Sullivan released his Power and down returned to being down. Dan hit the floor at Sullivan’s feet with a grunt. He’d done better than the Imperium men, who had been spread across the room. The Heavy wasted no time yanking him up. “Run for it.”
Lance’s mouse had an easier time disentangling himself than the humans. The little thing stopped in the doorway ahead of them. “Iron Guard headed your way. The Chairman ordered him to pop you. I’ve got-”
A polished dress shoe squished the mouse flat.
“You again,” Sullivan said.
Dan looked up to see Toru standing in the doorway blocking their escape. The Iron Guard was holding a gigantic four-foot-long metal club in one hand. He surveyed the damage, said something in Japanese to the guards that had landed on the ambassador, then pointed his club at Sullivan’s chest and shouted another order. He stepped forward, swinging, but Sullivan used his Power and the Iron Guard was hurled back. The club tore a big chunk out of the wall as Toru tried to catch himself, but then he spun through and disappeared from sight. Sullivan charged right after him.
“Jake!” The guards were getting up. Dan spied one of the weird Jap subguns and snatched it off the floor. He kicked the closest Imperium man in the face for good measure. “Shit!” Dan ran after the Heavy as a guard started firing pistol bullets right over his head.
Somebody had just stomped him and all his guts had exploded out his side. The pain was astounding, but it only lasted for a split second.
The real Lance Talon came back to consciousness lying on the cold bed of his truck, a mortar round still clutched in his hands. The sensation had overpowered both parts of him and put him flat on his back. There were certainly some disadvantages to being able to use all of the animal’s senses. Luckily the feeling went away as soon as the link did, because it was something you never got used to.
Lance found his pocket watch and opened it. He’d inscribed the spell on the glass earlier. This wasn’t taking too much Power because it was only to one other person, and she was nice and close. The glass showed nothing but black. “Jane! You there?”
She must have adjusted her mirror, because a pretty face swung into view. “I’m here.”
“Your husband will be needing a ride right quick.”
Jane started her car. “I’m on the way.”
“Good. Be careful.” He closed the watch and stuffed it back in his coat. “Because if you aren’t, Dan’s liable to come apart at the seams,” Lance muttered to himself.
The Imperial compound was approximately five hundred yards away, on the other side of a copse of trees, out of sight, but well within range of the Stokes mortar. He’d carefully prepped the powder charges, preloading each of the rings at the base of the shells, and as long as he hadn’t totally screwed up the aiming calculations (the instruction manual had told him 56 degrees for this range) the rounds should impact relatively close. At least the Imperium didn’t have any neighbors he might accidentally hit.
The truck box was tall, and at his height he could move around in the back with just a slight crouch. Nobody passing by would realize this was anything more than just a regular old box truck. The instructions had warned that the recoil was firm, so he’d bolted the Stokes down, cut the truck box’s roof off, and called it good. The Grimnoir now had field artillery.
Lance hadn’t fired one of these things since the war. This new one didn’t look too impressive, just a big pipe on a tripod, with a couple of gears for fine adjustments. How bad could it be? He dropped the shell down the tube, then covered his ears just in case. The recoil rocked the truck springs. The blast was impressive enough to knock his hat off. “Hot damn! That’s the stuff!”
He reached for his Power and felt his surroundings for life. Living creatures stood out, like glowing blobs on a map that stretched for half a mile in every direction. The bigger animals were brighter, and the smaller ones faint, each kind with their own certain color. Some horses, cows… a dog… There. A bunch of fast movers. The blast had shocked a flock of blackbirds out of a nearby tree and into the air. Lance grabbed one. The simple animal’s brain was shoved to the back, and then Lance was flying.
Gaining altitude, he pointed his beak toward the Imperium compound. One nice thing about birds was that they always had a good sense of direction. Amazing vision too. Lance couldn’t explain the science behind their eyes, but they saw colors that he couldn’t even explain to other people because man had never invented words for them. The mansion was easy to spot from a hundred yards up. He enjoyed the sensation of the wind and waited for the shell to hit.
A few more seconds passed before impact. There was a shower of sparks as the shell struck the outer wall of the compound and burst. A cloud of noxious chemical smoke began to belch forth. Lance let go of the bird so that he could have all of his brain to work with. He was a bit off, so he grabbed the elevation wheel and moved it two clicks. The smoke bombs had been made for laying down cover for the troops to advance across no-man’s-land during the war, and they put out a lot of smoke, so Lance figured they should make a real good distraction for Jake and Dan.
But once he got sign that they were out, then he’d start tossing the good stuff.
Toru fell into the atrium. He was not worried, having trained against Omosa before, or Heavies as they were called in America, including the legendary Iron Guard Madi, and knew the key to defeating one was keeping your wits. As gravity changed direction, he would have to adapt quickly. Like now for example, he was falling, yet remained parallel to the ground, so he tried to keep his body oriented so that the inevitable return to normal would not cause injury or place himself in an indefensible position. A skilled Heavy often overwhelmed his foe through sheer confusion, but an Iron Guard with the proper mindset would not be fooled by such tricks. Toru reached the end of gravity’s distortion and landed on his feet, skidding through the imported topsoil.
Several marines were running toward the commotion. Toru had not even come to a stop before he was shouting orders. “Bind the ambassador. He has been corrupted by Grimnoir magic.” The men were confused by his command, but they would obey without question. Then the Heavy ran into the atrium, looking for a fight. The two warriors spotted each other and Sullivan charged. “The big Grimnoir is mine!”
Gravity changed again, hard to the side. It was not like being hurled by a Mover. There was no pushing, not even a sensation of being pulled, just that the thing you had understood as gravity your entire life was now aimed someplace else. Toru kept his mind clear and caught himself on one of Hatori’s prized maples. He held on as dirt and leaves rushed past. The marines did not fare as well and hit the wall hard. One crashed through a window.
The Heavy was wasting his Power on tricks. Toru had yet to display his own Power. The tactical advantage was his. The Heavy would not know what to expect, and would probably be too slow to adapt. The Iron Guard’s stomach lurched as gravity returned, and he landed in a crouch. The atrium was filled with a dusty cloud as the disturbed topsoil fell. Sullivan was coming his way with a determined look on his face. After such displays of magical prowess, it should take the Heavy a moment before he could distort gravity again. Toru activated his magic and felt his physical strength increase tenfold. With a roar, he launched himself out of the garden and across the space. He covered twenty feet in the blink of an eye and lifted the tetsubo overhead as he descended, prepared to crush the Heavy.
Sullivan did not so much as show surprise at the display. Gravity lurched and Sullivan dodged to the side as if he weighed nothing. The steel tetsubo smashed a gigantic hole in the hardwood floor. Gravity betrayed Toru again, and he found himself rolling across the floor.