Stranger of Tempest: Book One of The God Fragments (48 page)

They returned to the others as quickly as they could. As they crawled, Lynx’s blood continued to fizz with the prospect of danger and memories of the speeches by the Shonrin he’d heard as a youth.

Not so much heard
, he reflected with a sour taste in his mouth,
more like swallowed hook, line and sinker. Can still remember the fire in my belly when I signed up – that belief in our nation’s destiny we all had with a fervour stronger than any drink. And it was a drink we gladly drowned in, killed the parts of ourselves that wouldn’t butcher people and unleashed the rest upon the world.

Lynx was silent for a while as he faced the others, composing himself. He knew Toil was playing him like a harp – the deft plucking of strings, confident in the result. Despite everything his old training came back to the fore – the need for swift action when the enemy was still uncertain. He hated her for it, but maybe the reminder wasn’t so stupid a one.

‘We need to move. They’ll be wondering what’s going on.’

‘Retreat?’ Kas asked.

‘Attack,’ Lynx replied with a shake of the head. ‘I’m guessing Teshen will have heard that grenade and taken it as his cue.’

‘Won’t they hold back, just waiting for us to come to them?’

‘They can’t, they’re running out of time. Whatever wood they’ve brought for light down here, they’ll be running out of. Most likely they’re going out of their minds trying to work out how we’ve kept going underground for so long. This darkness is a killer all by itself – without light you’ll be lost down here until the wildlife finds you. They can’t just hope we’ll make a run for it, we’ve already proved better at this game than they are.’

Kas nodded. ‘So you send out squads to sweep, at the first sign of enemy contact you bring the bulk of your troops into the fight. Leaving a few sharpshooters and grenadiers at each bridge to stop anyone who slips past.’

‘So their superior numbers are split already; squads to sweep, rearguards on each bridge, support teams at each bridge. We pick them off and watch our backs, we’ve got a chance here,’ Toil added.

Lynx sheathed his mage-gun on his back and drew his sword. ‘First things first, we try to kill anyone on this side – silent until the first gunshots. Leave it to those on the far side to announce where the tasty maspid snacks are.’

The others nodded as Toil pulled swords, Reft his pair of hatchets.

Kas tugged a fistful of arrows from her quiver. ‘Looks like I’m leading the way,’ she announced, nocking one arrow while keeping the rest ready in her draw hand.

They went in near silence, following Kas down to the main bridge level. The open archways and chambers were a chaotic place in the dark – a place for hunters, not prey. Kas stalked through them with the confidence of a cat. Away from the wide avenue running down the rift edge it was a tight network of small chambers and short twisting tunnels.

It didn’t take them long to track down the nervous whispers of a squad of Charnelers on their side. Carrying torches against the gloom they shuffled through open rooms, clearly unhappy with their orders, but not so frightened that they were going to refuse. With over-exaggerated gestures Lynx split his group up, sending Toil and Reft around ahead of the squad, while Kas and he slipped behind them.

They gave the other two a decent chance to skirt back round, whereupon an opportunity presented itself. There was a long blank wall of stone with a narrow opening that seemed a perfect ambush point and Lynx patted Kas’s shoulder to signal they should go for it. When the squad was just reaching the opening Kas rounded the corner behind them and in the blink of an eye had shot the nearest two Charnelers.

Half-blinded by the torch their leader carried, the pair never saw the arrows strike them. It was only the tap of Lynx’s boots on the ground that alerted them to the threat. Arrows zipped past his head as Lynx charged, fighting the urge to roar as he went. The torch tumbled to the ground and faces turned in the faint light – a glimpse of surprise as Kas let fly again and again and Lynx batted away a wavering bayonet before burying his blade in the throat of the owner.

Behind them, Toil and Reft appeared like demons from the dark, both wielding a blade in each hand and leaping into the heart of the soldiers. Lynx smashed a gun from one soldier’s hand and as another raised his weapon an arrow took him in the shoulder. Then Reft was there, chopping at arms and necks with swift, brutal strokes and ploughing through the remaining Charnelers.

The man’s power was terrifying to behold, even to a former So Han commando. Where Toil and Lynx slashed and stabbed with all the strength they could muster, Reft seemed to merely flick his wrists. Limbs were severed, blood gushed black in the sputtering torchlight, men and women smashed to corpses in his wake.

In moments it was over and Toil swiftly cut the throats of two squirming soldiers with arrows buried in their chests. Thanks to Kas’s rapid shooting none of the soldiers had managed to fire their guns or even call out before being felled. Lynx wiped the blood from his sword, ignoring the hammer of his heartbeat in his ears, and bent to tug the cartridge case off the nearest soldier.

‘Running low?’ Toil asked.

He shook his head. ‘Can never have too many,’ Lynx replied, flipping the lid of the case open. He picked up the torch and held it over the case briefly, checking the contents, before dropping it on one of the corpses.

‘Ten icers left here,’ he commented, checking the next.

‘Fewer in this one,’ Toil said, doing the same. ‘That could be good for us.’

‘They don’t want a long fight, that’s for sure,’ Kas said as she retrieved her unbroken arrows and wiped the worst of the blood off. ‘Another reason to keep to the shadows.’

‘Aye,’ Lynx said, adding, ‘damn good shooting there, Kas. Where’d you learn that?’

‘That how they shoot back home,’ she replied simply. ‘Can’t match a mage-gun for power or range, which is why most don’t bother to learn, but my people are a stealthy lot and there’s only so fast you can load a gun.’

‘All done?’ Lynx looked around at the rest.

Toil finished up emptying one cartridge case into another and slipping the strap over her head. She nodded and they moved out, Kas leading the way again. They were beyond the larger bridge now, working their way towards the smaller one the level below. Where the other group had got to was impossible to tell, but they both had the same goal in mind so Lynx put it out of his mind. Neither party was getting across either bridge until a lot more Charnelers were dead.

As though on cue, the crash of a gunshot rang out through the ruined city. The mercenaries all drew their weapons. It had come from somewhere up ahead; it hadn’t sounded too close but the stone walls would play games with any echoes. There was a pause then a clatter of returning fire, three or four shots in rapid succession. The sound of screams added to the clamour, then more gunshots and the distinctive crackle of a sparker. After that it went silent but Lynx knew that wouldn’t be the end of things.

‘Get to the bridge,’ he hissed. As one they raced towards the rift edge, coming out close enough that they could see the glow as tiny figures attempted to light the ancient oil lamps on the far shore. Lynx levelled his gun, careful to keep to the shadows, but he held fire, unwilling to reveal their position on a difficult shot.

‘Toil, Reft – move closer and get burners ready. Hit any group trying to come across.’

‘And you?’

‘Kas will pick off anyone she reckons she can get. They won’t have much clue where she’s shooting from. When you start firing, retreat straight off. Head for the tunnel back the way we came. Most likely you’ll get grenades coming your way so get gone as fast as you can. I’ll shoot and move, give their sharpshooters no line to follow. We’ll come up behind when we can.’

‘And Anatin’s lot?’ Kas asked as Toil and Reft raced off.

She had laid her spare arrows on the ground beside her and now drew her composite bow full. As a torch started to bob up the side of one half-illuminated stone bowl near the middle of the bridge she let fly. The arrow clattered close, causing the Charneler to flinch and stumble – but clearly they had no idea where it was coming from. The second shot winged him and he fell, howling in pain, while Kas knelt to grab another arrow.

‘They’ll see what we’re doing and go for the other bridge. After this push, all bets are off.’

‘Aye, your friend’s thrown a tiger among the pigeons.’

Lynx looked down. ‘The grenade?’

‘Fuck knows what lurks down there, but even she’s worried by it.’

‘I know. If something comes, run for the light-garden.’

She released another arrow at a squad of Charneler troopers creeping forward, guns at the ready, and turned without waiting to see it strike.

‘Sounded like an order, that. We’re not both running for the light-garden?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Kinda pessimistic by your standards.’

‘Just got a bad feeling.’

‘Someone walked over your grave?’

Lynx shook his head. ‘Not quite. I’m just saying, don’t wait for me. Most likely I’ll be right behind you, but—’

He didn’t get any further as the hush and dark was split apart. A great wash of yellow fire exploded somewhere above them, then a second. The forbidding gloom was nudged aside momentarily as flames spilled down in a sheet of light. A moment later a great crack and hiss accompanied a blinding white light, off towards where Reft and Toil had just been heading. Knives of lightning burst over the stone floor, cutting a jagged path towards them.

‘Shit, crackler!’ Lynx said, raising his gun.

‘They’re clearing their route,’ Kas said, loosing another arrow. ‘Don’t want to be caught like rats on that bridge.’

Lynx grunted and fired, the sound of his icer rattling his head and cutting a straight white path to the leading Charnelers. One soldier fell but Lynx and Kas were already moving, scurrying away from their position just before a volley of icers gouged at the stone there.

‘Retreat?’

‘Check the others!’ Lynx called over the roar of the flames coating the rift wall.

They raced on through a chamber of long shadows, into a second where Reft and Toil were huddled on the ground together.

‘Shit!’ Toil yelled. ‘Get back!’

Lynx and Kas slewed right, suddenly realising they’d be visible to shooters on the bridge. A pair of gunshots followed but they were already behind cover and in moments they saw Reft and Toil crawling into the lee of a bulbous pillar twenty yards ahead of them.

‘You hit?’

‘Just caught the edge,’ Toil yelled back. ‘Few more seconds and that crackler would’ve got us!’

‘You got a shot?’

Lynx saw her shudder and shake her head to clear it. They really had been lucky – the numbing claws of a spark-bomb stretched well beyond the area it killed in. Lynx had felt the fringes of such an explosion several times; a tingling scratch all over your skin, every muscle twitching madly. Still Toil levelled her gun around the edge of the pillar while Reft heaved great breaths of air as he tried to recover his wits.

Toil fired, a streak of yellow darting between pillars before exploding on the near end of the bridge. Lynx couldn’t see the effect, but then an explosion followed it and he realised she’d hit someone – set their cartridge case off even.

‘Let’s go!’ he yelled.

As he struggled up Kas stayed on one knee and fired again, but then she was following him at a running crouch back towards the hall with the glowing plants. Reft and Toil were close behind, the big man pausing to turn and scan with his gun raised before continuing on. They raced down one set of steps and up the opposite side as fast as they could. Sweat and nervousness prickled Lynx’s neck as he realised how exposed he was, but there were no gunshots before he reached the further set of pillars. Just shy of the tunnel they turned, spreading a little wide and reloading.

For a moment nothing happened then the hammer of footsteps echoed up towards them. Lynx mentally checked himself until his instincts were screaming with panic. Then he dodged around the pillar and fired a sparker at the intemperate handful who plunged straight out onto the open slope. A moment later the enormous boom of an earther followed and a great chunk of stone on one pillar exploded, showering the more cautious soldiers with shards of stone. Toil followed it up with a burner and fire burst over the rear wall of the chamber, flowing right and left to engulf those near it. Kas let fly with three quick arrows before Lynx reloaded and fired another sparker.

An icer from Toil followed it and then Kas called a halt. Either they had killed all the Charnelers or they were about to get a savage response. Not wanting to see a grenadier get in on the action they ran for it, sprinting down the dark tunnel towards the dubious safety of the halls and tunnels behind.

Uvrel stared out into the darkness and shivered. Some part of her felt the void stare back at her; a cold and inhuman regard for its prey. She had halted at the centre of the bridge – occupying the very heart of the bubble of light and protected only by the threat of her sharpshooters. She had no idea how the stone bowls were fed, whether they would last untended for years or disappear in minutes, but they needed light. Now she had it and could glimpse the vastness of the huge underground rift, walls of stone and dark on all sides, she only felt more assailed, but for her soldiers to fight they needed to be able to see.

How the mercenaries had run around in the dark for days she couldn’t understand. Whether by trickery, magery or something else, it was an advantage they possessed and she had to lessen that as much as possible. As vulnerable as it made Uvrel feel, the oil burned and the dark was pushed a fraction back.

The advance group had reached the other side and disappeared into the chambers beyond. Gunfire and shouts echoed back as the second wave reached the far side and moved on it. Had she bothered to look she would have seen a similar ripple of movement on the lower bridge – fifteen soldiers in each group, more than half of her remaining complement crossing. Fifteen sharpshooters and dragoons were stationed in various perches that afforded a good view of each bridge, reluctantly bestowed a couple of grenades by Oudagan to ensure any rush across was doomed.