Soldier of the Legion (19 page)

“I will not leave you. Who is to know what happened here? The Soldiers of God are all dead or dying. The gortron is dead! I will say I took you from the soldiers. It is true! We don’t have to tell about the gortron. Who is to know?”

“The Gods will know. I am dead, Slayer of my foes. I am dead.”

“You are alive!” I almost shouted it. “You are alive, because of me, and I will not permit your death. I will bring you back to your father. I didn’t jump in that water, kill that creature and rescue you, just to let you die. I do not give you permission to die.”

“Your servant will know.”

“He is not my servant. He is my brother. He is my sword, and my shield. And he brings death to all your foes. We are one.”

“He is a Taka, and he fears the Gods, as I do. If he helps us in this, he is as dead as I am.” Moontouch shivered. “I was a princess of the House of the Past, guardian of the holy dead, a keeper of the truth. Now I am only a phantom, doubly cursed. My life will be a lie. I will walk the corridors of life like a ghost, a slave of Fate.”

“You are young, and should not die. We are all prisoners of the Gods. I have come from another world, to pull you from the very mouth of the gortron. It means you are not destined to die, but to live!” Predestination, and fate. The Sunrealmers believed in it just as much as I did.

Moontouch calmly gazed into the dying yellow glow of the flare. She turned her eyes to mine, and looked right into my soul. Her eyes were deep, dark pools, swirling galaxies full of stars, a sudden, secret gateway into another dimension.

“You are right,” she said. “I am yours, Slayer. I have lost my world. My life has ended.”

Deadeye returned with the skins, and we dressed Moontouch in the bloodstained clothing of her slain enemies.

Deadeye bowed to the Gods. “We are dead already,” he said. “Slayer and Moontouch and Standfast. We are only phantoms now, passing among the living, who do not know. It does not matter what we do now. We are all doomed. It is Fate. I stand by my brother, Slayer. Speak, and it will be done.”

Moontouch spoke. “Slayer, immortal Godkiller from out of the Great Dark, and Deadeye Standfast, Waterwalker, who defies the Gods, fearless enemies of my enemies, I do not mean to alter your fates. I am only a speck of dust in the wind. My Fate is already fixed. I am the Food of the Gods. I am doomed, and if you were wise you would tie me again to the rock and let me die. But I can see this is not to be. You have taken me back from the grasp of the Gods. My future is yours. I am nothing. I am your slave, Slayer. I am yours.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she bowed her head.

Deadeye moaned. He knew what it all meant, already.

A great sense of dread washed over me. Moontouch was stunningly beautiful, but something in her eyes made me hesitate. She would be an important prize to command for the Legion, I thought. I certainly couldn’t get personally involved—could I? I could almost see the wheels turning in her mind. She had plans for me. For a moment, I thought maybe she was right. Maybe I should throw her back to the sea! If I didn’t, Priestess certainly would. Or Valkyrie.

Chapter 10:
The Eyes of the Dead

“You have killed it, Slayer!” Deadeye held an ancient trident. He was clad in loose camfax, his face smeared with dirt.

“It’s still alive, Deadeye.” We faced a huge exoseg deep inside the hive, just the two of us, running on adrenalin and terror. I had just zapped it with biobloc. “Snow Leopard, Thinker,” I said, as calmly as possible. “I’ve got one exo that’s trying to kill me. It’s kind of annoying.” We were assaulting a big exoseg hive deep underground, and we thought we had all the exits blocked. If so, many exosegs would surely die. And possibly some Legionnaires—starting with me.

The leviathan had stopped, stunned, filling the tunnel before us. It shuddered, briefly, then moved backwards and stopped, twitching. My flare crackled away, harshly illuminating the ugly creature.

“What are you using, Thinker?” Snow Leopard appeared, his E raised, ready to fire. His pink eyes glowed behind his faceplate.

“Nice of you to drop by,” I replied. “I’m using biobloc. It’s a driller. No sign of the soldiers yet.”

“Lasers?” Merlin moved up, prepped to fire.

“No, I think it’s dying,” Snow Leopard said. We watched. The beast shuddered again, twitched, and stilled. The flare hissed noisily. All of Beta had arrived by then, lining up against the tunnel walls.

“Command, this is Beta. We’ve got a dead driller blocking the tunnel. We are investigating.” Snow Leopard reported our situation to our CAT commander.

“Confirm.”

“Let me have the next one, Slayer,” Deadeye pleaded. He had wanted the creature himself. I decided he was a perfect Legion auxiliary. Completely insane, just like us.

“Command, Beta. We’re advancing. We need a probe here.”

“Tenners.”

“All right, let’s go. The sensors show there’s nothing there—let’s just squeeze past.”

Snow Leopard and Coolhand led, burning off legs to make room. The raw earth of the tunnel pressed against my back and the great dead body plates of the creature pressed flat against my chestplate. We clambered over burnt, smoking leg parts. My muscles began to shake, involuntarily. Slime, all over my A-suit.

“I hate this.”

“Deadman!”

“Deto!” I shot back. That was a fairly mild curse, considering my intense desire to resolve the problem with a suitable charge of high explosives.

“What’s that noise?” We emerged at the driller’s rear, into the tunnel. Snow Leopard and Coolhand crouched just ahead of me, green shadows in my darksight. We could almost stand, in the tunnel. My skin crawled. A metallic chirping filled the air.

“We’re close!”

“Ohh, listen to that!”

The rest of Beta emerged, and we lined the tunnel, backs to the wall, E’s pointed downtunnel. The chirping continued, like a million metallic birds swarming in some nightmare nest. We rechecked our equipment very, very carefully.

“The readings are off the scale!”

“Where’s that probe?”

“Can I have one of those flashes?”

“Psycho, I want you up front with that Manlink.”

“Can I be excused for the rest of the afternoon?”

“Don’t forget—xmax, lasers and flame. I don’t want any more biobloc. And be careful with the lasers!”

“Deadeye, keep your head down!”

“I will be beside you, Slayer.”

“Beta, Command, sitrep.” Our CAT leader wanted a progress report.

“Nothing to report.” Snow Leopard almost whispered it. Nothing to report! It was an old Legion tradition, still very much alive: nobody needed any help. It slowly began to dawn on me that Snow Leopard wanted all the exos for himself.

Snow Leopard fired a burst of flame down the tunnel. It illuminated filthy dirt walls. The walls teemed with worms and miniature insect life and slime. The floor was littered with debris.

“What is that stuff?”

“Body parts and dead flesh. Food—and scavengers.”

“Sorry I asked.”

“Advance.” The chittering became louder as we moved forward. My boots crunched and snapped, crushing nameless creatures of the dark underfoot. Snow Leopard and Coolhand sent short bursts of orange flame swooshing down the tunnel ahead from time to time. Smoke swirled all around us. I decided that I much preferred busting Cultists. But Central Command wanted a maximum effort to learn all we could about the exosegs, and Beta had been sucked in.

We came to more tunnels, intersecting our own. The chirping was driving me mad. Somewhere nearby, we would find a huge hive. We huddled where the tunnels crossed, and shot great rushes of flame down them, probing for life.

“Alert!”

“Life form!”

“Exoseg...”

I did not hear the rest. It charged down a side tunnel right at us. Astounding how fast it could move. It bounced from side to side off powerful black exoseg legs, a green hulk, flashing reflections in my faceplate in a dream-like, slow-motion sequence. I fired xmax at the same instant as Warhound. The double explosion brought down the tunnel on top of the creature. Snow Leopard, Coolhand, Merlin and Dragon blasted it with flame, and the tunnel filled with burning smoke and flying dirt. Sheets of flame reflected off my faceplate, and shadows darted wildly all around us. The tunnel shuddered with the blasts and I feared it would collapse on top of us.

“Whoo! What was it?”

“It was a breeder male, Thinker,” Sweety informed me.

“Breeders!” somebody exclaimed, “We must be close to the hive.”

“When did you first begin to suspect it?”

The tunnel echoed harshly with that metallic chirping. Breeders—they were supposedly harmless, they didn’t even have pincers, but without them, the exos could not reproduce so our orders were to terminate them all.

“Advance. On me.” Snow Leopard moved forward. The sensors showed the exos right up ahead! We would have to kill them all to stop that noise. We fired more flame downtunnel, a river of fire for our advance. The air around supercharged with heat.

“Put on your breather, Deadeye.” He slipped it on, his face already black with soot.

“Alert!”

“Life form!”

“Exoseg…”

We ignored the rest of the report. Snow Leopard, Coolhand, Psycho and I all triggered our E’s, firing on xmax as the exosegs appeared. We followed up with bursts of raw flame, splattering liquid fire everywhere. A burning shock wave hit us, a backblast of heat.

“...a whole bunch of them...”

“Exoseg Gigantic Neuter.”

“Are you guys all right?”

“Take it easy! Those are neuters, they’re not dangerous.”

“Keep firing! There’s more of them!”

We used the flame—it seemed to do the job. We advanced slowly through a tunnel of fire, flames now burning right into the dirt, running past our boots, flickering all around us. We passed the massive, shredded corpses of exoseg neuters, spitting flames.

“Beta, Command, sitrep.”

“Nothing to report!” Lunatics, we were all lunatics. I could have been a librarian, stacking cubes in a conditioned room, slowly turning pale and soft, eating well and sleeping all night. And knowing I’d be there, the next day, safe and sound.

###

“I think this is the nutrition chamber, Snow Leopard!” Coolhand sounded tense. Xmax blasts echoed all around us, drowning out the noise of the exosegs. Lasers flickered on my darksight. Coolhand and Warhound and I were so close we could have been grafted at the hips. Snow Leopard and the others remained slightly behind us, blasting neuters, firing down into another tunnel. We had just cut our way through several exosegs with lasers, and as the leading element, we had to force our way through the mess. My whole body shook. I took another mag but it did not help.

“Look at this! Deadman help us!” Warhound sounded horrified. He shone his flash up ahead. The hive burned, spitting blue-hot flames from our attack, the fire spreading, a fierce white glow reflecting off Warhound’s faceplate, illuminating his harsh features. The chamber, an underworld labyrinth constructed by the breeders from their own secretions, revealed many animal species from the world above, stacked carelessly for eventual consumption by the exos. I spotted one of those spidery, scaled treecats, frozen in death. What a sad end for a creature of the sunlight.

Eerie images danced on my faceplate. Coolhand peered cautiously into the nutrition chamber and raised his E to his shoulder. He triggered another burst of flame, liquid fire splattering everywhere. Snow Leopard crawled past me, the flames reflected on his faceplate. Behind it, his face could only be described as ecstatic.

“Command, Beta. We have reached the hive, cords as shown. No resistance.”

“Confirm Beta has located the hive. Stand by, Beta, we’re on the way.”

“Take your time, Command. We’re doing fine.” Sometimes I wondered about Snow Leopard, but being crazy was one of the job requirements. He was clearly over-qualified.

Deadeye pulled at my arm, his face blackened, breather firmly in place. “Slayer, remember my people!”

Remember his people—kill the exos. Yes, one at a time. There was a very good reason why we could not simply burn these vile nests out from above ground, why we risked our lives below ground.

“We have to check every one of these holes, guys—don’t forget!”

“Terrific.”

“Move! Let’s do it. And go easy on the flames.”

“Alert!”

“Soldiers!”

“Exoseg Gigantic Soldier...”

Someone let loose on xmax auto. I turned and found myself shoulder to shoulder with Warhound and Deadeye, just behind Snow Leopard, Coolhand and Psycho guarding the tunnel. The chirping rose in intensity. Closer! Closer!

“Xmax, gang!”

“Ten, sir!”

“Xmax auto!”

“Try and stop me!”

Smoke and flame, slowly clearing, and Exoseg Gigantic Soldier appeared, huge and black and horrible, twitching downtunnel, antennae cracking. Two, three...more! Pausing, for just a frac. Magnificent, perfect creatures, perfect killing machines.

“Die, you slime!” Snow Leopard, Coolhand and Psycho fired and a phosphorescent orange glow outlined them, crouching, molten statues of gold. They sent bursts of flame after the xmax blasts.

Sweety squeaked in my ears. I could not understand a word.

Dragon had me by the arm, and Deadeye danced hysterically around us, pointing into the nutrition chamber.

Priestess stood over one creature just past the treecat, her E pointed down, the light triggered. Deadeye raised his stabbing spear and shakily pointed it out to me. Priestess made a trembling gesture toward the creature with her free hand, and turned her face away, abruptly. I cautiously approached and I saw it. Eyes, open and staring. A Sunrealmer boy, covered in slime and filth, as still as death. The eyes were glazed, motionless, the eyes of the dead, the boy caked in congealed blood and covered with debris. Long dead, he had to be long dead.

Sweety spoke. “A Taka child,” she informed me. “The boy appears to be paralyzed. It is probably intended as food for the exosegs.” The boy could only stare blindly into our light, helpless and hopeless.