. “Then we’re going back, right?”

“We’ll talk about it.” Cerd motioned for Hephier to sit down next to Tirnich. He had to look away quickly from the two young men, no longer innocent, and no longer
young
, for that matter.

Cerd grabbed Handlo’s harness and jerked him close to whisper in his ear.

“Squad is yours now. Tirnich is watching the boy, that’s all you say about it. Now get your men into position.”

He looked back at Tirnich one more time and clicked his comm as he trotted away. “Ground Lead, Handlo’s on the squad now.”

“Acknowledged,” Fismar said.

Cerd reached his position and crouched near a blocky machine. In his visor, the blue digits of the countdown continued.

They were going to show these bastards the knife.

Jarin paced along the edge of the roof of the Guild headquarters building. Above his head, the shield shimmered and cracked as the Storm pounded against Cathind
’s
defenses.

How long? How long until the CWA attempted here what they had done scant kilometers away in Old Town? He stared up at the glowing shield.

“I don’t think they’ll cut the shield here. Too much loss in a major industrial center, not to mention all the gate assets,” Ansin said.

“Perceptive.” Jarin turned to see Ansin approaching. “Reading minds? That’s usually my forte.”

“You’re getting poorer and poorer returns from that ability. Nevertheless, against all odds, your pupil came through again.”

“I expected him to be condemned and expelled, even after his oration.”

“He was going to be. I would have voted against it, of course. And you, and Maryel, and a few others. But for all the logic he offered, the tide was against him. Until—” Ansin laughed.

“Shyl.”

“Have you ever seen her so angry? No, have you ever seen her
angry
? I thought we were going to have to call a medical for Marsetto when she started screaming at him. The shock!”

“Not simply the shock. The insults. I had forgotten they were students together.”

“From the personal nature of it, I think they were perhaps more than simply students together, once upon a time,” Ansin said.

“I should look into that.”

“Always the same, Jarin. Your pupil wins his reprieve, and the game starts over.” He rubbed his hands together as the shield flared over their heads. “Your protégé proposes bold and radical change, and you? You carry on with more of the same.”

“I should think you, of all our members, would find this open flaunting of orthodoxy the most disturbing.”

Ansin sobered and stepped to the edge of the roof. He rested his hands on the railing and gazed out over the sparse lights of the Guild compound. “Our orthodoxy was written in a time of victory. Once, we held the World in our hands. The CWA? What were they? Financiaries and functionaries, tenders of the Well and keepers of the gates. But when the Guild spoke, all the World listened. When Selectee Fanin Aimaz denounced House Thalur, they were broken from the ranks of the Houses Major. Broken by mere words. Storm! When House Etiphar was to be punished, the campaign was presented before the Council for its blessing! Now? Eraranat’s right, we don’t even control our own city, let alone the World. We’ve been running on the residue of past greatness.”

“So he’s infected you as well?”

Ansin shook his head as he pushed away from the rail. “No. It’s time to grow again, but Eraranat? He will set the World ablaze if we don’t keep a hand in his affairs. Even when we do, he has a demonstrable capacity for starting fires. Imagine what he would do as a rogue? No, he was right. We need him, and he needs us. But he was also right when he said he is not the one suited to lead this.”

“Then who?”

“I do not know. This—” Ansin waved his hand. “This new World is going to take time to become accustomed to.”

“For all of us,” Jarin said.

“Go,” Fismar said, softly, over the comm. Seven-tenths of a second after he spoke the word, he launched over a railing.

Tactical surprise achieved. In his visor, he could see stunned faces staring up at the Kenda as they howled their war cries and burst into the large room.

He estimated six seconds until the first responses. His first shot, fired on the move, took his target in the chest and throat. He pivoted, fired again, and struck one of the Etiphars planting a charge, with a precise shot in the middle of his back.

Armor. Not a kill, but a spinal shot. Incapacitated.

Three seconds remaining. He hurled the grenade in his left hand to the side, away from the capacitors. The Etiphars ducking behind the control panel would find out about the grenade in two seconds.

Accelerating to a run, he fired one more snap shot that sent his target reeling.

Wounded, not dead and not incapacitated.
His mind filed the detail. As he neared collision distance, he diverted a channel to the troops’ progress.

Lagging behind him, as could be expected, but moving well for normal men.

Something heavy and metallic, unseen in the muck and debris of the floor, clipped his ankle. As he flew forward, he released his chack and reached out to grasp the oncoming control panel. Squaring his palms, he used his momentum, pushed off the surface, and launched into the midst of the Etiphars.

Six seconds elapsed
. The enemy had weapons drawn. The grenade he had thrown two seconds earlier detonated to his left, with an accompanying scream.

Weapons drawn, but not ready.
He flicked his blade and opened a throat. The motion carried into a spin as the Etiphar behind him tried to cram a rifle barrel into his back.

The desperate shot missed by a hair’s width. If the Etiphar had pulled the trigger a half-second earlier, the entire fight would have been over. Close. Fismar arced high with the knife before stabbing down. Armor and clothing parted under the fine edge of the huchack-fiber blade, penetrating to the depth that he calculated would reach the heart. With a wrench, he tore the blade free in a welter of gore.

He spared a glance over his shoulder—the Etip
har’s
single shot had not initiated any chain reactions.

Fourteen seconds had passed; the surprise attack had become a melee. He registered shouts and screams from both sides as the Kenda pressed home against the outnumbered Etiphars.

They were not the most well-trained troops he had ever led. He hadn’t had the time for that.

They
were
the most spirited.

Approaching another cluster of Etiphars, he dove as they leveled their weapons, and slid under the table in front of them. He emerged in a forest of legs. In one hand, his blade slashed an Achilles tendon. In the other hand, a pistol he had drawn during his dive slammed into an Etiphar’s groin. Fismar pulled the trigger. Around him, falling bodies complicated his motions, and there was still the third Etiphar, still the third, trying to line up the shot, firing prematurely in hopes of killing him, the invader.

He might succeed
. Fismar scissored his legs mechanically to kick the dead weight free. A chack butt flashed in and smashed the would-be shooter’s face. In the ghostly view of the visor, Fismar’s mind recorded the event in slow motion—the caving in of the cheekbone, the dislocation of the eye socket, small bright flares that could only be teeth flying free from the mouth as the jawbone shattered.

His eyes flicked back to his savior’s body:
eighty-six centimeters across the shoulders, seven-point-five centimeter rise from shoulder to neck.

Viren Hult.

Fismar scrambled to his feet. His pinky cycled him through the various visor-viewpoints of his troops.

Nine targets remained in the room.

Thirty-seven seconds.

“Damn my ancestors, look at him,” one of the Kenda troopers whispered. The others had stopped as Fismar, with Viren close in tow, charged into the last knot of Etiphar resistance.

Cerd watched, as stunned as the rest, as Fismar suddenly pivoted and fired a snap shot with his pistol, dropping an Etiphar who had just started to rise—behind Fismar’s back, out of sight.

“How?” Cerd heard himself ask the question aloud.

Fismar alone had broken the right flank, barely leaving the rest of the Kenda any time to keep up with him. He had charged through, dodged, weaved and—but for one moment when it seemed sure the Etiphar had him, before Viren had come to the rescue—the Etiphars hadn’t laid a hand on him.

Cerd was open-mouthed as Fismar effortlessly finished the last Etiphar. Even in training, they had never seen their leader move like this. It was inhuman. Of all the things Cerd had seen since he had come to this world, this unnatural speed and precision was the most unsettling.

Moments later, Fismar’s voice woke up the comm. “Fifty-seven seconds. Finish the survivors, and for Storm’s sake don’t touch the charges until I get a chance to see what the Etis were doing here!”