Armies of Light and Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

firmly, and stood over the prostrate form of the dying man. He raised his arms high over his head, looked down into the terrified expression of the fatally crippled Centauri. "I'm sorry" whispered Vir, as the rock slipped from his suddenly nerveless fingers. It thumped to the ground next to head of the Centauri, who had no idea what Vir had been about to do, or indeed not too much of an idea about anything at that point. Vir stumbled back and away as the ground continued to tremble.
    He stepped over a small outcropping of rock that had blocked his view moments before ... and there were more Centauri in various states of dismemberment. There were also more, far more, who were simply charred corpses. Vir shut his ears to the agonized cries all around him and kept moving, trying to convince himself that the immediate danger was past. That whatever had happened to these unfortunate souls had occurred at the instant that the energy had been released. What had released that energy, however, or what had set it off, he could not even begin to guess.
    Then there was more rumbling beneath Vir's feet, but he suddenly realized that its point of origin was, in fact, overhead. Something was dropping from the sky, something huge. At that moment there was so much smoke and fog, released from the energy discharge, that he couldn't quite make out anything beyond large, nebulous shapes. They were drawing closer, however, with each passing moment. Drakh ships, said a voice in his head, and he had no idea how he had known it. But once the thought was there, he knew it to be true. Vir looked around, hoping that one of the cloister techno-mages would suddenly pop into existence, stepping from the corner of his eye into full view. They weren't forthcoming, however, and a panicked thought went through his mind. What if they're gone?
    What if they were too near the site and somehow they were killed when the ... the whatever-it-was ... was released? He tried to tell himself that such a happenstance was impossible. That these were techno-mages, after all. Then he reminded himself that they were, in fact, cloisters. That they weren't necessarily possessed of all the learning and knowledge of a techno-mage. A genuine techno-mage, after all, need not fear anything ... If they're not afraid of anything, why did they run away? Why did they leave known space? For Vir, who was seeking so many answers to try and make sense of the universe around him, this was the most easily answered question of all. Because they're smarter than you are.
    Though he knew full well the stupidity of his actions, Vir kept moving. It was almost as if he had been seized by a compulsion to prove something to himself. He had, after all, failed that first test. He'd left a fellow Centauri to go through the last dregs of a tortured death. But there were others like him; what was he supposed to do, bash in all their heads? Since when had he become the lord high executioner of Centauri Prime? This, though ... this he could do. This was something he had to do. Just keep one foot moving in front of another, keep going, see what's ahead, and ignore what's above. He kept issuing orders to himself. Just keep going. One doesn't have to be exceptionally brave to keep moving. At least, that's what he told himself.
    There were more vessels coming in from overhead, and in his mind he actually swore he could hear something that sounded like ... singing. Many voices joined as one, and he couldn't understand the words on any sort of intellectual level. On a gut level, even a spiritual level, the voices and words chilled him to his soul. They seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere, all at once, and somehow he knew that they were originating from those rapidly approaching vessels. There were large arrays of rubble ahead of him, and he realized that they were the remains of buildings that had been at the edge of the dig. He clambered over them, trying not to think about people who might be buried