“What is this?” the Chairman demanded.
Toru did not dare to lift his eyes as he stammered out his story.
“They said I was dead, did they? You are certain the Grimnoir spoke of Dark Ocean?”
“Yes, but I was not familiar with what they spoke of.”
“Then you left them alone with Hatori?”
The Iron Guard died inside. He had displeased his father. “As Hatori commanded.”
The Chairman was seething. “Listen carefully, Iron Guard Toru.. Go immediately and kill the Grimnoir. Do not question them or capture them. Kill them.”
“Yes, Chairman.” He started to rise.
“Wait.”
Toru finally dared lift his head a tiny bit. The Chairman was watching him with eyes of fire. Toru quickly looked back down. A small brown mouse was scurrying along the bedroom wall, surely sensing the Chairman’s fury and trying to escape. Toru felt as low and pathetic as the rodent. The Chairman did not speak for some time, as if he was pondering a great riddle.
“If I have failed you I will-”
“ Seppuku? You have a habit of making poor decisions, Iron Guard Toru, but no.” Toru was filled with shame at the rebuke. “I have need of you still. Your actions are not what is troubling me. It is this matter before us, but I have made my decision. Your next task will be more difficult. We must assume that Hatori has been influenced by Grimnoir cunning. After you have disposed of them, Hatori must die.”
Toru could not believe his ears. He must have heard wrong. “Chairman?”
“Ambassador Hatori is surely influenced by their magic and must be destroyed. Allow him to speak to none of the men. He is not to be trusted. Do you understand, Iron Guard?”
His stomach was sour. Hatori was his mentor. Killing him was unthinkable. “Yes, Chairman. I will do as you command.”
“See to it. Summon some of your men.”
Toru leapt to his feet. He flung the door open and called out. Within a moment he was joined by two marines. When they saw whom he was speaking to, they dropped to their knees and bowed as deeply as possible.
“You are witnesses to my will. Ambassador Hatori is relieved from command immediately. You will answer only to Iron Guard Toru.”
Flustered by the honor of being spoken to directly by the Chairman, the men barely managed to sputter their confirmations.
“Report when it is finished.”
The mirror flashed white and the spell was broken.
He had just been asked to kill his closest friend. It was madness. Hatori was a loyal warrior of the Imperium; he would never go over to the Grimnoir. Toru was consumed with doubt, just as he had been when he had last failed the Imperium. An Iron Guard does not doubt. An Iron Guard acts. There was no time for thought, no time for hesitation, not when the Chairman had personally given him an order. There was a rack by the door filled with weapons. He picked up his favorite, a steel tetsubo. Toru spun the spiked club through the air. “For the Imperium!”
It took a lot of practice to get the hang of steering a field mouse. The mouse-eye view of the world was radically different and hard to adapt to. Colors faded to a greyish-green; details were fuzzy while the smallest movements or lights became incredible beacons. The faintest smells were incredibly distracting, and his sensitive paws could feel the tiniest of vibrations or variations in the surface, but mostly it was hard to drive a mouse because everything was huge. The giant skyscrapers he was running between were small indoor trees. The jungle was a fern. It was hard for a human being to make the shift. It was a good thing that Lance Talon had a lot of practice.
He had picked up the mouse at the Bonus Army camp. Once it was under his control, which was a snap with an animal that had such an itty-bitty brain, he’d stuck the mouse in Dan’s pocket. It had taken an amount of Power way out of proportion to the animal’s size to keep control, but that was because of the distance involved more than anything.
Controlling an animal was sort of like driving an automobile. You didn’t become the car, but you sat in the driver’s seat and told it what to do. In Lance’s case, he was a much-better-than-average Beastie, and could actually feel through all of the animal’s senses. He’d followed his friends into the dragon’s den with the goal of keeping an eye on things. When the one Iron Guard had been ordered out, Lance had decided to tail him, and it was a good thing that he had. It was also a good thing that the ambassador didn’t own a cat.
The little animal’s heart beat at an insane rate as Lance forced the little legs to keep moving. He could feel the rapid drumming as if it was his own.
Lance’s conscious mind was in two places, and while the part that was in the mouse ran to warn Dan and Jake about the Iron Guard coming to club them to death, the rest of him was pulling the canvas cover off the new 5-inch Stokes mortar that had been bolted down in the bed of his truck.
“Maybe we should be going now…” Dan Garrett whispered to his friend.
But Sullivan still had questions. He was a man who collected questions like kids collected baseball cards. “I want to know more about how this Pathfinder creature works.” It was obvious that the Heavy didn’t trust the Imperium to take care of business.
“Do not trouble yourself with things beyond your comprehension.” The ambassador was a crafty one. He’d told them much, but wasn’t about to give up anything that would make the Grimnoir more capable foes. “I am done with you. I must return to dine with your countrymen who are more than willing to assist the Imperium’s goals as long as there is gold involved. Your country rots from the inside out. Perhaps I have been a diplomat for too long and forgotten the ways of the Iron Guard, but because you came under a flag of truce, though it pains me, protocol demands that I must allow you to leave in peace.”
Dan breathed a huge sigh of relief. It looked like he wasn’t going to have to try to Talk their way out after all.
“That was a most difficult decision. When we meet again, I will not be merciful. In fact, now that I know that any of you somehow survived the Tokugawa means that you will be inevitably hunted down and exterminated.” The ambassador stood. Though he was withered and aged, the old warrior still carried himself with pride. He clapped once. The doors opened and the soldiers filed back in. “See them out. Keep them away from the guests.”
Dan was hauled roughly to his feet by the guards. It was degrading, but he was glad to be leaving. Avenging Heinrich could wait until they weren’t outnumbered ten to one. When Sullivan didn’t get up fast enough for them, one of the guards grabbed Sullivan’s arm, but the Heavy just shrugged the man off. Subguns were leveled his way and bolts were retracted. Dan could appreciate his companion’s stubbornness, but sure wished that he was better at knowing when to pick his fights.
Sullivan took his time standing up. “Make sure your superiors listen, ambassador. I’d hate to have to come back here.”
“An Imperium man does not have fear… except for this Enemy. It will be done.” The ambassador walked for the exit. The guards formed a protective line between him and the Grimnoir. “Farewell.” He paused and looked down at his foot as something tiny and brown leapt across his shoe. “What’s this?”
“Incoming!” the mouse shouted with a surprisingly loud voice.
Grabbing his Power, Dan opened his mouth to shout one of the Japanese phrases he’d been practicing, but before he could get the words out, Sullivan thrust one hand out and caught him by the wrist. Suddenly gravity bent. The table and chairs tumbled away and the room’s occupants were airborne.
He had never been on the receiving end of one of Sullivan’s gravity manipulating tricks before. Dan found himself dangling by one arm, only kept from being flung across the room by Sullivan’s grasp. Down was wrong. Instead of being on the ground where it always was, it was somewhere behind him, where the Imperium marines were crashing through the silk screens. It was disorienting, like the most effective carnival fun house ever, only there wasn’t anything funny about gravity being violated. It was frankly terrifying.