Resolution (69 page)

The interrogator’s fingers squeeze her breast hard, and she cries out.

‘No ...’

Again:

Lungs burning as they run from the conflagration but then black flames burn and the things are in front of them as well, and metallic talons slice the air.

Slick and blue, intestines slide from their bodies.

Tom! Don’t let the Chaos take you.

Again:

Gouts of superheated steam as grasers pierce the water and the infiltrators boil alive.

‘Leave me alone!’

Again:

Lev-bikes arc, spitting fire, but the armoured ground troops are too many, and the things behind them rear and spread their wings. The team leader cries out as her bike tips, spins, is gone.

And Enemy rifles come to bear upon the remaining Chevaliers.

Let me help, sweet Tom. Let me help you.

It was as intimate as a lover’s hand sliding inside his garments, fingertips touching him and moving lower.

‘Eemur?’ Tom half-raised his head.

Then fell back into the maelstrom.

Ozone stink as the air splits apart...

No, Tom. Keep control. Like this.

Shift:

A swimmer, masked, moving through black water in an arterial channel enwrapped by solid basalt, then broken light ripples on waves overhead, and he surfaces. The things that move upon the dock are not human, and never were.

Something cold trails across the swimmer’s leg.

Leave it.

‘No!
I can’t...’

Leave it now.

Tom flung his arm around. He screamed.

You have to disengage, my love.

But the visions pulled at him, dragged him down.

Yes, but I have you.

‘Eemur?’

Stay with me.

Tom slipped away.

Stones sharp beneath his belly as the sighting mechanism focuses, the scarlet-clad officers spring into sharp relief and he squeezes the
—

No. With me.

Armoured levanquins sliding over the
—

No.

Finger on the
—

No.

Darkness and
—

I’ve got you.

Fading.

I’ve got you now, dear Tom.

‘Eemur?’

The darkness that slid down next was ordinary exhaustion, a heavy sleep, while Eemur’s Head, on her lev-tray separated from Tom’s chamber by three distinct layers of stone and steel, used the talents and abilities she had honed over centuries of life and non-life to keep the roiling visions at bay.

~ * ~

42

NULAPEIRON AD 3426

Tom’s first significant success was the rescue of Duke Karalvin’s army. It reinforced his commanders’ determination to fight for their Warlord Primus; it also made Tom realize the limitations of his own powers.

The operation started with a small event, a sudden movement in a holodisplay over the big conference table, and Elva pointing at the shift in colour. ‘What’s that? Something in Tulgrin Vastness?’

Wind howling past broken pillars, while men in cobalt-blue uniforms with crossed silver sashes flee from clawing metallic wings ...

Tom maintained focus.

Are you all right?

Yes, so far.

Eemur was floating somewhere behind Tom’s head, but he did not turn to look. Instead he asked General Ygran: ‘Which force has a uniform of cobalt with crossed silver, do you know?’

‘I don’t... Karalvin’s Halberdiers. Why do you ask, Warlord?’

‘Because that’ - Tom nodded towards the display - ‘is the force the Anomaly’s attacking in Tulgrin.’

There were glances among the tactical planners around the table. But Elva merely rubbed her chin, considering, then said: ‘They would be worthwhile allies. Karalvin’s got quite a reputation.’

General Ygran nodded.

Truholm Janix, the logosopher who was beginning to prove his mettle, ran his fingers through his untidy hair, stared at the image, then shook his head. ‘Duke Karalvin passed up on a chance to join us before. And
look
at his position.’

‘It is bad,’ admitted Elva.

‘But not impossible.’ Tom looked at General Ygran. ‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t like it. The Anomaly’s forces are sweeping in from three directions on that stratum, and look ... A fourth battalion is going to rise from directly beneath them, if the Enemy can cross Beeling’s Gap fast enough.’

‘You don’t think a rescue is possible?’

‘I think a relieving force would be destroyed,
unless
they could extract Karalvin’s forces en masse before all the Enemy forces can come together. But such an extraction ... Damn it, Warlord. I don’t think it can be done. Not in the time available.’

On her floating lev-tray, Eemur’s Head circled the chamber, close to the ceiling. Elva glanced up, her face expressionless, then dropped her gaze to the tactical schemata.

‘If only the Alstern Abyss wasn’t occupied—’

Tom rocked slightly on his feet.

Black flames form a portal, as men and winged beings move
into
it, deploying elsewhere, leaving behind five platoons of men whose eyes no longer reflect human thoughts, their graser rifles held at port-arms. They stand centimetres from the edge’s lip. They have no more fear of the sheer drop than a single blood cell is afraid of ceasing to exist.

Tom smiled.

‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘the Enemy is not as powerful there as you think.’

Six holovolumes opened.

Count Uvril, bearded and glowering. The ferret-faced Lord Vandon. Square-featured and professional: Major Elksin. Lady Liranda, her hair prematurely white, her eyes shining with a psychopathic need for vengeance. Young Alvix, his empty left sleeve tugged by the wind. A brown-skinned woman wearing a golden torc who refused to give her name, but whose partisan group had wiped out three Anomaly-held supply depots.

Every one of them commanded forces still fighting in tunnels and halls and caverns down below.

‘Alvix?’ Tom addressed the most loyal man first. ‘You see the target. Will you take your force downshaft to this location?’

Subsidiary holos flared at Tom’s gesture. Alvix and the other five commanders looked to one side, seeing the same display replicated.

‘Aye, Warlord.’

‘Action in two hours and twenty minutes.’