Fire Time gh-2

by Poul Anderson

  Now! And there was no more time for doubt or regret.

  Sparling drew his knife, gripped underhanded. “Yes,” His voice resonated through his skull. “You can make ready to deliver the legion. Don’t move! This is a hijack.”

  Jill gasped, Dejerine’s olive complexion paled a trifle, though he stood oddly steady and his features merely went expressionless apart from the luminous dark eyes.

  “My private idea,” Sparling said. “Never a hint to Jill. But when I knew the circumstances—when I thought how our weak, clumsy effort from Primavera might not work, and at best could only give temporary help—while this monster can cow any warriors who escape it for the rest of their lives—Do you see? I’m prepared to surrender to you afterward, and stand trial and serve sentence. But please believe, Captain, I’m just as prepared to secure you and try being my own pilot if you don’t obey my orders.”

  “Ian—” Her voice broke like glass.

  Dejerine sprang. The distance was short, he was young and supple, trained in personal combat. Yet Sparting swayed aside and delivered a kick and a left-handed chop which laid him asprawl.

  “Don’t try that again, son,” the engineer advised: “You’re good, but I spent years in sections where I’d better know infighting… against Ishtarians. This knife is more emphasis than threat.”

  Dejerine climbed to his feet, gingerly touched the places where he had been struck, wet his lips, and spoke slowly: “If I refuse—and I’m sworn to the service of the Federation—you’re practically sure to crash. They don’t let anyone rated less than Master Pilot near the controls of a thing like this. What then about Jill?”

  “I’ll send her back to Ulu with a story that accounts for my absence,” Sparling said.

  She stepped forward. “Like hell you will, mister,” she stated.

  “Like hell I won’t,” Sparling answered; and to Dejerine:

  “I repeat, she’s been in no conspiracy, she was unaware of my plan, her behavior has been correct throughout.”

  Jill clenched fists and stamped a foot. “You idiot!” she yelled. “Why do you suppose I snaked that promise out of you, not to block me, whatever I did? I intended the same piracy myself!”

  He couldn’t gape at her, for he must watch Dejerine and she must keep beyond the latter’s reach. He could only glimpse her in a comer of his sight, flushed, breath quick, fire-blue eyes and teeth agleam. You would, he knew. Aloud. “You’re raving.”

  “That she is,” Dejerine said in a hurry. “A touch of sun. I didn’t follow her, she was so incoherent. Sparling, I will assume you’re an honest man, however misguided. If I do your will, under duress, and you surrender to me later—we’ll return here and fetch Jill. We’ll have left her behind, you see, in safety.”

  The girl drew blade. “No.” Her tone became one of the grimmest either man had ever heard. “I’m dealing myself in whether you want me or not. I hold you to your oath, Ian. Break it, and you’ll have to fight me. Is that your wish?

  “Listen. If you’re alone with him, Yuri has a chance of taking you. He can pull a stunt—he’s a spaceman and he’s younger; he can take more gee force. He can black you out with a dive or a swerve and grab that shiv of yours, and there goes the game. But two of us—two of us’ll be too many; too risky. Right, Yuri? Against two, you’ll have no choice. Your duty’ll be to stay at the helm—if only because you doubt a pair of klutzes like us can return the Federation’s big expensive death machine undamaged.”

  I can’t dismiss her now, whatever I do. She’s torched her last line of retreat. The knowledge was like a blow to Sparling’s throat.

  Dejerine—Dejerine looked as badly shocked. His shoulders slumped, he gnawed his lip, in a muteness which went on. Finally, his stare never leaving the girl, he said rasp-voiced:

  “Yes. Your analysis is correct. I will fly for you.” Turning, he led the way toward the command cabin. His back had straightened but his gait was stiff. And Sparling thought: He guessed I might do what I did. Not Jill. that was a foul surprise, but me. He came here open to me.

  A glance at her showed pity on her face. She sees this, too.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Arnanak drew sword. Light flamed off the blade. “Forward!” he shouted.

  A mighty sound arose as two dozen strong warriors strained against pushbars. Slowly, creaking, groaning, the bridge rocked into motion. Dust and cinders smoked from its wheels, sought eyes, ears, noses, mouths, plants. Sun and Marauder blazed ruthless in a glaring sky above a sere land. To the right, the river shone like brass. The earthworks and walls ahead loomed unreal through haze and heat-shimmer.

  Yet the bridge toiled onward. Arnanak paced it at a distance. Its crew needed what heartening he could give. He and his big legionary shield would take their chances when he came within bowshot.

  Pride swelled in him afresh whenever he glanced at the crude, ugly contraption. This was his thought, his doing. The engineers of the Gathering had never made anything like it; their foes had never built towns as well fortified as Port Rua. The beds of three wagons in a row carried massive timbers which jutted far enough ahead to cross the ditch. A load of stones at the rear balanced them. Behind, a bulkhead and roof warded those who shoved the huge weight along. Hardly a thing could stop it save the heaviest boulder a trebuchet might throw; and he had spent lives and his remaining captured huriers to wreck every northside bastion.

  Arrows whistled from the stockade. Many bore fire, and several struck home. But it was hard to kindle balks this big, which had furthermore gotten well wetted while being rafted down from Tarhanna and afterward by bucket brigades. Arnanak dodged to and fro. Regardless of weather, the surge of muscles felt good as he played tag with the shafts.

  He still failed to see Larreka’s banner. It had been gone for days, ever since the Zera inflicted that disaster at the riverside which made Arnanak order suspension of attacks other than bombardment and completion of his unfinished, untried device, no matter how much the warriors griped. Had the commandant fallen? If so, sleep well, Brother Among the Three. Yet Larreka was canny, and—

  And they were at the gap!

  A thunderstorm of joy broke from the massed Tassui when the bridge crashed snout against embankment. Arnanak whirled and sped back. The weary crew took out the pegs which held their shelter in place and retreated behind it. Trumpets on the walls bade archers stop uselessly shooting.

  Arnanak signaled. The next engine moved, the last of those taken from Wolua’s luckless band, a ram hung on chains under a testudo shifted by full sixty-four males. Though the copper that fireproofed its roof was tarnished, he could not look straight at it beneath the suns.

  “Stand ready to charge,” Arnanak told his guards. That word rolled on outward through the horde where it milled unrestful. Weapons blinked in roiling dust. Arnanak trotted clear of it for a view across the territory.

  Flags wigwagged at him from afar. He laughed. “Aye, I awaited this.” The east gate had swung wide and the drawbridge come down. Again he drew brand and broke into a run. His household troops torrented after.

  Gallop, gallop, gallop! Light leaped fierce off armor yonder. A detachment had left the fortress to try to catch the ram crew, slay them, and bring back their tool, before it reached the walls.

  Those soldiers were not few. They expected having to cut their way to safety. When they saw the Tassui bear down on them, they changed from close order to assault array and countercharged. Loss of them would sorely weaken the garrison.

  “Spread out,” Arnanak called. “Zigzag. Come at them fanwise.” However much he had drilled his crack fighters, a reminder was best. Their old wild ways lay very shallowly buried.

  He spoke none too soon. Portable catapults began sending whole bundles of darts, farther than a bow could reach. Through and through the sighing death he sped. He glimpsed males who struck the ground and rolled. Some got back up, limped rearward or continued ahead; some lay still, abristle, and their blood purpled a soil baked too hard to drink i
t. But the smitten were few, and the time was short before the Tassui were upon the southerners.

  Arnanak aimed himself and eight guards at a trio of heavy troopers in armor like his. Together they shocked upon the legionaries.

  Shield bosses thrust, shield edges chopped, sword or hatchet hewed from above or around rims. Arnanak and a soldier strained, pushed, sought to find or force a gap in defense. Blows clanged on the helmet cages, thudded on backplates and greaves. Companions of his rallied around. With scant mail of their own, they could not stand before one that fully protected. But while their Overling held him engaged, they hacked and stabbed through any joint, any crack, any bareness. Erelong a pike head ripped the wight’s underbelly. He shrieked when his guts spilled out, crumpled in the heap of them, and composed himself to die. His mates, worse outnumbered, were already slain.

  Arnanak spied a light trooper nearby and attacked. That fellow could have outrun him, weighted as he was, but stood fast with his squad. Arnanak hooked his shield aside and slammed sword-edge into spine.

  Elsewhere, too, the skilled males of Ulu had served their end. They had broken the legionary formation, on which untrained barbarians oftenest broke themselves. Arnanak sped from the strife and winded horn. In a bellow and rattle and drum roll of footfalls, the horde came at the scattered soldiers and swamped them.

  As dust settled, Arnanak saw that the testudo was across his bridge, up the slope, against the wall. He heard the ram boom. “Ohai-ah!” he roared in glory, and led his housecarls that way. They must not let a sortie cut off their sappers. They’d be under heavy fire till the stockade broke; and after that there’d be only a narrow gap, desperately defended; but the Tassui would get through. This day they would be in Port Rua.

  Sixty-four years hence, we will be in Sehala.

  A whine pierced the sky. Arnanak looked thither. A metal shape glided down as if out of the Demon Sun. His hearts quivered. Humans! What do they seek?

  From the vessel, something gaunt streaked at the massed warriors.

  In flame the hue of lightning, heaven burst open.

  Hurled on high, Arnanak flew. The noise was too great to hear, it filled him, had him. was him, and every bone of him tolled. He struck ground which heaved like the sea. The feel of his burns overtook him. His soul splintered in a scream.

  Yet a part held fast. It was a stone called Arnanak, and though fire seethed over it in tide after tide, at its core lived the will to be a lodestone. Across a white-hot blindness where monster winds ran, it dragged home the tattered and destroyed soul of Arnanak. After a million cycles of the Cruel Star, he was.

  He drew aside from agony and raised his eyes. He lay on an earth gone ashen quiet—for he could not hear the mangled whom he saw struggle amidst the heaped dead, he could not hear a sound. From the field a cloud lifted, taller than belief and on the top spread widely out, the phantom of an enormous phoenix. The town stood unharmed, ram abandoned beneath ramparts. I must have been near the edge of the blast, dripped through him.

  I will go find my sons. But his hindquarters would not stir. When he saw how spearheads and knife points of bone stuck out of the seared flesh, he knew why. He hitched himself onto hands, rowed with forefeet, dragged the dead half of him along.

  “Tornak,” he tried to call, “Uvemi, Akio, Tatara, Igini,”—no, Igini died on the gentle sea, didn’t he?— “Korviak, Mitusu, Navano”—his sons who had been here in pride and honor, but he could not remember the rest of their names—“Kusarat, Usayuk, Innukrat, Alinark” —friends, wives, everybody dear all whirling together while darkness ate at the edges of awareness—but he couldn’t hear if he had any voice left.

  “Humans, why?” maybe he called. “I would have been your friend, too. I would have brought you my dauri and the Thing.” Peering aloft, he was unsure if the slaughter ship hovered, as dim as his sight had grown. Nor was he sure if the corpse beside which he must stop, because he could go no further, belonged to anyone he knew. He thought in the maelstrom that it might be Tomak’s but it was too cooked for him to tell. Was he near the middle of the weaponstrike?

  If he could reach that far in his weakness, then… then not everybody was slain. Belike most had lived to flee, most would return home and some outlive Fire Time. If the humans did not vengefully follow— Why should they? The humans had no need. They were almighty.

  Arnanak sighed and lay down to rest. The Night came on. Too swiftly for a death dream? No. It must not. He would not let it. He was no animal that merely died, he was the Overling of Ulu.

  He rose and drew blade. “Give me my honor,” he told the faceless. Light flew off the steel. It struck at the black wings which stormed around and around, rang against beaks and talons. They wailed, those winds.

  Arnanak walked toward. He was on a whistling gray heath where cold blew till his sword sang with it. Claw grew there and raked at him, but he was well buskined. Packbags balanced across his back, armor secured above them, shield slung from shoulders so his hump took the weight, head high and eyes held steady, right front-left rear, left front-right rear/

  Hark to the drum, the drum. the drum.

  “Outward!” the bugles cry.

  Finish your beer,

  Gather your gear,

  Bid every wench good-by.

  “Farewell to them! Farewell to them!”

  the drum and the trumpet shout.

  To hell with them, to hell with them.

  I’d rather go home than out.

  Grumbling we come, we come, we come.

  Settle yourself to hike.

  How is the beer

  On the frontier?

  What are the wenches like?

  and thus the Tamburu strides.

  The Zera had joined them, for a bridge must be forced. “What a winterful country I picked to be born in!” Larreka said, an obscenity bouncing after. “Best thing about Haelen is the ship that carries you away from it.”

  “You won’t like mine any better,” Arnanak warned.

  “No. I didn’t. We had to get through the world somehow.”

  “Are you sorry?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Nor I.”

  The bridge was blade-edge thin. It trembled and glimmered above that canyon where the ocean plunges roaring into hell. They who stood on it radiated dread.

  “We’ll have to take them by a rush,” Arnanak decided, Larreka agreed. When they were armored, he took steel in his left hand. In that wise they two went shield by shield, warding each other.

  Arnanak threw his spear. It burned in among the enemy. He and Larreka followed. Hew! They cast their foes down to the mist and querring of the waterfall, and passed over.

  On the far side was a vast and tilted land, mountains athwart heaven, valleys scorched raw, silent under the suns. Its fieriness smote the bones. “Now do you understand why this has to be set free?” Arnanak asked. “But come. I know the way.”

  They were all there in the hall at Ulu to bid riotous welcome, sons, comrades, loves, strength after strength embracing him. He led Larreka to the place of pride. Here the air lay cool, a little dusky though lamplight gleamed off weapons hung on the walls. That whole night, merriment rang aloud. They feasted, drank, boasted, made love, swapped stories, wrestled, played games, clamored forth songs, never grew weary, and remembered—remembered—remembered.

  At dawn the males took arms again, said their last farewells, and streamed outside. Ohai-ah, what a valiant sight! Spears leaped among banners, plumes tossed, blades and axheads clanged on shields, as with a single deep shout the host hailed its two captains.

  “It is the time,” Arnanak called, and, “Yai” Larreka said. Joyous, every Tassu and legionary who had ever fallen in battle followed them, upward on the windy ways to where the huge red chaos of the Rover awaited their onslaught.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Jill wept. Sparling held her close, on the bench they had in the rear of the command cabin. His face was a helmet’s visor, save that an edge of his mou
th twitched downward, over and over, and his eyes smoldered coal-dry.

  Slow tears coursed along Dejerine’s cheeks, bitter across his -tips. From time to time a shudder possessed him. Somehow his hands walked steadily over the console and his brain measured what the scanner screens revealed.

  The blast crater gleamed black, soil turned to glass. It was not unduly wide. The missile had been a precision instrument, shaped to cast its force in a cone and give off minimal hard radiation. This couldn’t be perfect. A ring of unvaporized casualties lay around. For penance he magnified the view at random spots. Part of that meat moved, which was worst of all.

  Abruptly he could take no more. He brought the energy gun into play. Bolts raved, forms charred, for a minute or two until the ground lay in a smoking peace. Maybe a few could have been saved, given proper medical care. But where was that?

  Father, forgive me, he would have begged if he had been able, for I knew not what I did. He had never before seen combat. But it was as if he dared not pray. Instead, there belled through him:

  For now thou numberest my steps; dost thou not watch over my sin?

  My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity.

  And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place.

  The waters wear the stones; thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man.

  Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth; thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.

  His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.

  But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.

  Jill ceased crying. Small and shaky, her voice nonetheless marched: “I, I’m okay. Thanks, darling. The sight was horrible, I’d no idea how horrible. But I’m only shocked, not killed, not crippled.”