CHAPTER 36
I could not face Subotai. He had followed me on faith, believing that I would lead him to a land where he and his people could live in peace once they had conquered the aliens who controlled the area. He had trusted me and called me friend. How could I tell him that I had led him into a deadly trap?
This was my doing, my fault. I could not look upon the battle-hardened face of my Mongol general again until I had corrected the situation. Or died trying.
I had learned one thing of supreme importance from Set. Energy is the key to all powers. Cut off the source of his energy and your enemy becomes helpless. Set’s source of energy was the core tap that reached down to the molten heart of Earth. I had to reach it and somehow destroy it.
The tap was deep inside Set’s fortress, which lay more than a day’s march from where Subotai’s troops had camped for the night. I had to get there, and quickly, before Set unleashed an attack upon Subotai that would slaughter all the Mongols.
But I was cut off from my energy source. Set had put a barrier between me and the heavens that prevented me from utilizing the energy streaming in from the sun and stars. Was this shield merely a bubble that covered the immediate region around me, or had he wrapped the entire planet in a shimmering curtain that blocked the energy streaming earthward from the stars?
It made no difference. The fact was that I was cut off from the energies that would allow me to fight Set. There was only one thing to do: reach his own core tap and either destroy it or use it against him.
There was no way that I could accomplish anything in this one night. I took a horse from the Mongols’ makeshift corral and rode toward the northeast and Set’s fortress. I only hoped that I could reach it before the devil launched an annihilating attack upon Subotai.
The sun rose dim and hazy, a weak pale phantom of its usual glory. Set’s shield was incredibly strong, I realized. Pterosaurs were already crisscrossing the watery gray sky. They could not miss seeing me riding alone across the wide plain of grass.
I wondered what Subotai was thinking of me. Probably he was not alarmed yet, thinking that I had returned to Muscovy and was making preparations for bringing the rest of his army to him. I hated to think that he would believe I had betrayed him. I did not fear his anger or punishment, but I felt miserable at the thought that he might feel I had broken his trust.
Despite the wan appearance of the sun, the day became quite hot. Set’s shield was selective, allowing the longer wavelengths of sunlight to reach the ground and heat it. I knew that if I had the proper instruments with me, they would show that none of the higher-energy wavelengths were penetrating the shield. Nor were any energetic cosmic particles getting through, I was certain.
Late in the afternoon a trio of Shaydanians mounted on fighting dragons appeared out of the shimmering heat haze, heading directly for me. The pterosaurs had done their job. I was to be killed or captured and brought before Set once again.
For the first time since I had known them, these Shaydanians bore weapons. They each carried oddly convoluted lengths of bright metal strapped across their backs. Once they spotted me they unslung the devices and, clutching them in both hands like rifles, urged their two-legged carnosaurs into a trotting pace.
I slid off my mount and shooed it away from me. I had already sacrificed one pony to the carnosaurs. That was enough. Idly I thought that I must be acquiring some of the Mongols’ reverence for horses.
As the carnosaur-mounted devils approached me I focused my consciousness on the nearest of the three, reaching into his mind for a brief moment. The rifles, with their bulbous metallic blisters and needle-slim muzzles, projected streams of fire, like a small flamethrower. Set realized that he could no longer rely on fangs and claws to deal with the Mongols; he needed weapons. What more terrifying weapon than a flamethrower, especially coming from a reptilian that already had the Mongols worried that they were facing supernatural demons?