Sigil of the Wolf - 16. Chapter 16

Karin City - Karin

There was a feeling of anticipation that came with snow. The warm lights of Karin City nestled high upon the plateau, draped in a blanket white that continued to drift from the dark clouds overhead. It seemed as if the entire world were still. If he were home on Geldan VII his family would have been preparing for Christmas. He smiled darkly, but then it was always winter on Karin, and a few feet of snow weren't that special there.

He could remember, fondly, the warm old house with its massive chimneys, decked with holly, resplendent with the cheer of the season, people celebrating in various rooms, listening to his grandfather tell his stories, or watching his grandmother tend to her guests. Dancing and merriment, life and love.

He wondered if they still celebrated Christmas.

He was wrapped warmly in the oversized greatcoat, furred hat tucked low on his head, standing out on one of the great verandas that jutted out of the massive fortress structure. His warm rooms lay behind him, but he just wanted to be out enjoying the cold night air, alone with his thoughts and memories.

Everything had been such a haze, his cryptic conversation with Walker, the pageantry of his arrival, the General...

The young Prince blew out a sigh, watching the cold air frost his breath as it tumbled away from him. He remembered Kardiac, the man afire with his own passions and his belief that he was doing the right thing. How many times had he watched his Grandfather pacing his stateroom, fretting about what to do to stop the inevitable decline of such a grand dream?

The General held the same beliefs.

Edward was under no misguided delusions as to his role; he was to be the puppet Prince whose hand was guided by a fanatic. He could read the fear in Walker's eyes, mirrored in those of his Senate politicians who knew they had lost and no longer bothered to fight, they hid in their offices or homes and waited for the inevitable.

He wished he could have his Grandfather's counsel one last time, gain a direction, some idea of where he needed to go. He was very much alone, a new face to the people, one they were willing to cheer for, but would they be willing to die for him if it meant their own freedom?

There he was, barely a day on Karin and already plotting a revolution against his own government. He smiled, guessing that he really was VonGrippen's grandson.

He turned to re-enter his apartments, but a bright, strobe-like flicker of light caught his eye, down in the city. It gave him pause. Turning his attention back, he frowned down, noting it again, this time a good mile distant from the first flash.

There it was again, closer to the starport.

A hyperspace jump, but that wasn't possible, not in an atmosphere; the precision needed would be beyond anything they had ever been able to develop. He didn't know how he knew that: another barely-remembered memory.

There were telltale flashes of gunfire in the street, followed by a staccato burst of what were unmistakably Amsus assault rifles. He went cold; that was one memory that wasn't half forgotten. He sprinted back into the apartments and threw open the doors.

It was chaos. There was a running firefight down a side hall, and off to his right Karin Guards and his own bodyguards were holding back a small Amsus squad that had them pinned down behind overturned furniture.

Edward ducked as a stray bullet winged off a wall and splintered the doorframe by his head. He scrambled back to his feet and slipped, his shoes still caked in snow from the balcony.

Rolling, he had enough time to watch the Inquisitor - a terrifying apparition of death on a battlefield - blindly ignore the bullets tearing into it, walking through the Karin Guards, its hands a-blur as it slammed one of the guards into another, the rest of the small force backing up in sheer fright.

The whump echoed down the corridor as the unseen force slammed the Inquisitor backwards, the distinctive whine of a PKD powering up to full charge as it discharged again and again, the tall man wearing a coarse woollen coat overtop of fine woven body armour adjusting the weapon and pouring shot after shot into the creature, driving it against a wall and pounding it into black paste.

He leaned down, offering a dark hand and pulling the Prince to his feet. "The Aga-Khan sent me to protect you, we must get you to safety," he said, dropping the clip from the PKD as he reloaded.

"Th-thank...you," Edward nodded uncertainly. The man surely wasn't a guard, yet there was no mistaking the way the warrior walked.

"Abdul Aziz," The man said as the guards returned to their firing positions, "We must go, your Highness."

* * *

"Where did they come from?" General Iver demanded, glaring at Major Vinoria Malone, the commander of the Karin City guard. He watched scattered reports from all over the city, of Amsus infantry raiding anything they could attack. They materialized everywhere, inside the Fortress halls; secure facilities, the Imperial academy... there were even reports of troopers appearing on ships in orbit. They had already lost the HMS Janus after an Amsus strike force blew up the frigate's magazine.

"I don't know, sir," Malone replied. The raven-haired major had proudly co-ordinated the defence of the capital ever since Iver had stepped up to head the Army, but she was out of her league when it came to figuring out how the Amsus had achieved their impossible magic.

She steadily directed her men with a quiet competence that many years of service had taught her. She wasn't about to give up the city without some kind of fight, barking orders into her TAC-link she set about rousing the local garrisons.

"Where's the Prince?" Iver asked, turning as Colonel Evans hurried in, still in his shirt sleeves. The Colonel had been caught completely unprepared for the attack.

Evans shook his head. "I couldn't reach him, there was heavy fighting on the residential floors."

"The Prince is secure, sir," Malone chimed up, "One of our platoons has entrenched around his suite," She paused shaking her head, "Correct that, he is apparently in the charge of a civilian..." She punched up a surveillance monitor.

"It's one of Taine's men!" Iver cursed, "Get troops up there!" he ordered as he rounded on her, furious.

"I am sending some more men to help with the escort," the Major said, leaning back and speaking hurriedly into her TAC-link, issuing orders that would calm the General's anger.

"I'm fine, thank you for your concern," Walker remarked dryly, stepping into the command bunker. The Archduke had a ragged gash on his cheek and the sleeve of his tunic was torn. The blood splatter, obviously Amsus, indicated that the large bore pistol he was carrying had saved his life.

Iver grunted at him, returning his attention to the map of the city, directing forces to cover the assault.

"And the Senate?" Walker asked, stepping forward and dropping the bloody gun in the centre of Iver's map, "I trust provisions for their safety were made, much like my own?"

Iver swept the gun aside. "The Senate isn't my concern," he replied harshly.

"Good to see your loyalty remains firmly to your own ambitions," Walker snapped, looking at Major Malone, "I want protection details dispatched to round up the Senators and escort them to safety."

The Major hesitated, torn between the two men - Walker's withering, regal gaze and Iver's burning fury. She leaned down again and began to issue orders, obeying the Archduke by sending a token force to carry out his wishes.

* * *

He cracked open his eyes, rolling up quickly as he pushed himself up against the crumbling stone façade; if he were to guess, it had once belonged to a Zemûn temple, the faded gold leaf and delicate carvings on the flagstones hinted at an almost divine reverence. But there was precious little that had survived Kardiac's purge, beyond ruins.

From what Darien knew of the history, the Zemûn people had refused to convert to worshipping the Immortal Emperor, citing their own spiritual devotion and remaining firm, ardent in the belief that Kardiac wouldn't do anything against them.

The Imperial warlord had butchered nearly eighty percent of the planet's population, destroyed centuries of traditions, burned their culture and exacted such a bloody vengeance upon them all in the name of his god. It was no wonder the Zemûn despised human beings.

Darien rested quietly, staring at the wall of the old temple, leaning forward to pull some moss and earth from one of the stones, brushing it clear of the worn symbol carved into the stone.

It was the same winged insignia that was on the front cover of the Peligian diary. His curiosity aroused, he looked about him again, searching for any other sign or trace. Spotting another, he crossed to it, scanning the Zemûn script that surrounded it, committing it to memory. He glanced behind him. He didn't have time to crawl through temple ruins, chasing another man's obsession.

He looked around him. The alley was disused, most of the traffic down on the main street passed the alley by completely. Which made sense, much of the city was hauntingly deserted, and the population had never been able to recover from Kardiac's purge, leaving great swathes of the urban centre steadily crumbling into ruin.

He picked himself up, stumbling onwards to where Garam had told him the detention centre would be. His fingers still felt numb and stiff, and he watched his hand shaking unsteadily as he gripped the Polian shard, willing it to be still. He couldn't let Garam's sacrifice be in vain.

The security office lay across a small square; it was the only facility on the planet where they detained aliens. His two crewmen were somewhere in that squat two-storey building that had once been a school from the layout and the worn signs hanging off to the side of the building.

He settled back against the wall, keeping to the shadows as a pair of Zemûn police officers exited the building and climbed aboard one of the motorized rickshaws, whizzing away into the city to begin a patrol.

He hefted the Polian shard weapon, looking about him as he knelt, bracing his arm as he pointed it towards one of the ramshackle apartment buildings across the square from the security office. It was deserted; he'd made certain of that when he had scouted the area. He counted to three, depressed the activator, and ducked as the apartment building teetered, one of its fragile support struts inverted on a molecular level, crashing in upon itself in a spectacular explosion of mortar and bricks.

The Zemûn were like disturbed ants, rushing from hovels and holes, trying to pick their way through the rubble, in case anyone had been inside. Darien hung back in the shadows watching for his chance, wishing he had his PKD. He had no desire to kill people who were only doing their jobs, but he had no choice, he needed to get his men out: the Empire counted on them.

He stepped out of the shadows and walked purposefully across the square, hood shrouding his face from rescue workers and the police officers that had joined them. He didn't look at them as he climbed the steps and entered the former high school, the Polian weapon in his hand.

The front reception was like any other police precinct he had ever been in, a front desk separating the reception from the main bullpen, only slight variations in the size of the chairs, the materials used. It was subtly different, but not in any way that mattered. Zemûn police worked at their desks, a few of them clustered around the doors and windows looking out to see the destruction caused by the building's collapse.

They again seemed to just ignore the priest as he walked up to the desk sergeant and politely drew back his hood. "Excuse me," he said formally in English, "I'm here to collect some stolen property."

The desk sergeant didn't look up at first. He continued with his paperwork, shuffling papers from one end of his desk, taking his time with it, until one of the Zemûn behind him gasped. He looked up and started in shock, his tentacles puffing out as he went for his pistol.

Darien lifted his Polian shard weapon and calmly blew a waste paper basket up.

He had everyone's attention at that point, guns being drawn and pointed at him as he kept the weapon trained on the Sergeant. A quick assessment told him that there were five armed policemen and the Sergeant in front of him, nine civilians handcuffed or making reports to other officers. His mind quickly calculated what he'd have to do if someone started shooting; his odds weren't good.

He prayed his hand wouldn't shake.

"I repeat, you have some property of mine I would like to collect," Darien said, smiling tightly, "One Orion and one Kaynin, please have them brought out here..."

No-one moved.

Darien gestured to the weapon he was holding. "This is a Polian weapon, quite capable of killing everyone in this room," he said, nodding to a wanted poster on the wall, "And as you can see, from all reports I am a very nasty man, so..." he shrugged, "please fetch my crewmen."

The Sergeant gave a terse nod to one of his unarmed men, who moved towards the cell area. A couple of the other Police officers edged to find cover, all looking to the Sergeant for some kind of signal. Luckily the Sergeant's self-preservation instinct was finely tuned, and since he was staring directly at the shard weapon he wasn't about to have the shooting start.

Darien gritted his teeth; they were probably radioing for reinforcements, and if Darien didn't hurry, they'd be on top of them. He moved with the second guard, keeping the room covered as he waited for the Zemûn police officer to open the doors and escort him up the stairs.

Darien paused long enough to kick the doors closed before hurrying up the stairs, prodding the guard ahead of him with the shard weapon.

The row of cells was mostly empty, and Darien smiled as he spotted Doctor Kyr sitting on the edge of a bed looking none the worse for wear. The doctor looked shocked, but smiled none-the-less as Darien ordered the guard to unlock the doors.

"Highlord!" he said, smiling in gratitude.

Darien shrugged looking around. "Long story, where's...?"

A black hand waving at him from a few cells down answered his question, and moments later the Orion Weapons Officer was brushing down his clothing, staring angrily at the Zemûn guard. "Where's my gun?" he asked pointedly."

The Zemûn gestured down the corridor leading the way.

Darien covered the rear, glancing at the sounds of booted feet marching up the stairs. The Zemûn reinforcements hadn't spared any time in arriving. He moved down the corridor to the small lab where Kyr was pocketing the two TAC-links and Nazzien was buckling on his pistol belt and extending Darien's PKD towards him.

Darien handed the shard weapon off to the doctor as he reached for his weapon. The Zemûn guard, spying his opportunity, made a grab and drew Nazzien's deadly sliver gun.

It happened in a blur. Nazzien became the embodiment of death. His hands snaked out, shattering bone with ease, causing the guard to crumple to the ground unconscious. Nazzien never took chances. His foot lashed out to send the Officer sailing back into the hall, the gun shooting off into the ceiling as it spilled from his hands, sliding up the corridor. Nazzien reached to catch it, but Kyr successfully pulled him back as the Zemûn unloaded rounds of ammunition at the door.

The Orion cursed at how close he'd been to being riddled with holes all because he liked a gun. He smiled his thanks to the small doctor as they looked over at Darien.

The Highlord crossed the laboratory to the window, his mind already dismissing the only door as a way out. The Zemûn guards would have secured the hallway; any attempt to fight their way free with only a pair of weapons would meet a very final end at the hand of Zemûn rifles. That left the windows as the only way out of the lab. His eyes followed the telephone wire from the lab down over the small roof of the building next door to the telephone pole on the street beyond.

He nodded to Nazzien, who applied a well-timed kick. The Orion span in an almost effortless motion as his boot connected with the window frame, the reinforced glass pane shattering as it crashed open. The glass splintering towards the ground, shattering on impact with the alley below.

Heavy pounding on the doors told them that time was short; the Zemûn would be there momentarily. Darien unfastened his belt, letting the PKD holster fall to the floor.

"Give me the Polian weapon," he ordered calmly, leaning out of the window, taking a quick look to confirm where the line connected to the wall. It was within reach. Leaning back to accept the weapon Doctor Kyr passed to him, he twisted the soft metal frame, wedging the activator switch half on, and hearing the soft whine begin, he tossed it into the centre of the room.

"Do you trust me?" He asked, extending his hand to the doctor and pulling him close towards him. Kyr frowned, but obliged as the Highlord leaned out of the window again and snapped his wrist to loop the belt over the wire, grabbing its other end with his other hand. "Hold tight," he said as they stepped from the window and went sailing down the wire.

Behind them, the door crashed open as the Zemûn squad charged into the room. Nazzien tossed a hearty wave as he duplicated what Darien had done, descending the wire before they could raise their guns. A pair of the flustered guards ran to the window, lifting their sub-machine guns to follow the three Imperial Officers as they slid down the wire. Behind them, an officer bent down to pick up the strange device the aliens had dropped, frowning at the shrill whine it was emitting.

The explosion sent debris and glass flying everywhere as the Polian crystal's overload cycle hit its peak, incinerating everything in the lab. Weapon, files, and flesh.

The wire went slack a second before they began to free-fall, crashing through the roof of the smaller building next door. There was a cloud of dust billowing up around them.

Coughing loudly, Darien struggled to his feet; relieved to see his crewmates were all right. The three didn't spare any time trying to work out what the room they had fallen into had been used for; the debris from the roof had obliterated everything. The two of them slipped through the side door and into the courtyard.

Darien caught Nazzien's arm and pulled him back. He was unarmed, and they both looked like they had just plummeted through a ceiling. The plaster had covered the solid black clothing in a taupe powder. There was no way they could blend into the shadows at the moment.

It was then that an engine gunning caught his ears. It was at a different pitch than the rickshaws and motorbikes he was used to hearing in the city, deeper and more menacing. He leaned around the corner and ducked back, a smile creasing his face. He had just found his way out of the compound.

He nudged Nazzien and gestured around the corner, drawing the PKD as Nazzien took a look. He watched the Orion look back at him with an eager look on his face; sometimes the taupe Orion was too predictable.

Nazzien accepted the PKD from Darien adjusting it and stepping around the corner once more, lifting the weapon and firing on the move, knocking unconscious the technician who was working on the back of the large metal vehicle. He stepped up onto one of its tracks, helping Kyr up and motioning Darien towards the drivers seat as he clambered up the large-barrelled weapons turret.

"Feel like playing with some heavy metal, Doctor?" He asked cheerfully, as Darien slid down into the driver's seat, relieved to see that the technician had been generous enough to warm the Amsus tank up for them.

Darien smiled at the bad joke, absently rubbing his thumb and forefinger together as the doctor settled down beside him. The doctor paused for a moment as he stared thoughtfully at the Highlord's hand. Taking a moment to familiarize himself with the controls, he mumbled a prayer to whatever god still existed that Darien knew what he was doing.

A yell from the gates to the compound warned him that someone had noticed that the tank was mobile. Darien couldn't risk any more time. He slammed the vehicle into motion. It shuddered and began to power its way forward, picking up speed as it crossed the courtyard towards the gate.

The guards, realizing their orders to halt were going unheeded, lifted their machine guns and began to open fire on the armoured behemoth bearing down upon them, then scattered out of its path as the great cannon mounted on its back belched fire.

The gate splintered into flame. Somehow Nazzien had worked out how to make the 20-tonne rolling juggernaught even more dangerous.

The tank ground around a corner, sliding a bit on the wet asphalt as Darien tapped the brakes, its front quarter impacting against the wall of a building and sending plaster and brick crumbling. The sound of pursuit was fast behind them; several Zemûn patrol rickshaws were labouring to catch up, the sound of their sirens cutting through the dim twighlight, but the Imperial officers held on to a marginal head start.

The Highlord shrugged off the tattered priest's robe as he fastened the twin seat straps over his shoulders. The tank was a piece of unfamiliar technology, Amsus by design. He had driven cars and the occasional truck on Earth, and he had taken the time to familiarise himself with some of the marines' equipment on the Excalibur, but the controls were still alien to him. Above him, Nazzien and Kyr were wrestling to reload the tank's main turret - not an easy feat considering that a tank usually had a larger crew. Poor Doctor Kyr was trying to lift a shell that was nearly as big as his head into the breach.

The armoured behemoth rounded another corner, slamming through a set of signposts and crumpling an old-fashioned letterbox. People on the streets ran for cover as the speeding juggernaught continued its path of destruction, trying to escape the pursuing police.

He was lost and knew it; somehow he had become turned around in the winding streets. Navigating was tricky at best when his only view of the outside was the size of a narrow mail slot. He reached out, trying to find the TAC- Link, realising that he had probably lost it when he had crashed through the ceiling. He murmured a low curse.

* * *

The Inquisitor surveyed the ruins of the police station lab from the shattered doorway. The explosion had neatly cut a sphere out of the Zemûn laboratory. Effective and efficient, definitely not Amsus or Zemûn in nature. He folded his hands at the small of his back as he studied the room. Pursuit of the fugitives was still ongoing. The last reports placed them moving erratically through the streets of the central core. They would be forced to surrender soon, once they realised there was nowhere to run to.

"Inquisitor," An Amsus strike force commander said, clicking his heels at attention, "Sir, the desk Sergeant reports that it was Highlord Taine that threatened him."

The Inquisitor looked about him thoughtfully. "Inform all our mobile units that Taine is on Ararat."

He turned back to the wreckage, why was Taine on that world? What could he possibly hope to gain? How would he get off it? The Inquisitor studied the problem a second and reached a conclusion, setting off to launch a report to High Command; there was an Orion Tradeliner on Ararat and they were known sympathizers.

* * *

The two Zemûn rickshaws squealed around the corner, coming face to face with the charging tank, the drivers at first seeming unsure of what to do. The 20 tonnes of steel bearing down on them caused them to rethink. The lead vehicle slammed on its brakes, sliding on the slick asphalt and crashing into the front of the tank, driver and passenger scrambling from the vehicle as the great machine continued on its path climbing up and over the small rickshaw, shattering glass and compacting it neatly. The second rickshaw's engine shrieked as the driver threw it into reverse and began to back up the narrow street, just ahead of the tank.

The Highlord winced, trying to stay one step ahead of the tank, to ensure that he had enough time to manoeuvre. But now he had to consider the fact that he had a police car in front of him as well as those behind him. It was not helping his concentration. It was then he discovered that he had an idea.

The tank swung left suddenly, crashing through the glass doors of a large department store, the doorframe collapsing the front wall of the store down behind it. The police vehicles that were pursuing squealed to a halt as rubble and debris crashed down, blocking the doorway to the store. One of the large store hieroglyphs slid off of the wall, smashing into the roof of one of the rickshaws in a shower of sparks.

The tank continued on its path, climbing part of the large marble stairway before finally coming to rest. The hatch popped open and the three officers scrambled out of the vehicle into the midst of panicked shoppers running from the building that seemed to be collapsing around them.

Darien caught Nazzien's arm as the pair of them ran down the stairs towards one of the exits, a large group of screaming Zemûn running ahead of them. They would only have a few minutes to slip out in the confusion before the Zemûn police arrived en masse. He grabbed at a clothing rack as the passed, two large men's overcoats, handing one over to Nazzien as he swept the other over his shoulders to hide the dusty clothing he wore. With the bulky collar lifted high and a hat pulled low, he should go unnoticed, at least for the moment.

Kyr was easier as Darien tossed a heavy down children's coat over him, the hood hiding his face neatly. Satisfied, the three slipped out into the Zemûn night, ducking down a side alleyway at their first opportunity, emerging onto a quiet street running parallel to the canal.