The late afternoon found us halfway up and stopped on a vast level plain invisible from below. We saw our first Baldies, two lone scouts, above us and looking nearly insensate. One was dispatched with an arrow and the other with one of our precious rifles, and when their bodies were recovered they appeared nearly emaciated, their teeth bared in permanent fiendish howls of madness and hunger.
“Frane wasn’t starving them at Valles Marrineris,” I remarked.
“But she is now,” Miklos replied. He, along with general Misst, examined one of the scouts where he lay on a table. We had been joined by our surgeon, who concurred.
“Look at the area around the eyes,” he said. “See how the eyeball is protruding? That’s a sign of advanced mocra poisoning. It’s not so much that they are being starved as that they lose all interest in eating. This fellow has been living on nothing but mocra for weeks. He would have been dead in another month, if we hadn’t killed him. In many ways, you did him a favor.”
“What kind of opposition will we face if they’re all like this?” general Misst inquired.
“None,” the surgeon said flatly. “This Baldy couldn’t fight if he had to. The only thing on his mind was mocra.”
The general’s chest swelled, and he gave me an “I told you so” look.
I frowned.
“This will make our work easy,” Miklos said, though I detected a note of doubt in his voice. I made a note to speak with him alone later.
“If there’s any doubt,” the surgeon continued, “look at this poor fellow’s claws.”
The doctor held up one limp paw, and pressed the pad so that the claws would appear.
They were brittle and blood-caked, two of them broken off completely.
“That’s like no Baldy claw I’ve ever seen,” general Misst proclaimed. “What can they possibly fight with? Ladies and gentlemen, though I hesitate to proclaim victory now, I do think we will very soon be in that camp.”
There was silence, but my grandfather broke it by laughing harshly and slapping the dead Baldy on the chest.
“Thank you, young fellow, for giving me the battle!”
“I noted your hesitancy to celebrate so early,” I said to Miklos later in my tent.
He smiled wryly. “I fear the general is too sure of something that is not sure enough. Frane has the blood of my two brothers on her hands, and they were both very smart fellows. We gypsies just do not believe that anything in this life is easy. There is a saying, ‘the hard path is the true one’.” His smile widened a fraction. “I believe that applies here, your majesty.”
“So do I, Miklos.”
“And yet,” he continued, “I can see nothing but an easy victory here. If Frane is truly in the throes of this drug, and our work has been done for us. And with no useful army to assist her...”
We both sat, brooding, and not knowing why.
“Like you, Frane took two of my family. And they were anything but stupid. I do not intend to be reckless.”
“That is good to hear.”
“So I will have your support on this...caution?”
His smile widened yet another fraction. “Gypsies are always cautious. Especially with their own hides.”
Two more of Frane’s forward scouts were encountered that night, one killed, the other captured. The captive Baldy proved quite mad, and, at the first opportunity, threw himself from the nearest ice ledge. His mad cries echoed in the cold night.
My grandfather’s self satisfaction only grew.
And yet...
Twenty-Eight
At dawn, a secret one, hidden behind hills of ice and snow to the east, we continued our climb.
General Misst was in an ebullient mood. His horse snorted contemptuously at the morning chill, huffing and straining against the reins.
“He wants to be running,” the general explained, and then turned to pat the horse. “There, Champion, be patient. You’ll run soon enough through a battlefield.”
As if the horse understood him, it huffed, showing its teeth.
My grandfather laughed, and patted the horse again.
“He’s ready for the slaughter!”
“What do you have in mind for a battle plan?” I asked, trying to sound innocent. I looked round at Darwin, who rode just behind me, and he had a scowl on his face and shook his head.
The general snorted, a sound not unlike that of his horse. “We won’t need one, your majesty. We’ll charge through ‘em like a hot blade through new butter.”
“A nice analogy, but I think we should hold some troops in reserve.”
“For what?” he cried. “The more the merrier says I!”
“I’d like to hold the gypsies and Pelltier’s men in reserve.”
He looked at me and waved a hand in dismissal. “Do what you like. If they don’t have the stomach for a fight let ‘em stay behind.”
“That’s hardly the case—”
Again he snorted, as did his mount. “I’ll have plenty of men without them.”
“Thank you.”
His contemptuous look all but said, “Bah.”
We topped the last rise in mid afternoon. The sun was lowering toward the west, throwing lengthening shadows from the ice hills in that direction. But ahead of us it was flat as a board, a white expanse flat as any soiled plain.
And there, three hundred yards in front of us, was our prize: the army of Frane waiting patiently, her own banner, blood red with a yellow stripe, waving lazily in the slight breeze. I thought I could spy Frane herself, a far figure gazing at us unmoving across the field of ice.
There was a commotion to our left, and I saw a band of wild Baldies charge at our flank. There were only fifty or so of them, and they were easily dispatched. My grandfather, sitting high in his saddle, watched the ruckus and grinned.
“Fools,” he said.
Another mad band hit at our right flank, and similarly, and easily, was taken care of.
“Can you think of any reason to hesitate?” general Misst asked me, triumphantly.
As he gave the order to advance, I reined my horse around and fell back to Miklos and Pelltier. Darwin followed me, and a few Quiff. I passed many expectant faces, and many confident words:
“We’ll give Frane hell today, majesty!”
“This will be for you and your poor father, my Queen!”
“A bloody cake walk, that’s what it’ll be!”
But when I reached Miklos he was not smiling, and neither was the pirate.
“I smell some-ting bad, girlie-girl,” Pelltier nearly hissed as I reached him. His old senses were all awake, and he sat forward in his saddle sniffing the air. “I don’ know what it ‘tis, girlie-girl, but...”
I told him to keep his men back with me, and he did so. Miklos and his hundred joined us also, and we watched, a tiny army watching more than three thousand ride confidently forward.
Miklos studied the line and shook his head. “At least he should form a claw,” he said, making a U with his paw. “He isn’t even flanking, now!”
“He doesn’t think he has to,” Darwin nearly spat.
A ragtag band of five Baldies, screaming madly, ran at us from the direction of the setting sun. I drew my sword but they were cut down before they got within two horses of me.
“This is madness,” Pelltier said, sheathing his own sword after making use of it. “I tell you, some-ting is no’ right.”
Far back in my brain, something began to tickle, a faraway noise like distant thunder.
“Do you hear it?” I asked, but my two companions were all alert now, sitting stiff and straight in their saddles.
The lowest, faintest of rumbles, which incrementally grew.
A horrid realization grew in me.
Ahead of us, my grandfather gave a loud order of “Charge!” and the line of men and horses, roaring as one, charged ahead as the great mass of Frane’s Baldy army rushed forward to meet them. I noted that Frane, with perhaps five hundred non-Baldy troops, stay
ed behind.
The low rumble grew, overcame the shouts of the army.
All at once there rose a sheath of ice in front of the army, and another behind the oncoming Baldies, and the entire plain they inhabited began to collapse, as if in slow motion, into the ground. There was a roar that filled my ears, and a geyser of snow and ice flew impossibly high into the sky as the ground opened completely beneath them, and swallowed the army whole.
Miklos was shouting, and Pelltier was gesturing madly, but I could hear nothing above the howling ungodly roar as the ground shook beneath us. There was a cloud of blue-white powder where our army had been, but already it was settling to the ground, and into the huge chasm that had been formed.
One of the Quiff drew up beside me. “That devillll hollowed out the plainnnn beneath the icccce!”
I heard another sound above these – a keening wail. The hairs on the back of my neck stood out, for at first I thought it was the sound of the dying in the massive pit. But that was not it. As the cloud in front of us dissipated we saw a mass of charging bodies moving around it, coming straight for us.
“Frane!” Miklos shouted. He quickly gave orders and we formed into a chevron. There were little more than one hundred of us against five times that many.
“D’ queen mus’ get away,” Pelltier said.
Before I could speak Darwin nodded. “Stay close to me,” he whispered to me fiercely.
“It is important for you to go,” Miklos said.
“I won’t leave any of you.”
“Fight, ‘den,” Pelltier said, and then looked at Darwin. “But if d’ opportunity to flee come, take it.”
Darwin nodded.
Through the settling cloud of snow, I saw Frane, her one arm held high with an impossibly long blade, her mouth open in a scream as she charged toward us, her horse leading an army that looked focused and keen.
“Look at her,” I said. “These will be her true diehards. All of the rest was a ruse. All of it!”
“She is the devil his self,” Pelltier said.
Frane drew closer, closer, and her eyes were locked on mine with a fierce hatred that made me go cold inside. I was suddenly very frightened, but determined not to show it.
As if to drive this fear away, I suddenly kicked at my horse, drew my sword and, shouting, charged straight for the fiend.
Behind me, with shouts, the others followed.
Frane, unblinking, galloped straight at me, her mouth open in a cry of rage. Her face was ravaged by time and hate and the drug mocra, a death mask with patches of fur. Her eyes were huge red slits, her teeth bared like fangs.
“Die today!” she shouted, bringing the sword down toward me.
Our horses passed, and the blow missed. We quickly turned and went at one another again. Around me were the full sounds of battle, and I saw Miklos take down two of Frane’s minions with a mighty full blow. Darwin was nearby, trying to fight his way toward me, hacking and pushing madly.
I faced Frane once more, and our horses drew toward one another like magnets.
“Die!” Frane screamed, and I saw her sword fill the sky above me and then it drove down at me, filling my vision – and then suddenly the day went black, and I heard and saw nothing.
Twenty-Nine
The smell of cold.
Yes, cold did have an odor – a bracing, clean, empty fragrance.
Cold.
I shivered and opened my eyes. Someone or something moved against me as I did so, adjusting weight.
I sat up in white glare, and almost immediately swooned.
“Don’t move,” Darwin’s soothing voice said.
I closed my eyes and moaned, then opened them again. As long as I didn’t move I was fine, it seemed.
“Where are we?”
“Underground.” He was adjusting blankets and furs around me. The movement itself sent a cold chill through me, and made me shiver.
My teeth chattered when I spoke again.
“Wh-where are the o-o-others?”
“Nearby. That was quite a nasty bump you got on your head. For a while I was afraid...”
“W-what?”
“That you wouldn’t wake up.”
Ever so slowly, I reached up to feel at my forehead with my paw. Something knotted and painful sent a bolt of pain through me when I touched it.
“It will go nicely with my face scar. What h-happened to me?”
“Frane’s blow glanced you with the hilt of her sword.”
The chattering had stopped, but I lay still, trying to draw warmth from the coverings, and from my husband’s adjacent body.
“It’s very cold in here.”
“Yes. We thought it best not to start a fire. Many of Frane’s soldiers are still in the area, and I’m afraid we’re not up for another battle at the moment.”
“Tell me everything.”
“Well...” I could feel the reluctance in his body, hear it in his voice.
“We were beaten badly?”
“Frane made only one charge, which cut us up pretty well, but then she and her troops rode through and away. It was quite smart, because we were in no shape to follow, especially with you down.”
“Why didn’t she kill me?”
“Miklos and I fought her off after you fell from your horse. If her men hadn’t pulled her away I believe she would have jumped from her own mount and tried to fight through us. She was screeching like a madwoman.”
“How many did we lose?” Very slowly, I turned my head to regard my husband, who looked at the ground before meeting my eyes.
“More than half. Many of the Quiff died, and many of Miklos’s people. He’s attending to their burial now, in the snow.”
“Take me to him.”
I tried to rise, but once more found myself in a faint.
When I woke up it was darker, as if the sun had set above us, but just as cold.
In the morning I could sit up. Our little cave seemed to spin around me, but if I kept very still everything steadied, and I could speak.
I was warm now – too warm – and threw off some of the cloaks and blankets which had been covering me. Darwin was asleep at my feet, looking very young in his slumber, his hand on his sword which lay next to him. He looked cold, and I covered him.
Slowly swiveling around, I surveyed the space, and saw that it was an ice cave with an unseen opening behind us. I could hear low talk and assumed it was guarded by at least two of our soldiers. I wanted very badly to climb out into the sunlight, but was unable to stand up.
After a while I gave up, and curled down next to my husband, letting sleep take me once more.
When I woke Darwin was gone, but I heard voices closer, and spied two soldiers bearing a tray making their way down the long grade to where I sat.
One of them raised a hand in greeting – and at that moment the roof above him collapsed. A sheet of white came down on the two felines, whose screams were cut off as if with a knife.
Forgetting my disability I rose and hobbled to the spot where a new wall of snow and ice blocked the way. I called out but was met with only silence.
Darwin appeared behind me.
“Merciful Great One!” he cried.
“The poor fellows who were caught in this. Can they dig us out?”
“It would take days, perhaps a week or longer. This new material will be hard as rock before you know it.”
I looked at him for an alternative.
“We have a little food, and water will be no problem. I’ve surveyed this passage for a good couple miles, and it continues downward – but there may be a side passage that leads us out. It’s better than sitting here and waiting for starvation and cold to claim us.”
“All right.”
“How do you feel?”
“Woozy, but much better.”
“Then we’ll make a go of it.”
We returned to our sleeping place, and Darwin made an inventory. “Two swords, two daggers, a bit of hardtack, a box of matches,
an oil lamp. I suggest we both wrap ourselves with as many layers of clothing and blankets as we can. It may warm us too much now, but we may need them later.”
We did so, and then wasted no time, heading into the cave which sloped down into the bowels of an unknown world.
Thirty
Ever so gradually we lost our light, as the mass of ice above us filtered the sun away. And then darkness fell, making our blackness utter. Darwin lit the lamp, and it threw eerie blue ice shadows on the walls.
After a while I began to feel as if we had made no progress. Our little area of illumination never changed: the same white ice walls, ceiling and floor. Though we walked, I was beset with the illusion that we were walking in place.
“I must rest,” I said, the pain in my head finally overcoming me. I fell to the floor and Darwin attended me.
“Your bump is less noticeable,” he said, gently probing the wound.
“It feels as though someone was rhythmically beating me with a closed fist,” I said, feeling suddenly faint.
He put water to my lips from his canteen.
“Then we’ll rest here for the night.”
“How will you know when it’s day?” I asked, and he laughed.
“We won’t,” he said, “but we’ll guess.”
And then he must have lain me gently down, for when I awoke I was swaddled in blankets on the floor of the ice tunnel.
I sat up, glad to see that the pounding in my head was gone, and that I could move my head without a stab of pain shooting through it. The lamp had been turned low. Darwin’s even sleeping breath marked the only sound.
And yet–
There was another sound, very faint, and very far away. Another kind of breathing, it sounded like, but so light that it might almost be an illusion.
I thought of all the fairy tales I’d heard about mythical ice monsters, huge horrid white worms that lay in the bowels of the ice caps sucking intruders into their horrid round mouths and mashing them with row on row of tiny pure white teeth–
I had managed to frighten myself, and sat most of the rest of the night in self vigil, listening to that ever so faint breathing, and letting my imagination run riot.
When Darwin woke (it was morning, because a whisper of light from above illumined the walls light blue around us) he stretched contentedly and then studied my face.
Queen of Mars - Book III in the Masters of Mars Trilogy Page 13
