Twilight at the Well of Souls wos-5

by Jack L. Chalker

  “And what’s the last thing you’d do?” he prodded.

  “Attack straight on,” another said. “Suicide.”

  He nodded. “And yet, that’s exactly what I intend to do. Go in with a limited aerial attack, keepin’ most of the force in reserve to cover the flanks. Then we’ll send in our biggest, nastiest-looking crowd first, the type that won’t get bogged down there. I also want a squad of flyers—those bat fellows will do—to drop a load o’ rocks and buckshot on that swamp before dawn. Lots of it—and from a height.”

  Mavra watched him with growing admiration and fascination. This was his first large-scale battle, yet he sounded like all the generals of past history. Crisp, professional, analytical.

  “Buckshot?” somebody asked.

  He nodded. “Got to be mines in there. Tell artillery to bring up the cannon in rows, too. I want a pattern of fire from just across the border slowly advancin’ until it’s covered the whole territory—before our people go in. And emphasize strongly to the troops that they keep advancin’ as long as they don’t hear retreat blown. Understand? Reserves follow the first wave in sections, wave after wave. Pack ’em in—and move up the artillery as soon as you can. Expect flank attacks. And when you get to them trees, here’s what you do…”

  Mavra listened with amazement at his detailed instructions. And, after they’d left to convey the message to their troops, she told him, “You’re going to kill a lot of people if you’re wrong.”

  “I’m gonna kill a lot of people if I’m right, too,” he responded gravely. “But this’ll be our test, how our dscipline works, how all our units work together. And, if I’m right—and I am—I’ll be the genius who won the battle.”

  Asam had been right about the mines, but he hardly needed the artillery barrage. The Olbornians understood a lot more about war this time, of course, but they themselves were a thousand years removed from any practical experience. On the theory that the more mines you had the more enemy you got, they’d sunk them by the hundreds in that muddy swamp. When the aerial bombardment of rocks and buckshot finally hit one, it set off every one near it. The chain reaction was spectacular in the predawn sky; it looked as if the entire world were blowing up. The concussions reverberated for kilometers in all directions, practically deafening all sides and almost knocking several ghostly aerials out of the sky.

  Asam, who had not slept all night, immediately sent word to the artillerymen to cancel the carpet and concentrate on widening the area covered. He was certain now that the mines had been laid in close rows and that hitting one in a row would set off the entire row.

  He was correct.

  Mavra, who had never seen anything like it before, looked at the exploding, bubbling mass uneasily. “You expect people to charge into that?” she asked, aghast.

  He nodded. “On the run and laying down fire all the way.”

  With first light, he signaled for the attack to proceed, and at the same time diurnal aerials took off to either side while more started dropping much more lethal stuff into the trees, mostly inflammables.

  The Olbornians, although shell-shocked, knew that the attack was coming and went to their emplacements. They had a good, solid defense line—from the air it could be seen that they had raised bastions, star-pointed redoubts that could cover each other every step of the way. To secure an area, three bastions would have to be taken at the same time while the ones on either side still receiving a withering fire from the ones farther down.

  Olbornian artillery waited for the leading wave to get almost to the center of the clearing before they opened up their presighted cannon. Palim, Dillians, Slongornians, Dymeks, Susafrits—they started to go down. Creatures that were crablike aided creatures that were insectival; creatures that were elephantine shielded creatures that were centauroid. And each wave moved quickly to fill in for its fallen comrades.

  Asam studied the scene through field glasses and nodded approvingly. “Uh huh. They’re holding together, those people of yours.”

  “They’re religious fanatics,” she muttered cynically. “They love to die for the cause.” Still, she could not deny that, within her, she felt a great deal of admiration for the courage being shown there. And they were all volunteers.

  A meter-long creature with a segmented body, dozens of legs, and six pairs of transparent wings came in with a buzz and dropped new photos at Asam’s feet. Their thorax-mounted cameras were providing him with the kind of intelligence the Olbornians could only wish for.

  “They’re breaking,” he noted, a satisfied tone in his voice. “By God! They’re retreating!”

  She smiled at him. “That means we’ve got them.” He shook his head violently. “Uh uh. They’ve just realized I caught on to their little game and they’re trying to draw us in while they get word to the flanks to change tactics. Whether we win or not will depend on whether there’s enough command organization down there to do what I ordered when they reach the trees.” He reached over and nodded to his signalman, who was standing with a limelight reflector facing the battle scene.

  “Form the columns,” he snapped, and the message was sent. “Split ranks and form defensive perimeters.”

  Not everybody below could be held back by iron discipline, of course. For them, too, it was their first battle, and seeing the enemy falling back was heady stuff to an already emotionally pumped-up force. The ranks behind, though, not having had to face the brunt of the assault, were more easily led, Dillians taking the lead, and a defense line was established across the open area through which more troops poured, some going forward but the bulk peeling off to right and left.

  And suddenly the forest erupted with living bodies. Olbornians, yes, but not just Olbornians. The very ground seemed to come alive with hundreds upon hundreds of huge mouths all filled with infinite rows of sharp teeth.

  Again the leading forces were taken by surprise and went down; the ones still rushing through the new line, though, formed reserves that peeled off to right and left to support their comrades under attack.

  Mavra looked through her field glasses and shook her head. “It’s too far away,” she sighed. “What are they?”

  “Well, the ones dropping from the trees are more Olbornians, of course—and I think I see a lot of well-prepared sniper nests up there, too. But they used the forest and the natural color of their allies to disguise the main force.”

  “Allies?” she echoed, confused.

  He nodded. “Giant lizards, with the biggest mouths and biggest bellies you’ve ever seen. They can lie absolutely motionless for days, but when they want to move, they move! I’ve seen Zhonzhorpians run on two legs at over twenty kilometers per hour—on all fours they can be almost twice as fast and climb a tree or a slick wall right after you.” He looked into the glasses again. “Ha! See? They forgot a machine gun isn’t a death-ray! It can put up a withering fire, but it can only fell what it hits, and it can’t hit everybody!” He turned to the signalman. “Make for all reserves to flank!”

  Almost as the signal was transmitted, the remains of their fighting force, some thousand or so soldiers, crossed half a kilometer up and half a kilometer down from the battle and started to close.

  Asam sighed and put down his glasses. He looked suddenly very old and very tired. “We got ’em,” he sighed. “We won. A lot o’ fightin’ yet to do, but it’s ours.”

  She looked at him in some confusion. “I still don’t understand all this,” she told him.

  He grabbed for a flask, uncapped it, and took a long pull. It was a lot stronger than ale, but he downed it like it was water.

  He coughed slightly, wiped his mouth with his hand, and let the flask, which was on a chain around his waist, drop. He sighed and grinned.

  “Allies,” he told her. “And who could they get? Not Alestol—they’re stuck in their hex. Not Palim, surely. That left Zhonzhorp, to the west. A high-tech hex. It’s where those excellent rifles and cannon were manufactured. The Zhonnies voted against us, too—as did mos
t, o’ course—and they would also like to see the battle fought on somebody else’s territory. Keeps from messin’ up the landscape.”

  The reserves were attacking, closing in now.

  “The Olbornians will be comin’ back now to try and hit us, but it’ll do ’em no good. See? Right now some of our flying folk are givin’ it to ’em good, just beyond the trees there. When we combine, there’ll be little left in the way of an enemy in our area, and our combined force will push out at the Olbornians. That’ll be that. Better part of a day is all.”

  “I’m still confused,” she persisted. “Why did you attack the way you did?”

  He grinned. “Well, if we’d split up into three main bodies, there would’ve been maybe two, three thousand tops, to cross that open area. The pussy cats would be down to that number or so after the bombardment, so it’d be fairly even: their turf, our superior racial forms for this kind o’ thing. Most of us are harder to kill than them. Then, as the flankers came to the aid of our forward attackers, they’d be hit by the Zhonzhorpians. Again, equal numbers, but their turf, their surprise. Their three forces would be back to back to back, so to speak. If any carried, they could be hustled to some place in trouble. We’d be divided, an enemy force between any two of ours. They’d have held.”

  She rushed to him, gave him a hug, and kissed him. “Oh, Asam! What would I have done without you?”

  He looked down at her and smiled. “Found another sucker,” he said dryly.

  She wasn’t sure whether or not he was kidding.

  At the Bahabi-Ambreza Border

  “The men are gettng pretty pissed off, sir,” the Hakazit general told him sourly. “I mean, it’s not what they signed on for. Hell, I don’t believe it myself! Close to nine hundred kilometers and we haven’t killed anybody yet!”

  Marquoz shrugged. “What can I do? That whole Durbis army was set up to take us—force-ray projectors, helicopter gunships, and all—and when we marched over that hill, everybody decided they’d visit the seashore for their health. I’ll admit it’s been a damn sight easier than I expected—so far. You just tell ’em that going up the Isthmus isn’t going to be any picnic.”

  “It better hadn’t be,” the general huffed. “Otherwise, they’ll do us both in and go on a rampage on general principles.”

  Marquoz chuckled and turned back to the border. Children, he thought. Like little children always dreaming and playing at war. The glories of battle and all that. Inwardly, he was thankful that a force of fifteen thousand Hakazit troops marching in precision across a wide swath of countryside had scared the hell out of the locals. He would need this force later, he knew, and he wasn’t all that certain that, when their buddies were getting smashed into goo all around them, the romance might not be over.

  He was, he decided, developing a whole religious faith around the absolutism of genetics, and he hoped it wasn’t a false deity.

  Ambreza, he believed, would be another easy mark. They wanted him in Glathriel and would do almost anything to let him get there. Getting out would be the problem.

  As with many other races and most of the hexes here, a white flag or cloth meant not to shoot. It was a logical choice. Quite simply, it was easier to see at a distance. He wondered uncomfortably at times, though, about what would happen if he ever met an army whose national flag was white.

  Affixing the flag to a staff, he rumbled down the side of a hill to the party below who waited under a similar banner. It was getting to be very routine by now.

  The Ambreza were enormous rodents that somewhat resembled overgrown beavers, complete to the buckteeth and large, paddlelike tail. They walked upright, though, on large hind legs, using their tails as added balance, and their look of extreme innocence was deceptive. Once this hex had been Glathriel, not Ambreza. A high-tech hex whose “humans” had built a massive and powerful civilization, one that, simply from its own laziness and indolence, outgrew its living space and decided that the lush farmlands of the Ambreza next door were necessary to its continued comforts. Rather than fight a losing battle, the Ambreza had cast about and, as usual when certain impossibilities were needed, found it in the North, among races so strange and alien that you could get them to whip things up for you if you had the right trade goods and they would never even consider that they were making up a weapon, in this case a brutal gas that was harmless to all except Type 41 humans.

  In the final preparations, the humans had begun massing on the Ambreza border when, throughout the hex, the canisters of gas were loosed. The Ambreza may have been nontech, but they weren’t ignorant. Their own “peace” party in negotiations in Glathriel had triggered the gas releases electronically.

  It was colorless, odorless, and quite effective. In some way even the Ambreza didn’t understand it worked on the cerebral cortex of the human brain, and, rather slowly, the humans had simply become increasingly less able to think, to reason. The great apes had been the model for the Type 41s, and, mentally at least, great apes they became. The gas didn’t dissipate, either; it stayed, and settled into the rocks, the soil, everything, affecting new generations. Most died; the rest became pets of the Ambreza in their expansion into Glathriel.

  Brazil had changed all that the last time he was through. Inside the Well he had altered not the gas but, subtly, the Type 41 brains that were affected by it. During Mavra Chang’s exile in Glathriel they had been savages, yes, but thinking savages. Marquoz wondered what they were now.

  There were five Ambreza, each wearing some sort of medallion that the Hakazit took to be a badge of office or rank. With them were several others, one of whom looked decidedly strange, Marquoz thought uneasily, a huge, looming shape of pure white with only two small black ovals.

  He stopped a few meters from the party and stuck his white flag in the dirt. “I am Marquoz of Hakazit,” he told them in his most menacing tone.

  “I am Thoth, Chamberlain of the Region,” one of the Ambreza responded. “My fellow Ambreza are from the central authorities. The others are representatives of the council force invited here, with this,” he pointed to the white specter, “their commander, Gunit Sangh of Dahbi.”

  Marquoz was impressed. He’d heard of Gunit Sangh, although the Dahbi were half a world away. He seemed to recall that Sangh had once tried the same trick the Ambreza had pulled on Glathriel but had been screwed in the attempt.

  “I’ll get to the point,” he said, not acknowledging the others. “We have no wish to harm any citizens or territories, yours included. We only wish to march through the areas under your jurisdiction, Ambreza and Glathriel, as quickly as possible on the way north.”

  “You are welcome here, friends,” Thoth responded, “but Glathriel is a very fragile place. We should not wish large forces to go there. It could upset the ecological balance.”

  “We must go there to go north, as you well know,” the Hakazit parried. “Ginzin is only passable along the northeast coast. Glathriel is necessary. We will do minimal damage.”

  “Glathriel is not open,” the Ambreza maintained.

  Marquoz felt his stomach tense slightly. He turned and pointed back up the hill. “As you know, up there is the start of fifteen thousand creatures just like me. Most conventional weapons simply will not harm us. I realize that you have some very sophisticated weaponry that would, particularly the rays, but be aware that we, too, are from a high-tech hex and have our own. We also have seven hundred additional allied troops of various forms, many aerial and a number poisonous. My race is bred as a warrior race. We are not concerned with casualties or arguments. If you refuse us, we will march anyway, using all weaponry within our command to facilitate our course. Should we be opposed we will destroy utterly and without mercy any and all, soldiers and civilians, plants and animals, that are in our path.”

  “You say ‘we,’ ” Gunit Sangh put in, his voice through the translator sounding still nasty and threatening. “You are not of our world. Those are not your people. I tend to think that, if we overlooked the
diplomatic courtesies and simply eliminated you right here and now, that army would have no fight left.”

  Inwardly, that idea did nothing for his stomach, but he kept his impassive stance and tone. “You’re wrong. I have just come from arguing with my generals because the men are upset. They have marched here without killing anyone or anything and that makes them unhappy. They want to fight. Should anything happen to me at this moment, you would lose the only moderating force around. You all would die immediately, of course—and after that Ambreza would be just a memory. Right now two Jorgasnovarians are over principal population centers in Ambreza carrying bombs made from designs I furnished. These are ancient weapons from my old sector of space, fairly easy to make once I discovered that there was uranium in Hakazit. Each bomb is atomic. Each will destroy an entire city and poison the countryside for generations with radioactivity. We can effectively deal with any remaining forces you have here. Make up your mind now. Yes or no. I intend to give the order to march immediately. How they do it is determined by your answer now.”

  The Ambreza looked shocked. One turned to another and whispered, “Is such a weapon possible?” The other nodded.

  Thoth, hearing this, shivered a bit and turned back to Marquoz. “We must have some time to discuss this!” he argued. “Please, a few minutes, at least!”

  “You have no time. Yes or no? I want your answer now,” he pressed cooly. He actually found himself feeling a bit sorry for the Ambreza; they were so damned politically naive. That was the hole card for this entire business, he knew. A world with a lot of political and military intrigue in its past would never be taken in so quickly.

  “He is bluffing,” Gunit Sangh snapped. “We have a solid force here. Let us join with them at this point and make an end to this matter.”

  Of course, Marquoz conceded to himself, there were exceptions.

  The Ambreza, however, were done in. After a quick, whispered conference there were nods and Thoth turned to the strange white creature. “Commander, it is our hex, you know.” He turned to Marquoz. “You may enter for transit,” he said hoarsely, gulping a couple of times. “Your march will not be impeded.”