The Cyber Chronicles Book III - The Core (30 page)

Sabre stared
at the wreckage for a long time, then groaned and sat back. He
could not stay at the castle. His whereabouts would not prevent the
spacer from coming for him, and he did not want Tassin and Dena to
see him turned back into a cyber. It would be distressing for them
to witness his removal, and to listen to the spacer's assurances
that he was just a machine; a piece of high-tech equipment that
needed a little repair. How could Dena understand that? Rising, he
went to the bed and flung himself down on it, buried his face in
the pillow and wished he could escape reality as easily.

The following
day, Sabre went for a wild ride through the woods, enjoying the
rushing wind and thunder of hooves. When he turned the panting
horse towards home, he was more relaxed, as if some of his troubles
had been left behind. There was no escaping his fate, however.
Stopping the horse, he sat and watched the tranquil woodland,
enjoying the peace. Time. It was just a matter of time, but at
least he had had these few months; a brief interlude of adventure,
of life. His time was ticking away. Each day brought the end
closer. Like a condemned man, he wondered how much time he had
left, and how to make the most of it. With a sigh, he headed
homewards.

As he
approached the castle, a platoon of cavalry thundered over the
drawbridge, pennants flying. The guard sergeant led them, and Sabre
guided his mount to canter alongside him.

"What's
happening?" he bellowed over the thunder of hooves.

"One o' them
things got through the mountains again."

Sabre went
with them down the winding road that led to the town. A broad
swathe was torn through a field of wheat, heading for the village.
In the pasture beyond, a shepherd's hut was flattened, and numerous
dead sheep, gutted by sharp claws, dotted the grass. Sabre wondered
why chaos beasts were so destructive, and what drove them to seek
out towns and rampage through them. If the Core had merely maddened
them, they would just as soon have ravaged a forest, but they did
not.

In the town
centre, a Death Zone monster attacked buildings and people. A
throng of townsfolk armed with farming implements surrounded it,
reminding Sabre of the people he had saved in the Zone. They
cheered when the soldiers arrived, and some retreated while others
continued to harry the horse-sized creature, which resembled a
bear. Long tusks jutted from its jaws, and twelve-centimetre claws
tore the ground. A ridge of bone blades rose from its spine, and a
long, spike-tipped tail lashed behind it. Blood streaked its short,
dapple-grey, moss-like fur where the townsfolk had stabbed it with
pitch forks and crude spears, and it left a crimson trail. Its
Roman-nosed head swung from side to side as it roared its fury and
pain, glaring at its assailants with tortured brown eyes.

Sabre
empathised with the animal's suffering. It had been torn from its
home and mutated into a monster, and now knew only hatred and pain.
Once it had been a predator on some alien world, hunting to feed
itself and its offspring, no more dangerous than the shy cats that
inhabited the forests of Arlin. Jerking the guard sergeant's sword
from its scabbard, he vaulted from his shying horse and ran at the
creature's exposed flank. The men distracted the animal, and he
thrust the sword between its ribs, hoping its heart was in the
usual place. It swung, snapping jaws that no longer closed
properly, its exposed, over-large teeth dripping saliva. It
stumbled and collapsed, its growls becoming whimpers as its life
ebbed away. He ignored the soldiers' congratulations, his heart
heavy.

The creature's
ribs showed through its silken fur, and desert sand clogged its
eyes. Deep gashes marred its grey hide, scabbed with dried blood
and sand, where it had fought, or maybe tried to ease an itch, not
knowing that its claws were now too long and sharp to avail it that
simple pleasure. It was starving, unable to eat with the huge fangs
that jutted from its jaws. There was no triumph in slaying it, only
relief that its misery was ended with a quick, humane stroke. Like
him, the chaos beasts had been made into monsters and sent out to
savage and kill, driven by pain and hunger. He turned from the
jubilant townsfolk and remounted his horse, riding back to the
castle without a backward glance.

Chapter Nineteen

Sabre sat with
his back against the sloping trunk of a dead beech tree that had
fallen against its neighbour, a sturdy oak, in some long-forgotten
storm. A doe browsed a few metres away in the glade that the beech
tree's death had made, nibbling tender shoots. Her fawn gambolled
around her, comical on stilt-like legs that still defied its
control. The deer, like the beech and oak trees that made up this
forest, had been introduced by the settlers centuries ago. He
contemplated their folly in changing this alien world into another
Earth, ridding it of the indigenous creatures that had once dwelt
here. As usual, he did so to distract himself from the gloomy
thoughts about his current situation and its inevitable end.

For four days,
he had avoided Dena and Tassin, unwilling to face Dena's unhappy,
accusing looks or Tassin's ill-concealed misery. Dena hunted him,
and he had sought refuge first in the stables, then in the forest.
It would be far better, he had decided, for them to get used to his
absence before he left. Then the pain of parting would be less, and
they would make new friends amongst the castle's populace. The
girls had come to regard him as their protector and provider, but
they would have to get used to relying on others now, or
themselves. In a way, he wished he did not have to wait for the
final confrontation with Torrian. Now that lasers protected the
castle, Torrian had no hope of taking it. Uneasiness made him wait,
however. He wanted to be quite sure Torrian was out of the picture
before he left.

Sabre sighed
and closed his eyes, resting his head against the warm bark while
he listened to the carolling of woodland birds. His horse stamped
and snorted where it stood hitched to a tree nearby. He allowed the
tranquillity to engulf him, tuning his acute hearing to the distant
sound of a woodpecker, the ticking of a leaf twisting in the
breeze, and the faint calls of ravens circling high above.

The cyber's
warning red flash caught his attention, and he glanced at its
information. The scanners showed the light points of many men in
tight companies, some mounted, others on foot, moving towards the
castle, which was just within range. The cyber provided additional
information in the form of suspected battle plans based on the
troops' positions, and marked weak areas of the castle's defences
in yellow. It laid out a wealth of useful information in his mind's
eye, based on its peerless knowledge of warfare and strategy.

This was no
honour guard. From the troops' encirclement of the castle, it could
only be an attacking army, undoubtedly Torrian's. Sabre opened his
eyes. It seemed the King had no interest in parley, and was going
to try to capture Tassin again. Leaping up, Sabre ran to his horse
and sprang into the saddle as the doe and her fawn bounded into the
trees. Spurring the gelding into a gallop, he raced back to the
castle, shouting a warning to the gate guards as he clattered over
the drawbridge.

Leaping from
his mount as it propped to a halt, he ran to the store room under
the eastern wall and collected an armload of power packs. He
sprinted up to the battlements and yanked the cover off a laser,
loading it. Soldiers flooded into the courtyard below as the alarm
spread, running to the armoury to collect their weapons. Officers
shouted orders at the scurrying men, who buckled on their armour
and adjusted their scabbards while they filed onto the battlements
to take up their positions.

Sabre had
loaded three lasers by the time the Queen entered the courtyard,
undoubtedly summoned by a messenger with the news of the attack.
Niam and several lords accompanied her, and they dispersed to
supervise various aspects of the castle's defence while the guard
sergeant, Arwolf, answered her questions. Sabre glanced down as
Arwolf pointed at him, and Tassin trotted up the steps to the
battlements, where he pushed power packs into a laser. The cannons
held three packs each, and reloaded automatically. He hoped he
would not need them all.

Tassin stopped
beside him. "Is it Torrian?"

Sabre
shrugged. "Torrian, Grisson, Bardok or all three. I didn't stop to
ask. It's big though, for this planet. About two thousand men,
maybe more out of scanner range."

Tassin
frowned. "So, he has not given up."

"I think it
was meant to be a surprise attack, to catch you with your pants
down." At her shocked look, he amended, "Well, your drawbridge, at
any rate."

"I will tell
them to raise it."

"I already
did."

She looked at
the gate. "Then why is it still down?"

Sabre followed
her gaze, spotting a sentry's sprawled body beside the portcullis.
"Traitors!"

Tassin headed
for the stairs, murder in her eyes, but he caught her arm. "You
stay out of it!"

Sabre ran down
to the gate, and as he reached it a man leapt from the shadows, his
sword whistling towards Sabre's neck. He stepped aside and spun,
landing a back-handed blow on the man's head. The soldier
collapsed, dead before he hit the ground. The cyber flashed a
warning, and Sabre turned as two more men attacked from behind.
Ducking a sword that swished over his head, he punched one man in
the chest, crushing his ribs with a dull crunch. Tassin shouted
from the battlements, and soldiers rushed into the fray, cutting
down the traitors. Sabre took hold of the heavy wheel as the
thunder of galloping hooves became audible beyond the walls.
Several men joined him, and the drawbridge rose.

The sizzling
crack of a high-powered laser ripped the air, mingled with the soft
thud of a grenade launcher as both weapons fired together. A
blazing bolt of blue light hit the turf in front of the charging
cavalry, but a laser was useless as a deterrent, its effect on soil
being an unspectacular line of molten earth. The grenade, however,
exploded with a thunderous boom, and horses screamed and bucked as
clods of soil rained down on them from the smoking crater in their
path. Riders fell, but the charge continued, carried by its
momentum. The drawbridge creaked upwards with frustrating slowness,
but already it was too high off the ground to be used as an
entry.

Leaving the
soldiers to complete the task, Sabre raced back up to the
battlements, where his trainees crouched behind the lasers. Three
fired at once, and dozens of horses and riders died. The launcher
fired again, rather belatedly, the shell exploding amongst the
retreating cavalry.

Sabre shouted,
"Hold your fire!"

Many of the
men shot him sheepish, triumphant grins, and he watched the enemy
troops disappear back into the forest.

Turning to
find Tassin at his side, he said, "You should parley now, while we
have the upper hand. I doubt those soldiers will be keen to face
our firepower again."

She nodded,
staring at the glint of metal still visible amongst the trees that
marked the enemy army's position. "If we did not have the lasers, I
would be right back where I started."

Niam joined
them, shooting Sabre a hard look. "I do not like those evil
weapons, Tassin."

"Would you
rather that beast dragged her off?" Sabre demanded.

The duke
turned to him, his florid face purpling. "You stay out of this! You
have caused enough trouble! If not for you, she would be happily
married to Torrian by now."

"Married, yes,
happily, definitely not. Don't your niece's feelings count at
all?"

The duke's
eyes bulged. "How dare you speak to me like that? You... you
nobody!"

"Be quiet!"
Tassin commanded. "Sabre is doing this for me, because this is what
I want. If you do not like it, you are free to leave!"

The Queen's
vehement support surprised Sabre, and Niam accorded her a jerky bow
before stomping away. Sabre stared at the duke's broad back,
wondering if he had been behind the gate guards' betrayal. It
seemed a logical deduction, since they were his troops. He swung
back to the battlements as a party of riders emerged from the
forest, armed with a white flag.

Tassin
regarded the approaching group with deep suspicion. "I wonder what
he has up his sleeve now."

The Queen
descended to the courtyard and headed for a doorway. Sabre followed
her along a short corridor that ended in a pair of huge,
gold-embossed doors. Two guards pulled them open, and she swept
into a lavishly decorated throne room. Sabre raked it with a
glance, noting every detail. The Alrade kingdom's greatest
treasures resided in it; spoils of war and symbols of pride her
family had collected over the centuries.

Fine
tapestries depicting battle scenes and woodland vistas covered the
walls, and rich carpets clothed the floor with finely woven
artistry. Carved chests and copper-inlaid shelves held an array of
silver and gold chalices, platters, plaques and memorabilia that
winked with precious stones. Suits of silver and gold armour stood
sentinel beside the walls. Shields, swords, spears, pennants,
crests and coats-of-arms adorned the walls between the tapestries,
and more hung from the black beams.

Sabre stopped
just inside the door and stepped into the shadow of the thick red
velvet curtains that framed it. Loitering nobles, who must have
heard of Torrian's arrival and foreseen the upcoming audience,
bowed as the Queen passed.

Tassin marched
to the carved gilt throne studded with precious stones that stood
upon a low dais at the far end of the room. As she sank onto it,
the three servants who waited there stepped forward. One placed a
sceptre in her hand, and another settled her crown upon her shining
raven hair. The third servant approached as the first two stepped
back and draped a short cloak of dark blue velvet edged with white
fur over her shoulders. Tassin shifted and fidgeted, looking
impatient and nervous. She waved away the two ladies-in-waiting who
crept closer to offer her a cup of wine.