Lord Vathek's Hunt

Lord Vathek stared down from the highest tower of Ikarus. Below him, the city stretched out to the rim of the great disk. A storm was coming in from the east, and the clouds roiled like a turbulent, multicolored sea. The sky city plowed through them like a kilometers-long ship, seemingly impervious to any disturbance. The Order of Meteorologists had reported that the coming storm was going to be a monster. Turbulence might even shake the city, despite the power of its suspensor fields. Vathek didn't care. The spotters had also reported that they were directly over a caravan of Skavengers. Soon it would be time to begin the Hunt.

All day, the downdwelling scum had unleashed their puny guided missiles in a futile effort to overcome the flying city's defenses and drive it away from the field of Drakonium they had discovered. Now it was time to teach them a lesson. They would learn that no one could attack the home of the Celestials with impunity. The Drakonium below belonged to Ikarus. It had been located ten hours before by Ikarean psychers, and all night the city had forged through the clouds towards it. It was needed simply to keep the sky city aloft and no lowly groundlings would stand between the folk of Ikarus and survival.

Vathek stepped out onto his balcony. The wind whipped his long silver hair and threatened to bring tears to his eyes. He dropped his helmet into place and smiled his savage smile. Today was going to be a good day. He could feel it in his bones. He had not even taken his daily dose of narcothalium, so certain was he of excitement. He wanted to experience this pleasure unaugmented. Even without the drug, the thrill of the hunt would be enough excitement for him, of this he was certain.

Already the sky was dark with Ikarean warriors. They swarmed around the towers like a flock of angry swallows, swooping and diving and testing their equipment. There was a carnival feel in the air. The warriors were showing off, performing intricate aerobatics to the applause of their lovers crowded on the balconies below.

Languid women and men waved perfumed handkerchiefs. Vathek despised them. Those effete fools should be joining in the sport instead of just spectating. If all of them took their responsibilities as seriously as he did, Ikarus would soon be restored to her ancient glory. Instead they chose not to participate. They were just like his thrice-be-damned wife.

Briefly Vathek cursed Syrena. She should, at least, have been here to see him off, to garland his armor with her favors, but she was still angry with him for killing her last lover, that arrogant pup Bronsek.

Well, so be it. It wasn't his wife's infidelities he minded. The Heavens knew that he had been unfaithful enough himself. No, it was the way she flaunted her amours in front of all their friends that disturbed him. He knew she was just trying to make him jealous, to make him show that he cared enough to fight a duel.

What really annoyed him was that he did. It seemed somehow undignified that a Celestial of his rank should have to slaughter all those callow youths. It seemed somehow ill-bred. And they were all so keen to die for her. It was a tribute to the love, (or at least the lust) her beauty inspired. In spite of himself, he sometimes still felt its affect himself.

Anyway, if he did not slay them, he would be the laughing stock of the court, and that was a thing he would not endure. Why, only last week he had ordered his agents to poison the old Chancellor, Senrathaque, for making a joke about Syrena and her flock of lovers. Vathek smiled viciously. Senrathaque had felt safe, knowing he was too old and feeble to be called out with honor.

Well, Vathek had shown that there was more than one way to skin a cat. A little chaundrey in the old man's medicine, put there by a trusted body, had ensured that Senrathaque would make no more witty remarks about Vathek's wife.

Enough, he told himself. It was time to put aside the cares of court life for an hour and lose himself in sport. He gave his full attention to his pre-flight checks.

He inspected the toggles of his armor and the charge of the power cells. He always did this personally, not trusting to a lackey. He had done so ever since the day he had sabotaged his brother's armor on the eve of a hunt. On that fine night, he had discharged the power cells and rigged the meters to read as if they were still at full capacity. His brother had plummeted to his doom ten minutes into an hour-long flight. Vathek had become heir to the family fortune. He smiled at the memory of it.

In a way he enjoyed this. He liked the thrill of outwitting his enemies and keeping himself alive by his own wits. He guessed that this was why he still liked the Hunt, even at his age, when most Celestials were lost in the murk of narcotic addiction or sharpening their psychic powers at the expense of lessening their physical ones.

The hunt was a test of skill that forced him to keep fit, to stay alert, to hone his combat skills. It was valuable practice for the deadlier business of the Celestial Court and its endless intrigues. In a way, it was a metaphor for all of Ikarean life. In both there was only the predators and the prey.

He completed his checks with the sensors he had built himself, then switched his battlesuit to full activation. The visor dropped into place. The razor-sharp metallic wings extended from their arm sockets and fanned out like those of a pterodactyl. The breathing mask/communication unit slid into place over his mouth. A slight humming showed that the suspensors had come online and peaked at full power.

He stepped out over the edge of his balcony and fell toward the streets nearly half a kilometer below. He passed spiderweb bridges and flower-covered balconies. He passed glittering crystal windows and giant fluttering banners. He waited with his arms by his side until his airspeed indicator indicated terminal velocity, and he could hear the roar of the wind even through the padded earpieces of his helmet. He enjoyed the feeling of naked primordial fear that this descent sent surging through his brain.

He waited until the last possible second, until he could see the pale, upturned faces of the screaming slaves below him, and then he stretched his arms wide. The flexible fans of wafer thin duralloy expanded outwards and caught the air with a snap. The overloading suspensors whined with the strain.

For a moment he felt the heart-stopping thrill of pure terror. What if he had misjudged the distance? What if some rival had sabotaged his battlesuit in some way he had not anticipated? What if there was an accidental collision with a speeding aircar?

He almost screamed. But his self-control was perfect and he did not. Instead, he howled with exultation as the suspensors took the strain and sent him into a long flashing upward arc, directly over the heads of the crowds in the streets. He hurtled along just above street level at a speed of over 200 KPH, and accelerating. Buildings blurred by, and he had to jink and weave to avoid speeding aircars.

He flashed over Grand Central Park and out towards the Rim. There was a moment of pure joy as he exulted in his mastery over gravity and flew free as a bird over his home city, guiding himself with minuscule adjustments of his wings, and by direct neural interface with the ancient thinking engines within his armor.

Swift as a meteor he sped over the Rimwall and looked down onto the rolling mass of cloud below him. It streamed along, a turbulent mass of sickly greens and blues and yellows and reds into which Ikarean warriors were already plummeting, heading earthward to descend like the demons of legend upon their chosen prey.

Vathek set his collision detector to maximum circumference then dropped into the cloud, trusting that the detector would warn him if anything else came too close. He plummeted straight down out of the clouds and emerged to see the desert below him. The infernal red glow of Drakonium crystals covered a swathe of the plain. The downdwellers were there, toiling across the barren wastelands like an army of ants. Even now they were trying to collect the precious crystal. He could see massive Drakonium-processing Wastekrawlers towering out of the mass of vehicles, and hordes of dune bugs beginning to scatter in all directions. Their drivers knew what was coming next.

Let a few of the fools escape, Vathek thought. Such cowards were hardly worthy of the hunt.

Streams of tracer fire ripped upward from the Skavenger konvoy. They blurred past Vathek's visor. He did not take evasive action. He was experienced enough to know that it was simply a random pattern at this range. They could not yet have locked on to him personally. Any movement at this point might simply take him into the line of fire rather than out of it. All he could do was pull his wings in and keep his feet and arms together to narrow his silhouette and present the smallest target area, then let himself descend at maximum possible speed.

Here and now it was all luck and it was all thrilling to Vathek's jaded senses. Here and now, in the fire and fury of combat, was the only time he really felt alive. He swung himself over like a diver beginning a long plunge and surveyed the fast-approaching ground and the prey for this day's Hunt.

It was a large Konvoy. From its center a few well-protected Wastekrawlers, large as buildings, spewed forth a torrent of fire. Nothing worth going for there, Vathek decided. Too much effort for too little reward to break into one of those monsters. Later once the defenders had been overcome, they would break into it at their leisure. Instead he selected a careening dune bug and aimed for it, swiftly overhauling it as it bounced over the poisonous sands.

The occupants had noticed him now. One was standing up in the back of the vehicle, frantically trying to bring the heavy Autocannon on the dune bug's rollbar to bear on him. Vathek veered to one side and let the shells pass to his left. He moved up and over the next burst with practiced ease and then swept over the bug. As he did so, his razor-sharp wings sheared the gunner's head from his shoulders. Vathek heardt the driver's scream as he whizzed by, then pulled himself into a long loop, barreling over for his second pass.

The driver had produced a pistol now, and was desperately trying to guide his car with one hand while snapping off shots with the other. Vathek smiled. This was going to be easy, Vathek thought. He did not even draw his own hand gun but instead swept down in a long swoop. At the last second, he matched velocity with his target and reached out and grasped him by the shoulders.

Bullets pinged off his armor at close range. Vathek tugged and lifted and, in a moment, the two of them were airborne. He rose straight up, climbing swiftly to a height of two hundred meters, then he dropped his prey. The man fell kicking and screaming and tumbling toward the ground, even as his vehicle bounced out of control, flipped over and burst into flames.

Vathek surveyed the battlefield. Hordes of winged warriors had descended like locusts on the Konvoy. Here and there a few fired shoulder-mounted rocket launchers down on vehicles. Others dropped egg-like grenades into the open cockpits of dune bugs. Still others strafed their targets with lasers. Smoke and the screams of the dying were already rising over the battlefield. The clouds parted. The gigantic shadow of Ikarus blotted out the sun. Vathek felt pleased.

It was going to be a good day.