The Promise of the Child

Part 4 (updated daily)

His squad took point, crowding past him to the edges of the doorway to hurl tiny Oxel scouts. The fairylike Prism species whistled to each other and scampered in, their bulky flight-suits clinking with dangling bomblets. As he waited, Tzolz looked back through the dripping chasm at the vacuum-suited Lacaille knight still sitting in the open hatch of the furthest craft, the heavy helmet making any expression unreadable. Rusted pipes and chunks of material still dropped like snow into the breach and Tzolz backed further into the doorway.

A series of detonations signalled the depths of the Oxel's explorations and he turned quickly, shaking the moisture from the weapon and hoisting it to his shoulder. Ahead, the dark and smoky corridor had been widened, doorways to adjoining chambers blown in by the tiny scouts, and he diverted two teams in either direction with swift hand movements, taking the central passage himself with three more. Their spies had indicated that the Shell was frequently moved for its security, resting at irregular intervals in an iridium-lined chamber in the guts of the structure. If the agents valued their skins they'd have made their way out of the country to the harbour at Untmouth by now, knowing full well what awaited those who remained in the fortress and the fallow lands surrounding it. Tzolz flicked his lights on, illuminating the rest of the corridor with a caustic white glare that sent shadows bouncing across bare stone walls and elaborate hanging braziers. At the end of the section of corridor there began a succession of spiral ramps once necessary for vehicular access, one of which would take them down into the lower levels. After three ramps they would hit a shaft, the spine of the fortress, where a drilling team was to meet them.

He waited, holding up a gnarled finger. Crude microphones on his breastplate tasted the silence, hearing the distant explorations of his five other teams as they swarmed through the fortress, the grumble of detonations and the groaning of the structure all around them adding to the distant moan of the wind through the chasm at their backs. No conversation between his units was permitted, and so at last he heard them, whispering in their little high-pitched voices. Tzolz allowed himself ten more seconds, finger still raised, understanding Vulgar more than adequately. He pointed slowly at the leftmost opening of the many-branched corridor ahead of them and his three mercenaries converged on it, their thin shadows looming like skeletons across the wall. At the edge of the doorway he turned off his lights and listened to the darkness, the voices – inaudible to a normal Prism ear – louder in his helmet now. He knew exactly where they were.

He unclipped a bomblet from a canister on the belt of his suit, pulling the firing pin and counting, then stooped and rolled it swiftly down the spiral ramp. A few seconds later, one of the voices hesitated, obviously turning as its volume fluctuated, and Tzolz muffled his auditory channel. The blast shook the spiral passageway, shrapnel spinning and clattering from the entrance. Tzolz flicked on his lights and dashed through the curling smoke, leaping the last of the passage and landing among the disoriented Vulgar platoon, the small figures illuminated harshly in his strobing gaze. He rammed his rifle's bayonet into the closest Vulgar, spinning and knocking an armoured elbow into another's head. Their screams filled his muffled earpiece, the little creatures realising at last what he was, and he snarled inside his helmet, pulling the bayonet free and scything it through another. They were poorly equipped and shoddily dressed despite being caught at home, and Tzolz began to wonder if he might be able to reach his quarry long before the fleet caught up to his small force. He aimed quickly and put a bullet through one more, his troops crouching at the foot of the ramp and firing into the flickering blackness. When the screams had stopped, he leaned against the wall, breathing quickly, his lights taking in the heaped bodies at their feet. His squad began searching the defenders' elaborate but ill-armoured clothes, long, dark fingers investigating pockets and flaps, taking what valuables and compatible ammunition they could find.

Tzolz bent to examine one of the Vulgar, his lights blazing across the pale elfin face. It coughed, retching once, and then tried to turn its head away from the light. He caught its chin with one hand, squeezing its jowls together, and turned it back to him, sliding up his reinforced faceplate. The small Vulgar's eyes widened as they focused on him, pupils shrunk to pinpoints in the glare. Tzolz looked into the creature's eyes as its broken body attempted to struggle, then back to his team, who were ready to continue. He slid the palm of his three-fingered hand over its face, forced his thumb into one of its eyes and pushed, watching the white flesh depress until it gouted blood. With a wet crack, the Vulgar's skull crumpled in his hand and its movements ceased.

Venturing further into the fortress, the tunnels below became more lived-in, with tapestries cloaking the walls and dividing living spaces, the homely smells of sour ale and poorly maintained plumbing adding to the sense of warmth in the dim light. Tzolz removed his helmet, tossing it onto a loaded dining table in some servants' quarters, and loosened his chest-plating. Like many of his team, his genitals were partially exposed, and the removal of his armour only served to make him look more gangly and naked. Such things mattered not to his breed, one of the wilder, more basic Prism races that dared to delve into the Firmament, and the added bulk would only slow him down from here on in. A small timepiece set into his shoulder-plating told him they had less than an hour before battleships stationed in the inland sea would be within range of the fortress and his means of escape. He looked around the large dining hall once more as he pulled on his gauntlets, taking in the dimly glowing logs in the hearth, some scattered to smoke on the tiles by the force of his arrival, and the shelves stacked with bottles and jars, small squealing animals in cages and stinking yeasty cheeses. The Oxel scouts were already raiding the larders, gorging themselves on the hanging lengths of dried, salted meats, but his squad stood around the room still as statues, their thin faces watching him intently in the firelight. There was only one thing his mercenaries really liked to eat, and they would soon have it.