Ascendance by John Birmingham Read Free Book Online Page B

female who seemed to have attached herself to his cause.
    That sucked.
    Everything had been going so well. He’d brought Fallujah to Manhattan. He’d unleashed scores of small, uncoordinated attacks on soft targets well away from any place the humans were able to concentrate firepower. He’d watched with mounting excitement and delight as the city lost its shit. Totally, completely, to the fucking max. He’d known it was going to work. Had seen the way the entire island seized up. He’d tasted the panic and madness of the calfling masses for himself, not even needing his thralls for that. Their fear was thick in the air, even here, hidden in the forest at the centre of the metropolis.
    It was all going so well. Even Guyuk, the stale old fart, was impressed by how much they’d achieved with a comparatively small cohort of untried Hunn, driven to frenzy by the need to prove themselves where proven warriors had failed.
    And then the fucking Dave turned up.
    ‘Compt’n, attend! You ordered this withdrawal, now you lag behind.’
    It was old Guyuk, storming and stomping toward the portal.
    Threshy shook off his troubles and laid aside his resentment at being knocked on his ass by the two Lieutenants Grymm. He scowled and made a special effort to remember their ugly faces and stupid tattoos. He’d settle with them later.
    ‘Coming, my Lord!’
    The guard withdrew through the gateway to the UnderRealms in perfect order, Guyuk and Threshy surrounded by the giant warriors. Their mailed and armoured forms towered over the tiny empath and their disciplined minds were all but closed to him. The transition from Above to below was the same as before, even though this time the rift between the realms was held open by a Master of the Ways, one of the few Scolari Grymm adept in the arcane study of the paths between the realms. Their party proceeded into the darkened cutting, the artificial light of the city dying in the gloom. The natural darkness of night in the Above gave way to the deeper and more profound darkness of the UnderRealms at some point after they passed between the worlds.
    Threshy knew exactly when they left the world of men behind because he lost the connection to his thralls. The portals weren’t like a Stargate. You couldn’t send signals through. Only flesh and metal. There was much he did not yet understand about the portals, or the discipline of those too few masters still able to navigate them. Were they wormholes, some sort of quantum string tying alternate worlds together? How did the Masters of the Ways manipulate them to open a gate to the Above in just the right spot?
    Be a hell of a lot simpler if Guyuk would just let him chow down on a few Scolari brains so he could get up on this shit. He’d be a double-plus awesome Threshrend if he knew how to teleport between the realms, but of course, they wouldn’t let him do that. Masters of the Ways, who were so recently about as useless a Scolari as you could imagine, were now more precious than Bulgari Edition Apple Watches.
    He skinned his fang tracks back at the sweet and sulphurous familiarity of the Horde’s one true realm. They were home, the guard drawn up in the large cavern beneath the regimental training fields from where they had ventured Above. Armour clinked and edged metal rasped as the Grymm divested themselves of their fighting gear under the supervision of their captain.
    ‘Best you attend me in my chamber, Superiorae, and we will discuss what just happened.’
    ‘What just happened, boss, is that we didn’t get our scaly asses handed to us by the fucking Dave, that’s what. But one of my Threshrendum did. A really gnarly old superiorae too.’
    ‘You saw the Dave through your thrall?’
    ‘Yep. The Dave and his sexy lieutenant. Had eyestalks on them right up until the crazy ninja lady chopped them off. And sorry, el jefe , but they were close. Too close to you, and to old Threshy too. No point having a cunning plan that’s like