The Witch Goddess

by Robert Adams

  And indeed it proved to be a grave, but a most singular grave. It was shallow and contained the almost-fresh carcass of a small deer, expertly flayed of its hide, but otherwise untouched.

  "Now who," Corbett mused aloud, "would go to the trouble of stalking one of these chary mountain bucks, then take only the skin and leave so much good meat behind?"

  All of the Broomtown men seemed equally perplexed, but Erica nodded and said, "Ganiks, of course, Jay. It would be of a piece with this weird bastardization of a religion they seem to practice. Don't you see? Over the centuries, needing hides and skins for clothing, they've probably rationalized to the point that the killing of wild animals isn't sinful, so long as they neither eat the meat nor leave the carcasses out in the open to pollute."

  Corbett shook his head. "Well, if they don't want it, we sure as hell can use it. Gumpner, have that carcass gutted and cleaned—that's tonight's supper. Cabell, you're our best tracker; see if you can determine which way on this track the party that left that deer was moving."

  To Erica, he said, "I'd hoped that these days of painful trailmaking had left those bastards behind; obviously, we're still in their territory, and moving deeper into it, for all we know. If we're going to have to fight them sooner or later, I'd much prefer to do it with men and animals that aren't all worn out from forcing trail, day after day, so we're going to use this track for a while until we strike a north-south one again. Whichever way the deerslayers went, we'll go the other."

  East they marched, making very good time, even while sparing the mounts and pack beasts as much as possible; and early in the second day on the track, they struck a north-south track, whereupon Corbett headed south along it. They moved fast now, covering as many kilometers per day as the officer thought the animals and men could endure, but they moved warily, too, with all save Dr. Braun and the captive armed and alert from start to finish of each day's march.

  On the morning of the eighth day after the eruption and quakes, gunshots from all along the camp perimeter awakened Corbett and the rest. In the gray light of false dawn, he and his men sprang up, grasping rifles, pistols, sabers and axes, only to find no one to fight… not then. One of the perimeter guards had taken a thick, short dart in the groin, and he bled to death before he could be gotten back to camp. Three dead Ganiks were found, and great pools or splashes of blood were to be seen in two more places.

  Corbett took a strong mounted party out as soon as it was light enough and scouted out from the perimeter in a full circle, finally finding where the Ganiks had left their ponies while they came in afoot, to be unexpectedly greeted with large-caliber rifles firing explosive bullets. They found one more dead Ganik, too.

  A bullet had obviously torn off a good part of the left arm of the savage, but that was not what had killed him. His throat had been cut… and his body had been stripped and butchered. Heart, liver and kidneys seemed to be gone from the cadaver, along with most of the flesh of both thighs, upper arms and buttocks. Moreover, the generative organs were gone and the head had been axed open to scoop out the brains.

  While some of the troopers leaned from their saddles, gagging and retching, Corbett was engulfed by an ominous foreboding. Savages properly terrified of firearms and their deadly effect would not have stopped so close to those fire-spitting devices long enough to kill and butcher one of their wounded, and without the psychological advantage of advanced weapons technology, he knew that he and his small command had about as much chance of survival as a wet snowball in hell.

  As soon as he and his force were back in camp, that camp was struck and the column moved out on the track southward. But it was far too late to escape their doom, and in his heart, Jay Corbett knew it. Nonetheless, he formulated contingency plans and issued the requisite orders to his remaining NCOs.

  "Gumpner, Cabell, Cash, the most important thing is for someone to get back to Broomtown alive and in condition to lead a large force back up to the site of the disaster, where most of the pack train is buried, before rain and the elements have time to further damage those devices and books. The second most important thing is to try to get the two scientists—Dr. Arenstein and Braun—back to Broomtown, but do not—I repeat, do not—endanger the primary goal for the sake of the secondary one.

  "I am now certain that we're surrounded, have been for days, and are being deliberately paced by a large force of those cannibals, so none of us may make it back, but I do not want it to be for want of trying, gentlemen. When the battle joins, as it will, soon or later, you and your men must make every shot count, but be certain to save the last one for yourselves. From what we've learned from that Jim-Beau, none of us must allow himself to be captured alive by these savages. If all else fails you, jam the point of your dirk or bootknife in under the angle of the jaw, here, at least an inch deep, and slash downward toward the front; the pain will be short and sharp and you'll be dead inside five minutes."

  At the first rest stop of the day, Corbett had the loads of loot from the Hold of the Moon Maidens dumped at the side of the track, then the few supply loads and waterskins redistributed among all the pack animals, overriding Erica's objections brusquely.

  "Doctor, it's another military decision; we'll most likely be fighting or racing for our very lives before this day is out, and I'm of the opinion that our lives are worth a bit more than a few pack loads of scrap metal.

  "Oh, and don't give Dr. Braun any more drugs today. He may have to fight, too, and he can't do that doped up to the gills. Now can he?"

  "No, he couldn't," she agreed, then grimaced. "But Harry is not going to like being denied his shot."

  Corbett just shrugged. "Then let him take up the matter with me. I'm trying to save his life—surely that's worth some pain for a few days?"

  Erica said, "To any other man or woman, probably, but you don't know how selfish, how stubbornly self-centered, Dr. Harry Braun can be."

  With a long sigh, Corbett stated, "The only other humane alternative, Doctor, is simply to shoot him. You've heard Jim-Beau gloating over the hideous atrocities his kind inflict on helpless captives—cooking and eating them alive and all the rest.

  "But he's still your patient, Doctor. If you have reason to think that the pain resulting from discontinuance of the drugs will put him into shock, tell me, and I'll put him down while he's still half-conscious."

  She shook her head slowly and said sadly, "I wish now that I were a good liar, for I have a gut feeling that Harry is a… a jinx, that with him safely dead, we just might survive this predicament. But I'm not, Jay, I'm not a good liar, so I can't say the words that would doom him, irrevocably.

  "Yes, he'll hurt like hell without a shot, but his injury is knitting nicely, so far. I doubt he'll go into shock, but if be does, you'll still have your pistol. Won't you?"

  "I will, Doctor," was his grim-faced reply. Then he turned and led his armored charger back toward the van, now mounting up.

  Corbett's worst suspicions regarding their untenable situation were confirmed within two hours. Two troopers were darted from ambush—one in the van, one in the rearguard. The first, the one in the rear, took the short, stubby, deadly missile at a downward angle just behind his clavicle and had bled to death before Corbett reached him. But the other was deeply pierced in the side, just below his rib cage; Gumpner put an end to the man's agonized screams with his axe.

  Corbett left the two bodies where they lay, taking only enough time to strip them of their weapons and ammunition before setting the column back on the march toward their doom.

  In a short stretch where rocky walls made the track too narrow for a double column, the end trooper simply disappeared, without a sound, apparently plucked from his saddle as he rode. His eyeless, tongueless head, impaled on a sharpened sapling, confronted the vanguard a few kilometers farther south.

  At the next fairly open spot, Corbett halted, had each rider fill his canteen and his mount's waterskin, then dumped the remainder of the water. The supplies were portioned out a
s far as they would go, then the thin reserves of ammo were equally divided, and he gave his final orders to his force.

  "They've trailed us and harried us, gentlemen; their next move will likely be a full-scale ambush or even an open attack, depending on how many they number, and it could come at any time now. According to the prisoner, they never fight in the dark, so if they don't hit us hard today, expect them at dawn.

  "If it is an ambush, ride for your lives and don't take time to shoot unless you have a clear target and no option; it would seem that guns don't scare them, for some reason.

  "If, on the other hand, they confront us in the open, immediately assume a wedge formation—wounded and noncombatants in the center—and we'll do our level best to blast our way through them. Once we are through them, Sergeant Gumpner and Corporal Cash will be responsible for continuing on with the noncombatants and the wounded, they and one squad. Sergeant Cabell and I and the rest of the force, will turn back and hold off pursuit as long as possible.

  "Sergeant Gumpner, choose your squad now and keep them together when we resume the march. You'll also take the only still-loaded animal—that's the medical supplies—and all of the spare animals, too. Remember my earlier orders and the priorities they contained.

  "Good luck to you all, gentlemen, and God bless and keep you. In almost a thousand years of soldiering, you men were the finest command I ever had."

  Corbett reined about and kneed his tall horse in close to Braun's mule. "Do you think you can stay in your saddle unaided, Doctor, at a fast gallop? Or would you prefer we tie you to that kak?"

  Braun was sweating profusely; knots of muscle were working at the corners of his jaw, and the hate-filled eyes he turned to meet Corbett's were bloodshot and teary.

  "You goddam sadist! You know I can't sit a saddle well or securely with a goddam broken leg. Of course 111 need to be tied on, you nitwit bumpkin! And don't you think for a minute I won't tell Sternheimer and all the rest how you and that bitch have tortured me in every nasty way you could, either. You may be the big dog, here and now, but just you wait until we all get back to the Center, you—uneducated ape!"

  Corbett called over a pair of troopers to see to strapping the infuriated scientist safely into the war saddle. Taking one of the spare sabers, he had the men buckle it in place on the mule's harness, then loaded and armed a pistol, before slipping it into Braun's empty belt holster.

  "Dr. Braun, you may say anything you wish of me to the Director or anyone else. Those who know me—and you— well will recognize them for the peevish lies they are. Your difficulties with Dr. Arenstein are between the two of you, have been for centuries, and I want no part of them or of her or of you, once this present mess is concluded. If I am an uneducated ape to you, Doctor, you are to me an overeducated ass and utterly despicable. Despite that, I wish you sincerely the same luck I just wished the troopers."

  Late in the afternoon, as the blaze of sun was just touching the western horizon, the van debouched into a small valley bisected by a broad but shallow stream. Milling on the near side of the stream was a mob—it could not, by even the loosest interpretation of the word, be called a formation—of at least two hundred Ganiks. All were, with their beards and uncropped hair and furs, as shaggy as their runty ponies, and even from more than fifty meters, the combined stench of them was gaggingly indescribable.

  As the veteran troopers rapidly formed their wedge for the charge, the Ganiks began to screech and shriek and howl like the wild beasts they shamed in both filth and savagery. They lengthened their mob along the stream, readied darts and waved rude clubs, few seemed to bear swords or real spears.

  At the point of the wedge, Corbett remarked to Gumpner, "The bastards are making their line shallower, which will make it easier for us to break through them. If they had any sense, they'd have massed on the other side of that brook, and let the water absorb some of our impetus before we struck them. We'll commence firing at twenty-five meters, concentrating around that big, red-haired bastard there, the one on the piebald pony, with the old saber; the brook looks shallowest directly behind him, and that's where we'll break through them."

  "Sir," said the stocky sergeant, a bit hesitantly, "not that I mean to question the major's order, but…"

  Corbett smiled and turned in his saddle to lay a hand on the bridle arm of the graying noncom. "Then don't do so, Gump. You've been given your orders, you have your responsibilities. Cash and I will fight the holding action… but I deeply appreciate the offer, old friend.

  "Now, are we all formed up? Then let's go!"

  Corbett had been secretly worried that the troop horse he now rode might panic when he began to fire a pistol from off its back, but the beast behaved well enough, galloping flat out with bared teeth that bespoke some measure of war training.

  The Ganiks had seemingly expected their prey to try to bypass them, ride around them, not charge directly into the thickest part of the mob. Nor had they expected the firesticks of which their ancient legends told to begin to kill at such long range. As the wedge scattered the mostly riderless ponies, trampling the victims of their fusillade and then splashing through the stream, precious few of the flanking Ganiks were close enough to do more than cast darts and howl in frustrated fury, so the wedge rode on unscathed.

  They had time to climb the farther hill and start through the narrow defile at its summit before the bemused Ganiks had regrouped and set about a pursuit, in numbers now reduced by a good quarter part of the original mob.

  Corbett had several of his best shots dismount and clamber to positions high up the two walls of the gap and set the rest to dragging up any debris they could find to partially block that gap and provide cover for the other riflemen. While they frantically labored, he rode on to make certain that Gumpner's party was safely on its way.

  And it was well that he did so. He came up behind the tiny column in time to pistol down two Ganiks who, afoot, had just succeeded in dragging from his saddle a wounded trooper and were about to slash his throat. By the time Gumpner and two troopers came pounding back, sabers out and ready, Corbett was off his horse and helping the wounded man to remount.

  Jay Corbett gasped, "Damn it, Sergeant, keep this column moving forward, southward; the tail end will just have to look out for itself. The amount of time that a bare score of us can expect to hold that mob back there is very limited, and you and yours are no longer strong enough to stand and fight them. You've precious little chance as it is now—don't lessen even that!"

  He remounted, rendered an abbreviated horseman's salute, then reined his armored horse about and rode back toward the booming cracks of his men's rifles, where they were holding the mouth of the gap against vastly more numerous forces.

  Sergeant Gumpner rode on south heedless of who saw the tears coursing down his lined, stubbled cheeks. Like generations of his forebears, he and the other Broomtowners had loved the gentle, patient, but infinitely knowledgeable man who had made soldiers of them, loved and respected him for the father he was to them. Now Gumpner knew that that ageless man was fighting his last battle in order to give a few of his military children a bare chance at survival.

  "One of us will get back to Broomtown, too." The middle-aged soldier half-sobbed to himself. "I'll see to it. The major's last order will be carried out, come hell or high water!"

  Farther back, in the twisting, turning, rock-walled defile, Erica found her well-bred, clean-limbed horse overtaking Braun's big mule. "Dammitall, Harry," she panted, "can't you get any more speed out of that animal? You'd better, because Gumpner's not going to wait for you or anybody else!"

  Closer, she noted that his face was pale and twisted in what she took to be a combination of pain and pure terror.

  "You… got to help me, Erica," he finally mouthed. "Got to… girth or something… saddle loosening, with me strapped into it…"

  "Oh, all right, Harry. But after this, you're on your own, remember that." She glanced back along the track, waved a couple of troopers
past her, slung the rifle she had been carrying diagonally across her back, then dismounted.

  After a brief examination of the mule's gear, she looked up and angrily began, "You poor fool, there's nothing wrong with…" She trailed off when she found herself staring into the gaping black bore of Braun's pistol.

  The face above that pistol was still twisted, but she could belatedly define that expression correctly. It was hate—pure, unadulterated hatred of her, with a gleam of triumph from the cunning, bloodshot eyes.

  "You bitch!" he hissed. "You've robbed me and hurt me and humiliated me and even tried to kill me, but this is the end of it. I loved you, once, but you deliberately killed that love, giving yourself to anyone, everyone, except me, for centuries. Now I hate you, and I'm going to kill you as you almost killed me, back at the Center."

  She knew precisely when he was about to pull the trigger—his lips thinned, his jaws tightened, and his eyes narrowed—but in the narrow passage, with her horse and his mule blocking her in, there was no way that she could have dodged, so she reached up and grasped his gun hand, forcing it and the gun muzzle upward. The booming explosion almost deafened her so that she hardly heard her own scream as burning flecks of gunpowder struck her scalp and arms.

  Braun freed his good leg from the stirrup and savagely kicked her in one breast with the toe of his boot. Only then was he able to shake loose her grip on his wrist and once more level the big pistol.

  But when he pulled the trigger this time, no buck and roar was forthcoming, only the click of the falling hammer. Furiously, he gripped the slide knurls and tried to draw it back, but it was immovable. So, in frustrated fury, he slammed the side of the heavy steel weapon with all his might across the back of Erica's bowed head, and as she crumpled bonelessly onto the rock-strewn track, he urged his big mule southward, shouldering aside her horse, thinking that a vengeance long, long delayed was the sweeter to savor and that he had served the treacherous, promiscuous bitch no less than she deserved.