Pass of Fire

by Taylor Anderson

  “Second General Ign will divert whatever resources he must to secure our Giver of Life,” Esshk told the messengers.

  “It is already being done, Lord. And several Ten Thousands encamped around New Sofesshk under Eighth General Alk should have begun their attack even as we left.”

  Esshk made a noncommittal sound in his throat and Ando got the impression he didn’t have a high opinion of Alk.

  “There’s one further concern Second General Ign instructed us to convey, Lord,” the first messenger ventured.

  “And that is?”

  “Regardless of what it accomplishes, the force that descended on Great Sofesshk could have only one real objective: distraction. With Republic hunters rampant in the south and forces necessarily dispatched to block them, the bulk of the enemy fleet massed beyond the nakkle leg on the Zambezi, now this . . . He’s certain the enemy is poised to strike out of his lair with all his might. He’s confident he’s divined the thrust of their plan and will stop them, but believes his long-predicted ‘greatest battle that ever was’ is at hand, and craves your presence.”

  Esshk nodded brusquely. “Of course. I will come at once.” He turned to face Ando. “With you.”

  Ando gaped, speechless.

  “The new flying bomb carrier will be your flagship, and I will accompany you. There are a few armored cruisers here and more can be added as we steam downriver. Such a shame your remaining flying machines have so little fuel and ammunition,” he reflected, “or we could take them too.”

  “But, Lord!” Ando finally managed, fleetingly relieved Esshk hadn’t ordered his planes to come regardless. But he had to make him see the even greater error. “Only that one flying bomb carrier is ready for action, armed with just six weapons! I told you from the start they’d only prove decisive if used en masse!”

  “What possible good is any weapon I can’t use when I need it?” Esshk almost bellowed, crest rising. Then, inexplicably, his crest fell and his voice softened. “What good is General Halik, still months away to the north?” he asked rhetorically. “I won’t have the one I counted on most when I need him either, it seems.” He cocked his head at Ando. “One is a ‘mass’ compared to none,” he stated simply, “and you also said their first use would be most decisive of all.” Esshk hesitated, and for an instant, all his hauteur, arrogance, even his formidable physical menace, seemed to gush away. “I trust Second General Ign above all others, but the enemy has chosen a place we must defend to fight. He’s chosen the time as well, most certainly not convenient for us, and that’s difficult enough for me to grasp. Always in the past it was our race—it was I—who chose the time for battle.”

  Ando thought Esshk would’ve shrugged if he could. “So the time comes sooner than we’d prefer, and we must make do with what we have.” Esshk stared intently at Ando. “Our enemy has faced such predicaments over and over yet still prevailed. We must do the same.” His voice hardened. “The decision is thrust upon us, General of the Sky,” he said, glancing around at his entourage almost contemptuously, “and we must make it.”

  “Then I implore you to decide to delay,” Ando said. “You say you trust General Ign, so trust him with the battle. We can’t materially affect the outcome with only six weapons. And win or lose, we’ll absolutely waste them if we use them now. Worse, we’ll never make more, because the secret will be out and even if he’s defeated, the enemy won’t be gone. He’ll bomb here next.” He waved his arms in frustration. “There’s no place else left to do what we’re doing here!” He took a breath and tried to calm himself. “Finally, Ign believes the battle’s imminent. Have you forgotten the locks?”

  A series of amazing locks, possibly as ancient as the Palace of Vanished Gods itself, were the only things that made Lake Galk possible, not to mention moving ships from there to the lower river. The things were massive and leaked horribly, but their construction was so robust that Ando expected they’d last another thousand years. Whoever built them had been exceptional engineers. If it was the Grik, they’d fallen far indeed.

  “It’ll take too long to get there, an entire day for each lock alone,” Ando pressed, “and then several more to complete the passage. Everything might be over by the time we arrive. You’d likely squander your only flying bomb carrier just to appear in time to find the battle already won—or lost.” He sighed. “I applaud your courage,” he said, and realized with surprise he meant it. “You’re a worthy lord. But I beg you to let Ign fight his battle. If he wins, we’ll continue our work and eventually win the war.” He paused. “If he loses, this work will be even more important because it’s all you’ll have left to stop the enemy on the water.”

  Esshk looked away, surprised by his feelings. He wanted to kill Ando for his impertinence, but at the same time he was grateful for sound counsel. He fluffed his crest and let it drop before letting out a breath. “Very well, General of the Sky. It will be as you say. And whatever happens, you too have earned my trust.” He gazed off to the south. “It’s hard to imagine that the last great battles are about to begin, battles that will ultimately bring the end to our enemy or our race. It amazes me,” he added, a trace of wonder creeping into his voice, “that all could finally be balanced so precariously, with such momentous consequences on the scale.”

  He looked down at the two messengers. “Return and inform Second General Ign he has my utmost confidence and the battle is his to fight. You’ll also remind all the other Dorrighsti you encounter that the Celestial Mother must not, under any circumstances, fall into the claws of the enemy, and they’ll do whatever they must to prevent it.”

  “Yes, Lord, of course,” the messengers chorused. Probably grateful to be alive, they jumped up and bounded back in the direction of the airship.

  Ando pondered what Esshk said about the Celestial Mother. It sounded straightforward enough, but also struck him as vaguely ominous. And what were Dorrighsti? He’d never heard the word before, but he got the impression it had something to do with the painted slash marks.

  CHAPTER 27

  ////// Palace of Vanished Gods

  Chack studied the ruins of New Sofesshk across the river through his Imperial telescope, squinting against the bright sunlight lancing over the low clouds to the east and glaring in the glass. Once a vast, nightmarish warren of chaotic adobe, resembling something vomited together by flying, stinging insects called yits, which Silva likened to “mud dobbers,” the months-long bombing had left a wasteland of fire-blacked mounds of red clay clods and scorched timbers.

  The Grik had tried to move into position to cross the river that morning, a gaggle of galleys gathering to carry them, but the galleys were ridiculously exposed and there was nothing to conceal the troops advancing through the rubble. A swarm of P-1C Mosquito Hawks from Arracca Field bombed and strafed the galleys to shreds, and the Grik troops were immolated by firebombs dropped by successive waves of Nancys from the carriers. Now new columns of dark smoke rose over the devastated south-bank city with little more than corpses left to feed the fires.

  It had been a massacre, in spite of the numerous portable antiair mortars that knocked a few planes down. Obviously, some antiair rocket batteries still lingered in the vicinity, lining the river approach where they could be supplied at night, but they were ineffective against low-flying planes and extremely vulnerable to them. They’d clearly chosen to hunker down and hide during the day. The two fat ironclad battlewagons lying at anchor hadn’t been molested, but neither could they contribute. None of the planes came close enough for them to engage, and they seemed reluctant to fire on Chack’s Brigade, so close to the Celestial Mother’s guard troops.

  Thaat could change at any time, Chack realized. The Grik commaanders must’ve gotten some kind of waarning thaat we’re here, but they caan’t know whaat’s going on. The heavy probe, just wiped out, is proof they’re concerned. Now they’ll get even more worried—and confused. Exaactly what Cap-i-taan R
eddy waanted. Chack adjusted the focal length and watched a few Nancys still swooping, far away. The bulk of the aircraft devoted to Chack’s support would soon have another task. The Grik caan’t even effectively stage an aassault near the city. Not in daylight. There’re mountains to the west and north of Old Sofesshk, but little more than forest, rolling hills, and graass-laand prairie due south of the ravaged newer city. Still, they must do something.

  He closed the telescope and dropped it back in the leather tube hanging from his neck. “They’ll come again tonight,” he predicted aloud to the gathering around him. Most of the brigade’s senior officers had joined him by the river, concealed from the Grik around the palace by a retaining wall running alongside the road. If they had enough troops and some artillery, they could focus on the docks and make a landing very costly. But they didn’t have either of those things and that wasn’t the plan. “As overloaded by unexpected threats as they must be, from all directions, their greatest difficulty will be arranging river traansport on such short notice.”

  “Indeed,” Major Jindal agreed, “and it’ll be most interesting to see how many troops they devote to the endeavor. If they come at all, they’ll need a sizable force. They can’t know how few we are and they’ve already discovered our air alone will make it costly for them.”

  “Yet if our next objective goes as planned, we may not know how large their effort truly is,” Abel Cook observed with a troubled frown.

  “I’m sure we’ll get some idea,” Jindal assured wryly, but then laughed out loud. The others looked at him questioningly. “My apologies,” he said. “It just now struck me that this may be the only time in history any force has deliberately put itself in a position to be overwhelmingly surrounded and utterly cut off, then actually hoped it would happen!”

  Silva scratched his beard. “I reckon the skipper knows a few times it’s been done to lure a enemy to slaughter, but prob’ly not exactly like this. The way you put it, it does sound kinda nuts.”

  “No,” Chack disagreed. “Don’t forget our true purpose. The greater the enemy response to us, the greater will be our proof that Esshk, or whoever commands them, is so focused on our various distractions that the final element of Cap-i-taan Reddy’s plaan will take him completely by surprise.” He shrugged. “Even if it doesn’t, he’ll be weakened.” He grinned, showing bright canines. “And the plaans within the plaan should dumbfound him as well. At least at first.”

  “Swell,” Silva said, growing impatient with all the talk. “We’re just chippin’ paint here. Ever’body knows this shit. Let’s quit bumpin’ our gums an’ get on with it.”

  Jindal laughed again, looking fondly at the big man. “Tactfully eloquent as always, I see. I’ve missed you.”

  Silva grinned back at the one-armed Impie. “Same here. Try to get through this ruckus without stringin’ any more parts o’ yerself around, wilya?”

  “Indeed I shall.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Ker-noll Jash and his Slashers had been camped several miles from New Sofesshk, in the safety of the forest. They’d seen the shocking night raid over the Old City and been furious, but also baffled by its latter stages. Then came even stranger reports of signals received, and Jash formed his division at once, even before it was entirely clear that somehow the enemy had actually put troops in Old Sofesshk. With the dawn, he practically whipped his Slashers through the dense forest and emerged at its edge bordering the ruins of New Sofesshk—just as Eighth General Alk began his moronic daylight assault across the city.

  Alk obviously hoped to reach the river and cross it on a few hastily gathered galleys and attack the mysterious enemy force in Old Sofesshk—a force of utterly unknown strength and disposition. The move was under concentrated air attack from the start and it only got worse as it proceeded. Warriors were slaughtered in droves as they swarmed through the debris of the broken city, but the worst by far came while they waited, bunched up in the open, to board galleys that were shredded before them. Jash had seen battles of all sorts now, but this senseless disaster was born of nothing short of abject incompetence and that nameless feeling that invaded one’s being, just short of turning a warrior into prey. And like cornered prey, Alk was just lashing out, sensing that doing nothing would be worse. Better that he’d simply turned prey entirely and run shrieking into the woods, Jash thought bitterly. Even as the shattered survivors were still dribbling back to the forest, Jash took charge.

  The first thing he did was round up Alk’s remaining shell-shocked troops, feed them (mostly with the bodies of their comrades, of course), and see that the lightly wounded were tended by his healers. Counting those with fight left in them brought his own strength to nearly thirteen thousand. He then sent runners to contact every other ker-noll in the area, discovering three, along with twenty-two thousand more mixed troops. Roughly half were New Army; the rest were Uul. Proclaiming himself in command, in the name of Second General Ign, he summoned them to join him.

  “Trouble,” Ker-noll Naxa growled under his breath, pointing to the west with his snout.

  Eighth General Alk was stalking toward them, followed by a large entourage.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Alk snarled, stopping in front of Jash. “Who do you think you are? How dare you proclaim yourself commander here?” He’d watched his assault under the shade of the trees, as he believed all good generals should, but the only sensible order Jash observed was when he sent foraging parties into the smoldering abattoir to claim the “rations” his attack became. Jash turned to regard him with a quiet calm, the burned-meat aroma of Alk’s genius filling his flaring nostrils.

  “It’s quite simple, Lord General,” Jash stated. “I’m First Ker-noll Jash and I bear a direct commission from Second General Ign to defend the Celestial Mother at any cost, against any threat. Having seen that you’re incapable of doing so, I’m assuming command.”

  “Seize this jumped-up hatchling!” Alk roared incredulously, and Jash swept his sword from the scabbard at his side and opened Alk’s belly from pubic bone to throat in one swift stroke. The general only stared, stunned, as coils of his intestines dropped to the ground at his feet. Then he dropped, screaming, trying to stuff his guts back in the bloody gash. Ker-noll Naxa stepped forward without a word and drove his bayonet into Alk’s eye, nailing his head to the ground.

  “Now,” Jash continued casually, glancing at the sky as if nothing had happened, “I’m told we can expect a storm. That may give us a respite from the flying machines, but the weather can’t help before nightfall at the earliest. As you’ve seen, another daylight crossing would be madness, so storm or not, we make our next attempt tonight. That leaves us all the rest of the day to prepare. We’ll gather every warrior”—he glanced contemptuously at Alk’s corpse—“that’s left, and stage as much transport nearby as we can.” He blinked at Alk’s stunned entourage. “Will that be a problem?”

  “Ahh . . . no,” replied one of the Firsts of One Hundred. Most of the others seemed just as willing to please, but three, wearing red and black slash mark devices Jash hadn’t seen before on their iron and leather armor, stood a little apart. “The gathering will commence at once,” the First assured, his voice gaining strength, “but transport will be even more difficult now.”

  “We have those,” Jash said, pointing at the dark hulks of the greatships still moored in the river. Only the tops of their casemates and tall, smoking funnels could be seen beyond the rubble of the city. “And there may be more upriver at lake Nalak. Send inquiries at once, by pennant. Whether there are or not, we can bring these inshore after dark and board.”

  “They draw too much water to dock across the river, ah, Lord First Ker-noll, and the docks here are too congested with wrecks,” another of Alk’s former staff members informed him.

  “Then the transports will ferry our warriors to the greatships, and some to shore, under cover of darkness and the gre
atship’s guns. We’ll count a great deal on those guns, in fact.”

  The staff officer hesitated. “How many warriors do you mean to take?”

  “Possibly thirty thousand.”

  There were gasps and the staff officer’s eyes went wide. “It will be most difficult to pack that many on two ships even as large as those, particularly if you desire them to participate with their guns,” he objected.

  Jash snorted impatiently. “I said ‘ferry.’ Did you not hear? There will only be a few thousand on them at any given time.”

  “You also said ‘some’ warriors, Lord First Ker-noll,” stated another, far older ker-noll, who’d nevertheless accepted Jash’s leadership.

  Jash nodded. “Yes,” he agreed cryptically. “Many will cross from the greatships to shore . . . by other means.” He looked around. “Now, is there an airship nearby—anything I might use to send a more reliable, detailed message than pennants are capable of?”

  Another of Alk’s staff flattened his crest. “Two of First General Esshk’s black airships usually lie concealed in the forest a few miles away, but one was with Second General Ign. The pennants report he already sent it to First General Esshk to inform him of events unfolding here. I . . . strongly urge you not to reveal the other in daylight.”

  “So Second General Ign already knows,” Jash mused.

  “By pennant,” the staff officer reminded unnecessarily.

  Jash huffed and looked at Naxa. “You’ll stand by to take the last airship to General Ign at my command. That may be tonight . . . or later,” he added vaguely. “If there is a storm, your mission may be hazardous, but pennants and mirrored lights will be useless. You’ll carry the latest intelligence we gather and acquire any more you can along the way. Ign may have great need of it by then.” He nodded across the river. “I suspect this is only the first of many inconveniences the enemy has planned for us.”