It wasn't until he flew low over the gardens, strafing the bushes, that they dove for cover behind walls or in the Calanya. He came around again and riddled their riderless riders into oblivion.
He wasted several moments looking for the runner's neutrino transmitter before he realized the Cobans had yet to develop the technology. But he understood the screen with moving Quis dice; it was the Coban equivalent of radar.
That realization saved his life. In the same instant he interpreted the Quis pattern, it showed a Varz rider coming at him from behind. Kelric threw his rider into a roll and then a flat turn, a desperation move to evade the oncoming gunfire. Then he pulled into a steep climb.
The craft passed only a few hundred meters from him, at an angle that allowed neither of them a good shot. Emblazoned on its hull was the Varz clawcat and the name Nightrider, followed by a Quis symbol for resurrection. Nightrider Resurrected.
Kelric kept climbing, taking advantage of his better speed. Or what he thought was his better speed. At the lower altitude Nightrider had made such a clumsy turn that Kelric wondered if the craft was damaged, but as they climbed Nightrider gained on him.
As soon as Kelric realized he faced a fighter better equipped than his for high altitudes he rolled over his runner, sky and horizon careening past his windshield until he was upside down He pulled on the stick and the rider arced through the air in a reversed half loop, spots dancing in his vision from the g-forces.
The loop brought him down on the tail of his pursuer But he had only flown a rider once hadn't piloted anything for sixteen years, and had never flown a craft without a computer. He misjudged and came out to Nightrider's port side, his gunfire riddling its wings. Nightrider spread its slats like giant mechanical feathers, letting most of the gunfire pass through them instead of hitting solid material.
They were farther out now, above the Teotecs. Nightrider came at him again, in a half loop to reverse its course. Still above the Varz rider, though just barely, Kelric went up in a half loop as well. At the top, he flipped his runner over and went into another half loop. The g-forces nearly knocked him out, but his biomech took over and moved his hands, rolling the rider right side up at the top.
The Varz craft followed on the first loop, but when it tried to reverse direction and chase him into the second, it stalled. As the craft floundered, losing speed, Kelric went into a dive, coming in on its tail. Dead-on target this time, he fired with everything he had—and Nightrider exploded in a black and orange billow of heated gases and flame.
Kelric stared after the remains of Nightrider as they showered out of the sky. Drawing in a breath, he saluted his fallen opponent. Then, adrenaline still pounding, he took his rider south, out over the Teotecs.
Gradually, as Karn disappeared in the mountains behind him, the pound of his heart eased, calmed, quieted. Finally he absorbed what had happened.
He was free.
45
Queen's Fire
The ruins of the Atrium lay open to the sky. Ixpar stood at their edge, staring at the destruction, the laser carbine hanging from her hand. The Varz riders that destroyed the command center below the Atrium had been too accurate for luck; they must have known its location.
"Ixpar." Borj beckoned from a side hall. "I found a working com."
She went over to it. "Ixpar here."
"Manager Karn!" Tal shouted. "You're alive!"
"Where are you?" Ixpar asked.
Tal spoke in a calmer voice. "In the Lower Levels, in generator room six, We've set up here the best-we can. Most everyone from the command center made it here. But we can't find Borj."
"She's with me. What's the situation?"
"The Varz air units are withdrawing."
Considering how Varz had so far pulverized Karn, they had no reason to retreat. "Any reports of foot soldiers?"
"From everywhere. They're swarming all over the city."
Ixpar grimaced. So. Varz was moving in to occupy Karn. Intact, even partially, it was a far greater prize than reduced to rubble. "Tal, have units posted on the Estate perimeter. I'll send Borj to coordinate it. We have to hold the Estate."
"Understood, ma'am."
When Ixpar reached the generator room, she found Tal taking reports: casualty lists, damage, sightings of Varz soldiers. No word from Elder Solan, but that might not mean anything; the Memory had no com. She had to believe that silent meant safe.
"Manager Karn," Tal said. "Message from Commander Borj."
She leaned over the com. "Ixpar here."
Borj spoke flatly. "The Haka fleet is here. And it's big."
Ixpar sank into the chair behind her. Karn's last hopes had just gone up like chaff under a firebomb. "Are they landing soldiers?"
"Actually, no." Borj paused. "It's odd."
"Odd how?"
"Their air force is holding over the mountains. No, wait—one rider just broke away. It's headed for the Estate."
Ixpar glanced at Tal. "Have that rider escorted to the Calanya parks."
Borj spoke over the com. "It could be a trick."
"I have to trust my instincts on this one, Borj." Ixpar turned back to Tal. "Have two octets meet me in the Calanya parks."
The aide stared at her. "You can't go out there."
"This is something only I can do."
When Ixpar reached the Calanya parks, she saw a trio of Karn fighters circling in the sky. On a lawn below, Karn soldiers surrounded a Haka rider. Ixpar jogged toward them, past the wreckage of several riders near where she had left the runner. Whoever destroyed the Varz warcraft had apparently caught her runner as well.
When Ixpar stopped in front of the Haka rider, its hatch opened and a Haka aide jumped to the ground. "Manager Karn." She bowed deeply. "We request a pattern of truce."
It was an ancient request, coming from the Old Age. The pattern of truce: a temporary ceasing of hostilities long enough for foes to negotiate.
"Pattern granted" Ixpar said. She had no doubt the rider carried a diplomat to negotiate Jimorla Haka's release. They had wasted their time. She had no intention of giving up the boy. He was all that stood between Karn and defeat.
Rashiva Haka appeared in the hatchway.
Ixpar stared at the Manager. Had she lost her-senses, coming onto hostile territory during a battle?
The desert queen jumped to the ground. "Manager Karn."
Ixpar nodded. "Manager Haka."
Rashiva didn't bother with formalities. "My son?"
"He's safe."
"Take me as your hostage," Rashiva said. "Let Jimorla go."
It was a more than reasonable exchange. But Ixpar didn't dare risk unsealing the Memory in the midst of battle. "I can't do that."
Rashiva stiffened. "If he isn't released within an hour, my fleet has orders to join Varz. You know Karn will have no chance then. Let him go."
"You better give your people new orders," Ixpar said. "Because neither you nor Jimorla are going anywhere."
For a long moment Rashiva looked at her. Then she said, "To stop their attack I must talk to them."
"You can do that from the Estate." This had to be a trick. Rashiva would never let herself be captured so easily. Ixpar turned to a Karn captain. "Make sure this craft vacates the parks." She tilted her head toward the Haka aide. "She goes with it."
The aide said. nothing. Ixpar had seen the fierce loyalty of Rashiva's staff to their Manager. If this one let Rashiva be taken so easily, she had been ordered to do it. Why?
Ixpar considered Rashiva. Then she gestured as if she were ushering the Manager to a Council function rather than making her a prisoner of war.
Rashiva came quietly. Surrounded by Karn warriors, she and Ixpar crossed the parks to the Estate. At the entrance to the Lower Levels, Rashiva paused. She stood dark and proud, watching her captor with an unfathomable gaze. "Ixpar."
"Yes?"
"Jimorla's father—?" Rashiva stopped, her silence broken by the distant sounds of artillery.
Then
Ixpar understood. A promise bound Rashiva, one as strong as her allegiance to Varz. In return for your Oath. With those words, she had sworn to Kelric a -vow she still honored. Incredible as it was, Rashiva apparently believed protecting Kelric meant keeping him free of Avtac. The Haka Manager let herself be captured so her fleet could refuse to fight without losing honor.
"Sevtar is with his son Jimorla," Ixpar said.
Rashiva nodded. "Thank you."
After the octet took Rashiva down to the Lower Levels, Ixpar activated a wall com.
"Tal here," a voice said.
"This is Manager Karn. An octet is bringing Manager Haka down to you. Warn all units. No one is to fire on them."
"Then it's true? Manager Haka really is our prisoner?"
Ixpar blinked. "You already knew?"
"We intercepted a signal between Haka and Varz" Tal said "Varz wanted to know what's going on Haka said they couldn't do anything because you had their Manager."
Let Avtac puzzle that one out. "I'm coming back down—"
Ixpar never had a chance to finish. A blast shook the hall, caving in the entrance to the Lower Levels and knocking her to her knees. Shielding her face with her arm, she squinted into the dust and saw an Ahkah octet striding toward her. Helmets protected most of the warriors but those with bare faces wore looks of triumph, like hunters who had trapped the ultimate prey.
"Take her alive," someone ordered.
I refuse to be Avtac's prize, Ixpar thought. Then she hefted up the laser carbine and fired.
In the confined hall the light was blinding, the heat tremendous. When her vision cleared she saw only fused slag where a moment before a corridor full of warriors had stood. Stunned and nauseous, she struggled to her feet. When she heard the rumble of boots nearby and voices with Ahkah accents, she slung the carbine over her shoulder and took off in a limping run, wincing from the burns on her legs.
Ixpar lost the soldiers in a maze of halls she knew like a well-worn Quis pattern. Smoke filled the corridors. Like most Estates, Karn had been built primarily from stone, which meant the fires came from furnishings, drapes, and paneling as flames gutted her home.
Varz had penetrated the Estate defenses. Given that Karn soldiers were armed with rifles, a few even with machine guns, either the Varz troops were better trained or else outnumbered hers. Based on what Jevrin and her Quis spies had picked up about Varz and its allies, she knew Karn had the edge in military strategy, which meant Varz took its advantage in numbers.
She came across evidence of fighting: bullet-ridden walls, smashed statuary, broken windows. More sobering were the corpses, two from her own troops and one from Varz. She knelt next to them, silent, in honor of the lives they had given up.
Then she ran on, looking for an unblocked entrance to the Lower Levels. What she finally found was an operational com. She smacked her hand against its switch. "Tal?"
Commander Borj's voice snapped out. "Winds above, Ixpar, where are you?"
"Near the Hall of Teotec. What's the situation?"
"Anthoni got a message through," Borj said. "They completed the evacuation before Varz broke our defenses. The people are safe. In the city, the worst damage is to the airfield, factories, and guild warehouses."
"What about Haka?"
"Still holding in the mountains."
"Any word of the Calanya?"
"Nothing—what?" Borj paused. "Tal is getting a message from the Varz fleet."
Smoke seeped into the alcove and swirled about Ixpar's legs. "What message?"
Tal answered. "It's for you. It reads: 'If you' surrender immediately and release Manager Haka, we will spare Karn. Refuse and we will raze your city. Be reasonable, Ixpar. You have lost. Avtac Varz.' "
Ixpar grimaced. "Borj, how much longer can we hold out?"
"Our forces have gradually been pushed back. The Lower Levels haven't been breached, but it won't be long. The rest of our defenses are gone. The Varz ranks are depleted, but ours are even worse." Borj made a frustrated noise. "If we just had fresh troops and riders we could beat them back."
"Then find fresh troops and riders."
"We don't have them."
Ixpar clenched her fists. "Avtac can't have taken Karn."
"She must have used every rider she had," Borj said. "Took them off the blockade, off Ahkah, even off Varz. She gambled—risked leaving her flank undefended and threw everything she had at us And she won."
"She hasn't won yet."
"Ixpar, we have no choice. We must surrender"
"While I live," Ixpar said, "I will never yield to Varz."
"Then you condemn Karn to destruction. We don't even have enough riders left to protect the evacuees."
No. Ixpar wanted to shout the word. Yet if she refused to surrender, a people and a city with a history over two millennia old would be destroyed in one day.
It felt like ages before she finally responded though she knew it was only seconds. "Very well. Ask for terms of surrender."
Tal answered in a subdued voice. "Yhee, ma'am."
Quietly she said, "Refuse to tell them what happened to me. When they pressure you, 'give in' and reveal that I escaped the Estate."
"We'll make it believable," Borj said. Quietly she added, "And you had better make it truth. Fast."
"Yes." Ixpar took a breath. "Out."
She switched off the com and limped into the smoky hall. Borj was right; she had to get off the Estate. Although Avtac apparently gave orders to take her alive, Ixpar had no doubt the Minister intended to have her executed, in public, for all to see.
Boots sounded nearby. Ixpar slipped into an alcove just before a Varz octet entered the hallway. After that, it became a deadly game of hide and run as she evaded the troops that had come to secure her Estate. At one point she stood trapped behind a door, a handspan away from a Varz captain talking on com. What she heard made her teeth clench: Karn had fallen. Estate, city, and citizens were now secured. Soon the conquering Minister would come to take possession of her prize.
After the captain left the alcove, Ixpar slipped into it and scraped her fingers along the seam where one wall met the floor. She found the niche she sought and pushed its switch. A clink of pins answered from within the stone, just as it had done all those years ago when, as a child, she searched out the secret tunnels of the Estate, never knowing that game would someday save her life.
Without a torch, Ixpar had to feel her way in the dark. At the end of the tunnel she nudged open its stone door, verifying the area was clear. Then she walked out onto a balcony filled with amberwood chairs. The Hall of Teotec lay below her, intact.
Heat puffed across her back. Turning, she saw flames advancing toward her across the wooden balcony. What in a dice cheater's hell was going on? According to what she had heard from the Varz captain, the Estate had been made safe for occupation, its fires doused.
As the flames pushed forward, she backed into the balcony rail. Behind her, she heard the great double doors in the Hall open. She spun around to see a Varz octet striding between the great portals. Her first thought was that she was trapped; she could neither go down into the Hall now nor retreat through the flames.
Then she saw who strode among the guards.
Avtac.
That was when Ixpar knew beyond a doubt that something had gone wrong. Avtac would never have walked into a hall she knew was burning, nor have come on the Estate if her forces believed any danger existed, either from fires or enemy warrior queens.
You haven't won yet, she thought to Avtac. As long as I am free, you can never rest. I will raise a new army to destroy you.
Ixpar raised her carbine and fired at the ruler of Coba.
The instant she moved, the Varz octet saw her and lunged toward Avtac. The blazing flash of the carbine filled her Vision, and when her sight cleared, she saw flames roaring in the Hall of Teotec, consuming tapestries, furniture, and the glossy wood paneling on its stone walls. Timbers supporting the balcony were burning as well, list
ing to one side—
And the entire balcony, tore away from the wall.
Ixpar fell, aware of a lurid glare on all sides. For one instant she was floating. Then she smashed into the Opal Table. and it cracked in two with a great moan of burning wood. She struck the floor with agonizing force, pain searing her arms, back, legs, especially her thigh where a burning shard gashed it. Struggling to breathe, she lurched to her feet and stumbled toward the Calanya dais. Made from bare stone, it was almost the only place in the Hall that wasn't burning.
"Hold," a voice commanded.
She froze. Above her on the dais, Zecha Varz stood wreathed in smoke, her rifle aimed at Ixpar's head.
Ixpar lunged at the dais, wrenching her body around in midair. The blast of a gunshot cracked so close that she felt it crease her arm. Then she slammed into Zecha and they fell to the ground, wrestling for the gun, rolling over and over on the dais, Zecha under her, on top, under, on top. They both had the rifle now, each gripping its stock, straining to gain control of the weapon pressed tight between their bodies.
As they wrenched the gun around, Ixpar worked her finger onto the trigger. She pulled it and the rifle barked, its recoil shoveling the stock into her hip.
Zecha swore, grabbing her knee Then she gave a giant heave and yanked the gun out of Ixpar's hands. The captain scrambled to her feet but when she tried to stand her leg crumpled and she lurched forward, teetering on the edge of the dais.
Then she fell.
Like a toppling pole, Zecha pitched down the steps and rolled into the inferno that had been the Opal Table. Engulfed by fire, she screamed and thrashed while her clothes burned. As Ixpar staggered to the edge of the dais, heat slammed her in waves. Stumbling on her injured leg, she fell to her knees, sweat pouring down her face while flames roared all around her.
Zecha rolled across the floor and out of the blaze on the far side of the Hall, into a tiled area the fire couldn't reach. Her movements had smothered the flames, but she lay still, silent and crumpled, a disturbing contrast to her previous frenzied motion.