Etherwalker (24 page)

A short, muscular man lay sleeping—or unconscious—in the nearest cage. His yellow hair and bristly beard reminded Enoch of Master Gershom. The cage next to this held a tall, dark-skinned woman. She was crouched warily, holding on to the bars with scarred hands and whispering in a language Enoch didn’t recognize. Like the man, she was dressed in a simple green tunic. It bore the arrow-sun mark of Nyraud.

Are these prisoners? I assumed they were all kept down in the municipal building west of the tower—the place that looks like a big gray box. Maybe these prisoners are too dangerous for the shared jail grounds?

Then why would they be kept here in the Gardens?

Enoch craned his neck to look between the two rows, counted maybe a dozen cages.

So many down here and I never heard a thing—well, until this music started. Why are they so quiet?

As if in answer to his question, the music started again. The bars on the cages rattled in time with the low-pitched rumbling. The tall woman released her hold on the bars and flinched. Her eyes flashed towards the far end of the room. When she noticed Enoch’s stare, she stopped whispering and stepped back to the rear of her cage. Enoch caught a glimpse of a fresh scar at her throat. It was stitched with green thread.

Have their voices been taken?

He started walking down the row towards the large cage in the back. It seemed to be the source of the music.

He tried to keep his eyes straight forward, tried to keep his attention away from these people. They reminded him of the poor men he had seen pulling the cart on that muddy trail in Midian—Rictus had told him about
slaves.
That sort of helplessness, that sort of exposure, bothered Enoch deeply. He passed another man, a red-haired adolescent who could have easily have been from Midian, and two more women. All of them were silent, all of them with scars on their throats. Enoch could smell sweat and urine mixed in with the fresh hay that covered the floor of their cages. The chamber stunk of fear.

In the next couple of cages, he saw why. The enclosures didn’t all hold people. Some held monsters.

I guess I was partially right about the manticores.

A mated pair of the beasts crouched at the front of their cage, pressed against the bars with muscles quivering. Having never come so close to one before, Enoch couldn’t help but stare at the horrible things. Thin and feline at first glance, the creatures moved with a silent deadliness that reminded him of Mesha. That similarity stopped at the movement. A closer look revealed that these creatures were covered in thick, scab-colored scales and—Enoch gasped.

Those faces!

Their faces were those of babies. Round and rosy-cheeked, topped with a downy thatch of hair. One of the manticores stared up at him with soft blue eyes—not the fiery embers that Enoch had heard of in the stories. It cooed sweetly.

The illusion was broken as the manticore opened those small pink lips and snarled. The creature’s
actual
mouth extended in a jagged line from those lips around to the edges of its head. Sharp white teeth were visible from ear to ear.

Repressing a shudder, Enoch walked on. The next cage was no better, even though Enoch recognized the inhabitant. Crouched in the darkest corner of his cage, the troll gave a bubbling groan. It was chewing on a mouthful of straw and staring hungrily at the manticores. Those terrifyingly familiar eyes, black and wet and set closely above a veined nose, blinked painfully in the overhead light. But Enoch saw something apart from hunger in those ebony buttons, something unexpected. Fear.

What can scare a troll?

Another rumble came from the final cage, and the troll pulled back further into his enclosure. Enoch squared his shoulders and rested his hands on the pommels of his swords.

It’s in a cage. It’s in a cage.

It was twice as large as any of the other cages and was partially covered by a canvas sheet. Mesha curled her tail tightly around Enoch’s neck. He could feel her muscles tense, ready to spring.

Even behind bars, that thing can scare a troll.

And then Enoch recognized the cage. It was the same one he had seen as he hid in the bushes! The same cage that had been pulled by all of those slaves! The rumbling music had stopped.

He took a step forward.

“You probably want to stop there. He took the arm of the last guard who interrupted his song.”

Enoch spun to face the voice. It was young. And female.

“Take a step back. That stain at your feet isn’t mud.”

The smaller cage had escaped his notice, hanging from the ceiling next to the manticores. Enoch struggled to see who—or what—was inside. He could barely make out a frail form, the glimmer of metal.

What stain—?

Looking down, he could see the umber stain at his feet, and he took a quick step backwards.

And just in time. A massive paw, tipped with ragged claws, struck out from the large cage and tore into the metal at Enoch’s feet. The largest claw ripped a gash mere inches from his toes. He shouted and leapt backwards, colliding with the troll cage.

The troll lumbered forward, fear forgotten as it smelled warm food. Enoch recognized the sounds of a hungry troll. He sprung away from the bars and drew his swords. Mesha leapt to the ground.

“Put those away, Shepherd Boy. You’re safe as long as you stay in the middle there, under the light.”

The voice was right—the troll had already stopped and was rubbing at its eyes angrily. It gave another drooling moan, cast a glance at the big cage, and then shuffled back to its shadowed corner. Enoch was frantically looking back and forth between the troll, the suspended cage, and the enormous paw, which had retracted its claws from the five jagged holes it left in the metal. His mind spun.

Focus! The troll is contained, and I’m beyond the reach of whatever is in that big . . . wait, ‘Shepherd Boy’?

Enoch
paused
and looked into the hanging cage again. He recognized the pattern immediately. Metal woven into bone, graceful alloys of steel and brass and complex crystal.

Not crystal. Piezoelectric ceramics.

Enoch had recently been studying Alaphim bio-constructs in his obligatory Core Unit time. The artistry of their forms was a welcome relief from the monotonous weapon systems he’d been calibrating on the Ark. Enoch had hoped to escape into Babel and find an Alaphim . . . well, he wanted to find
her.
He sent more power into the light above the hanging cage, and it was fully illuminated. The troll groaned.

And . . . I found her.

The angel was just as beautiful as he remembered. Her cerulean hair was shorter, and it looked like her wings had been damaged, but she still had those vibrant eyes. The graceful neck that arched from sculpted shoulders. She raised an eyebrow and smiled.

Unexpectedly, he smiled back.

Focus!

“What are you doing here? Why are you in that cage?”

A horrible realization struck him.

“Are you an enemy of my father?”

The angel was taken back.

“Your father? You mean that tall man wrapped in old sheets?”

Enoch had no idea what she was—
oh, she means Rictus.

“No. I’ve been adopted by King Nyraud. I live here now.”

For some reason, those words sounded silly to Enoch. As though he were bragging. The Alaphim was staring at him with her mouth open. He changed the subject.

“Why are you here? With all these prisoners—and all these monsters?”

The angel gathered herself and moved to sit at the front of her cage, dangling her feet over the edge. One of the manticores leapt towards her, colliding into the bars with a dull clang. She didn’t flinch.

“Prisoners? Shepherd Boy, do you know why the king—your ‘father’—is called the Hunter King?”

Enoch’s stomach tightened. He’d heard the stories. But after his time here with Nyraud, he had decided that they were ignorant fables born of the commoner’s envy. Imagined stories to decorate their evenings. Just like Old Noach Kohn’s Serpent Wives and their non-existent fangs. Enoch had first-hand experience with that fiction.

“He is called the Hunter King because of his tireless pursuit of fallen technology. His quarry is the restoration of Babel to her former glory.”

She was looking at him with pity.

“. . . also, he really enjoys hunting.”

His last sentence trailed into silence. King Nyraud was the perfect father, as far as Enoch could tell. He was smart, noble, and passionate about protecting his people. He was going to change the world, and he was going to do so with Enoch at his side!

She must be an enemy of Babel. Of course she spreads lies about the king . . . 

“Your father does enjoy hunting, Shepherd Boy.”

“Enoch. My name is Enoch.”

“Very well, Enoch. I am Sera.”

She gave as much of a bow as was possible from her confined space. Somehow, it still seemed graceful.

“The tales of your father’s hunts are true, Enoch. I have witnessed many of them. He is an exceptional hunter, never losing his prey and never tiring of the chase. He tired of hunting the simple beasts years ago.”

A rumbling song came from the big cage. Enoch looked down at the claw-marks on the ground and took another step back. He wasn’t going to let this go.

“You are lying. You are being kept up here as an enemy to the throne, probably for spreading the same sort of lies you’ve been telling me.”

Enoch turned and started walking back towards the ramp. He wanted to run.

“I’m not lying, Enoch. Why would he keep ‘political prisoners’ caged next to trolls and manticores? You know that he loves to challenge himself. Loves the pursuit.”

She’s lying! She’s trying to make me doubt my father, to doubt the man who has given me
everything
!

Enoch stopped at the foot of the ramp, sent his mind out to cut power to the lights. As the chamber went black, Sera’s voice rang out desperately.

“He hunts men, Enoch! He hunts men and women as well as monsters! You’ve got to let us free! Enoch! Enoch!”

Enoch walked out and lowered the ramp. He could still hear Sera’s muffled shouting from under the grass.

I guess they haven’t had time to cut out that traitor’s voice yet.

Mesha leapt from his shoulder to chase after another bird.

How long will father keep her down there with those monsters? How long until she’s learned her lesson?

Enoch dropped to his hands and knees. Sera had stopped shouting, and the Gardens were silent.

He is called . . . he . . . his tireless pursuit of . . . 

A low rumbling song echoed up from the ground, punctuated by sobs as Enoch drove his fist into the grass again and again.

Chapter 18

“Tenocht was the first of the Eastern Colonies, the first place considered safe by refugees from Pan Americana. There the people who had lifted the world and broken it chose to circle their wagons and lay low. The meager remnants of their tek were turned to protection and to survival.”

—
A Broken World,
by Diego Thompson

Mosk swung his claw through the door, shattering the fine wood and sending splinters through the air in an explosion of mahogany. The man stumbled backwards, barely catching himself against the balcony rail. He shook a piece of wood from his shoulder and returned to the
senpelisto
stance. A drop of blood fell from his right hand.

Mosk circled to that side, pressing the attack. The man parried a lunge with his
derech,
then followed through with a downward slash from his curved
iskeyar.
The sword cut through the Hiveking’s left pri-arm spurs, severing two of them. With a rattling hiss, Mosk took a step backwards.

The Nahuati, encouraged by the feint, drove forward with his straight blade. Against any other man, this thrust would have gone straight through the chest. Against a creature who had killed more blademasters than were alive today, it was a tiredly predictable move. Mosk snapped his barbed sub-arms up to catch the blade, then spun and pulled the man to his left. The man exhaled sharply and released the sword. Too late.

The Hiveking brought both of his heavy upper arms down on the man’s unprotected back. Thick spurs pierced the skin and muscle, and the blademaster hit the ground with a groan. Mosk was surprised to see the man roll to the side and then stagger to his feet. This was a strong one!

Before the man could raise his remaining blade, Mosk was on top of him. Pri-arms pushing the Nahuati’s head back, the Hiveking drove him to the floor. With a roar, he spread his toothed mandibles wide and then bit into the man’s chest, snapping through the sternum. Mosk felt hot red air burst from ruptured lungs.

He ate as the man shuddered his last.

Proximate Keq arrived several minutes later, his spurs also wet. They glittered darkly in the moonlight.

The coldman waited until his Swarmlord finished, and then bowed.

“My blood to your tongue, Sire. Command me.”

Mosk waved the Clot Primal up.

“Report, Keq. How many more in this building?”

“We found three others trying to escape through the sub-levels. One was a blademaster, and our losses were commensurate. We lost seven of the battle caste and fifteen arakids. The remaining Clot is still searching the top floors, but I suspect we will find no more.”

Keq leaned forward, and Mosk noticed that the violet caste markings on his shoulders were still florid with excitement. The Proximate had missed the clean blood of men, too, it seemed.

“The Rift Queen knew we were coming—I found signs indicating that this was a major meeting place for the rebels. My arakids are trying to follow a dozen different scent trails. We only caught the last few, probably those left as a rearguard while the rest escaped.”

Mosk regarded the jagged stubs of his left pri-arm spurs. They would grow back in his next molt, but the loss angered him nonetheless. The cost of growing soft in between Hunts.

“How could they have known we were coming? We only arrived in Tenocht this morning, and our camp is hidden behind the generator sector.”

“I suspect,” said Keq, “that we were betrayed by the Tenocht Council. The queen must have a spy in the governing dome.”

Mosk didn’t like having to rely on humans.

“Kill all of them. I don’t have time for these soft people and their complexities. I want your Clot to take the cannon batteries at the front gate, Keq, and I want them back online and fully charged by morning. Tell Proximates Toq and Gelt to hold the remaining gates. This city will be locked tight until I am personally satisfied that it is clean—we left too soon after the last Hunt, and our sloppiness has festered.”

“Yes, Sire. Do you expect the Pensanden to make a frontal assault? If he gets close enough to take the cannons before we—”

Keq was suddenly silent. Mosk looked up from his damaged spurs with surprise. A slender kra-wyrm had flown up to the balcony, was hovering over the Hiveking’s head.

Mosk dismissed Proximate Keq and turned to face the creature.

It resembled a small, paler version of the draconfly. Only as long as one of Mosk’s arms, the kra-wyrm struggled to hover in one place with its two pairs of transparent wings. The winds were strong up here, ninety floors above the ground.

Mosk raised the arm he had been inspecting, and the creature came to a rest on his spur nubs. The kra-wyrm was still wet from hatching. This must have been an urgent message.

Mosk pulled it close and whispered the key word. “Yohl Ik’nal.”

The kra-wyrm shivered and turned its back to Mosk, tilting its wings together to form a flat panel. Trembling light flowed across the wings, and a face appeared in the brightness. It was the Arkángel Desgarrar.

“Our Lord has grown tired of waiting for your Hunt, Hiveking. He found the Pensanden Himself.”

Mosk took a surprised step back. His throat clicked warily.

“Where, Sire?”

“In the city you so confidently deemed clear. And left in the hands of a traitor. The Pensanden is in Babel, Hiveking. And the only reason you still have your head is because I need someone to surround the city until I arrive.”

“You, Sire? But . . . but my Swarm isn’t large enough to hold Tenocht and surround Babel until—”

“You will leave Tenocht immediately and take your entire Swarm to Babel. You have wasted far too much time in a city that we already control. The Pensanden is in the tower, obviously using the king and any remnant tek to build up an army. I have sent Kai to prime the chambers, and we will need your forces there. Now.”

Mosk was stunned. He felt a cold thorn pierce his heart.

Is this what fear is? The anticipation of rewards for my weakness?

The face in the light raised an eyebrow.

“You are silent, Hiveking? Have your years hunting these humans infected you with their fears?”

Am I infected? My ability to defeat the Nahuati alone, unique amongst my kind—it has required some understanding of their minds. The Arkángel himself told me that my brood was pushed as far into the human range of intellect as the Vestigarchy had ever gone.

Too far?

Mosk shook his ebon head. The cold thorn went deeper.

Is this fear?

“No, Sire. The wind up here is strong—I can barely hear you. I will take my swarm to Babel and hold it until you arrive.

“Upon your arrival I will offer you my head. I recommend Proximate Keq as the new Hiveking. Cleanse my weakness from the blackspawn, Sire.”

The Arkángel was silent, wrinkled lips in a grim line.

He knows that I fear.

“I will arrive at Babel in two days. I will be accompanied by five battalions. Have your Proximate familiarized with the proper command pheromones.”

“Yes, Sire. My blood to your tongue.”

The light fuzzed into static and then disappeared. The kra-wyrm shuddered one last time and then fell to the ground lifeless. Its purpose had been served.

As has mine.

But . . . I don’t want to die.