Read Online The Phoenix in Flight by Sherwood Smith, Dave Trowbridge - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sherwood Smith, Dave Trowbridge
Ads: Link
control... in
control.
The Bori shuddered, and not from the cold of the drafty
hall. Eusabian’s paliach against the Panarch, twenty long years in the making,
might even now be crumbling to ruin. As he began to descend the stairs toward
the corridor leading to his quarters, he stumbled ever so slightly, and
adrenalin flooded his body as he realized how dangerously fast he was moving.
He stopped, great shuddering gasps convulsing him and exacerbating the
bone-deep pain of too much weight. It might be better to just let go: falling
down the stairs would almost certainly kill him. But almost certainly wasn’t good enough. If he survived, every breath would be a burden of
insupportable, unending pain in the mindripper.
No. He would not accept defeat so close to the triumph he
had long anticipated. Cheruld tried to alert the Panarchists, but our
communications are faster and it may be— heallowed himself a small
glimmer of hope— it may be that the space-time lag will work in our
favor.
Barrodagh grimaced as he remembered the head computer tech
condescendingly explaining how impossible it was to give him the answers he
needed in the time he demanded. When Barrodagh threatened her with the
mindripper and worse, she had nodded jerkily and broken the connection. He
would have the answers before dawn, as required.
He reached the door to his suite and stepped onto the
half-circle before it, again bracing himself as the floor seemed to drop out
from under him with the return of Bori gravity. He stepped through and stopped
just inside to enjoy the blessed release of breathing without the oppressive
weight of Dol’jhar pulling on heart and lungs, letting the warm ambience of the
room soak into him. Here, deep within Hroth D’ocha, there was nothing of
Dol’jhar, except the occasional swaying of the tower, and that was lessened.
Without warning, as if released by the comparative safety of
his private quarters, the vibration deep within his body that had not left him
since Morrighon’s report erupted outward. Barrodagh lunged desperately for the
disposer as he felt every bit of bodily control reaved away from him by terror,
felt himself fall to the tiled floor, and gratefully surrendered to
unconsciousness.
o0o
Jerrode Eusabian, Avatar of Dol, stood at the same window at
which he had stood throughout the Siege of Dol’jhar, and where the Great
Paliach had begun.
A black silken cord writhed with sinuous motions around his
fingers as they wove it in an intricate pattern, every loop and knot in the dirazh’u a reckoning of injuries endured and vengeances promised. Above him the light of
the karra-fires flickered across the carven ceiling, stirring the ancient
figures of gods and demons to fitful life; the rumbling crackle of the distant
volcano came muffled to his ears through the invisible monocrystal wall before
him.
He stood at the edge of a dizzying drop. From his tower the
fortress walls fell sheer to the city below. There were no other towers; the
low angular buildings gleamed dully in the gray-green dawn of a Dol’jharian
spring, while beyond, the land rose in craggy, snow-streaked terraces to the
fiery heart of his demesne.
Eusabian’s gaze swept up, past the looming
lightning-stitched cloud of ash billowing from the riven peak of Karra D’Ocha,
and fixed on the bright point of light rising swiftly over it in the slowly
lightening dawn. It looked like a dagger pointed at Jhar D’Ocha, threatening
the heart of the Kingdom of Vengeance. As he watched the Panarchist Quarantine
Monitor loft higher into the northern sky, his fingers recalled the end of
empire, knot by knot.
...The corvette fled the lock of the mortally-wounded
battlecruiser just ahead of the Arkadic Marines, whose successful lance attack
had doomed Eusabian’s flagship, and with it, his conquest of Acheront. From the
bridge of the little ship, the Avatar watched the hull of the Blood of Dol dwindle
from looming wall to an immense ovoid marred by a
control.
The Bori shuddered, and not from the cold of the drafty
hall. Eusabian’s paliach against the Panarch, twenty long years in the making,
might even now be crumbling to ruin. As he began to descend the stairs toward
the corridor leading to his quarters, he stumbled ever so slightly, and
adrenalin flooded his body as he realized how dangerously fast he was moving.
He stopped, great shuddering gasps convulsing him and exacerbating the
bone-deep pain of too much weight. It might be better to just let go: falling
down the stairs would almost certainly kill him. But almost certainly wasn’t good enough. If he survived, every breath would be a burden of
insupportable, unending pain in the mindripper.
No. He would not accept defeat so close to the triumph he
had long anticipated. Cheruld tried to alert the Panarchists, but our
communications are faster and it may be— heallowed himself a small
glimmer of hope— it may be that the space-time lag will work in our
favor.
Barrodagh grimaced as he remembered the head computer tech
condescendingly explaining how impossible it was to give him the answers he
needed in the time he demanded. When Barrodagh threatened her with the
mindripper and worse, she had nodded jerkily and broken the connection. He
would have the answers before dawn, as required.
He reached the door to his suite and stepped onto the
half-circle before it, again bracing himself as the floor seemed to drop out
from under him with the return of Bori gravity. He stepped through and stopped
just inside to enjoy the blessed release of breathing without the oppressive
weight of Dol’jhar pulling on heart and lungs, letting the warm ambience of the
room soak into him. Here, deep within Hroth D’ocha, there was nothing of
Dol’jhar, except the occasional swaying of the tower, and that was lessened.
Without warning, as if released by the comparative safety of
his private quarters, the vibration deep within his body that had not left him
since Morrighon’s report erupted outward. Barrodagh lunged desperately for the
disposer as he felt every bit of bodily control reaved away from him by terror,
felt himself fall to the tiled floor, and gratefully surrendered to
unconsciousness.
o0o
Jerrode Eusabian, Avatar of Dol, stood at the same window at
which he had stood throughout the Siege of Dol’jhar, and where the Great
Paliach had begun.
A black silken cord writhed with sinuous motions around his
fingers as they wove it in an intricate pattern, every loop and knot in the dirazh’u a reckoning of injuries endured and vengeances promised. Above him the light of
the karra-fires flickered across the carven ceiling, stirring the ancient
figures of gods and demons to fitful life; the rumbling crackle of the distant
volcano came muffled to his ears through the invisible monocrystal wall before
him.
He stood at the edge of a dizzying drop. From his tower the
fortress walls fell sheer to the city below. There were no other towers; the
low angular buildings gleamed dully in the gray-green dawn of a Dol’jharian
spring, while beyond, the land rose in craggy, snow-streaked terraces to the
fiery heart of his demesne.
Eusabian’s gaze swept up, past the looming
lightning-stitched cloud of ash billowing from the riven peak of Karra D’Ocha,
and fixed on the bright point of light rising swiftly over it in the slowly
lightening dawn. It looked like a dagger pointed at Jhar D’Ocha, threatening
the heart of the Kingdom of Vengeance. As he watched the Panarchist Quarantine
Monitor loft higher into the northern sky, his fingers recalled the end of
empire, knot by knot.
...The corvette fled the lock of the mortally-wounded
battlecruiser just ahead of the Arkadic Marines, whose successful lance attack
had doomed Eusabian’s flagship, and with it, his conquest of Acheront. From the
bridge of the little ship, the Avatar watched the hull of the Blood of Dol dwindle
from looming wall to an immense ovoid marred by a
Similar Books
