Eighth Circle

The grim collection of huts and watchtowers was located in marshland and surrounded by a security fence that was lethal to anything that went near it. Pods came and went by taking to the air. Wheeled vehicles used a causeway which linked the prison to the highway and was secured by a guardhouse and gate.

The coal trucks were armed with rocket launchers. Everything depended on getting in the first strike. Trolls were slow to react in an emergency and their superior fire power didn't count if they were blown to pieces before they could use it.

Liala didn't doubt that they could take the prison and free the prisoners. But, what came next? It wasn't going to be as easy as many of the resistance fighters imagined. They saw the guardians as ancient fossils who were slow to respond in a new situation.

They thought that all they had to do was keep attacking and the guardians wouldn't be able to cope with an ever changing situation. That was largely true but it didn't mean they would succeed. Liala had spent her entire life in the palace and knew how Big Brain worked.

When the immortals couldn't agree on a course of action they took extreme measures. Losing a gatehouse and a few trolls meant nothing. They didn't even care about an entire prison. If it looked as if the prisoners were going to escape they would order a death pod to sanitise the entire area.

It would arrive in a flash, hover over the prison and vaporise everything with lethal bursts of radiation. Bryn knew that and so did Allain. But the fanatics in Plaid Koerno couldn't see the obvious. The northern fairy was one of them. Liala couldn't get upset by the thought of her being vaporised. But it would be tragic if others went the same way.

Everything depended on speed and a lot of help from Crispin. They had to be in and out of the prison before the guardians could stop them. Liala glanced at the faces of the girls in her truck and wondered if any of them had any idea of what could happen if things didn't go according to plan.

They were the same age as her. They were dressed like her and had green hair like her. But there the similarity ended. There was only one princess in the truck and fate had cast her in that role. As much as she wanted to be an ordinary person, she wasn't. Allain didn't see her as ordinary. Nor did Father. They saw her as a leader and that was something you didn't take on lightly.