“Where will the AllFather be, do you think?” Lock asked.
“In his throne room.” Xairn nodded down the long, empty corridor. “This way. Come—the closer we can get to him before we’re blocked by the vat grown soldiers he sends, the better.”
“Let’s go,” Deep said. “If we no longer have the element of surprise on our side, at least we can have speed.” He started off at a dead run for the empty hallway and Xairn and the rest followed. They made good progress through the echoing corridors and he was just beginning to think they might actually get all the way to the throne room unmolested, when the first wave of vat grown soldiers appeared.
“Watch out!” Deep kept charging even as he shouted. He had his blazer out and ready and was already carving his way through the silent ranks. The rest of them followed, doing the same, but for every vat grown they cut down, two more rose to take its place.
The vat grown soldiers moved forward, a noiseless, grasping mob, arms outstretched, reaching for anything they could rend or destroy. Some were armed with knives, though none of them had a kusax, Xairn was relieved to see. Though silent and stupid they were big and strong and there were hundreds of them to their small force of five.
“They’re like insects,” Sylvan shouted, batting away a Scourge soldier with a long knife and getting a nasty gouge on the arm for his trouble. “Cut one down and a dozen more pour in to take its place.”
“Just keep going!” Baird roared. He was forcing his way through the corridor now, cutting swaths through the ranks of the vat grown with his blazer and leaving a trail of steaming body parts in his path. Xairn was right beside him, stabbing the ones that got too close with the cryo-knife. Again and again he plunged the glowing blue blade to the hilt in a vat grown’s chest. Again and again he watched as their bodies went stiff, a fine patina of frost covering the muscular torso before they fell to their knees, only to be trampled by their fellow soldiers.
The Kindred were fighting valiantly beside him and Xairn could see the huge double doors which led to the throne room far ahead at the end of the hall. But the narrow metal corridor was getting clogged with bodies, both living and dead, and there were only so many each warrior could fight off at once. Xairn had several freely bleeding wounds on his arms, chest, and back and all around him he could see his new friends receiving similar injuries.
“There are too many of them!” Lock’s voice was a hoarse shout of despair. “They’re everywhere.”
With a feeling of desperation, Xairn realized he was right. Even if the entire lot of silent, deadly soldiers dropped dead that moment, their bodies would still block the way to his father. Why is he doing this? he thought, looking through the seething mass of bodies to the open doors of the throne room. He wants me here—he lured me back himself. This must be some kind of a test.
“How right you are my ssson,” the voice of the AllFather hissed in his head. “The question is, can you passs it? Can you find your way to the foot of my throne before your darling mother isss no more?”
Xairn cursed aloud in his harsh native tongue. His father’s mocking laughter echoed in his head in reply. Clearly the AllFather was enjoying himself immensely. Suddenly Xairn’s eyes grew hot and he felt something swell within him—some power beyond the physical realm. He opened his mouth, uncertain of what might come out.
“Listen to me, soldiers of the Scourge,” he shouted and his words rang with the power that was building up inside him. “Cease fighting and listen.”
As one, the vat grown soldiers stopped fighting and stood motionless, their empty, soulless eyes fixed on Xairn.
“This is not your fight,” he told them, still speaking with the resonance of power. “You are little more than animated corpses—bodies grown from ancient DNA harvested long ago. You are kept alive and breathing by the cruel will of the AllFather, forced to fight in order to serve his whims.”
The ranks of the vat grown swayed toward him and Xairn could feel their silent agreement. They might not have much intelligence but they knew enough to know they led a miserable existence. They never knew kindness or comfort or love—only the endless grind of a daily existence devoid of anything but pain and monotony.
“Go,” he told them, his voice ringing through the metal corridor. “Go from here and do not return.”
“Nicely done, my ssson,” The AllFather laughed in his head. “And most humane—letting them live instead of killing them. It must be the human DNA in you, making you so weak. You could easily have had them turn on each other, you know.”