The Paladin's Odyssey (The Windows of Heaven) (53 page)

“There are several ways to interpret that, Eminence,” replied the
Assistant
Lead Acolyte.

“Of course,” Ded
urusi said
.
“The Archonate
lost much of the life it would have otherwise benefited from
,
had it harnessed the enthusiasm of the Seer Clan and allowed it to remain in the fold. Kunyari didn’t help matters any by denouncing
all
World-end Literalists as heretics. If you ask me, that’s too big a stretch. He was getting old and cranky when he did that. Maybe this gesture from Muhet’Usalaq will help heal the breach once Tarbet inherits the chair. Say what you like of Tarbet, but he’s a good politician.”

“Perhaps,” said his assistant. “But what good are the Holy Precincts without the relics of Atum-Ra and the Three Treasures to sanctify them? And what about the gold reserves? Akh’Uzan still controls them. If you ask me, this is just a sop being thrown to Sa-utar and to us.”

Dedurusi wanted to slap the younger man for ruining his attempt to suck whatever exultation he could from the moment.

The
dispatch
suddenly
became a moot point, anyway.

A terrifying rush of wind screeched past
, pulling
their startled eyes up the stairway to the First Altar that crowned the island’s
upper
ziggurat.

The Chief Priest and his assistant rushed onto the sacrificial platform in time to see row upon row of high-speed astras swing down over the lake, then dip up along the Mountains of Aeden like waves of crested gryphons snatching fish from the water. Only these winged dragons took nothing from the lake. Instead
,
they released missiles
to
sear heavenward, flaming torches that arced over the heretofore-impenetrable mountain range. The astras then curled into a roll and dove back in the direction they had come from—up the Hiddekhel Canyon.

Dedurusi had fought in the Century War. He recognized the heraldry
roundel
on the bottom wings of the nearest craft.
Samyaza!

The Chief Priest screamed, “They’ve attacked Aeden!” He clutched his chest. “
It’s t
he ultimate blasphemy! Oh
E’Yahavah
, we are undone
—t
he ultimate blasphemy!”

A sharp pain seized Dedurusi’s heart and neck. His head swam as his legs went weak beneath him. His assistant caught him and lowered him gently to the stone summit, but it was too late. The Priest’s vision of absolute defilement was too much for him.

Dedurusi did not live to see what happened next.

A

yyaho leveled his astra off at cruising altitude and waited for the rest of the First Sky-Lords Division to form up behind him.

According to his instruments, the first wave of missiles should hit in ten seconds. His
freshly released
fire darts registered on his orb console as on target and falling at the correct speed. Each would sing its own song through the spiritual ether right up until impact, so there could be no fear of the mountains blocking their detonation signal spike.

Any c
onfirmation of whether
the missiles hit
any
significant
target
s
would
need
to wait for the reconnaissance wing
,
since no one had ever successfully over-flown Aeden before. Their
strategy
,
as far as the earthly side to th
e
venture
,
depended on
saturation bombing.

The Horned Giant’s heart suddenly skipped a beat and sent
something like a
quickfire jolt
throughout his entire body. A rush of light-headed nausea followed. All eight of his missiles had just vanished from the orb display at five seconds to impact. No detonation spike.

“Ahg! What happened to my signal?” he bellowed into his oracle.

“I’ve lost mine too!” came the scratchy voices of one after another of the first wave pilots over the air.

“Clear the oracle waves! Maintain holding formation!”

His brother’s second division swooped in and lobbed their ordinance, only to experience the same ominous silence when they climbed away to fall in behind Ayyaho’s astras
.
They
all
waited for the third wave.

“
I
really
wish we weren’t needed to supply ground support strafing for the troop drops,
”
he
whispered
to himself.

For the first time in his long life as a specially-bred soldier, Ayyaho experienced a terror that
often
raked the hearts of
lesser
warriors.
What kind of army does my father expect to find down there anyway?

Only when the last wave of attack astras finished rolling onto their escape vector did Ayyaho notice the ring of light expand
ing
outward in all directions from over the craggy
Kharir Aedenu
. At first, he thought their munitions had actually gone off after all. Then, as the halo-like wall of blue flame passed beyond the mountains
and
over the lake, to be followed by another ring of fire just like it, he knew his hope was utterly vain.

The oracle set roared with frantic voices from the third wave. When the Titan banked his vehicle back that direction, he saw why.

The ring of fire expanded faster than the escaping astras
,
tearing them into puffs of fuel, metal, and ash in its
shock wave. It ate all of the t
hird division ships before even beginning to dissipate. Ayyaho saw that some of the more distant second division craft managed to escape—although with heavy damage. When the blue fire
finally
met his astra, it
jerked
it
hard
enough to activate the airframe over-stress alarms, but nothing worse.

Not so the second ring.

It proceeded without dissipation all the way across the lake and expanded both upward and almost to the ground, so that there was no way
for him to climb over
or dive beneath it. Ayyaho had banked to see the fate of the third division and now faced nearly head-on the second flaming arc. He had no time to change course again and still achieve escape velocity.

The last thing the Titan saw
,
before his ship and his body exploded into their constituent elemental particles
,
were terrible faces roiling in the bluish-white maelstrom of flame.

U’

Sumi heard panic
ky
shouts from the command cabin.

Isha’Tahar flew from her seat in the lounge
, past him, and
into the aft control center, while her Watcher
“
husband’s
”
voice roared out orders left and right with her mouth.

U’Sumi’s half-sisters, who sat against the forward bulkhead, facing him, clutched each other. Across the center aisle
,
Yafutu did the same to A’Nu-Ahki. T’Qinna hung on to U’Sumi’s arm so tight that she cut off his circulation. Strangely enough, Taanyx continued to sleep by her feet.

Samyaza’s voice blasted through the internal oracle at the command ship pilots,
“Come about
,
and dive!”

A blue flash rushed past U’Sumi’s window, while the deck bucked as if they
had
hit a solid bump in the sky. Bulkhead and airframe bolts popped, while the hiss of escaping air constricted his head like enraged vipers. Excruciating pain sucked at his inner ears
un
til he was sure they would burst from his skull. He opened his mouth to scream. The sudden shift of his jaw brought a watery pop and sudden relief.

Soon the giant astra descended to an altitude where the pressure equalized. Life-giving air rushed through to the cabin again. The airship leveled off a few hundred cubits above the treetops in the Gihunu Valley.

Then the second ring of fire hit.

The jolt tossed a freshly awakened Taanyx up from the deck and bounced her off the overhead.
She
landed on all fours,
and
scrambled onto T’Qinna’s lap, swinging her rump and thrashing tail into U’Sumi’s face. T’Qinna grabbed hold of the sphinx’s harness as if instinctively preparing for impact.

U’Sumi watched helplessly as the outermost engine on his side tore free of its wing mount, along with half the wing’s control surfaces. The remaining engines began to cut in and out as the craft listed to one side.

Slowly, strenuously, the giant astra labored to stay aloft. Two of the remaining three engines resumed power, but they both hung from the port wing, which had somehow kept its control surfaces intact. The rudder also remained—U’Sumi felt its sluggish movement force the
Vimana II
into a jerky sway. The deck canted into a starboard list that drew both T’Qinna and Taanyx into him. T’Qinna he enjoyed that way, but the sphinx’s tail kept whipping him in the face.

On the other side of the cabin, A’Nu-Ahki held on to Yafutu, who had the other window seat. The fear that had formerly filled the youngster’s eyes had somehow vanished. U’Sumi smiled across to him anyway, just to be sure the deep inner waters reached him too.

Yafutu returned his gaze and the smile, as if to say not to worry.

The command astra managed to keep up this haphazard flying limp for over an hour
. Then
a new
furor
erupted
in
the aft
combat
control center.

Samyaza began to curse over the internal oracle when the pilots made it clear that they could not make the port-ward course change necessary to reach the nearest Assurim base without
making a wide two-hundred-and-seventy degree turn into Lumekkor-controlled air-space or
losing control of the craft and crashing in the jungle. U’Sumi thanked
E’Yahavah
that the pilots and Watcher were not in the same compartment.

Still a
nother argument broke out in the control center as several of the warrior caste took up the pilot’s cause against their master. Only then did U’Sumi realize how dire their situation must be. He doubted
anyone had ever questioned Samyaza’s orders
—at least not
to his face
.

An inhuman screech from Isha’Tahar’s mouth chilled his blood, while sounds of equipment and bodies tossed around in a demoniac frenzy buffeted the aft end of the airship.

U’Sumi
silently
called for E’Yahavah’s protection, as the drone started to plummet. The bottom dropped out of his stomach, but he did not panic when the ground rushed closer to his window.
The same
was not true
of his half-sisters, who shrieked
and clawed each other
like
gryphons
.