Chronicles of Isambard Smith 05 - End of Empires

by Toby Frost

  For a very gratifying moment, the lemming man realised what was about to happen. Then Suruk grabbed the chain, gave it a tremendous tug, and the assassin’s head flew off.

  All was still. Half a dozen Yull stood before Suruk, fanned out in a loose semicircle.

  ‘Your friends have left you,’ Cots said.

  ‘Good.’ Suruk’s arm began to hurt. The cut stung, but there was something else there – poison, perhaps. He focussed himself, drawing it into his body.

  The light was almost gone, but Suruk could sense them, see the heat of their rage. He reached out with his mind, and felt not six souls, but seven – and the last one was behind him, creeping towards his back.

  ‘Sheath your weapon and join us,’ Cots said. ‘The Greater Galactic Happiness and Friendship Collective has need of brave warriors.’

  Suruk glanced at the carnage around him. ‘So I see.’

  The assassin was close now, no more than five yards. It struck.

  Suruk felt the spirits of great warriors watching him. Bend like a reed in the wind, said Volgath, and he twisted aside. Turn his energy against him, said Urgar the Miffed, and Suruk raised his hand, and there was the enemy’s body, open and unprotected. Smack him in the chops! bellowed Brehan the Blessed.

  Suruk’s fist hit the assassin’s breastplate, shattering it like china. His hand met fur, then flesh, and skin and muscle blew apart at the force of the blow. His arm ploughed into the lemming’s chest, spraying blood into the night air, and blasted out the back in a cloud of gore. Suruk ripped his arm free, lifted his grisly hand and crushed the assassin’s still-beating heart in his fist.

  ‘Delicate Butterfly,’ he said.

  The lemmings all charged at once. Suruk drew both sabres and engaged them with the Blood-Dance of Old Ravnavar, sending a flurry of limbs into the air. ‘Yullai!’ cried one of Cots’ thugs, and it dashed at Suruk, a battleaxe in either hand. Suruk ducked low and ran it through with both swords. The lemming dropped its axes and, instead of trying to pull free, grabbed Suruk’s arms.

  Even impaled, it gabbled triumphantly. Suruk struggled to free himself, the rodent shouting ‘Die, die!’ into his ear. Suruk roared, released the swords and shoved the lemming man away. He stepped back, stumbled on a fallen axe, and something smashed into the back of his legs.

  His knees buckled. The ground banged against his back. Colonel Cots stamped down on Suruk’s chest.

  * * *

  ‘Of course,’ Bargath yelled over his shoulder at the lancers behind him, ‘surprise is everything in this kind of terrain.’

  Five shadar crept through the foliage, forty feet above ground level. Their hands reached out from one thick branch to another, crossing from tree to tree where the branches intersected.

  A birdoid flapped past, and Frote flicked his tongue out and whipped it into his mouth. Morgar did not like being this high up, and the sudden cloud of feathers did not make him feel better.

  Bargath rested his rifle across his saddle. ‘Magnificent view,’ he announced, reaching to his side. A month ago, Morgar would have expected him to take out a pair of binoculars. Instead, Bargath raised his hip flask. ‘You all right there?’

  Morgar nodded. ‘Just a bit queasy.’

  ‘Saddle-stomach, eh? You need to flush your system out. With gin. When I was a lad –’

  ‘We have to go east,’ Morgar said. As soon as the words passed his mandibles, he realised that he didn’t know why he had said them. He blinked.

  ‘East, you say?’

  ‘I – yes. Someone’s in danger.’

  ‘Got intelligence, have you?’

  Morgar nodded. It was a certainty.

  ‘Never trusted the stuff myself. Still, I should think we can manage a detour, if there’s a bit of scrapping at the end of it. Now, as I was saying –’

  A quanbeast fell out of the canopy ten yards away, and crashed to the forest floor, pursued by a flock of caustic pigeons. ‘We have to go now,’ Morgar said. ‘Right now.’

  Bargath frowned. He peered at Morgar, took out a targeting monocle, pushed it into place and peered harder. ‘My,’ he said, ‘you really are hungry for battle, aren’t you?’ He leaned back. ‘You see? The lancers can make a fighter out of anyone – even you. Good work, Morgar. Jolly good.’ He cupped his hands around his mandibles. ‘You hear that, chaps? It’s time for battle!’

  * * *

  An explosion, muffled but huge, knocked Smith off his bed and dumped him on the floor. For a moment he lay there, feeling and smelling the John Pym, and then he remembered, and he heaved himself upright.

  ‘Suruk!’ He lurched to the door of his room, staggered into the corridor, and stumbled into the cockpit. ‘Turn the ship round. We have to rescue Suruk.’

  ‘We can’t turn,’ Carveth said. She gripped the control stick as if strangling it. ‘We’ve just taken a bloody glider-bomb in the engine. Port’s down sixty percent. We can’t stay up for much longer.’

  Rhianna sat in the captain’s chair eyes closed, hands raised to her head. The mechanical maneater stretched out at her feet. ‘Damned shame, that,’ it drawled. ‘Rather liked him.’

  ‘Isambard,’ Rhianna said, and she sounded even further away than usual, ‘Suruk’s going to be just fine. I know it.’

  The ship lurched.

  ‘Trust me,’ she added, and her voice was no longer vague.

  ‘We’re going down,’ Carveth cried. ‘We’ll have to crash land! Brace yourselves!’

  The maneater looked up. ‘Crash landing? How terribly dreary.’

  * * *

  Cots loomed over Suruk like a cliff. ‘Got you,’ he said.

  Suruk grimaced. He was slowly becoming aware of the extent of his injuries. His skin seemed to be entirely bruised. Three of the ribs just above his hip were aching, and the pain in his upper liver made him want to cough a pellet there and then.

  Cots smiled. ‘So, you are weak too.’

  ‘I slew all your assassins’. Suruk replied, between gritted teeth.

  ‘So you claim. But we Yull will write the history books.’

  ‘What will you say, that you became peckish and stuffed all your minions in your cheeks?’

  Cots grinned. ‘How weak you are, stupid frog-thing. Your clumsy form betrays you in battle. Your coward soul fills you with the fear of death. You have no self-respect, else you would not associate with other members of your dim-witted, oafish race. In short, you are like all unrodents: your value is only in labouring for the Yull and amusing us with the squalid agony of your death!’

  Something large moved among the trees.

  ‘Do continue,’ Suruk said. ‘This is fascinating.’

  ‘Well, we Yull are better in every respect than anyone else. Take, for instance, your face. It is very ugly. You don’t have whiskers. You don’t even have a nose, let alone a snout. What is all that about?’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Shup! Shut your weird face or I will cut off your feet!’ Cots stepped back, swinging his axe up as he did. ‘Yes, that is a good idea. Then I can tell you of the greatness of the Yull while you crawl in agony!’

  Despite his wounds, Suruk smiled. He chuckled. His battered chest shook with amusement. His voice rose, and rose, until his laughter roared out of him and rang around the forest.

  ‘What is so funny?’ Cots demanded. ‘Filthy offworlder, you may not laugh at me! I am very important and noble!’

  With an effort, Suruk controlled himself. ‘I am laughing,’ he said, ‘because I have kept you flapping your muzzle for just long enough to seal your doom.’

  ‘Hwot?’

  Something hit Cots on the back. He stumbled and twisted around, and Suruk saw a wet pink mass on the Yullian’s breastplate, like a blob of used chewing-gum. A fleshy rope stretched from it into the shadows of the forest.

  Cots raised his axe, and flew back, limbs flailing, bouncing across the ground as he was reeled in. Suruk saw a face in the jungle, a massive mouth, open and pink, and the monster’
s eyes swivelled to focus on the lemming man attached to its tongue as he disappeared between its fangs.

  Cots screamed – and then the massive jaws clamped shut on him. The shadar loped into view, Cots’ feet sticking out of the corners of its mouth. They jiggled as it chewed. Its rider waved.

  ‘Hello, Suruk!’ Morgar called.

  ‘Greetings, brother.’ Suruk clambered to his feet. The sight of the chaos around him made him feel much better. He yanked his spear out of a lemming man’s neck. ‘A timely arrival. Thank you.’

  ‘Oh, that’s quite alright.’ Morgar patted his mount. ‘Gosh, it’s a mess here, isn’t it?’

  ‘I did honourable battle with the champions of Yullia. Perhaps it was that which drew you here: you sensed the nobility of the combat in your soul.’

  ‘Maybe. But I mostly just followed the bangs and the screaming.’

  Suruk picked up his hat. ‘You still ride with the lancers, then?’

  ‘Yes. We’re being held back at the moment. Something about a hammer and anvil, I believe.’ Morgar reached to the back of his saddle, and took out a lunchbox. ‘Sandwich?’

  ‘I think not.’ Holding his side, Suruk took a step closer. ‘But tell me, brother: is there room on your steed for two?’

  * * *

  General Wikwot stomped back to his own battle-line. He lumbered between the trees, past his sentries, and drew his axes.

  The general threw his hands up, and in each fist was a battleaxe. ‘Dar huphep!’ he roared. ‘Huphep Yullai!’

  ‘Yullai!’ his soldiers howled, and they rose up around him.

  To the soldiers on the castle walls, it was as if the whole planet had come to life and turned the forest into its throat. The shriek of glee and hatred rose from all around, drowning out the hum of engines and war-machines, and the trees shuddered as if battered by a storm.

  The Yull charged.

  Lemming men poured out of the forest by the thousand. They were seeds shot out by the jungle plants, a rippling, howling carpet of fur and bayonets. Gliders sailed over the canopy: packs of squol ran between the soldiers.

  ‘What’s the range?’ Wainscott yelled, over the scream of rodents. He stood on the parapet, machete in hand, surrounded by riflemen.

  Susan shook her head. ‘Not yet…’

  The Yull had no prisoners, so they drove their serfs over the minefield first, with rapid and ugly results. Bits of lemming sailed into the air, knocking two gliders out of the sky. They exploded as they hit the ground. Several lemmings were not killed outright, and some of their comrades stopped to laugh at their death agonies – but all were quickly stampeded by the rest of the horde.

  ‘They’re in range!’ Susan shouted.

  ‘Rifles, fire!’ Wainscott cried, and the first four ranks of lemming men fell as if washed away.

  Susan heard nothing except the crack of laser-fire and the rumble of explosions. Then the mortars in the courtyard roared, and for all her training she nearly ducked. She set the beam gun onto the parapet and took aim at the biggest rodent she could see. The laser cut him in half.

  The gun batteries on the upper towers swung down to cover the ground. A glider smashed into one of them, and it burst in a cascade of bone-coloured rock. Stone slid down the side of the castle, into the courtyard. Two gunners were killed and their mortar buried; a third was dragged away by two Sey warriors, towards the medical tent.

  Susan swung the beam gun and sliced down a row of howling lunatics. Now the Yull were in machine-gun range, and the ripping crackle of bullets joined the hiss of the lasers. Shells crashed among the Yull, but they came on, wild with bloodlust. Some, she saw, did not aim straight at the walls, but swerved towards the round tower at the corner, before throwing themselves in front of their comrades’ feet. They died in piles at the base of the tower, great heaps of fur –

  ‘They’re making a ramp!’ Susan shouted. ‘Wainscott, they’re making a ramp!’

  * * *

  From his treehouse, Wikwot gave the command, and his second battlegroup attacked. His troops slipped through the forest, weaving between the great trunks, and as they saw the sun between the trees they screeched their warcry and ran into the light. They hit the back of the castle – more accurately, the mines around it – and surged across the open ground, cheering and squeaking. Now Mothkarak was surrounded, and its defenders poured fire onto the Yull from every side. But it was not enough.

  Soon, Wikwot thought. Their cowardice will overcome them, and they will throw down their weapons and beg for mercy, thinking that they have put up enough of a fight to impress us. Even the M’Lak – frog-spawned pond-life, the lot of them – would give in. Perhaps the humans would think that they could just leave their servants to the Yull and sneak back to Earth. What a surprise they’d get!

  He tapped one of his adjutants. ‘Do dirty M’Lak have fingernails?’

  ‘No, great one. But they do have kneecaps.’

  Wikwot smiled. ‘Excellent,’ he purred. ‘Open a bottle of dandelion wine.’

  Siege

  Smith, Carveth and Rhianna wrestled with the controls. The lower three-quarters of the windscreen were full of the bone-white walls of Mothkarak.

  The maneater lounged at the far end of the cockpit. ‘You do know there’s a castle in front of you, don’t you?’

  Smith looked round. ‘Either help us or get in a locker with the rest of the junk.’

  ‘Very well,’ it said, and it padded over, hooked a paw around the control stick and pulled it backwards. The ship swung up, almost enough to clear the walls. On the parapet, lemming men, humans and M’Lak fought for their lives.

  The ship clipped the edge of the battlement, yawed crazily, and then slammed down into the courtyard.

  The floor lurched. Smith fell, Rhianna landed on top of him, and the maneater slid across the cockpit. Carveth scrambled out of the pilot’s seat.

  ‘The bad news is that we knocked the landing gear off on the wall back there,’ she said. ‘The good news is that the lemming men broke our fall. And the other bad news is that the lemming men are here.’

  Something exploded under them. A siren parped, then died away. The front fell off one of the overhead control panels and foul-smelling smoke billowed out.

  Rhianna staggered upright and helped Smith to his feet. A second boom from below rocked the floor. Smith grabbed his weapons, Carveth picked up Gerald’s cage, and they hurried to the airlock.

  The courtyard was mayhem. Imperial soldiers ran towards the main castle, covering one another. Soldiers climbed down from the battlements. The Yull simply dived off – the fall was high enough to break a man’s neck, but a large pile of dead comrades softened their landing. The outer wall was breached. The Space Empire was falling back.

  ‘With me!’ Smith shouted. ‘Everyone, to the castle!’

  They ran, but it was no rout. The soldiers retreated in waves, covering each other as they went. The Yull were cut down by the dozen, but it didn’t stop them: more charged howling over their dead.

  The mechanical maneater looked over its shoulder, at the yowling horde pouring over the parapet. Soldiers tried to slow the horde. Two M’Lak soldiers and a human were overwhelmed and hacked down. A bullet hit the maneater on the shoulder and pinged off into the air. ‘Oh,’ it growled. ‘Like that, is it?’

  Susan stood in the middle of the courtyard, firing her beam gun from the hip. Beside her, Dreckitt had acquired a drum-magazine Stanford gun, and was blazing away as if he was back in the New Chicago underworld. He waved and dashed over, fiercely hugged Carveth and shouted ‘Goddam crazy Yull!’

  Smith swung up his rifle and blasted a Yullian grenadier as he climbed over the battlements. The rodent fell back among its comrades and exploded a moment later. Slices of lemming sailed into the air.

  ‘Where’s Wainscott?’ Smith demanded.

  Dreckitt pointed. Fire billowed on the walls and a grinning figure strode through it, all beard and shorts like Satan on holiday. ‘Which nutball let
Wainscott get a flamethrower? You know what he’s like around fire. Take this to your magic kingdom, Mickey!’ Dreckitt added, firing off a burst into a screeching lemming sergeant. ‘We’ve got to go!’

  ‘Yeah, let’s get out of here!’ Carveth cried. ‘I – oh, crap!’

  A glider sailed over the walls. The wings were ripped like an old paper bag, and the pilot had been hit several times. Smith saw the dynamite stuffed into the pilot’s sash, the wad of explosive padding out its cheeks, and as he pulled up his gun he knew that even if he killed it, the lemming man would still crash onto them.

  Rhianna flicked her hand up as if greeting an acquaintance, and the glider smashed into an invisible wall. The explosion scoured the walls behind the glider, incinerating a dozen lemmings. Smith didn’t even feel the warmth of the blast.

  ‘Totally awesome,’ Rhianna said. ‘I mean, violence is really bad. But still…’

  They ran back across the courtyard, Smith and Dreckitt covering the retreat. Susan fell back, reluctantly, and the Deepspace Operations Group accompanied her. They ran through the main entrance, and the doors slammed shut behind them. Soldiers rushed to bar them, heaping furniture around the doorway. Smith and his comrades ran towards the mezzanine.

  * * *

  Eight seconds later, the doors burst open and the fuselage of a Yullian fighter plane slid burning into the entrance hall. A communications orderly was plastered across the windscreen, still clutching a radio in its singed paw.

  ‘They’ve called in an airstrike,’ Smith cried. ‘On themselves!’

  The Yull poured into the hall. In a second, the first thirty rodents went down under a hail of bullets, beams and light furniture. Two M’Lak soldiers heaved a grandfather clock onto the squeaking horde, and followed it with an antique commode.

  A bald man in a morning suit ran over, holding a fire axe; Smith recognised him as the android butler.

  ‘The enemy have tunnelled into the cellar, sir,’ he announced sadly. ‘I found two men partaking of the spirits down there. Two lemming men, sir. I... corrected them, but there will be more.’