Once again, Bley was the last with him on this side of a gap. Ledock motioned with his weapon, twice, before the slight Black Hand eased to the ground. Ledock did not like the look in Bley’s eyes. Defiance and fear, a bad combination. There were some in their party who hazarded that the ghost was not doing all of the killing. That it had help from the inside. Bley was the one they watched when they said that.
Maybe Stuluck had it right, thought Ledock. The big Black Hand had taken four men and snuck off, way back, before they had dealt with the Red Suits. Take men you could trust and go out on your own. Only now Ledock doubted that there were four men left that he could trust. Certainly not this bastard on the ground in front of me. Ledock kept his weapon ready, angled up, when his turn came to crawl.
Slowly they won their way south, climb then crawl, scramble down to do it again. Later they found a fault, a shift in the rock that went their way, and better, had cut deep gaps in the ridges. No need to go to their knees.
This is more like it, thought Ledock. Now that they were making progress, it had the real feel of a mission. The men must have felt the same. They sharpened up, spacing themselves properly and going to hand signals.
The point halted on the flank of a large ridge and signalled him forward. Contact! Smiles wide enough to be made out through faceplates greeted him when he reached the ridge top. This must be good!
It was better than good. It was all their dreams come true. A wide valley lay below. The enemy was on the far side, in a redoubt at the head of a narrow defile that ran away to the south. Crude but effective walls, and within, stacks of supplies. Maybe fifty containers! They would have everything there. Food, water processors, weapons, munitions, everything needed to supply a fighting force. Ledock eased down and lay back against the welcoming rock like the others. This is good, maybe too good. He lifted his helm and unclipped the scope from the marine shoulder arm that he carried. Slowly cresting the rise, he brought the scope to his eye and settled to study the scene below.
A steady wind brought dust down the valley from the northwest, at times thick enough to obscure his view. Laddered indentations left by carriers and lines from sleds could still be made out on the valley floor. A large force had passed, and not too long ago. Ledock signalled for scouts to go each way along their side of the ridge. Better make sure there are no more of the enemy headed this way. We will have to make a move soon. The wind was lifting and the sky was gradually darkening. The dust and the dark would cover their approach. He lifted the scope slightly. Good walls but no one on them. The thin black line of a comm cable ran off the wall in both directions. Have to cut that. An opening on the east, guarded by guns up on the ends of the adjacent walls. No one at them either. Probably automatics, thought Ledock. That’s okay. We take them out in the rush. We will be inside before they know it. Best of all he had seen no suits, nor the colours of the enemy marines. Figures in brown and grey were busy below. Only support personnel, he concluded. A group of about ten was carrying trestles through the opening, back inside. One of these men stopped and straightened, turning to look his way, at the ridge. Ledock knew he couldn’t be seen. Back to work, sonny boy. Neaten it all up. We don’t want anything blocking that opening. The man went back to his task and Ledock couldn’t help smiling. More men were scattered about inside the compound, shifting and stacking. Ledock counted twenty-two figures. Say, another ten or so inside the buildings working and the same again off-shift sleeping. Maybe sixty or seventy men all up. And not a fighting man among them! This was beautiful.
CHAPTER 67: COURAGE AND CURSES
The hair on the back of his neck lifted and a cold drop of sweat ran down his spine. Barry stopped, put down the trestle and straightened. It was back. The fear he dreaded. He had thought that it had gone. That he had changed. Not become brave, but more like everyone else, able to carry on without a care. Sort of unknowing.
The fear sharpened to catch him like an arrow between his shoulder blades and he turned to scan the far ridge. Clouds of dust swept past. The valley seemed empty and forlorn, threatening. So different from its earlier aspect. Only hours ago it had been full of marines. On their way to the new ground in the northwest, boldly marching to battle.
The marines carried all their own stores but he had organised the tables to give them something hot and different. The cooks had passed out recipes and they had all had a go. Some of the results may not have been as successful as they had hoped but they surely were different and the marines seemed to like them anyway.
‘Your men take after you,’ he had heard the Armourer say to Commander Johnson. ‘I don’t know how we deserve such care.’ That was a fine compliment and the others were as proud as he when he passed it on.
It was like a fair, with the smell of food and the milling, smiling people. That is probably what had banished his fears. It was great fun. Tollen sat for a time on the wall above and harangued the marines below, who gave back in turn.
When Captain Chalkley had come up on his strange crutches, Barry and the servers didn’t know where to look, but Tollen had bawled out from above. ‘What the hell are those, Captain? You plan on picking up papers or jabbing the enemy in the arse?’
‘Steamsetter made them for me,’ the one-legged man said proudly. ‘The point holds on rock and the disc above keeps them from sinking in the sand.’ He swung one up to point at Tollen. ‘You watch yourself, Sergeant or I’ll poke a hole in that jumping castle of yours.’
Tollen was inside now, sleeping. He had not come down off the wall until long after the marines went out of sight. The old man had worked long and hard getting the fort ready and it had finally caught up with him. For the first time he had taken Barry’s arm when it was offered. Not even noticing. That’s probably it, thought Barry. Tollen was not afraid of anything. When he was close, it rubbed off on others. I’m jumpy because he isn’t here looking after us. It will be okay.
But it wasn’t. His fear grew. By the time all the trestles had been put away, he was close to panic. The wind had gained strength and the valley was obscured by dust more often than not. A dull dread filled him. He wanted to wake Tollen, to bring him here to settle things, so the old marine could tell him there was nothing out there, or squint and say ‘We best line up a gun on this’ or something. But he had looked so tired, so worn. Barry couldn’t disturb him.
Scared. Way past ‘unease’. ‘Let me know,’ the sergeant had said. ‘Or slip into a suit straightaway.’ I’ll try that, thought Barry. Just following the Sarge’s advice gave him some comfort. So what if the others laugh.
But no one laughed when he walked past in his suit with his carbine in his arms. They stepped from doorways, or stopped their machines, or simply straightened and turned. He had no eyes for them, all his concentration was forward. He was walking into his fear, through the opening and out onto the valley floor. He stopped. It’s okay. I can do this, Sarge. I’ve got a gun on it.
When they came charging out of the dust, he thought it was his mind that had made them, his fears drawn down and crystallised into savage Black Hands, death to friend and foe alike. He lifted his weapon and fired. Almost as an experiment. One went down and he saw that they were real. His dread changed to sharp overwhelming terror. Aaaah! There are too many! The killers are coming! Run! Hide! His thoughts fled but his body wouldn’t follow.
Work it down. The calm words sounded inside his head. Work it down and shoot it.
He did, and again, and again. Find a target, concentrate. Black gauntlets to chest plate to faceplate, then shoot. The guns from the walls were firing along with him. The enemy came on. His leg was knocked out from under him but he landed on his knee and kept shooting. Then he was on his back, blinking his eyes. Pain pulled him to his side and he saw that they were almost on him. He didn’t have the strength to lift his carbine high so he aimed for a leg, fired, and then at a boot. Something slammed him flat. Then the Black Hands were blasted back. He saw them fly through the dusty air, blood trailing like ribbons, everything going slow an
d quiet. Like a dream. A suited knee landed hard next to him. Powerful and whole, the figure that owned it fired on the mercenaries, not simply cutting them down but blowing them back into the dust as if they had never been. Tollen! Tollen is here. The old marine spared a smile for him. Barry saw it through the faceplate. He smiled back. It will be okay now. He tried to lift his arm. I just have to hold his shoulder. If I hold onto him he will lead me out of here.
*
Bley rolled and kicked and swore. ‘Damn the enemy! Damn Ledock! Damn Kayrooz! Damn them all!’ He held his suit leg and rolled some more. ‘Fuckit, fuckit, fuckit, FUCK IT!’ Blood bubbled out, turning his black gauntlets red. The hole from Kayrooz’s dagger had weakened the armour and when he hit the rocks or the rocks had hit him, it had cracked and part had been driven into his leg. It was still there, in his leg, cutting him! He couldn’t get it out. Fuck, fuck, fuck! The suit material was too strong to break. When he jerked his leg, it went deeper.
He had to move. He couldn’t stay here. It had all gone wrong. So easy, and it had gone wrong. It was the curse. He believed in it now. What else could it be? When things didn’t behave as they should.
Why was there an enemy soldier standing in the open in front of the walls when they came out of the dust? It had been clear when they started their attack. No guards, no look-outs, nothing. Why just one? If it had been a Red Suit, it would have made more sense. And why didn’t he run when they came at him. How could he face fifteen charging Black Hands? Calmly firing, taking out four of them before he was hit, and more as he fell. And just as he finally went down and they were about to overrun him and gain the opening, another comes out and blows them away. Breaks their charge and sends them to ground, scrambling for cover, while this new one kneels in the open.
You don’t do that! You find cover. In the open you die! Against greater numbers you die! The first shot fired should have killed the fool, gone through his head between his eyes, or burned out his heart. This was wrong, all wrong!
Bley wasn’t in the party charging the opening. He was too smart for that. He was to go up the little ridge with the second group. Even there, he lagged. Let someone else be the first to stick his head over. The drama at the opening had caught him and he had let his group get ahead. He fired at the opening himself, although he was distant, trying to put the kneeling figure down and maybe get a few shots into the one already on the ground. Out of anger at their perversity.
When the second one had finally toppled, he turned and ran to catch his party. They were swarming over the slope, almost to the top. He reached the bottom of the ridge and the whole thing exploded. In his face. Rocks slammed him and he slammed the hard ground in turn, spinning across the landscape in the debris. The suit kept him alive. It would have kept him from injury except for the weakness from the dagger thrust. Now it was killing him! Damn Kayrooz!
He tried to run, back into the dust, away from it all, but the injury hindered him. It’s cutting me! It’s cutting me! He went in a circle, panic making him run and pain making him hop away from the contact every time his leg touched down. He tripped over a body and fell. A Black Hand. There were others close. He was back in front of the opening. Tears ran down his face and he whined on each outgoing breath. Without thinking he popped the chest plate on the dead man and snatched out the rations and water. Stiff-legged, he slid down beside the body and the pain eased. The piece wasn’t out, but it wasn’t cutting him anymore. His misery abated enough for him to see what he had in his hand. He crawled to the other bodies and methodically robbed them, keeping his leg straight in the suit. Movement from the fort drew his attention and hate burbled up when he saw another man come out. A solid, stocky man in grey. Not even in a suit! Bley spat bile when he realised that he had lost his firearm. He wanted to kill this one so badly! He shook in rage and frustration when the new one reached the others unharmed and lifted them off the ground. No! You can’t take them. They have to die, to be dead. Bley pulled his sidearm from his belt and slashed at the three with the laser. The beam was broad at the distance and flared harmlessly from the suits, but he saw the unprotected one throw his head up. Bley punched the laser at him. Burn! Ha! Got your eyes! Impacts on the rocks around him blew his triumph away. They were targeting him from the walls, following his laser beam back. How could I be so stupid? He dropped the laser and scrambled to the side. The suit cut into his leg again. Hopping and screaming, he flailed into the dust, back toward the ridge and the waiting badlands.
CHAPTER 68: THE RAID
The Armourer came back down the line at an easy lope. They had been moving fast for hours but he felt like he could run forever. The air was cool on his skin. Figures and landscape seemed to flash past in the dark. Not the full dark that passed for night on the Rim. This was a strange twilight, like a moonless night on another world. Nothing wondrous about it, he tried to tell himself. The Scholar had warned them that light would be reflected as the fragments came together. Nevertheless, the strangeness held.
Where the slope started to rise he stopped and stepped aside. The scouts had pulled up the front of the line. Time to put on their suits. They had been carrying them so far, strapped to their backs, to make more speed. But now they were close to the enemy lines and it was time for caution.
The sky overhead lit briefly with a diffuse glimmer. A ‘Zelaznid Sky’, the Scholar had advised him, explaining that similar phenomenon, although of differing origin, had been recorded in other systems. Errant fields were meeting up there, discharging wild energies in the turmoil. Down here, safe among the rocks, their sweep could be felt as waves, sometimes strong enough to make muscles twitch and to pull at anything metallic.
The thrill that ran through him next was not all due to electricity. The Amazons came down out of the glow like the Amazons of legend, round discs on their arms like shields, the loose clothing they wore pulled tight by the straps of the packed armour on their backs, their hair tied back, weapons in hand. In file, thrusting breasts and tightly muscled thighs, eyes flashing. Powerful. Exciting. The Armourer watched them pass.
Whoah, he said to himself. I’ve not looked at women that way for a long time. He wondered where all this vigour had come from. Not from the nearness of death. That had never mattered before and did not now. No, it was from freedom. All the decisions had been made. All the cares were gone. Creatures in the rocks, loose stones that could turn and cause a deadly fall, the energy fields that could suck you into the sky, the enemy’s fire; these were individual cares and weighed nothing against tens or hundreds or thousands of lives.
He followed the Amazons back up the line, threading his way through them when they slowed and spread out to don their suits. He could not help smiling and the fierce women smiled back. They are as crazy as I am, he thought. This is a grim business we are on, and they will be at the sharp end of it. He picked out Steamsetter’s tall form, waiting by his armour. The big man was already suited, though his helm was off. His long face showed concern. Not for me, I hope, said the Armourer to himself as his last strides brought them close. He has to learn to give up that care. Our job is done. Tollen had chosen well. Together, they had done it. Strong, constant and expectant, Steamsetter had personified duty, standing behind him, a prop holding him firm amidst the surge of responsibilities and the ebb of his confidence. Oh, he had railed against it, and drank to avoid it, but when he stopped or woke, the big man was there, ready to go on. ‘Yo, Steamsetter, did you see the Amazons? What a sight!’
‘Yes, I saw them. They look fine as they always do. What was surprising was you running alongside of them. If I had known you liked exercise so much I would have thrown your bottles away a long time ago.’
‘There is a time and a place for everything. Back then I needed the bottles. Tonight is a night for Amazons.’
‘Leaving the Amazons out of it, this is a dangerous place and a terrible time. And it is not even night,’ said Steamsetter. ‘That’s just the hammer and the anvil coming together. You heard the Scholar. I
t’s time for us to get our heads down and get out of here.’
The Armourer stopped himself from making a joke about his friend’s height. He deserved more than that. ‘Our job is done, Steamsetter. All the decisions have been made. It is now up to the soldiers and the vagaries of battle. Our care is over.’
‘But when we come out, and see the enemy, what then?’ asked the big man.
‘Then the Amazons make for the Passage and the marines close the end of the valley. They know what to do better than us. You and I will just tag along.’
‘If it is only to ‘tag along’, why did we come? There are other places we could be.’
The Armourer looked around him, at the Amazons covering their wild beauty with armour, at the marines calmly waiting, at the mad sky which illuminated them all in fitful flashes. He did not want to be anywhere else. ‘This is the heart of it. The last cast, my friend. Tonight you and I ride the dice.’ A wave of static swept past, rattling his armour on the ground. ‘Ha! The Rim agrees. It gets tired of our talk and urges us on.’ He reached for the suit.
CHAPTER 69: TACTICS AND TIME
They were on the last bit of high ground before the low and had used up all their tricks. Nothing but hard fighting left. Our turn to hold now. The earlier stands had only been tactical, to use up time and target the enemy’s guns. Not enough success with either, concluded Mike. For the first time, he feared that they would fail. He had never thought that before, not even at the bloody pass.
They had reached the south end of the valley before the enemy, but only just, by running through the night carrying their armour. Chalkley, with two squads and half of the servicemen, had stayed behind at the south end of the bull’s-eye, to hold the gaps in the ridges and convince the enemy that they were still there. The Armourer had taken his raiding party off earlier, to the east and then north through one of the high valleys. Mike had seen those valleys when they scouted the new ground, bare cuts damn close to the sky. An awful risky route with the sky as wild as it was now. He hoped that gamble would pay off. Here, the best he could say was that they had come out even. His scouts had won the silent battle on the slopes and they were able to penetrate and strike first. But the enemy was in good array with skirmishers out and a van behind them. The hope of surprising them at their roadwork and crippling their advance was gone.
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