He pulled his chair up to the desk in front of him. He’d been writing a song most of the time he’d been sitting there, and he wanted to get it right before he left. He didn’t think he had much time left. The town didn’t have much time left. The two sides had forgotten what they were supposed to be fighting over, so taken up in their need to defeat the enemy that they seemed ready to destroy the town rather than see it fall into the hands of the opposition. Morrison hadn’t forgotten. The town had to survive. It mattered to too many people. He even had an idea on how to save it. It was a good plan; one that would defeat the Warriors and save Shadows Fall from further destruction. If it worked. His last plan, to bring the Faerie out from under the hill, could only be described as a qualified success, but this time he was sure his plan would work. The only problem was, it would quite probably get him killed.
He scowled out of the window at the empty street. He wasn’t ready to die yet. He still had so much left to do. The Forever Door had called to him ever since he arrived in Shadows Fall, but he’d refused to listen to it. Things were different now. He looked back at the couch, and sighed quietly. There wasn’t much he’d miss, but he’d definitely miss Suzanne. He wished he’d known her before she came to Shadows Fall, when they were both still real, and had yet to be misunderstood as legends.
But it seemed to him now that he’d done all the things that really mattered. Someone else could sing the songs and be a bad example to the town. There was only one thing that needed doing now, and that was to save the town that had given him a second chance. He smiled suddenly. Who’d ever have thought he’d turn out to be the hero? He sat for a while, looking at nothing in particular. He was scared, but it wouldn’t stop him. The town mattered more than he did. He’d always known that.
He looked at the sheet of paper on the desk before him. The last song he’d ever write, perhaps. Not one of his best, but good enough to go out on. He only wrote it to say goodbye, because he doubted he’d get a chance to say it in person. He’d leave it there, on the desk, when he left; and it would be there for Suzanne and Polly when they woke up. He had thought about waking them before he left, but decided against it. They’d only try and talk him out of what he meant to do, and he was just weak enough that he might listen.
He stood up, and moved quietly over to the couch. He took the blanket from around his shoulders, and draped it carefully over the two sleeping forms. He looked around him, enjoying the silver shimmer of the moonlight, and sighed once. He left the room, closing the door quietly behind him, walked down the hallway, and out of the house. The street was cold and empty. There was no one around to disturb Suzanne and Polly’s rest, but he made sure the front door was locked securely, just in case. He walked off down the street, humming the tune of his new song to the rhythm of the frost crunching under his feet. The air was sharp and very clear, and the moon was like a spotlight.
CHAPTER TEN
Second Strike
Everyone waited for the dawn, but it never came. Hours passed, and the night dragged on. The moon shone brightly, but no stars came out to join it. All across the town of Shadows Fall, fires gradually died out and blood dried on the sidewalks. Soldiers dug in and built gun emplacements, while defenders barricaded streets and gathered what weapons they could find. Tension grew as both sides prepared for the battle to enter the next phase, knowing that this time the killing and destruction would not stop until one side or the other had victory. Total victory. There were no peace negotiations, no attempts at diplomacy. This battle was for the heart and soul of Shadows Fall, and neither side had any interest in compromise.
William Royce, Imperial Leader of the Warriors of the Cross, sat in his office in his mobile trailer, currently parked on the fringes of town. Despite all his army had achieved, it still wasn’t considered safe for him to advance any further into the town. Even the occupied areas could not be trusted. Royce looked at the papers piled before him on his desk, and fought to keep control of his temper. Nothing had gone to plan. All the advance work his agents had done in and around the town had proved worthless once the fighting had begun. The whole town had risen against his army, often in completely unanticipated ways. The defenders should have been easy meat, without the faith and dedication that gave the Warriors their strength, but the townspeople had fought back with a ferocity and determination that had slowed the Warrior advance to a crawl.
On top of that, the main force of the attack had been broken apart and splintered by the very nature of the town. The soldiers had bogged down on a hundred fronts, fighting battles and skirmishes in a hundred different locations and time zones, often against unfamiliar forces and weaponry. Communications were a mess. The Warriors had anticipated some of the difficulties, but not nearly enough. For all their advance intelligence work, they had failed to appreciate the sheer complexity of the town. Royce’s frown deepened. He had failed. He hadn’t understood. His carefully trained army had achieved some successes, and its sheer size and weaponry gave it an overall advantage, but he couldn’t find a single main front to use it against.
And on top of all that, there were the elves. Royce slammed a fist down on the pile of reports. His intelligence people had been convinced that the Faerie had no plans to leave their land beneath the hill, let alone come forth to defend the town. There had even been some indications that the elves were planning to cut themselves off entirely from the world of man. Royce had planned on that, even depended on it to some extent, and he’d been wrong. Something must have happened to change things, but what? There was nothing in his reports to explain it.
The elves symbolized everything that had gone wrong with the invasion. Their very presence upset his troops. The soldiers were having trouble coming to terms with the fact that their faith and their crucifixes weren’t enough to give them automatic victory over ‘demons from Hell’. This wasn’t what they’d been taught, what they’d been led to expect. Doubt undermined faith, and without faith there could be no discipline.
According to the reports, the elves were unstoppable and unkillable. Their presence was often enough to swing a battle in favour of the defenders. Royce cleared the reports from his desk with one sweep of his hand, and let them flutter to the floor. There had to be some secret to the town’s resistance, something his intelligence people hadn’t told him about. He turned in his chair to face the television set standing in its blue chalk pentacle, and the blank screen stared back mockingly. He reached for the remote control, and then froze as the television turned itself on. His hand was still several inches away from the control, but the screen was already lighting up. The image quickly cleared to show Royce himself, sitting on a golden throne in a sea of flames. Goat’s horns burst out of his brow, and curled up above his head. His feet were cloven hooves. The image smiled at Royce, and winked.
“William, sweet William; I’ve been expecting your call.”
“You broke the agreement,” said Royce stonily. “You must not come except when I call you. That was the compact we entered into.”
The figure shrugged. “Such arrangements have always been flexible. We’re growing closer, you and I. Soon nothing will be able to keep us apart.”
“Liar and Prince of lies.” Royce fought to keep control and maintain a calm front. It wouldn’t do to let the demon think it could rattle him. It wouldn’t be safe. “Talk to me, hellspawn. My invasion has ground to a halt, because of the cursed elves. Why didn’t you warn me they would interfere?”
“At the time you asked, they had no such plans. And you didn’t ask again. Tut, tut, William; a lapse. A definite lapse. Still, it doesn’t really matter. You can still defeat the Faerie with your sorcerer priests.”
“You’re very free with suggestions now, demon. How can I trust you?”
It smiled widely, revealing filthy, pointed teeth. “You are my son, William, in whom I am well pleased.”
The image disappeared from the screen, and the television turned itself off. Royce looked at the remote control, and th
en at his hands, which were shaking slightly. The intercom buzzed suddenly, and he jumped in his chair. He waited a moment, so as not to give the impression he’d been waiting for a call, and then pressed the switch.
“I said I wasn’t to be disturbed.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said his secretary, “but your inner Council is here. They insist on seeing you.”
Royce’s eyebrows rose slightly at the word insist, but when he spoke his voice was calm and even. “They’ve saved me the trouble of sending for them. Tell my Council I’ll be with them in a moment.”
He cut off the intercom before his secretary could respond, and stared determinedly at his hands until they stopped shaking. It wouldn’t do to let his people think they could rattle him. It wouldn’t be safe. He got to his feet, brushed at himself here and there to be sure he looked his best, and then left his office to meet his Council.
The ten Generals were standing grouped together before the banks of flickering monitor screens, showing varying views of the town. Few of the scenes were particularly encouraging. There was much destruction, and bodies beyond counting, but far too many of them were Warriors. Royce coughed briskly to get his Council’s attention, and quietly noted which of the Generals sprang to attention, and which did not. Martyn Casey, his Second in Command, did not. He nodded briefly to Royce, as to an equal, and then looked back at the screens.
“We’ve been talking, Royce, in your absence. Given how precarious our present position is, and the serious mistakes you made in putting together this invasion, I’m afraid we’ve been forced to decide that the invasion must be called off. We can’t hope to beat the elves and their weaponry, not with things as they are.”
“Demons,” muttered one of the Generals. “Imps from Hell.”
“Quite, General,” said Martyn Casey. He turned to look at Royce, and his face was calm and unmerciful. “We will withdraw our people, and wait for a more propitious time. After we’ve determined how to deal with the elves. In the meantime, I’m afraid we have also decided, regretfully, that it would be in everyone’s best interests if you were to step down as Imperial Leader. Immediately. I will take charge, temporarily, to superintend the withdrawal.”
Royce drew the gun on his hip and shot Casey in the throat. The Warrior Second in Command was thrown back against the monitors, and one of the Generals cried out in shock. Casey sank to his knees, blood gushing from his mouth. He tried to say something past the blood, and Royce shot him again. The bullet punched through Casey’s head and smashed the monitor screen behind him. Blood sprayed from the exit wound in a misty haze across the other screens, so that they looked like snapshots from Hell. Casey fell forward and lay still. Royce kicked the man’s outstretched arm, but there was no response. He nodded, satisfied, and looked at the Generals, who looked back with wide, shocked eyes. Royce smiled pleasantly at his inner Council.
“Anyone else think we ought to withdraw? Anyone still think I should step down as Imperial Leader of the Warriors? No? I am pleased. But do feel free to come to me if you have any other problems with the way I’m running things.” The smile suddenly disappeared, and Royce’s voice became as flat and cold as his gaze. “We do the Lord’s work here, and defiance of my authority is treason against God’s will. I will brook no more treachery, gentlemen. Your rank is no protection when you turn against God and me. We are here to carry out God’s will, and we will not leave until victory is ours. No matter what the cost.
“So; what do we do next?” His voice was calm and easy again, and he holstered his gun without looking at it. Several of the Generals sighed in relief, but none of them relaxed much. Royce studied the monitor screens, his lips pursed thoughtfully. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped some of the blood from the monitors where it obscured his view.
“I know what you’re thinking, gentlemen, and you’re wrong. We have encountered difficulties, but none that can’t be overcome through force of arms and a little lateral thinking. We can’t afford to just sit here, waiting for the town to make the next move. They don’t realize how badly they’ve hurt us, but once they do, you can be sure the elves won’t hesitate to press the advantage. And against their infernal weaponry, we’re nothing more than sitting ducks. We also can’t allow ourselves to remain as scattered as we’ve become. It dissipates our strength, and makes us vulnerable to attack by larger forces. Of which there seem to be many in this cursed town. So; we can’t retreat, and we can’t press on. Therefore, we must do the unexpected.” He looked at the bloody handkerchief still in his hand, handed it briskly to one of his Generals, and then looked at his secretary, still sitting frozen behind her desk. “Have the sorcerer priests been assembled as I ordered?”
“Yes, Leader. They’re waiting outside for your instructions.”
“Just a little impatiently, I suspect. Come, gentlemen; you are about to meet the real strength behind our forces. I could have sent them in with the first wave, as some of you suggested, but I wanted to wait and see what hidden strengths the town had. Now we know their strengths, but they do not know ours. The sorcerer priests are our secret weapon, our ace in the hole, and they will give us victory.”
“Of course, Leader,” said one of the Generals quickly. “It is our destiny.”
Royce gave him a hard look, and the General fell back a step instinctively. The other Generals nearest him stepped unobtrusively away, so as not to be contaminated by his presence. And so that whatever happened to him wouldn’t happen to them. Royce sniffed disdainfully. “Destiny, General? If I thought for a moment you really meant that, I’d be seriously worried about you. Blind obedience is all right and proper for the rank and file, but I don’t expect to hear it from my officer class. God expects us to make our own destiny, through faith and hard work, and slaughtering the unbelievers. Now come with me, gentlemen. I want you to meet my sorcerer priests. You might learn something useful.” He broke off and looked down at the crumpled figure of Martyn Casey, lying in his own blood with a confused look on his face. Royce sniffed again, and glanced at his secretary. “Have the garbage removed, and then get some people in here to clean up the mess. I’m expecting company later.”
His secretary nodded quickly, and reached for the phone on her desk. Royce strode briskly out of the trailer, leaving the Generals to hurry after him. Outside the trailer, one hundred Warrior priests stood waiting at parade rest in ranks of ten. The moment Royce emerged from the trailer, they crashed to attention and stared straight ahead, waiting for orders. They wore robes of purest white, gleaming in the gloom like so many ghosts. Royce snapped his fingers, and the trailer’s exterior lights came on. The sudden glare must have been blinding for the priests, but none of them so much as blinked. Royce smiled at them fondly. They’d been his idea, right from the beginning. The finest soldiers, the most devout Warriors, drilled to the peak of physical perfection, and then trained in all the mystic arts, to better serve the glory of the Lord. And the Warriors, of course. Trained to use the enemy’s own weapons against him. Royce nodded to them briskly, and they all bowed to him, light flashing briefly from their tonsured heads.
“My friends,” said Royce, his voice perfectly clear in the quiet of the night, “your time has come. I know it’s been hard for you, waiting on the sidelines while your brothers were being cut down by the enemy, but you are my main strength, and I couldn’t afford to squander you by acting too soon. No more waiting, my friends. You have your orders; carry them out. Make me proud.”
The hundred priests bowed as one, and then sat down cross-legged on the bare concrete, arranging themselves comfortably. They paid no attention to the watching Generals, or to each other; their gaze was already turning inwards, where their true power lay. Royce put a finger to his lips, and gestured for the Generals to follow him back into the trailer. They did so, and the sorcerer priests were left alone in the night. Their minds eased slowly out from their relaxing bodies, and joined together in a single thrust of pure force. It moved out over the unsuspecting
town, gathering above it like an invisible thunderstorm.
Royce gave the Generals one last pep talk, mixed with a few jovial threats, and then sent them on their way. He didn’t think they posed much of a threat to his authority any more, and besides, he was sick of the sight of them. He stood uncertainly before the monitor screens, and realized he didn’t want to look at them for a while either. He discovered without much surprise that he was feeling restless, and wanted just to get away from things for a while. And why shouldn’t he? There was nothing more he could do until the sorcerer priests had completed their work, and there was no telling how long that would take. So he nodded a brisk goodbye to his secretary, pulled a trenchcoat over his uniform, and was gone and out of the door before she could raise any objections. He had a bleeper for emergencies, but for her sake she’d better not use it for anything less than a real emergency.
He glanced briefly at the motionless priests, and then walked unhurriedly away into the camp. There were twenty more trailers, parked in neat rows, packed to bursting with surveillance equipment, computers, and hard-working men. He had no doubt that by now Martyn Casey’s fate was common knowledge among his people, and they were all doing their best to look extremely busy, and competent, just in case he decided to drop in on them. Royce snorted. They’d been overdue a reminder of who was really in charge here. He should have killed Casey months ago, when he first showed signs of ambition, but the man had been an efficient Second in Command for all his faults, and they were hard to find. He hadn’t a clue who he was going to replace him with. But that could wait.