The Tears of the Sun tc-5

by S. M. Stirling

  “You OK?” Ian asked in a throaty rasp, the sort of voice you got when you’d been screaming war cries for a while.

  His had been: Maintain the Right!

  “Sure,” she said, taking another deep breath. “Just reaction. I’ve got my friends with me, what more do I need?”

  They pushed up the last stretch of stairwell and out onto the flat roof with its rusted ventilators. The air was colder than she’d expected on an August evening, cold and with a feeling of chill beneath that. Black clouds were piling up above. Dunedain ohtar had lit green smoke flares at each corner of the roof and then those of them still hale knelt behind the low coping at the edge, bundles of arrows at hand. Ritva and Ian did likewise; he looked down and murmured: “High enough.”

  They looked at each other gravely; that meant high enough for a final leap, if worse came to worst. Then motion caught her eye.

  “Troops here!” she shouted, and it was echoed moments later from all four sides of the building.

  The Boise soldiers were moderate-sized dolls from four tall stories up; she could hear voices and make out words when someone shouted. They seemed to be crossbowmen in mail shirts mostly, arriving first on bicycles and then stacking them and taking up firing positions; then regular infantry, hundreds of them, tramping at the double. That drowned out the voices, until they came to a halt with an earthquake stamp.

  An officer stood forth, and raised a speaking-trumpet to his mouth. “Terrorists!” the amplified voice blared. “You are surrounded by overwhelming force! There is no escape! Surrender!”

  Ritva grinned. Ian chuckled. “There’s a flaw in his logic,” the man from Drumheller said.

  She raised her face and shouted back to point it out: “If you’re so overwhelming, yrch, come up and make us surrender!”

  From the stir and growl along the serried ranks of eagle-and-thunderbolt shields, they wanted to do just that. Astrid came up behind the pair, with the Thurstons. The growl grew louder.

  “There’s blood on the face of the President’s sister!” the officer shouted, and there was genuine rage in his voice. “We demand she be given medical attention immediately, or you’ll be a week dying!”

  Astrid had a speaking-trumpet of her own; it had been a good bet that they’d need one at some point in this mission.

  “It isn’t her blood, good sir,” she said, loud but not shouting. “Fighting is messy.”

  She handed her canteen to Cecile Thurston, who poured water on a handkerchief and wiped her daughter’s face; that had the added virtue of getting rid of the drying tear-tracks.

  “I’m fine, see?” the girl called. “We’re all OK, Mom and Janie and little Lawrence. And Juliet,” she added as an afterthought.

  Ritva and Ian grinned at each other; there wasn’t much love lost there. The girl looked as if she would go on, but Astrid murmured softly to her: “No, not yet. Too risky.”

  Ritva felt a chill. That was the measure of Martin Thurston’s damnation; he’d staged his coup to make his son heir to power, and now there was a real risk he would order his family silenced to protect that power.

  And there was Martin Thurston himself, standing impassively with his red-white-and-blue crested helmet under one arm and his strong handsome dark face turned upward. Ritva’s string-fingers itched; it was so tempting to try to pick him off… win half the war at a stroke…

  No. The Cutters have their luck too. Those men by him could put their shields over him in half a second.

  He stretched out a hand and the officer put the speaking-trumpet into it. The sky was mostly overcast now; Ritva smelled damp dust, and felt a single cold drop flick her cheekbone. That made her suddenly aware of her own thirst. While she was drinking the tepid but infinitely delicious water from her own canteen, Eilir came up and Signed, cautiously turning her back so that nobody below could see. ASL was fairly common among Mackenzies and all Dunedain knew it, but that wasn’t to say someone down there might not have some knowledge of the visual language.

  The blimp should have launched some time ago. We have forty-five minutes until rendezvous, but that was the conservative still-air estimate, before the wind picked up so much. It’ll be earlier, now. No way of knowing exactly how much.

  Astrid nodded and turned her eyes back to the street. Martin Thurston spoke; there was something about his voice that put Ritva’s teeth on edge, unless that was just her own knowledge of the man coloring perception.

  “What do you demand for the return of my family unharmed?” he said, iron in his tone.

  “Nothing!” Astrid called back, joy bubbling in hers but sternly controlled.

  Yup, this is definitely a high point for Aunt Astrid. She really lives for this stuff. It is scary, I mean, I’m getting a rush about it now and then but I’m only doing it because it really needs to be done and you might as well enjoy an adventure if you’re going to do it anyway, being glum doesn’t help anything. Hunting’s as much rush as I really want, or riding a fast horse, or a glider or a sailboat, or sparring, or sex and wine and listening to poetry. But with Auntie, it’s like she’s reading it in the Histories at the same time that she’s doing it and we’re Luthien going into Angbad to rescue Beren. She’ll make a really cranky old lady someday.

  Astrid went on: “We are here to rescue these ladies and their children, not to harm them. We will not threaten or hurt them, nor shield behind them, under any circumstances whatsoever, though it cost our lives.”

  Ritva shivered. There was a mad splendor to Astrid Loring-Larsson at that moment, as wisps of her pale hair floated around her blood-spattered face and her moon-shot eyes looked at something beyond the world of common day. Something that frightened you and made you long for it at the same time. It was the feeling you got when the sun went down and for a moment the clouds turned into a golden unknown archipelago of islands in the sky, along a glittering sea road to the infinite.

  “How do you intend to keep them, then?” Martin asked.

  “By our swords, our courage, and our luck,” Astrid said. “Artos and Montival!”

  The General-President handed the trumpet back to his retainer, turned on his heel and walked towards the building. Men followed him, and then Ritva couldn’t see them at all.

  Martin looked around the sidewalk, shattered glass crunching under his boots, then walked into the room. Someone had put up a couple of bright lanterns, and the light flickered over bodies and blood and jewels; the air was rank with the coppery stink that happened when men bled out. The darker dung heap stinks weren’t as strong; when armored men fought you didn’t often get cut-open bellies. The killing wounds were usually to the head and neck and limbs, or deep narrow stabs. He looked at the arrows scattered around or standing in the dead; men were loading the fallen and a few living wounded onto stretchers.

  “About sixty of the enemy, give or take half a dozen,” he said, an intent look on his brown face. “And they’re down about a quarter of that, counting the badly wounded they’ll have.”

  The Natpol on the scene shot him a glance of respect for the quick analysis.

  “Yes, Mr. President, that’s my estimate. We caught one of the staff-the others are scattered, we’re contacting them as we can-and she said dozens and dozens. You know how civilians are, I thought she might be exaggerating.”

  He nodded his head to a sobbing older woman who was sitting in a chair, talking and wiping at her eyes and nose with a handkerchief while two of the police took notes.

  Martin went on absently: “Sixty or so from the wagons, and the size of the escort of fake infantry that others mentioned, and the way they overran eighty men of the Sixth so quickly, even with the advantage of surprise. Having surprise is a force multiplier but there are limits.”

  “I’ve got the men who tried to rush the staircase, sir. It, ah, didn’t turn out well.”

  Another stretcher; the Natpol on it had an arrow in one shoulder, and a bandage around it. The bleeding wasn’t very bad, and it made more sense to get him to a
hospital here in the city than to try to extract it in the field. The policeman stopped cursing the enemy and the pain when he saw who was standing over him.

  “Report,” Martin said.

  “Sir, as soon as they evacuated the ground floor my patrol tried to push up the stairs. It’s a stairwell built around a solid rectangular core and they’re barricading the stairs two times per flight, at least. They’ve got bows and lots of arrows and pila as well. You have to go uphill at them… sir, we tried.”

  “Carry on,” Martin said to the stretcher-bearers.

  The Natpol officer began an apology. Martin cut off the useless blather with a motion of his hand.

  “Your men are lightly equipped and mostly past prime fighting age,” he said. “Don’t waste my time. Now, you got at least one of the staff, that woman there, and she was here all through the attack, correct?”

  “Yes sir. But she’s not very coherent. Shock, I think.”

  Martin walked over to the witness. “Ma’am,” he said.

  Something crept into his voice. Her tears stopped, and she stared at him with her mouth a little open, the pupils of her eyes expanding as they met his.

  “How many staircases?” he asked.

  “One, Mr. President. There was another one but it was salvaged and the floors sealed. The one we use, it’s over there.”

  She pointed. He nodded and went on: “The elevator shaft?”

  Another pointing gesture. “It was sealed off.”

  “You think there were how many of the terrorists?”

  “It seemed like a lot but”-her face went blank for a moment, as if her brain was accessing information without the personality getting in the way-“fifty or sixty or a few more.”

  “Some of them were Mormons?”

  “Most of them, sir. I think. The ones in American uniforms. They were shouting Arise, ye Saints, I know Mormons do that. It was… it was all so fast, and there was so much noise and then the blood, blood everywhere, and the ladies were screaming and I didn’t know what to do-”

  “Thank you.”

  He turned to Koburn, the legate of the Sixth, as she began to sob again.

  “Get the elevator shaft open.”

  “Sir, the cables will be gone, it’ll be bare.”

  Wire cable was prime salvage, with a dozen high-priority uses. It was absolutely certain that they would have been stripped from a building inside the city wall decades ago.

  “And it would be a deathtrap if they caught on.”

  “It might be useful anyway, if they don’t think of it or don’t have enough men to guard against low-probability risks. The stairs are going to be a deathtrap for sure. Do it, the auxiliaries have the gear needed. Fall the men in.”

  More and more files of the Sixth had been coming in behind him. Some of them had been roughly shoving things out of the way to clear space, including the bodies of the enemy. Martin walked over to one, a woman, young and dark, and slighter than he’d have thought passable for rough work. The pommel of her sword rested at the base of her throat, with her hands crossed on the hilt and the blade point-down along her body, like the sculpted image of a Crusader on an ancient tomb. The outfit was all matte black, except for the silver tree and stars and crown on the front of a leather jerkin whose rivets showed it was lined with mail; they’d evidently switched to full uniform for this, bravado or some sense of the rules or both. The wound in her side would have killed her, but someone had hurried the process along. Someone with a good eye, a strong wrist and a knowledge of anatomy.

  “Dunedain, definitely,” he said, using a toe to point to the symbol.

  “The woot-woots who think they’re elves?”

  “They think they’re Numenoreans, in fact. Friends of the elves.”

  “Ah, the Arrowshirt son of Arrowroot bunch with the invisible companions. Totally fucking insane.”

  “It makes as much sense as most myths and they don’t have to come up with an explanation of why they’re not immortal. And consider what they just pulled off right under our noses.”

  He turned to the ranked mass filling the great room. “Men of the Sixth Battalion!” he called.

  They braced to attention; there was a thunder-crack sound as they all rammed the butts of their pila down on the stone floor.

  “My family’s held hostage on the roof, and we can’t assault the roof directly because we can’t use fire support. The only other way up is the staircase and it’s held by fanatical terrorists. Clearing it’s going to be ugly, and I can’t lead you in person, that would be dereliction of duty. I won’t order anyone to go where I’m not going. All volunteers, take a step forward.”

  There was a second for men to sense the comrades on either side, and the entire unit paced to the front and snapped to a halt again. Again emotion stirred; it would have been an iron pride, a few months ago. Now it flopped somewhere in the emptiness of his skull, nothing in nothing in nothing, like a dying fish in the vacuum of the Moon.

  “And I wish I could come with you.”

  That was even true; some part of him wanted very much to die. That was out of the question just now if it could be avoided.

  “Attack by files. Rotate every five minutes; the enemy can’t face relays of fresh men. Legate, lead your troops!”

  “We’re going to make it,” Ian said.

  “I mean, probably! If nothing goes wrong!” he added frantically, as Ritva and several Dunedain spat or made the sign of the Horns or other gestures against ill luck.

  The rattle-bang-thump sound of combat was continuous from the doors of the stairwell; they’d barricaded the exit with everything they could find, but the sound of sword-blades and the flat snap of bowstrings sound, the battle cries and the screams of pain… they were all getting closer. Ritva didn’t like to think of what it must be like in there, fighting in the near dark.

  And out of the north, a long orca-shape was coming. Still a tiny dot, but unmistakable; in this Fifth Age of the world, what else flew like that?

  Well, Windlords and dragons. But we don’t have those. At least not yet, I suppose anything’s possible. I wouldn’t have believed the Sword of the Lady if I hadn’t seen it or what happened on Nantucket if I hadn’t been there.

  She pulled a monocular out of its case on her belt and looked. The ship of the air was just as she remembered it, three hundred feet of blunt-pointed teardrop with cruciform stabilizer fins, and an aluminum-truss keel along the bottom anchoring a spiderweb net of light cables that distributed its weight over the great gasbag. The gondola was slung beneath like a stylized Viking longboat sans dragon’s head; it was taut fabric over an aluminum frame as well, with the captain’s post and wheel at the front and a propeller and rudder at the rear. You couldn’t see it from here, but the slender hull held twelve units made from recliner cycles on each side of the central walkway to power the propeller shaft.

  That was the power source. Unfortunately it was a rather feeble one, and the stiff wind was far more than it could handle. That was why Lawrence Thurston hadn’t built more of them. Curtis LeMay was extremely useful in a dead calm, and nearly helpless as an ordinary balloon in anything else. Gliders had far lower payload and endurance, but you really could steer them in most weathers.

  “One pass,” she said. “And that’s it. They can’t turn back against the wind, just steer a little across it… yes, they’ve spotted our smoke flares.”

  The great shape became more nearly circular as the nose turned towards this building.

  “Why are they coming in so low?” Ian asked.

  “Something… about conserving ballast and gas, Hanks said,” Ritva said; she wasn’t sure what those meant. “I didn’t follow it but evidently if they go up and down they eventually run out and wouldn’t be able to go up and down anymore… oh, trastad!”

  The towers on the northern wall were shooting at the blimp. Smoke and yellow flame trailed from some of the catapults; globes of napalm wrapped in burning cord fuse. One struck… and then bounc
ed away from the soft resilient surface of the gasbag, to trail down into the city and splash into a spot of scarlet. She thought she saw someone crawling up the netting and spraying something; then the airship pitched sideways for a moment and headed back towards them.

  “Eyes on the streets!” John Hordle shouted in his Hampshire-yokel version of Sindarin, as everyone turned to look. “You dim thick gits want a scaling ladder up yor bum?”

  Ritva was supposed to be looking north, but she did a quick check to make sure that no storming parties were forming up. The enemy couldn’t shoot up at them; that would endanger their leader’s family. And if the Dunedain were alert, they could shoot down and throw globes of fire. But the other side might think it worthwhile, if they were pushed.

  “They’re a little west of where they should be,” Ian said quietly.

  The shark shape of the Curtis LeMay grew closer; probably they were only pedaling to keep steerage on her. Suddenly a dozen cords dropped down, whipping in the wind.

  “Rhaich,” Ritva said dully.

  Will anyone remember our heroic last stand? Or will we be just a footnote in a report on terrorist attacks?

  The airship came on, rushing, suddenly huge. It would recede just as quickly, and just a bit too far to the westward despite the rudder and the frantic pedaling that drove the propeller. The wind was blowing harder…

  John Hordle was up and across, running with a speed astonishing in a man seven inches over six feet and broad enough to seem squat. One of the tethering ropes was blowing beyond the northwest corner of the building, just out of reach. John reached the corner and leapt out into space.

  He disappeared bellowing beyond the edge of the roof. Ritva felt her mouth drop open and her eyes go wide; Ian was goggling too, and a couple of other people looked just the same. The huge bulk of the airship bobbled in flight, its tail starting to pivot inward a little; it made you realize how light and fragile it was, not the solid sky-filling thing it seemed-

  “Rhaaaaich!” she screamed.

  What John Hordle was trying to do suddenly flashed into her mind, not a chain of logic but something you saw in an instant blaze of light. And what she had to do was equally obvious.