Ascendance (24 page)

As he scanned the red list of cities under attack, or which had been attacked, his heart suddenly slowed. Everything slowed. And stopped.

‘Hooper?’

It was Karen. The only person who could talk to him now. They were inside the bubble again.

‘Hooper? What’s up?’

He stared at the screen, unable to swallow
the mouthful of cold barbecue beef he’d scooped from the latest lime green lunch tray. Dave chewed the food mindlessly. Took a sip of water. Forced it down his throat, never taking his eyes off the board. He checked the colour code again. Emmeline had provided
little squares with a legend to describe their meaning.

Red meant a location currently under attack. So the Horde or one of the other sects was back in New Orleans.

Black meant unconfirmed reports of attacks within the last two hours.

Blue meant an attack which had been beaten off. There were names from all over the world in blue. Omaha headed the list. Some had an asterisk next to them but he didn’t know what that meant. His eyes kept returning to the red list. It was long; much longer than he’d expected. Not because of all the foreign place names. There were only nine of them that he could see on the big screen. All major cities, although he guessed there’d be plenty of minor attacks overseas that weren’t catalogued for US commanders or headlining on Emmeline’s home page.

No, most of the red list appeared to be made up of American place names. Emmeline, or whoever she’d detailed to do the job, had added the state in brackets after each.

Sacramento, Portland and Seattle on the west coast were joined by Little Rock, Memphis and Jefferson City in flyover country. Down in Texas the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex struggled while San Antonio had a reminder to remember the Alamo. From Detroit to Muncy, and back to Tuscon in Arizona, up to Colorado Springs where weed prices were skyrocketing, and eastward to Kansas City, Missouri, all under attack.

There wasn’t enough space on the screen to include every location under attack, confirmed or not. A line at the bottom of the red and black lists instructed him to ‘See Annexe 3. More follows’.

Next to the screen, a pair of soldiers had been busying themselves with butcher paper, copying the information in neat black text.

‘Hooper? What is it?’

‘It’s my kids,’ he said, before adding, ‘and Annie,’ as an afterthought. He pointed at the last name on the red list before the instruction in block capitals to go check out annexe 3.

Camden Harbor. ME.

His finger had a blob of congealed gravy on it. He wiped it off on his filthy coveralls.

‘That’s where they are. At her dad’s place.’

His voice sounded flat in his own ears.

‘Her father,’ Karen said. ‘Does he hunt? Will he have weapons and ammunition? Does he have any military service?’

Dave shook his head. He wanted to vomit up the pre-packaged ration meat he’d just scoffed down. He’d known the orcs were crawling up out of the ground all over. He’d known Annie and the boys were as vulnerable as anyone. Why was it he had to see the name of their town on this whiteboard before he’d finally accepted what that meant.

‘Old Pat’s a fisherman,’ he said. His voice caught and rasped in his throat. ‘Retired. He might have his duck hunting shotgun, but he wasn’t a mad shooter, and Annie didn’t like having the boys anywhere near guns. One of the few things we all agreed on.’

Karen spoke between mouthfuls of beef and noodles.

‘It’s a confirmed attack. Ashbury or Heath will have details.’

Heat flickered at his temples, the first sparks of anger.

‘They didn’t tell me.’

‘They probably didn’t know.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘If they wanted to hide it from you, they wouldn’t have left it on the board,’ she said, the voice of reason. ‘It’s just too much information, Hooper. Ashbury is trying to do her job and Compton’s now, as well as not jumping you. It’s a . . .’

She trailed off, seeming to lose her thoughts as she took in all of the information on the whiteboard.

‘What?’ Dave asked, his anxiety and guilt starting to mount toward a point where it would tip him into action.

Karen held up a hand, focusing on a couple of place names that had to be Russian.

‘But,’ she said, when she was ready, ‘the way she’s formatted this, the fact that Camden Harbor made it on to the board probably means the attack was reported and confirmed recently. Earlier confirmed attacks are in the annexed material.’ She turned around, looking for something; finding it in Emmeline’s hand. The sheaf of briefing papers.

Three long strides carried her across the room. She carefully removed the documents.

‘I’ll bet paper cuts at light speed would sting,’ she said.

She took only a moment to scan the index, quickly finding what she wanted.

‘Here. A confirmed report of a platoon-sized force besieging the town centre. No contact since confirmation. Where are your kids?’

‘A mile or two out of town,’ Dave said, very close to warping out of the room, the armoury and New York.

Karen appeared to think it over, but not for long.

‘It could be a random attack. We don’t know if this is the Horde or some other sect. This report doesn’t even give us the clan. But it could be a trap too,’ she said, still sounding as though she was weighing up options for an evening out. Dinner, or a movie, or an ambush.

‘Why a trap?’ Dave asked.

‘Because of the Threshrend. Compt’n. Did he know where your family was?’

‘No idea,’ Dave admitted.

‘Well if he did, the Horde do. And these guys aren’t tactically illiterate. Or at least, this particular Thresher isn’t. They know you’re not going to get much support, if any, should you decide to strike out on your own for this place.’

She held up Emmeline’s briefing paper.

‘US military and emergency services are going to be focused on New York and LA. And anywhere else our little friends pop up in force. Those Qwm we might have come across earlier? They could well lay claim to this territory in the Above. If I was Compt’n or Guyuk, I’d let them have it, for a little while. The Qwm pour in forces, and get chewed up in the meat grinder over the next few days. It’s a win-win for Threshy and Guyuk. They could even convince a few idiots to submit to them if they swept in and helped clear out the other sects. Anyway, bottom line, you’re on your own if you go off the reservation.’

‘You wouldn’t come with me?’ he asked.

She didn’t answer immediately. He knew that when she did she would answer as either Karen Warat, or Colonel Karin Varatchevsky.

23

T
he crushing weight of the queen’s presence, which Compt’n ur Threshrend recalled from his last audience with her, his only audience, was infinitely worse here in the Sanctum Royal. As superior as his intellect might be now, he had no idea how a being so boundless, so powerful, had crammed Herself into the tiny chamber where she had received him in his former guise as a simple empath nestling. At that time, he had been hardly mature enough to string two coherent thinkings together.

Thoughts, Threshy, they’re called thoughts. Only podunk daemonum fools call them thinkings.

He struggled to get his own thinkings under control lest they betray him and he find himself half gutted and tossed onto the fangs of the sacrifice stones they’d passed walking across the first inner court.

For once, Thresh-Trev’r, that half-forgotten and long-ignored soul who had led him out of the wastelands of ignorance and unknowing, came through.

Eat the pudding eat the pudding eat the pudding eat the pudding
, burbled Thresh-Trev’r. A line from the calfling Trevor’s favourite TV show, and now a Zen koan to refocus the mind of Compt’n ur Threshrend away from distraction and disaster.

Eat the motherfucking pudding, Threshy told himself. And nothing else. He tried to keep his mind otherwise blank. A tabula fucking rasa. Because this bitch was going to . . .

‘Superiorae?’

Her voice was as a quiet as a blade tip slipping into a vein, but the thunder of it filled all existence. Guyuk kneeled beside him, his neck ritually exposed for the killing stroke. Threshy had gone for the full abasement package, snout in the dirt, ass up high, ready for a kicking by the Captain Grymm.

‘Y-yes, Majesty.’

He could feel nothing of Guyuk’s thoughts or feelings, nothing of the captain’s. In all the worlds there was only She of the Horde and He of Threshy.

‘Be at ease, little one,’ She soothed. ‘You have served us well.’

‘Oh sweet fuck!’ he gasped. ‘Thank you thank you thank you.’

‘You may rise. You may both rise.’

Guyuk rose smoothly to his feet without a sideways glance, the great muscles of his elephantine thighs bunching as they pushed him up. Threshy was a little more ungainly as he struggled to his hind-claws, grunting with the effort. He was really gonna have to stop eating fat people. Panting with a little exertion and a lot of latent panic, he risked a glance in the direction of the throne.

The audience chamber was vast, receding into echoes and darkness. Here and there, individual paving flags of Drakon-stone gave off an eldritch glow to help navigate through the enormous hall. But otherwise all was darkness. The throne glimmered, barely perceptible in the dim, red light. The faint glow caught on jewels and polished bones, on edged metal and fang-toothed spearhead, and it seemed as immeasurably large as the room itself. It was less a seat than a platform upon which the grotesque –

No! Not the grotesque! The really, really pretty, and, er, smoking hot, yeah, that’s right the smokin’ hot . . .

– form of the Low Queen rested. And moved.

Eat the pudding eat the pudding eat the pudding.

Threshy dropped his eyes as soon as they beheld a hint of her true appearance. Part of him, the part which saw these things through human eyes, had expected an enormous Hunn with boobs. Or the bitch from the boss battle in
Aliens
.

Instead, he now understood that he had not met the queen in the receiving chamber of some minor palace or royal residence that first time. He’d only met part of her.

The queen was a huge, seething blob of evil protoplasm, a mound of hell jelly writhing with tentacles and mouths, shot through with veins of daemon ichor as wide as streams in flood. As horrific as was her corporeal form, her psychic presence was worse. She annihilated sentience. If she chose to she could take him up into herself without even bothering to extend a single, snaking tentacle to pull him into her maw. Or one of the many, fang-rimmed maws which drooled and chewed across the seething expanse of that giant blob monster.

So, thank fuck, she didn’t do that.

Nor did she repeat her trick of playing with him like a glove puppet. Instead She of the Horde merely asked Lord Guyuk to report.

*

The lord commander was grateful to be allowed the privilege of standing in Her Majesty’s presence. Long eons had he risen through the ranks of her loyal Grymm and long eons were bad for the knees. He carefully hid any discomfort, of course, along with any relief.

Relief he felt in great measure though, thanks to Compt’n ur Threshrend, who seemed to have curbed his natural rambunctiousness at exactly the right moment. Or perhaps She of the Horde had curbed it for him. Guyuk was no more immune to the majesty of the Low Queen than anyone. Just being in her presence was an overpowering experience. How much more crippling would it be for an empath like Compt’n?

‘I would hear tell of this human city we have lately invested, Lord Guyuk.’

She did not refer to them as calflings, or cattle, the lord commander noted.

‘I understand that having taken it, we are now to withdraw?’

‘Yes, your Majesty.’ Guyuk bowed deeply. ‘The other sects have attempted to bring battle to the human host and to invest their cities as demanded by the dictate of the war scrolls. They have been, each and every one of them, destroyed in the attempt.’

‘This pleases me, of course, my lord commander. I am always gladdened to see the lesser sects reduced. And yet, we have bested them and bested the human foe they proved themselves unworthy of, and still we withdraw? Do you shy from the human champion. Or his apprentice – this female with the long blade?’

‘The champion is not at issue, my liege. Not the Dave nor his acolyte. We are confident we have found a way to contain any threat posed by them. And we have a scheme in claw which may yet bring him here, before you, in chains. But the pro-consul advises your Majesty that when the sun rises the human forces will almost certainly attack the city with all of the destructive magick and ferocity we saw them lay upon the Djinn, and which we know they have also levied upon the other sects throughout the lands Above.’

The queen was silent for a moment, and Guyuk was aware of Compt’n ur Threshrend suddenly shivering beside him. Or at least shivering and moaning with more violence than he had been a few moments earlier.

‘So I see. Your pro-consul does indeed believe so. And knowing his soul as my own I commend your plan. We shall endure the mockery of the lesser sects while they impale themselves upon the human defences. But attend to me, Lord Commander,’ the queen said, her voice now sounding as though it emanated from somewhere much deeper inside his head. ‘I would not want to be embarrassed in this. The mocking taunts of the usurper queens I suffer for as long I understand there to be some prospect of deliverance. But that prospect should not be long in coming.’

‘Of course not, your Majesty,’ Guyuk hurried to reply. ‘The Superiorae is of the opinion that all serious human resistance can be negated within a turning of the moon.’

‘Really? Despite their champions and their mastery of profane magicks?’

She fell quiet again, and again Guyuk was aware of the Threshrend shuddering and even spasming beside him. He sounded as though he were choking, or about to vomit up some undigested meal. The uncomfortable interlude went on much longer this time, and when it was done, the empath collapsed.

‘I understand, Lord Guyuk,’ the Low Queen said at last. ‘You have obtained for the Horde a most remarkable advantage in your little adept. Keep him close. The souls he has taken up are weapons of a keener edge than any blade in our royal armoury. It would behove a prudent lord commander to secure even more such advantages.’

‘Plans are in train, your Majesty,’ Guyuk assured her.

‘The Dave and his court?’ she said. ‘Compt’n ur Threshrend does not think so highly of them as one would imagine, given the travails they caused us.’

‘Indeed, your Majesty. But on this matter, one of the souls lately taken up by my pro-consul counted himself a fierce rival of the Dave. I feel that enmity has survived to colour the judgment of Compt’n ur Threshrend.’

The pro-consul in question seemed to have passed out in a puddle of his own pastes and waste waters. Guyuk wondered at the trial he had endured under the all-seeing gaze of Her Majesty. It was known that She could look so deeply into you, taking everything she found, that when She was done you were left as an empty gourd. He hoped that was not true of the Threshrend. He had use of him yet.

‘I understand that, Lord Commander Guyuk. I have spoken with the Superiorae of this. I know him better than he knows himself, and while I am possessed of confidence in the schemes you have plotted with his connivance, I counsel wariness. This champion, and his new acolyte: my Scolari are disturbed by them. The scrolls offer no guidance, and little commentary. They gave no warning that we might encounter more than one nemesis of the Dave’s ilk. Now, on closer reading, the Consilium fear more human champions are yet to reveal themselves. The Superiorae will not knowingly mislead you in this matter, but that is not to say he knows enough to mislead you. Trust his word, Lord Commander, but trust your judgment. I do, for now.’

Guyuk shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. An audience in Her actual presence was not unlike bearing up under the heaviest Drakon-scale armour. It sapped the strength and eventually the will.

‘Of course, your Majesty,’ he said. ‘Have you any reason to doubt the Superiorae’s schemes?’


He was aware of a shift in the giant, translucent mass of the Low Queen. When she moved it occasioned a great slithering and sucking, and even a few instances of grinding, cracking noises as rocks shifted under her bulk.

‘It is a bold scheme, and I approve of it. As fearsome as these technological magicks of the humans undoubtedly are, Compt’n ur Threshrend believes the . . .’

She paused.

‘. . . the civilisation, the great collection of all human sects which gives rise to them, lacks resilience. Unlike the Sectum Inferiorae we do not fight their weapons and armour, my Lord. We assail their civilisation.’

She fell into quiet, as though contemplating what she had just said.

‘The pro-consul is wise to advise this, I feel. It is a truth he holds close.’

‘The pro-consul has thought much on this, your Majesty. I have detailed plans if you would have them of me.’

‘No,’ She said. ‘That will not be necessary. I have already had them of young Threshy.’


*

For a terrifying second he was adrift and alone in the endless void. For an even more terrifying second he was not one soul in the dark, but many, all of them screaming and raking at each other. Then Threshy fully woke up on a thick, soft wulfin-hide rug and found Guyuk looking down on him. Looking almost concerned.

‘Are you recovered, Superiorae?’

Threshy groaned weakly.

‘Oh, man, I’m about a thousand fucking miles from recovered. We got anyone to eat? Or drink.’

To his surprise Guyuk passed him a tankard of bloodwine. Not hot and freshly decanted, but warm enough to be pleasant. His head swam as he necked it down, and he burped when he was done.

‘Thanks, G. At the palace . . . did I . . .?’

He honestly had no memory of the visit. In previous lives he’d known a few nights like that. Not as a mere nestling thresh, naturally. But Trevor Candly and one of the SEALs had known of partying to the point of obliterating blankness. Not that he’d done much partying at the palace.

‘You did not disgrace yourself, or me, Superiorae.’

‘Phew,’ said Threshy, exaggeratedly wiping non-existent sweat from his brow.

‘So, Her Maj? We cool?’

‘We are indeed,’ said Guyuk. ‘You do not recall the audience?’

Threshy pushed himself up off the rug, already feeling about a thousand percent better, and wondering if the G-Man might have a little more of that bloodwine lying around.

‘Oh I remember the walk over there,’ he said. ‘And the tour of Castle Wolfenstein. Everything gets hazy after that. But those Praetorian cocksuckers didn’t throw us on the rocks. So we must have done good, eh?’

Guyuk bristled but made an obvious effort to chill himself out.

‘The Praetorian Grymm are the finest warriors the Clan –’

‘Yeah yeah, the finest, the most badass, the least likely to suck a dick. I got it. But they freak me out, man.’

As he came fully to his senses he realised they were not in Guyuk’s private chambers, but in some other bitchin’ crib.

‘Whoa, G-Man. Who pimped out this contemporary domicile? It’s fucking phat, dude.’

The cavern roof soared to a height at least three times his own, which was why old Guyuk was able to perch on a comfy sitting rock without having to bend his head. But the sitting rock, the wulfin-hide rug, and a long stone feasting bench with a single cold meat platter were just a few of the touches. Threshy scrunched up his suppurating, wart-filled face in something approximating a human frown.

‘Is that . . . Oh my fucking god. It is! You got me an Xbox! And a TV!’

His excitement peaked and dipped very quickly when he realised there was nowhere to plug them in. And no electricity down here, even if some well-meaning Sliveen scout had ripped a socket out of somebody’s lounge-room wall on the orders of the lord commander to procure the magick artifacts for his favourite pro-consul.

‘Well it’s the thought I guess,’ Threshy said, his disappointment getting the better of him until he saw the pile of tablets and phones on a plinth in the corner.

‘Whoa! These won’t need power. Just yet.’

He hurried over and plucked a big-ass Samsung from the pile. His fore-claws were not well suited to using the device. Not at all, in fact. But it gave him an idea.

‘It was an oversight,’ Guyuk said, ‘not preparing quarters for you, Superiorae. You should have had your own when you were raised above the common Horde. The Master Scolari further suggested we provide you with this plunder. You have spoken frequently of this Box of X and the Scolari are most interested in the amulets of power all of the humans, high and low, seem to wield.’