Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

years, held down first by the Mater Mundi’s authority, and then by fear of Owen Deathstalker and the other Madness Maze survivors, and finally by a Golden Age that was just too sane and stable to allow them any foothold. But now, everything had changed. The old adversaries were gone, the Golden Age had proved rotten at the core, and there was no one left on Logres to stop them from doing all the awful things they’d dreamed of doing. The Emperor’s hold had been weakened, the oversoul and the Maze people had all gone away, and the uber-espers . . . had made themselves like unto gods. With hundreds of thousands of thralls forming a great energy pool, the uber-espers finally felt strong enough to do anything they wanted. And so they did.
    They launched their first attacks against the Emperor Finn’s vastly overextended armed forces. There weren’t that many left outside of the Parade of the Endless; just a few battalions shuttling back and forth between the other main cities, maintaining order through dramatic shows of force. A few dozen war wagons and battle cruisers, dug up relics from Lionstone’s time, great dusty steel beasts hovering in the skies, dependent more on reputation than firepower. All of them easy targets for psi storms that came raging out of nowhere, without warning. The uber-espers blew the war machines apart from a distance, ripping apart steel bulkheads with their thoughts and overloading the engines till they blew. Psychokinetic attacks crushed the heavy metal ships in invisible fists, while psionic energies wiped computers and hexed tech. Force shields collapsed and guns wouldn’t work. Men on the ground cried out in shock and horror as blazing gravity barges fell ponderously out of the sky, and gravity sleds slammed against each other like toys in the hands of insane gods. Black smoke billowed up from the crippled remains of Finn’s armored forces.
    The next step was to possess the men on the ground. The uber-espers reached out greedily, using the strength of the ELFs they’d absorbed, and battalion after battalion screamed helplessly inside their heads as they were taken over, and alien thoughts moved their bodies. What had once been Finn’s armies marched into the cities they’d only been sent to subdue, and murdered and possessed every man, woman, and child in their path. They didn’t need to kill anyone, but they did anyway, just for the fun of it. What city defenses there were collapsed in shock and panic, as mass possessions swept through the streets and squares in an unstoppable tide. The uber-espers were now so powerful that one thrall could create another just by looking into their eyes. Possession had become infectious. It leapt through the stampeding crowds like wildfire, jumping instantly from mind to mind. People ran, but there was nowhere to run to. The soldiers had the cities surrounded.
    Attempts at resistance were doomed from the start, because no one could trust anyone. Your closest friend or family could be a thrall, or be made one in a moment. People hid inside their houses, and barricaded the doors and windows, but the thralls just broke in anyway, not caring how much they damaged their bodies in the process. Men and women with smashed hands and lacerated arms smiled triumphantly through the jagged gaps they’d made, and forced themselves upon the defenseless souls within.
    Some thralls were even able to manifest esper abilities on behalf of the uber-espers that rode them, if only briefly. They strode giggling down the streets, and houses exploded or burst into flames on either side of them. Roads cracked apart and sewers hurled foulness up into the streets. Sometimes the esper thralls blew people apart with a look or a word, or made them eat their own flesh; or whatever else occurred to the uber-espers.
    The cities became Hell on earth, choked with smoke and the smell of blood, and the uber-espers danced their thralls through the burning streets, tearing everything down just for the fun of it. And when nothing was left but fire and rubble and the piled-up bodies of the dead, the uber-espers marched their thralls out of the dead streets, and off down the road to the next city. And so it went, city after city, population after population, until armies of thralls were on the march all over Logres, clogging the roads and tramping through fields full of crops. There was no one left to stop them.
    Cities in the path of the thrall armies called out to the Emperor