Insurrection Page 3

  “Well, I hope that it tastes good, because it looks like we’re about to make landfall,” Irie was saying, already sliding on the railings down the stairs from the cockpit and back to her usual abode in the engine room.

  “Pasi tastes good!” Val shouted after her. “You just have to subdue it first!”

  “Is there anything on Dur that you don’t have to fight?” Eliard called as the Mercury Blade started to rock and shake with the sudden pressures of entry. Fire and light exploded across its nose, filling the view out of the windows.

  “Not much. Ghal-bears,” Val considered. “Wait, nope. Even they have a poisonous bite if you wake them out of hibernation. But they are very easy to kill,” the Duergar reassured them.

  “Good to know.” Eliard held onto the ship’s wheel as the tension tremors increased. The internal stabilizers kicked in to cut the structural damage, and then they were free and arcing through the clouds of a Durish sky.

  “Okay, Val, this is your home world. What are we to expect?” Eliard said as he pulled the heavy tan robes over his Armcore intelligence division suit. He had to admit that he felt a little nervous at this latest mission delivered by Ponos, even though the Armcore intelligence had promised him that ‘he had a 78% certainty that this mission would be successful.’

  Yeah, just like Welwyn? the captain thought. But what was worrying him just as much was the level of armaments he saw Val taking with him. He had the Judge of course—the large, two-handed meson-canon that for any human would be a static weapon, but that the Duergar was able to sling over one shoulder. He also had two heavy laser blasters on his weapons belt, as well as an array of very large knives and what appeared to be a long meat-cleaver of a blade that Eliard was sure he wouldn’t even be able to pick up.

  “You’re not traveling light, I see?” he said nervously.

  The Mercury Blade had landed in Dur’s prime spaceport, in the capital city of the planet that, according to the captain at least, unimaginatively kept up the ‘Dur’ naming principle of Duric. He guessed that the Duergar weren’t famed for their imagination, however, being as they were an uplifted species by the ancient Valyien themselves and turned into their grunts and foot soldiers in the war against the Q’Lot.

  “The Duergar respect force,” Val said with a grin, hitting the main hold release catch for the doors to slide open and the ramp to extend to the sandy floors below.

  And the smell of burning flesh.

  The main spaceport of Duric was, archaically, a ground-based spaceport, with petal-shaped sandy arenas of burnt ground that the various spacefaring vessels could land on, leading toward the central body of a building made out of matte-grey stone. The Durish disregard for imagination extended to their buildings, the captain saw, in the way that the main terminal was a tall fortress-like tower that sat over the landing bays like a glaring monster. It was made of three smaller towers around a central fatter, but shorter, tower, and its windows were tall and arched, but thin. It gave the impression of a mixture of a church and a prison.

  Outside the spaceport terminal and the landing arenas, the near body of the Dur city: streets of cobbled stone and terraced, convoluted low stone buildings with flat roofs, seemingly built next to and on top of each other. But for all this solid material, the city was not entirely bereft of color, in the form of many spreading, spiky-leafed trees and stretches of thick, luscious vines that grew out of the cracks in the walls. It was a hot and humid jungle city, and it looked to captain that the Durish would constantly be battling the vegetation as much as each other.

  The city of Dur also smelled of roasting meat and the sharp tang of tangerine, ginger, and cinnamon. Eliard heard the roars and grunts of the local people as they bartered their wares and went about their business, their forms like walking monoliths in the busy and cramped streets.

  And any one of them could squash me like a bug. He flipped his hair to one side and tried to pretend to be much bigger, and much braver, than he was.

  “Halt! Who lands here!” bellowed a voice below, and Eliard turned to see that there was a trio of other Duergar—some sort of spaceport guard, it appeared—approaching, their bare, clawed feet crunching on the ground. None of them were as big as Val Pathok, the captain was at least relieved to notice, but each of them was still far larger than either he or Irie.

  They had the greyish-blue white pebble scales of their people, but they wore fitted half-helmets over their bald heads and covering their ears. They wore simple breast plate mesh armor, even in this stifling heat.

  “I do.” Val Pathok didn’t budge from the top of the ramp, looking down at the three Duergar who stood like a wall, blocking their access.

  “And what right do you have?” the central Duergar barked, who the captain thought must be some sort of chief or sergeant, judging from subtle cues on his uniform—such as a gold edging on his breastplate. Around his neck he wore what looked, creepily, like a necklace of talons. In all of their hands were the long bodies of heavy laser rifles, with bayonet blades attached.

  “I have the right of blood and of strength,” Val growled back, and looking at the size of him, Eliard couldn’t see any way that any sane person could deny it.

  “Do you claim to be strong enough to walk this dirt? To stand side-by-side with other Duergar?” the sergeant said, and Eliard realized that this must be some sort of ritual greeting or challenge. Which was, in his view, a surprisingly effective way of policing their borders. Could he claim to have the ‘right of strength’ to be here?

  “I do,” Val said impassively.

  The sergeant glared up at him for a moment, his small eyes examining the largest Duergar that anyone had ever seen. “Good.” A nod. “Then welcome to Dur. And these people are your servants?” The guard nodded to Irie and Eliard respectively.

  “Servants…!?” Eliard stiffened at the insult. He was a captain. He had worked very hard indeed to keep the Mercury Blade intact. And he had failed on more than one occasion, but that was beside the point. He was very proud of his self-made status.

  “They are my companions,” Val Pathok stated.

  A flicker of doubt behind the sergeant’s eyes. “Companions,” it stated evenly, its shovel-like mouth peeling back to reveal heavy rows of very large tusks. “They do not look strong enough to protect your back in combat, brother.”

  “They are stronger than they look,” Val grunted, and proceeded to walk heavily down the ramp, straight for the guards. The gunner’s assumed superiority helped a little to give Eliard some confidence as he joined in behind him, and Irie a few steps after.

  “We’re with him,” Eliard said a little nervously as the guards peeled aside to let them pass, and the doors to the Mercury Blade petalled shut behind them.

  “Val, uh, my ship?” The captain looked a little worriedly back at the red wedge of the modified racer behind him, looking very small compared to the heavy, block-like forms of the larger Durish ships.

  “Will be safe,” Val assured him. “The Duergar take theft and thieves very seriously. Anyone tampering with any ship under the guard’s care will be a personal insult to their honor.”

  “Great. Just so long as I know…” Eliard looked back at the three Duergar, who had now turned to watch their own trio walk across the landing arena toward the main terminal.

  “Fresh Gabor!” bellowed a Duergar voice as soon as they walked into the wide, open-plan stone tower. This place didn’t look like any spaceport that Eliard had ever been in, but instead a lot more like an indoor market. There were other Duergar and a few humans and drones forming lines toward various archways. Around the walls were a variety of booths and stalls with Duergar busy trying to sell hot and cold food. The noise of the Durish voices was incredible, and Eliard didn’t think that any of them spoke in less than a shout.

  “Ah, Gabor!” Val grinned, pointing to where a surprising small Duergar was doling out what looked to be a thick lamb curry—dark meats slathered with dark juices—into wooden bowls for a variet
y of Durish customers. “You have to try it, Captain, at least once.” Val knocked on the wooden counter and ordered two bowls of the steaming stuff, before paying with a wave of his credit stick.

  “Well, only if you insist.” Eliard slipped around his gunner to retrieve a wooden spoon, as Val and most of the other customers hadn’t seemed to have bothered—they were just shoveling the hot mixture straight into their mouths.

  “Val, what about customs? Don’t we need to get checked? Vaccinated? Our weapons?” Irie was saying, looking clearly spooked. She was small even by human standards, and in this company, she appeared to be positively dwarf-like.

  “Hghn.” Val gestured with his bowl upwards, to where Eliard and Irie could see that the central space went up and up several flights, and around the inner wall was an entirely circular balcony, its circle broken by a number of booths built out over the concourse. These booths looked a little like opera booths, apart from the fact that there was only room for one chair alone, and each occupied by a Duergar guard with some sort of headset, leaning over a gun emplacement, trained on the crowds below.

  “We already are being checked,” Val said. “Those guards scan us on the way in. If we had prohibited viruses and weapons, they would have seized us, or shot us.”

  “Oh, outstanding.” Eliard shivered. “You lot don’t take prisoners, huh?”

  “Actually, we do.” Val brightened considerably, pointing across the hall to where a line of humans with prisoner-collars were being hauled through the terminal, each collar attached to the next by a thick chain, and the whole line being guided by a fat Duergar in orange-colored robes.

  “Slaves!” Irie said, her anger flashing.

  “Indentured servants,” Val growled back. “The spoils of war, or conflict. They have lost in a battle or tried to invade our territory.”

  “Not all of them look like soldiers…” Irie said defiantly.

  “Irie, please,” Eliard hissed. “We’re not here to start a revolution.” Only a war.

  His engineer didn’t like it, but she acquiesced all the same to her captain’s insistence as they made their way through the terminal. They were almost out the other end when Eliard started choking.

  “By the stars! What in the name of—” He coughed and hacked, passing the plate of Gabor back into Val’s eager claw as his face went a bright red. “Water,” he croaked. “Or just shoot me in the head right now…”

  “Ha!” Val chuckled, clapping him on the back, a blow that sent him staggering forward a few feet. He was about to choke to death before Irie pressed her water bottle into his hand.

  “Here. What did it taste like?”

  “Like someone had mixed coal dust and the burning magma of the damn sun and forced it down my throat.” Eliard coughed and sneezed. “Stars, I think I can’t see.”

  “It’s good, yes?” Val finished the last of both bowls and casually tossed them into the waiting bin-drone, then led them out the other side and into the streets of Dur itself.

  The main avenue was cobbled and equally busy, but through his heat-inspired tears, Eliard could see that the Duergar didn’t use as much technology as the rest of the Imperial Coalition. Not that they couldn’t handle it, as he had seen Val pilot the Mercury Blade, but it merely seemed that the Duergar preferred to use the large beasts of burden called the Uk-Uk for their travels and transports. The Uk-Uk had six fleshy legs that stood taller than most Duergar, and a long, strong, hairless body that apparently could hold almost any amount of weight, the captain noticed as they swayed and stamped with platforms and saddlebags of barrels, crates, and entire metal-processing units. Like a giraffe, however, their necks were high and long, ending in small heads with snouts, and a set of two large, blinking eyes.

  “They don’t look like they want to kill you,” Eliard referred to their earlier consideration.

  “Oh.” Val looked momentarily worried. “You should see them in mating season. A young bull will knock through a house to get to an in-season female Uk-Uk.”

  “Great,” Eliard said, sipping more of Irie’s water.

  The main avenue was mostly occupied by people mounting, loading, or dismounting these giant beasts, but around the edges, Eliard could see more shops built into the mismatched and close-knit buildings. Most were eateries, which the captain swore he wouldn’t go near, but there were also a few armories and more general stores.

  “So, how do we get to see this chief of yours?” Eliard cleared his throat once again, looking up over the rooftops to see the spread of more trees, and the rise of small cookfires. He couldn’t see anything that looked like a palace or a government building anywhere.

  “Ah, Captain?” Irie said, kicking him in the shins to bring his attention back down to eye level. “I think we don’t need to. I think Val’s chief has already found us.”

  In a gap in the Uk-Uk crossing, a group of heavy Duergar was marching across, straight at them. These were at least as large as the spaceport guards, but they were clearly much better equipped. No robes for this contingent but full battle harnesses across their chests, with added shoulder pads, as well as leg and arm greaves. In their hands, they carried fiercely-sharp looking pikes, with laser shots mounted along them.

  “They might not be for us—” the captain tried to say as the contingent of at least seven guards fanned across, clearing a space in front of them, and stopped with military precision. “Well, there goes that idea…” Eliard reached for the blaster at the back of his robes and wondered if now would be a good time to reveal the Device. He didn’t know how much use it would be against Duergar Clan warriors in full battle harness, but he was willing to give it a shot—

  “Val Pathok!” barked one of the guards, leveling his pike at them. “The war chief was notified of your arrival as soon as you walked through our terminal!” The guard sounded ferocious. “You are commanded to come with us, now.” The guard shared a brief look with the other guards. “And this, time we will not be accepting a refusal.”

  “Val?” Eliard said hesitantly. “These people say they know you…?”

  “Hm. They do,” Val groaned, hanging his head as he stepped forward, leaving Eliard and Irie with no choice but to follow and the guards to close ranks around them.

  “Val? What is going on?” Eliard hissed as they were jostled, pressed and shoved into a quick march down the cobbled streets. Their arrest and passage appeared to have attracted quite a deal of attention from the other citizens of Dur, as the captain heard gasps, growls, and shouts from watching crowds, though he couldn’t see them, because the Duergar guards were so large.

  But what he heard them say was enough.

  “They got him, at last!”

  “All these years...”

  “The Hero of the Chenga Pass has returned!”

  “The war chief’s son!”

  3

  Like Father, Like Son

  “Ah, is there something you want to tell us, chief?” Eliard looked at the towering back of Val Pathok, illuminated by the circular window in the ceiling above them.

  “I’m no chief,” Val growled ominously.

  The two humans and the Duergar had been escorted—shoved, more like—through the crowded streets of Dur to a collection of round buildings in their own precinct. The captain had seen more of the spiky trees lining the roads here, and the round buildings had space between each of them, which gave the impression that this was some kind of wealthier district.

  But they still locked the doors behind us. He grimaced. Their room was well furnished for a Duergar’s tastes, which meant that there was a selection of very large and sturdy chairs, an empty fireplace at one end of the stone room, and a selection of sleeping mattresses and headrests spread around the room.

  “Hm.” In response, Val’s great shoulders heaved, and he nodded toward the only square window at the opposite end of the room, partially covered with a tapestry depicting some bloody slaughter. “That,” he indicated, and the captain thought he meant that they should
draw the tapestry to one side, before he realized that his gunner was talking about the tapestry itself.

  A large—a very large—Duergar was standing in the middle of a battle scene, the rising rocky walls of some kind of chasm on either side of him, with a long blade in each hand and mounds of bodies lying at his feet. As Eliard stepped closer, he could even see that there were smaller Duergar forms spilling down the sides of the chasm in waves, looking like a flood of armies racing toward this lone figure.

  “There wasn’t that many, but it was enough,” Val said.

  “Wait… That’s you,” the captain said. Now that his friend had said it, he could see the resemblance.

  “The Battle of Chenga Pass, the Uprising of Eruk the Bloodthirsty,” Val grunted in agreement, frowning at the tapestry. “It was a long time ago now.”

  “Before you met the captain,” Irie said, her gaze going to the Duergar in wonder. It was the sort of scene that only happened in old legends.

  “Aye. My father is Pathok Ma, the War Chief of Duric,” Val said, monosyllabic. “Every Durish city has their own war chief. They are like presidents, or kings, I guess. But their job is to guard their city, and the tribes within it, from all the other war chiefs, and occasionally go to chief councils when a danger threatens all of Dur.”

  “But isn’t Duric, like, the capital city of Dur?” Irie said hesitantly. “I was sure that was what Ponos had said.”

  “Yes.” Val nodded, and then, surprisingly. “It’s complicated. Duric might be the capital of Dur, but that does not mean that my father is the ruler of all of the Duergar peoples. More like a…general.” Val sighed, a very uncharacteristic gesture from such a normally stoic creature.

  “Well, I can see why Ponos wanted us to start our war here then,” Eliard said. “It must have known who you were, Val. It must have known that you would have the ear of your father, and be able to rouse the Duergar in the fight against Alpha…”