Chronicles of Isambard Smith 05 - End of Empires (33 page)

‘What an awfully good idea,’ said the mechanical maneater.

Smith drew his pistol. Suruk whipped his spear up, ready to throw. Carveth yelped, fumbled her shotgun and accidentally shot the ceiling. Rhianna blinked.

With a soft whine of hydraulics, the maneater got to its feet, flexed its tail and twisted its head. Gears crackled in its neck. It was built like a bull.

‘Whoa,’ Rhianna said.

‘Quite so,’ the maneater replied. It had a deep voice, at once suave and menacing. ‘Now, given that you’re here, am I right to assume that you’re trying to loot the relics of Grimdall? A simple yes or no will suffice.’

‘What are you?’ Carveth gasped.

‘I’m an artificial intelligence, programmed to protect Grimdall’s tomb, and Ravnavar in general, from invaders. Invaders like you, my good fellow,’ it added. Its heavy head swung towards Smith: the massive lower jaw opened, revealing a mouthful of blades. ‘Oh, and lower your pistol. Your small arms are no match for my large paws. I do like those red jackets you British wear, by the way. The blood never shows.’

‘Enough.’ Suruk took a step forward. ‘These humans are mine. Together, we fight the lemming men of Yullia, who have waged savage war upon all honourable peoples. They must be destroyed.’

‘The Yull? Those little furry things? Oh no, I don’t think I’d be interested in that sort of nonsense. Can’t you call in pest control?’

‘That,’ Suruk said, ‘is what our warlords and generals believed. The Yull are large and well-armed. Their rage is matched only by their cruelty. Cities burned down on the day of their surrender, populations worked to death in the foul mines of Scorvin, entire species cast into dismal slavery. We need the help of Grimdall to rally our troops against them.’

‘Well, I doubt Grimdall will be able to help you much. Especially now you’ve knocked his head off.’ The maneater sat down, its metal hindquarters thumping against the rubber floor. ‘Besides, it does sound like a load of nonsense: lemming people and all that.’

‘Yeah? Well, you’re a talking robot tiger-chamelion thing,’ Carveth replied. ‘So there.’

‘No. Sorry, not interested.’

‘We’ll fight you for it,’ said Smith.

‘Oh really?’ the machine drawled. ‘A fight, eh?
Now
you’re talking my language.’ The maneater raised a paw. Five Zukari blades snapped out like enormous claws and locked back on themselves. The maneater scrutinised its reflection in the polished steel. ‘That’s what I like,’ it said thoughtfully. ‘Carnage. Sheer carnage.’

* * *

There was a passage behind the throne. Suruk took the chance to ‘borrow’ a couple of spare sabres, and then they walked up the corridor, the maneater loping along beside them. The passage was steep and Smith could feel himself becoming short of breath. That did not bode well: it would be embarrassing to be disembowelled while having a little rest.

‘Isambard,’ Rhianna said quietly, ‘what’s the plan?’

‘Well,’ Smith said, ‘it’s in a bit of a fluid state, at the moment.’

‘Is it likely to, er, become solid soon?’

‘It’s still rather runny, I’m afraid.’

The maneater yawned. ‘This way, everyone. Oh – when you’re all dead, would you mind terribly if I put your skulls in the trophy room?’ It nudged a control with its muzzle.

A hatch swung open. Orange light flooded the passage. Smith winced and stepped out into the warm dusk.

He was on the edge of the lake, in the undergrowth. He clambered out, midges buzzing around his head. The maneater slipped easily between the fronds: Suruk and Smith hacked a path behind it.

‘So, where shall we fight?’ the maneater inquired.

‘The car park,’ Smith replied.

‘How sophisticated,’ the maneater said. ‘I could spill your pint first, if it helps.’

They walked along the waterfront. The dying light gave the buildings a sad, ghostly quality.

Figures detached themselves from the shadows.

‘Boss,’ Carveth said.

Smith nodded. ‘I see them.’

The maneater stopped and swung its metal head. ‘Well, well,’ it observed. ‘Spectators.’

Blackcoats
, Smith thought, Yullian secret police. Their fur was dyed jet black, and most wore armour, a privilege only extended to the knight class. A few had no armour at all, just dark feed-bags over their muzzles, the lemming equivalent of balaclavas.

Smith pulled his rifle up.

‘Offworlders!’ one of the lemmings called. He was plump, broad-shouldered, almost ball-shaped. ‘Nice night, is it not?’ He swaggered forwards, thumbs hooked in his sash, next to a pair of battleaxes.

‘Stay back,’ Smith called. ‘Keep back or by God, I’ll bag you.’

‘You have located the resting place of the hero Grimdall,’ the officer said. ‘Xiploc Cots thanks you. Now, throw down your weapons and we can get on with the impaling. Robot animal thing, you come with us.’

‘Do I, now?’ said the maneater.

Suruk shook his head. ‘You seek the impossible, rodent. The steel beast has promised to battle us.’

Cots snorted. ‘Silence, frog-thing. I address your human masters.’

Suruk’s face slowly opened. With a small, wet sound, his mandibles parted and his mouth split into an enormous smile. Carveth drew back: even Smith could not remember when he had seen his friend so pleased. ‘Foolish words,’ the alien replied. ‘For I am Suruk the Slayer, pupil of Volgath, child of Urgar the Miffed, of the line of Brehan the Blessed. I have no masters. I do not even have any equals.’

Suruk drew himself up, pleased to have an audience.

‘Lemming men, you have disgraced the noble art of combat. You have murdered, pillaged and rampaged across space, without mercy or style. You threaten my people, as well as all others, and now you lay claim to the relics of our champion. Your crimes are many, but there is only one punishment: community service.’ He grinned. ‘Just joking. It’s death.’ Suruk turned to the others. ‘Depart, and take the maneater with you. I have business with these fools.’

‘Ooh,’ said the maneater. ‘A fight.’

Smith shook his head. ‘No, Suruk. I’m staying with you.’

‘Me too,’ Rhianna said. ‘We stand together.’

They looked at Carveth.

‘Oh, all right,’ she said.

Smith turned to Rhianna. ‘I’m sorry about what I said back there, in Grimdall’s tomb,’ he said. ‘About pretending that Grimdall had changed his mind about the Space Empire. I just wish – I just wish everywhere was British. It would be so much nicer that way. People wouldn’t kill each other so much. All this silly bloody nonsense about gods and races and all the rest of it that makes them murder each other just wouldn’t happen then.’

‘I know,’ Rhianna replied, and she leaned in and kissed him.

Suruk whirled round and brought the end of his spear down across their heads, knocking them out. They fell together.

‘Enough piffle,’ he snarled. ‘Piglet, maneater: load Mazuran and Rhianna into the spaceship. Lemmings: battle time.’

Cots smiled and stepped forward. ‘Good. This is as it should be: two noble warriors, face to face.’

‘Strange,’ Suruk replied, ‘for I see only one noble warrior here. Perhaps you are seeing double. You should ease off the dandelion wine, fatty.’

‘That is not fat! My pelt is unusually fluffy! Brothers, kill him!’

The Dark Lantern Collective drew their weapons. Axes, knives and tridents glittered in the dusk. One of the lemming men began to swing a weapon like a bladed anchor over his head. Two enormous tame scorpions scuttled down another soldier’s arms, perching on the backs of his hands. A third, huge, brute merely brushed his palms together and cracked his knuckles.

Suruk took a step backwards.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Yull, please do not attack –’

‘He surrenders!’ Cots screamed. Beside him, a wiry-looking lemming tugged a whip from his belt: hooks and razors twinkled in the leather. ‘Now the fun begins!’

The whip cracked. Suruk threw his arm up, and the thong wrapped around the metal bracer on his forearm quicker than a striking snake. Suruk gave the whip one good yank, and pulled Cots’ adjutant off his feet.

He stumbled straight into Suruk’s spear.

Suruk impaled the rodent with a single thrust and yanked the spear free. The lemming man staggered aside, clutching himself.

Gently, Suruk pushed him into the lake. He reached up and tugged down the brim of his hat.

‘– until I have adjusted my headgear,’ he said.

And then they leaped at him. At the edge of his vision, Suruk saw Carveth and the maneater hauling Rhianna into the bushes – then an axe swung down and Suruk sidestepped at the last moment. He felt the air slip past him, threw his spear underarm into a Yullian knight’s throat and drove the heel of his hand into another’s muzzle, crumpling it like the front of an old camera.

They were deadly fighters, far better than any he had dispatched before. Suruk weaved and cut, blocked and dodged, using their numbers against them, making them get in the way of one another. They tried to shepherd him to the water’s edge, and he sprang forward, booted one lemming man in the snout and jumped over his head.

The huge unarmed thug barrelled forward – Suruk darted aside and it crashed through a beach hut. His blades were at its throat before it could rise. A noble in full plate armour darted in from the side and chopped at Suruk’s legs.

He jumped over the axe-blade and threw himself forward. Volgath’s teachings flowed into his mind. Suruk slapped his open hand against the lemming’s breastplate. ‘Stones of the Forbidden Temple!’ he snarled, focussing his energy into its chest. Suruk felt warmth against his palm, and something pounded wildly behind the armour. The lemming man screamed, and its heart popped. It toppled back, dead.

One of Cots’ soldiers swung an axe overhead, like an executioner. Suruk countered with the Prodigal Hands: he darted forward and hit the inside of its elbows with the edges of his palms. ‘The shark!’ He chopped down, breaking its shoulder-blades. ‘The piranha! The greater box!’ Suruk cried, his hands disorientating his enemy, and he delivered the death-blow. ‘The lesser box!’ Its head sailed into the undergrowth.

To the west, lights rose, bright against the darkening sky. Suruk glanced back as the
John Pym
rose. Searing pain flashed down his arm and he spun around. The bladed anchor whirled up in a lethal arc. It crashed down and Suruk rolled aside, wood splintering behind him. The assassin whipped the chain down again, beating the ground as if threshing corn, while Suruk dodged and bounced, half a second before the sharpened hooks.

The assassin laughed and whirled the chain, aiming for Suruk’s eyes. Frog-like, Suruk jumped up, drawing a sabre as he leaped, and as the chain whipped around he hit it just before the mid-point. Sparks flew. The chain flicked around Suruk’s blade and the anchor swung back past its owner’s head.

For a very gratifying moment, the lemming man realised what was about to happen. Then Suruk grabbed the chain, gave it a tremendous tug, and the assassin’s head flew off.

All was still. Half a dozen Yull stood before Suruk, fanned out in a loose semicircle.

‘Your friends have left you,’ Cots said.

‘Good.’ Suruk’s arm began to hurt. The cut stung, but there was something else there – poison, perhaps. He focussed himself, drawing it into his body.

The light was almost gone, but Suruk could sense them, see the heat of their rage. He reached out with his mind, and felt not six souls, but seven – and the last one was behind him, creeping towards his back.

‘Sheath your weapon and join us,’ Cots said. ‘The Greater Galactic Happiness and Friendship Collective has need of brave warriors.’

Suruk glanced at the carnage around him. ‘So I see.’

The assassin was close now, no more than five yards. It struck.

Suruk felt the spirits of great warriors watching him.
Bend like a reed in the wind
, said Volgath, and he twisted aside.
Turn his energy against him
, said Urgar the Miffed, and Suruk raised his hand, and there was the enemy’s body, open and unprotected.
Smack him in the chops!
bellowed Brehan the Blessed.

Suruk’s fist hit the assassin’s breastplate, shattering it like china. His hand met fur, then flesh, and skin and muscle blew apart at the force of the blow. His arm ploughed into the lemming’s chest, spraying blood into the night air, and blasted out the back in a cloud of gore. Suruk ripped his arm free, lifted his grisly hand and crushed the assassin’s still-beating heart in his fist.

‘Delicate Butterfly,’ he said.

The lemmings all charged at once. Suruk drew both sabres and engaged them with the Blood-Dance of Old Ravnavar, sending a flurry of limbs into the air. ‘
Yullai!
’ cried one of Cots’ thugs, and it dashed at Suruk, a battleaxe in either hand. Suruk ducked low and ran it through with both swords. The lemming dropped its axes and, instead of trying to pull free, grabbed Suruk’s arms.

Even impaled, it gabbled triumphantly. Suruk struggled to free himself, the rodent shouting ‘Die, die!’ into his ear. Suruk roared, released the swords and shoved the lemming man away. He stepped back, stumbled on a fallen axe, and something smashed into the back of his legs.

His knees buckled. The ground banged against his back. Colonel Cots stamped down on Suruk’s chest.

* * *

‘Of course,’ Bargath yelled over his shoulder at the lancers behind him, ‘surprise is everything in this kind of terrain.’

Five shadar crept through the foliage, forty feet above ground level. Their hands reached out from one thick branch to another, crossing from tree to tree where the branches intersected.

A birdoid flapped past, and Frote flicked his tongue out and whipped it into his mouth. Morgar did not like being this high up, and the sudden cloud of feathers did not make him feel better.

Bargath rested his rifle across his saddle. ‘Magnificent view,’ he announced, reaching to his side. A month ago, Morgar would have expected him to take out a pair of binoculars. Instead, Bargath raised his hip flask. ‘You all right there?’

Morgar nodded. ‘Just a bit queasy.’

‘Saddle-stomach, eh? You need to flush your system out. With gin. When I was a lad –’