The God Mars Book Five: Onryo (42 page)

“Doesn’t matter if they’re dead. The Harvesters will
still make use of them, re-animate them. They won’t last as long,
of course. But you’ll be hemmed in. Once they cut through your
little refugee exodus, they’ll climb the slopes and catch those
silly Knights from behind. And then I’ll have so many more bodies
to…”

A single crack cut him off. I felt the shell pass
over my head. But it didn’t hit Asmodeus. It hit Fohat, square in
the forehead, shattering through his crown with a metallic clank.
And as he looked at us all dumbly, his head exploded.

“Huh,” Asmodeus praised easily, like we were just
having a friendly competition. “
Nice
shot.”

I looked back and saw Murphy, up in the rocks nearly
a hundred meters away, taking aim with his revolver propped on a
boulder.

The Harvesters began to sputter and hesitate, having
lost coordinated command. This gave us opportunity, and I shouted
to Terina to attack the drone force first, to ignore Asmodeus for
now. Then I advanced to continue hacking my way through skulls as
fast as I could go.

I suppose it didn’t surprise me that Terina failed to
listen, that she chose to direct her rage at the engineer of this
horror. Asmodeus received her with a grin, and they began a dance
of thrusting spear against whirling pole-sword.

“Oooh…” I could hear Asmodeus taunting as he received
her attacks. “I
like
this one… You are just dead-sexy,
aren’t you? Fucking Ninja Pocahontas… No offense, Red… I do like a
little fire bush from time-to-time, but you
are
a bit butch…
But this one… She’s
yummy
… Maybe we could have a
threesome…”

His sick flirting only intensified Terina’s attacks,
but that just seemed to please the monster more. Unfortunately, I
was being kept much too busy to watch the fight, much less assist
her.

The Harvesters, even without Fohat’s control, were
smart enough to try to get around me, to move out of my reach and
head for the Katar positions. I could only destroy so many so fast,
and my armor had been battered by their gunfire, the blunt-force
beating slowing me too much. At least my Blade had a feast of
resources to drain with every cut and hack, but my nanites weren’t
keeping up with my wounds, and I was wearing down.

Murphy continued to lend his weapon impressively to
the effort, popping the skulls of the Harvesters as they climbed
the rocks, but the accuracy required made his rate of fire
frustratingly slow. And he soon began to tire, wasting precious
ammo with uncharacteristically sloppy shots.

As his was the only actual firearm on our side of the
fight, he began drawing more and more of the attention of the
advancing Harvester force. Their standing algorithms were probably
programmed to either seek gunfire or the most-pressing threats,
though they were still actively avoiding me in favor of much softer
targets. Perhaps they could identify the signals of the Modded, and
use the same strategy Asmodeus had used with his endless bot-raids
against Pax these last months: to keep us running after them to
protect the vulnerable so we could never get around to dealing with
the real threat.

With the drones getting closer to the Katar refugees,
to Murphy, I found myself wishing that Terina had listened to me.
But she was now completely oblivious to anything but her duel with
the demon. The energy arcing between their weapons when they
clashed was blinding. Terina was screaming her rage, but Asmodeus
still looked calm, bemused, like he was just having fun. And he
kept throwing rudely sexual comments at her. The combination only
made Terina madder.

The only thing that managed to interrupt their fight,
if only for a second or two, was the sharp echoing “crack” in the
sky from somewhere far to the east, almost instantly followed by a
rumbling explosion. The last time I heard those sounds, they were
much, much louder and right on top of me. Orbital railgun strike.
Either Ram coordinated a plan with UNMAC, or they took their own
initiative. If it’s the latter, I’m hoping they waited until the
Stormcloud was far enough away from the City. I also hope, but
doubt, they waited for Ram and the others to get clear. They’re
ungrateful fucks like that. Strike that last.

Asmodeus only chuckled at the report that his ship
was very likely scrap, just like his base as the Grave. He didn’t
look in the least concerned with the loss of such a major asset.
Just like he didn’t seem to care that his Toymaker got his brains
blown out. But then he was quickly busy again with Terina, as she
was giving him no quarter, going after him for all she was worth.
And
that
seemed to please him immensely, as he intensified
his gleeful taunting.

At this point, I needed to move back toward the Katar
line myself, to get between the Harvesters and their targets. I
called out and hand-signaled to Murphy to pull back, to get the
refugees away from the advancing drones. He reluctantly agreed,
waving back and pushing himself to his feet just as the animated
corpses had reached his position. He emptied his revolver to cover
his retreat, but then when he finally turned to try to run, I saw
him stop.

I should have been paying attention to what was
behind him, not just what was advancing on him.

I saw the black robes, the scarred shaved head, and
then the Staff. Heard the Staff.

Harris.

The former Wizard of Eureka jabbed the tip of his
Companion into Murphy’s chest. Murphy grabbed at it, tried to get
it off of him, even struck Harris across the forehead with his
empty revolver. It was a symbolic resistance at best.

Too far away, all I could do was watch as Murphy… He
didn’t scream.

I should have killed him. I should have killed Harris
back at Eureka. I should have chased him down with Drake and
finished him. I should have killed him at the Grave, but instead I
focused on Asmodeus, the greater evil, even though I was no
match…

I knew what kind of monster Harris was. He kept me in
a cage for almost four days, stabbing and beating at me just to
watch my healing get slower the longer he kept me from my Blade. He
made me watch while he tortured Murphy and the wounded Katar
warfighter. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed inflicting suffering,
studying it.

What was left of Murphy hit the rocks and broke apart
like dry clay. All I could do was watch, too slow and too far away…
I hesitated. But then I got my shit together and ran, ran up the
slope. Hacked my way through any Harvesters in reach.

The Wizard was smart enough to back up, to get his
guard up, but he didn’t have his stolen and hacked ETE Tools
anymore. It was just my Companion against his. And he was no
fighter. He’d relied too much on the power of his Staff, and then
his other toys.

I admit I’d forgotten the rest of the fight, the
bigger picture. All I saw was Harris, target lock. I laid into him
like a berserker, hammering him back across the slope. I hacked at
his guard until the arc-charges made both our weapons white-hot,
and I took the best he could hit back with.

He did have one advantage, Staff over Blade: gripped
in both hands, he could batter me alternately with both ends while
he kept me blocked with the middle. I quickly learned the trick was
not to get in between both ends, but I still took a lot more than I
managed to give. My advantage was my Blade could do more damage if
I could find a place for it to bite.

I got him off balance, made him fall back on his ass,
and then stayed on him. When I still couldn’t get through to
vitals, I hacked into his left foot, then took some fingers from
his left hand, and managed to slash his face.

He tried to take my legs out from under me and then
almost turned my lights out with a hit to the head as I staggered.
I got stupidly brilliant and grabbed his Staff with my left hand—I
felt the shock all the way up to my shoulder, my teeth—and I
stabbed through his guard. He managed to twist enough that I only
got him through the left shoulder, but I wrenched the Blade deep in
his meat for all I was worth, made him fucking scream. Then as he
over-reacted high, I wove around his weapon and hacked him in the
left hip—right where he’d abused Murphy’s wound—and bit into
bone.

He levered his Staff against me and used it to throw
himself down the slope, tumbling and rolling and bouncing over
boulders, anything to get away from me, to run away.

I didn’t give him any quarter. I bounded down the
slope and leapt on him. He barely had time to roll over face-up to
block me, but I got my Blade into his left eye socket before he
could deflect it. This made him howl for me again. He tried to hit
me, but I just started hacking, giving into my rage, chopping my
weapon over and over again into his. Through the arc-flare and the
ozone-laced smoke, I could see his Staff start to “come apart”,
losing cohesion with each blow and trying to re-form before the
next.

I just kept hacking. In desperation, he blew a
massive discharge between us. I could feel the skin of my face sear
and current sputtered through me, knocking me clear. But as he
staggered to his feet, it was clear he’d all but drained
himself.

I fought myself up through numb uncooperative muscles
and snowy vision, my uniform smoking as the camouflage stuttered
between the hard default pattern and matching the backgrounds, and
with one last scream and two-handed hack I smashed the Staff from
his grip.

It clattered in the rocks just up-slope, and we both
dashed for it as he whimpered like a terrified child. I was faster.
And while I held him off with my Blade, I kick-flipped his weapon
up into my free hand, and felt…

I don’t know. It was like the two Companions joined,
synced, but through my body. I could feel the new one splice into
whatever tech runs through my brain. And for I don’t know how many
seconds, I could see through Harris’ eyes as it downloaded what it
had stored. All of his atrocities, including ordering the murder of
his former comrade Peter Nagasawa, his wife and little girl. They
shot the little girl right in front of her parents…

I was overwhelmed. He had hurt so many people so
callously. I had a full record of his atrocities spinning in my
head. I was sick… Screaming… My only comfort was that the memory
files didn’t include emotion—his sick glee in doing these horrible,
vicious acts.

I’d lost track of time, I realized, of reality. When
I came back to the moment, back to the battlefield, the Staff was
morphing in my hand, a living liquid. It shaped itself into a
near-copy of my Blade—the only real difference was in how it felt.
The power that coursed through it was palpably lesser than mine,
but now this was mine too. And what more could I do with
two
such swords?

Harris was gone. His blood was on the rocks, but he
was gone. It took me a moment to find him. He’d run back up the
slope, desperately scrambling like he was trying to get to
something.

I followed him eagerly, noticing as I climbed that
the remaining Harvesters were holding back, had stalled in their
advance. Maybe they were trying to avoid me, because I was between
them and the Katar. The Katar were trying to retreat east, keeping
low to avoid the Harvesters’ fire.

Harris arrived at his target just as I recognized
what he was seeking: Ambassador Murphy’s body. Or specifically, his
revolver, the only weapon handy that might be capable of seriously
hurting me.

He found the gun in the rocks where it had fallen,
and, before I could close on him, managed to dig a full loader out
of Murphy’s belts and—with his hands trembling and fumbling—charged
the cylinder.

He aimed the first shot at me, but I was more than
ready for it. I dodged the shell easily, letting it explode
somewhere behind me down-slope. So, understanding his situation, he
turned the weapon and aimed it at the retreating Katar, glaring at
me with his remaining eye to make his intention clear.

I necessarily hesitated, partially lowering my swords
to see what he would do next. His priority being escape, he began
edging across the slope to the west, back toward the Harvester
force, as if that would be any haven. But then, he was short on
options. (I’m surprised he didn’t demand I give him his Companion
back, but the look in my eyes probably made my answer clear without
asking.)

I let him proceed, knowing he couldn’t possibly
outrun me, and the further away from the Katar he got, the harder
it would be to maintain his threat, even with his aim enhanced by
whatever remained of his Mods. Mine steadily weakened when he’d
separated me from my Blade, but I was still able to heal from his
“tests” for all of those days in that cage, so I had to assume he
was still physically enhanced. However, I was also hoping the
physical damage I’d done to him was depleting both his nanites and
his resources. And without his Companion, he had no means to
replenish himself. He might well die of his wounds if given the
time, but I wasn’t about to give him any more time.

I did take the time as he limped away from me to
quickly assess the larger situation. Some of the retreating Katar
looked like they were nursing wounds, possibly dart wounds, but I
couldn’t tell from a distance. The Harvesters had been whittled
down to twelve visible drones, though more might still be hidden in
the growth. Fohat was still sprawled where he’d fallen, head blown
away above the jaw and brainstem, his body twitching unnervingly,
like it might actually try to get up. His “war hammer” was still
clenched in a gauntleted fist, as if he’d been hoping to do some
slaughtering himself before he was neutralized. It scraped the
rocks as he continued to spasm.

And Terina was still actively fencing with Asmodeus,
as if there was nothing else happening. Terina was still holding
her own, still putting up an impressive fight, but I still got the
clear impression that Asmodeus was holding back, toying with her,
and thoroughly enjoying himself.