After some hours we came to a crossroads and turned right. There was a murmur through the ranks at this, starting with those who knew the area well.
‘What are they saying?’ I asked the man who marched beside me, in silence up until now.
‘Capo Dinobli. That’s who we’re after. Could be no one else. No other keep in this direction for one day, two day’s march.’
‘Do you know anything about him?’
He grunted and was silent, but the man behind him spoke up. ‘I served with him, long time ago. Old bugger then, must be ancient now. Just one more capo.’
Then it was one foot after another in a haze of fatigue. There had to be better ways to make a living. This was going to be my first and last campaign. As soon as we returned The Bishop and I would sack the treasury and flee with all the groats we could carry. Wonderful thought. I almost ran into the man in front of me and stopped just in time. We had halted where the road passed near the forest. Against the darkness of the trees even darker shadows loomed. I was trying to see what they were when one of the officers came back down the ranks.
‘I need some volunteers,’ he whispered. ‘You, you, you, you.’
He touched my arm and I was one of the volunteers. There seemed to be about twenty of us who were pulled out of line and herded forward towards the woods. The clouds had cleared and there was enough light from the stars now to see that the black bulks were wheeled devices of some kind. I could hear the hiss of escaping steam. A dark figure strode forward and halted us.
‘Listen and I will tell you what you must do,’ he said.
As he spoke a metal door was opened on the machine nearest us. Light gleamed as wood was pushed into the firebox. By the brief, flickering light I could see the speaker clearly. He was dressed in a black robe, his head covered by a cowl that hid his face. He pointed to the machine.
‘This must be pushed through the woods – and in absolute silence. I will put my knife into the ribs of any of you who makes a noise. A track was cut during daylight and will be easy to follow. Take up the lines and do as you are instructed.’
Other dark-robed figures were handing us the ropes and pushing us into line. On the whispered signal we began hauling.
The thing rolled along easily enough and we pulled at a steady pace. There were more whispered instructions to guide us – then we halted as we approached the edge of the forest. After this we dropped the ropes and sweated as we pushed and pulled the great weight about until the guides were satisfied. There was much whispered consultation about alignment and range and I wondered just what was going on. We had been forgotten for the moment so I walked as quietly as I could past the thing and peered out through the shrubbery at the view beyond.
Very interesting. A field of grain stretched down a gentle slope to a keep, its dark towers clear in the starlight. There was a glimmer of reflection about its base where the waters of the moat protected it from attack.
I stayed here until dawn began to grey the sky, then moved back to examine the object of our labours. As it emerged from the darkness its shape became clear – and I still hadn’t the faintest idea of what it was. Fire and steam, I could see the white trickle of vapour clearly now. And a long boom of some kind along the top. One of the black figures was working the controls now. Steam hissed louder as the long arm sank down until the end rested on the ground. I went to look at the large metal cup there – and was rewarded for my curiosity by being drafted to help move an immense stone into place. Two of us rolled it from the pile of its fellows nearby, but it took four of us, straining, to raise it into the cup. Mystery upon mystery. I rejoined the others just as Capo Dimonte appeared with the tall robed man at his side.
‘Will it work, Brother Farvel?’ Dimonte asked. ‘I know nothing of such devices.’
‘But I do, Capo, you shall see. When the drawbridge is lowered my machine will destroy it, crush it.’
‘May it do just that! Those walls are high, and so will our losses be if we must storm the keep without being able to break through the gate.’
Brother Farvel turned his back and issued quick instructions to the machine’s operators. More wood was pushed into its bowels and the hissing rose in volume. It was full daylight now. The field before us was empty, the view peaceful. But behind us in the forest lurked the small army and the war machines. It was obvious that battle would be joined when the drawbridge was lowered and destroyed.
We were ordered to lie down, to conceal ourselves as the light grew. It was full daylight by this time, the sun above the horizon – and still nothing happened. I crouched near the machine, close to the cowled operator at the controls.
‘It is not coming down!’ Brother Farvel called out suddenly. ‘It is past due, always down at this time. Something is wrong.’
‘Do they know that we are here?’ Capo Dimonte said.
‘Yes!’ an incredibly loud voice boomed out from the trees above us. ‘We know you are there. Your attack is doomed – as are all of you! Prepare to face your certain death.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The roaring voice was totally unexpected, shocking in the silence of the forest. I jumped, startled – nor was I the only one. The monk at the machine’s controls was even more startled. His hand pulled on the control lever and there was a gigantic hissing roar. The long arm on top of the device thrashed skyward, pushed by a stubbier arm close to its hinged end. The arm rose up in a high arc and slammed into a concealed buffer that jarred and shook the entire machine. The arm may have stopped – but the stone in the cup at the end of the arm continued, high into the air, rising in a great arc. I rushed forward to see it splash into the moat just before the closed drawbridge. Good shot – it would certainly have demolished the structure had it been down.
All around me things became busy quite suddenly. Brother Farvel had knocked the monk from the controls and was now kicking him, roaring with rage. Swords had been drawn, soldiers were rushing about – some of them firing up into the trees. Capo Dimonte was bellowing orders that no one was listening to. I put my back to a tree and held my gun ready for the expected attack.
It never came. But the amplified voice thundered again.
‘Go back. Return from whence you came and you will be spared. I am talking to you, Capo Dimonte. You are making a mistake. You are being used by the Black Monks. You will be destroyed for nothing. Return to your keep for only death awaits you here.’
‘It is there, I see it!’ Brother Farvel shouted, pointing up into the trees. He spun about and saw me, seized me by the arm in a painful grip and pointed again. ‘There, on that branch, the device of the devil. Destroy it!’
Why not. I could see it now, even recognise what it was. A loudspeaker of some kind. The gun cracked and kicked my shoulder hard. I fired again and the speaker exploded, bits of plastic and metal rained down.
‘Just a machine,’ Brother Farvel shouted, stamping the fragments into the ground. ‘Start the attack – send your men forward. My death-throwers will give you support. They will batter down the walls for you.’
The capo had no choice. He chewed his lip a bit, then signalled the bugler at his side. Three brazen notes rang out and were echoed by other buglers to our rear and on both flanks. When the first of his troops burst from beneath the trees he drew his sword and ordered us to follow him. With great reluctance I trotted forward.
It was not quite what you would call a lightning attack. More of a stroll when you got down to it. We advanced through the field, then stopped in order to wait for the death-throwers to get into position. Steam cars pulled them forward into line and the firing began. Rocks sizzled over our heads and either bounced from the keep wall or vanished into its interior.
‘Forward!’ the capo shouted and waved his sword again just as the return fire began.
The silvery spheres rose up from behind the keep walls, rose high, arced forward above us – and dropped.
Hit – and cracked open. One struck nearby and I could see it was a
thin container of some kind filled with liquid that smoked and turned to vapour in the air. Poison! I threw myself away from it, running, trying not to breathe. But the things were bursting all about us now, the air thick with fumes. I ran and my lungs ached and I had to breathe, could not stop myself.
As the breath entered my lungs I fell foward and blackness fell as well.
I was lying on my back, I knew that, but was aware of very little else because of the headache that possessed me completely. If I moved my head ever so slightly it tightened down like a band of fire on my temples. When I tentatively opened one eye – red lightning struck in through my eyeball. I groaned, and heard the groan echoed from all sides. This headache was the winner, the planet-sized headache of all time, before which all other headaches paled. I thought of previous headaches I had known and sneered at their ineffectiveness. Cardboard headaches. This was the real thing. Someone groaned close by and I, and many others, groaned in sympathy.
Bit by bit the pain ebbed away, enough so that I tentatively opened one eye, then the other. The blue sky was clear above, the wind rustled the grain on which I lay. With great hesitation I rose up on one elbow and looked around me at the stricken army.
The field was littered with sprawled bodies. Some of them were sitting up now, holding their heads, while one or two stronger – or stupider – soldiers were climbing unsteadily to their feet. Nearby lay the silvery, broken fragments of one of the attacking missiles, looking innocent enough now with the gas dispersed. My head throbbed but I ignored it. We were alive. The gas had not killed us – it had obviously been designed only to knock us out. Potent stuff. I looked at my shadow, not wanting to risk a glance at the sun yet, and saw how foreshortened it was. Close to noon. We had been asleep for hours.
Then why weren’t we dead? Why hadn’t the Capo Dinobli’s men pounced on us and slit our throats? Or at least taken our weapons? My gun was at my side; I broke it and saw that it was still loaded. Mysteries, mysteries. I jumped, startled – instantly regretting it as my head throbbed – as the hoarse scream rang out. I managed to sit up and turn to look.
Interesting. It was Brother Farvel himself who was still shouting and cursing while he tore handfuls of hair from his head. This was most unusual. I had certainly never seen anything like it before. I rose hesitantly to my feet to see what he was upset about. Yes indeed, I could understand his emotions.
He was standing beside one of his death-throwers which had been thrown a little death of its own. It had burst open, exploded into a tangle of twisted pipes and fractured metal. The long arm had been neatly cut into three pieces and even the wheels had been torn from the body. It was just a mass of unrepairable junk. Brother Farvel ran off, still shouting hoarsely, wisps of hair floating in the breeze behind him.
There were more cries and shouts of pain from the other monks as Brother Farvel came staggering back, stumbling towards the Capo Dimonte who was just sitting up.
‘Destroyed, all of them!’ The Black Monk roared while the capo clutched his hands tightly over his ears. ‘The work of years, gone, crushed, broken. All my death-throwers, the steam-powered battering ram – ruined. He did it, Capo Dinobli did it. Gather your men, attack the keep, he must be destroyed for this monstrous crime that he has committed.’
The capo turned to look towards the keep. It was just as it had been at dawn, quiet and undisturbed, the drawbridge still up, as though the day’s events had never occurred. Dimonte turned back to Brother Farvel, his face cold and drawn.
‘No. I do not lead my men against those walls. That is suicide and suicide was not our agreement. This is your argument, not mine. I agreed to aid you in taking the keep. You were to force entrance with your devices. Then I would attack. That arrangement is now over.’
‘You cannot go back on vour word …’
‘I am not. Breech the walls and I will attack. That is what you promised. Now do it.’
Brother Farvel turned red with rage, raised his fists, leaned forward. The capo stood his ground – but drew his sword and held it out.
‘See this,’ he said. ‘I am still armed – all of my men are armed. It is a message that I understand quite clearly. Dinobli’s men could have taken our weapons and cut our throats while we lay here. They did not. They do not war on me. Therefore I do not war on them. You fight them – this is your battle.’ He nudged the toe of his boot into the bugler lying beside him. ‘Sound assembly.’
We were quite happy to leave the Black Monks there in the field, surveying the wreckage of their machines and their plans. Word quickly spread through the ranks as to what had occurred and smiles replaced the pained grimaces as the headaches vanished to be replaced by relief. There would be no battle, no casualties. The Black Monks had started the trouble – and it had been finished for them. My smile was particularly broad because I had some good news for The Bishop.
I knew now how we were to get off the repellent planet of Spiovente.
Through the clear wisdom of hindsight I could understand now what had happened the night before. The approach of our troops in the darkness had been observed carefully. With advanced technology of some kind. The hidden watchers must have also seen the track being constructed through the forest for the death-thrower and understood the significance of the operation. The loudspeaker had been placed in the tree directly above the site – then activated by radio. The gas that had felled us was sophisticated and had been delivered with pinpoint accuracy. All of this was well beyond the technology of this broken-down planet. Which meant only one thing.
There were offworlders in the keep of Capo Dinobli. They were there in force and were up to something. And whatever it was had aroused the wrath of the Black Monks, so much so that they had planned this attack. Which had backfired completely. Good. Mine enemy’s enemy one more time. The monks had a stranglehold on what little technology there was on Spiovente – and from what I had seen the technology was completely monopolised by the military. I cudgelled my brain, remembering those long sessions with The Bishop on geopolitics and economics. I was getting the glimmer of a solution to our problems when there was a wild shouting from the ranks ahead.
I pushed forward with the others to see the exhausted messenger sprawled in the grass beside the road. Capo Dimonte was turning away from him, shaking his fists skyward in fury.
‘An attack – behind my back – on the keep! It is that son of a worm, Doccia, that’s who it is! We move now, forced march. Back!’
It was a march that I never want to repeat. We rested only when exhaustion dropped us to the ground. Drank some water, staggered to our feet, went on. There was no need to beat us or encourage because we were all involved now. The capo’s family, his worldly goods, they were all back in the keep. Guarded only by a skeleton force of soldiers. All of us were as concerned as he was, for what little we owned was there as well. The knaves watching our few possessions. Dreng, whom I scarcely knew, yet felt responsibility for. And The Bishop. If the keep were taken what would happen to him? Nothing, he was an old man, harmless, no enemy of theirs.
Yet I knew this was a lie even as I tried to convince myself of its validity. He was an escaped slave. And I knew what they did with escaped slaves on Spiovente.
More water, a little food at sunset, then on through the night. At dawn I could see our forces straggling out in a ragged column as the stronger men pushed on ahead. I was young and fit and worried – and right up in the front. I could stop now for a rest, get my breath back. Ahead on the road I saw the two men spring from the bushes and vanish over the hill.
‘There!’ I shouted. ‘Watchers – we’ve been seen.’
The capo jumped from the war-wagon and ran to my side. I pointed. ‘Two men. In hiding there. They ran towards the keep.’
He ground his teeth with impotent rage. ‘We can’t catch them, not in our condition. Doccia will be warned, he’ll escape.’
He looked back at his straggling troops, then waved his officers forward.
‘You, Bar
kus, stay here and rest them, then get in formation and follow me. I’m going on with all the fit men I can. They can take turns riding on the war-wagon. We’re pushing forward.’
I climbed onto the roof of the cart as it started ahead. Men ran alongside, holding on, letting it pull them. The steam car wheezed and puffed smoke at a great rate as we clanked up the hill and onto the downslope beyond.
There were the towers of the keep in the distance, smoke rising from it. When we rattled around the next bend we found a line of men across the road, weapons raised, firing.
We did not slow down. The steam-whistle screeched loudly and we roared in answer, our anger taking us forward. The enemy fled. It had just been a holding party. We could see them joining the rest of the attackers who were now streaming away from the moat. When we reached the causeway it was empty of life. Beyond it was the broken gate of the keep with smoke rising slowly above it. I was right behind the capo when we stumbled forward. Long boards were still in place bridging the gap before the splintered and broken drawbridge, half-raised and hanging from its chains. A soldier pushed out between the broken fragments and raised his sword in weary salute.
‘We held them, Capo,’ he said, then slumped back against the splintered wood. ‘They broke through into the yard but we held them at the tower. They were firing the outer door when they left.’
‘The Lady Dimonte, the children … ?’
‘All safe. The treasury untouched.’
But the troops’ quarters were off the yard and not in the tower. I pushed ahead with the others who had realised this, climbing through the ruined gate. There were bodies here, many of them. Unarmed knaves chopped down in the attack. The defenders were coming out of the tower now – and Dreng was among them, coming forward slowly. His clothing was spattered with blood, as was the axe he carried, but he seemed sound.
Then I looked into his face and read the sorrow there. He did not need to speak, I knew. The words came from a distance.
The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection Page 18