Sten 3: The Court of a Thousand Suns (Sten) by Chris Bunch; Allan Cole

Author:Chris Bunch; Allan Cole
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781841490090
Publisher: Orbit Book Co.
Published: 1996-06-30T14:00:00+00:00

Kilgour, too, was trying moves.

"Clottin' Romans," he bellowed down the corridor, "y'r mither did it wi' sheep. Wi' goats! Wi' dogs! Clottin' hell, wi' Campbells!" No response came from the guards outside the cell.

He stepped back from the window and looked apologetically at the 120 Gurkhas sharing the huge holding cell with him.

"Tha' dinnae ken."

Kilgour's plan, for want of a weaker word, was to somehow anger the guards so much they'd come into the cell to bust kneecaps. Alex hoped that, regardless of weapons, he and the 120 stocky brown men in the cell could somehow break out.

Havildar-Major Lalbahadur Thapa leaned against the wall beside him. "In Gurkhali," he offered helpfully, "you might try one pubic hair."

Alex laughed. "Now that's the stupidest insult Ah've heard in years."

"Stupider, Sergeant Major, than calling someone a Campbell---whatever that is?"

Without warning a section of seemingly solid stone in one wall slid open, and Sten was suddenly leaning nonchalantly against the far wall. "Sergeant-Major, I could hear your big mouth all the way down the corridor. Now if you'd knock off the slanging and follow me.

"The arms room," Sten continued, as the Gurkhas recovered from their astonishment and bustled into the low tunnel Sten had emerged from, "is three levels up and one corridor across."

"Ah'm thinkit Ah owe y' a pint," Alex managed, as he forced his bulk after the Gurkhas. Sten looked very knowing as he palmed the rock wall shut.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Years later, Sten and Alex would have a favorite pondering point. They could understand why the Emperor built Arundel. They could also understand why a man who believed in romance required a castle to have secret passages.

The problem was the why for some of those passages. Both men thought it very logical that a backstairs went from the Imperial chambers to feed into the various bedchambers. Sten could even understand why the Emperor wanted a tunnel that provided secret egress from cells in the dungeon far below.

They were never able to explain to everyone's satisfaction why a few of the tunnels opened into a main passageway.

Some of the former Praetorians involved in the revolt might have wondered, too, if they had survived. Most did not.

A Praetorian paced down a seemingly doorless corridor then a panel swung noiselessly open and a small grinning man swung a large knife that looked to be a cross between a machete and a small cutlass.

There were only a little over a thousand Praetorians, facing 120 wall-slinking Gurkhas. The battle was completely one-sided.

The reoccupation of the palace went quickly, silently, and very, very bloodily, as Sten deployed his troops in a slow circle, closing on the Imperial chambers, the communication center, and that one room with the com-link to the Emperor.

The armored door to the com center was sealed, which offered no potential problem to the Gurkha squad deployed around it. The lance-naik already had his bunker-buster loaded and the rocket aimed at the door's hinges when Sten kicked him aside. "Yak-pubes," he snarled in Gurkhali, "do you know

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