Deathstalker War (18 page)

Hazel d’Ark fought at his side, her sword flashing in short, brutal arcs, cutting through flesh and bone like a butcher’s cleaver. Blood, none of it hers, splashed her clothes, soaking her sword arm to the elbow, and the screams of the wounded and the dying were music to her. She’d always had a soft spot for Mistport. She’d always liked to think that wherever she went and whatever she did, she could always go back to Mistworld, and they would take her in. It was the closest thing to a home she’d ever known. And now the Empire wanted to take that away from her, just like all the other things they’d taken, down the years. She was damned if she’d allow the Iron Bitch that final victory. Not as long as there was breath in her body and steel in her hand.

Her link with Owen was strong now. She could feel his presence at her side, strong and dependable as always. Another presence impinged on her mind, and a familiar smell was suddenly strong and thick in her nostrils. She glanced to her left, and there was John Silver, not far away, stamping and fencing like a man possessed, eyes wide and grinning like a madman. He was flying on Blood. She could see it in him, smell it on his panting breath, even at this distance. A part of her wanted Blood, too. Just a drop or two. It would make her feel so good, comfort her fears, help her forget the helplessness of the fight she was involved in. Hazel fought the need down, burying it deep. She didn’t need Blood to do what had to be done here. Perhaps because her situation had now become so simple—fight or die, fight or lose everything she ever cared for. And perhaps because she was linking with Owen again, and in his presence and strength she found all the comfort she needed.

Disrupters on the battle wagons began to target rebel fighters on the outskirts of the struggling mob, blowing them apart in dark clouds of vaporized flesh and blood. Gravity barges drifted overhead in vast formations, surrounded by darting gravity sleds, hundreds of them, like a storm of dark metal leaves blowing into the city. No espers flew up to meet them as they pressed slowly on into the city, disrupter beams stabbing down to blow buildings apart. The air was filled with the roar of powerful engines and collapsing masonry, almost drowning out the shrieks and howls and war cries drifting up from the struggling forces below.

And above it all, the endless scream of the awful thing called Legion.

Albert Magnus, that grey and bitter man, fought hard and well with his two swords, and felt really alive for the first time in years.

He swung his two swords in wide, coordinated arcs, forcing his opponents back. But there were so many of them, and he couldn’t look in all directions at once. A sword stabbed at him from an unexpected angle, and slammed between his ribs. He shouted in pain and disbelief, and blood sprayed from his mouth. He dropped his swords. Someone jerked the sword out of his side, and that hurt him again. And then there were more swords, and axes, hewing at him like a block of wood. He fell, hurting too badly now even to scream, and was trampled on, just another body on the ground. The fight moved back and forth over him till he died.

Jack Random seemed to be everywhere at once, his sword a silver blur, a dashing death-defying hero, laughing in the face of impossible odds. Just his presence was enough to spark greatness in the men and women around him, and they fought, using his name as a battle cry. He took impossible risks and always pulled them off, and no one could stand against him. He never seemed to tire, and he never took a wound, a giant of a man who spread terror through the Imperial ranks.

Owen, bloodied and exhausted, was quietly disgusted. It wasn’t fair that anyone should be that fast, that amazing, and that good-looking—not to mention that lucky. The Empire forces hadn’t even been able to draw the great man’s blood yet. Owen felt he was doing pretty well, but he’d already taken a dozen lesser wounds. It was inevitable in a crush like this. The Maze’s changes were already healing him, and the boost kept him from feeling much pain, but it was the principle of the thing.

Still, Jack Random was a legend, and legends were supposed to be above the petty problems of mere mortals. If that was who he really was. Owen was damned if he knew what he believed anymore. Certainly this man filled the legend better than the broken-down old man he’d found hiding in Mistport, claiming to be Jack Random; but Owen believed in people, not legends. He shrugged mentally as he cut down another Imperial trooper with a single savage stroke. Random wasn’t the only real warrior here.

And whoever the handsome bastard really was, Young Jack Random was exactly what the city of Mistport needed right now. His name was a rallying cry, perhaps the only thing that could call all the disparate parts of Mistport together and make them fight as one. Owen decided he’d settle for that.

Hazel d’Ark could feel her mind reaching out in strange directions. Ever since the Maze had changed her, her mental abilities had been slowly but steadily increasing, and since coming to Mistport, the rate of change had been increasing. She could tell now where every attack was coming from, even before it was actually launched, and her sword was always there in the right place to block the attack. No one could sneak up on her, even in her blind spots, and she could sense the weaknesses in any opponent the moment she saw him or her. It was beyond experience or instinct; it was as though she’d always known such things, and only remembered them now when she needed them.

And more than that, as she saw the various possibilities opening up before her, other possible versions of herself began to appear around her. They blinked in and out of existence, sometimes only there long enough to deflect a sword or ward off an attack she couldn’t have stopped on her own. But as she fought, other different Hazel d’Arks began to appear, to fight at her side. Some had subtle differences, like an extra scar, or different-colored hair. Others were different builds, or races. One had a golden Hadenman hand. One was a man. At least one didn’t look to be entirely human. She smiled at some of them, and some smiled back. Together, she and her other selves pushed forward, forcing their way to the very front of the battle, and there they filled the main gap in the boundary wall and defied the Empire to get past them.

John Silver saw the Hazel d’Arks fighting side by side, and thought he must have got a really bad batch of Blood this time. It didn’t usually give him hallucinations. It was only when a bald Hazel d’Ark in a bounty hunter’s leathers stopped an Imperial sword thrust that would have killed him, that he was forced to admit they were real. He didn’t let it bother him. Mistport was a crazy place at the best of times, which this very definitely wasn’t. But then he saw Owen Deathstalker striding through the milling crowd, cutting troopers down as though they were nothing, and Jack Random standing defiant and undefeatable amidst a pile of enemy dead, and a shivering awe flashed through him. In all his years, Silver had never seen anything like these three. It was like fighting beside gods.

But it only took a moment for the awe to turn to jealousy. He was just a man, with a man’s strength and courage, doing what he could, while three inhuman beings made his best efforts look like nothing. He fought on, but some of the heart had gone out of him. Another surge in the fighting brought him forward, to Owen’s side. The Deathstalker threw him a quick, flashing grin, and Silver tried to smile back. And in that moment he saw a trooper’s sword heading straight for Owen’s back. The Deathstalker hadn’t seen it, too busy cutting down the two men before him. Time seemed to slow and stop, and it felt to Silver that he had all the time in the world to decide what to do next. He could call out a warning, or stop the blade himself, but in that moment he wanted the Deathstalker to die. For being more than human, more than him, for being closer and more important to Hazel than he could ever be. It would be easy just to stand there, and let the blade kill Owen. Afterward, no one would blame him. There was so much going on, and he couldn’t be expected to see everything. He hesitated, his mind churning in a dozen different directions at once. All the things that could be his, if only Owen Deathstalker was dead. And then time crashed into motion again, and there was no more time to think.

The blade slammed toward Owen’s back, and Silver lurched forward, his sword blocking the blow. The sudden impact tore the sword from his hand, and it fell to the ground. The trooper turned on Silver, his sword drawing back for a killing thrust. Silver darted to one side, and the blade sliced across the side of his arm, just opening the skin. Blood ran down his arm. The trooper drew back his arm for another blow. Silver gathered the blood running down his arm into his hand, and threw it in the trooper’s eyes. The man hesitated for a moment, blinded, and it was the easiest thing in the world for Silver to reach down, pick up his sword, and run the trooper through.

All this passed in only a moment or two. Owen Deathstalker saw none of it, being busy with his own problems. Silver gathered his wits together and fought on. He hadn’t done too badly, for a mere mortal. And if there had to be gods fighting in this battle, Silver was just glad they were on his side.

The tides of battle swept him away from Owen, who cut his way through a crowd of bodies to fight beside Hazel again. It took a moment to realize it wasn’t the Hazel d’Ark he knew, and another to realize there seemed to be a small crowd of Hazels. And then someone in the back of the crowd was shouting “Retreat!” Other voices took it up, all of them Imperial troopers, and suddenly the invaders were melting away before Owen, turning and running. Everywhere he looked it was the same, as what had been a far greater force fell apart and ran for its life, its strength broken on the immovable rock that was Mistport’s defenders. The retreat became a rout, and in a matter of moments there was no one left to fight. The defenders raised a ragged cheer. Owen looked back at Hazel d’Ark and blinked a few times as he discovered there was only one of her there. She looked across at him, grinning broadly, and Owen decided he wasn’t going to ask. Not yet He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. The defenders were calling his name, and Hazel’s, but mostly Jack Random’s. He was their hero. They saluted him with raised swords, and glowing fervent eyes. They would have followed him into Hell itself, and everyone knew it.

And then the war wagons opened fire with their disrupters. Now that they no longer had to worry about killing their own troops, they could fire with impunity. The disrupter cannon blew huge bloody holes in the defenders’ forces, and the air was full of blood and flying flesh. The crowd began to fall back, scrambling over the bodies of the dead. Jack Random raised his voice above the bedlam.

“Stop, my friends! We can defeat these machines!”

Owen pushed his way through the crowd to grab Random by the arm. “What are you, crazy? You can’t fight disrupter cannon with nothing but swords! We have to fall back and find some place we can defend!”

“Damn right,” said Hazel, suddenly at Owen’s side. “You trying to get us all killed, Random?”

“My apologies,” said Young Jack Random. “You’re quite right, of course. I got carried away for the moment.”

“Fine,” said Owen. “Now shut the hell up and run.”

The defenders fell back before the advancing battle wagons, but it was an organized retreat, not a rout. They spilled back through the narrow streets and alleyways, confident the huge bulking machines couldn’t follow them. The machines’ disrupter cannon swiveled from side to side, trying to find a grouping of rebels big enough to be worth firing on, but the rebels had already learned that lesson the hard way, and scattered into smaller and smaller groups as they fell back. So the war wagons opened fire on the streets themselves, blowing buildings and walls apart in showers of pulverized brick and mortar. There were shouts and screams as people disappeared beneath the collapsing buildings, and soon there were only piles of smoking rubble where the streets had been, over which the huge battle wagons pressed relentlessly forward.

The Imperial troopers saw the triumph of the war machines, and began to re-form behind them. The defenders’ retreat began to turn into a rout after all. Owen and Hazel stopped and looked back. The war wagons surged toward them, guns roaring, devouring Mistport street by street. Above, the gravity barges hovered like vast storm clouds. Owen reached out a hand to Hazel, and she took it firmly, the same thought in both their minds. Their joined thoughts reached up and out. One of the gravity barges suddenly lurched in midair, as some unseen, implacable force seized hold of it. The engines roared and strained, and then overloaded, as something pulled the barge down out of the sky and smashed it into the war machines below.

The night was ripped apart by the force of the explosion, and flames roaring up from the tangled wreckage lit the nearby streets bright as day. The invading forces had to retreat yet again, or be showered by falling molten metal, thrown hundreds of yards by the blast. But none of the defenders were harmed. The tumbling debris seemed to fall well short every time, as though they were protected by some unseen hand. The rebels stopped running and stood and cheered, celebrating the good fortune that had saved them. Of them all, only John Silver knew to whom they owed their lives. He watched as Owen and Hazel came out of their trance, looked down at their linked hands, and grinned self-consciously. They let go, and moved off into the cheering crowds. Silver watched them go, and wondered again what they were. What they were becoming. And if, just possibly, they might grow to be so powerful that they became more of a threat to Mistport than the Empire ever had been. He moved off after them, shaken by his thoughts, but already pondering possible actions, should it prove necessary. And wondering if he’d done the right thing in saving the Deathstalker’s life after all.

He’d always felt a little superior, because some humans feared espers for their powers. Now he knew how those people felt. He wasn’t top of the heap anymore. He wasn’t even sure he could see the top of the heap from where he was.

Back among the retreating Empire troopers were Toby Shreck and his cameraman Flynn. They’d been put down to join the ground forces, and get close-up shots of the glorious invasion, only things hadn’t turned out that way. The moment it became clear things were going seriously wrong, Lieutenant Ffolkes ordered Flynn to recall his camera and shut it down. The live broadcast was over, owing to technical difficulties. To make it clear how serious those difficulties were, Ffolkes stuck a gun in Flynn’s back, and kept it there until the camera had safely returned to perch on Flynn’s shoulder again. Its single red eye went out, and it was still. Toby protested, but no one listened to him. He hadn’t expected they would, but he had to raise his voice anyway, or they’d think he was getting soft. Neither he nor Flynn doubted Ffolkes would have used the gun. He was white with fury at the invading forces’ defeat, and looked like he was ready to take it out on anyone stupid enough to upset him. So Toby and Flynn fell back with the retreating forces until Ffolkes was called away to be objectionable somewhere else. After he was gone, they got some great footage of the crashing gravity barge, and then had to run like hell as molten metal came dropping out of the sky like a deadly hail. As they trudged back into the snows outside the city, and temporary safety, Toby and Flynn gave up trying to interview the exhausted troopers after the negative replies escalated from the obscene to actual death threats.