This all in four seconds. It let Apollonius get closer.
Pride two fires on the Grays rushing out of the shaft, and Apollonius charges into my pride. We fall back like quicksand to receive him. Our plan is that six of us are to pepper him with fire, two are to shoot nets, and two are to deploy a shieldDome.
Something goes wrong. It happens too fast and too close to see what. One of the net Lions is cut in half. His fired net flails overhead like a sheet in the wind. Another Lion is knocked out of sight. I glimpse Apollonius coming toward me in a rush of dark purple metal. I fire two shots before he’s on me like a kicking horse. He drives a shoulder into me without looking and hacks off a Lion’s arm. He doesn’t know which one I am. His shoulder check dazed me, but he expected it to knock me out. I’m no Gray. He’s facing the other way, about to kill our last Lion with a net gun.
“Holiday, bodyguard.”
Apollonius also has cameras in the back of his helmet. I reach for my concealed razor. My reach draws his full attention like blood draws a leviathan. He turns, a mass of terror and metal.
“All hail Lionheart,” he purrs.
His giant razor cleaves through another Lion as it comes toward me. It sparks just in front of my helmet, blocked by a glowing blue aegis. Holiday’s. I seize the moment, dive low, like Darrow taught me, razor out, and spear Apollonius in his left knee. He doesn’t make a sound. He headbutts me on the crown of my helmet and my HUD shorts out.
I go right into the floor. Our netman fires. The net snares Apollonius and electrocutes his armor. His razor is trapped, but one of his arms isn’t. He takes my razor from his knee and cuts himself free. I scramble to my feet, woozy, and see the shieldDome is up. An iridescent half dome projects from a Lion’s back unit. It ends a half meter above the floor. If it meets the floor, it’ll blow like a bomb. That Lion has to stay upright and out of the fight.
Apollonius is trapped inside the shield with eight of us.
His men outside it, fighting my other Lions, go into a frenzy when they see the risk to their commander. Holiday and two Lions fire into Apollonius on full auto. His shield dies with a thunderclap. He loses his grip on my razor. It skitters out from beneath the dome. My Lions converge on him and take out his legs. Glaucus armlocks Apollonius’s left arm. Others grab his right arm. I tackle his knees as hard as I can. He teeters and falls on his back. A Lion stomps on his hand and kicks his huge razor out from the dome. I help lock down his legs.
Now’s our chance.
Holiday rushes forward with her misericord. The weapon looks like a dagger hilt with two colored ends and no blade. When jammed down on its black end, a magnetic charge in the hilt forces out a depleted uranium drill with a shaped charge. When jammed down on its red end, the drill has enough haemanthus tranquilizer to put down a griffin. It’s a new weapon, cheap to mass produce, and it is meant for grounded knights in armor that is as expensive as the gear for an entire legion. Like Apollonius’s.
Apollonius sees the misericord coming and thrashes against us. I can barely control one of his legs. A Lion grabs his horns and puts his feet on Apollonius’s shoulders to hold him steady for Holiday. Apollonius was hiding his true strength. He jerks his neck down and pulls the Lion into Holiday’s way. The misericord bangs against the man’s shoulder and the Lion knows he’s dead. That dose was meant for a Gold. Apollonius lunges his head sideways and drives one of his horns up into Holiday’s stomach.
Glaucus shouts in anger and pulls his sidearm. He fires a full clip into the bull helmet. The metal dents. Buckles. Glaucus fires again and I see the digger round penetrate the helmet at the cheek. Apollonius moos and his head flops sideways out of Holiday. Blood and teeth pour out the hole in the bull helmet. Still kneeling atop Apollonius, Holiday pulls a backup misericord and drives it down into Apollonius’s throat armor.
It doesn’t deploy. Lemon.
She slams it down again and again. It’s a dud. Both ends. My heart sinks. Then I lurch as Apollonius fires his boots. We hit the dome with the sound of a gong. We’re almost knocked free. My Lions outside cannot hold back his troops any longer. Still pinning his legs, I give the order to kill him. Holiday puts her rifle into the hole in his cheek.
Then I hear a clatter. A circular metal ball rolls toward us.
Apollonius didn’t have to get free. He just had to be difficult enough to put down for something like this to happen.
A grenade rolls under the domeShield and goes off. The force knocks me sideways. Dazed, head ringing I stagger up as soon as I can think of it. But amidst the groaning armored bodies, the largest is rising. I haul up Holiday and call a retreat.
27
VIRGINIA
A Good Death
TRAILING BLOOD AND MACHINE fluid we flee from engineering to a lateral tram tunnel. Its car is dead. We run all-out for two minutes. Apollonius follows. No more horn blowing. No more mockery. He wants to kill us.
We had him and we couldn’t finish the deed. We’re numb with the shock of it. Down to eighteen Lions now. Everyone is injured. Ten of us would not be able to run without the battle juice or their suits, including Holiday. Glaucus picked up my razor. I take it from him and pat the carryall. Poor Sophocles.
“Slag the shafts,” I say. “We’ll ride the shit.”
“If we even can reach sanitation,” Holiday says, dubious. Her gut wound is starting to slow her down. Glaucus and I help her along.
Cicero seems to know where we are now too. He’s squeezing in. I feel his forces constricting. Flowing from other levels. We’ll never reach sanitation. We can’t go down or up. We need help. The Bastion’s hall temperature—which I’ve gradually been increasing—is just passing ninety degrees Fahrenheit. We also still have the gear bags I had my Lions take from the armory. We still have a chance. It’s not a good one.
We can’t get close to sanitation. So with the enemy closing in, I lead my Lions into a flight-training room as close as I can to the brig. Wheezing blood, Holiday props up a Lion missing a leg and puts a gun in his hand. Her helmet is off. Her face pale and sweating.
“We left a trail of blood. We can hold here. Buy you time. You are uninjured. Take a ghostCloak and slip out,” Holiday says. She can’t raise her left arm. Her shoulder is shot out too, but I’m more worried about the horn wound. “We failed you on the Day of Red Doves. Allow us to redeem—”
She looks crestfallen as I hoist the gear bags I had the Lions fetch from the armory earlier. I head for a side door. “We’re near the brig,” I call back. “Hold the fort and be ready to move.”
“He’s a traitor!” Holiday calls after me. “He may kill you! My Sovereign!”
I don’t slow down.
* * *
—
Cloaked, I hide in an alcove across from the brig’s entrance as Votum legionnaires thunder past in the darkness toward the sounds of gunfire. My Lions are under siege. A Gold with a brilliant sunburst helmet and white cape stops and looks at the brig door. It’s Cicero au Votum. “That is a big door,” he comments flippantly.
“It’s the brig gate, dominus,” a centurion says.
“Don’t correct me. It’s a door.”
“You want Greens on it?”
“Don’t be absurd. Keep them on the lifts. Lysander doesn’t need convicts. He needs a Sovereign and this fortress. Let’s not ape the Minotaur and drop the ball. Still. A big door. Perhaps I have friends entombed inside. I did always wonder what happened to Mercurius. We’ll crack it over supper. Come, come.”