Starfist: Kingdom's Fury Read Online Free PDF

wave of noise so powerful that their clothing and the flesh beneath it vibrated from the concussions. At first Zechariah thought the Angel of Death had come to punish the sect for transgressing the Word, but he soon realized that a fleet of aircraft was passing directly over where they stood. The machines swooped down on the encampment, trailing blinding streams of flame, and then, abruptly, all went dark and unnaturally quiet.
    Instinctively, Zechariah reached for his wife Consort's hand, and in the dark he put his free arm around his son and daughter and drew them close to his side. It was so quiet they could hear one another's breathing. After a few moments Zechariah's hair stood on end as a low groaning sound reached the group over the several kilometers that separated it from the plateau where the body of the sect had taken refuge. The sound came in undulating waves, not loud but distinct—the unmistakable expression of thousands of voices raised in a merging scream of primal fear. It reminded Zechariah of some old paintings he had seen illustrating the tortures of the damned in Hell. That terrible moaning would have been the perfect audio accompaniment to those frightening scenes.
    In a short while the sound died away completely and total silence and darkness enveloped the small group.
    For what seemed a long time—but was no more than ten minutes—the group stood there silently, waiting for the machines to come for them. But nothing happened. Zechariah glanced to the south. In the bright starlight he could easily make out the narrow outline of the road leading back to New Salem and their homes and fields.
    "We must get out of here," he whispered to Consort. His words seemed to break the trance the others had fallen into.
    "Back to New Salem!" a man standing nearby with his family whispered.
    "No!" Zechariah whispered vehemently. None of them dared talk above a whisper lest whatever had attacked the camp hear them and come their way. "No," he repeated. "For all we know, the fliers came from there and will go back there. Aren't there caverns in the hills a few kilometers to the southwest of here? I say we leave the vehicles here, load up with what supplies we can carry, and strike out on foot for the caverns."
    There was a brief whispered conference, but it did not take much convincing for everyone to agree that Zechariah was right. "What of, what of . . .?" a woman asked, nodding her head back toward the plateau.
    "When they leave, we will come back and search for our brethren, but now we must save ourselves," Zechariah answered. "Let us gather our things and depart this place. Everyone, maintain the utmost silence until we are far away from here."
    The "few kilometers" to the caves turned out to be closer to a hundred, and the trek took them four days. They covered the distance at night and hid in the brush during the daytime. Meanwhile, nobody came after them, and the aircraft were not seen again until they had reached the precarious safety of the caves.
    "Keep watch, son," Zechariah told Samuel. He patted the boy on the shoulder and left him sitting just inside the cave entrance, scanning the far horizon for any sign of life or activity. Two days earlier aircraft had been spotted. From so great a distance the refugees could not tell whose they were, but the machines moved so fast, Zechariah was convinced they were not Kingdomite or Confederation craft. It had been some years since the City of God had been involved in any of the sectarian wars that plagued life on Kingdom, but Zechariah was familiar with the standard military fighter-bomber aircraft in use by the armed forces, and what they had seen were not of those types.
    The sight of the machines struck animal fear into the survivors, and most of them rushed far back into the interior of the caves and covered their heads, crying out to the Lord for mercy. But Zechariah had remained steadfastly on watch, following the craft as they disappeared rapidly to the