Shinya had to strain to hear him. “We lost two of the field pieces,” he brooded. “Their crews managed to spike them, but…” He shook his head. “It was that double load of canister from each of your guns just as we came over the wall that kept them off us long enough to re-form.”
“Later you may admire each other’s prowess,” Rolak growled tersely. His own part in the successful maneuver had not been inconsiderable. “Right now there is still a great battle underway.”
The fighting along the north and west walls of the fort was still fierce, but the pressure was easing. It was as if, sensing greater prey ahead, the majority of the Grik were content to leave the fort isolated and continue their push toward the city. Beyond the fighting on the wall, the seething mass sluiced through the gap and down the road. Midage younglings scurried behind the lines, distributing bundles of arrows. Guns barked, spraying their deadly hail into the flank of the mass, mowing great swaths through the rampaging mob, but for all the attention the bulk of the enemy paid them, they may as well not have bothered. “Cut off and bottled up,” Chapelle grimly observed.
Brister’s runner returned. “The message got through,” he announced with evident relief. “The tower confirmed receipt.”
“At least Baalkpan knows what’s coming.” Brister sighed hoarsely.
A high-pitched, deepening shriek forced its way above the din. It sounded like a dozen locomotives barreling directly toward them with their whistles wide open.
“Holy Christ!” Perry blurted, eyes going wide. “I forgot about the Japs!” He threw himself to the ground. Even as he fell upon it, the earth rushed up to meet him and the overpressure of titanic detonations drove the air from his lungs. Clods of dirt, jagged splinters, and various debris rained down, and a heavy weight fell across his back. For a moment he could only lie there, trying to draw a breath. Finally he succeeded, but the air was filled with chalky dust, despite the damp night before, and he coughed involuntarily. The weight came off and he was dragged to his feet. Chapelle’s face appeared before him, looking intently into his eyes. Then it disappeared. Brister shook his head, trying to clear it, and looked around.
A smoking crater was less than forty yards away, and bodies were scattered in all directions. One belonged to the runner who’d just spoken, and most of his head and part of his shoulder had simply disappeared, as if a super lizard had snatched a bite. Another shell had landed on top of the north wall, leaving a big gap surrounded by dazed and broken troops. He wondered why the Grik weren’t already pouring through, and lurched toward the wall and climbed to the top. “Form up! Form up!” he rasped over and over to those standing near. He doubted they could hear him. Even to himself he sounded as if he were shouting through a pillow. Rolak joined him, clutching his bloodied left arm to his side, and together they stared beyond the wall.
Ironically, most of the shells had fallen on the Grik. More smoking craters, surrounded by dripping gobbets of steaming flesh and shattered bone, formed a rough semicircle beyond the fort, extending about two hundred yards into the gap. Many of the enemy closest to the impact points were stunned into motionlessness, while others tried to force their way back through the press in panic. Those were mercilessly slaughtered.
“Thatis side, a the wall beside one of the guns and peered over it. In the middle distance Amagi was clearly visible, surrounded by her grotesque brood.
“What do you hear?” Rolak asked, and Brister sighed.
“Nothing. It worked. They’ve stopped.” For the moment the only sounds were the screams of the wounded, the crackling of fires, and the surflike noise of the Grik flowing past the wall. He pointed at the bay for Shinya’s benefit. “Look down there. We’ve sunk everything in range! Nothing else can even come into this part of the bay without running onto the wreckage of their friends. The battery’s done all it can! Despite all our shooting, the enemy’s getting past us now by hugging the far shoreline. That’s not in range, although the guys have been giving it hell. If we keep firing, all it’ll accomplish is to get us slaughtered.” He paused and looked at their faces. “Together, counting my gunners, we have close to three thousand troops in this fort. We may all die anyway, but I have an idea that might make it more worthwhile than just standing and getting pasted.” A shout rose up from the other side of the fort.
“It would seem our friends are preparing to return,” Rolak stated dryly.
“Swell. Can the guns on that side of the fort keep firing?” Chapelle asked.
“God, I hope so,” answered Brister. “Just don’t shoot at the bay anymore!”
“I still don’t know what you hope to accomplish by this!” Shinya hissed low, as they trotted back across the center of the fort.
“Maybe nothing,” Brister replied. “Maybe everything.”
Pete Alden’s new forward command post occupied a multistory dwelling belonging to one of Baalkpan’s more affluent textile merchants. Like many of her class, she hadn’t originally been a member of the “run away” party, but she’d joined it quickly enough when Fristar abandoned the defenders. Pete didn’t care. All that mattered was that the dwelling afforded an excellent view of the entire south wall. The enemy facing it continued to swell far beyond the initial force that landed north of the Clump and occupied the fort road. Ever since the fort was cut off, thousands upon thousands of lizards had poured through the gap, up the road, and out through the cut, where they deployed into a mile-wide front with their backs to the jungle. Round shot bounded through their ranks from across the killing field the People had cut with such effort. Each shot killed some of the enemy, plowing through their densely packed ranks, but the fire had a negligible real effect. Pete thought it was probably good for the gunners’ morale, though, faced as they were with what stood before them. If the Baalkpan defenders had a wealth of anything, it was powder and shot for their guns. Let them shoot.
He’d have been happy to let the mortars fire as well, and they might have wreaked some real havoc, but they didn’t have as many of the bombs, and the range was a little far-for now. His reserve mortar teams were rushing from the center of the city, and when they arrived he’d have thirty of the heavy bronze tubes at his disposal. He hoped the copper, pineapple grenade-shaped bombs would dilute the force of the Grik assault when it came, preventing it from hitting his defenses as a cohesive mass. Canister ought to blunt the spearhead; hopefully the bombs would shatter the shaft. No was wait and listen as the reports flooded in.
Chack and Queen Maraan scaled the ladder behind him from the level below. A signaler escorted them to his side.
“The First Marines have deployed in support of the Manila volunteers,” Chack said, saluting. As always, the powerful young ’Cat wore his dented helmet at a jaunty angle, and a Krag was slung over his shoulder.
“The Six Hundred and the Fifth Baalkpan are in place as well,” Safir Maraan reported in a husky tone. She was dressed all in black, as usual, and her silver armor was polished to a high sheen.
“Good,” Alden murmured. “We’re going to need them.”
“It’s certainly shaping up to be a most memorable battle,” the queen observed.
“And how,” said Chack, using the term he often heard the destroyermen use. He stood on his toe pads and peered out over the wall. From across the field beyond came the familiar strident, thrumming squawk of hundreds of Grik horns, and the hair-raising, thundering staccato of tens of thousands of Grik swords and spears pounding on shields commenced. “I think they’re about to come,” he said, turning to Pete. “With your permission?”
“You bet. Give ’em hell.”
For just an instant, as he passed her, Chack paused beside Safir. Reaching out, he gently cradled her elbow in his hand. They blinked at each other, and then he was gone. The Orphan Queen’s eyes never left him until he disappeared from sight.
“Gen-er-al Aal-den?” she asked.
Pete nodded, still looking at the enemy. “Yes. Go. I think Chack’s right.” He turned to look at her.
“Be careful, Your Highness. I expect I’ll be down directly.”
“The waterfront’s in for it,” Dowden observed, peering through his binoculars. The cork in the center of the enemy advance was out of the bottle, and dozens of red-hulled ships were streaming toward the docks. Most of the mines were gone. Clusters of barrels still floated in the bay, giving the impression that mines remained a hazard, but the Grik avoided those that they could. Kas – Ra – Ar ’s smoldering wreck had finally slipped, hissing steam, beneath the water of the bay, and Matt had ordered Tolson, the last shattered, leaking frigate, to disengage. Her captain, Pruit Barry, signaled a protest, but Matt repeated the order and Tolson was retiring sluggishly, reluctantly, from the fight. She’d given a good account of herself, surely destroying the last of the gun-armed enemy ships in the center, but she’d paid a terrible price. Her sails were tattered rags, and her foremast was gone. Matt only hoped she’d reach shallow water before she sank. The heavy guns of the waterfront defenses opened up as the enemy approached and tore them apart, but unlike the plunging fire from the fort, fewer of the hits were immediately fatal or disabling. In their same old way, the Grik just kept charging through.
“Can’t be helped,” Matt ground out. Her ammunition nearly exhausted, Walker had only two obpt most of them drawn in its direction. Mainly, though, Walker had to remain visible in the bay until Amagi arrived. So far the Japanese battle cruiser was taking her own sweet time. That was as they’d hoped, from a naval perspective, thought Matt, glancing at the setting sun. They’d savaged the Grik fleet without Amagi to protect it, and Walker would be a more difficult target in the dark. But in the meantime people were dying. There’d been no word from Fort Atkinson since it was smothered beneath several ten-inch salvos. Smoke still rose from there, so fighting clearly continued, but the guns overlooking the entrance to the bay were silent.
A continuous, impenetrable pall of smoke obscured the south side of the city as well, and no one on Walker could tell what was going on from her station across the bay. Matt now knew he’d been naive to think he could control the battle from his ship. He could transmit, and presumably someone could hear him, but he couldn’t see any of his friends’ signals at all. It was beyond frustrating, and there was nothing he could do but trust the people on the spot. They were good people, and his presence probably wouldn’t make any difference, but it was nerve-racking all the same. Letts had managed to get a single message to him by means of a small, swift felucca. Several major assaults against the south wall had been repulsed so far, but the last attack had been costly, and actually made it past the moat to the very top of the wall. Most of the casualties suffered by the defenders came from blizzards of crossbow bolts, but the enemy was also employing a smaller version of their bomb thrower they hadn’t seen before. Several Grik would carry the machine between them, and once it was emplaced they could hurl a small bomb about the size of a coconut almost two hundred yards. The weapon had little explosive force, but like the larger ones it dispersed flaming sap in all directions when it burst. It was a terrible device, and the Grik had an endless supply.
Most of the reserve had already been committed, but more Grik continued pouring through the gap and up the fort road. Letts had been forced to strip defenders from unengaged sections of the wall, even as the invading army lapped around to the northeast to threaten there as well. With this new attack on the waterfront, things would get tight.
“Send a message to HQ. Tell them they’re going to have a lot of company along the dock, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“They probably know that already, Skipper.”
Matt shrugged. “All the same…” The rattling drone of distressed motors distracted him, and he looked again toward the wreck-jumbled harbor mouth. The PBY was returning from somewhere beyond, its latest load of depth charges gone. Gray smoke streamed from the starboard engine, and the plane, less than a hundred feet in the air, clawed for altitude.
“Mallory must’ve tried to drop on Amagi,” Larry said. “Crazy bastard. Now the plane’s shot to pieces! I thought you told him to stay away from her.”
Matt nodded. He had. He also knew Mallory’s view of the battle was better than anyone else’s. Only Ben Mallory knew exactly how the enemy was deployed, and he must have thought things were desperate indeed to try to tip the balance single-handedly. Amagi must be getting close, and Ben must have thought the defenders couldn’t take it.
The plane rumbled forced tby, heading for the north inlet, where a backup landing ramp and fueling pier had been established. Up close now, Matt saw it was riddled with holes, and a wisp of smoke trailed the port engine as well. Ben obviously had his hands full just keeping it in the air. The navigation lights flashed Morse.
“ Amagi,” Dowden said.
As they watched, orange flames sprouted around the port engine and leaped along the wing, consuming leaking fuel. Black smoke billowed.
“Oh, no,” Matt breathed.
The plane turned into the failing engine, but with an apparently herculean effort, Ben managed to straighten her out with the big rudder and claw for the nearest shore.
“Come on!” someone murmured.
Even as the lumbering fireball fought for altitude, however, throttles at the stops, the fight ended with a suddenness as appalling as it was inevitable. The port support struts gave way, and the plane staggered in agony. An instant later the wing around the engine, weakened by fire, simply folded upward. Flaming fuel erupted, spewing from the sky with a heavy, distant whoosh! and the brave PBY Catalina and its gallant crew plummeted into the sea.
“Get a squad of Marines into the launch to look for survivors,” Matt said huskily. By his tone he didn’t expect them to find any. “Then you’d better resume your station, Larry,” he added, referring to the auxiliary conn. With only the Grik to fight so far, he’d allowed Dowden to remain on the bridge.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Larry said, still staring at the erratic plume of smoke hovering above the burning, sinking wreckage of the plane. He took a deep breath and looked at Matt. “Good luck, sir.”
“You too.”
Keje-Fris-Ar paced the battlement spanning the width of his Home, his fond eye tracing details he’d so long taken for granted. Even if all went well, his ship-his Home-would likely be reduced to a smoking, sunken wreck in the shallow water off the fitting-out pier. The distant sound of battle in the south had become a living, gasping, thundering throb, and the guns behind the fishing fleet wharf had begun booming as the Grik drew ever closer to his beloved Salissa. They were so densely packed he couldn’t even count them. Far to the west, he saw Walker beneath her massive flag, racing to intercept a red ship that had strayed too close to the inlet. Tiny waterspouts erupted around the Grik as one of Walker ’s machine guns came into play. In spite of his dread of what lay in store for his own ship, he felt a surge of guilt, mingled with gratitude for all Walker and her people had done for them. What they had yet to do. He sent a prayer to the Heavens for their safety, and added one for Mahan as well. The thick smoke had prevented him from seeing the PBY go down.
He knew some still believed the Amer-i-caans had brought this upon them, that the horror they faced was somehow connected to the arrival of the slender iron ships. He also knew that was ridiculous. The Grik had always been there, and today was but a reenactment of that terrible, prehistoric conflict that fraeje grunted. “How did he get up there?” He shook his head. “Never mind. He knows the Jaaps may target the tree and the Great Hall?”
“He does. Suddenly he seems aware of quite a lot. He hopes his prayers will protect them.”
“Do you think they will?”
“No.”
Keje nodded. “Then surely mine won’t do much good,” he muttered wryly. He looked down. When he spoke again, his voice sounded sad, almost… desolate. “Will you pray with me now, Sky Priest?”
Adar blinked rapidly, overcome by emotion. “Of course.” Together with Selass and the few others on Salissa �
��s battlement, they faced in the direction the sun had set and spread their arms wide. As one, they intoned the ancient, simple plea:
“Maker of All Things, I beg Your protection, but if it is my time, light my spirit’s path to its Home in the Heavens.”
The traditional prayer was over, but before they could complete the customary gestures, Adar’s voice continued: “I also beseech You to extend Your protection beyond our simple selves to include all here who fight in Your name, even those with a different understanding of Your glory. Aryaalans, B’mbaadans, Sularans, and the others, all perceive You differently, but they do know and revere You… as do our Amer-i-caan friends. Our hateful enemy does not. I know it is.. . selfish of me to ask You to deny so many of Your children their rightful, timely reward in the Heavens, but Maker, we do so desperately need their swords! I beg You not to gather too many in this fight, for even should we be victorious, the struggle must continue, and it will be long, long. Instead, let those You spare be rewarded later, with a brighter glow in the night sky, so all will remember the sacrifice they made!” he lowered his head. “I alone ask this of You. If it is Your will to deny my own ascension in return, so let it be.”
The rest of those present stared at him, shocked by the bargain he’d made, and Keje’s red-brown eyes were wet with tears. Following Adar’s example, together they crossed their arms on their chests and knelt to the deck, ending the prayer at last.
“You take too much on yourself,” Keje insisted.
Adar blinked disagreement. “I only wish I had more to offer than my own meager spirit.”
“Then you may add mine as well,” Keje said, and Adar looked at him in alarm. Once spoken, the bargain could not be taken back. “Idiot. Do you think I would be separated from you in this life or the next, brother? The boredom would destroy me.” He paused. “Two last things; then you must leave. First, if we are victorious but I do not survive, send my soul skyward with wood from Salissa.” He grinned. “Perhaps the Maker did not hear me. Finally, I will trust you to give Cap-i-taan Reddy my thanks.”
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