Legacy of the Darksword (41 page)

“What do they want?” he
asked,
his voice under tight control.

“The Darksword,” said Simkin
laconically.

Smythe cast a furious glance back
toward the prison. “We haven’t recovered it yet. We will. They must give us
more time.”

“Earth Forces are in retreat.
Earth takeover is beginning. You haven’t much time. Such were their words to
us. It is their religious leaders that are pushing the issue, sir. Their gods
or whatever it is they worship have warned them that the Darksword is a
distinct threat.”

“I know all about their blasted
gods!” Smythe said, his voice shaking with fury and fear. Once again, he
clamped down hard on himself. “We made a deal. Remind them of it. They have
Earth in exchange for the Darksword. We have Thimhallan. They provide us with
Death. We provide them with Life. We will recover the Darksword and we will
give it to them, but in our own good time. Tell them that.”

Simkin shook his silver-hooded
head. “They will not listen to those they consider underlings.”

Smythe fumed, glanced again at
the prison, in an agony of indecision.
“Very well.
I’ll
go deal with the matter.” He turned on his heel, stalked away, shouting orders.
“My guards!
Come with me. I’m needed back at HQ.
You two.
Kill the priest. I don’t care how. Do it slowly and
make certain Joram has a ringside seat.”

“What if he decides to talk,
Master?”

“Get his information,
then
transport him immediately to me at HQ. Use the
teleporter.”

“Yes, sir. Do we still kill the
priest?”

“What do you think?” Smythe
demanded impatiently. “He’s of no use to me.”

“Yes, sir.
Could you leave someone to help
us, sir? The tele-porter is not functioning efficiently on this planet.”

“I’ll stay here and give them a
hand,” said Simkin from beneath his silver hood.

“Very well.”
Smythe was obviously anxious to
be gone
.
He left the cavern, his four bodyguards
trooping after him.

I looked at the others, to see my
own feelings of revulsion, horror, and fury reflected on their faces. I could
not comprehend how any human could be so consumed with power that he would make
a deal with a heinous enemy, a deal sacrificing millions of his fellow humans
on the altar of his own ambition.

The two Technomancers went into
the prison to retrieve the captives. Simkin remained outside, rocking back and
forth on his heels and humming to himself. The humming was off-key and
extremely jarring to the nerves. He did not once look in our direction or give
us the slightest sign.

I was beginning to think that we
had been mistaken. Perhaps the Technomancer wasn’t Simkin, after all. Perhaps
it was merely a Technomancer with an odd taste in footwear.

Mosiah shared my doubts. “
That fool
! What’s he doing? If it
is
him . . .”

“Whether it is or it isn’t, he got
rid of Smythe,” Scylla pointed out.
“And four of the guards.
We should attack now.”

“Let them bring the hostages out
of the cell first,” said Mosiah. “They’re probably using a stasis field to hold
them and we’d never be able to remove it ourselves.”

“Good point, Enforcer,” said
Scylla admiringly. “What’s the plan?”

“Plan!”
Mosiah snorted.
“I’m
the
only one with a weapon and that’s my magic.”

“Not even a laser pistol would
have any effect on that protective armor of theirs,” Scylla returned in a
hoarse whisper. “Besides, I have my own weapons.”

“Which are?”

“You’ll see. I guarantee you that
I’ll put one out of commission, if you can handle the other.”

Mosiah didn’t like it, but this
was no time to argue. We could hear scuffling sounds from inside the prison.
Simkin’s humming grew louder and more nerve-racking, if that was possible.

“At my signal, Scylla, you
attack,” Mosiah ordered. “Reuven, you and Eliza rescue Joram and Father Saryon.”

“Where do we take them?” Eliza
asked.

“Down the tunnel.
Back to the cavern
where you hid the Darksword.”

“
What then?”

“Let’s get that far first,”
Mosiah said.

Simkin’s humming was setting my
teeth on edge. I’ve never heard such a strange and ear-piercing sound come from
any living human throat. But then, this was Simkin. The two Technomancer guards
emerged. One had hold of Father Saryon. He looked upset and anxious, but I knew
that his anxiety was for Joram, not for himself, though he was the one who was
about to be put to death. Saryon kept twisting his head, trying to see over his
shoulder, trying to see Joram, who was being dragged out behind him.

At the sight of her father, Eliza
gave a small moan and immediately covered her mouth with her hand to prevent
any further cries from escaping her.

Joram’s skin was a grayish white,
beaded with sweat. Blood matted his hair and was caked on one side of his face,
where a deep, ugly wound crossed over his cheek, almost laying the bone bare.
His right hand was clasped over his left arm, which hung limp. His shirt was
torn, blood covered the shirtfront, and the sleeve of the left arm was
saturated. The stimulant, his fever, and his anger gave his eyes an unnatural
luster. He was weak, but grimly alert and defiant.

“Release Father Saryon. Then and
only then will I tell you where to find the Darksword.”

“You’ll tell us,” said one of the
Technomancers. “When you see the priest lying there with half his flesh flayed
from his body, screaming for us to end his torment in death, you’ll tell us.”

The Technomancer flung Father
Saryon to the ground. His hands were bound, he was unable to break his fall,
and he landed heavily, crying out in pain. I would have rushed forward then and
there, but common sense and Mosiah’s whispered warning prevailed.

Simkin approached Father Saryon,
looked down at him.

There was a sharp snapping sound.

The Technomancer standing nearest
Simkin stared wildly, gasped, and backed away.

“What are you doing?” he cried
shrilly.

“Following orders,” said Simkin.
“Giving you a hand.”

He held out his own hand, which
he had broken off at the wrist.

The magic that Joram longed for
and sought every morning to feel burning in his soul never came to him.

When he was fifteen, he stopped
asking Anja when he would gain the magic.

Deep inside of him, he already
knew the answer.

FORGING
THE DARKSWORD

“
I
n addition, I’ll help you get ahead,” Simkin added.
He lifted his head from his shoulders—unscrewed his head would be more
precisely the term—and flung it straight at one of the Technomancers.

The man may have had some small
magical powers, although from what I had seen, the Technomancers were so
beholden to Technology as to make the magic almost irrelevant. Certainly he had
never seen magic in such maniacal form. He gaped when Simkin broke off his own
hand. But when Simkin’s head, covered with a silver hood, the ends flapping,
flew through the air at him, the Technomancer gave a strangled cry and flung
his arms over his face. Simkin’s head exploded with a force that stopped my
heart,
shook the cave . . . and resulted in a shower of
daisies.

“Now!”
Mosiah yelled.

The Life flowed through him and
transformed him as he ran. His black robes writhed around him, flattened to
cover his body in spiky black fur. His head elongated, changed to a muzzle with
yellow fangs protruding from beneath black, curled lips. His legs transformed
into the legs of a beast, his forearms were covered with black fur, claws
sprouted from the fingernails. The hem of his robes twisted into a tail with a
barb sharp as a razor. Mosiah had become a darkrover, the type known as a
hunterkill, one of the most feared of all the creations of the ancient war
masters.

The Technomancer uncovered his
eyes, gazed in bafflement at the daisies drifting down around his head. They
might have been scattered over his grave. The next sight he saw was a terrible
one—a hunterkill bounding across the cavern floor, running upright on its
powerful hind legs, jaws snapping, its claws reaching for the Technomancer’s
throat.

His silver robes acted as armor,
capable—as Scylla had said— of deflecting all attacks by conventional weapons.
The darkrover was certainly not a conventional weapon, however. Mosiah hurled
himself on the Technomancer. The silver robes crackled and the darkrover
shrieked in pain, but Mosiah’s claws scratched and tore. His weight carried the
Technomancer to the ground.

The other Technomancer guard was
not quite as befuddled by the magic surging around him as his fellow. A weapon
appeared in his hand, a
scythe, that
gleamed with a
fell energy. He stood over Father Saryon, swinging the scythe in a vicious arc.
The blade sang as it whipped through the air, reminding me of Simkin’s off-key
humming.

Eliza and I held back, agonized,
afraid for the captives. But there was nothing we could do. Saryon lay
flattened on the ground. Every sweep of the scythe
came
a little closer to him. Joram was behind the scythe-wielding Technomancer,
leaning up against the cavern wall, his eyes bright and burning with the
effects of the poison. He lurched forward, with the idea of knocking down the
Technomancer from behind.

The guard heard him, however.
Whipping the scythe around, he struck Joram on the side of the head with its
handle. Joram fell, landed near Father Saryon. Even then, defiantly, Joram
raised his head. Blood, fresh blood, covered his face. His head sank between
his arms. He lay still.

Eliza cried out and would have
run to her father, regardless of her own danger. I caught hold of her, held
her.

“Allow me, Your Majesty,” said
Scylla, and advanced, barehanded, on the Technomancer wielding the scythe.

“Be careful, Scylla!” the
darkrover shouted, using Mosiah’s voice.

The jaws of the hunterkill
dribbled blood and saliva, its claws were red,
blood
smeared its black fur. I glanced over at its prey and was sorry I did. Hastily,
I averted my gaze from what was left of the Technomancer’s body. It was covered
with blood and daisies.

“That scythe can drain a person
of Life,” Mosiah cautioned.

“I don’t know why you think that
would affect me,” Scylla said, flashing Mosiah a grin and a wink.

She advanced on the Technomancer,
watching his movements, and suddenly kicked out her leg in the path of the
swinging scythe. Eliza covered her eyes. I watched in horror, expecting to see
Scylla’s leg hacked off by the vicious blade.

The blade struck her combat boot
and shattered, flying apart in thousands of tiny sparkling shards as if it had
been brittle and fragile as ice. I could not see the expression on the
silver-hooded head, but I could guess that he was staring at his weapon in
astonishment. He quickly recovered, however, shifted his hands to use the
scythe’s handle as a club, and tried to jab Scylla.

She struck out with the heel of
her boot, catching the Technomancer full in the nose of his silver-hooded head.
I heard a sickening, crackling sound and thought at first it was the silver
armor’s defensive shield activating. A smear of blood blossomed on the silver
hood. The sound
had
been the man’s nose breaking. He toppled over
backward. A kick to the head while he was on the ground finished him.

“What’s going on in there?” a
voice shouted from outside the cavern. “Is everything all right?”

“More Technos,” said Mosiah. He
had retained his darkrover
shape,
his eyes glowed red
and hideous. “They must be the ones guarding the teleporter. They’ll be here
quickly. They’ve got a hover barge! Go!” he urged, waving bloody claws at us. “Take
Father Saryon and Joram and go! I will deal with these.”

Saryon was on his knees, bending
over the unconscious Joram. Eliza was at her father’s side, holding his hand. I
wondered how we would manage to carry him with us, for he was a tall man and
muscular.

“I won’t leave Joram,” said
Saryon firmly.

“Nor will I,” Eliza said. Tears
streamed down her face but I don’t believe that she was aware of them.

“Smythe has the antidote to the
poison.” Saryon’s gaze went to Eliza. “Do you know where the Darksword is?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Then we must find it and give it
to him. It is the only way to save your father’s life.”

“He may not keep his end of the
bargain,” Scylla cautioned.

“Perhaps he will,” Saryon said
bleakly. “He must.”