by Julian May
“Help! The door’s struck! And it’s coming!”
Help us! Helphelphelp us! HELP US!
The blanket coercive summons of a Tanu overlord clutched at Marshak’s consciousness. His gray torc compelled obedience. Forsaking his hiding place, he ran to the door. On the other side, pressed against the mangled copper fretwork, were three female denizens of the pleasure dome and their tall Tanu client, whose handsome violet and gold robes proclaimed him an official of the Farsensor Guild. He presumably lacked the coercive or psychokinetic potential to fend off the apparition that was now poised in an inner doorway, ready to strike.
The Firvulag wore the appearance of a gigantic hellgrammite, a larval water insect with clashing razor-sharp mandibles. The brute’s head was nearly a meter wide, while the long segmented body, slick with some stinking secretion, seemed to fill the corridor behind it.
“Tana be thanked!” cried the Tanu. “Quickly, my man! Aim for its neck!”
Marshak raised his bow, shifted position to avoid the struggling women, and let fly. The glass-tipped shaft sank for most of its length between chitinous plates behind the creature’s scissoring jaws. Marshak heard the Firvulag utter a telepathic bellow. Without hurrying he drew two more arrows and sent them into the hellgrammite’s glittering orange eyes. The insectile form wavered, became insubstantial… and then the awful thing was gone and a dwarf in black obsidian armor lay dead on the floor, throat and eyesockets transfixed.
The soldier used his vitredur short sword to pry open the ruined latch. Pleasure surges engendered by the grateful exotic throbbed along his pelvic nerves in the sweet, familiar reward. When the nobleman and his disheveled companions were freed, Marshak saluted, right fist pressed against his heart.
“I am at your service, Exalted Lord.”
But the farsensor dithered. “Where are we to go? The route to House Velteyn is cut off!” His abstracted expression showed that he was scanning about with his mind’s eye.
“Well, we can’t go back inside,” said the most petite of the pleasure dome inmates, a black woman of exquisite contours and sharp voice. “The damn muffers are crawling out of the woodwork!”
“Oh, Lord Kolitcyr,” squealed a teary blond. “Save us!”
“Silence!” commanded the Tanu. “I’m attempting to, but no one will respond to my summons!”
The third woman, thin and empty-eyed, her provocative attire half torn from her bony shoulders, sank down on the pavement and began to laugh.
Kolitcyr gasped. “The dome is surrounded! I call, but Lord Velteyn’s knights are in the thick of battle!… Hah! The invaders cringe and retreat before the coercive might of Tanu chivalry! The Goddess be thanked, there are many more powerful than I!”
A great jarring thump came from inside the pleasure dome. Distant cries became louder. More glass broke and a rhythmic pounding began.
“They’re coming! The monsters are coming!” Once again, the blonde burst into hysterical tears.
“Soldier, you must lead us…” The Tanu scowled, shook his head as if to clear it. “Lead us to the Northern Watergate! There may be a boat…”
But it was too late. Across the garden, trampling flowerbeds and hurtling through the bushes came a force of twenty-odd Lowlife humans led by a half-naked red man of heroic stature.
Marshak’s hand poised above his quiver, frozen. Most of the invaders had compound bows as good as his own held at the ready.
“Surrender!” shouted Peopeo Moxmox Burke. “Amnesty for all humans who yield freely to us!”
“Stand back!” cried the Tanu farsensor. “I, I will burn out your minds! Strike you mad!”
Chief Burke smiled, and his painted face, framed in straggling gray hair, was more menacing than the Firvulag phantasm had ever been. The exotic man knew that his bluff was useless, just as he knew there would be no amnesty for those of his race.
Commanding Marshak to defend to the death, Koliteyr tried to flee. The iron tomahawk spun and split the exotic’s skull before he had taken two steps.
Marshak relaxed. He let the bow and arrow fall to the flagstones and watched the approaching Lowlives in numb silence.
The strategic importance of the barium mine had been made clear to Sharn-Mes at the Lowlife briefing session prior to the invasion. Humiliation of the hated Foe, the Firvulag general was made to understand, must take second place to the complete destruction of the mine and its trained personnel. It was vital to Madame Guderian’s grand design that the supply of the precious element, indispensable in the manufacture of torcs, be cut off. Shortly before noon, when Sharn was taking a breather with Bles and Nukalavee in a makeshift command post well supplied with liberated beer, a Firvulag scout arrived with important news. The Mighty Ayfa and her Warrior Ogresses had made a successful thrust from the eastern breach and now invested the sector around the mine workings. They had ascertained that molten rock, triggered by Claude’s blast from the Spear, had plugged the mine entrance, buried the main refinery and the complex that housed the human and rama workers, and flowed some distance into the streets of the upper city before congealing. However, the mine administration building with its store of purified barium stood firm. The place was completely surrounded by black and steaming lava, now sheathed in a clinkery skin of cooled rock except where cracks revealed the red glowing interior. There were still Tanu engineers in the building, and among them a creator of the first rank. Ayfa and her force had gleaned this intelligence when an unexpected bolt of psychoenergy zapped one of the investigating ogresses to a cinder, narrowly missing the Dreadful Skathe. She of the snaggleteeth and dripping talons had spun a psychic shield over the survivors that sufficed for a disorderly retreat out of mindbolt range.
“And so the Mighty Ayfa,” the scout concluded, “now awaits your suggestions, Great Captain.”
Bles uttered a hoarse bleat of ironic laughter. He tipped half a barrelful of beer into his maw. “Ahh, let’s go help the poor little ladies save their honor.”
“Honor, my left testicle!” hissed Nukalavee. “If the Foe-man’s creative force strained the defenses of Skathe, then he is a worthy antagonist to any of us at a distance. We would expend our mind-power simply in the erection of screens and have little left for offense.”
“Even the approach is fraught with danger,” Sharn noted. “The crust of cooling lava, as this scout says, is fragile and may crack under the weight of a stalwart. You know our minds cannot penetrate dense rock deeply enough to strengthen the crust. And to fan through into the magma below is certain doom.” He addressed himself to the dwarf messenger. “Pliktharn, how broad is the expense of lava that would have to be crossed?”
“At least fivescore giant steps, Great Captain.” Pliktharn’s face became eager. “The crust would bear my weight easily!”
“You could send me and Nukalavee to mind-guard him, along with Ayfa and Skathe,” Bles suggested. “The four of us working together have the range.”
“And what happens when our brave gnomish brother reaches the mine building?” Nukalavee sneered. “How will he attack the Foe through our own mental screens? Four-Fang, you’ve worn that reptile suit so long that your wits are shrinking to fit your illusory brainpan!”
“The Great Captain Ayfa,” cautioned the scout, “has perceived that the Tanu engineers are calling upon Lord Velteyn for help.”
Sharn smacked a great hand onto the table. “Te’s tonsils! And when he responds, he’ll airlift them out, barium and all! We can’t take that chance. I hate like hell to resort to Lowlife tactics, but there’s only one way to handle this.”
“Easy does it, lads!” Ayfa called out “Don’t lose your nerve now that you’re almost there.”
Homi, the Little Singhalese iron-smelter, clutched Pliktharn’s neck tighter. The lava crust bent as the Firvulag approached the lee of the mine building. There the flow was thicker and had held heat longer, which meant that the skin of cooled rock might crack and let them fall through to the magma at any moment.
About the incongruous pick-a-back figures shone a radiant hemisphere, the mental screen conjured by the joint power of Ayfa, Skathe, Bles, and Nukalavee. The four heroes, and most of the force of Warrior Ogresses, were concealed behind the sturdy walls of burnt-out townhouses, well back from the edge of the lava flow and a full 200 meters from the mine headquarters. Energy bolts flung by the trapped Tanu creator blazed from an upper-storey window, disintegrating into a web of lightnings as they were neutralized by the screen’s potential. At length, Pliktharn and Homi reached a lower window and climbed inside. Ayfa, who was strong in the farsensing talent, observed what happened next.
“The three Foemen descend to the lower chamber, armed with vitredur geology picks! One of them has considerable coercive power. He’s trying to force Pliktharn to lower the screen, but that won’t work, of course. The mindbolt flinger now gathers his strength for one mighty thrust at point-blank range! He uses steady pressure rather than abrupt projection. Our screen wavers! It goes spectral, into the blue! The yellow! It will surely fail! But now the Lowlife has his arbalest ready and aims at the creator. Ah! The missile of blood-metal passes through our weakening shield as through a curtain of rain! The Foeman falls! A second shot, and a third, and all of the Foe are downed!”
The four heroes leapt and the Warrior Ogresses whooped with joy in the triumph. All of their minds, even at the great distance, felt the death-flare of first one Tanu mind, then a second.
But the mindbolt flinger was strong even in the dying. Amplified, agonized, his thought thundered in the aether.
The Goddess will avenge us. Accursed through the world’s age be those who resort to the blood-metal. A bloody tide will overwhelm them.
An instant later, his soul flickered out.
The Lowlife named Homi, having retrieved the three iron quarrels for reuse in his crossbow, appeared at the window and waved. Then he and Pliktharn set to work chipping and prying at the heavy milestone windowsill until its mortar gave way. The stone smashed the thin lava crust beneath the window, sending up a gush of smoke and flame. Before the fresh rift could heal, the human and the Firvulag were seen to toss certain small containers into the pit of molten rock, after which they climbed out a different window and made their way carefully back the way they had come.
A young girl clad in shiny black jogged in apparent tirelessness along the narrow Vosges jungle trail. Shadows grew deeper and a cool wind swept from the heights into the ravine that the footpath followed. Treefrogs were beginning their evening songs. Before long, the predators would awaken. After nightfall, there would be so many hostile creatures on the prowl that Felice would be unable to fend them off with her coercive power. She would be forced to bivouac and wait until dawn.
“And I’ll be too late! The Truce starts at sunup and the war in Finiah will be over! “How far had she come? Perhaps two-thirds of the 106 kilometers that lay between Hidden Springs and the western bank of the Rhine? She had lost so much time this morning before getting started, and the sun went down at eighteen hundred hours…
“Damn Richard. I damn him for getting hurt!”
She should have insisted on going with them in the flyer. She could have done something. Helped old Claude steady the Spear. Assisted Madame’s mental defense. Even deflected the globe of ball lightning that had blinded Richard in one eye and caused him to crash the flyer.
“Damn him! Damn him! The Firvulag will quit fighting when the Truce begins and our people will have to withdraw. Ill be too late to get my golden torc! Too late!”
She splashed heedlessly across a small stream. Ravens, disturbed in their feeding upon some otter’s leftovers, rose squawking into the vine-hung forest canopy. A hyena mocked her, its mad laugh echoing from the ravine wall.
Too late.
The glass carnyx of a fighting Tanu woman sounded the charge. Armored chalikos, bearing knights who coruscated each in a different jewel-color, galloped down the corpse-strewn boulevard toward the barricade where the contingent of Lowlives was making its stand.
“Na bardito! Na bardito!”
There were no Firvulag allies at hand to dampen the mental assault. Images of brain-searing intensity whipped and stabbed at the humans. The night was fraught with unspeakable menace and pain. Plunging exotics in their sparkling harness seemed to be coming from all directions, gorgeous and invulnerable. The humans loosed iron-tipped arrows, but skillful psychokinetics among the Tanu turned most of the fusillade aside, while the rest clattered harmlessly against the plates of the glass armor.
“The spooks! Where are the spooks?” howled a despairing Lowlife. A moment later one of the knights crashed upon him, impaling his claw-torn body with a sapphire lance.
Of the sixty-three human beings who had made their stand in that street, only five escaped into the narrow alleys where hanging awnings, lines of washing, and crowded ranks of rubbish carts abandoned by panicked rama sanitary workers made it impossible for the mounted Tanu to follow.
A mammoth bonfire was ablaze in the Central Plaza of Finiah. Jubilant phantoms in a hundred hideous guises capered around it waving battle standards festooned with strings of freshly psychogilded skulls.
Khalid Khan protested. “They’re wasting time, Mighty Sharn! Our people are taking a terrible beating when they meet the Tanu unsupported by Firvulag mind-cover Even the mounted gray-torcs can cut right through our infantry. We’ve got to work together! And we must find some way to counter those chaliko-riders.”
The great luminous scorpion bent over the turbaned Pakistani, multicolored organs within its translucent body throbbing to the rhythm of the exotic war chant.
“It has been many years since we had cause for celebration.” The unhuman voice clanged in Khalid’s brain. “For too long the Foe has lurked safely behind stout city walls, despising us. You do not understand how it has been with us, the humiliation our race has suffered, draining our valor and driving even the most powerful of us to hopeless inaction. But behold! Look upon the trophy skulls, and these only a small proportion of the total!
“And how many of them belong to Tanu? Dammit, Sharn, most of the enemy casualties have been among the torced and bareneck humans! The noncombatant Tanu are all holed up in House Velteyn where we can’t reach them, and only a handful of their mounted knights have been killed!”
“The Tanu chivalry”, the eerie voice hesitated and then made reluctant admission, “presents a formidable challenge to us. Armored war steeds with their minds held in thrall by the riders are not intimidated by our horrific illusions or shape-shifting. We must contend against them physically, and not all of the Firvulag company are of heroic frame. Our obsidian weapons, our swords, halberds, chain-flails, and throwing spears, are not often effective against chaliko cavalry in the Grand Combat. And the same obtains in this battle.”
“You need a change in tactics. There are ways for foot soldiers to put down charging horsemen.” The metalsmith’s teeth glittered in a brief grin. “My ancestors, Pathan hillmen, knew how!”
The response of the Firvulag general was cool. “Our battle customs are fixed by sacred tradition.”
“No wonder you’re losers! The Tanu weren’t afraid to innovate, to take advantage of human science. Now you Firvulag have human allies on your side, and you stick one timid little toe into the battlefield and then mess about singing and dancing instead of going for the prize!”
“Beware lest I punish your insolence, Lowlife!” But the furious retort lacked conviction.
Khalid said softly, “Would you help us if we try a new tactic? Would you shield our minds while we try to knock those long-shanked bastards out of the saddle?”
“Yes… we would do that.”
“Then pay close attention.”
The monster scorpion metamorphosed into a handsome young ogre wearing a thoughtful scowl. After a few minutes the hobgoblins left off their madcap dancing, changed into gnomish warriors, and crowded in to listen.
Converting Sharn’s lieutenants proved to be more dif
ficult. Khalid had to engineer a demonstration. He rounded up ten volunteer Lowlives equipped with iron-tipped javelins and led them to the approaches of House Velteyn, where gray-torc and Tanu riders guarded the ultimate sanctuary. The paved avenue-was lit by widely spaced torchères. No other invaders were to be seen because of the heavy concentration of defenders. Sharn and six of his Great Ones lurked in the shelter of a deserted mansion while Khalid deliberately led his squad of spearmen into plain sight of a patrolling gray troop.
The human leader, fully armored in blue glass, drew his vitredur blade and led a charge at the gallop down the cobblestone street. Instead of scattering, the Lowlives drew closely together, forming a tight phalanx bristling with four-meter spears.
The patrol swerved to the right at the last instant to avoid crashing into the iron porcupine, individual troopers reining up and wheeling their mounts about so that they could strike with longsword or battleaxe. They were plainly nonplussed, since almost all of the antagonists they had encountered thus far had emulated the Firvulag maneuver of tossing their pole-arms and then fleeing. This pack of innovators stood their ground until the animals were off balance in the turn, then stabbed deep into the unarmored bellies of the huge clawed beasts.
The hideous pain of disembowelment overrode the mind-control exerted by each rider upon his mount. Wounded chalikos stumbled and fell, or went careening off in a frenzy while the troopers hung on for their lives. Khalid’s warriors pounced upon the unhorsed, dispatching them with spear or blade. Five minutes after the initiation of the attack, every member of the gray troop was either dead or had fled.
“But will it work on the Foe?” inquired Betularn of the White Hand skeptically. With Pallol Battlemaster a non-participant, he was the doyen of Firvulag stalwarts, and his opinion counted for much.
Khalid grinned at the beetle-browed giant while one of his comrades tried to staunch bleeding arm and leg wounds with torn strips of the dead captal’s cloak. “It will work on the Tanu, providing we take them by surprise. We must assemble as many Lowlives and Firvulag as possible for a massed thrust against House Velteyn. Those of our people who don’t have spears will improvise them from bamboo awning poles. We needn’t use iron to gut the chalikos, but each human fighter will have to have an iron weapon to use against downed Tanu riders. And your people will have to be right in the thick of things beside ours, handling mind-defense and getting in whatever licks they can.”