CHAPTER 38
////// South shore of Lake Galk
Grik Africa
For all the remainder of the day, as clouds gathered thicker and light rain washed the smoke from the sky, the grand Allied army literally hacked and blasted the increasingly desperate Grik back down the slickening reverse slope to the shrinking lake. Many fought even more ferociously than before, and survivors of various Allied units would later relate grisly descriptions of those hours in haunted tones.
Somewhat controversially, Halik left a small gap through which brighter Grik commanders might take less shattered units, squirting through the tightening cordon to the east. But the rest, some thirty-five thousand, slowly recoiled from the bristling, fire-spitting, Allied hosts, down around the charred remains of the dirigible, until their packed, jumbled mass roughly resembled the battered egg-shape Rolak had desired. Precarious as the Allied supply line had been, its wagons and beasts of burden (mostly paalkas, but also Borno “brontosarries” brought in for the task) had made it firmer and surer than the Grik’s—until today, of course—and they’d hoarded plenty of ammunition for this fight. They hadn’t actually expected to use so much, relying heavily on airpower for the real killing, but despite the absent planes, Rolak adapted and they had enough.
The Grik, on the other hand, had nothing left. The lake had been their only means of tactical resupply and nothing floated on it. Besides, the only munitions ever made at Lake Galk had been gunpowder for rockets, then yanone, most of which Esshk cannibalized for his great bomb. All the Grik artillery had been overrun at the escarpment cliffs and by that drizzly evening, the final remains of Esshk’s New Army had been pinned against, partially into the bleeding lake. Its warriors were exhausted, bloody, half-starved, and hopeless, and probably didn’t have five thousand musket rounds among them. That’s when Rolak directed that every cannon, machine gun, mortar, and rifleman he had left should form a crescent around the prostrate force.
Bekiaa joined him and General Taa-Leen on the corpse-choked crest they’d fought so hard to win, half supported by Meek, with Prefect Bele at her side. Her arm was gone, the stump bundled in bloody bandages and strapped against her side. Inquisitor Choon had arrived with Saachic and Taa-Leen, and was fussing over her enough that, half drunk on seep or loss of blood, she was getting annoyed with him. He could hardly hear her objections. Even with the fighting paused and hardly a shot now fired, the noise of this dreadful dusk was tremendous. A panicked tumult rumbled among the ruined remains of Esshk’s last horde as it milled and jostled, tightly packed, still dying as water monsters snatched shrieking warriors into the shrinking lake. Those closest to the water tried to surge away but others cut them down. Blood fanned out, drawing more predators. Above all that was the constant death roar of the murdered lake. Bekiaa only cared how that affected her own people downstream, and had no concern for other Grik, allied or not. The noise struck her as appropriate somehow, and her eyes were alight with satisfaction.
A short column of me-naak cavalry loped up from the right, not Saachic’s. That was clear at once. The riders looked more threadbare and weathered than any one battle could’ve made them. And then there were the kravaas, carrying men as well as ’Cats. Bekiaa knew only one force that rode those tall, frightening beasts, and she owed them her life. Behind the columns, in front of others, came several bipedal hadrosaurs like Bekiaa had seen in Indiaa. They were pulling wide-axle chariots, each bearing two or three Grik.
“Col-nol Enaak! Col-nol Svec!” Rolak called in greeting. He sounded tired, old. Not the same ’Cat who’d done what Bekiaa saw earlier at all. A moment later he added, “And Gener-aals Haalik and Niwaa, I see as well.”
Bekiaa actually hissed, and Rolak blinked surprise at her. “You forget,” she reminded loudly, through tightly clenched teeth, “no maatter how . . . extraa-ordinary you and Gener-aal Aalden later found them to be, I only ever met them in baattle—on Saay-lon, in Indiaa, in the Rocky Gaap”—she took a harsh breath—“and on North Hill, where Flynn’s Rangers died.” Seeing the Japanese officer up close for the first time as he, Halik, and another Grik stepped down from the first chariot, she omitted her suspicion that she’d been the one who shot and wounded him at Flynn’s Lake. Svec and Enaak, their columns halted, dismounted as well. Enaak crisply saluted Rolak and Taa-Leen, but Svec continued forward, exhausted eyes fixed on Bekiaa and flaring with concern in his grimy, bearded face. To Bekiaa’s complete astonishment, the huge man knelt and very gently embraced her.
“My dear child, bravest of the brave. It breaks my heart to see you so, yet I’m glad to see you at all.” He straightened, then shrugged somewhat wryly. “I understand how you feel. No one ever hated Grik more than I, yet here I’ve come in company with them, having fought beside them almost since you and I parted!”
Halik, Niwa, and the other Grik looked as tired as everyone, their arms and leather armor crisscrossed with cuts and caked with drying blood, but Halik heard Bekiaa and replied in Grikish. She didn’t understand, but Niwa translated for her. “It’s true. And General Prime Regent Halik would apologize for much, but it’s Esshk who earned the blame. Esshk made him what he was—made all of us what we were for a time, I suspect,” Niwa added as softly as he could over the racket. “But we’ve remade ourselves and traveled far, in more ways than one. Thousands of miles, and even further in our thinking.”
Halik stepped up to Rolak, who straightened now himself. To Bekiaa’s further astonishment, the powerful Grik saluted the old ’Cat. “Third General Rolak,” he said in English, then continued in his own tongue. “It’s been a great long while, and I greet you now as my master in this common Hunt, instead of my very worthy foe. May I present General Yikkit?” He gestured at the other Grik—who also saluted! Bekiaa thought she must be delirious. “And where is First General Alden?” Halik asked.
“Lost, I fear,” Rolak replied grimly, blinking remorse and twitching his tail toward the broken lock, “along with . . . maany more downriver.”
“And the Celestial Mother?”
“She wouldn’t evaacuate Old Sofesshk, and took refuge in the upper levels of the Palace with the remaining Ancient Hij of the city. The flood reached there some hours ago and we lost contaact. We caan only hope they stayed above it.”
“Indeed,” Halik brooded, turning to face the booming cataract a few hundred yards to the west. “I was favorably impressed by the Giver of Life when I met her, and her devotion to her subjects only raises my appraisal.” A sigh rattled through his teeth. “In any event, you command,” he stated simply, turning to the Grik below. “What are your intentions?”
“Kill ’em all,” Bekiaa snapped harshly, as if challenging Halik to object.
“We can do that,” he agreed. “Rather easily now, and with few further losses.” He waited a moment while that sank in, then added, looking at Rolak, “Or you can give them to me.” He gestured at the chariots. “Taking a lesson I learned from you, I brought signal horns”—his frightening jaws parted in an evil Grik grin—“and willing converts who’ll sound a combination of notes meant to call troops to attention—and cease fighting. It’s a new signal, intended to end an accidental attack on a friendly force in the confusion of battle or darkness. If they obey, I believe I can secure a kind of surrender.”
“A kind of surrender?” Inquisitor Choon demanded. “First Colonel Jash surrendered completely to Captain Reddy.”
“That was an extraordinary circumstance, and Captain Reddy had the visible support of the Celestial Mother. We do not.”
“An’ if they roll over, what’ll you do with ’em?” Bekiaa challenged suspiciously.
Halik looked at her. “Save them, as I’ve been saved, and take them back to Persia. The Celestial Mother will always be Giver of Life to my regency, but it’s my regency and I must finish winning it.” He tilted his snout at the warriors below. “They can help.”
Rolak was blinking undecided inter
est. “If they yield, how do we feed them? With our supply lines cut and the scope of the disaaster downriver unknown, I don’t even know how we’ll feed our own aarmy.”
Halik snorted something that might’ve been amusement. “My supply lines, though tortuous, are intact. And when the outcome of this battle is known, none of the regencies I passed through will oppose us. With your wagons and other transport added to mine, and if you can subsist on what Enaak’s and Svec’s troops have, we should be able to procure sufficient provisions for all.” He waved around. “And after today, I believe there’ll be plenty of . . . rations for my troops, our prisoners, and your me-naaks as well. For a while, at least.”
“No waay he gets Esshk, if he’s down there!” Bekiaa objected, then accused, “An’ if he didn’t sneak off through the gaap he left.” She’d been particularly worried about that.
Halik blinked at her. “He did not ‘sneak off.’ Those who did were carefully watched and will be given the same ‘offer’ to join my Hunt as the rest. As for Esshk, his fate belongs in the claws of the Celestial Mother”—he hesitated—“and yours as well, as the people he most grievously harmed.”
“First Ker-noll Jash should have a say,” Choon murmured. “It was he who flushed Esshk out of his lair and shot him down. Otherwise, he would’ve escaped and remained a persistent problem. I wish we could get him over here.”
“He’ll haave a saay about Esshk, I’m sure,” Rolak said, suddenly decisive. “If Esshk is truly down there, still alive, and we get him,” he qualified, “I haave no doubt everyone will haave something to saay. But ending this baattle—” He glanced at Halik and a note of wonder entered his voice. “Ending this waar at long laast is up to me.” He finally nodded. “Very well, Gener-aal Haalik. See whaat you can do. But commaand any who surrender thaat Esshk must be spared for us, and not allowed to destroy himself. Moreover, if he’s already dead, he must be identified. We caan’t be chasing his despicable spirit—if he haas such a thing—for the rest of our days.”
* * *
* * *
General Supreme Regent Esshk survived the crash, and a ragtag gaggle of Grik officers, about half Dorrighsti, had dragged him from the wreckage of the airship before it burned. The steersman, pinned in the collapsed gondola but otherwise unharmed, was abandoned to the quickening flames. Esshk felt an instant of remorse over that, but he’d been groggy and disoriented after the impact, even if his only real injury remained a missing toe.
His wits returned as the battle on the ridge above reached its peak, however, and though he could do little to direct it from where he was, he thought his presence had actually turned the tide. He was right, in a way. As his frustrated officers began to hear he was there, many felt justified in pulling their wavering warriors back from the murderously unyielding enemy lines they simply couldn’t break. They were sure Esshk would excuse their faithful desire to personally defend him. Esshk personally slew the first such officers to make their obsequious reports, while their troops fell back in disarray and the enemy relentlessly advanced. Still, a contraction of that sort, on such a vast scale, takes time, and Esshk summoned all his energies to stop it. He sent his improvised staff racing in all directions carrying direct commands that the army stand, no matter what. Keeping only a handful of officers and Dorrighsti around him, he ranted and raved through the thickening mob, hacking down every messenger from officers swearing to “save” him. Eventually, the messengers no longer came, or if they did, they didn’t approach, and the fatal retreat continued. How could it not? Whole blocks of troops left the fight at random, leaving others unsupported. Better commanders, recognizing the disaster in the making, tried to cover the gaps, but the enemy was pushing harder now and their thinner ranks couldn’t hold. They melted into rivers of blood, and finally, shattered fugitives.
This is the end, Esshk understood at last, as the sun, long hidden behind dripping clouds, must’ve disappeared entirely beyond the western mountains. And such an ignominious end! He silently seethed. Impenetrably encircled by my enemies, surrounded by warriors turned prey. “Not acceptable!” he bellowed aloud, his voice stifled by the din of defeat. “I’ve accomplished too much. . . . I’m too great to end this way!” he railed. Only those closest heard him, and his tone was tinged with madness—and the plaintive bleat of cornered prey. Even his remaining Dorrighsti bristled at the sound. Then there came another sound, rising to a thunder from the heights around them.
It was the “attention” note, roaring from many horns. Since it was preceded by no unit prefix, the whole army paused to hear. The call was immediately followed by the relatively complex “cease fighting/firing, no enemy” tones Esshk had concocted himself so his own warriors wouldn’t kill one another in the confusion of battle. It had seemed a good idea at the time.
“No, no, no!” he screeched, doubly tormented that something else he’d created had turned against him, as the second call repeated again and again. “Sound the ‘attack’ horns at once!” he squawked breathlessly, slamming through the milling troops, trying to reach a lone pennant section nearby. There’d be horns there. A few Dorrighsti tried to make way for him in the press. “Attack, attack!” Esshk chanted with every step, voice firming, starting to earn some echoes. Then he bashed against the back of a young warrior with a very short crest, helmet gone, eyes wide. Pure reflex spun the warrior around, lashing with a musket butt that crashed into Esshk’s lower jaw, snapping bone and scattering teeth.
Esshk stood a moment, stunned and drooling blood, before being carried forward by a Dorrighsti who pushed him against the back of a Ker-noll, judging by the full crest and elaborate leather armor. The officer’s response was the same as the young trooper’s, however; only he turned with a sword stroke that nearly severed Esshk’s left arm. Esshk shrieked . . . calling another kind of attention to himself: the sort hungry predators pay to wounded prey.
“I’m Supreme Regent Esshk!” he tried to roar, but to his horror, his broken jaw turned the grand pronouncement to a meaningless bleat. He realized then that few nearby would recognize him anyway, seeing only blood and weakness. A dispassionate fatalism washed over Esshk. He sighed and blood bubbled. So after everything, it will be like this, he thought. He drew his sword.
Even wounded, he was powerful, well-trained with swords, and he’d killed many hundreds over time. But those were all mere executions. He’d never actually had to fight. It’ll be interesting to see how I fare, he thought, in this final battle against warriors I made. He never really found out. Confused and starving, half-“prey” themselves, the closest warriors swarmed him, tearing him apart just like others by the water were shredding those trying to escape it. Esshk’s composure fled with the first cuts and slashes, and before he died, screaming like countless others he’d sent to die, he was aware the soldiers he’d created from nothing—even one of his Dorrighsti—were already feeding on his flesh.
Esshk wouldn’t escape, nor would his spirit wander as Rolak feared. His gnawed bones and armor and the shredded remnants of his cape would eventually be definitively identified by that very Dorrighsti in exchange for beheading, instead of the traitor’s death. Anything was better than being chained down and consumed by hungry hatchlings. And since it was reserved only for Hij, or those elevated enough to understand their crime, not only was the traitor’s death dreaded as lengthy and painful, it was humiliating as well. But even Halik wouldn’t allow Dorrighsti to live; they were all traitors to the Celestial Mother. Most suffered fates ironically appropriate and similar to Esshk’s. Though adults, of course, every Dorrighsti had been his hatchling, after all.
CHAPTER 39
THE CURTAIN RIPS
////// USS James Ellis
Santiago Bay, NUS Territory
The Caribbean
August 3, 1945
Lieutenant Rolando “Ronson” Rodriguez leaned on the rail of USS James Ellis’s fire control platform, just above her pilothouse, watching t
he sun creep over the horizon and bathe Santiago Bay in golden morning light. It was a beautiful anchorage, filled with clear, greenish water, bordered by white sandy beaches, well-kept docks, and semi-surrounded by a bustling city of whitewashed stone and stucco. The scent of flowers and the contrasting rancid stench of gri-kakka oil wafted on the morning breeze. (Like Lemurians, Nussies hunted gri-kakka—pliosaurs—for their oil and meat.) There were probably only a couple dozen ships anchored in the broad bay, in addition to the freighters Ellie and Adar escorted in, but they took him back a little since all were either sailing steamers or dedicated square-riggers.
“How about the dope out of Africa? You believe that?” said Lieutenant (jg) Paul Stites, joining Ronson by the rail. The coded news they’d picked up of events in the west was triumphant but very confusing. It sounded like victory over the Grik, and Esshk was confirmed dead, but not only had the casualties been appalling, there was a stunning number of missing—including General Alden. “Yeah, crazy,” Ronson replied, not sure how he felt. He should’ve been jubilant but only felt . . . drained. He nodded at Santiago to change the subject. “Pretty place.”
“I guess. Wish we were the hell out of it, though.” Stites was Ellie’s gunnery officer, good at what he did, but he hadn’t changed much from when he’d been one of Silva’s troublemaking gunner’s mate minions aboard USS Walker. He still seemed grumpy all the time and given to a pessimistic streak. Ronson had to agree with him now, however. Santiago was picturesque, but it wasn’t really right. He’d been in “old” Santiago in the ’30s. Not only did this one look a lot different, it wasn’t even in the right place. He didn’t know why that bothered him, but it did. Or maybe it was just that Ellie and Adar—pretending to be Walker and Mahan, of course—stuck out like sore thumbs among all the older-style ships and couldn’t really stretch their legs to avoid the air attack they knew was coming.
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