“There! There!” Felph shouted. “There it is!”
As soon as he had said these words, monstrous black forms began wriggling from the holes, hundreds upon thousands of sfuz, hurling themselves down on the dronon, boiling from holes one after another, racing across the roof and walls of this vast cavern.
They reminded Felph of spiders, thousands of horrid black spiders seething from their lair.
The dronon troops began shooting. A firestorm ensued, tracers of white-hot plasma erupting through the dark caverns. Everywhere the sfuz were falling, burning, dying. And for a minute it looked as if the dronon would take the city. But the sfuz were too many, too many.
The camera caught images of dronon, struggling beneath dozens of dark forms, thrashing with large battle arms, firing into their own ranks. The camera’s holder had several sfuz leap on him from above, and the jumble of images that ensued showed fangs and purple blood flying, flashes of light.
Suddenly the cameraman was free again, and the dronon continued firing in a desperate attempt to drive off the sfuz. The boiling plasma that issued from the rifles burned in a thousand hot spots, white lights shining, brightening the cavern through layers of dark smoke that crept along the ground, over the ceilings.
The vast chamber was clogged with smoke. Dronon Vanquishers began pumping their legs rapidly, trying to force oxygen into the intake holes on their massive rear legs so they could breathe. The dronon cameraman tried to retreat from the killing ground, stumbled to the road, and left the camera going. Under the eerie glow of a thousand burning incendiary charges, Felph watched the fearless Vanquishers strangle beneath a roiling wall of smoke.
Felph shook his head in dismay. If the dronon die, if the dronon suffocate, the sfuz will, too, he considered.
“These holes?” Karthenor asked, pointing to the clooes on the monitor. “You’re sure these are part of the ancient city Gallen is searching for?”
“Indeed!” Felph said. “That is the place.”
Karthenor sighed heavily, gauging the damage done, the casualties of the battle, then. turned and shouted over the hum of the room. “Lord Kintiniklintit, have your forces engage the city. Gallen and Maggie may already be secreted inside.”
Lord Felph’s jaw dropped in awe. Teeawah had eluded him for six hundred years. Now he saw that it would have eluded him forever.
At this very moment, a window of opportunity opened. The dronon were liberating the city, but in a day the dronon would be gone. They’d find Maggie and Gallen and kill them, then withdraw their troops.
In only a few hours, the sfuz who’d drunk from the Waters of Strength would begin rising from the dead, once again begin defending their lair.
The sfuz that infested the ruins would return, feeding off the carnage. Felph would never again be able to mount such an intensive invasion into this region.
But today the dronon would take the city, probably never realizing what treasure they held.
Today, Felph could drink from the Waters of Strength.
“Lord Karthenor,” Felph said, “I’d like to go down to the city, now, before your troops demolish the archaeological ruins.”
Karthenor turned, studied Felph with an enigmatic smile. “You want to go there?”
“Indeed,” Felph said. “I’ve searched for the site for ages. Now I see that once your troops leave, I dare not ever return.”
“What are you searching for?” Karthenor asked. By his tone, Felph knew he suspected something. “Chances are you won’t get in or out alive. What could be worth the risk?”
The great statesman Kenrand once said, “A politician’s greatest asset is his ability to create a facile lie when confronted by constituents.” Felph hoped he was up to the task.
“I have a dozen clones who await wakening back in my palace. This body is but the raiment I wear. If it dies, I’ll put on another. But knowledge, knowledge of the philosophies of the ancient Qualeewoohs, now there is something of abiding worth!” He smiled, with just a bit of a gleam in his eye, as if he were mad. It was a role he played often, to good advantage.
Karthenor stared down at him, impassive behind his golden mask. The lord fingered his robe, nervously rubbing. the fabric between two fingers.
“Send a dronon escort with me, if you don’t trust me,” Felph said. “I have nothing to hide, and nothing to gain. I can be of no further help in this quest. I swear, you know as much about Gallen’s whereabouts as I do.”
Karthenor frowned. He wouldn’t send a guard with Felph. He was a counselor to the dronon, but apparently didn’t have the authority to order Vanquishers about. Felph had counted on that. But Karthenor did have resources. He smiled, turned to an elderly slave in a dirty tunic who wore a silver Guide. in his silvering hair. “Thomas Flynn, go with our friend here. Guard him with your life, then make certain he returns safely to me as soon as Maggie is captured.”
Karthenor pulled a heavy pistol from his own holster, tossed it to Thomas Flynn. Karthenor nodded toward a Vanquisher, spoke rapidly into a translator, ordering a shuttle for Felph’s and Thomas’s use.
Chapter 37
The dirt shifted beneath Maggie’s feet, and she felt herself sliding. She screamed. Gallen reached, grabbed her arm. Detritus rumbled down from the ceiling. As the ground opened to swallow her, Maggie had but one thought: my baby!
Gallen must have thought of the child, too. As he fell, he pulled her on top of him, to cushion her fall with his own body.
Maggie’s breath left her, expecting they’d tumble dozens of meters, but instead the floor dropped only one. Dust filled the air in a cloud. Maggie squinted through the dust and smoke, spitting dirt out of her mouth.
Their path ran along the spine of an ancient dew tree. A section of it had given way, spilling only a meter. The tunnel to the sfuz was blocked by a cave-in, but the path back to the ship remained open. If anything, now that the floor had dropped, the passage was more open than before.
Fresh air was rising from somewhere beneath them.
“This way. Quickly,” Gallen said, grasping Maggie’s hand, pulling her back down the trail toward the ship.
She looked around. Orick and Tallea seemed fine, indestructible as bears are. Zeus crawled about blindly. A chunk of dirt had struck his head.
Gallen stopped at his side. “Can you stand?”
“Uh, uh, fine.” Zeus waved Gallen away with his pistol.
Hurry,” Gallen urged Maggie. “The sfuz might dig through.”
Perhaps, Maggie considered, but they wouldn’t dig soon. The plasma discharged from Zeus’s pistol would stay at ten thousand degrees for several minutes, longer if buried beneath this dirt.
Still, she pressed forward. She stumbled over the trail, thick with fallen rubbish, following Gallen, checking to see that Zeus got up.
When they reached the fork in the trail, Gallen stopped. One path led to the sfuz graveyard and the cliffs beyond. The other led back toward the ship.
Distantly, Maggie heard the ground rumbling. Another cave-in? A mistwife? Another firefight? She couldn’t be certain. She stopped, unwilling to run until she knew where the danger lay.
Gallen looked up. “Gunfire. Somewhere above.”
Orick grumbled, “Gallen, we can’t keep running. Between the dronon, the mistwives, and the sfuz, one of them will get us.”
Gallen stared at the dirt roof, held by cross-fallen bits of timber. He shook his head in frustration.
Maggie felt worn to the core. It wasn’t just the physical work of dragging herself through this maze, it was the stress of worrying about her child. Gallen held her tenderly.
“All right. We’ll hole up. I’ll go down the trails and see if I can find a path to the city. There has to be one.”
He led them past the sfuz burial pit, until they reached a small chamber near the cliffs, perhaps five meters wide and ten meters high. It looked fairly defendable, should it come to that, and any attack could come from only one direction. Maggie only hoped that she wouldn’t get cornered in here.