Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

Deathstalker and Jesamine Flowers, Brett Random and Rose Constantine. Home again, to clean house. The thralls looked up, and from their massed throats came a single howl of rage and disbelief from the five minds that controlled them.
    Lewis looked down at the warring streets, and was sickened and furious at the number of thralls that had fought their way into the beloved capital city of Logres, that once famed and most fabulous city in the Empire. He could sense that they were all mind-wiped, little more than dead bodies walking, beyond all hope of rescue, and only wished he could have got home sooner. He swooped down to the entrance steps of the Imperial Palace, Jesamine right behind him. He hit the bottom of the steps so hard the stone cracked and shattered under his feet, and the thralls fell back like frightened children. Jesamine dropped lightly down beside him, and they both lashed out with their Maze-altered minds. Hundreds of surrounding thralls hit the ground and did not move again, the uber-espers blasted right out of their minds. And all around, thousands of thralls screamed out their hate, and charged forward.
    Lewis stood his ground, and met them dispassionately with gun and sword, his long steel blade flashing back and forth faster than the human eye could follow. His sword cut in and out of thrall flesh in under a second, and they fell dead and dying before him. Jesamine was there at his side, watching his blind spots, her sword rising and falling just as quickly. None of the thralls got close enough to touch them.
    “You should have been in opera, Lewis,” Jesamine said casually. “You really know how to make an entrance.”
    “Never cared much for opera,” said Lewis, hacking and cutting at the thralls like a man chopping wood. “Too many good guys end up dying in the last act.”
    They allowed the press of bodies to follow them up the stone steps to the top, where Stuart Lennox stood alone, his uniform torn and bloodied, but his sword still swinging. Nina Malapert dodged out from behind him now and again to blow large holes in the crowd with her gun. She saw who was coming up the steps, and squealed with joy and excitement as she recognized them. She gestured, and her cameras came flying in from all directions to get a good angle. Stuart just nodded to Lewis and to Jesamine.
    “Good to have you back, Deathstalker. Make yourself at home. Kill a whole bunch of thralls.”
    “Thanks,” said Lewis. “Don’t mind if I do.”
    Behind them, Nina Malapert shook her head sadly, when she realized that was all they were going to say. It was hardly dialogue for the ages.
    And all across the city, ships and pinnaces landed wherever they could, and soldiers and fighting men and women disembarked with sword and gun at the ready. They charged right into the waiting thralls, and soon there were surging mobs of combatants in every street and square. Men and women from Mistworld and Virimonde cut and hacked their way through the crowded boulevards, eager for blood and vengeance. They had come for Finn Durandal, but for the moment they’d settle for taking out some of their grievances on the thralls. There was no peace to be found anywhere in the Parade of the Endless, as the two sides contested for every square foot of the city. Famous buildings burned, and towers and bridges that were works of art collapsed in ruins. Disrupter blasts scorched away precious mosaics and set fires blazing in protected parks. Both sides in the battle were too busy to notice, or care.
    The Ashrai came flying down, their huge grotesque forms soaring over the city on wide membranous rainbow wings, and a cry went up from the weary city defenders, and even some hardened souls from the Rookery.
    Look! It’s the dragons! Owen has sent his dragons to aid us!
    Somewhere among the vast army of the Ashrai, the old traitor called Carrion laughed softly, relishing the irony. And then he led his people down into battle, smashing through the defenseless thralls like pile drivers on the wing.
    John Silence was in the city too. He’d come down in a pinnace, alongside his troops. The fleet captains had done everything they could to talk him out of it, but he didn’t listen. They’d wanted him to stay safe with the starcruisers, deciding strategy and giving orders, but he knew his place was on the ground. He’d always known he was an admiral in name only, and now he needed to be back in his old city, that he had defended and saved so many