Deathstalker Coda

  Lewis looked down at the warring streets and was sickened and furious at the number of thralls that had fought their way into the beloved capital city of Logres, that once famed and most fabulous city in the Empire. He could sense that they were all mind-wiped, little more than dead bodies walking, beyond all hope of rescue, and only wished he could have got home sooner. He swooped down to the entrance steps of the Imperial Palace, Jesamine right behind him. He hit the bottom of the steps so hard the stone cracked and shattered under his feet, and the thralls fell back like frightened children. Jesamine dropped lightly down beside him, and they both lashed out with their Maze-altered minds. Hundreds of surrounding thralls hit the ground and did not move again, the uber-espers blasted right out of their minds. And all around, thousands of thralls screamed out their hate, and charged forward.

  Lewis stood his ground, and met them dispassionately with gun and sword, his long steel blade flashing back and forth faster than the human eye could follow. His sword cut in and out of thrall flesh in under a second, and they fell dead and dying before him. Jesamine was there at his side, watching his blind spots, her sword rising and falling just as quickly. None of the thralls got close enough to touch them.

  "You should have been in opera, Lewis," Jesamine said casually. "You really know how to make an entrance."

  "Never cared much for opera," said Lewis, hacking and cutting at the thralls like a man chopping wood. "Too many good guys end up dying in the last act."

  They allowed the press of bodies to follow them up the stone steps to the top, where Stuart Lennox stood alone, his uniform torn and bloodied, but his sword still swinging. Nina Malapert dodged out from behind him now and again to blow large holes in the crowd with her gun. She saw who was coming up the steps, and squealed with joy and excitement as she recognized them. She gestured, and her cameras came flying in from all directions to get a good angle. Stuart just nodded to Lewis and to Jesamine.

  "Good to have you back, Deathstalker. Make yourself at home. Kill a whole bunch of thralls."

  "Thanks," said Lewis. "Don't mind if I do."

  Behind them, Nina Malapert shook her head sadly, when she realized that was all they were going to say. It was hardly dialogue for the ages.

  And all across the city, ships and pinnaces landed wherever they could, and soldiers and fighting men and women disembarked with sword and gun at the ready. They charged right into the waiting thralls, and soon there were surging mobs of combatants in every street and square. Men and women from Mistworld and Virimonde cut and hacked their way through the crowded boulevards, eager for blood and vengeance. They had come for Finn Durandal, but for the moment they'd settle for taking out some of their grievances on the thralls. There was no peace to be found anywhere in the Parade of the Endless, as the two sides contested for every square foot of the city. Famous buildings burned, and towers and bridges that were works of art collapsed in ruins. Disrupter blasts scorched away precious mosaics and set fires blazing in protected parks. Both sides in the battle were too busy to notice, or care.

  The Ashrai came flying down, their huge grotesque forms soaring over the city on wide membranous rainbow wings, and a cry went up from the weary city defenders, and even some hardened souls from the Rookery.

  Look! It's the dragons! Owen has sent his dragons to aid us!

  Somewhere among the vast army of the Ashrai, the old traitor called Carrion laughed softly, relishing the irony. And then he led his people down into battle, smashing through the defenseless thralls like pile drivers on the wing.

  John Silence was in the city too. He'd come down in a pinnace, alongside his troops. The fleet captains had done everything they could to talk him out of it, but he didn't listen. They'd wanted him to stay safe with the starcruisers, deciding strategy and giving orders, but he knew his place was on the ground. He'd always known he was an admiral in name only, and now he needed to be back in his old city, that he had defended and saved so many times before, over so many years. It was time again to do what he did best: fight the good fight against impossible odds. So he left captains Price and Vardalos in charge of the fleet, and rode a pinnace down to the Parade of the Endless as just another trooper. Some of the men recognized him, and some didn't, and it didn't matter to him either way. He was first out of the pinnace, and led the charge against the waiting thralls. He swung his sword with both hands, killing the enemy with swift and subtle strokes, always pressing forward, forward. He'd never been able to work actual miracles, like Owen and the others, but after all these long years there were few indeed who could match his prowess with a sword. He'd never thought of himself as a hero or a legend or even as a warrior; just a good soldier determined to do his duty, no matter what. His sword slammed in and out of bodies, never pausing for a moment, and it felt like old times again.

  Investigator Frost was right there at his side, where she belonged.

  Captains Price and Vardalos conferred urgently, and then ordered the fleet starcruisers to descend into the lowest possible orbit, actually inside the planet's upper atmosphere. With the ships' AIs not working, the crews had to prepare the targeting computers themselves, and then used the ships' disrupter cannon to scorch whole areas around the city's boundaries. The huge armies of the possessed disappeared in moments, reduced to glowing dust by the power of the ships' guns. There would be no reinforcements for the thralls in the city. But there were just so many of them, and more on the way. The ships kept targeting and firing. It was a dangerous procedure for the starcruisers. Pinpoint accuracy required flying low, well inside the atmosphere, and starcruisers weren't designed or built to do that. It was only a matter of time before they started breaking up. But the ships kept firing anyway, because they were needed.

  The uber-espers struck back, turning their power on the low-flying starcruisers, hexing their tech and attacking their crews. Systems failed and computers crashed on ships throughout the fleet. Firestorms raged out of control through narrow steel corridors, and airlocks opened spontaneously, venting atmosphere and pressure. Some crew went insane just from the uber-esper contact, and attacked each other. Maddened though not possessed, they ran wild, and struggling figures wrestled for control of ships' departments, fighting each other blindly in every compartment and bay. Ship captains had to release security sleepgas into affected areas to restore control. They set up internal force shields to contain the worst damage, and reluctantly retired to higher orbits, where hopefully the uber-espers couldn't reach them. They had done all they could. It was up to the ground forces now.

  On one ship, the Herald, the whole crew went crazy. Everyone from the lowest crewman to the captain, Glenn Lyle, ran mad in the starcruiser. Howling and screaming issued from their comm channels, like damned souls in hell, and no one was surprised when the Herald opened fire on the ships around her. Disrupter cannon blasted away at the shields on already weakened ships. A dozen support ships from Mistworld and Virimonde were swept away in moments. The Herald lashed viciously about her in her madness, threatening every other ship in the fleet. And only Captain Alfred Price was able to do anything about it.

  His ship the Havoc had taken the brunt of the Herald's attack, and was already crippled. Her shields were failing, her hull was holed in several places, and Price no longer had control over his guns. Most of his crew had gone down to the planet below, and of the skeleton crew left behind, most were dead or running for the escape pods. Price had given the order to abandon ship, but still he sat in his command chair on the deserted, burned-out bridge, surrounded by the smoldering remains of gutted consoles, and the bodies of his fallen officers. He had to keep wiping away blood that trickled down into his eyes from the great wound on the side of his head, and it felt like one of his arms was broken. The Herald had done a hell of a job on his ship. Price laughed sharply, and lurched up out of his command chair. He dropped into the navigator's seat, called up all the power left in the engines, and aimed his ship right at the Herald. For once his duty was clear, and he felt li
ke a real captain at last. He just wished there'd been somebody left to see it. He watched the mad ship draw slowly closer on the bridge viewscreen, not even bothering to get out of his way, and he laughed again. He was still laughing when the Havoc crashed head-on into the Herald, amid a coruscation of shattered shields, and both ships rammed into each other and exploded. Locked together, blazing fiercely with discharging energies, the wreckage of the two ships tumbled slowly end over end as they fell towards Logres.

  Captain Vardalos took sole command, and regrouped what was left of the fleet in high orbit. She wished she'd had ship's espers, like in the old days. The uber-esper attack seemed to have stopped for the moment, but she had no way of knowing whether it might start again. No one really knew anything, where the uber-espers were concerned.

  Lewis Deathstalker and Jesamine Flowers fought side by side at the top of the stairs at the entrance to the palace, performing dark wonders with sword and gun. No one had seen such warriors since Owen's time. None of the thralls could touch them, despite the huge numbers. Stuart Lennox was there too, tired but dogged. Grateful as he was for Lewis and Jesamine's presence, he was beginning to find their unending skill and fury just a little spooky. Lewis's sword rose and fell, cut and hacked, moving too fast for the human eye to follow, throwing thrall bodies aside as though they were nothing. Jesamine spun and danced, as fast and deadly as a striking snake, and more beautiful. Death had never looked more glamorous or more certain.

  The dead piled up on every side, forming tall barricades so that the thralls could come up the steps only in narrow files to attack their enemy. They came clambering carelessly over the dead on the steps, their possessed eyes blazing with unquenched fury. They still made noises, but there was nothing human in the sound. They fought with clawed hands, like animals. Nina still opened fire with her very big gun on occasion, when the mob seemed to be pressing especially close, but the energy crystal was running low. She didn't have many shots left. She'd given up on her running commentary. The scenes the floating cameras were broadcasting live said it all. But one question still nagged at her, and in the end she just leaned forward and blurted it out.

  "Lewis! Where's Owen? Is the blessed Owen coming to save us?"

  "No," said Lewis, his sword slicing into a thrall's chest and out again. "Owen's busy elsewhere. You'll just have to settle for me."

  The thralls came surging forward, a solid wave of rage and hatred driving up the steps, desperate to get their hands on Lewis and Jesamine and drag them down. Nina fired her gun into the mass, and it didn't even slow them. Lewis and Jesamine and Stuart held their position at the top of the steps, and the thrall wave shattered against them like the sea against an immovable rock. After everything they'd been through, after all the dangers Lewis and Jesamine had faced, the thralls might be hard work but they weren't scary. And Stuart Lennox, his old pride returned, was once again the chosen Paragon of Virimonde, and he stood proudly beside his hero Lewis, as unmovable as any Maze survivor.

  The pressure of the attack actually lessened, as the uber-espers realized it would take more than force of numbers to bring these three down. And so they pushed their abilities to the limit, and suddenly some of the attacking thralls began to manifest esper abilities. The thralls only lasted a few minutes before burning up inside and out, consumed by the very power they were wielding, but they threw fire and rubble at the defenders, and rocked them with psychic assaults. And yet somehow the attacks never seemed to focus, or find their targets, as though even the uber-espers couldn't quite comprehend what Lewis and Jesamine had become. Stuart just kept his head down, and the psychic assaults collapsed almost as quickly as they'd begun.

  More soldiers came pouring in from the side streets, with warriors from Mistworld and Virimonde. They saw the three standing firm at the entrance to the palace, and the dead piled up before and around them, and the newcomers raised their battle cry.

  Deathstalker! Deathstalker! Deathstalker!

  The new fighters and the thralls crashed together at the foot of the steps, and the square before the palace was quickly full of struggling figures. It was chaos, with people striking out blindly in all directions. And Jesamine Flowers lowered her sword and raised her voice. She sang, and all her Maze power focused through her trained voice. The song drowned out every other sound, rising and rising until it seemed everyone in the city could hear it. It was an old song, from the beginning days of Empire, and perhaps even older than that. Of the joys and responsibilities, the duty and the triumphs of being human. Jesamine's voice rang like steel and silver and silk on the still air, a pure and striking sound, and it seemed like everyone in the city stopped to hear it. Defenders and thralls alike were held where they stood. And then the Ashrai joined in, adding their voices to hers. It was a song of life and blessed humanity, and voices rose all across the city, joining in, until the air itself shook with the power of the song.

  And one by one, and then dozens by dozens, the thralls began to collapse. They fell limply to the ground, and did not rise again, in all the streets and squares and crowded bloody places around the Imperial Palace. The song of Jesamine, and the Ashrai and the people who had come to save a city and a world, had a strength and a force and a power that not even the uber-espers could match. Their minds were forced out of those they'd possessed, and the grounds around the palace were carpeted with the living empty shells of what had once been men and women.

  But Jesamine couldn't sing forever, and eventually even her voice gave out. Without her to lead them, the Ashrai and the people fell out of the song. And so everywhere else in the city, the fighting went on, perhaps a little more savagely than before.

  Brett Random's first instinct had been to bolt for the safety of the Rookery the moment his pinnace landed, and go to ground there until all the fighting was safely over. He knew all kinds of hiding places in the Rookery, where even his oldest friends and enemies wouldn't have been able to find him. But the sheer number of thralls he faced almost immediately made it clear running out was not a viable option. He wouldn't get ten paces on his own. Brett whimpered, swore at everything and everyone, and drew his weapons. Rose Constantine had drawn her weapons even before they'd landed properly. She saw the army of thralls laid out before her, thirsting for her blood, and smiled widely. She hefted her sword once, and went to meet them like a lover.

  Brett and Rose soon ended up fighting back to back, separated from the rest of the fighters they'd come down with. Rose didn't hold back for anyone as she cut a bloody path through the enemy, and Brett was terrified to be separated from her. The tides of battle moved them well away from the Imperial Palace. Brett was forced to call up all the fighting skills he'd learned from Rose, just to survive, and for a while the two of them fought well and finely, cutting down every thrall that came within reach. They were both faster and stronger than any human had a right to be, and none of the thralls could match them for a moment.

  But Brett could still see other soldiers dying, pulled down and torn apart by the thralls, and his borrowed courage and skills were no match for the growing certainty that even with the Wild Rose at his side, eventually the thralls would get him too. There were just too many of them. He couldn't run, and he knew his fighting skills weren't enough on their own, so he reluctantly did the one thing that scared him the most. He deliberately reopened the old mental link between him and Rose, and used his esper compulsion to slam their minds together, so that he could share in all the wild madness that made Rose the unbeatable fighter she was. Their minds opened up and meshed together, all the parts fitting into place, into one larger structure. Rose laughed aloud, delighting at the feel of his mind in hers, and hers in his. They both knew everything about each other, all their skills and secrets. The whole process was finished in a second, and suddenly the thralls were faced with a new threat: two superhuman fighters who fought as one. Equally skilled, equally savage.

  Brett and Rose struck about them with inhuman speed and skill, performing dark wonders of
swordsmanship, piling up the bodies around them, so that the thralls had to climb over the fallen to get at their enemies. The uber-espers looked on Brett and Rose through their proxy eyes, and then had to look away, because the two burned so very brightly and fiercely. The uber-espers called thralls away from other, lesser threats, and commanded them to bring down Brett and Rose at any cost.

  Brett and Rose fought on with their bodies, but their minds were elsewhere. The process they had started was still continuing. Their minds opened up and up, meshing together on every level, merging into one incredible mind. A single mind, male and female, one personality operating in two bodies simultaneously. What the uber-espers imposed, Brett and Rose learned to do voluntarily. The process that Finn's esper drug had begun, and the Madness Maze had continued, now reached its fruition in a single mind that was far more than the sum of its parts. It was a fusion, the best of both minds and the worst, all the knowledge and experience and memories of two people, now combined into one. It was a new thing, and BrettRose woke up smiling.

  Their combined will hit the thralls like a hammer blow, hurling them away dead and broken. BrettRose looked about them, and more thralls blew away under the pressure of their gaze, opening up a wide space around the two bodies with a single mind. The uber-espers lashed out with a telepathic attack focused through their thralls, but it glanced harmlessly away from the new creature's shields. The uber-espers recoiled from this new thing, and retreated, shocked and horrified by stirrings of a long-buried memory. The thralls turned and ran, leaving BrettRose standing alone in an empty square, surrounded by the dead. They slowly lowered their swords and their breathing steadied, their many wounds slowly but steadily healing themselves.