Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

at last. He just wished there’d been somebody left to see it. He watched the mad ship draw slowly closer on the bridge viewscreen, not even bothering to get out of his way, and he laughed again. He was still laughing when the Havoc crashed head-on into the Herald , amid a coruscation of shattered shields, and both ships rammed into each other and exploded. Locked together, blazing fiercely with discharging energies, the wreckage of the two ships tumbled slowly end over end as they fell towards Logres.
    Captain Vardalos took sole command, and regrouped what was left of the fleet in high orbit. She wished she’d had ship’s espers, like in the old days. The uber-esper attack seemed to have stopped for the moment, but she had no way of knowing whether it might start again. No one really knew anything, where the uber-espers were concerned.
    Lewis Deathstalker and Jesamine Flowers fought side by side at the top of the stairs at the entrance to the palace, performing dark wonders with sword and gun. No one had seen such warriors since Owen’s time. None of the thralls could touch them, despite the huge numbers. Stuart Lennox was there too, tired but dogged. Grateful as he was for Lewis and Jesamine’s presence, he was beginning to find their unending skill and fury just a little spooky. Lewis’s sword rose and fell, cut and hacked, moving too fast for the human eye to follow, throwing thrall bodies aside as though they were nothing. Jesamine spun and danced, as fast and deadly as a striking snake, and more beautiful. Death had never looked more glamorous or more certain.
    The dead piled up on every side, forming tall barricades so that the thralls could come up the steps only in narrow files to attack their enemy. They came clambering carelessly over the dead on the steps, their possessed eyes blazing with unquenched fury. They still made noises, but there was nothing human in the sound. They fought with clawed hands, like animals. Nina still opened fire with her very big gun on occasion, when the mob seemed to be pressing especially close, but the energy crystal was running low. She didn’t have many shots left. She’d given up on her running commentary. The scenes the floating cameras were broadcasting live said it all. But one question still nagged at her, and in the end she just leaned forward and blurted it out.
    “Lewis! Where’s Owen? Is the blessed Owen coming to save us?”
    “No,” said Lewis, his sword slicing into a thrall’s chest and out again. “Owen’s busy elsewhere. You’ll just have to settle for me.”
    The thralls came surging forward, a solid wave of rage and hatred driving up the steps, desperate to get their hands on Lewis and Jesamine and drag them down. Nina fired her gun into the mass, and it didn’t even slow them. Lewis and Jesamine and Stuart held their position at the top of the steps, and the thrall wave shattered against them like the sea against an immovable rock. After everything they’d been through, after all the dangers Lewis and Jesamine had faced, the thralls might be hard work but they weren’t scary. And Stuart Lennox, his old pride returned, was once again the chosen Paragon of Virimonde, and he stood proudly beside his hero Lewis, as unmovable as any Maze survivor.
    The pressure of the attack actually lessened, as the uber-espers realized it would take more than force of numbers to bring these three down. And so they pushed their abilities to the limit, and suddenly some of the attacking thralls began to manifest esper abilities. The thralls only lasted a few minutes before burning up inside and out, consumed by the very power they were wielding, but they threw fire and rubble at the defenders, and rocked them with psychic assaults. And yet somehow the attacks never seemed to focus, or find their targets, as though even the uber-espers couldn’t quite comprehend what Lewis and Jesamine had become. Stuart just kept his head down, and the psychic assaults collapsed almost as quickly as they’d begun.
    More soldiers came pouring in from the side streets, with warriors from Mistworld and Virimonde. They saw the three standing firm at the entrance to the palace, and the dead piled up before and around them, and the newcomers raised their battle cry.
    Deathstalker! Deathstalker! Deathstalker!
    The new fighters and the thralls crashed together at the foot of the steps, and the square before the palace was quickly full of struggling figures. It was chaos, with