A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [86]
In a strangely sharp and commanding tone, young Thor’h snapped to the burly warriors, “Go stop my uncle before he is injured! It is your duty to rescue the Hyrillka Designate. He is the son of the Mage-Imperator.”
Without hesitating, two warrior kithmen sprinted through the entryway and vanished into the complex after Rusa’h. A mob of Hyrillkans crowded toward the rescue shuttle.
Overhead, the hydrogues kept attacking. The second warglobe played a volley of blue lightning onto the ornate palace structure. Explosions ripped open the airy arched walls. Scraps of the hanging gardens erupted into flames and greasy smoke.
A convergence of four electric beams tore into the heart of the citadel, where Designate Rusa’h had gone, shattering an entire wing. The walls collapsed, and smoke gushed from the rooflines.
“No, Uncle!” Thor’h broke away from the safety of the rescue shuttle and ran toward the collapsed section. “The Designate is trapped inside! We must dig him out.” Jora’h and three more guards raced after him.
Still harried by Kori’nh’s warliners, the pair of hydrogues passed overhead. Ripples of white icewave struck eight small streamers, knocking them from the sky like kernels of grain harvested by a random wind.
The brawny warriors shoved their way through collapsed corridors and finally reached the rubble of the bubbling-pool chamber. The walls and domed ceiling had tumbled into a rubble of tile shards and transparent blocks.
“He entered here just before the explosion,” said one warrior. “The Designate must be buried under the debris.”
“He’s dead,” Thor’h moaned.
With clawed hands and muscular arms, warrior kithmen tossed aside chunks of wreckage, ripping through the rubble, moving support girders and reinforcement bars. Pillars had toppled, trapping the Designate but also sheltering him from large sections of the fallen ceiling.
Finally, they uncovered a pale hand and a scrap of colorful robes now speckled with blood. Four injured pleasure mates had survived on the other side of the shrapnel and debris, soaking wet. Some had been caught in the bubbling pool; two had already drowned, stunned by falling bricks.
Fires continued to spread through the ruined palace, and the smoke could not escape through ragged gaps in the ceiling or broken walls. Jora’h hurried forward to help, though his strength could not match that of the powerful soldiers.
Outside, screams, explosions, and weapons fire echoed across the sky. But Jora’h focused on freeing his brother’s body. He tried to sense him through the thism, but the glimmers of light and the connecting soul-threads had all grown dark and faint.
Two of the soldier kithmen lifted a heavy stone column and pushed it aside with a thunderous crash. They finally exposed Rusa’h‘s pudgy face. The cheeks were bruised and bloody, his eyes swollen shut, his mouth a grimace of pain. But his hair still twitched. His skin was flushed, his pulse weak but present.
“The Designate lives!” said one of the soldiers.
“Get him out of there,” Thor’h said. With hands unaccustomed to labor, he began to scrabble in the rubble until they had completely uncovered the Mage-Imperator’s third-born son. Thor’h clung to his uncle as the soldiers picked him up gently. “Quickly. We must get to the shuttle. Adar Kori’nh waits for us.”
They carried Designate Rusa’h, blood dripping from his wounds. The dedicated soldier kithmen rushed back down the rubble-strewn hall with Jora’h, Thor’h, and the four pleasure mates following closely behind. The Hyrillka Designate had suffered severe injuries, yet he lived.
Once they were aboard the shuttle, which was already crowded with dozens of refugees, the pilot wasted no time. Engines straining, the overloaded ship lifted away from the burning citadel palace. One of the Ildiran battleships broke off its defense, withdrew, and intercepted the personnel transport.
The Adar himself met them in the shuttle bay, though he knew he should not have left the command nucleus in the midst of an attack. He was relieved to see Jora’h and his son