Chapter 30 - The Devastation Spreads
The mutants continued to help the injured commoners, on the long walk. Nearer the town, they foraged through the harvested fields for overlooked vegetables. They chewed on these while waiting in a deserted building for Kryslie to return. They didn’t seem to mind if the vegetables were over ripe or partly rotted.
Kryslie took the Tymorean commoners to where she knew the underground way to the city began. They only stared around the seemingly empty cellar, but Kryslie saw where a hologram of a solid wall hid a control panel. She went directly to it, stopped the projection and as she punched in an override code to re-enable transmission, saw the familiar shape of a transmitter on a narrow ledge. She took it with a sense of gratitude, for the Guardians must have foreseen her need.
The glowing mauve terminus of the long-range beam became visible.
“Four of you, stand there…” Kryslie directed. She positioned the men, and took a position close to them. “We will arrive in the city. Expect to face weapons when we arrive, but there is no reason to fear.”
She was not wrong, and was pleased to see the guards were alert.
“Your Highness,” the lead guard greeted her. He did not point his weapon down. “Before he left, Elder Fenshin said you would come.”
That the Elder had foreseen her coming there, before she had even decided to do it, proved that the Guardians of Peace were with her.
“These four men need medical attention. I have eight more that I need to bring through. Can I leave them with you?”
“Are you sure they are not infiltrators, your Highness?”
The question, although it implied distrust of her judgement, was understandable.
“I can tell Aeronites from Tymoreans. All of these have white in their eyes. Yes, I am sure. Are you still having trouble with saboteurs?” All six guards nodded.
“Are you looking for the saboteurs?” Kryslie asked.
“Yes, but all the high ranking corpsmen have gone,” one of the guards blurted.
“It may seem like we have taken your protection off you, but what is needed here are people who know their city. It will be easier for you to root out strangers.” Kryslie appealed to their civic pride. “The experienced fighters are needed to fight where the danger to citizens is worst.”
“What is happening?” the lead guard asked. “We have heard nothing for days. Not since the shields went full on.”
“Let me bring the others through, and then I will tell you what I can, briefly. I must get to Dira, and soon.”
“You can take the beam,” another guard reminded her.
Kryslie shook her head. “I have reasons for going overland. I am not alone. Please – time is short.”
When the third trip was complete, Kryslie gave the men a very terse report and listed all the cities already in Aeronite control, and revealing that some of the cities had two kinds of invaders. She stressed the importance of maintaining security and being ever vigilant. Then, without asking permission, she transmitted away.
The mutants were outside, staring at what looked like a rapidly approaching storm front. Kryslie knew what it was - the disturbance from the unbalanced terrain-reforming program. It had caught up to them. Whilst she still could, she drew energy from the aura.
“We have to run,” Kryslie directed. “We will have the storm at our back, and it will be turbulent.”
The mutants could run faster than Tymorean commoners, but not at the speed that Kryslie could maintain if she was alone. Keeping that in mind, Kryslie led the group towards the next nearest village in the direction of her intended destination. She found that the mutants had surprising stamina.
In that village, they encountered Aeronite troops, ones that had never seen mutants before. A short battle was joined, but when the Aeronites saw their beam weapons hit an invisible barrier in front of Kryslie, and the projectiles fired by the mutants and themselves, fly in unpredictable directions – they chose to flee.
Kryslie told the mutants to hold their fire. The Aeronites had been edgy already, then freaked by the mutants and the approaching storm. She sent a mental command after them, and hoped that at least one of them would hear her suggestion to hide in the cellars. There at least, the power beneath the planet’s surface would protect them.
The hours wore on, and the storm front was full of cyclone strength winds and thunder that deafened them and shook the ground. The winds blew them along, and seemed to be trying to pluck them from the ground. Kryslie kept her own connection to the ground, but the mutants seemed not to notice. It was as if they simply made themselves heavier at need.
They stopped at intervals, where the wayside shines, made of stones, protected springs of water. At each stop, Kryslie tried to reach her brother. It seemed that her failure was due to the roiling energies.
Coming onto dark, they reached one of the larger towns and found signs of a battle. Aeronite warriors lay dead on the main street, some with once bleeding cuts and slashes, and others with limbs torn from their torso. The dead faces were fixed in masks of agony. Yet others were blackened heaps of burnt bone and flesh on the stone terraces.
“Stop,” Kryslie said abruptly. She looked around, increasing the perception of her eyes. Buildings showed where bombs and incendiaries had landed. She ran for a closer look and found large areas flattened and destroyed.
“Keep alert,” she warned the mutants. “This is the work of the Ciriot.”
The mutants needed little more direction than that. They were used to hiding from raiding groups of Tymorean guards, Aeronite warriors and other mutant groups. They quickly retreated from the town, back to some outbuildings a mile away.
“This place is Wequinston,” she said aloud. “The people here were quite wealthy. They were miners. There is a lode of silver running near here. The Ciriot probably learnt of it and came to raid it. They might still be around.”
“There be two,” a mutant pointed.
“More behind,” another warned.
“Circled we are,” a third confirmed.
Kryslie whispered to the nearest mutant, “Use knives. Aim where the armour must move.”
The nearest mutant growled nastily and passed on the message.
When the circle closed in, two dozen Ciriot all focussed on her as one of the ruling Tymorean class. When their captives didn’t try to run away, they must have believed the group was too petrified to move. They were wrong. The first one to come at her died for his assumption. Then the fight was on in earnest. The mutants ran at the nearest Ciriot, and thrust knives into the joints of the Ciriot armour, cutting through the tough material, and inflicting damage to muscles and tendons, or reaching deeper into vital organs.
Their opponents went berserk, inflicting damage too, but the mutants were fearless fighters, and Kryslie was capable of holding her own.
Part of her abhorred the killing, but everyone of the Ciriot, would happily torture and kill her and all of those with her. They were vermin.
One by one, the Ciriot went down, with arms and legs made useless, and a knife in the throat to finish them.
Only one of the mutants died, and one received a bad wound. He kept pressure on his leg wound until Kryslie came to him and used her power to start the wound healing.
“Princess fight like man,” the mutants muttered, in admiration. “Glad we, friend you are.”
Kryslie gave them a wry smile. “Let’s leave. I don’t want to meet any more. We will keep going.”
There had been more, who had seen what had happened to their fellows, and decided to keep out of sight and send messages on ahead of them.
Flying craft, sounding like thumping thudding machines, flew above them, shining lights down to the ground in an attempt to locate them. Whenever Kryslie heard them coming, she moved away from the road, and used whatever cover she could see to confuse the hunters. Sometimes she had to tell the mutants to hunch up like rocks, for there was no cover at all.
When the search did not find them, the Ciriot craft began to bomb the road behind and in front of them. Kryslie immediately left the stone paved road and moved to the edge of the vegetation beside the road. Sometimes there were trees, sometimes only bushes, and finally, they began to run across country, with Kryslie following an internal prompting in her choice of direction.
“Surprised, me, that see you they don’t,” the mutant named Hoppa, commented as they continued to run. “Glow you do, like light in empty gourd fruit.”
Kryslie glanced at her arm and saw what he meant. She could not explain it, except that she felt filled with the aura, and in the past when she held more energy than enough – her hands had glowed.
“See it not,” Kryslie answered him in the mutant’s dialect. “Power of Royalty not for likes of Ciriot.”
“Us privileged,” Hoppa chuckled. “Safe you keep us.”
“I hope so,” Kryslie promised. “With the Guardians help, I will.”
“Guardians never help us before,” Hoppa told her. “Make them you will?”
“You are loyal to this world, even if you don’t like my father and the other Governors. The Guardians know that. The Ciriot defile our world and so they must die.”
“Make soon,” Hoppa growled. “Go now, where to?”
“I know of some old mine works. We should be able to rest there for a time.”
They rested there for an hour, in an underground chamber that was formed by excavating dirt from between two layers of rock. But even down there, they could still hear the demented howling of the wind. Kryslie felt the planet protesting, as a kind of phantom pain in her own body.
Being underground though, she was close to the untainted aura and this refreshed her, and seemed to be rushing into her and trying to expand her out of the confines of her mortal body. She thanked the presence of the mutants with her, for they reminded her of who she was and where she needed to be.
Her companions found stored supplies and pure water and feasted on these to regain their strength. Kryslie ate only a little despite the insistence of the mutants. She didn’t need to get energy from food.
When they began to run again, it was under a dark sky full of clashing colours. Twice they heard flights of aircraft flying over them, once Ciriot, once Aeronite.
Sometime during that night, they came to a bloody battlefield. Tymorean and Aeronite dead lay side by side. Her companions suddenly veered away. Kryslie felt an unpleasant tingling on her skin.
“Active dust,” Hoppa said, pulling on her arm. “Very bad. Us mutants change unpredictable - Royal may die.”
“Then you stay clear. I must learn who these warriors were.”
Kryslie felt the aura still strong in her and trusted that the nuclear effects would not harm her. She needed to find a communicator, if there was one that still worked. Her eyes, adjusted for the dark, also saw the active glow. She saw well enough in the dark, to memorise faces and name some of the dead. The leader of this group had been Tennin Reslic. One of the President’s lesser cousins.
In him, Kryslie felt a flicker of life and she knelt down beside him and shared some of her energy with him.
The eyes opened. “Take what you need, daughter of the light. I have waited for you to come; now I am at peace.”
Life went from Tennin’s eyes. Kryslie felt a fleeting touch, as of the Guardians, and took his commset and weapons.
She rejoined her companions where they waited beyond the area of death.
“The dark eyed ones did this not,” Hoppa said, his voice full of anger. “Poison this is. Land dead now.”
“We have to keep going,” Kryslie directed. Her own anger at the wanton destruction accompanying a plea to the Guardians for a means to purify and revitalise the land.
Coming towards Vega, having run fifty miles during the night, Kryslie finally felt the touch of her brother’s mind, and her heart and spirits lifted. “Tymos, Llaimos, I am coming.”
She felt them want to know where she was and what was happening. She had little time to reply, for the Ciriot ships had found them again and were trying to hit them with beam and projectile weapons.
“The world is chaos. The winds are making the ground quake. We dare not transmit. We are in the open, the Ciriot are attacking again, but they can’t touch me.”
She ran in a zigzagging pattern and went on to think at her brother, “The Aeronites had a machine, meant to make this world suitable for their kind. The Ciriot found it, meddled with the controls, and then activated it. The shockwave from the energy warp is spreading.”
“Where are you?” her brother’s thought came at her.
“Near Vega. We are running for the city. Warn them to raise the edge of the shield on my command. I promised to protect those with me. The Ciriot are still trying to kill us.”
As they approached the shield, a ground force of armoured Aeronites attacked.
“Go, you do. Stop these we will,” Hoppa told her, as he and the other mutants turned and fought off the aliens.
Kryslie slowed her pace and stopped close to the boundary of the shield. Through it, she saw men waiting for her command, but she turned her back on the city and studied the fighting. The mutants were determined to protect her; the Aeronites were desperate to get to a place of safety. She knew they would not be able to survive in the unholy chaos without going insane.
In a loud voice, amplified by her power, Kryslie called out, “Everyone, Cease fighting!”
All the battling figures stopped in mid action.
Kryslie walked back to the fighters and said, “This is wrong!”
The mutants stepped back from their opponents, but were ready to protect her if the Aeronites tried to attack again.
The troop leader came to face off with Kryslie. “If those city peasants won’t let us in, we won’t let you in,” he threatened. “You can take the risk of being killed by those strafing us too. You Tymorean Royals deserve to die anyway.”
“You can hardly blame the city folk for denying you entry, considering what your Warlords want you to do. They have no wish to be enslaved by Aeronite warriors,” Kryslie countered. “In the cities taken over by Aeronites, the people have been dying in large numbers.”
“Then they are fools and deserve it. We offer them a better life than they have under the despotic rule of the Royals.” The leader truly believed what he was saying.
Kryslie considered how to handle the man. “Tymoreans are not in the attacking aircraft.”
“Do you think me stupid? My own people would not be attacking us.”
“I did not say they were. The Ciriot have been trying to kill me too,” Kryslie told him.
“Ciriot? They are our allies, but they are not here!”
The other Aeronites began to mutter uneasily.
“Then, if they are your allies, why don’t you ask them to rescue you?” Kryslie suggested in a perfectly even tone. She could hear the thumping of the Ciriot aircraft, coming back for another attack. “They will be back in a few minutes.”
The troop leader reached out to grab Kryslie, but his arm was gripped in a vice like hold.
“If you want my protection,” Kryslie told him. “Then you will order your warriors to disarm. I will allow you to enter the city, but once inside you must surrender to the city guards.”
The thumping engine noise was getting louder.
“How do I know you won’t kill us?” the leader asked, looking for the attack craft.
“Because I do not hate you enough to want you dead,” Kryslie told them. “You are merely obeying orders, and your people are as much victims in this war as the Tymoreans are. Will you disarm and surrender to me?”
The first of the next round of bombs fell; close enough to send a shower of dirt and tree fragments over the whole group.
“Yes!” the troop leader agreed, and his men dropped weapons and ran to the shield. Kryslie trotted with them, the mutants collected the weapons and sprinted after her.
“Open the shield!” she yelled. The glow disappeared from ground level to man height, for only the time it took for the group to enter.
“Hold it there!” a firm voice ordered.
Kryslie slowed and found the owner of the voice, the one in charge of the men with weapons aimed at them.
“Your highness…are you alright?”
“Are you Guard leader Maston?” Kryslie asked.
“No, Mam, Guard second Farris, acting Guard leader. I was not told to expect mutants and our enemies.”
“No, I apologise. My communicator is not working well. However, the mutants are my friends, and the Aeronite warriors have surrendered to me,” Kryslie stated. She could see Farris about to object.
“Guard Second Farris, I do not have the time to argue with you. As Heir Designate to His Majesty, Governor Tymoros, I out rank you. I also have the authority to act in their name. So you will listen to the conditions that I give to these former enemies, and you will ensure all the city folk abide by their part.”
“Yes, Mam,” Farris agreed stiffly.
Kryslie turned to the Aeronites standing in a huddle, and looking frightened. The ground was shaking with the intensity of the bombing occurring outside the shield.
“You voluntarily surrendered to me. I am now placing you in the aegis of the guards of this city. If you wish to earn my gratitude and safe passage back to your base-ship, you must abide by these conditions…”
“You will send us out again in this? We cannot fly to our ships…”
“If you will not listen, I will simply have you thrown into the nearest cellar,” Kryslie said, letting her impatience show. “You will be tagged so that everyone will know you are offenders on parole. Should you begin fighting, perform acts of sabotage, harm anyone with in this city, your freedom of movement will be curtailed. You will work with the people of the city to repair the damage caused by those of your kind that have infiltrated here. It would be to your advantage to convince those spies and saboteurs to cease their activities and surrender as well. I am sure you do not want to have the shield come down just as a bomb lands near you.”
“Why should they trust your word,” the leader snarled.
“I personally do not care what you think of me,” Kryslie told him. “And perhaps you will not believe that the only ones of your kind that I have an issue with are your Warlords. Your people were once Tymorean, and as such, I believe you deserve help. I do not believe you deserve to die by Ciriot means. I have seen them kill Aeronites as well as Tymoreans.”
Kryslie turned to Farris. “If these Aeronites help you with vital works, and do not act against you they are to be treated well. If they do not, you may incarcerate them. Any others that surrender are to be treated as these, and also made to help undo their damage.”
“You will return to remove them?” Farris asked.
“That is my intention,” Kryslie admitted. “But I must return to Dira, quickly.”
“What of those…mutants?” Farris said with fearful distaste.
“They are loyal Tymoreans,” Kryslie said. “And I have said they are my friends. We would all appreciate something to drink. We have fifty miles of road dust in out mouths.”
Farris suddenly remembered protocol and sent some of his men to bring refreshments and others to take the Aeronites to a temporary holding room, so they could be tagged.
Kryslie used the moment of peace to send word to her brother. She sensed that waiting to hear from her again had been almost unbearable. She told him quickly that she was in Vega, and of the Aeronites that had attacked them. As she mentioned the agreement she had made, she heard a loud explosion, and saw two robed figures running towards her. Abruptly, she terminated contact with her brother and drew a weapon.
“Hoppa! Ciriot! How did they get in?”
Kryslie gave orders to the remaining guards, and heard them summon reinforcements. Guards further from Kryslie challenged the two figures, but neither stopped or heeded the weapon fire hitting them. They simply fired back at those who had fired at them.
Farris tried to insist that Kryslie moved to safety, but she did not. She used the practiced movements of the guards to distract the Ciriot, and moved to cover so as to approach them from the side.
Having seen that the robed figures were hostile, Farris proved he was a skilled leader. Kryslie saw he had the situation in hand, and gestured to the mutants to follow her and seek for others. In her mind was the idea that the Ciriot travelled in packs of six.
She was correct. Her instinct led her to a shadowed doorway. The remaining four Ciriot were not cloaked, and did not have time to regret their lack of caution. Still, they fought furiously, and two of the mutants received fatal injuries.
When Farris found her, after killing the first two Ciriot, he stared in disbelief as Kryslie stood up from examining the two she had personally killed. She wiped off purplish blood on the dark brown rough spun cape of the nearest.
“What happened here?” Farris asked.
“Ciriot travel in packs of six. I terminated these. Please have the promised refreshments sent to the council building, and if you could arrange it, I need a change of clothes. Guard issue, nothing fancy. After a break, I will travel by beam to Kyr. I would appreciate it if you would warn the council of Kyr that I will be coming and that I have my mutant allies with me. I insist that you perform death rites for Thaddeus and Toltar.”
Farris answered in the affirmative, but he was looking at her with both shock and respect. “I will see to it personally. We found explosives and vials of some substance on the two we killed. Are there likely to be more?”
“I will do a quick reconnaissance before I come to the council building,” Kryslie promised.
“Your highness that is not a job for…”
“Farris, do what I told you to do. This is my business.”
Without apology, Kryslie trotted off, following the glowing trail as it zigzagged around buildings and finally seemed to go into the shield.
“How you find trail,” Hoppa asked.
“Never mind,” Kryslie told him. “These must have snuck in when the shield went up to let us in. I can see no sign of others going a different way. Come on. I need to get to Dira.”
Kryslie was glad of the drink, but did not delay her departure any longer than she needed to. She had explained to the mutants how they were to get to Kyr, and they professed to be honoured. They knew to expect a similar welcome in the next city, although Hoppa had already explained. “City folk like us not. Think our looks will catch to them. Like that always.”
“For that, I am sorry,” Kryslie apologised. “But even I cannot change all minds.”
“Fault not yours,” Hoppa assured her. “Friend to us you are. Power filled we are – with you.”
Kryslie smiled wryly, “People are scared.”
“Mutants scared too,” Hoppa agreed. “But we have chance to fight.”