Monsters and Magicians
Page 24
"Troops, American troops, did land in Japan and occupy it . . . but only after the surrender agreement had been signed," replied Fitz adding, "though I understand the Russians forcibly siezed Sakhalin and a number of smaller, northerly islands . . . the Kurile Islands, I think they were. It's been a long time to remember clearly ... for me."
"Yes, the Russians always had wanted all of Karafuto—that which you call Sakhalin—because of the mines it holds, the minerals."
"But," continued Fitz, " the courageous communist bastards chose to wait until after a prostrate, defeated Japan had actually signed a surrender before they sent their troops into those islands, Korea and Manchuria."
"When did all those occur?" inquired Kiyamoto.
"Informally, Japan capitulated on the fourteenth day of the eighth month of 1945, but the terms of
surrender were not officially signed until the second day of the ninth month of that year."
"Why?" demanded Kiyamoto. "Our armies all were well-armed, well-fed, well-led; we could have fought on for many years past that date. Why would the Emperor and His advisors have countenanced a surrender? I do not understand it."
Fitz sighed. "Sergeant, there in Burma you may not have been fully aware of what was going on in the rest of the world. Starting in 1942, we Americans, plus British, Australian, New Zealand, Dutch and French forces, started island-hopping in the South Pacific, while our navies and aircraft worked on reducing the size and effectiveness of your fleets. The Philippine Archipelago was reconquered in 1944 and by the seventh month of 1945, American planes based on Okinawa and many another island Japan had once and very lately held were tormenting the cities and military installations of the Japanese Islands around the clock with untold tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs, seldom toward the end as much as seeing Japanese aircraft of any kind or description.
"Then the United States developed a new and extremely terrible type of bomb. Two of these were dropped and wrought then-barely believable devastation and death in the target areas. After the second of these, overtures of surrender were made and, shortly thereafter, the war was formally concluded, Germany having been defeated months earlier. Capitulations of the various forces still in the field in the battle-areas took longer, of course, but by the end of 1945, all contingents of any size had been reached
and had laid down their arms . . . though in some places, such as Indo-China, it was found necessary to temporarily rearm them and use them to maintain order among the indigenous peoples, always under supervision, of course."
"But . . . ?" began Kiyamoto.
"I think," interrupted Fitz, "that that man there, behind you, is awaiting orders."
Lieutenant Kaoru's unconscious body was raised high enough by Fitz's mental powers to slip beneath it a litter hastily constructed of axed-down saplings, bark-strips and fresh, bloody dragon-hide. A lot of dragon-meat needs must be borne back to the site of the first kill, so Fitz stopped the sergeant when he would have detailed some of the few available bodies to bear the littler and, rather, raised it and the body on it some feet above the ground, then flew along beside it to the confluence of the streams. He was awaiting the sergeant and his party when they arrived, bathing the face of the injured man with a handkercheif soaked in the cool, running water.
"We got trouble, dude!"
The Baby-blue Lion had come back along his own trail at a fast, distance-devouring lope to halt before Sir Gautier and his strung-out band of warrior-retainers. Drooping a little where he sat in classic, feline posture, red-pink tongue hung out and dripping onto his big forefeet and the tail lapped over them, he silently beamed the bad news.
"Fitz is up ahead, but it looks like he's being held. It's like a whole bunch of little short, skinny slope-heads—Chinks, Nips, gooks, I don't know; all them
slants looks the same to me—all of them damn near buckass naked, up at a place where another stream joins this one on the other side."
Sir Gautier leaned tiredly on his spear, his face serious. "How many of them, Sir Lion? More than we number, here?"
"Oh, yeah, man," Cool Blue assured him. "Least half again's many as you guys, maybe like twice as many."
The Norman knight frowned. "How are they armed and equipped?"
The blue lion arose from his seat and padded the few steps to begin lapping water from the stream, though still in telepathic communication with the leader of the warband, the while.
"The mosta them gooks ain't got nothing but long old spears, man, though I did glim at least two swords and one or two axes, too. But, Like I said, they're all wearing damn little more'n their fuckin' birthday-suits, man—no armor, no shields. Looks like the bunch of them just finished killin' and butcherin' a big deer or elk and one those humongous lizards I tol' you about, you know. The mosta them has got blood up to the yingyang, like, and they taking turns standing out in the deeper part of the stream and rinsing it off, you know."
"Lord Fitz," demanded Sir Gautier, "does he appear ill-used?"
"I couldn't like see him all that clear, man, you know," said the blue lion. "He's like on his knees with them bunched up 'tween me and him, see. But somethin' I could see was he ain't wearing his pistol-belt anymore and one the gooks is got his three-
barrel long gun strung crost of his back. So, like whatcha gonna do, man?"
"Why, what must, in honor, be done," replied the knight. "What else? We will advance and, if needs be, fight; either my lord Fitz be freed of this bondage or we will die in the attempt to free him, of course, Sir Lion."
"Now, hold on there!" the blue lion beamed in alarm. "What you mean 'we, 9 white man? This cat agreed to guide ol' Fitz, teach him the ropes, see, guard his back when won't nobody else to do it around. Won't nothing said 'bout yours truly like going up 'gainst no dozen or more slants with spears and swords and axes, see. You dudes, you gets your rocks off doin' this kinda shit, so you do it; just count the Cool Blue out, you dig, baby?"
Sir Gautier tried not to allow his face to indicate his contempt. He gave a Gallic shrug. "Behave as you will, Master Lion; I and mine will do as we must. I had not truly expected honor in a heathen, ensorcelled, man-eating beast, but neither had I ever expected to encounter a craven lion. King of beasts, no more, now more alike to Prince of poseurs, me-thinks, Crown-prince of cowards."
With a deep, ferocious growl, the blue lion came up and around from his water-lapping crouch at the stream-side, to come down facing his tormentor, tail lashing furiously, slitted eyes both flashing, fearsome fangs bared. "Who you think you callin' chicken, you muthafucka? Not even your whole fuckin' pack of stinkpots or all your stickers or you steel tee-shirt is gonna stop me from wastin' you, man. I'll like spill your chitlins all over this here place, asshole. I'll..."
Thin-lipped, eyes showing cold a river-ice, Sir Gau-tier stood up straight, pulled up his padded coif, donned his helmet, then took a good, two-handed grip on the shaft of his spear, beaming, "At your pleasure, Master Lion. I regard you with about as much warmth of amity and fraternity as you regard me and only my oaths sworn to our lord Fitz has kept my steel from out your body many's the time, you should know. I slew both a lion and a mountain panther in Syria, whilst afoot, with spear and sword, and I doubt me not but that I can as easily put paid to you.
"But, ere we two lay on, think you not that we should better spend our energies in winning the freedom from odious bondage of my lord Fitz, that generous man who has so often seen your belly filled? Or, if matters of obligation and honor do not, will not move you, then recall that if these captors be slain or driven off, then their fresh kills as well as the freed person of Lord Fitz will be our spoils and that which you earlier described sounds like verily enough bloody flesh to sate even your ever-empty belly."
Taking full advantage of every fold of terrain, every hint of vegetation, Cool Blue, Sir Gautier and the latter's new sergeant, one Wulfhere, crept as close as possible to the bloodsoaked, fly-swarming site of the butchering. But only six men were to be seen there. F
itz was kneeling beside a slender, yellow-brown man lying recumbent on a rough litter, on whose other side squatted an older, stockier man of similiar skintone, Fitz's three-barrel gun across his bare back on its sling. Some yards distant, three other of the
near-nude, yellow-brown men squatted filling woven reed-baskets with meat from a dwindling pile. At least a score of buzzards circled at different heights over the scene, carrion-crows watched from every nearby perch and, keen-eyed and experienced hunter that he was, Sir Gautier easily spotted a double handful of small, furry scavengers waiting impatiently in the underbrush around and about the site.
He asked silently of the blue lion's mind, "What of this dozen or more warriors awaiting us here, Lion?"
"The rest has just all gone into that thicket what the littler stream comes from out of," replied the lion. "I can hear the fuckers, see, they like headed north and they all got heavy loads they toting, too . . . prob'ly baskets like that of meat. But what's got your bowels in a uproar, baby? The less slants it is, the quicker you and your hotshots can kill 'em all and take all the meat away from them and free ol' Fitz. Reet? Hell, you 'n Wolfie, there, can prob'ly put them fuckers there down just by your own se'fs."
"Possibly," agreed the Norman. "But then who is to know how many would be drawn from out those thickets by the din of combat, eh? No, caution must be the watchword, herein. Had we only a few good horses, now . . . ?" he sighed mournfully.
"Wulfhere?" he whispered aloud. "Get you back and summon the band to me here. Bid them advance in quietude and unseen, just as we three did, but advance full-armed and all ready to fight."
As the English-Dane crept back in obedience to his lord, said lord bespoke the blue lion again. "Master Lion, you must creep into yon thicket, find the trail taken by the other unclad warriors and warn me
immediately if any commence to wend their way back in this direction/'
"You want I should try to scare the fuckers from comin' back, man?" asked Cool Blue. "Maybe jump one of them and make him scream enough to make his buddies shit their diapers, huh?"
Cooly, the knight beamed. "I ask not that you do aught which might endanger your over-precious hide, Lion, only that you serve me warning when more foeman approach my position."
"Well, then, fuck you ass, mac!" came the lion's reply. "That's just what you'll get . . . and all you'll friggin' get out of this cat, you stinkin' tin-plated cocksucker!"
The Baby Blue Lion found a spot to lie in such a way that no human could spot him, even from bare-feet distance. Therein, he arranged his big body comfortably, relaxed, closed his eyes and slept . . . but, lightly, feline-lightly, all senses save only sight at full alert. The shadows lengthened, all about him dark and full night descended slowly on Tirnann-n-Og, but still the blue lion kept to his post, ignoring the growling of his empty stomach, lest he do aught which would earn him more of the unbearable contumely of Sir Gautier.
The log-walled longhouse inside the stockade was, this night, more full with humanity than it had been in many a day. After Fitz had rendered airborne and flown the litter bearing Lieutenant Kaoru over the twisting gully full of brush to the very door of the place, he had returned to the streamside to do the same
for not only the remaining baskets of meat, but for all the men—Japanese and Norman, alike—and finally, his pack and gear from out the tree. So novel had been the experience that Sir Gautier had clean forgotten the Blue Lion; indeed, he gave not a thought to the miserable beast until well after sunrise of the next morning.
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