Empire from the Ashes

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sean grimaced as his stealthed fighter, one of only three Israel carried, hovered above the twisting gorge. It was sheer, deep, and dizzy, with vertical walls that narrowed to less than two hundred meters where they'd been closed with earthworks, and he saw why the "heretics" had retreated into it, but such tight quarters made maneuvering for the shot a bitch.

He checked his scanners. The cutter Sandy, Harriet, and Brashan rode was as invisible as the fighter, but their synchronized stealth fields made it clear to his own instruments while they ran their final checks.

He wished there'd been time to test their jury-rigged holo projector properly. It would have been nice to have had more planning time, too. Building a strategy in less than ten hours offered little scope for careful consideration, though he had to admit Sandy seemed to have answered his major objections.

The hardest part, in many ways, was the limits on what they could offer these people. It would take a "miracle" to save them this time, but it was the only miracle Israel's crew could work. They dared not use Imperial technology within a hundred klicks of the Temple, yet if they used it up to that point and then stopped, the result would be disastrous. Not only would it offer the Temple fresh hope, but the sudden cessation would fill the "heretics" with dismay. It might well convince them they were heretics, that the "false angels" dared not confront the Temple on its own ground, and that limitation was going to make even more problems than Harriet's monkey wrench.

He puffed his lips and wished his twin were just a little less principled. Her insistence that they never claim divine status was going to make things difficult—and probably wouldn't be believed anyway. Yet she was right. They'd done enough damage, and, assuming they won the war they'd provoked, they'd eventually have to convince their "allies" they weren't really angels. Besides, demanding their worship would have made him feel unclean.

He turned his attention to the army of the Church. Those earthworks looked almost impregnable, but the valley formed a funnel to them, and the Temple Guard was busy deploying field guns under cover of darkness. With the dawn, dozens of them would be able to open fire across a wide arc. They didn't look very heavy—they might throw five or six-kilo shot—but there were a lot of them, and he didn't see any in the heretics' camp.

"Wish Sandy's dad was here," he muttered.

"Or my dad," Tamman grunted. "Better yet, Mom!"

"I'd settle for any of 'em, but Uncle Hector's the history nut. I don't know crap about black powder and pikes."

"We'll just have to pick up on-the-job training. And at least we've got the right accouterments." Tamman grinned and rapped his soot-black breastplate. Sean wore a matching breast and backplate with mail sleeves. The armor, like the swords racked behind their flight couches, came from Israel's machine shops, and the materials of which they were made would have raised more than a few eyebrows in either of the camps below.

"Easy for you to say," Sean grunted. "You were the big wheel on the fencing team—I'm likely to cut my own damn head off!"

"These guys are more into broadsword tactics," Tamman pointed out. "I don't know how much fencing's going to help against that. But we've both got enhanced reaction speeds, and none—"

"Sean, it's show time." Sandy's quiet transmission cut Tamman off.

Tibold Rarikson stood behind the parapet, straining his eyes into the night, and rubbed his aching back. It had been years since last he'd plied a mattock, but most of his "troops" were only local militia. They had yet to learn a shovel was as much a weapon as any sword... and it seemed unlikely they'd have time to digest the lesson. He couldn't see it in the dark, but he knew they were bringing up the guns, and Mother Church's edict against secular artillery heavier than chagors gave the Guard a monopoly on the heavier arlak. Of course, he didn't even have any chagors, though his malagors might come as a nasty surprise. Except that he faced Guards who'd spent most of their enlistments in Malagor, so they knew all about the heavy-bore musket that was the princedom's national trademark... .

He shook himself. His wandering thoughts were wearing ruts, and it wasn't as if any of it really mattered. There were more than enough Guardsmen to soak up all the musket balls he had and close with cold steel, which meant—

His thoughts broke off as a dim pool of light glowed suddenly into existence between him and the Guard's pickets. He rubbed his eyes and blinked hard, but the wan radiance refused to vanish, and he poked the nearest sentry.

"Here, you! Go get Father Stomald!"

"Captain Ithun! Look!"

Under-Captain Ithun jumped and smothered a curse as heated wine spilled down his front. The Guard officer—one of the very few native Malagorans in the Temple's detachment to the restive province—mopped at his breastplate, muttering to himself, and stalked towards the picket who'd shouted.

"Look at what, Surgam?" he demanded irritably. "I don't—"

His voice died. An amorphous cloud of light hovered five hundred paces away, almost at the edge of the ditch footing the heretic's earthen rampart. It seethed and wavered, growing brighter as he watched, and his hair tried to stand on end under his helmet. The incredible tales told by the handful of heretics they'd so far captured poured through his mind, and his mouth was dust-dry as the eerie luminescence flowed towards him.

He swallowed. If the heretics were meddling with the Valley of the Damned, then that might be a—

He stopped himself before he thought the word.

"Get Father Uriad!" he snapped, and Private Surgam raced off into the dark with rather more than normal speediness.

"What is it, Tibold?" Stomald had finally managed to fall asleep, and his mind was still logy as he panted from his hasty run.

"Look for yourself, Father," Tibold said tautly, and Stomald's mouth fell open. The ball of light was taller than three men and growing taller.

"I— How long has that been there?!"

"No more than five minutes, but—" Tibold's explanation broke off, and the Guardsman swallowed so hard Stomald heard it plainly even as he fell to his own knees in awe.

The pearly light had suddenly darkened, rearing to a far greater height, and he groped for his starburst as it coalesced into a mighty figure.

"Saint Yorda preserve us!" someone cried, and Stomald's thoughts echoed the unseen sentry as the blue and gold shape towered in the night, lit by fearsome inner light. Her back was to him, and she might be twenty times taller than the last time he'd seen her, but he recognized that short hair, cut like a helmet of curly silk, and his lips shaped a soft, fervent prayer as he recalled a thundering voice from a mass of flames.

"Dear God!" Under-Captain Ithun whispered.

The light streaming from the unearthly figure washed the gorge walls in rippling waves of blue and gold, and its brown eyes glowed like beacons. He fought his panic, locking trembling sinews against the urge to fall to his knees, and cries of terror rose from his men. A demon, he told himself. It had to be a demon! But there was something in that stern face. Something in the set of that firm mouth. Could it be the heretics were—?

He slashed the thought off, wavering on the brink of flight. If he so much as stepped back his company would vanish, but he was only a man! How—?

"God preserve us!"

He wheeled at the whispered prayer and gasped in relief. He reached out, heedless of discourtesy in his fear, and shook Father Uriad.

"What is it, Father?" he demanded. "In the name of God, what is it?"

"I—" Uriad began, and then the apparition spoke.

"Warriors of Mother Church!"

Stomald gasped, for the rolling thunder of that voice was ten times louder than in Cragsend—a hundred times! All about him men fell to their knees, clapping their hands over their ears as its majesty crashed through them. Surely the very cliffs themselves must fall before its power!

"Warriors of Mother Church," the angel cried, "turn from this madness! These are not your enemies—they are your brothers! Has Pardal not seen enough blood? Must you turn against the innocent to shed still more?"

The giant figure took one stride forward—a single stride that covered twenty mortal paces—and bent towards the terrified Temple Guard. Sadness touched those stern features, and one huge hand rose pleadingly.

"Look into your hearts, warriors of Mother Church," the sweet voice thundered. "Look into your souls. Will you stain your hands before man and God with the blood of innocent babes and women?"

"Demon!" Father Uriad cried as men turned to him in terror. "I tell you, it's a demon!"

"But—" someone began, and the priest rounded on him in a frenzy.

"Fool! Will you lose your own soul, as well? This is no angel! It is a demon from Hell itself!"

The Guardsmen wavered, and Uriad snatched a musket from a sentry. The man gawked at him, and he charged forward, evading the hands that clutched at him, to face the monster shape alone.

"Demon!" His shrill cry sounded thin and thready after that majestic voice. "Damned and accursed devil! Foul, unclean destroyer of innocence! I cast you out! Begone to the Hell from whence you came!"

The Temple Guard gaped, appalled yet mesmerized by his courage, and the towering shape looked down at him.

"Would you slay your own flock, Priest?" The vast voice was gentle, and clergymen in both armies gasped as it spoke the Holy Tongue. But Uriad was a man above himself, and he threw the musket to his shoulder.

"Begone, curse you!" he screamed, and the musket cracked and flashed.

"That tears it," Sean muttered, jockeying the fighter as Sandy's holo image straightened. "Why the hell couldn't they just run? Got lock, Tam?"

"Yeah. Jesus, I hope that idiot isn't as close as I think he is!"

"Priest," the contralto voice rolled like stern, sweet thunder, "you will not lead these men to their own damnation."

Upper-Priest Uriad stared up, clutching his musket. Powder smoke clawed at his nostrils, but the ball had left its target unmarked and terror pierced the armor of his rage. He trembled, yet if he fled his entire army would do the same, and he pried one clawed hand from the musket stock. He scrabbled at his breast, raising his starburst, and it flashed in his hand, lit by the radiance streaming from the apparition as her own hand pointed at the earth before her.

"These innocents are under my protection, Priest. I have no wish for any to die, but if die someone must, it will not be they!"

A brilliant ray of light speared from her massive finger.

Tamman tightened as the fighter's main battery locked onto the laser designator within that beam. He took one more second, making himself double-check his readings. God, it was going to be close. They'd never counted on some idiot being gutsy enough to come to meet Sandy's holo image!

The ray of light touched the ground, and twenty thousand voices cried out in terror as a massive trench scored itself across the valley, wider than a tall man's height and thrice as deep. Dirt and dust vomited upward as the very bedrock exploded, and Father Uriad flew backward like a toy.

The raw smell of rock dust choked nose and throat, and it was too much. The Guardsmen screamed and turned as one. Sentries cast aside weapons. Artillerists abandoned their guns. Cooks threw down their ladles. Anything that might slow a man was hurled away, and the Temple Guard of Malagor stampeded into the night in howling madness.

The ray of light died, and the blue-and-gold shape turned from the shattered hosts of Mother Church to face Father Stomald's people.

The young priest drove himself to his feet, standing atop the rampart to face the angel he'd tried to slay, and the burning splendor of her eyes swept over him. He felt his followers' fear against his back, yet awe and reverence held them in their places, and the angel smiled gently.

"I will come among you," she told them, "in a form less frightening. Await me."

And the majestic shape of light and glory vanished.