Silva chuckled. “An’ you didn’t include him in your list o’ specimens.”
“No.”
* * *
* * *
It took them almost half an hour to wind their way back down to the palace entrance, and Major Abel Cook met them there. Rifles flashed in the distance, all along the waterfront, as men and ’Cats shot swimming Grik in the water. Blood was probably drawing predators, and there were shrill screams as water monsters snatched top water morsels.
“I tried to call a strike on the battleships,” Cook reported. “Sink them, and the Grik should stop. They can’t possibly swim all the way across. Certainly not if they intend to fight when they arrive.” A frown creased his young face. “But all our planes are grounded. The storm in the strait is growing into a strakka. The battle to the southeast is being fought in the rain already. The consensus of the weather division on Salissa is that the storm will soon reach us.” He glanced at the arch. “Did you secure the objective?”
“Yes,” Chack responded. “Hopefully, it’ll be of use.”
“They got poor ol’ Pokey,” Silva told Cook, his voice uncharacteristically somber, and the boy looked down. Pokey had accompanied them all the way across the vicious wilds of Borno, and stayed with Cook and his Khonashi ever since. “How?” Abel asked quietly, looking up to meet his eye.
Silva squinted and looked uncomfortable, clearly trying to soften the blow. Abel Cook had seen more in his short life than he ever should have, yet Silva couldn’t help thinking of him as a gangly kid, full of wonder, shadowing Courtney Bradford. “Well,” he finally began thoughtfully, “let’s just say he went down hard.”
Chack snorted and blinked reproach. “Sergeant Pokey was . . . overwhelmed by the enemy,” he assured. “Let thaat be the end of it. Now, tell me more about whaat we face out here.”
With a suspicious look at Silva, Abel Cook led them to the breastworks. A lot of effort had gone into it while they were in the palace, and just about every loose stone, beam or timber, door, table, fallen tree, even Grik body within a quarter mile had been added to a roughly 450-yard, semicircular barricade beneath the western face of the structure. Chack hoped they wouldn’t be stuck there long enough for the reeking corpses to become more of a problem than they already were. Paving stones had been torn up behind the breastworks and trenches begun. Six water-cooled .30-caliber machine guns were dug in, as were the two light howitzers. Manning the defense was all of Cook’s 1st North Borno and most of Jindal’s and Galay’s regiments as well, totaling around two thousand troops.
It was a pretty stout position and should hold against anything but artillery or a much larger force willing to take a hell of a beating. On the one hand, everybody knew these Grik were soldiers, not a mob. Their tactics might be a little dated, but they actually used tactics and were increasingly—disturbingly—clever. The days of mindless flock attacks seemed over. On the other hand, if there was anything on earth that could still inspire the Grik to that degree of sacrificial fanaticism, it was in the palace behind them.
The crackle and flash of rifles along the waterfront was nearly continuous, and swirling, fitful breezes whipped acrid gunsmoke back in their faces. Chack rubbed his tired eyes and looked at the sky. High-level clouds were reaching across the flickering stars, racing from north to south, even as the humid surface winds remained confused. “A storm is certainly brewing,” he said grimly. He sighed. “Major Gaa-lay,” he called to the Filipino officer who’d just joined them. “Pull your skirmishers in.” They were nearly all Impies, members of the 1st Battalion of the 11th Imperial Marines, and part of Galay’s 7th Allied Regiment.
Galay frowned. “They’re really murdering the bastards, literally like shooting fish in a barrel. Sure you want to call it off?”
“An’ they’ll get the docks,” Silva warned. “Thought we wanted to stop that.”
Chack nodded but pointed. “There’s heavy firing the length of the line, but the shore—and other docks—extend beyond it. Grik crossing faarther upriver must swim a greater distaance but have less to fear from water monsters. I expect they’re already ashore beyond your defense, Major Gaa-lay, possibly in force. And the more distaant companies risk attaack from the rear. Besides, to really kill them, we need them to concentrate. The only place they’ll do thaat is here. Pull your men baack, Major. It’s going to be a very long night.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Galay replied. “Bring them in,” he told the comm-’Cat standing nearby. “All companies will fall back to the strongpoint in succession, starting with those farthest out.”
Suddenly, the great Grik ironclad battleship closest to their position lit with twelve stuttering flashes amid ballooning white balls of smoke. Blind in the darkness after watching the muzzle flashes of rifles for several minutes, Chack hadn’t noticed the thing, close to five hundred yards or less. Maybe nobody had. A dozen hundred-pound case shot reached them shortly before the roar of the guns. Most went long and burst in Old Sofesshk and a few impacted the south side of the palace, but two exploded with terrific thunderclaps and sheeted white-hot iron fragments down on Chack’s Raiders. Screams erupted at the far side of the perimeter and close to the arch. Silva stood—they’d all hit the dirt—and squinted through the smoky haze.
“Damn. I guess they figgered they can’t hurt the Cowflop, just like we did, but they can clobber anybody around it. Now we’re in the same shit the lizards were, and I reckon it’s gonna fly fast an’ hot.” He shook his fist at the Grik battlewagon, which was doubtless already reloading. “An’ there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it!”
“We can dig,” Abel Cook shouted grimly. He stood as well. “Finish the trenches!” he roared. “Dig for your lives!”
Silva glared at Galay. “Well? Gimme a goddamn shovel!” Every member of Chack’s Raiders carried a short, T-handled entrenching tool strapped to their pack.
“Where’s yours?”
Silva scoffed. “I brung guns.”
“So now you want to trade one for a shovel?” Galay barked sarcastically.
The BB lit up again and they all dove for the dirt. “I might,” Silva ground out as more shells exploded overhead. His otherwise unquestioned, even reckless courage aside, it was well known Silva really hated being on the receiving end of artillery. Everyone did, of course, but Chack suspected the sense of helplessness that came with the arbitrary, impersonal nature of the peril bothered Silva even more than most. He’d stood stoically by Walker’s number-one gun many times while more and bigger shells fell around him, but then he’d been moving—and shooting back. “Which gun do you want?” Silva added louder, but more screams and cries of anguish drowned him out. His eye met Abel Cook’s. “Looks like we’re gonna get another taste o’ what we been givin’ the Griks since this war kicked off,” he shouted, “an’ I don’t like it one damn bit.”
There was a brief lull, and Cook rose on his knees. “Dig!” he roared, unstrapping his own entrenching tool. Someone tossed another to Silva and he started hammering at the hard dirt where paving stones had already been pried up.
“What about my Marines?” Galay insisted.
Chack reached over and dragged the cowering comm-’Cat closer. “Haave the Eleventh pull back to the temporary HQ we set up laast night—this morning, whichever. They’ll dig in there until recaalled. No sense paacking more troops under this.” Several more shells exploded overhead and one on the ground, heaving bodies, stones, and timbers in the air. Most still went long, exploding in the city, and a few buildings were already flickering with flames. Apparently, the other Grik BB had joined the bombardment. “Everyone else, except those holding the line, will move inside the paalace and take cover there.” He blinked apology at Cook. “No nonhumaan Khonashi yet, I’m sorry. Not until we know it’s safer for them inside than out. There are . . . smells in there thaat might drive them maad,” he tried to explain.
Unsurprisingly, Coo
k understood. He’d spent more time around Khonashi than anyone left alive. That didn’t mean he liked the situation. “Sergeant Moe,” he called. “Take a detail of human Khonashi and guard the arch. Don’t admit any but humans and Lemurians, even those bearing wounded. It’s for their own good,” he added bitterly.
“Ay, sur,” came the reply, and the ancient ’Cat stood and walked briskly toward the palace, not even flinching under the heavy detonations.
“Dumb-ass,” Silva gasped, flinging dirt in the air in great arcs. “An’ he’s afraid bein close to me’ll get his scrawny ass killed!” He glared at Chack. “You better get under cover too. Galay’s boys’re out there, an’ Mister Cook’s’re here. We got this. You get blown to pieces, we’re all screwed.”
“Major Jindaal’s more than capable of taking my place,” Chack retorted, blinking at the one-armed Imperial sitting upright in a shallow trench behind one of the MGs.
“No he ain’t!” Silva snapped, waving his shovel at Chack. “Jindal’s a swell fella, but this ain’t his brigade. You’re who holds it together an’ keeps it fightin’.” He pointed the shovel down toward the river’s edge. “An’ there’ll be plenty o’ hard fightin’ when they’re done poundin’ on us, so git!”
“With respect, sir, he’s right,” Jindal agreed. “We have the finest brigade in the Alliance, but only because you command.” He grinned and glanced at his empty sleeve. “And since I missed so much of that affair on Zanzibar, it’s my honor to do my part now.” His grin faded. “You might even say the honor of the Empire of the New Britain Isles is at stake, since we’ve such a small presence in the west. So many of your people have died fighting the bloody Doms, I fear the future of the Grand Alliance relies on it being remembered there were Imperials in this fight as well—even if only by our names on the graves.”
Chack blinked something too complex to follow in the gloom, but nodded. “Very well. I’ll see whaat progress Laaw-rence is making. But send word at once when the baar-rage lifts. I expect a heavy aassault will follow.” He blinked irony. “It’s whaat we did.”
He hunkered down with the rest while the next salvo swept the open ground with sizzling iron, then jumped up and trotted toward the arch.
“You better not be plannin’ on gettin’ yer name on a slab,” Silva grumbled sourly at Jindal. “If you are, I’m takin’ Moe’s advice an’ gettin’ the hell away from you. I ain’t fallin’ off the twig in this shithole.”
“Never fear, Chief Silva,” Jindal chuckled. “I don’t . . .” A large iron ball, roughly ten inches in diameter, slammed down heavily in the shallow trench Jindal shared with several ’Cats. Silva had the slightest impression of a flame-jetting wooden fuse. Jindal glanced down, then back at Silva, eyes wide with surprise—and maybe a touch of amusement—just before the shell went off. The trench vomited earth, debris, shattered paving stones, and other things, and a vast, rising cone of fire and smoke. Silva was protected from the initial fragments but was blown back by the blast. Rolling into a ball, he tried to make himself as small as he could under his helmet, but that did little good. Dirt, rocks, and other debris showered down, some slamming hard on his naked shoulders and back. More shells exploded nearby, mostly airbursts, but Silva immediately uncoiled and crawled to where he’d seen Cook. “Major Galay!” he called at the same time.
“Over here!” replied a strong but strained voice. “Where’s Cook?”
Silva heaved a shattered timber aside and pulled a weakly thrashing form out from under the rubble. “Found him,” he shouted back. “You okay, Mr. Cook?” he asked, raising the helmet that had dropped across the boy’s face.
“Perfectly fine,” came the gasping reply. ’Cats and Khonashi were already rushing to join them. A couple pulled a body from behind the closest machine gun and started checking the weapon for damage.
“Good,” Silva grunted, grimacing at the trench where Jindal had been. Fortunately, all he could see was a crumbly-looking crater and parts of a shattered rifle. “’Cause you may be in charge out here. Corps-’Cat!” he shouted. “Take a look at Mr. Cook!” He patted the boy’s cheek. “I’m gonna check Galay.”
“I heard him . . .” Abel Cook murmured.
“Me too,” Silva assured, crawling quickly toward where Galay had been. Others were there already, and as he’d suspected, Galay was wounded. An Impie was fumbling with a field dressing, and Galay was gritting his teeth and pressing hard against a gash above his hip. Flashing explosions revealed a lot of blood welling past his fingers.
“Shit,” Silva swore. “Corps-’Cat!”
CHAPTER 36
////// Palace of Vanished Gods
What’s that?” the Celestial Mother asked, looking at the trembling ivies surrounding them. Tiny leaves and little blooms quivered in conjunction with muffled cracking sounds, like a sledgehammer pounding a massive stone. The fur that floated so freely before had finally settled, but now there was a haze of falling dust and occasional leaves. Troops had righted the huge table, and the Celestial Mother assumed her place on a rather modest saddlelike “throne” behind it. At least it was modest compared to the one Lawrence remembered in her mother’s palace at Grik City. Also unlike that other encounter, Lawrence was learning that this creature’s apparent arrogance had been more a conditioned facade. She didn’t presume she knew everything—or that what she didn’t know had no importance. She was also beginning to grasp that she might not be immune to consequences.
Lawrence would strive to educate her further. “That’s one of the many sounds of war, Your Highness,” he declared in her tongue. “One it makes when it’s trying to kill you.” He blinked irony in the Lemurian way. “We’re safe here, for now. Unless whatever arrangement that allows sunlight for your ornamentation”—he gestured around—“is vulnerable.”
“It is not,” snapped the Chooser. There were guards outside, but only Lawrence remained in the chamber, and the Chooser had recovered considerably. He didn’t feel as intimidated by a single enemy even smaller than he. “And it’s past time that someone removed these”—he gestured imperiously at the corpses of the sister-guards still lying where they fell, though all the Lemurian dead, and Pokey, had been carried away—“from the Celestial Presence!”
Lawrence had suspected as much about the light. He’d seen the same indoor flora on Ceylon and Madagascar, lit by a complex series of polished silver mirrors arranged in tight, convoluted passageways. Air could get in, as could poison gas, he supposed, but it might’ve gotten only a little smoky inside after the firebombing. As for the corpses . . .
Lawrence looked at the Chooser. “No. Her Highness hears war, but needs to see and smell what her war does.”
“It’s not my . . .” the Celestial Mother began to object, but the Chooser actually interrupted her. “You’ll address her as Giver of Life!” he snapped.
“But she isn’t and I won’t!” Lawrence suddenly snarled, crest bristling high, eyes narrowing to furious slits. “She leads here, or is supposed to, so I call her Highness, but it is her war, fought in her name, and her people, race . . . tribe . . .”
Lawrence shook his snout and snapped his jaws in frustration. Distinctions between those things had begun to blur in his mind. They had little meaning in the United Homes anymore. Khonashi, humans, Mi-Anakka, even his own Sa’aarans, were all part of the same “tribe” now, the same Union. It included diverse individuals, to be sure, who in their own self-interest generally worked together toward a common goal. But how better to achieve it? Of course, there’d always be some who were corrosive to the whole, but he firmly believed the whole was . . . good.
“The Gharrichk’k culture,” he stressed at last, finally recognizing the real culprit, the primary difference between good and evil as he saw it—represented by the Doms and League as surely as the Grik! The epiphany came like one of the shuddering impacts outside, and he barely paused. “The Grik,” he continued, emphasizing the A
llied pronunciation, “give life to nothing, and bring only death to all they touch. That’s all they’ve ever done, or will do, unless they—you—are stopped! I can’t count how many of my people, my friends, have been lost!” He glared at the Chooser. “Now she, they, you bring death and destruction upon yourselves!”
“You insolent hatchling,” the Chooser began, taking a step toward Lawrence, but the Sa’aaran didn’t retreat. He seemed to welcome attack, in fact, and the Chooser hesitated.
“I’m no hatchling for you to discard, Chooser,” Lawrence hissed. “I’m full grown and as elevated as you. My people are smaller,” he conceded, but even as he did, the long claws of his left hand flared menacingly, even though the arm was strapped against him once more. “But these have probably killed nearly as many Grik as you have—even if you only slew hatchlings that couldn’t fight back.” He raised the long pistol in his right hand. One of the ’Cats had reloaded it, with a lighter charge, for him. “I don’t even need this to finish you,” he said matter-of-factly. “I can do it with the hand that holds it, and it doesn’t even have claws!”
The Chooser bristled, still confident, and took another step.
“Enough,” the Celestial Mother told him. “Do you doubt he can do as he says?” she demanded. “And if not him, then the guards outside? For one so celebrated for divination, Lord Chooser, in war, or the characteristics hatchlings may acquire,” she added with open skepticism, “you’re remarkably shortsighted at present.” She glanced at her dead sisters. “Perhaps under the circumstances you only feel the present and only see a single enemy.” She looked back at Lawrence and her tone turned mocking. “But even if you killed him, others who slew my sisters—and sent you to hide—would return.”
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