Dark Foundations (91 page)

“I can hardly not sympathize,” Luke murmured. “I ask myself if it were my town that was threatened, how would I have acted?”

“And there was Zak and Clemant.”

“I don't see—”

“I hated their ruthlessness and callousness. I knew that was wrong. So I wanted to make a point by coming here. I wanted to say that with me people count.”

“Indeed they do, as they should. But you disobeyed.”

Merral looked at the ground. “I didn't see it as disobedience. I felt the envoy didn't know everything and this was something new. I took his words to be . . . well . . . advice.”

There was silence.

Speak, Luke
.
I need you to absolve me
.

But the chaplain said nothing, and in the end the silence seemed so threatening that Merral blurted out, “It was a mistake!”

“Was it?”

“Yes.” Merral paused. “No. It was more. It was sin.”

Luke nodded.

“And I've made things worse,” Merral continued. “I see now that the envoy's advice was for my good, not for my harm. I wanted to save my town. Instead, I've probably destroyed it.”

“Wrong actions undermine all good intentions.”

Outside, beyond the window, Merral heard someone snapping out commands.

“I'm close to despair,” Merral sighed.

Luke shook his head. “To despair would make matters worse. To despair of the mercy of God is, by its very nature, an unforgivable sin.”

“What must I do?”

“You were told to stay on the path. You have wandered off. You need to get back on it.”

“But how?”

“You know as well as I do. Admit you were wrong, seek the Father, ask for forgiveness.” Luke stirred in his seat. “Merral, I've got some messages to send. I can do that downstairs, so I'll leave you here. See me before you go.”

As the chaplain's footsteps faded away, Merral closed his eyes and tried to pray. “Oh, Lord,” he began, “I've been stupid and sinful. Have mercy on me and on this town.” He went through his sins of the day. As he did, he was uncomfortably reminded of his failure during the attack on the intruder ship at Fallambet. There he had been made aware of his misbehavior to Anya and Isabella; now the issue was much deeper. He felt certain that he had failed completely. To be forgiven once was grace, but how could he expect to be forgiven again?
Yet surely
,
Luke is right. To deny the possibility of forgiveness is to despair beyond hope
.

As Merral prayed, his despair slowly ebbed and he began to believe in the possibility of being forgiven. He went downstairs to find Luke in the darkened room, coffee mug in his hand, staring at the growing gloom through the open doorway.

“Feel better?”

“Yes, thanks. A burden has gone. I wish I could say I felt hopeful. But at least I no longer feel in utter despair. I don't wish to die tonight, but if I do, at least this matter is resolved.”

“Good. Let me pray with you, Commander. Much will rest on you very soon.”

Luke put a hand firmly on Merral's shoulder and prayed a simple prayer, thanking God for forgiveness and asking for protection and guidance.

“Amen,” Merral said, as the prayer ended. “Thanks. . . . Thanks a lot.”

He stared at the gathering darkness. It was barely six o'clock of a late summer's evening and already the lights were coming on.

A man about to run past the house stopped and came over. “Commander, Mr. V. wants you next door. Urgent.”

Merral found Vero sitting at the table in an upstairs room, a look of great fear and alarm on his face.

“W-we have just had news from outlying sentries—two men hidden above W-Wilamall's Farm,” Vero said, his words low and so rapid they were almost garbled. “T-the very worst. Something just passed by on a nearby ridge, s-something moving southward through the trees at great speed: much, much taller than a man. F-four legs and a long tail. Black and shiny, with terrible wings. It made a r-rattling noise and birds and animals fled before it. The sentries said they felt a terrible fear as it passed.”

“The baziliarch. Our worst fears.”

“Exactly.”

Trying not to shudder, Merral peered through the window into the deepening gloom, seeing the thickening mist on the lake. He turned to Vero. “And so it begins.”
But how will it end?

By half past six, the darkness was such that it was hard to see the far end of the causeway.

Balancal had emergency lighting brought in and mounted on mobile arms so that, if needed, the causeway could be illuminated. For the moment, the lights were kept lowered and switched off. To aid the defendants, they decided that most of the streetlights would be switched off. The lines of unlit streets and rows of darkened houses gave Ynysmant the air of a deserted and stricken place.

Final preparations were made. The regulars took positions behind the parapet wall. The few reserves waited below in the square and in the adjoining streets. Karita's sniper team positioned themselves at upper windows and at other vantage points overlooking the causeway. The two cannons were primed and firing wires run out to the point just above the gate where Merral, Vero, and Balancal stood listening to the steady trickle of intelligence reports from Betafor and observers mounted on the town's towers.

Luke, wearing armor and with a sword at his belt, stood nearby, gazing intently into the darkness.

Soon information began to come in that the main Dominion force had arrived at the airport and had merged with the Krallen units already there.

Just before seven, the cry went up: “Here they are!”

Merral peered through a fieldscope to the far end of the causeway. Through the swirling strands of dark mist, he could make out something that looked like gray liquid turning a corner on the airport road and flowing down onto the causeway.

Something deep inside him twitched.
It's better when the attack starts.
I'll have no time to be afraid
. “They're coming.”

As Balancal turned to him, Merral glimpsed a look of resolve. “Commander, we're ready. The charges are primed. You may want to warn the troops.” His tone was calm and unflustered.

If this man feels fear,
he shows no sign of it
.

Merral caught Luke's attention and gestured for him to be ready to speak. Then he touched the microphone stud. “Soldiers of the Assembly, you know the drill. When I shout, ‘take cover,' get down behind the parapet. When the blast is over, get up and kill anything that makes it over in one piece. Take your time. Make every shot count. Our chaplain will now pray.”

The howls could be heard now, a high, horrid, and fleshless sound that made the pulse beat quicker.

“Better be quick, Luke,” Merral whispered to himself.

“Lord of the Assembly,” Luke prayed, his strong words echoing around the streets, “Father, Son, and Spirit, have mercy on us, your people, here this night. Give us courage and defend this town through that mightiest of all armor—the blood of the Lamb of God, through whose name we pray. Amen.”

Amid the resonating chorus of “amens,” Merral saw Balancal take hold of a box on the end of a cable, flick a safety cover off, and then peer through the fieldscope.

Merral looked ahead, his eyes gripped by the awesome and chilling sight of endless lines of gray forms sweeping toward them. Over the howling, he could hear the rising drumming noise of the countless feet on the causeway.

“Any second, Merral,” Balancal said, without the least hint of tension. “I shall let a good number of these things over before I press the button. Ready?”

“Take cover!” Merral shouted.

With a clatter of swords and guns, the soldiers slid down.

As Merral squatted below the parapet, he caught a glimpse of the front Krallen line, twelve wide, now barely a hundred meters away.

Come on, Balancal!

“Now,” said the quiet voice.

Light flashed and a numbing, hammer-blow pulse of sound struck him. The walkway beneath Merral's feet convulsed and a vast wave of hot, dust-laden air billowed around.

Debris—masonry, stone, dust—fell about him. Something thumped him on the back and bounced off his armor while other fragments rained down. A thud nearby ended with a scream.

A great hissing and splashing noise came from the lake as the debris struck the water. Waves of spray lashed over the parapet, dousing the cloud of dust.

Merral rose and looked around, blinking. On either side of him, soldiers covered in mud and dust were scrambling to their feet and shaking themselves free of fragments. A few meters away, soldiers were trying to help a man pinned under a chunk of masonry. Another man threw a severed Krallen limb over the wall with a shudder of disgust.

Merral straightened his helmet and, wiping dirt out of his eyes, peered over the parapet. Through the lifting smoke and dust clouds, he saw that a full fifty meters of causeway had vanished to be replaced by a dark mass of swirling, seething water.

Beyond the severed causeway, the Krallen lines came to a hasty stop. The hooting died.

Caught in front of the gap were perhaps a hundred Krallen. In disarray, some continued onward while others stopped in their tracks.

The firing began.

Amid the whistles of the XQ guns and the
crack-crack
of the sniper fire, the Krallen stumbled and fell. They tried to reform their ranks, but even as they did, they were cut down.

In moments, the causeway in front of the gate was littered with a tumbled, chaotic mass of gray bodies oozing silver fluid onto the wet and muddied roadway.

“Cease fire!” Merral ordered. “Snipers, take down any that are still moving.”

For a few seconds, there was silence; then a single Krallen broke free of the pile of bodies and ran toward the wall. A single shot rang out and it spun over and was still.

“
Tuh
,” Balancal said quietly. “That must have ruined their day. Your uncle did a splendid job.”

“Yes, he did,” Merral replied. “But we haven't stopped them. We have only delayed them.”

For the next hour, though, nothing happened. The ordered Krallen lines on the far side of the shattered causeway stayed mute and immobile while on the defenses, the soldiers took turns relaxing at their posts.

Increasingly, the mists on the lake thickened, the cloud grew denser and lower, and the light faded still further. Soon the spotlights were raised and switched on. Cones of brilliant light illuminated the causeway and the mist tendrils that drifted across.

Yet the presence of the enemy could not be ignored. There were occasional wild cries by the airport that made the soldiers shudder and every so often there would be a faint swishing sound from high above. Once, Merral glimpsed a diamond-shaped shadow flying overhead, faintly illuminated by the few lights on in the town.

Around half past eight, all diary communications failed. Although he had expected it, Merral found it unnerving.
It is a reminder
that our foes have powers that we do not have
. As the backup systems of cables and wires were switched on, Merral ordered his forces to be ready for an imminent attack. Yet nothing happened and slowly the soldiers began to return to their state of partial alert.

Not long afterward Merral was summoned to a cable-linked communication system to receive a call from Betafor.

“Commander,” she said, “as you know, the Dominion has imposed a . . . blackout of electromagnetic communication on Ynysmant. But three minutes ago, I picked up a single brief signal from within the zone.”

“
Within
the blackout zone?”

“Correct. One hypothesis is that it could be a small Krallen party. That would be consistent with their strategy in the past. A reconnaissance or . . . disruptive unit.”

“Where did the signal come from?”

“About a kilometer to the northeast of where you are.”