Shadow Fall (The Shadow Saga) (50 page)

“What of Justus, sir?” she asked.

Sullivan hesitated for a moment, and then spoke with a hollow voice, “You have my leave to proceed, Chief Aurora. Send that rebel into the hornet’s nest and tell him to bring the whole thing crashing down.”

She nodded and left to carry out his orders. However, no sooner had she gone than another came to replace her—the very last man he wanted to see. Councilor Holt came up beside Sullivan, clearly anxious. “How is he?” His genuine concern softened Sullivan slightly, as it reminded him that Holt saw Drake as he did: a friend and compatriot, whose death they would mourn.

Sullivan answered quietly, “Not good.”

The two of them watched as the movement of the doctors began to slow down, until finally all paused in a somber moment. The head physician took off his mask and walked out of the room. “Forgive me, Emperor…Councilor…but there was nothing we could do. The bullet penetrated deep, and the damage was irreparable. I’m sorry, sir. Councilor Drake is dead.”

The doctor walked back into the operating room, leaving Sullivan and Holt frozen with disbelief. For as long as they could remember it had always been the three of them. They were first among the Ruling Council in the World System, and the recognized figureheads of the empire: a triumvirate of sorts with Sullivan at the head. The separation had been bigger than any one of them; it was their collective dream.

Now all that was gone. The great three had been reduced to two.

Holt was solemn as he spoke, “We must inform the others.”

Emperor Sullivan didn’t think he could stomach another meeting of the High Council at the moment. What was this he was experiencing? Such a heavy sense of loss, unlike anything he could remember feeling since…

He turned abruptly to Councilor Holt, “You see now what we’re up against, Christopher. Do you really want to give our lands back into the hands of the people? It will take the absolute control of an Empire to subdue the World System. Anything less and we lose, old friend. Alexander will restore his hold on the world and we will all end up in graves next to Councilor Drake. Is
that
your idea of redemption?”

“No, Scott,” Holt said. “But neither is turning a blind eye to our own wrongs and keeping the people of the world in bondage.”

Sullivan waved his hand in exasperation and started to walk away.

Holt called out after him, “Where are you going? We must tell the others about Councilor Drake!”

“You do it then!” Sullivan snapped. “I’m going to help our Chief of Command make certain that our friend’s death does not pass without retribution.” The emperor disappeared through a doorway, leaving Councilor Holt to stand alone in the deserted hall.

-X-

The sky darkened as the day waned, and General Ellis Crenshaw watched from the shadows while an army of men constructed the raised wooden platform to which Grace would soon be strapped and burned alive. They worked diligently as the hours passed, eventually joined by more who built another platform alongside. The second was raised higher to give its occupants a good view of the victim on the pyre, leaving Crenshaw with no doubt that it would be where Napoleon Alexander himself would watch. The scene was turning out to be a mirror image of his sister’s death.

But it would not end the same, he vowed that much. His guilt at sending Eli back into the dangers of the World System had only grown as the day wore on, until at last he could think of nothing else but finding some way to save the two children he had sworn oaths to protect. In all probability neither would see the next sunrise, but he would make sure the World System paid dearly for it in the currency of blood and men.

“I had a feeling you would be here,” a woman’s voice whispered close. So close, in fact, that Rosalind could have slid a dagger between his ribs before he could gather his wits to stop her. She was the kind of woman to do it, he had no doubt, if not for the fact that the two were allies...at least for the moment.

She lowered the black hood that had allowed her to blend nicely into the shadows, and Crenshaw wondered for the thousandth time who she had been before the fall of the Old World. Only certain sorts of people learned to move with such soundless grace, and most not for savory purposes.

“Senator,” he nodded cordially. “I thought you would be back on your island by now.”

“My island is no longer a place where I find welcome,” Rosalind said in her thick British accent. “No more than your land welcomes you. But if it is to Domination Crisis Eleven that you refer, my business here is not yet done. I am afraid I have grave news.”

“A drop of water in the ocean, Ros,” he replied. “No tidings could be worse than what they are building in that Square.”

“For you, perhaps,” she nodded. “But the cause has been struck a blow larger than the loss of one young woman, invaluable though she may be.” She paused long enough to take a deep breath. “The Right Hand is dead. Shadow Fall has failed.”

Any other day the news might have hit Crenshaw hard, but as he had little room for additional cares, he shrugged. “It was a risky plan from the start, we all knew that.”

“You know what this means, General,” Rosalind pressed. “One plan fails and another must be put into action. The extraction team will arrive tonight, and they will take the Shadow Soldier out of play.”

“Tonight will be too late for your team,” Crenshaw said, gazing back over his shoulder at the nearly completed execution stand. “When the pyre burns he will either be dead or with me.”

“We’ve been through this before, General. The boy is too dangerous to be left to his own devices. The Senate is nervous about him, and I doubt they would be comfortable even with you as his guardian.”

“I’m not interested in their comfort, Rosalind,” he said, drawing
Renovatio
anxiously as a group of soldiers marched too close. But they paid the two of them no heed, and he returned the weapon to its holster. “My nephew is not a chess piece to be moved at the will of politicians.”

“He is whatever we say he is,” Rosalind snapped. “Keep in mind, dear Ellis, that you would be nowhere without us. When the Republic made contact you had spent ten years and change searching for your nephew and his father’s fabled weapon, with no success. If not for the Right Hand you would not even know he is alive. Be grateful for that.”

“Grateful?" he said darkly, staring into her eyes. “I have done everything your Republic has asked of me, Rosalind. I watched from afar as my nephew suffered in the hands of Great Army trainers. I orchestrated the upload of the virus at the mainframe port, then had Jacob blow up the Weapons Manufacturing Facility to cover it up. I altered the formula of the World System’s Solithium and had Grace smash the stores, so that the next shipments would be contaminated and your shutdown signal would cripple the power grid. Then I had her upload your pirate program on top of the Communications Tower to seize control of the System’s satellites to broadcast that signal.

“Three missions, three successes! And you promised that at the end of all this I would have my nephew back. But then your guy fails and you want to go back on your word? No,” he shook his head vehemently. “You know what I am, Rosalind—
who
I am. And you know I will not let you take that boy from me.”

“He is not that boy anymore,” she said, and he hated the pity in her voice. “He may have your sister’s blood, but he is
not
her. He is not your father. He is not
his
father. He is Napoleon Alexander’s creation now, you must see that!”

“All I see is yet another group of politicians playing God with the fates of men,” Crenshaw replied. “How quickly you all change your tune. First he was your savior, and now he is a threat to your very existence. Tomorrow the winds may change again. But until then you warn your men that if they intend to take my nephew by force then they can be prepared to kill me first.”

“You have no armed force,” Rosalind said. “The whole of Silent Thunder has retreated to the Wilderness.”

Not the whole
, Crenshaw smiled to himself.
The 2
nd
remains. The 2
nd
will always remain
. But Rosalind didn’t need to know that.

“I hope you’re not planning anything foolish,” she said, gazing off toward the Square. “The full force of the Great Army in Alexandria will be here, not to mention countless civilians. You would risk all for the life of one girl?”

“Not just a girl, Rosalind,” Crenshaw shook his head. “Never just a girl. And that’s another thing you and your friends don’t understand. Loss is not measured in numbers. It is borne here,” he placed a hand over his heart. “Tonight I fight not only for her…I fight for my nephew who will be lost without her, and for the rebellion that will crumble after her death.”

“She is aptly named, then,” Rosalind said. “They both are. Shadow Soldier and Shadow Heart, who will cast their darkness upon us all. You are a fool if you do this. Let the girl die, and our people will get your nephew to safety.”

“We’re done here, Ros. The most foolish thing I ever did was trust in you and your Republic. I should have stepped in when first I learned of Eli’s survival, but you convinced me it was in his best interest to remain with the World System. But you didn’t care about him…
never
him. You cared about your plan, a plan that now lays in ruins. So you go back to your islands and you tell your colleagues that we want no part of them. You tell them to retract their claws from my country and let us see to our own. You’ve caused quite enough damage.”

“You are naïve if you think your words will accomplish such a thing.”

“I never speak words that I am not willing to back with my Gladius,” he said. “Now get out of my sight, and pray we never meet again.”

“As you wish, General,” she replied, back to her aloof and light-hearted tone. “But before I go, there is one more thing. If you survive this folly of yours tonight it is likely you will be contacted by the man responsible for the resistance.”

“I thought you just said the Right Hand was dead.”

“He is,” Rosalind nodded. “But the Right Hand was second to another. Deception is the best form of concealment. As the head of the resistance intelligence cell I’m sure you can appreciate that. Therefore the Right Hand disguised his leader by claiming him as one of his recruits.”

Crenshaw knew before she spoke it. Three arms of the resistance; he led one and Jacob Sawyer had led the other. That only left…

“The Benefactor,” Rosalind said. “The man who supposedly runs your supply network actually runs the entire resistance. The Right Hand was his creature, though I understand he changed hands frequently. The Benefactor stole him from Napoleon Alexander, who snatched him away from Jacob Sawyer.”

“McCall?” Crenshaw asked, shocked. No one else fit. He was the last of the operatives who had sided with the traitors during the Sundering, and had been Jacob’s lieutenant commander before the bloody affair. His anger had burned against the man for years afterward, the lone survivor of a group who should have had none. But now, to know that he had been working with them secretly for more than a decade, that he had organized the resistance and given them a real fighting chance…he wished for the chance to speak with the man face to face. But it was an empty wish. “How did he die?”

“His was the stroke that would have put Elijah Charity on the throne,” Rosalind said. “But he failed. Still, hear me well, Ellis. You cannot fight this war on your own. You need the Republic, as we need you. But that will be a choice for you, the Benefactor, and Silent Thunder’s new commander to discuss with one another—should fate allow it. Until then I suggest you consider all that I have said, and rethink this suicide mission. The resistance may not survive the loss of a man like you.”

And I will not survive the loss of those two children
, he thought.
I swore an oath to their parents, one that I mean to keep
. “It’s past time for you to be away, Senator. Give my regards to the Restoration Senate, and to those who claim lordship of my country in the Council of the West.”

“Farewell, General,” Rosalind said, stepping back into the shadows. “I
did
enjoy our time together. It has been…educational.” She slipped around the corner and was gone.

A low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance as the evening approached, an omen of the dark night to come. He shrunk into the shadows where Rosalind had gone, eager to report back to Davian and the brave men of the 2
nd
Battalion who refused to learn the meaning of defeat.

Let blades clash
, he thought, remembering one of Jonathan Charity’s speeches from long ago.
Let shields break. And when the dawn comes again may we stand victorious. Fear not the night, my brothers of the sword! Come what may, the sun will still rise tomorrow.

42

A
N OMINOUS GRATING OF
steel echoed through the hollowed tunnels of the palace dungeon as the door closed behind 301 and the prison guard. Looking from side to side as he walked slowly toward the end of the cell block, 301 saw that all were empty save the last—though it would soon become vacant as well.