The Red Rising: Golden Son Part 38

"No atomics," Mustang says. "Sensors would have picked them up from a hundred clicks away." She looks out over the land. "They're waiting because they don't have enough men to contest our pa.s.sage through the valley. Or we've caught them flat-footed, which is doubtful. Or they deployed too many men to halt Lorn's advance. Or they've created choke points in the valley. Or they marshal them around the Citadel. Or there's a trap ahead."

Her mind is a machine.

"There's a trap," she says after a moment. "But they are overrelying upon it to stall us while they reallocate men and materiel." She snorts in contempt. "Static defenses without ma.s.sive mobile support haven't been relevant since the Maginot Line."

"But they know we don't want to waste the city or the populace," I say.

"They know that." Mustang adjusts her datapad, examining the map. "Which shrinks our flexibility in tactics."

"Total war is easier," Jupiter grumbles. "Let's use the Grays to lubricate our pa.s.sage, then drop bombs at the walls under the shields. Entry gained."

"It takes a day to break a city, then fifty years to rebuild," Mustang snaps. "You want to sign up to oversee the reconstruction?"

"Do I look like a builder?" Jupiter asks.

"The pa.s.sage to Agea is eighty kilometers wide on average, seven-kilometer-high walls on either side, all farming and agriculture for the city. Bellona likely littered the place with mines. If they had time. We didn't exactly tell them we were coming." Did they have time?

Mustang motions me to the side.

I walk with her away from the rest of my command staff, who roll their eyes at one another. The airy palace halls should remind me of past victory, but all I feel is steep melancholy being here. So many memories. So many lost friends, I think when I see Grays landing near Minerva castle where Pax and I once dueled.

"It's eighty kilometers to the walls from here," she says. "We could make the dash as planned. Just because they didn't contest our landing doesn't mean there's something nefarious afoot." She sees the hesitation in my eyes. "We are here for my father just as much as we're here for the Sovereign. We have to move with pace."

"You're afraid Lorn is going to kill him if he breaks through the southern city walls first," I guess. "Aren't you."

"You know their history."

"I do."

"And do you trust Lorn not to finish an old grudge?"

"Lorn isn't a murderer."

"No. He hurts men who deserve it, like Tactus. My father deserves it as much as any man. So we must hurry. And you must tell the rest of them about the Sovereign."

"Roque found out. Praetorians on the Warchild."

We walk back and I address my small council.

"You know we come here for Augustus, but there's a second reason we press on Agea. The Sovereign is here."

"No s.h.i.t?" Clown mutters.

Rotback scratches his head. "Goryh.e.l.l."

"In the Citadel?" Pebble asks, excitedly nudging anxious Weed with her knee.

"In all probability. We traced Aja here. Residual radiation from the bomb we hit Aja with on Europa. The other a.s.saults are designed to draw manpower away from Agea so that we will have a chance to break through her walls and capture Octavia before her Ash Lord arrives with the full might of her armada." And if the Sons have done their part as Ares promised, we should be able to get into the city without fighting through a hundred thousand armored men and women.

"Is Ca.s.sius in the city?" Sevro asks.

Mustang nods. "We think so."

Sevro smiles.

"If you come upon Ca.s.sius, do not engage him," I say. "Nor Karnus, nor Aja."

"You'd have us run?" Clown asks, insulted.

"I'd have you live," I say. "The prize is the Sovereign. Don't be distracted by revenge, or pride. If we seize her, we are the new power in the Solar System, my friends."

The Howlers share wolfish grins. Sevro squares his shoulders.

"So let's stop picking our b.u.t.ts."

"Couldn't have said it better myself."

Friendly ripWings roar overhead to clear out enemy forces along our path.

With all our powers marshaled, we move through the green canyon. No creeping column. We go fast. Speederbikes have more pace than starSh.e.l.ls. Those Grays and the ones on spiders tear ahead after the ripWings and heavily armored dropships that will deposit men even closer to the wall. Flashes ahead indicate they've detonated mines or the mine killers have done their job. No way to tell. The canyon here is narrowing. Verdant canyon walls tower hugely in the distance to either side, colossal and unreal, like the terrain of a greater, larger race than man. I can't see all my force in so vast a place, just the tip of the spear. We come after the fast-moving Grays, a skipping column of dreadful knights in starSh.e.l.ls of black. The deluge of rain falls even harder. Behind us roll tanks and the infantry columns in their hover skiffs, lightly armored vehicles that can carry a hundred men in a flatbed. They'll deposit them a kilometer from the walls. Lorn's attack from the south will be much similar.

"Drones!" Sevro shouts through the com. A cloud of metal rises toward us from a small depot in the canyon wall to the east. The Howlers streak after the threat, their guns ripping holes in the air. Still, dronefire shreds a squad of flying Obsidians. They plummet to the ground, bodies unrecognizable. We skim over buildings now. Small towns. Resorts. Estates. Granaries. We find ourselves over a lake. See our shadows as lightning flashes above, silhouetting us.

I see the defensive wall now. It falls over the horizon like an iron curtain. Ninety kilometers across, at this stage of the canyon, and nearly two hundred meters high, it nips the lower edge of the shield. Lakes and rivers don't find their terminus here, but instead run beneath the wall through a thick network of durosteel bars that are strong as a ship's hull. It would take a hundred men ten hours to drill their way through those bars.

Most cities do not have walls so ma.s.sive. They cost too much. Agea and Corinth are alone in the quality of their fortifications. We could have come through the tunnels that wend through the belly of Mars and connect every city with their mines, but I didn't want to. There are tactics I must save. And there is an example I must set.

a.s.saults like this are not protracted things. I've seen the histories. They are wild and manic. Technology against static objects always wins, so long as the besieger's resolve never runs dry. Once upon a time, castles were nearly impossible to take through direct a.s.sault on a capable garrison without the price of Pyrrhic victory. So field armies laid siege and starved defenders into submission. Now, no one has the patience.

Agea is a city of twenty million souls, but how many of those will give a lick who wins today? There is no difference between the rule of the Bellona and the rule of the Augustus. Coppers and Silvers will care. But the Reds, the Browns, the Pinks will just watch another master take the chains.

Now they'll see ships fill the sky. Bombs rupture the air. And they will huddle in their public tenements and fear faceless marauders. Since the dawn of man, the taking of a city has been echoed by the screams of rape, theft, and drunken horror. Peerless Scarred do not partake in such savagery. It is not profitable nor in keeping with their tastes. But if one takes a city by force, it is the belief of the Golds that the city and all those therein are now property of the conqueror. If you are strong enough, you deserve the spoils. Some spare the spoils. Some give them to the wolves, feeding cities to their Obsidian and Gray armies as reward for blood spilled.

If I can protect this city of Agea, if I can show them that there is a better breed of man, then just maybe I'll win Agea's heart. Capture it. Protect it. Be loved by those in it as I'm loved by my army. But first I must crack her open.

All along the vast defensive wall, fire ripples over steel. Like tiny flowers fast blooming upon the ninety-kilometer-wide sheer gray wall. Two feint a.s.saults are led to my left and my right. The ripWings there fire railguns, sliding sideways as they pump munitions at the wall. Return fire from the turrets on the walls causes my eardrums to shiver and hum. I want to clutch Mustang's hand. A nod from her stills the terror in me. But only just.

Grays in combat armor rush forward like so many ants. Rocket teams deploy and soon send slithering death into the defenders. It is too much to absorb, like the s.p.a.ce battle above, layers upon layers of activity and counteractivity. Except this has sound.

Mines rip holes in my force. Bellona kill squads slip out of the wall a hundred meters up, flying out in glory-banners waving, gold glistening. Their shields shimmer as they're lanced by weapon fire. I see an eagle banner amid the Bellona, and ready to set myself against it, thinking it must be Ca.s.sius, but Mustang grabs my arm.

"The plan!" Mustang reminds me, pointing to the river. "We'll all die against that wall. The plan."

Hard to remember. Hard to remember all this chaos is a distraction. What matters is the river and the work done in the night by the Sons. If they did it. The river slithers under the wall. One hundred meters wide, and more deep, it already carries corpses toward the city.

I dive into the water. Feel the tension as the current slows, then speeds my path. Fish scatter before us. Odd not feeling the chill. The Howlers move like torpedoes beside me. Then Ragnar is with us along with his group of Obsidians. Jupiter too, all splashing down under water. Mustang is closest to me. I scan the river ahead through the murk we kicked up and find Ares's gift.

There. A hundred meters deep, I see it. If there's one thing Reds can do, it's drill. And the Sons spent the night preparing to give us pa.s.sage into the city. My men will think some elite lurcher squad was sent here before the armada. They will not question how the huge grates were cut, or how the sensors meant to detect damage to the grating were fooled.

"Once more unto the breach," I murmur, as if Roque, Victra, or Tactus could hear me. I activate my gravBoots and move forward.

The pa.s.sage is narrow as it curls beneath the wall near the bottom of the riverbed. We travel two abreast. So I take the best fighter with me, Ragnar, as we move first through the underwater pa.s.sage. My com crackles with news of the battle above. We're losing at the wall.

Ragnar and I clear the tunnel together. I half expected a Bellona ambush, but none comes. The Sons did their job well. We wait on the opposite side of the wall, still submerged, one hundred meters down at the bottom of the riverbed. The rest of my cadre join Ragnar and me-Mustang, Sevro, and the remaining Howlers. Fifty more Golds and three times that many Obsidians and Grays.

I speak into my com when we've all gathered at the bottom of the river. "You know your orders."

Sevro b.u.mps armored fists with me. Mustang does the same. Ragnar salutes with his fist balled and against his heart. Jupiter yawns into his com. Clown, Pebble, and Weed rile up the Howlers, stirring silt at the bottom of the river. The seconds tick by. My razor is looped about my arm. PulseFist in my left hand. Feel the thump of my heart and the chill of the pendant on my chest. Hear the crackle of chaos outside. My h.e.l.ldiver hands ball. My eyes close. Sevro sends up a probe to see if the riverbank is safe.

I'm to find the Sovereign.

Ragnar is to open the gates.

Mustang is to lower the shield so Roque can send reinforcements and we can take the city in one fell swoop. I don't want her to leave me, but I can trust no one else with the task.

Trust. I must trust that she will live, trust that her Obsidians will protect her, and that she will protect herself. There's a weight pressing down on my heart, a fear that she will not come back. It feels like she's already falling into darkness. If she dies, she'll die believing a lie. I promise myself I'll tell her if we survive this. She deserves that much.

Stay alive. Stay alive. All of you, stay alive.

Mustang departs, moving farther downriver, following it for kilometers till she reaches the park near the generators. I watch her go and flounder for something to hold on to, someone to pray to. My father is with me, and so is Eo. I feel them in the beating of my heart.

I close my eyes.

Sevro gathers the probe he sent above and tells me that we are clear, just a girl playing in the mud above us.

"Fight for each other," I say over the com to those at my side in the riverbed. "Or me." We activate our gravBoots and soar through the water, bursting through the surface of the river like inky monsters, our black starSh.e.l.ls dripping as we fly up over the riverbank, muddy from rain that fell before the shields were raised to protect the city. Beneath us, a single unarmored Brown girl stands, ankle deep in the mud. I stare at her from behind my terrible black helm. She should be hiding with her family, not out in a besieged city. Something is wrong.

When she sees us, she s.n.a.t.c.hes from a basket a small globe device. Lightning slashes the sky. Her best dress gathers mud on the hem, turning an even deeper brown.

"Shoot her!" Sevro snarls.

I knock his hand aside. A tree explodes instead. And as I look high above where, on the wall, far out of range of the probe Sevro sent up, and far beyond the limits of the EMP globe the girl carries, perch Bellona knights and their Obsidian retinue. Waiting.

The girl presses a b.u.t.ton on the globe.

And that's when we begin to die.

PART IV.

RUIN.

Rise so high, in mud you lie.

-KARNUS AU BELLONA.

40.

MUD.

The EMP detonates. Sounds like a giant child gasping when p.r.i.c.ked by a needle. Our electronics die. Our gravBoots sputter. StarSh.e.l.l synapses fail, causing the ma.s.sive metal suits to be gripped by gravity. We plummet down. Most fall into the mud of the riverbank. I splash into the water. Sinking. Sinking. Ears popping. Down and down till I lodge into the mud of the river bottom. Hitting hard. Legs buckling under the weight of my starSh.e.l.l. Fall on my back. Can't see my men. Only saw shapes moving over the surface of the water as I fell. Now too deep to see anything except how the river darkens with blood. Occasional lightning flashes silhouette fastsinking bodies.

I can't move. My starSh.e.l.l is too heavy. I lie like a turtle, half stuck in mud at the bottom of the river. Confused. Fear rides in me. It happened so fast. Can't even look to my left or my right to see who is with me. My com is dead. If it weren't, I'd probably hear screams, curses.

This starSh.e.l.l brought me from s.p.a.ce to land. A life raft, a personal castle in the middle of a war. Now it's my coffin.

Heart thudding. Want to scream.

Hyperventilating. Terror traps itself in my chest, tensing me, making me swallow the air, eating it as though it'll give me power to move. Slow down. Slow down. Think. Think. Two bodies sink near me. Heavy in their armor, they fall fast to join the others on the bottom. No grace in death, spilling blood as they go. When the killers finish with those stuck in the mud of the riverbank, they'll come for us down here. But they don't need to. I slow my breathing. Limited oxygen left in the suit. Recycler offline.

Ca.s.sius knew my plan. It had to have been him. Or was I betrayed?

I told no one but the Sons and Sevro and Mustang. None of them could have ratted. He just knew. That b.l.o.o.d.y b.a.s.t.a.r.d. If I could surrender, I would. I'd save the lives of those with me. But I don't have a com.

I jerk my body around, trying to push myself off my back. But I'm too lodged in the mud, and my suit is more than one ton of metal. I can't shed the weight. Can't get the starSh.e.l.l off. I need the electronics for that. I push up with my arms. Nothing. The mud swallows me. Mustang got away. I think. I hope. Will she know we're down here?

I look for Sevro, for Ragnar, my Howlers. Dark shapes around me. I'm dizzy. Slow the b.l.o.o.d.yd.a.m.n breathing. Slow. Think. They won't even bother coming to kill me. I'll die at the bottom of the river, staring up at the surface as one by one, my friends fall down to join me. So alone. Sevro. Ragnar. Pebble. Weed. Clown. They're dead. Dying. Watching the same thing as me. Or maybe they're on the bank as the Bellona walk among the paralyzed suits of armor, killing at will. I want to cry at my impotence.

Stop. Do something. Move.

"Rise so high, in mud you lie." It echoes in memory.

This is the third time they've left me in the muck and mire to die. I grit my teeth till I feel enamel crumble off as I put all my strength into moving my right arm. Slowly, so slowly, it makes an exodus from the sucking pressure of the mud. But it is all that's freed. I won't be able to get off my back. I'm too sunken in. Too heavy in the sh.e.l.l. Then I see it. When the EMP blast detonated, it shut down the electrical synapses, which means the suit froze, but the razor still works, and there it is like a white python around my arm.

It will save your life for the price of a limb. Those are the words they told me when they put the slingBlade in my hand as a boy. Salvation is sacrifice. The razor's impulse is chemical. Its switch will respond to me. It will straighten. But around my arm ... I have to be fast.

Taking a breath, I close my eyes, feeling the toggle against my suit's thumb. I have to be faster than a licking flame. Faster than a pitviper. I flick the switch on.

The razor tightens as it straightens, slicing through metal like a knife through pudding.

Flick the switch off. It stops as it bites through muscle, but not through bone. I yelp at the terrible pain in my forearm. Water rushes through the shredded arm to cool the burning wound.

Then I feel terror. Water. I just opened my suit to water. Idiot. Soon it'll fill. I can already feel it slithering up my neck on the inside. In minutes, two or three, I'll drown. I work my b.l.o.o.d.y forearm arm free of the shredded metal carapace and slide the slack razor off so it floats like a tentacle. Then I activate it again. It forms into a deadly question mark and I angle it toward the other gauntlet.

My suit's filled with water in the torso now. The air is thin. Each breath brings more stars behind my eyes. A sensation of lightness as blood seeps from the wounds on my arm. I can survive a long time holding my breath. But I hyperventilated and now I'm sucking in carbon dioxide. But then my other hand is free of the suit gauntlet. Bare and pale in the weird, dark light. Gentle clouds of blood plume from it.