Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

driven through the opening by a nearby explosion,
    "Once a monster, always a monster! Somebody talked! Somebody sold us out!"
    "You are wrong," said Guide. "I'll provide a distraction. Make good use of it, Deathstalker."
    And before any of them could even think to stop him, he squeezed his long legs through the opening and charged out into the clearing. He darted and dodged among the energy blasts with inhuman speed, defying them to touch him, and then a gravity sled came sweeping in low to target him. Guide ran before it, and then spun round at the last moment, and sprayed thick swatches of webbing from a pulsing orifice in his chest. The sticky threads enveloped the Paragon and his sled, and he quickly lost control of his craft. He was still struggling to keep the sled from nose-diving into the ground when Guide leapt lightly up onto the sled, his eight legs snapping shut around the sled like a trap. The Paragon just had time to look up, and then Guide's mandibles buried themselves in his skull and ripped the top of the Paragon's head off.
    Three more gravity sleds came sweeping in. They targeted the damaged sled and blew it apart with concentrated disrupter fire. Guide died in the explosion, his long legs still twitching spasmodically as fire consumed the monstrous body.
    Lewis and his people hadn't even had time to get out of the opening. Lewis hammered one fist helplessly against the broken stone.
    "Who are those bastards?" said Jesamine.
    "It is the Shadow Men," said Giles's voice—the castle's voice— quiet and distant now. "They've come again. The Empire's bully boys."
    "Oh, great," said Brett. "The castle's losing it. Does anybody have any ideas?"
    "I don't see Finn out there," said Lewis. "And I don't see Emma Steel or Stuart Lennox. Which suggests that Finn wasn't sure enough of victory here to show up in person, and that he hasn't turned all the Paragons to his cause yet. There is still hope."
    "That's kind of long term hope," said Brett. "I was hoping for something a little more immediate."
    "Our options would seem to be somewhat limited," said Lewis. "Either we stay here inside the castle until the shields collapse, and we all die. Or, we go out there and fight them face-to-face, and we all die."
    "Tell me there's a third alternative," said Jesamine. "Even a really bad one would do."
    "Well," said Lewis. "I thought I'd go out there and negotiate."
    "What?" said Brett. "What makes you think they're interested in anything you've got to say?"
    "Because we've been inside the Standing," said Lewis calmly. "And they don't know what we might have learned and found there. Finn would want to know those things."
    "But we didn't find or learn anything useful, really," said Jesamine.
    "Yes, but they don't know that. You stay put," said Lewis. "I'm going out."
    "Fine," said Brett. "You do that. And all of us sane people will stay here and watch you do it from a safe
    distance."
    "We're all going out," Jesamine said sternly.
    Rose nodded approvingly. Brett groaned loudly. "Some days I think I'm the only rational person in this group."
    One by one they hauled themselves up and out through the great crack in the wall, and went out into the clearing with their weapons holstered and their hands in the air. The attack cut off. Fires still raged in and around the clearing. From every direction came the screams of creatures dying. Twelve Paragons on gravity sleds came sweeping forwards to look down on the assembled outlaws, all smiling the same unpleasant smile.
    "I know you," Lewis said to one of the Paragons. "It's Sebastion Oh, isn't it? We fought alongside each other during the Quantum Inferno. How can you side with Finn? Can't you see what he is?"
    "I'm so sorry, Lewis," said the Paragon, still smiling his awful smile. "But I'm afraid Sebastion Oh isn't at home right now. You might say he's been evicted. I'm the new tenant."
    "Jesus!" said Brett. "It's an ELF! He's been possessed by an ELF!"
    "Not just an ELF," said the Paragons, all twelve of them speaking in unison in the same dead voice. "An uber-esper. The Gray Train. At your service, Sir Deathstalker. I live in all these bodies, for now. They make such marvelous weapons."
    "That's what Finn meant about ambushing the Paragons!" said Brett. "He's working with the ELFs…"
    "Not now, Brett," said Jesamine.
    "All the Paragons are our thralls now," said the Gray Train. "They belong to the uber-espers, and we do such marvelous things in their name. And now it's your