Heirs of Empire

“No, I don’t,” Sean agreed quietly, “but I know where the Sanctum is.”

“The—?” Sandy froze, staring into his eyes, and he nodded.

“If Tam and I get into the Sanctum—and we might just pull it off while everybody’s fighting on the north side of town—we can take over the computer. And if we shut down the i

“You’ll never make it,” she whispered, her face ashen under its grime, but her voice was already defeated by the knowledge that he had to try.

“Maybe not, but we can sure as hell worry the bastards!” he said with a savage grin.

“Then I’m coming with you,” she said flatly.

“No! If we break out, most of them’ll come after us. There won’t be enough to take Folmak out, and I want you here where it’s safe!”

“Fuck you, Sean MacIntyre!” she shouted in sudden fury. “Goddamn it to hell, do you think I want to be safe while you’re out there somewhere?” She jabbed a hand at the billowing smoke, and he watched in amazement as tears cut clean, white tracks down her filthy face. “Well, the hell with you, Your Highness! I’m an officer, too, not a goddamned ‘angel’! And I am coming with you! If something happens to you and Tam, maybe I can get to the computer!”

“I—” Sean started to snap back, then closed his eyes and bent his head to stare down at his clenched fists. She was right, he thought drearily. He wanted—God, how he wanted!—to make her stay behind, but that was because he loved her, and it didn’t change the fact that she was right.

“All right,” he whispered finally, and looked up, blinking on his own tears. He reached out to cup the side of her face and managed a wan smile. “All right, you insubordinate little bitch.” She caught his wrist, pressing her cheek tightly into his palm for just a moment, then released him and rolled to her knees.

“You tell Harry and Tibold what we’re up to. I’ll go help Tam get things organized.”

Chapter Forty

The firing eased as most of the attacking infantry marched away from the shattered ordnance depot. Three thousand men still surrounded it, but their orders now were to hold the heretics, not crush them. Their musketeers were conserving ammunition, and their artillery caissons were almost empty. Fresh ammunition wagons were on their way, but for now the Guardsmen concentrated on simply keeping the Malagorans pi

Sean breathed a silent thanks for the lighter fire, but this was going to be tricky, and all of Folmak’s regimental commanders and four of his six battalion COs were casualties. Losses among junior officers had been equally heavy, and getting the men sorted out took time. If the bad guys guessed what was coming and threw in an attack at just the wrong moment…

Folmak would retain what remained of his Third Regiment and half the First; the rest of the First would reinforce the Second for the breakout. The choice of units had been dictated by where the men were. The Third held what was left of the western wall, and they’d fall back to the main arsenal, covered by a hundred or so men already in the building, when Sean attacked to the east.

It was taking too long, he thought, but his people were moving as fast as humanly possible and then some. He crouched behind another pile of stone—this one had once been a workshop—and watched men filter into position around him. What had been regiments were now battalions, and battalions had become companies, but, one by one, officers raised their arms to indicate their readiness, and he drew a deep breath.

A dozen arlaks, double-shotted and loaded with grape for good measure, had been dragged into position under cover of the smoke. One man crouched behind each gun, watching Sean with intent eyes, and he slashed his arm downward.

A lethal blast screamed down the only eastbound street not blocked by flames as the gu

The rest of the Second Regiment foamed in their wake, and Sean yanked Sandy to her feet and vaulted over the wall with the second wave. Tamman was ahead of them, leading B Company down the narrow street between two infernos which had once been warehouses, and rifles and muskets cracked in the hellish glare. The Malagorans charged through a cinder-raining furnace to strike the defenders before they recovered from the unexpected bombardment, and bayonets and pikes flashed in the bloody light of the flames.

Tamman crashed into the Guardsmen at B Company’s head. A pike lunged at him, and he smashed it aside with a bio-enhanced arm and snatched the luckless pikemen bodily off his feet. The Guardsman wailed in terror, and Tamman hurled him away. More pikemen flew as the improvised projectile bowled them over, and Company B closed for the kill, firing as they came. A quarter of them went down, but the others carried through, and the blocking Guard infantry disintegrated before their bayonets.

“We’re through, Sean!” Tamman yelled over the com.

“Don’t stop to celebrate! Keep moving!”

The Second Regiment broke out of the fire-fringed street into the open on the heels of their foes. A reserve of two or three hundred Guardsmen looked up in astonishment as the ragged apparitions materialized, then took to its own heels in panic as the bayonets swept down upon it. Sean’s column burst through the perimeter around the depot and vanished into the burning city, and Folmak Folmakson, listening to the fading sound of combat to the east as the last of his own men dashed into the arsenal, whispered a prayer for its safety.

Harriet MacIntyre stood at the rear of the army’s encampment, white-faced and clinging to Stomald’s hand as she watched mountains of smoke rise from the Temple. Her com was tied to Sean’s, following her twin and her friends through the bedlam of the city’s streets, and she longed with all her heart to be with them. But she couldn’t be. She had to wait here, praying that they reached their objective. One hundred and ten kilometers further north, Brashan had abandoned his post aboard Israel and rode the cockpit of an Imperial fighter, poised just outside the computer’s kill zone with a second fighter slaved to his controls. If Sean and the others could shut down the computer, he and Harriet could end the fighting in minutes … if they could shut down the computer.

Tibold Rarikson swore vilely as fresh combat roared on his right. He didn’t fully understand what Lord Sean and the angels intended, and he was aghast at the risk his commander was ru

His men gave ground stubbornly, fighting every span of the way, but the Guard pikes ground forward. He sent three relatively fresh regiments racing west from his reserve and hoped it would be enough.

“What—?”

High Priest Vroxhan whirled towards the window as shots sounded right outside the Chancery, and his jaw dropped as bullets spun men around in the Place of Martyrs. A heretic attack here? It couldn’t be!