A crude prediction, too crude for any satisfaction and too dangerous for Ardoch's mission. One missile and luck could send stone to crush Dumarest's skull. There was no safety for anyone under fire. Even a near miss could ruin his mission and, as he well knew, the Cyclan had no patience with those who failed.
He stepped closer to Tomir, unaware of the things lurking in the crevasses of the walls, the eyes and ears which caught and relayed every word. Creatures of the Sungari living in the gloom of the underground chamber, adapted for a specific task and set to spy.
"My lord, you must cancel that order." His voice retained its even monotone but, even so, Tomir caught the hidden threat.
"Leave me, Ardoch!"
"The order, my lord. You will cancel it." The cyber's hand rose, a finger pointing at the young man's face. From beneath the nail something gleamed and, as the hand darted forward, pierced the skin of Tomir's cheek. "You will do it now."
The man was already dead, the drug injected into his flesh robbing him of all volition. He would obey as if a marionette and then, like a puppet with broken strings, he would fall.
But, as he turned to the communicator, his hand slipped and hit the destruct button incorporated into the military unit.
The unexpected. The unknown factor which could ruin any prediction. The element which could render useless any plan. Ardoch looked at his hand, the dead body, his mind already assessing probabilities. The orders had been given, even now the missiles would be closing the gap to the walls. Orders could stop them but would they obey his commands? Louchon was the the next in line, he could stop the barrage, but first he had to be convinced.
Dumarest watched as the cyber left the chamber.
"Now! If you are going to help do it now!"
A wordless cry from the mind to those who had shown him a little of the power they possessed. The Sungari who alone could do what needed to be done.
And he was looking at a group of men standing around a launcher.
They were efficient, glad the waiting was over, eager for what spoils victory would bring. Their officer lifted an arm and waited for a moment. He wore the visor of his helmet raised and few of his men wore body armor. There was no need when fighting at so far a distance. The sky was clear of rafts, no enemy could touch them, and confident in their safety they were careless.
"Now!"
Before the missile could be fired, the load it carried delivered to the castle, the fury of the warhead tearing at stone and flesh and bone and turning graceful men and women into crawling things of horror.
"Now! For God's sake stop them if you can!"
The air blurred.
It shook to the quiver of wings, the passage of bodies spined and with serrated fins, creatures of chitin and bone. Living darts, pointed, barbed, coming from nowhere and striking without warning.
The officer screamed and fell, holes where his eyes had been, blood gushing to stream down his face and join the fountain pulsing at his throat.
His men spun, some running, others beating at the air with hands too slow to hit the living missiles. They died, falling with blood marking their bodies, clothing ripped, flesh torn from bone, bone shattered by the bullet-like impact.
A shift and other men, more death, more destruction of the invading force. And more. And more. Until, finally, it was over.
From the raft the ground was a mottled patchwork of rocks and boulders lined with crevasses and dotted with patches of scrub. A hard place to find anything still less the relatively small figure of a man. Sighing Gartok lowered his binoculars and palmed his aching eyes.
For two days now he had been searching without success but stubbornly refused to give up. Dumarest was alive, he was sure of it, and if he was alive, then somehow, he would return to the surface.
The Sungari would help him.
"Sir?" The driver of the raft was young and proud at having being chosen by the tough mercenary to handle the vehicle. "Shall I continue in this direction?"
One way was as good as another but ahead reared the bulk of the Iron Mountains with the attendant dangers of turbulence and varying densities of air. Even an experienced driver could lose a raft in such conditions.
"No." Gartok made his decision. "Swing to the left and follow the foothills. Ride low and keep even."
Again he lifted the binoculars. They were fitted with an infrared detector and could reveal the presence of any living thing by its own body-heat, but the lenses remained clear.
"To the right," ordered Gartok. "Hold it!"
Something was over there and he tightened his hands at the hint of movement. A trace augmented by the sudden flicker of the detector. A living creature-Dumarest?
Gartok swore as a foal suddenly sprang from behind a rock to race down a crevass then, as the detector flickered again, yelled to the driver.
"Down! Down and to the right a little. Hurry, damn you! That's Earl!"
He was sitting on a boulder, his head resting in his hands, a thin coating of some kind of slime dried on his clothing so that he seemed to have been dusted with a frost-like powder. As Gartok approached he looked up.
"God!" The mercenary came to a halt. "Earl, your face!"
It was tense, drawn, the eyes sunken, the hair also coated with the lace-like patina. More rested on his cheeks, paling his lips, webbed on his eyebrows. It gave him the appearance of having aged a century; an illusion broken only when he spoke.
"Kars."
"Here!" Gartok had come prepared. He lifted a bottle and jerked out the cork. "Drink some of this." He restrained his impatience as Dumarest obeyed. "You found them, didn't you?"
"The Sungari? Yes."
"It had to be you. I told those weak bastards who came demanding that you should be handed over that. Told them and ordered them from Belamosk. By God, I'd have killed them had they lingered. Then I came looking for you." He added, simply, "I've been looking for a long time."
With others, scouring the skies with rafts, searching, always searching. But he, at least, had found.
"Earl?"
"It's over, isn't it? The war?"
"Over. Every last mercenary is dead. Tomir too, they found him in a cellar."
"I know."
"You know?" Gartok frowned, then changed the subject. "What are they like, Earl? Did they feed you? Give you water? How did you manage to persuade them?"
Questions followed by more and all stemming from a natural curiosity. Some impossible to answer while others could only be guessed at. The extent of the underground domain. The means by which access was gained to the surface. The method of breeding the selective strains which formed the extensions of the main intelligence-or had there only been one.
Was Zakym the home of a tremendous, alien brain?
One thing was certain, the Sungari owned this world despite what men may have thought. They, it, were the masters. Men were tolerated as a harmless insect would have been tolerated by a magnanimous gardener. But should that insect bite it would be crushed as men would be exterminated should they grow too fast and become too greedy.
Plague could do it. The destruction of all surface life, the crops and herds, would force them to withdraw. And there could be other ways based on the mind. Terrors which he could only imagine. Horrors without a name.
Dumarest rose and drank more of the brandy and felt the warmth of it spread from his stomach and restore some of his humanity. He had wandered too long in the dark, relied on the alien life-form too greatly, had suffered its probing too long. He needed to face those of his own kind, to hear voices, to take a long, hot bath and feel clean and wholesome again.
He needed to hold Lavinia in his arms and feel the soft comfort of her, the assurance of her need. But when they returned to Belamosk she was gone.
Chapter Fourteen
Roland came running to meet them as the raft landed in the courtyard. "Earl, how good to see you! And Kars! But where is Lavinia?" He looked from one to the other. "Haven't you seen her?"