Path of the Archon by Andy Chambers

Author:Andy Chambers
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781849705905
Publisher: BL Publishing
Published: 2014-03-24T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

LABYRINTH

The gravity line hissed past centimetres from Kharbyr’s face as he descended the sluice channel fast enough to make his eyes water. Yllithian’s warriors were ahead of him and behind him too, spaced along the line at regular intervals like beads strung on a wire. They were plunging through clouds of mist thrown up by the active sluice-ways to either side and Kharbyr quickly became slick with the aerosolised waste that was plunging downwards from High Commorragh around him.

+Some things never change, eh child?+ Angevere whispered sardonically in his mind.

Blinking through the tears Kharbyr saw flashes of light in the Stygian darkness at the bottom of the sluice, the droplets in the air hemming the bursts with rainbow outlines. A split second later he heard the crack-crack-crack of splinter weapons firing. An ambush! The Black Descent must have learned of Yllithian’s plans and laid a trap for him. All it would take was a few well-placed snipers and they could pick off the warriors coming down the gravity line one by one.

More flashes – disintegrators and blasters for sure – pulsed near the bottom of the sluice. By their light Kharbyr could see that he was getting close to where the channel levelled out and widened. A few more seconds and he would be caught in the fire-trap down there with the others, but there was nowhere for him to go. If he released the line early he would still be trapped within the sluice channel with no way out of it and no further control over his descent. He could crash into the others coming down and would certainly lose plenty of skin through abrasion before ending up in exactly the same place as if he’d held onto the line. There was nothing to do but hang on and hope the unseen snipers missed him.

The gravity-line did not follow the course of the sluice precisely. Instead of turning through a bone-smashingly sharp angle near the bottom in order to become horizontal the line curved and lifted Kharbyr out of the high-walled channel. For a second he could see that the sluice channels fed into wider canals that angled off in all different directions. In the distance he glimpsed the faint gleam of what looked like a lake. Then the line was plunging back into the channel again and it began to corkscrew gently to shave off his remaining momentum. Kharbyr could see charcoal-black figures outlined by the flash of weapons fire in the distance and Yllithian’s warriors ahead of him dropping from the line. This was it.

Kharbyr dropped from the line himself and rolled to one side of the channel with his ill-matched limbs flailing as he skidded to a halt. He bounded to his feet and ran along the edge of the channel on hearing the approach of more White Flames sliding down. The last thing he needed right now was to get tangled up with someone else and provide the enemy with a big, fat, two-for-one target to aim at.

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