He went slowly down the hillside, drawing his shoulders together against the cold, not looking back. Helena rose when he approached her campfire, and the glimmering light made her seem pale and unreal.
"Where have you been, Basil? You look so tired."
"Just walking around. I'm all right." He spread his couch of stiff and stinking animal hides. "We'd better turn in, eh?"
But he slept little.
VI
The highway curved between great looming walls of cragged old rock, a shadow tunnel with the wind yowling far overhead and the sun a disc of blood. Men's footfalls echoed from the cracked paving blocks to boom hollowly off time-gnawed cliffs and ring faintly in the ice. It was cold, their breath smoked from them and they shivered and cursed and stamped their feet.
Donovan walked beside Helena, who was riding Wocha. His eyes narrowed against the searching wind, looking ahead and around, looking for the side track where the ambush waited. Drogobych was very near.
Something moved up on the ridge, a flapping black thing which was instantly lost to sight. The Arzunians were watching.
There—up ahead—the solitary tree they had spoken of, growing out between age-crumbled fragments of the road. The highway swung west around a pinnacle of rock, but here there was a branch road running straight south into a narrow ravine. All I have to do is suggest we take it. They won't know till too late that it leads up a blind canyon.
Helena leaned over toward him, so that the long wind-whipped hair blew against his cheek. "Which way should we go?" she asked. One hand rested on his shoulder.
He didn't slacken his stride, but his voice was low under the whine of bitter air: "To the right, Helena, and on the double. The Arzunians are waiting up the other road, but Drogobych is just beyond that crag."
"Basil! How do you know—"
Wocha's long hairy ears cocked attentively, and the little eyes under the heavy bone ridges were suddenly sharp on his master.
"They wanted me to mislead you. I didn't say anything before for fear they'd be listening, somehow."
Because I hadn't decided, he thought grayly. Because Valduma is mad, and I love her.
Helena turned and lifted her arm, voice ringing out to rattle in jeering echoes: "Column right! Forward—charge!"
Wocha broke into a trot, the ground booming and shivering under his huge feet. Donovan paced beside, drawing his sword and swinging it naked in one hand, his eyes turned to the canyon and the rocks above it. The humans fell into a jogging run.
They swept past the ambush road, and suddenly Valduma was on the ridge above them, tall and slim and beautiful, the hair like a blowing flame under her helmet. "Basil!" she screamed. "Basil, you triple traitor—"
The others were there with her, men of Drogobych standing on the heights and howling their fury. They had chains in their hands, and suddenly the air was thick with flying links.
One of them smashed against Donovan and curled itself snake-like around his waist. He dropped his sword and tugged at the cold iron, feeling the breath strained out of him, cursing with the pain of it. Wocha reached down a hand and peeled the chain off, snapping it in two and hurling it back at the Arzunians. It whipped in the air, lashing itself across his face, and he bellowed.
The men of Sol were weltering in a fight with the flying chains, beating them off, stamping the writhing lengths underfoot, yelling as the things cracked against their heads. "Forward!" cried Helena. "Charge—get out of here—forward, Empire!"
A chain whistled viciously for her face. She struck at it with her sword, tangling it on the blade, metal clashing on metal. Takahashi had his blaster out, its few remaining charges thundering to fuse the missiles. Other flames roared at the Arzunians, driving them back, forcing them to drop control of the chains to defend their lives.
"Run! Forward!"
The column shouted and plunged down the highway. Valduma was suddenly before them, her face distorted in fury, stabbing a spear at Donovan's breast. The man parried the thrust and hewed at her—she was gone, and the Terrans rushed ahead.
The rocks groaned. Donovan saw them shuddering above him, saw the first hail of gravel and heard the huge grinding of strata. "They're trying to bury us!" he yelled. "We've got to get clear!"
Wocha stooped, snatched him up under one arm, and galloped. A boulder whizzed by his head, smashing against the farther wall and spraying him with hot chips of stone. Now the boom of the landslide filled their world, rolling and roaring between the high cliffs. Cracks zigzagged across the worn black heights, the crags shivered and toppled, dust boiled across the road.
"Basil!"
Donovan saw Valduma again, dancing and leaping between the boulders, raising a scream of wrath and laughter. Morzach was there, standing on a jut of rock, watching the hillside fall.
Wocha burst around the sentinel peak. A line of Arzunians stood barring the way to Drogobych, the sunlight flaming off their metal. Wocha dropped Donovan, hefted his ax in both hands, and charged them.
Donovan picked himself up and scrambled in the wake of his slave. Behind him, the Terrans were streaming from the collapsing dale, out over open ground to strike the enemy. The rocks bounded and howled, a man screamed as he was pinned, there were a dozen buried under the landslide.
Wocha hit the Arzunian line. His ax blazed, shearing off an arm, whirling up again to crumple a helmet and cleave the skull beneath. Rearing, he knocked down two of them and trampled them underfoot. A warrior smote at his flank. Helena, gripping one mighty shoulder, engaged him with her free hand, her blade whistling around his ears. They fell away from that pair, and the Terrans attacked them.
Donovan crossed swords with one he knew—Marovech, the laughing half-devil whose words he had so much enjoyed in earlier days. The Arzunian grinned at him across a web of flying steel. His blade stabbed in, past the Ansan's awkward guard, reaching for his guts. Donovan retreated, abandoning the science he didn't know for a wild whirling and hacking, his iron battering at the bright weapon before him. Clash and clang of edged metal, leaping and dancing, Marovech's red hair wild in the rising wind and his eyes alight with laughter.
Donovan felt his backward step halted, he was against the high stone pillar and could not run. He braced his feet and hewed out, a scream of cloven air and outraged steel. Marovech's sword went spinning from his hand.
It hit the ground and bounced up toward the Arzunian's clutch. Donovan smote again, and the shock of iron in flesh jarred him where he stood. Marovech fell in a rush of blood.
For an instant Donovan stood swaying over the Arzunian, looking stupidly at the blood on his own hands, hearing the clamor of his heartbeat and sucking a dry gasp into his lungs. Then he picked up the fallen being's glaive. It was a better weapon.
Turning, he saw that the fight had become a riot, knots of men and un-men snarling and hacking in a craziness of death. No room or time here for wizard stunts, it was blood and bone and nerve against its kind. The Terrans fought without much skill in the use of their archaic equipment but they had the cold courage blended of training and desperation. And they knew better how to cooperate. They battled a way to each other and stood back to back against all comers.
Wocha raged and trampled, smashing with ax and fist and feet and hurled stones, his war-cry bellowing and shuddering in the hills. An Arzunian vanished from in front of him and appeared behind with spear poised. The Donarrian suddenly backed up, catching the assailant and smashing him under his hind feet while he dueled another from the front. Helena's arm never rested, she swung to right and left, guarding his flanks, yelling as her blade drove home.
Donovan shook himself and trotted warily over to where a tide of Arzunians raged about a closely-drawn ring of Impies. The humans were standing firm, driving each charge back in a rush of blood, heaping the dead before them. But now spears were beginning to fall out of the sky, driven by no hand but stabbing for the throats and eyes and bellies of men. Donovan loped for the sharp edge of the hills, where they toppled t
o the open country in which the fight went on.
He scrambled up a rubbled slope and gripped a thin pinnacle to swing himself higher. She was there.
She stood on a ledge, the heap of spears at her feet, looking down over the battle and chanting as she sent forth the flying death. He noticed even then how her hair was a red glory about the fine white loveliness of her head.
"Valduma," he whispered, as he struck at her.
She was not there, she sat on a higher ledge and jeered at him. "Come and get me, Basil, darling, darling. Come up here and talk to me!"
He looked at her as Lucifer must have looked back to Heaven. "Let us go," he said. "Give us a ship and send us home,"
"And have you bring our overlords back in?" She laughed aloud.
"They aren't so bad, Valduma. The Empire means peace and justice for all races."
"Who speaks?" Her scorn flamed at him. "You don't believe that."
He stood there for a moment. "No," he whispered. "No, I don't."
Stooping, he picked up the sheaf of spears and began to crawl back down the rocks. Valduma cursed him from the heights.
There was a break in the combat around the hard-pressed Terran ring as the Arzunians drew back to pant and glare. Donovan ran through and flung his load clashing at the feet of Takahashi.
"Good work," said the officer. "We need these things. Here, get into the formation. Here we go again!"
The Arzunians charged in a wedge to gather momentum. Donovan braced himself and lifted his sword. The Terrans in the inner ring slanted their spears between the men of the outer defense. For a very long half minute, they stood waiting.
The enemy hit! Donovan hewed at the nearest, drove the probing sword back and hammered against the guard. Then the whirl of battle swept his antagonist away, someone else was there, he traded blows and the howl of men and metal lifted skyward.
The Terrans had staggered a little from the massive assault, but it spitted itself on the inner pikes and then swords and axes went to work. Ha, clang, through the skull and give it to 'em! Hai, Empire! Ansa, Ansa! Clatter and yell and deep-throated roar, the Arzunians boiling around the Solar line, leaping and howling and whipping out of sight—a habit which saved their lives but blunted their attack, thought Donovan in a moment's pause.
Wocha smashed the last few who had been standing before him, looked around to the major struggle, and pawed the ground. "Ready, lady?" he rumbled.
"Aye, ready, Wocha. Let's go!"
The Donarrian backed up to get a long running space. "Hang on tight," he warned. "Never mind fighting, lady. All right!"
He broke into a trot, a canter, and then a full gallop. The earth trembled under his mass. "Hoooo!" he screamed. "Here we come!"
Helena threw both arms around his corded neck. When they hit it was like a nuclear bomb going off.
In a few seconds of murder, Wocha had strewn the ground with smashed corpses, whirled, and begun cutting his way into the disordered main group of the Arzunians. They didn't stand before him. Suddenly they were gone, all of them, except for the dead.
Donovan looked over the field. The dead were thick, thick. He estimated that half the little Terran force was slain or out of action. But they must have taken three or four times their number of Arzunians to the Black Planet with them. The stony ground was pooled and steaming with blood. Carrion birds stooped low, screaming.
Helena fell from Wocha's back into Donovan's arms. He comforted her wild sobbing, holding her to him and murmuring in her ear and kissing the wet cheeks and lips. "It's over, dear, it's over for now. We drove them away."
She recovered herself in a while and stood up, straightening her torn disarray, the mask of command clamping back over her face. To Takahashi: "How are our casualties?"
He reported. It was much as Donovan had guessed. "But we gave 'em hell for it, didn't we?"
"How is that?" wondered Cohen. He leaned against Wocha, not showing the pain that jagged through him as they bandaged his wounded foot except by an occasional sharp breath. "They're more at home with this cutlery than we, and they have those damned parapsych talents too."
"They're not quite sane," replied Donovan tonelessly. "Whether you call it a cultural trait or a madness which has spread in the whole population, they're a wild bloodthirsty crew, two-legged weasels, and with a superiority complex which wouldn't have let them be very careful in dealing with us. No discipline, no real plan of action." He looked south over the rolling moorland. "Those things count. They may know better next time."
"Next time? Fifty or sixty men can't defeat a planet, Donovan," said Takahashi.
"No. Though this is an old dying race, their whole population in the city ahead, and most of it will flee in panic and take no part in any fighting. They aren't used to victims that fight back. If we can slug our way through to the spaceships they have there—"
"Spaceships!" The eyes stared at him, wild with a sudden blaze of hope, men crowding close and leaning on their reddened weapons and raising a babble of voices. "Spaceships, spaceships—home!"
"Yeah." Donovan ran a hand through his yellow hair. The fingers trembled just a bit. "Some ships, the first ones, they merely destroyed by causing the engines to run loose; but others they brought here, I suppose, by inducing the crew to land and parley. Only they killed the crews and can't handle the machines themselves."
"If they captured ships," said Helena slowly, "then they captured weapons too, and even they can squeeze a trigger."
"Sure. But you didn't see them shooting at us just now, did you? They used all the charges to hunt or duel. So if we can break through and escape—"
"They could still follow us and wreck our engines," said Takahashi.
"Not if we take a small ship, as we'd have to anyway, and mount guard over the vital spots. An Arzunian would have to be close at hand and using all his energies to misdirect atomic flows. He could be killed before any mischief was done. I doubt if they'd even try.
"Besides," went on Donovan, his voice dry and toneless as a lecturing professor's, "they can only do so much at a time. I don't know where they get the power for some of their feats, such as leaving this planet's gravitational well. It can't be from their own metabolisms, it must be some unknown cosmic energy source. They don't know how it works themselves, it's an instinctive ability. But it takes a lot of nervous energy to direct that flow, and I found last time I was here that they have to rest quite a while after some strenuous deed. So if we can get them tired enough—and the fight is likely to wear both sides down—they won't be able to chase us till we're out of their range."
Takahashi looked oddly at him. "You know a lot," he murmured.
"Yeah, maybe I do."
"Well, if the city is close as you say, we'd better march right away before our wounds stiffen, and before the natives get a chance to organize."
"Rig up carrying devices for those too badly hurt to move," said Helena. "The walking wounded can tote them, and the rest of us form a protective square."
"Won't that slow us and handicap us?" asked Donovan.
Her head lifted, the dark hair blowing about her proud features in the thin whimpering wind. "As long as it's humanly possible we're going to look after our men. What's the Imperium for if it can't protect its own?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose so."
Donovan slouched off to join the salvaging party that was stripping the fallen Arzunians of arms and armor for Terran use. He rolled over a corpse to unbuckle the helmet and looked at the blood-masked face of Korstuzan who had been his friend once, very long ago. He closed the staring eyes, and his own were blind with tears.
Wocha came to join him. The Donarrian didn't seem to notice the gashes in his hide, but he was equipped with a shield now and had a couple of extra swords slung from his shoulders. "You got a good lady, boss," he said. "She fights hard. She will bear you strong sons."
"Uh-huh."
Valduma could never bear my children. Different species can't breed. And she is the outl
aw darkness, the last despairing return to primeval chaos, she is the enemy of all which is honest and good. But she is very fair.
Slowly, the humans reformed their army, a tight ring about their wounded, and set off down the road. The dim sun wheeled horizonward.
VII
Drogobych lay before them.
The city stood on the open gray moor, and it had once been large. But its outer structures were long crumbled to ruin, heaps and shards of stone riven by ages of frost, fallen and covered by the creeping dust. Here and there a squared monolith remained like the last snag in a rotted jaw, dark against the windy sky. It was quiet. Nothing stirred in all the sweeping immensity of hill and moor and ruin and loneliness.
Helena pointed from her seat on Wocha, and a lilt of hope was eager in the tired voice: "See—a ship—ahead there!"
Rise of the Terran Empire Page 36