Shadows Will Fall (10 page)

Rucker fixed the SS major with a withering gaze.

“Who am I? I'm the captain of the
Raposa
. I've faced this kind of thing before and I still have both arms, two legs, and nine toes,” Rucker said. “I'm a combat pilot with twenty-nine air victories. I'm the man who is going to save you and every other person in the world, but only if you shut up and do exactly what I tell you. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Um . . . no,” Hoffstetter said meekly.

“Good. Now, Lysander, when Tesla gave you this big gun, did he describe how it worked?”

“Er, that is . . .” Lysander said. “What?”

“Tesla never gives you something unless he tells you exactly how it works. To him, that's the same as naming it,” Rucker said.

Lysander wasn't following him.

“Pockets, pockets,” Rucker said to him, miming it. “You always write new things down.”

Lysander pulled several different napkins and scraps of paper from the pockets of his suit. On one of them there was a sketch of the Tesla gun. He handed it to Rucker.

“It says,” Rucker read, “ ‘produces manifestations of energy in free air instead of a high vacuum . . . generates a tremendous nondispersive electrostatic, repelling, and disruption force . . . powered by a narrow stream of atomic clusters formed in a matrix of mercury and tungsten accelerated via a magnifying, reverse wave transformer.'

“You,” he said, pointing at an engineer. “What's your name again?”

“Brant,” the engineer said.

“Okay, Brant, when you explained to Lysander and me how that orb works, you said the thing generates dispersive electronecrotic energies, using the Spear of Destiny as a matrix, right?”

The nervous engineer nodded.

“This may not work,” Rucker said, “but I'd take a leak on an electrical socket if I thought it would help, because we're out of options. So here's what we do . . . and we're going to have to go all in on this one.”

Everyone gathered around. The sound of gunfire from the guards and from the undead—who were getting better as marksmen—punctuated each sentence. The shots from the sentries and snipers on the wall were growing more frequent, as the dead used the bodies to build more ladders.

S
korzeny stood with his six volunteers. Four were storm troopers. One was an engineer. One was the traitor. He had an obsidian steel mace. Deitel had an obsidian steel short sword.

“From here on in, it's a bloody street fight,” Skorzeny said. “No quarter. Your best weapon when you run out of ammunition is your entrenching tool. Use it like an ax. Try to decapitate them. If you use it in an overhead blow, it will get stuck in the skull, and in the time it takes to pull it out they'll swarm you. They're going to be mean. You have to be meaner. Strike hard and move fast.”

Terah had everyone who could move up on the wall, including the wounded. They had pistols and clubs, plus three grenades. Lang waved at her from his sniper's nest.

Below in the courtyard, Rucker and Brant were securing the wagon leads to the saddle. On the wagon sat Tesla's teleforce projector. Brant climbed onto the wagon and gripped the machine tightly.

Rucker had to get the Tesla cannon to Übel's machine, and then use the spear in the Tesla gun instead of the mercury tungsten. They'd already set the cannon to feedback its energy, which would then be delivered to the orb. If fortune and physics was on their side, it would project this new energy out just as Übel's machine had earlier.

Rucker swung himself into the saddle. He looked at Skorzeny, then Terah, and then Lang. Lysander said a little prayer.

“We'll need at least two minutes when we get to the orb,” Rucker said. “Keep them off us.”

“We'll try our best,” Lang said.

“Let's do this,” Rucker said.
“Allons-y!”

Skorzeny's men, divided into two teams on opposite ends of the wall, rappelled over the wall into the outer courtyard. They banged on pots and pans, starting to draw the creatures away from the barricade along the inner courtyard wall. It was like flushing game in the bush, only in reverse—they were baiting them away from the center where the gate was.

As he banged on a metal pot with the butt of his sword, it briefly occurred to Deitel that this was not what he thought he'd find himself doing back in his medical school days.

When the barricade was mostly clear, Terah, Amria, and Lysander pulled the cords on the potato smasher grenades. They'd been saving the grenades on Skorzeny's orders. Until he could figure out the most effective use for them, he wanted them in reserve. Now was the time of most effectiveness. The quick series of blasts cleared most of the crates and material from the top of barricade in the center gateway. Four engineers, using a block and tackle pulley system, pulled one of the field cars out of the gateway, clearing the way for Rucker. The engineers then scrambled up a ladder, pulling it up after them.

“H'yah!” Rucker shouted, digging his heels into the horse. He had an obsidian steel sword and his Colt. One ranger, one riot, he thought. We can do this.

A surreal sight unfolded in the outer courtyard. Groups of the undead attacked Skorzeny's fighters. They'd used up their ammunition. The gory work of hand-to-hand combat was like nothing seen since the Roman Coliseum. Then came the chariot to complete the macabre scene. Soldiers fought with the precious few obsidian steel weapons they had, with entrenching tools and with clubs. A few had pistols and machine pistols. They used them to their best effect, saving their shots for when the undead were closest. Congealing, thick body fluids sprayed as they split open skulls and decapitated the undead. It splattered from exit wounds in skulls when they shot the creatures point-blank in the face. A trooper's entrenching tool got stuck in the skull of one of the creatures. As he struggled to free it, two of the undead overtook him. He went down screaming as they tore flesh from his body with their teeth. A shot from Skorzeny's pistol mercifully ended the man's cries.

As Rucker galloped past Skorzeny's position he shouted to the German commando, “Follow the Rucker-shaped blur!”

Skorzeny nodded and kept at the bloody work.

Rucker steered the horse and cart through the hordes of undead at a fast clip. On the run, the cart was too fast for the creatures to be much of a risk. But he knew as soon as they reached the orb they'd be like ducks on the water. It all came down to how fast he and Brant could hook Tesla's gun into Dr. Übel's device.

S
korzeny's worst problem was his own training. Instinctively, he would swing his mace at the creatures wherever there was an opening, including all the places that didn't kill the undead but would kill a person. He corrected himself quickly enough, smashing the skulls of any creature that got within four feet.

“Adapt,” he told his men. “Adapt or die.”

Deitel kept telling himself they were only cadavers, no different than the ones he'd worked on in medical school. He swung the black-bladed short sword with all his might. The blade bit deep into the back of a creature's neck. The greater force applied to the back of the neck cut right through the bone, while the momentum of the strike sliced through the softer tissue, severing the head entirely. He stabbed another under the chin, cutting behind the jaw to let the blade dig deep, biting right through the brain stem until it hit the inner top of the skull. A quick twist and the brain was destroyed, killing the creature.

Just cadavers, Deitel said to himself again. His arms and chest were wet with the thick, black blood of the creatures he was killing.

R
ucker reached the orb, and he and the engineer got to work carrying the Tesla device up the steps to the dais over the sphere. Halfway up the stairs, Brant looked over Rucker's shoulder and his eyes widened. Rucker cursed—he couldn't drop the thing and reach his weapon, and one of the creatures was about to attack. He turned his head and saw it approaching. Then he heard the report of a rifle, and the thing's head exploded. From his position atop the bailey in the inner courtyard, Lang chambered another round. Rucker gave him a quick nod.

A
t the wall, the creatures climbed relentlessly. There were more coming. A few made it to the top. The living set upon them with axes, entrenching tools, and clubs. A trooper was pulled from the wall and fell to the cobblestones of the outer courtyard. The undead swarmed his body, devouring the flesh while he was still screaming. A trooper was holding one of the creatures at bay, having stabbed it in the chest with a makeshift spear. The thing pulled itself toward him, its jaws snapping and clawed hands grasping. Just as its teeth were about to sink into the trooper's face, its skull exploded as Filotoma smashed it with a heavy blow. Foul blood and brain matter splashed in the trooper's face.

“The head, boy,” Filotoma said. “Use yours and bash theirs. It's the only way the dead die.”

The frightened trooper nodded.

Amria, still weakened from her spell hours before, stood over the huddled civilians who were unable to fight. Her hands traced runes in the air before her and she chanted the ancient words that would cloak them from the creatures' senses. It was all the magic she could summon.

Down in the courtyard, Skorzeny's team were barely holding their own, trying to make their way to the orb to provide Rucker and Brant additional protection. It was a hard fight. Every moment more and more undead crowded them. They had to fight and keep their flanks open so they wouldn't be surrounded. One of the troopers stumbled. Before he could regain his footing, a creature bit into his skull, cracking it open with a snap of its jaws. It spat out the thick bone and dug its mouth into the soft brain issue even as fresh red blood oozed out from the wound. The trooper's legs shook as his body convulsed. Two or three of the creatures started fighting over the succulent organ they craved even more than living flesh. Skorzeny's men tightened their formation.

On the orb, the Tesla gun was charging its feedback loop. It was taking forever, Rucker thought. He wasn't a formal engineer, but he'd had enough hands-on experience to keep up with Brant. He also had to watch his back. Lang could only take out so many. Twice, Rucker had to drop cables and pull his Colt. It was hard going.

He heard one of the
draugrs
taunting him in its raspy, undead voice.

“You can't change destiny,” it shouted. It was thirty feet away and running at him.

“Gonna try,” he said. He pulled his Colt and lined up his shot. Don't think, he told himself, and squeezed the trigger. The .45 caliber projectile struck the
draugr
right between the eyes. It was dead before it hit the ground.

S
korzeny was out of bullets. It was all hand-to-hand now. The man to his left, one of the younger troopers who'd been so eager to prove himself to Skorzeny and was the first to volunteer for this team, swung at one of the creatures and missed. The momentum carried him off balance. Two of the undead grabbed his arms pulled him down. Skorzeny tried to reach out to the trooper but the creatures were already tearing flesh from the man's arms and shoulder.

Skorzeny brought his mace down on the trooper's head, smashing his skull. The instant kill was a kindness compared to being eaten alive and then joining the living dead, but that didn't console Skorzeny.

His rage grew.

I
t was down to Deitel, Skorzeny, and one trooper. Skorzeny saw an opening between them and Rucker.

“Now! Run!” he yelled, pointing in the direction of the machine.

None of them had ever run so fast. They covered the thirty yards to the orb in less than four seconds. They formed a perimeter around Rucker and Brant.

Now, with no other distractions, half the creatures were trying to take the wall, and the other half were shambling toward the orb. Rucker and Brant weren't quite ready.

On the wall, they lost two more to the creatures. One of them breeched the barricade, slithering through on its belly. A trooper brought an entrenching tool down, aiming at its head, but it was faster than he expected. His blow cleaved the creature in two at the waist. Before he could raise it again to strike the head, however, it latched onto his leg and bit into his calf. The trooper fell to the ground. The creature pulled itself up the man's body and bit into his skull with a sickening crunch.

Terah's sword split the creature's skull and went right through to the trooper's, ending his suffering and ensuring he wouldn't rise as one of the undead.

They were going to be overrun.

Terah and Lysander stood back-to-back. So far, Amria's spell was keeping the undead away from those who couldn't fight—the elderly civilians, the children, and those too wounded in the earlier melee or by gunfire.

The barricade fell. The creatures swarmed over it.

“There's nothing to stop them,” Amria said.

O
n the orb, Brant and Rucker completed the final connection.

“So this thing, if it works, this will kill them all?” Skorzeny asked.

Rucker shook his head.

“They're dead already. We're making sure they know it,” he said resolutely. “There's been enough death today. Too many good people. Too many people who didn't know any better. Even too many of your people. It ends now.”

His hands in thick gloves—he didn't want to get this far only to infect himself—Rucker placed the Spear of Destiny into the Tesla cannon where the mercury-tungsten matrix had been. The peculiar iron of the spear would act to excite the energy and accelerate it through the Tesla gun's reverse wave transformer.

It was a long shot, but it was all they had.

Over his shoulder he saw the sun beginning to rise.

Rucker pulled the trigger. Energy surged through the Tesla gun and fed back into Übel's machine. The narrow stream of atomic clusters formed in the matrix of iron that was the spear and fed into Übel's machine.