by Paul Kidd
Snapper watched them go with a real hollow in her heart. Onan made a mournful croak. The shark patted Onan on his feathery neck and turned back to Mayor Beth, Toby and Samuels.
Samuels was packing the last of their gear and mounting up. Beth was already astride her rather sturdy black cockatoo. A swarm of Spark Town riflemen were on their way west, moving as fast as their feet, claws or hooves would let them. Beth polished her nose horns with a rag, watching the riflemen marching rapidly away.
“So – the plan?”
Snapper flicked out her hussar pelisse so that the braided jacket hung stylishly from her shoulder.
“Right. Wait for the bang so we know the north flank’s safe. Then drive their riders in and pin them with the skirmish line. Get them to deploy their plasma gunners.” Snapper gestured to the disciplined Spark Town cavalry. “Riders deliver the coup de grace.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Toby looked to the sun overhead. “Mid morning. How long till they hit the plains?”
Snapper sucked a tooth.
“Four k’s an hour…four hours should bring them to within a thousand metres of the creek line here. So the fun probably starts mid afternoon.” Snapper relished the open sky. “Lots of light! We want a ton of daylight to finish off the pursuit.” She turned Onan and saw the Spark Town cavalry formed into six squadrons, all in column of march. A force of monks and southerners were already racing off to the east, ready to cut off the enemy’s retreat. “Right, that’s it! Radios on – I’ll lead the cavalry out!”
Beth rode forward, taking Samuels with her. “Good luck!”
“Joy of the day!” Snapper was brilliantly, intensely alive. “We’ll drink tonight!”
The shark rode off. Toby galloped his bird after her, joining up beside her as they rode to the head of the cavalry column. Vedettes galloped out to cover the flanks and fore. Snapper reined in at the front of the column, and looked back along the waiting files of riders.
“Column of march!” She raised her hand, hearing the order echoed back along the column. “At the trot – forward!”
The column moved off, riding east away from Spark Town – on to flank the open plains from the south. They rode steadily, keeping to the grass beneath the trees. Snapper wanted all the dust of their travel to have settled long before the enemy scouts crossed the eastern hills and came onto the plains. Toby rode with her, happily slinging a bandolier of shotgun shells into place across his heavy cuirass.
“So, baby girl! You sure their line is going to break?”
“Can’t see why not!” Snapper’s shark teeth grinned. “It’s going to get pretty damned hot out there!”
Screened from the plains by the line of the river, the cavalry rode on, while off to the east, fifteen hundred enemies marched hard and fast towards the walls of Spark Town.
The sun passed midday. Hot, bright light shimmered across the plains. The first crusader scouts emerged from the eastern hills and saw the flat ground of the plains opening out before them. There were no mutant militia or riders in sight. The world seemed to be taking a mid day siesta.
A few glow-ball rodents took off from the trees around Kenda’s scouts as they pushed out of the tree line. Ignoring the weird mutated animals, the men kept away from stands of plant-animal bushes that thronged the shade. They rode out into the open plains, racing forward a thousand metres or more and scanning the empty grasslands all around. There was dust to the north – Screamers were churning their way forward through the dry river bottom. Out on the plains, the hot ground brought a shimmer to the air above dry brown grass.
Radios crackled as all-clear reports were sent. Marching columns of infantry slowly emerged out of the hills, pressing forward through the screen of trees. They did not halt, but moved out onto the hot, flat plains. Once they crossed another four kilometres of flat ground, they could finally rest, drink and eat.
Kenda sat on his horse, shielding his eyes against the afternoon sun. The crusaders were not men of the desert: their oasis canyons and caves were blessed with abundant springs. The plains, scrub and strange little hidden folds of ground were like the landscape of an alien world. Kenda rode in a slow circle as his men drank from their canteens. He watched the infantry in their company columns spreading out into a broad line as they marched across the flat lands, moving steadily and grimly forward. He looked to the north once more, and frowned to still see a clear haze of dust being raised by the Screamer horde. He lifted his radio and flicked through the channels.
“Herd Rider, Herd Rider – this is Acorn Alpha. You are making too much dust, over.” He scowled and glared at the dust cloud. “Herd Rider, Herd Rider. Can you cease moving until after sundown? You are raising too much dust. Do you receive?”
A light crackling noise came from somewhere to the north. It was brief – so faint that it almost went unheard. Kenda turned and tried to boost his radio.
“Herd Rider, Herd Rider! What is your status? Over.”
A brief scorch of static came from the radio – a noise that might have been a scream, and then nothing – just empty airwaves. No more sounds came from the north, but the dust clouds were growing even higher. Kenda looked back to see the infantry closing fast behind him. His own men were already starting to move forward, keeping the scout screen at least a thousand metres to the fore.
Kenda hissed in sudden venom. He galloped to his senior lieutenant.
“I’m taking first section north to check the beast herders!” He signalled to his men, and ten riders came galloping towards him. “Move number two section further ahead! Check and see what’s beyond that tree line!”
The lieutenant saluted, then called orders to his men. Kenda gathered ten scouts and cantered off to the north, churning up dust as their horse hooves drummed at the hard baked dirt.
Something felt wrong. Kenda stabbed his spurs into his horse’s flanks and rode like the wind.
A kilometre south of Padbury, the deep wall of red rock gully stood three metres higher than the gully floor. Kitterpokkie’s team were still digging, burying high explosive into the hard earth sides, clamping hefty bags of metal scrap into place above the explosives, then covering each site with a thin skin of red dirt. Radio detonators were activated, and everything prepared. A hundred kilos of explosive equalled one hundred holes, and one hundred bags of metal. The job had continued for two solid hours, with ten riders working hard as Kitterpokkie set up the detonators.
Beau and Throckmorton were to the north, perched in the ruins of Padbury. They watched the oncoming dust cloud, and could hear the shrieks and snarls of Screamers echoing along the dry creek bed. Beau backed away, then turned and cantered down the creek as fast as he could go.
“Kitt! Kitterpokkie! They’re almost at the ruins!”
Smeared with red dirt, Kitterpokkie emerged from the excavations. She wore a black breastplate and a metal helmet, and was utterly out of breath.
“How far?”
“Minutes away!” Beau called to the diggers. “Mount up and get out of the gully! Move move move!”
Men and women scrabbled for their mounts, seizing hold of pack animals. Kitterpokkie planted the electronic lure in the middle of the gravel at the far end of the mined gully. She then headed south west, away from the others, clambering with her budgerigar up a narrow little path out of the gully. Beau saw her go, then galloped back to the ruins, hearing the other riders following close behind.
Throckmorton was floating high in the treetops. He waved as Beau reappeared, flashing a little mirror in warning. The Screamers were only a few hundred metres away.
Beau rode to the rubble near the old railway station. He sent four riders cantering off with the pack animals in tow. The remaining six rode up and drew carbines, fanning out to take position in the ruins.
The ground seemed to shake. Screams and howls were coming down the creek from the north.
Beau pulled back the hammers of his twin revolvers. Beneath him, Pendleton gave a savage growl.
Two human riders in green uniforms raced about the corner of the dry creek bed to the north, coming out at the ruins of an old bridge at the shallows. Behind them came a great rumbling cloud of dust. Two more riders cantered out of the creek, one carrying a white electronic lure, the other desperately trying to hear something on a radio. The four riders all halted opposite the old ruined subway station, circling about as they waited for news.
Pendleton swarmed up out of the rubble, charging with hellish speed. Beau rode through the four riders, both pistols blazing. He shot two men out of the saddle and injured a third. The injured man tried to turn about and open fire, but Throckmorton sent a crossbow bolt flickering across the open ground to strike the unarmoured human in the neck. The power-head detonated, and the rider tumbled from the saddle.
The remaining human whirled his mount to the east and tried to flee. Beau cantered with the man, keeping pace. The human made a wild shot with his unwieldy rifle, then Beau felled him with one well-placed pistol round. Pendleton overran the fallen man – clearly keen to eat the fleeing horse – but turned and allowed Beau to leap down and strip the electronic lure from the dead man’s belt. Beau remounted and raced back to the Padbury ruins, flicking a glance north to where the mass of onrushing Screamers were howling, racing ever closer. The other riders from Beau’s team were down and stripping lures and radios from the fallen humans.
Throckmorton buzzed overhead, racing along the tree-line of the creek. Beau caught up with the other riders and collected the lures. They all seemed to be switched on and operating. He pointed the riders to the west bank of the gully, and sent them racing off to join with Kitterpokkie.
“Out of sight! Go go go!”
Beau, on the other hand, showed no display of panic. The last sight the others had was of him brushing his immaculate braided jacket straight – a jacket lovingly made for him by the mayor herself. He patted his mount, the monstrous Pendleton, then rode almost idly to the centre of the Padbury ford. He poured himself a drink of sherry from his flask – drinking it from a glass and silver goblet looted from the lost city of Mistral. He was every inch the elegant, unruffled cavalier.
The first Screamers came careening down the creek. Beau put his sherry glass away, and adjusted the cuffs of his coat.
“We’re on again, dear Pendleton! Beauty to the fore!”
The Screamers advanced in a churning column. Leaders cast their scores of eyes and feelers back and forth, shaking them – sensing the silent screech of the electronic lures.
The leading mass of Screamers caught sight of Beau. He tipped them an elegant wave while Pendleton grinned, then turned about and rode off down the gulley. The entire raging column came in hot pursuit, thundering past the ruins, gnashing and shrieking in hate. Beau trotted ahead of the pack, trying to appear untroubled.
The pack surged and halted time and time again. But the lures drew them ever on – maddening the creatures. Rear ranks pressed forward and the front ranks soon caught sight of Beau once more. And so they all rode down the gully, with the walls climbing ever higher on either side.
Pendleton could easily outrace the monsters at any time. Trotting merrily onward, Beau lifted his voice in song, singing a tune old long, long before the GeneStorm came.
“There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses – he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stockhorse snuffs the battle with delight!”
Suddenly the bushes at the top of the eastern bank shivered and parted. A human rider burst onto the lip of the bank, looking at the Screamer horde. He shouted back behind himself – then turned and caught sight of Beau.
The human stared, then lifted his rifle and fired. Beau felt the bullet clip his ancient black breastplate, almost slamming him from the saddle. The fox-bird swirled Pendleton around, recovered, and fired a pistol at the human rider. The human fell, his horse rearing – and then more humans broke through the tree line up above, clashing bullets home into rifle breeches and opening fire. Beau unleashed a storm of shots from his twin revolvers, driving the riders back from the gully lip. He sent Pendleton running to crowd against the eastern bank, right beneath the human riders’ feet, and raced to the next bend.
Beau could not simply flee: the Screamers had to be lured onward. The monsters screamed – grinding remorselessly down the gully towards him. Up above, a human leaned far over the gully rim and fired. The bullet cut feathers from the back of Beau’s neck mantle. The fox-bird fired, then both pistol hammers clicked on empty cylinders. Beau raced to eject the old cylinders and reload, while Pendleton lunged forward, leaping onto a rock right beneath the lip of the gully. As a human leaned over to fire, the moth creature seized the man in his massive beak, cracking ribs and tearing flesh. He threw the human down onto the gully floor, then leapt forwards, bullets crashing home behind his rump.
In the gulley, the wounded human scrabbled to his feet and desperately tried to outrun the Screamers. The monsters rampaged forward, ripping into him with teeth and claws, tossing the body back into the main horde. Reloaded at last, Beau looked back. He fired a shot at a human on horseback who stared at him in shock.
Kenda!
Levelling his plasma pistol, Kenda took a wild shot at Beau, but Pendleton had already moved, surging and flowing ever onward. Beneath Kenda’s feet the Screamer horde rushed onwards down the gully, and suddenly the man saw new-dug earth in the gully walls. Remembering the pink mantis and her hellish bent for explosions, Kenda bellowed frantically to his men.
“Turn them back! Turn the Screamers back!” He stood up in his stirrups. “Kill the mutant and get the lures!”
A crossbow bolt missed Kenda by a whisker’s breadth, striking a sapling and exploding, blinding the man as splinters flew into the air. He staggered his horse backwards, wiping at his face, blinking until his sight cleared. A sudden blast and crackle of rifle fire came from the far bank. Kenda managed to clear his vision. From back behinds the banks, he saw his men trying to ride ahead along the gully.
The last Screamers had passed Kenda’s position. Rifle fire from across the dry river had suddenly fallen silent. The scout riders surged forward to the rim, hunting targets – and suddenly the entire world seemed to disintegrate in a massive wall of fire.
The entire length of the gully detonated in one great shuddering blast.
The Screamers vanished in an instant, utterly torn apart. The air was filled with a storm of metal shards, rocks and Screamer parts. Two of Kenda’s men were caught in the blast with their mounts. Others reeled away, wounded and bleeding. Kenda’s ears rang, his skin tight with shock. White lights flashed before his eyes.
The Screamer horde had gone. The man blinked, then saw a pink-white figure emerge on the far bank. The mantis opened fire with her home made plasma rifle. The blast missed Kenda and took the head clean off his horse.
Kenda fell, tumbling out of sight into the trees. The plasma bolt struck again, blasting a hole through another rider. Kenda staggered onwards, away from the gully – shocked and dazed. His cheek was bleeding. Wounded men came blundering back through the flattened trees. Riderless horses ran past. Kenda pushed a dead man from his horse and fumbled for the reins, vaguely aware of bullets hissing past through the grass. He clawed his way onto the wounded horse. The beast ran east, away from the holocaust – away from the smoke and burning trees. One or two other riders had survived, and they stumbled with him, fleeing out of rifle range and into the open grass.
Kenda shook his head, clearing his vision. His helmet had been lost – his uniform was streaked with blood. He finally reined in his horse and turned to look back at the gully
.
Smoke was rising steadily. Trees burned. The entire force of Screamers had been utterly destroyed.
Kitterpokkie. The mantis had done it a second time. And ‘Captain’ Beau. And the plant mutant, Throckmorton, with his damned crossbow…
Somehow, they had survived. That meant the shark was alive and at large.
Snapper. Snapper was alive. And that meant…
Cavalry attack!
It was coming – sure as damnation. A charge with sabres! Everything else was only a distraction – a decoy designed to expose his human troops to an all out charge.
Still half deafened, Kenda fumbled for his radio. But the handset was shattered – broken by wreckage hurtled by the explosion. He threw the useless radio aside.
Off to the south there came a steady crackling sound. Someone had started a firefight at the west end of the plains.
Bloodied but filled with burning anger, Kenda took charge of his last surviving scouts. They took tired, dazed, wounded horses, turned them towards the main force of crusaders, and went reeling off towards the south.
The sound of heavy fire rose from the tree line, spreading steadily wider and wider as rifles came into the fight.
Chapter 18
On the plains, a volley of rifle fire crashed out from the tree-line to the west. Ten human scouts were hurtled backwards as they rode toward the trees. Horses screamed and reared. Two men survived, wounded and reeling, fleeing backwards – only to be struck down by two short, sharp shots.
The scout screen ahead of the human infantry slowed their mounts to a halt. Rifle fire spat at them from up and down the creek line. Bullets buzzed past, snapping as they struck the ground. A rider jerked back, reeling bloodily as a round struck him. The scout lieutenants swore and tried to scan the tree-line. There were easily fifty rifles firing – too far away for much effect, but too many to tackle on their own. The scouts turned and rode swiftly back to the protection of the infantry companies, while the infantry halted and formed themselves out into a battle line.