Serpent's Reach

Hands beckoned. Eyes danced in the lights. “Come,” they said, voices overlapping. “Come. We help. Come, azi.”

She rose, for they reached hands to her, and one leaned down very far, helped by the others, caught her hands and drew her, by all their efforts, up.

117-789-5457 looked about her, balancing on the wall, held by strong, thin hands. Lights wove and bobbed everywhere. Laughter echoed in the silent place. Out of all the cells, azi were drawn.

“Take all azi, young, old, yess,” one laughed, and danced away. “Come, come, come, come.”

117-789-5457 followed, along the walls, for she had never refused an order. She smiled, for that seemed the way to please these who ordered her.

“There’s fire in the city,” the voice from downworld continued thinly, azi-calm, and Leo K14-756-4806 listened without looking, taking deeply to heart his instructions, which placed him in charge of station command. Morn depended on him. He listened, and did not waver, although he was distressed for what he heard.

Regarding his own men he could not tell: they kept their masks, that being Morn’s general instruction; and he could not read their reactions to the voice from the shuttle, that brought them ill news. But there was wavering certainly in the ranks of the captive betas, and of the guard-azi who belonged to the station, who stood under levelled rifles, along with the betas.

“We must restore power,” the head beta appealed to him. “The city must have it.”

“The fires are in every quarter,” the impartial voice continued. “We’ve had no contact with Morn since he entered the terminal. What shall we do, Leo?”

“Wait for orders,” Leo looked about the centre, at betas and station azi. No one moved. The betas did not dare and the station azi would not, lacking instruction.

“This is Moriah,” another azi voice broke in. “We’re getting nothing from city communications any longer. Everything’s in complete chaos.”

“Just stand by your posts,” Leo said. There was nothing else to say. He paced back across the command centre, arms folded, looked constantly at the betas, challenging them to advance any more ideas of their own.

They did not.

Warriors were back, great bodies shifting through all the rooms of the house, shrilling and booming signals that hurt the ears. Jim ventured the stairs to the turning, met some coming down and flung himself aside, for the Warriors were in haste, and had no inclination to speak. Pol’s oath erupted out of the blue-lit depths.

“They’re ru

“Max,” Jim pleaded, at the edge of panic. “Max—”

Max came; all the azi followed, bringing Pol, scrambling up the stairs against the spiny flood of majat down them. Furniture crashed throughout the house, the press of too many bodies. The house boiled with them; the dark rooms hummed with distress and anger.

And the glow of fires shone through the back windows, distant ruddy smoke billowing up.

“They’re blind in fire,” Pol said. “Some betas have figured one way to fight them.”

“Windows,” Max said. “Stations.”

Azi moved, each rifleman to a window.

“Your blues are beaten,” Pol said above the hum of majat-voices. “I’d suggest we get out of here.”

Jim shook his head fiercely, strode up the hall to look out the open door, where dark shapes Scurried about. the front garden. “They’re not ru

Max cast a look too, and at him. “I’d suggest we get out there, work ourselves into cover in the rocks. Harder to dislodge us that way.”

“I can’t say.” Jim swallowed heavily. “Do it. I don’t think walls can stop them.”

“Want advice?”

Jim looked about, back to the wall, at Pol Hald. The gaunt Kontrin stood between his guards, without threat.

“I’ve some interest in the management of this,” Pol said. “The man’s right; but occupy those windows with vantage, front and back for screening fire if you need it. And get your own Warriors behind you; your men can’t tell blues from reds in the dark.”

“It’s sense,” Max said.

A sound began…started with the feeling of pressure in the ears, so that many pressed their hands to them; and then became pain, a shrilling that grated in the bones.

It was all around them. The Warriors in the house retreated into a knot, grouping, booming to each other in panic.

“Warrior!” Jim cried. “Stay!”

They clicked and shrilled in reply, flicking palps this way and that, and majat-azi who had come with them scampered from their vicinity, faces stark with fright. Jim started forward.

“No,” Pol exclaimed, reached out to grip his arm. “No, blast it, you’re not Meth-maren. Stay back from them.”

That too was good advice. He retreated outside with Max, settled in the. rocks with a Kontrin of Hald beside them, and shook his head to clear his ears, pressure that would not go away.

We’re going to die, he thought, and panicked entirely, for it was a born-man thought, a born-man fear: the tapes had done it to him, prepared him only for this, this sick dread. Max’s face was calm. The Kontrin gave him a twisted smile, as if he had read his mind, and mocked him in the fear they shared.

Sound rose about them, madness.

vii

The truck jolted, badly. Raen caught at the door, rubbed her blurred eyes, looked askance at the azi who, however indifferent a driver, kept the pace, tailing Merry.

“How’s the fuel holding?” she asked, leaning to see. It was reserve tank, half full. They were still all right.

And the odometer: ten kilometres from their goal. The lights of the city should have been visible, but she expected none. She folded her arms and sat regarding the sweep of the horizon, finding yet no sight of their goal, nothing in the faint glimmering of dawn, which began to fade the stars.

But there were no stars northward.

She sat up, her heart beating hard against her ribs. She had slept. There was no drowsiness in her now.

“Merry,” she said into the com. “Merry. Are you awake up there?”

“Sera?”

“Smoke. Smoke over the city.”

“Yes. I see it, sera.”

“We’re going to pass. Turn’s coming up. Stand by. Go round him, Will. We’ve a little space yet.”

Five kilometres. The truck accelerated; Merry dropped back. Four. She started watching on the right, closely, wondering in agony about the accuracy of the maps.

The kilometres ticked off. “Slow down,” she said. The driver eased down. There was a stake with an illegible number, a spur, a mere eroded place off the paved road, but trucks had passed it: crushed weeds showed in the dawning.

“Take it,” she said. The driver did so, eased them onto it, carefully, while the truck swayed and lurched and weeds whispered against the doors.

They were blind in this place. She would have given much then for Warrior’s sight and hearing. Turn after turn took them out of sight of the road, and the only comfort was Merry’s vehicle showing in the mirror by her window.

A turning, a descent of the road, a brief climb around the curve of a hill: a weathered cluster of buildings showed before them, a desolate place…but someone had been cutting weeds.

Itavvy,she thought, prosperity on your house.

Doors opened; men came out, sunsuited, rifles levelled, to meet the trucks. Beside her, Will reached for his own rifle. She gathered up hers, opened the door.

“Isan Tel,” she said. “Come code 579-4645-687.”

One man nodded to the others, his rifle lifted out of the line of fire; other weapons were turned away. Sunmasks and visors came off. There were several among them female; several of more clerical look than guard-type, some unarmed.

“I’m your contract,” she said. “I can’t clear it on comp; you know that. Ask your azi-in-charge: did you not find orders in comp to keep to these buildings and fight only majat that attacked you?”