“You two go on ahead,” he said thickly. “I need some time.”
Tam shook his head, looking skeptical. “My orders are to stay with you.”
No wonder he looks doubtful. I must look like death itself.
“It’s going to take me longer than they gave for me to recover enough to get out of here.” Technically, they were under the Warren, not in Katur’s territory, so maybe as long as they stayed down here, the aliens wouldn’t attack. Mary, this hurts.
The other man made himself comfortable. “Recover? I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Martine stared at him. “If you think I’m going anywhere without some answers, you’re as crazy as you are pretty.”
Since he was a crisped monster right then, Jael appreciated her pretense at flirtation. But he suspected the other two didn’t understand. “If I try to cross now, I’ll be incapacitated. I have to heal enough to make it back across. It could be hours.”
“Then settle in,” Tam said. “Take however long you need. We’re not leaving.”
“Why?”
Martine answered, “Dred’s orders. But look, even without them, I wouldn’t bail. You need me to kick some alien ass if they venture down here looking for us.”
That was a stupid argument. “They couldn’t get to me without frying.”
“They have missile weapons,” Tam pointed out. “It’s my hope, however, that they will check in with Katur and that he’ll grant his blessing to our expedition.”
Shit. Jael gave up trying to get them to abandon him, an odd feeling. People had never proven reluctant to cut him loose before—and they were usually more eager to get away, once they learned how inhuman he was. He should be troubled about Martine’s knowing the truth, as she had little reason to wish him well. It made no sense that he’d encounter loyalty like this inside Perdition, where the worst of humanity was imprisoned.
But maybe there are a few of the best, too.
39
Beyond Madness
The lights went out on schedule.
Dred commanded all able-bodied men for this final run at Grigor. Between the water and the lack of light, his men should be weak and disoriented. Add in her forces and the ones led by Silence—the Handmaiden was on hand with garrotes and knives, ready to deal some death—and the Great Bear’s days were numbered. With no power, it was eerily silent in the Korolévstvo, not even the low hum that meant the ship was functioning.
“Lights up,” she ordered.
Nearby, Silence gave the same command to her men.
As one, they donned the mining helmets they’d salvaged from Priest’s hoard. That would make it possible to finish this without decimating the Queensland or Entropy populations. Not that she’d weep overmuch if some of her men stabbed Silence’s people; and Dred imagined the Handmaiden felt the same way. Talk about a precarious alliance.
With hundreds of thin beams of light at her back, she led the march on the Great Bear. The first checkpoint was deserted, which spoke well of Tam’s plan with the water. It was cruel and underhanded, not a warrior’s strategy at all. But she couldn’t afford to fight fair, not when Grigor had so many more soldiers. As she pushed closer to the Korolévstvo, the stench swelled to awful proportions, mingling feces and urine with the stale sweat of sickness and the sweet stink of decay. Dred covered her nose with one hand and pressed on. They crossed two more abandoned checkpoints, and she started to wonder just how bad it had gotten. Closer to the hub of the territory, she found the first corpses. Dred bent to examine them, shining her light across the cold, pallid skin.
“Head wound,” Einar said. “Bled like a stuck animal before he died.”
The Speaker stepped up beside her, translating for Silence. “This is a good omen . . . Death strides before us, clearing our path.”
That was an impressive, overflowing bucket of crazy, so she just inclined her head and stepped over the corpses. “Stay sharp. I doubt they’re all dead.”
“We couldn’t be so lucky,” Einar said.
They’d left Wills and Ike to man the automated defenses, along with a minimal defense crew. Those who had stayed behind had no taste for personal violence; they were killers of another stripe, who preferred long-distance weapons or poisons. As she moved into the heart of darkness, she wondered where Jael and Tam were. They had orders to regroup with the main force as soon as they finished down below. It seemed like they ought to be here by now.
Before curiosity could blossom into concern, she stepped into what must be Grigor’s great hall. She skimmed her light around the room with countless men at her back doing the same; the result was disconcerting, multiple streams of light crisscrossing the darkness and giving staccato impressions. Immediately, she readied her chains.
“Give me room,” she said, starting forward.
A brawl was ongoing across the way, draped in darkness. Tam had said cutting the lights qualified as a psychological weapon to terrorize and demoralize their foes. She hadn’t been sure it would work that way, but these men had already been pushed to the breaking point by the dirty water and unexpected illness. Now they had no reason to try to restrain their savage natures. Fragments of argument reached her, along with the muffled thump of fists on palms, panting breaths, and moans of pain. From this distance, in the broken light, it was impossible to count how many there were, but they were oblivious, drowning in anger.
The Speaker said, “These are the dregs he left behind. We will not find Grigor here.”
“Then we cut through them,” she answered grimly. “For Queensland!”
The men rushed in a roar, wading into the brawl with an enthusiasm that nearly deafened her. Since her chains hurt her own people as much as the enemy when she fought in a tight cluster, Dred stood away from the melee, catching the enemies who tried to flee. One of Grigor’s soldiers broke from the scrum and stumbled toward her; she planted her feet and lashed her chains, hooking them around his knees. One tug, and he went flying. She finished him with twin, artistic lashes, but it was nothing to be proud of—the man was thin and sick, sclera showing yellow in the thin beam from her helmet.
The whole room was a blur of misery and violence. This was probably what the Conglomerate had in mind, but I suspect they imagined it would happen sooner. There was an awful beauty in Einar scything through his enemies. He gave no quarter, and the broad swing of his deadly axe demanded the broad clearance his allies offered. Nobody fought near him; they didn’t dare. Even among Grigor’s brutes, he towered head and shoulders above the rest. He was a juggernaut of wrath, dealing destruction to the enemies who rushed him from all sides.