Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

the forest, relentless as army ants.
    "I should have known," Lewis said grimly. "Finn's packed the troops with his own people. One will get you ten they're Neumen as well. Pure Humanity, Sir Carrion; a new creed since your day. Lionstone's illegitimate children, who believe the only good alien is a dead alien. And the scarlet cross means they're religious fanatics. I think we can safely assume they're more interested in bringing us back dead rather than alive."
    "Talk about overkill," Brett said bitterly. "A whole army, just for us? It's not fair. My stomach hurts."
    "About time I got some healthy exercise," said Rose. She was smiling, and her eyes were shining. "The odds just make it more of a challenge."
    "Yes," said Saturday, his great head poking through the doorway. "It will be good to be killing again. I'm really quite peckish."
    Lewis looked at Carrion defensively. "Hey, I didn't get to choose my companions."
    "Neither did Owen," said Carrion. "And he didn't do too badly. And after meeting Ruby Journey, there's not much that shocks me." He looked at the screen again. "Two hundred years since the overthrow of the Iron Bitch, and nothing's really changed. Poor John. He would have been so disappointed."
    "Can you reopen communications with the Hector?" said Lewis. "Maybe I can negotiate a truce… or something."
    The viewscreen flickered, and Captain Kamal was back again. Lewis stepped forwards to stand before the screen, automatically adopting his old stance of Paragon authority. "This is Lewis Deathstalker. You came here for me, not the Ashrai. My companions aren't important either. You want me. Call off your war, and let my companions go, and I will surrender myself to you."
    "No!" Jesamine said immediately. "Lewis, you can't! They'll kill you!"
    "No," Lewis said quietly. "If I surrender, Finn wouldn't be able to resist the thought of a show trial. I'm the one he really wants. He needs to see me broken, brought down—to prove in front of everyone that I should never have been made Champion instead of him. The rest of you don't matter to him. And you have to be free. You have a mission, remember?" Lewis looked back at Kamal. "What do .you say, Captain? Just this once, can't we do this the sane and responsible way, so no one has to get hurt?"
    "You've gone soft, Deathstalker." Captain Kamal almost spat out the words. "The Church Militant has no mercy for traitors. You— and the Jezebel, and the scum you've attracted—are all going back to Logres, dead or alive. Your word is worthless. You have disgraced your name and your position. You are a vileness in the face of God. No deals, Deathstalker. Only blood can atone for your sins."
    Lewis nodded slowly. "Nice of you to confirm that you're religious lunatics first, and soldiers second.
    Looney tunes are always so much easier to outthink than trained professionals. While I've got you here, Kamal, just what are your orders concerning the Ashrai?"
    Death to unbelievers."
    Captain Kamal cut the connection, and the screen went blank again.
    Lewis looked at Carrion. "Well, that was interesting. Short, insulting, and decidedly ominous, but interesting."
    Yes," said Carrion. "It was."
    He slammed the butt of his bone staff on the floor, and the lobby suddenly blazed with light as new power thundered through Base Thirteen. Old mechanisms stirred into life again, computer systems chattered to each other as they came on line, driven from their centuries-long sleep by the will of one implacable man. Viewscreens blazed into life all across the lobby, displaying long streams of scrolling data. Brett looked around uneasily.
    "The generators here are dead, Lewis, powered down hundreds of years ago. You saw the sensor readings. And with this much damage the base shouldn't be able to function anyway. How the hell is he doing this?"
    "I don't know," said Lewis. "And I really don't feel like asking him."
    "The Maze," said Jesamine. "All the stories, all the legends, and I never really understood… He's no more human now than when he was Ashrai. He's what the Maze made him."
    "There are those who would say I wasn't really human even before I went into the Madness Maze," said Carrion, not looking round. "I was an Investigator, after all. I'm using my old security codes to break into the Hector's security files. Back in the day, Investigators had all kinds of backdoor access codes, to get us information we weren't supposed to have, and it seems a surprising number of them still