More or less as one, they were off, over the tangled bank of mossy ground and bushes and down the other side, through light scrub and long, cane-like grass, the stalks covered in clinging, dark green moss. The mixture of ground cover came up to about chest height and made the going difficult, but it would be reasonably easy to duck down out of a line of fire. Horza waded through as best as he could. Plasma bolts sang through the air above them, lighting the dim stretch of ground between them and the sloping temple wall.
Distant fountains of earth and crashes he could feel through his feet told Horza that Neisin, sober the last two days, was laying down a convincing and, more importantly, accurate fire pattern with the Microhowitzer.
"There's a little gunfire from the upper left level," the cool, unhurried voice of Jandraligeli said. According to the plan, he was supposed to be hiding high in the forest canopy watching the temple. "I'm hitting it now."
"Shit!" somebody yelled suddenly. One of the women. Horza could hear firing from ahead, though there were no flashes from the part of the temple he could see.
"Ha ha." Jandraligeli's smug voice came through the helmet speaker. "Got them!" Horza saw a puff of smoke over to the left of the temple. He was about halfway there by now, maybe closer. He could see some of the others not far away, to his left and right, pushing and striding through the cane grass and bushes with their rifles held high to one shoulder. They were all gradually getting covered in the dark green moss, which Horza supposed might be useful as camouflage (providing, of course, that it didn't turn out to be some horrible, previously undiscovered sentient killer-moss… He told himself to stop being silly).
Loud crashes in the shrubbery around him, and smashed bits of cane and twigs fluttering past like nervous birds, sent him diving for the ground. The earth beneath him shuddered. He rolled over and saw flames lick the mossy stalks above; a flickering patch of fire lay directly behind him.
"Horza?" a voice said. Yalson's.
"OK," he said. He got up to a crouch and started running through the grass, past bushes and young trees.
"We're coming in now," Yalson said. She was up in the trees, too, along with Lamm, Jandraligeli and Neisin. According to the plan, all except Neisin and Jandraligeli would now start moving through the air on AG towards the temple. Although the anti-gravity units on their suits gave them an extra dimension to work with, they could be something of a mixed blessing; while a figure in the air tended to be harder to hit than one on the ground, it also tended to attract a lot more fire. The only other person in the Company with AG was Kraiklyn, but he said he preferred to use his for surprise or in emergencies, so he was still on the ground with the rest of them.
"I'm at the walls!" Horza thought it was Odraye's voice. "This looks all right. The walls are really easy; the moss makes it-"
Horza's helmet speaker crackled. He wasn't sure if there was something wrong with his communicator or if something had happened to Odraye.
"— ver me while I'm-"
"— on you useless-" Voices clashed in Horza's helmet. He kept wading through the cane grass, and thumped the side of his helmet.
"— asshole!" The helmet speaker buzzed, then went silent. Horza swore and stopped, crouching down. He fumbled with the communicator controls at the side of the helmet, trying to coax the speaker back into life. His too-big gloves hindered him. The speaker stayed silent. He cursed again and got to his feet, pushing through the scrub and long grass to the temple wall.
"— rojectiles inside!" a voice yelled suddenly. "This — … — cking simple!" He couldn't identify the voice, and the speaker went dead again immediately.
He arrived at the base of the wall; it slanted out of the scrub at about forty degrees and was covered in moss. Further along, two of the Company were clambering up it, almost at the top, about seven metres above. Horza saw a flying figure weaving through the air and disappearing over the parapet. He started climbing. The clumsily large suit made it more difficult than it should have been, but he got to the top without falling and jumped down from the parapet onto a broad wall-walk. A similar moss-covered wall sloped up to the next storey. To Horza's right the wall turned a corner beneath a stubby tower; to his left the wall-walk seemingly disappeared into a blank cross-wall. According to Kraiklyn's plan Horza was supposed to head along that way. There ought to be a door there. Horza jogged along towards the blank wall.
A helmet bobbed up from the side of the sloped wall. Horza started to duck and swerve, just in case, but first an arm waved from the same place, then both helmet and arm appeared, and he recognised the woman Gow.
Horza threw back the visor on his helmet as he ran, getting a faceful of jungle-scented Marjoin air. He could hear some rattling projectile fire from inside the temple, and the distant thud of an exploding Microhowitzer round. He ran up to a narrow entrance cut in the sloped wall, half covered by streamers of mossy growth. Gow was kneeling, gun ready, on the splintered remains of a heavy wooden door which had blocked the passageway beyond. Horza knelt beside her and pointed at his helmet.
"My communicator's out. What's been happening?"
Gow touched a button on her wrist, and her suit PA said, "OK so far. No hurts. They on towers." She pointed up. "Them no fly go in. They enemy got projectile guns only, them fall back." She nodded and kept glancing round through the doorway and into the dark passageway beyond. Horza nodded too. Gow tapped his arm. "I tell Kraiklyn you go in, yes?"
"Yeah, tell him my communicator's out, OK?"
"Yeah, sure. Zallin same trouble had. You be safe, OK?"
"Yeah, you be safe, too," Horza said. He stood up and entered the temple, scuffing over splinters of wood and fragments of sandstone scattered over the moss by the door's demolition. The dark corridor branched three ways. He turned back to Gow and pointed. "Centre corridor, correct?"
The crouched figure, silhouetted against the light of the dawn, nodded and said, "Yeah, sure. Go middle."
Horza set off. The corridor was covered in moss. Every few metres dim yellow electric lights burned from the walls, casting murky pools of light which the dark moss seemed to absorb. Soft-walled, sponge-floored, the narrow passage made Horza shiver, though it wasn't cold. He checked that his gun was ready to fire. He could hear no other sound apart from his own breathing.
He came to a T-junction in the corridor and took the right-hand branch. Some steps appeared and he ran up them, stumbling once as his feet tried to run out of his oversized boots; he put his hand out and jarred his arm on the step. Some moss came off the step and he caught a glimpse of something glinting underneath, in the dull yellow light cast by the wall lights. He recovered his balance, shaking his jarred arm as he continued up the steps and wondering why the temple's builders had made the steps out of what looked like glass. At the top of the steps he went down a short corridor, then up another flight of stairs, curving to the right and unlit. Considering its name, Horza thought, the temple was remarkably dark. He came out onto a small balcony.
The monk's cloak was dark, the same colour as the moss, and Horza didn't see him until the pale face turned towards him, along with the gun.
Horza threw himself to one side, against the wall to his left, and fired his gun from the hip at the same time. The monk's gun jerked upwards and let loose a fusillade of rapid fire at the ceiling as he collapsed. The shots echoed round the dark, empty space beyond the small balcony. Horza squatted by the wall, gun pointed at the dark, crumpled figure only a couple of metres away. He raised his head and in the gloom saw what was left of the monk's face, then relaxed slightly. The man was dead. Horza levered himself away from the wall and knelt by the balcony balustrade. Now he could see a large hall in the dim light of the few small globes which protruded from its roof. The balcony was about halfway up and along one of the longer walls, and, from what he could see, there was some sort of stage or altar at one end of the hall. The light was so dim he couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw shadowy figures on the floor of the hall, moving. He wondered if it was the Company and tried to recall seeing other doors or corridors on his way to the balcony; he was supposed to be down there, on that level, on the floor of the hall. He cursed his useless communicator and decided he would have to risk shouting down to the people in the hall.