In the courtyard behind them, Willie's ground rig rolled out of the whizzer. The rig was a low-slung armored cart. The ceramet armor of its sloped sides would stand up to anything short of a missile, but the courtyard lacked space for a missile to arm itself. Weapon-snouted turrets and bulbous sensor domes sprouted like high-tech mushrooms on the cart's dorsal surface. As soon as the rig's rear tires touched the paving, the ramp slid back and the personnel hatch slammed shut. The whizzer would stay locked until the raiding party returned. Until then, the armored ground rig would stand guard and hold the retreat line. Hart and the meres started to move through the lower level of the keep. Smooth as a drill, half of them took a position, assured safe passage, then waved the other half on. For the next bound, the moving team went to ground as the first cover team leapfrogged past. Seeing the stairs into the lower levels right where they were supposed to be, they headed down. It was obvious the Herbstgeist defenders weren't expecting the raiders to take the low road, because the raiders met only a couple of very surprised locals, who failed to escape the meres' instant response. On the fourth level, the dressed stone gave way to less-finished tunnels.
Hart's map was clearly out of date, because there were unmapped excavations. Tunnels opened in unexpected directions, and walls of mortared stone stood where passageways should have been. The level was still under modification, for tools lay scattered at workfaces and the only furnishings were the few for the comfort of a small work crew. They were making slow progress. The thunder of the cannon on Willie's rig sounded faintly like a distant storm. The rigger's comm channel buzzed with static that fuzzed her voice.
'Incoming traffic. Third party. There're at least ' The transmission was cut off. Hart hurried the meres on. She wondered if the Tir Tairngire elves had betrayed them, or if it was some of Spider's agents. Whoever had attacked Willie was not likely to be friendly to her cause. They had to reach the bomb cache and do the job before the new arrivals could interfere.
When they had to double back after hitting a deadend wall, Hart cursed all the way to the main corridor. Their goal would have been just beyond that fragging wall, but explosives were too dangerous to use down here.
They had just come upon what Hart thought was a corridor that would get them where they wanted to go when she heard running footsteps behind them. An ork caromed around the corner, clearly in a panic. She skidded to a stop at the sight of the heavily armed meres, her eyes wide with terror. One of them instantly cut her down. Hart looked away. This one wasn't necessary. The poor trog wasn't even carrying a weapon.
Twenty meters down the hall, she located the cache. 'Take positions. We'll need to hold here for a while. Julio, keep trying to raise Willie.'
The meres selected their spots rapidly. Hart slung her Roomsweeper to the carry position and set to work opening the vault door. Caliban hadn't been able to give her the combination, but he'd told her the model and she'd come prepared. The ten minutes it took her to crack the door was less than expected and more than she'd hoped. Opening the heavy door just enough to slip through, she entered the vault. The light from outside was enough to see by. She dug a flask out of her shoulder bag and began scattering the dust she had made to Sam's specifications.
'So this is your prize,' Georgie said with a low whistle as he stared at the trio of warheads.
The mere's comment almost didn't penetrate. She was focused on remembering the chant Sam had said to use as she scattered the dust. It wouldn't be long before the third party found them here.
She almost didn't hear the faint hissing sound behind her.
She spun. Georgie stood there, looking like some kind of insect-headed man. His face was masked by a rebreather that distorted his lower head into the image of mandibles, and the starlight goggles made his eyes seem to bulge from his head. The hissing came from a cylinder in his hands. She read the designation on it just before he tossed it at her feet:
DEXSARIN: NERVE GAS: AEROSOL VECTOR.
The elder shamans dropped hands and broke their circle. Still dancing and chanting, they moved outward toward the greater circle. Their dragging right feet traced spokes to the wheel of the dance, and the wheel turned around them.
When a dancer faltered in his step, a shaman wearing a bear skin was there. As the dancer tottered the shaman stepped before him, hands weaving and capturing the dancer's gaze with hypnotic magnetism. The dancers circled and the bear shaman moved with the exhausted dancer, twirling a feather before his face and chanting, 'Hu! hu! hu!' The dancer staggered free of the circle and stumbled toward the shaman. Panting and groaning with exhaustion, the dancer followed the shaman, who led him to the foot of the sprouting tree. Sam's gaze was drawn to the glassy stare of the drawn, pale dancer. Muscles twitching, the dancer bowed to Sam,
Beneath the sprouting tree, Sam opened his arms wide to accept the dancer. The man shivered once and pitched forward, his spirit soaring free. Power flashed laser-bright through Sam. His back arched in the agony. When his back muscles relaxed, he hung his head and wept. The Great Ghost Dance gathered strength.
Neko couldn't go on without checking. He told himself that he had to make sure his rear was safe. For all that their partnership had been brief, he owed Striper vengeance. Of course, he also needed the satchel she carried if he were to complete this run, which honor and personal pride bound him to do. Cautiously, he moved up to the corner. A faint slapping sound was irregularly audible. Weapon ready, he eased around.
Instead of victorious guards, Neko found himself face to face with a languid Striper gathering weapons. The dark leather satchel swinging against her hip was the source of the sound. It was the one intact thing she wore. Her clothes were in tatters and she was covered in gore, but she seemed unconcerned as she picked up weapons from among the bodies of the warlord's unfortunate troops.
Neko shifted his stare from his miraculously intact partner and considered the fallen guards, who looked as though they'd been torn apart. No knife, sword, or spur had made those wounds, that Neko was sure of. For all her seductive allure and feline grace, Striper was far more than she seemed.
It had to be magic.
Neko preferred to avoid those who dabbled in the arcane, but he was glad she was on his side. Considering the carnage she had wrought here, he would rather have faced one of the bug men than her.
He shook himself free from the hypnotic fascination of the bodies to find Striper watching him. Her face was made strange, almost alien, by the decorative face paint from which she obviously drew her street name. The harsh light of the overhead panels threw her eyes into shadow. One corner of her mouth quirked up into the ghost of a smile. A fugitive shaft of light touched the shadows under her brow and reflected red from her eyes.
Neko had never believed in demons, but now he thought the issue might be an open question. 'We've got biz,' she said softly. Unwilling to trust his voice, he nodded. She moved past him at a lope, and he hurried to catch up. He trusted her to spot any opposition. Curiously, such a surrender of vigilance didn't bother him. She was more than competent. Could it be he had come to trust her? Or was he under her spell? He was still wondering when they reached the missile silo. The tall cylinders housing the long-range missiles marched off into the darkness in serried rows. It was a technological forest, an orchard whose fruit was death. The old terror that had haunted generations lurked here, magnified and somehow made perverse by the silence and cleanliness of the chamber. Death should not be sanitary, nor should it be so easy to send, especially by someone who could hide away from the consequences of his actions. He did not know why the American elf and his partners wanted this abomination neutralized, nor did he really care. He just hoped their fix was going to be a good one.
'As you said, we have biz,' he said, pointing to the satchel hanging at Striper's side.
It was her turn to nod. She shifted the Kang to her left hand and dug her right into the satchel. She came up with a handful of gritty substance that she flung into the air.
Neko experienced a moment of absolute disbelief. Had he been suckered by madmen? Then his incredulity drowned in awe when the dust ignited and whooshed into the depths of the silo chamber like a comet.
It was no small relief to him to see that Striper appeared as astonished as he.
Another dancer was led to the sprouting tree. It was easier for Sam to take the sacrifice the second time, but no lighter a burden. The crystalline spirit sparked the dance's energy higher. With a prayer of thanks, Sam took the gift and used it.
In a distant place, dust sparked to fire and swirled through the air. The fire sped on a swirling dance of its own through a night-dark forest of sleeping giants. It touched each leviathan of death, leaving behind a crackling fragment of itself. Everywhere it rested, flames sprouted. Roaring and climbing, they enveloped whatever they touched, covering it with the energy of the dance.
What had been, was no longer.
