Steve passed this observation to Gus over the radio and suggested that maybe they ought to try and scare the kids out of the fields first.
Gus’s reply was swift and caustic. ‘They ain’t kids, good buddy. They’s little-bitty hostiles that grow up into big mean mothers. We’ve got to stop ‘em now while we’ve got the chance. As my old guardee used to say, “There ain’t nothin’ that smells better than Southern Fried Mute”. Yeee-HAH!’ Gus signed off with a rebel yell, did a fast wing-over and fire-bombed the down-wind corner of the Mute cropfields.
Steve circled, stricken by a sudden reluctance to kill. He was conscious of being assailed by inexplicable, conflicting emotions as he watched the young children, some of them on fire, run from the spreading flames. Others began falling with an untidy flurry of limbs as Gus began picking them off with volleys from his air rifle.
Swallowing hard, Steve quickly regained his usual iron control and headed back across the target area, dropping his own load of napalm in an arc ahead of the fleeing children so as to cut off their escape.
‘Look out!’ yelled Gus over the radio. ‘One of those lumps has a crossbow! The sonofabitch just missed me by a whisker!’
Steve rammed the throttle wide open and went up in a climbing turn, searching the terrain below for the marksman.
Cadillac cursed himself for having missed the cloud warrior. He cast aside the bow and ran into the blazing cornfield to rescue a group of panic-stricken Cubs. Blinded by the rolling clouds of smoke and seared by the terrible heat, their earlier bravado had turned into a paralysing fear, rooting them to the spot. Cadillac somehow managed to smother the sticky fire that was eating into some of their bodies and shepherded them through the waist-high corn. Despite his efforts, several of the children were gunned down by the wheeling cloud warriors as they reached safety. Seized by a terrible rage, and oblivious of the bullets that zinged past him like angry mosquitoes, Cadillac ran to where he had dropped the crossbow. He snatched it up and, with a strength born from his rage and desperation, tensioned the firing mechanism with one swift, brutal movement. With trembling fingers he scrabbled in the pouch on his belt for his last remaining bolt.
Gus White, in the middle of a steep turn around his port wing-tip, spotted Cadillac loading the crossbow. Pulling his rifle into the shoulder, Gus brought the red aiming dot thrown out by the optical sight onto Cadillac’s chest and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. His gun had jammed. Gus uttered a string of obscenities, rolled quickly over to starboard and began to jink across the sky in the manner of the late Jodi Kazan.
Steve heard the tail-end of Gus’s imprecations followed by the news of his jammed gun and the location of the Mute crossbowman. The vital details entered his ear while he was flying in precisely the opposite direction. Twisting round in his seat, Steve spotted Cadillac on the ground behind him. He threw the Skyhawk into a steep right-hand turn. The last targets he had fired at had been to port so his rifle, hanging on its overhead mount was on the left side of the cockpit. He reached over and grasped the pistol grip to bring the mount and the rifle across and into his shoulder. The manoeuvre was only half-completed as he banked round towards his target.
In the vital second before Cadillac came into Steve’s sights, Cadillac fired his crossbow. The bolt shot skywards with terrifying speed, punched through the upper part of Steve’s raised right arm and pinned it to his flying helmet. Entering the helmet at a steep angle above the ear, the bolt gouged through Steve’s scalp, striking his skull a grazing blow and came to rest with the barbed point poking out through the crown. Stunned by the force of the blow, Steve fought to retain consciousness. The world began to spin; became a blur as he lost control… In Unit 18, Gallery 3, on Level One of Inner State U at Grand Central, Roz Brickman, who had been filled with a sense of foreboding all day, tried to blot out yet another confused image of blood, broken bodies and flames that threatened to engulf her. It was a losing battle. She felt a sharp blow on the head and, in the same instant, a searing pain shot through her upper right arm forcing an involuntary scream from her lips. The startled students working on either side saw Roz leap up from her seat in front of an electron microscope with her right arm folded across her head. She spun round, her eyes turned up under the lids then collapsed, unconscious, hitting the floor before anyone could catch her.
Summoned from his adjacent office, the medical supervisor in charge of the class found that Roz was bleeding from a shallow scalp wound which he assumed had been caused through her fall to the floor. He was, however, unable to account for the additional loss of blood which, when her lab coat had been removed, was found to be issuing from deep wounds in her upper arm.
Cadillac watched impassively as the arrowhead spiralled down and made a crash landing in the middle of the burning cornfield. Five hundred feet above, Gus White was still trying to unjam his rifle. He swore through clenched teeth as he tugged at the solidly locked breech but could not find a way to free it. Now that he had nothing to shoot with – apart from the air pistol that was part of his survival kit – Gus did not feel like hanging around. He knew it meant leaving Steve in the shit but with a Mute marksman somewhere underneath him he stood to get a bolt coming up through his seat at any minute. In any case, Steve was probably dead.
Unaware that Cadillac had fired his last bolt, Gus jinked back across the cropfield to take stock of Steve’s situation. ‘Blue Seven to Blue Three. Come in. Over.’
After a moment’s silence Steve came on the air. ‘Blue Three, have been, uh – hit. Can you, uh – can you – cover me?’
‘No chance, good buddy,’ said Gus. ‘My gun’s still out. The only thing I can hit ‘em with is a pair of dirty socks and I can’t get my boots off. How are you fixed for taking out that lump with the crossbow?’
A long gasp preceded Steve’s reply. ‘Can’t reach my rifle.’
‘That’s tough,’ said Gus. ‘You hurt bad?’
‘Yeah, but – as far as I can tell it’s, uh – nothing that Keever can’t handle.’
Keever was the surgeon-captain who led the medical team aboard The Lady.
Gus made a wide circle around the burning cropfield. ‘Okay, listen – you hang on in there, good buddy. I’ll go get some help.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Gus rock his wings in salute as he climbed away in the direction of the forest. The anaesthetising shock of the bolt’s impact was beginning to wear off and Steve was now increasingly conscious of the pain emanating from his right arm. He also found it difficult to breathe. He was lying on his left side, with his left leg twisted at an odd angle in the crumpled wreckage of the cockpit pod. Steve managed to undo his safety harness but found that any attempt to move his left arm in any other direction generated an excruciating pain in his shoulder. He could also feel blood seeping out of the wound in his scalp. It was running down over his face and neck. He managed to get his left hand up far enough to unclip his visor but he could not raise it more than halfway. Its movement was blocked by his pinned right arm. He began to fumble at the helmet chin straps. If he could loosen the helmet and somehow get it off his head he might then…
He stopped for a moment, breathing with short quick gasps, willing himself not to cry out in pain. It was going to be all right. Gus would come back with Fazetti and Naylor. He would come back and…
When it was clear that the remaining cloud warrior had turned tail and fled, Cadillac and several of the She-Wolves plunged back into the burning cornfield to rescue more of the M’Call Cubs.
Hovering on the edge of unconsciousness, Steve saw a straight-limbed Mute run past him without giving him a second glance. The thought that he was going to be left to burn to death filled him with dread. He could already feel waves of heat from the approaching flames and was beginning to choke on the acrid smoke drifting over him.
Cadillac passed the broken arrowhead with a group of singed, smoke-stained children. They stopped and looked down at the trapped cloud warrior with expressionless faces.
Steve stretched his left hand out towards them in a pain-filled gesture of supplication. ‘Help me,’ he gasped. ‘Please…’
The straight-limbed Mute eyed him for a moment then ushered the silent, dull-eyed children out of his line of sight.
Steve cursed them silently. Bastard, fucking lumpheads. His thoughts drifted back to his own predicament. What an end to all his high hopes! And what a dumb way to go – roasting in fire that he had helped start! The irony of the situation did not escape him. He clung desperately to the hope that all was not lost. He could not really trust that yellow sonofabitch but if Gus did manage to unjam his gun he might come back with Fazetti and Naylor. All it needed was someone with enough balls to land and pull him out while the other two flew cover. A Skyhawk without any ordinance could carry a passenger. It would mean a fresh air ride on the external racks but he was prepared to risk that if…
A searing wave of heat struck Steve. With his right arm pinned to his helmet he could barely move his head. He arched his body and succeeded in edging it round a few inches. A violent stab of pain shot up through his chest. Looking to his left through his half-raised visor he saw the flames begin to consume the corn around the port wing-tip of the Skyhawk. The fabric started to smoulder. Ignoring the pain in both his arms, Steve clawed frantically at his rifle, trying to pull it near enough to be able to shoot himself before the flames reached him. His efforts proved hopeless. He could not get a firm enough grip to free the gun from its mounting.
Steve took several painful breaths and, with increasing desperation, tried again. The straight-limbed Mute and two young lumpheads moved back into his field of vision.
Acting on the command of an inner voice, Cadillac leaned forward and forced open the dark head shield of the fallen cloud warrior. The face beneath was covered in blood. Cadillac studied it carefully. It matched the one revealed to him by the seeing-stone.
Steve’s hopes began to rise. He had not forgotten the horrific tales of Bad News Logan; he was just clinging, with total illogicality to the hope that somehow, something would happen to save him. If he could just get out of the cornfield…
The straight-limbed Mute stepped back with a grunt. Steve’s hopes plummeted as the Mute turned his attention to the air rifle. He tugged, heaved, fiddled with locking devices and finally managed to wrestle it off its mount. With blurring vision, Steve watched the Mute inspect the weapon cautiously, fingering the trigger, then looking down the three barrels. Steve let out a sobbing, pain-wracked laugh. Oh, Columbus, what a stupid world! Brought down by an idiot who’s going to leave me here to burn because he doesn’t know how to shoot me…
The Mute tossed the rifle to the young lumphead on his right. The kid clutched it proudly across his chest, trigger guard up, barrels down. The other two Mutes moved out of sight. Steve felt someone tugging at the airframe. It was being twisted around and dragged away from the flames. The movement caused him to flop about like a rag doll. He let out a scream of pain. The straight-limbed Mute returned and leaned over him, a knife clenched between his teeth.
Oh, jeeze, yes, of course, thought Steve, remembering his talks with Kazan. Crossbow bolts are in short supply. This guy wants his back and so he’s – going to cut my fucking arm off. Great. Steve viewed the prospect with a curious detachment. Time seemed to have slowed down. The pain throbbing through his body was now so intense it had surpassed his capacity to react to it. His nerve-endings had become overloaded. Nothing mattered anymore…
Cadillac and his helpers had turned the arrowhead around so that the wings lay between them and the flames but even so, they were uncomfortably close. He took the knife from his mouth and slid the point under the chin-straps of the cloud warrior’s helmet. The warrior shuddered as the blade touched his throat. Cadillac cut through the chin-straps and slowly eased off the helmet and the arm pinned to it. The warrior’s blood-soaked head lolled onto his left shoulder; glazed eyes wandering under half-open lids. Cadillac considered the problem of the bolt. It was stuck firmly through the helmet in two places. The helmet itself was crafted from a strange material, like polished bone, upon which his knife made little impression. Cadillac beckoned to Three-Son of T-Rex and told him to take hold of the cloud warrior’s right arm. Three-Son gripped the arm on either side of the bolt and braced himself. Grasping the helmet firmly with both hands, Cadillac put a knee against the cloud warrior’s chest and yanked hard, pulling the bolt with its sharp stubby fins through his arm.
It did not come out easily.
Steve’s eyes almost popped out of his head. He bared his teeth, mouth opening wide, sucking breath into his chest to fuel a tortured scream.
It never came. He blacked out instead.
Having climbed beyond the normal range of Mute crossbows, Gus White switched radio channels and tried to raise Fazetti and Naylor. The net result, after several attempts, was a deafening silence. Circling the forest area at two and a half thousand feet Gus could see no sign of a napalm strike on the vast red canopy of leaves below him. He cut his motor and criss-crossed the area in a series of shallow glides, losing fifteen hundred feet of altitude before levelling out. Eventually he spotted a ragged patch of blue. On closer investigation, Gus saw that it was the tangled wreckage of two Skyhawks speared on the upper branches of one of the closely packed tall trees. He called up The Lady, reported the successful firing of the cropfields then gave them the bad news; Steve’s crash landing and his sighting of what looked like the wreckage of the Skyhawks flown by Naylor and Fazetti.
The reply from the wagon train was terse and uncommunicative.
‘Roger, Blue Seven. Return to base. Out.’
Above the escarpment, where the surviving M’Call Bears had gathered, Mr Snow saw the black smoke rising from the direction of the cropfields. High above him, a lone arrowhead glided silently westwards across the blue. Mr Snow eyed it with a mixture of caution, envy and cold hatred. He would have dearly loved to have been able to scramble the cloud warrior’s brain and bring him plummeting down but he was fresh out of magic. It would be several days, perhaps even a week before he could summon up the powers of the earth again. He hoped it would be longer for it was an ordeal he did not relish.
With nearly two hundred and fifty warriors left dead and dying around the iron snake, plus those killed earlier by the cloud warriors, the fighting strength of the clan had been cut by over a third. Although seriously weakened, the M’Calls were still numerically stronger than many neighbouring clans but another full-scale assault on the iron snake was out of the question. Alliances would have to be considered. Mr Snow did not relish the prospect of the endless negotiations involved. If only Talisman would come! In the meantime, however, there was only one thing to do: head for the hills. They had to find a secure, sheltered base where they could heal the wounded and rebuild the shattered confidence of the Bears, and they had to find new stocks of food to see them through the White Death.
Two She-Wolf messengers reached him in quick succession. One had been sent by the small rearguard that had stayed to watch the iron snake. She reported that the snake had broken into two pieces. The tail had become a new head; half its body had crawled out of the river and was heading towards the escarpment, puffing out clouds of its burning white breath. Deep-Purple, the other She-Wolf, sent by Cadillac, brought the bad news that the cropfields had been almost totally destroyed by fire. She also had a second message for Mr Snow from Cadillac. The cloud warrior the Sky Voices had spoken of had been delivered into their hands.
When Gus White reached the Now and Then River, he found that the rear command and power cars plus nine of the wagons had been freed and were now parked up on the east bank from where its guns could command the surrounding area. Gus buzzed the mobile element of the train – which included the flat-topped flight section – then turned and made a low pass back along the river. He saw Barber’s men swarming round the front five wagons. They still lay across the river bed but were no longer tilted over. A few of the guys in the
work party stopped and waved to him as he flashed past.
Gus called up Flight Control and got the green to land on. Baxter, the F.O.O., met him as he came down on the lift. Gus pulled himself out of the cockpit of his Skyhawk and saluted. ‘Has the Chief transferred over too, sir?’
‘No,’ said Baxter. ‘He’s outside giving the boys a hand.’ He led the way to the Ops Room of the rear command car and put Gus through the normal debriefing procedure. Gus described the successful strike on the cropfields and explained how his rifle had jammed at the crucial moment when Steve was hit and brought down.
‘So you left him in the burning cornfield.’ Baxter’s voice carried no hint of condemnation.
‘I had no choice, sir,’ said Gus. ‘The place was crawling with hostiles who were none too pleased with us for roasting their corn. Without my rifle…’
‘Yes, sure…’
‘I figured if I could get Fazetti and Naylor to fly cover for me–’
‘But you couldn’t raise them…’
‘No, sir.’
‘Was Brickman alive when you left?’
‘Just about. He didn’t sound too chipper.’
‘Okay. We’ll write him off.’ Baxter made an entry on his electronic notepad against Brickman’s name. PD/ET/ BNR: ‘Powered down in enemy territory. Body not recovered’. Baxter added the date and keyed the fate of Brickman. S.R. into the pad’s memory, leaving the small flat grey screen clear.
Baxter then listened as Gus reported, in greater detail, his sighting of the tangled wreckage of two Skyhawks in the forest. ‘Must be Fazetti and Naylor,’ he observed, when Gus concluded his account.
Gus looked bewildered. ‘What happened?’
‘We’re not quite sure,’ said Baxter slowly. ‘All we know is we got a Mayday call from Naylor saying that Fazetti had flipped his lid and started shooting at him. The Chief told Naylor to shoot back.’
‘Columbus!’ breathed Gus. ‘And?’
Baxter shrugged. ‘Who knows? Naylor must have been slow on the trigger.’
Cloud Warrior Page 18
