44. MESSIAH
MESSIAH
YSIRA
The Church knows we’re here.”
When Sister Ilusha spoke, Ysira’s blood ran cold.
Saraida, Ged, and Goran all looked at each other, then at the white door—still locked but not for much longer.
Ilusha’s nose had begun to bleed. She tried to stand and had to lean against the dome below the pyramid.
Her face had gone white as death. “They’re coming. Now.”
“Inquisitors?” Ged demanded. “How many?” “All of them,” she whispered. “I can’t shield us.” Saraida was already moving. “To the Gate!”
“They know!” Ilusha spat at her. “At Zal Fel, someone must have caught our allies and warned the inquisitors. It’s over.”
The ceiling shuddered. Ilusha stopped. They all looked up.
There was a sound, then, like nothing Ysira had ever heard. It was as though someone had driven a titanic hammer into the very foundations of the Cathedral and splintered them. Ysira struggled to keep her feet as a seismic force shook the chamber.
In an instant, she realized what must have happened. “Ogden’s failsafe,” she gasped. “Run. Now.”
Ilusha was right. Their allies at Zal Fel must have been discovered, and someone had pulled the trigger to block the Church’s access through the Gate. Someone was buying time so that Neri might yet make it to the station.
A crack split the ceiling, showering them with dust. Ilusha screamed.
At the threshold by the Gate, Ysira looked over her shoulder to watch the inquisitor fall to her knees.
Her face contorted. A strangled cry escaped her.
“TRAITORS!” Not Ilusha’s voice. She couldn’t move.
A stronger telepath had seized hold of her from within. “HERETICS! MURDERERS!”
Iyelekirin nudged Ysira, letting her know someone—one of the inquisitors, who must have known they would never reach her—was trying to get inside her head and make sure she died with them, too.
“Clear your minds!” Ysira shouted, practically shoving Goran and Saraida toward the Gate as the ceiling crumbled. “Hurry!”
Ged stalled, as if he meant to go back for Ilusha. But it was not his ally he stared after with a stricken expression. It was the pyramid—his final claim to power, about to be crushed beneath an avalanche of rubble.
Saraida seized Ged by the arm and readied her demon key. She dragged him toward the Gate, Ysira pushing from behind. They held on to him as they fell into the Source. Whether it took seconds or an eternity, Ysira could not say, but her demon guided them through that cosmic sea to the other side.
She broke through the surface of reality with a gasp.
Ysira landed on all fours, fingers crabbing against the rough, familiar ground of Zal Fel. Somewhere behind her, a splatter of vomit hit stone. A horrible noise blared through the fortress, in time with strobing red and blue lights.
She looked up to see Azaharo. The Otavok militia commander stood open-mouthed, naked sword in hand, and exclaimed, “What the fuck happened?” Azaharo’s gaze swept over the others, taking inventory, noticing the losses of Taraven, Ilusha, and Solai.
Azaharo swore. “Are you all that’s left?”
Ysira managed to nod. “The Cathedral’s gone. No one’s coming after us.”
“The old man’s failsafe.” Azaharo stood in shocked silence for a moment, then seemed to admonish herself for it.
“We have a path to the elevator, but it won’t last long.
The whole fortress knows we’re here, and there’s a legion of Guardsmen on their way through the ruins.
” She paused. “The transport’s on its way. ”
“After that?” Ged made a violent gesture back at the Gate as he climbed to his feet.
“Do we think no one’s managed to send word to the station?
Do we think they haven’t guessed that’s where we’re headed?
” “We don’t need much longer.” Saraida addressed Azaharo.
“We still hold the communications center, and that’s the only way to contact the station. They can’t know we’re coming. Right?”
“We’d better fucking hope so,” Azaharo said. “And we’d better hurry. It’s a bit of a run to the elevator but then just one flight of stairs to the landing zone.” She waved them onward and raised her voice for the militiamen. “As soon as that door opens, be ready to fight.”
They lined up by the entrance to the tunnel—ten of them, all Shrouded City militia. The instant the gap in the door was wide enough, a militia-man hurled one of Urien’s tiny spherical explosives. It went off in a flare of orange light.
Ysira had not accurately anticipated the force of the blast. Her ears rang.
Her head throbbed. The doors opened on a shredded mass of Firstborn armor and viscera, the metal sphere still stuck against one woman’s half-melted torso.
Her browless eyes peered up, imploring, until Ged recovered enough to stomp on her face.
The next wave attacked before Ysira could reorient herself.
No time to think, only act. Her glaive connected with the first soldier so hard, it knocked him off his feet, sent him spinning.
She shoved the blunt end of her weapon under the next soldier’s jaw.
His skull snapped back, spine severed by the blow.
Ged took the lead, paving the way with sheer physicality and aggression. They barreled over the Firstborn like they were stems of grass in a landslide, carving a bloody swathe to the heart of the fortress, to the elevator.
Two more soldiers stood in their way. Brave, but stupid. Ged slammed the first against the wall and cut him in half as he staggered sideways, stunned. He caught the next by the hand, splintering bones, forcing him to drop his weapon. Broke his neck with a swift jerk.
Ged blocked the elevator door with his body and scoped its cramped interior. “We won’t all fit.”
“Three trips,” Ysira said hoarsely. “I’ll hold the line.”
Ged gave her a tight nod and shouted at the others, “Get on!”
Ysira’s blade spun and slashed. She could no longer trust the slowness of conscious thought.
The universe shrank around her until it was only the blood pumping through her muscles, the jarring impact of blade against metal and blade against flesh.
The flash of plasma weapons, the crack and crumble of stone, the screams of the dying, the squish of gore beneath her boots, and the hot, metallic scent of blood.
When the elevator departed a third time, Ysira was alone.
She was surrounded by Firstborn corpses, back against the wall, struggling not to sag against it.
Iyelekirin kept pace with her injuries but could not temper the mental exhaustion that had begun to tear at the edges of her sanity.
She’d lost count of how many times she should have died.
She got only a moment’s reprieve before the elevator returned. A few seconds more of blessed quiet as the platform rose.
The rooms at the top of the tower were rough, unfinished sand-stone. Small windows let in a chill wind, nearly a thousand feet above solid ground. Rounding the corner from the elevator, Ysira nearly collided with two Firstborn soldiers. A plasma bolt struck her in the chest. She dropped.
She was getting to her feet, readying to fight and die yet again, but two armored figures charged past her: Ged and Saraida.
Saraida shoved the first soldier, hurling them into the far wall.
She was on them in three strides and impaled them on her sword.
Ged seized the second by the helmet with hands bigger than the soldier’s skull and squeezed.
The helmet crunched, the faceplate shattering.
The man inside screamed, skin bubbling and blistering as the planet’s atmosphere engulfed him.
Perhaps involuntarily, the soldier discharged his plasma weapon. The bolt hit Ged from two inches away. With a strangled yell, he dropped the soldier and toppled against the wall.
Saraida had managed to hold the elevator door open. One-handed, she activated an explosive and threw it inside. She let the door shut. Seconds later, there was a muffled boom.
“Neri, Jacen, and the others are upstairs,” she panted.
Ged limped forward, using the wall as a crutch as he dragged his mangled left leg behind him.
All that remained below the knee was a shredded, partially attached chunk of meat.
Ysira and Saraida had to help him, letting him hop on his remaining foot with an arm slung over each of their shoulders.
He must have been in agony, jaw clenched, sweat beading on his forehead, but he voiced no complaint. He seemed almost afraid to.
The next room was a vast circle, a shallow depression in the sandstone floor with a simple triangular altar at its center.
A hewn stairway spiraled up along the perimeter.
Wind seeped down into the chamber from above, silvery light limning the stone.
Blood and scorch marks littered the floor, along with a dozen more bodies.
Ysira counted seven—seven—Otavok militiamen.
They’d all anticipated some losses; they’d have been fools not to.
But they had not prepared for this.
“Gods,” Saraida whispered. “How many of us are left?” Neither Ged nor Ysira answered.
The stairs let out at the edge of the great obsidian disc, facing its center, recessed in the floor beneath a sloped outcropping. No sooner had Ysira glimpsed the spires jutting high above, dark shadows against the midday dusk, than Jacen appeared.
“That’s the last of them!” he shouted. “Barricade the door.”
Once Saraida and Ysira had let Ged down against the outcropping, Jacen seized Ysira by the arm.
“You made it. I thought I might have—” He couldn’t finish. His pale eyes were wide, hollow, and the wind had made a mess of his hair.
“The Cathedral,” Ysira said quietly. “That was you.”
Instead of replying, he said, “Transport’s almost here. We’ll make it to the space station and finish this.” He said it again, like a mantra, “Transport’s almost here. It’s almost here. It’s almost over.”