Deadly Wands

by Brent Reilly

CHAPTER 29

  The English wouldn’t return to England while the Mongols still threatened Paris, so he put them to work as golden air mules.

  Billy remembered how carefully his father organized his raids. The Mongols didn’t yet know about Billy’s ten thousand marathoners, so his goal was to hit them as hard as possible, as frequently as possible, for as long as possible.

  They first bombed the Mongol High Command headquarters to decapitate resistance, then they targeted the largest air units near Scandinavia to misdirect them. One of the Americans grew up there, so he gave a speech in Nordic claiming all of Scandinavia had declared war on the Empire. He’d have been laughed at if ten thousand quads didn’t stand at attention behind him. The fools assumed the Americans were the Scandinavian or Russian divisions his father started, and so massed troops north to punish them, leaving fewer quads to defend Billy’s real targets.

  As Mongols tried to figure out what was happening, Billy struck across Europe. Dropping bombs they stole from munition depots, they decimated enemy forces far behind the front lines. The Mongols didn’t have any long-distance battalions because they didn’t need them with a static front line, and so didn’t have any units capable of chasing the Americans down.

  Destroying Mongol air units left their banks, businesses, depots, government offices, and logistical network at their mercy. The front line collapsed as the High Command redeployed thousands of quads to guard banks and bases.

  It took the Mongols several expensive weeks to discover they were American marathoners based out of the Pyrenees. They sent fifty thousand quads to destroy them. First Billy wiped out their high-altitude units, then bombed the rest with impunity. Each battalion rotated hourly so the Mongols couldn’t sleep.

  A day before they reached the Pyrenees, Billy smashed them after sunset. But, instead of bombing from high altitude, they hugged the terrain at full speed. Striking from all sides, the Americans made one pass, shooting those on or near the ground. That night, one company bombed every hour to keep the Mongols awake. Exhausted quads shoot weak fireballs.

  Before dawn, nine thousand Americans hit them from their rear, but stayed to roll them up. The Mongols had spread out their camp over a vast area to reduce the odds of getting hit by bombs. Units responding to the attack ran into a nine thousand quad wall half a kilometer high that chewed them up. The Mongols still had three times as many quads, but the Americans outnumbered the Mongols who fought at any given moment. In the dark, the exhausted Mongols had no way of knowing how many enemies they faced, and the commander feared they’d also be attacked from other directions. The Americans slowly swept over the camp. At daylight, they hunted down those who escaped.

  Many of the Europeans fighting for the Mongol Air Force promptly switched sides after payday, killing Mongols on their way out. Better yet, Mongols never trusted non-Mongols within their ranks after that, driving even more quads away.

  Billy heard that American Jack was recruiting an African division, so he transferred enough gold and wands to train them -- some super, some high altitude, and some long-distance battalions.

  The Great Khan couldn’t let the Baron raid Europe with impunity, so he sent one hundred of his new marathon battalions. They were finally enjoying success against the elusive raiders in Central Asia, but the prospect of losing Europe trumped all that.

  These new troops negated the advantages that the Americans enjoyed, so Billy went for surprise. As soon as he heard, he took his raiders across Europe and, a week later, ambushed the Mongol marathoners outside Warsaw.

  Billy’s division overwhelmed Warsaw’s largest munitions supply depot after sunset, then bombed the sleeping marathoners from ten directions at low altitude at midnight. The Mongols didn’t expect to get hit so far from the Pyrenees.

  One hundred thousand quads need a lot of room, so each of Billy’s battalions attacked in a kilometer-long skirmish line at treetop level. Maximizing surprise minimized casualties. Furious, the survivors launched, unable to wait for their units to form up.

  Every unit commander typically designates 10% of his troops as a rapid-reaction force. Those ten battalions, or what was left of them, rose immediately. Flying as units made them more dangerous.

  Billy’s ten battalions used their momentum to rise steeply after sweeping the camp and pounced on the nearest enemy unit just getting off the ground. It was easy to distinguish between orderly formations and thousands of airmen flying individually. The Americans hit them from above until the formation broke into confused pieces.

  The Americans then swept over the mob rising towards them, firing down into the mass of men. Nine of Billy’s units slowly rose while shooting volleys, and the tenth broke into squads to clear the skies above them. Without large units, they faced an angry mob. It was like fighting a bar full of drunks.

  Not all Mongols rose at once, since many helped the wounded or were stunned, dear, or blind from the bombs, so the Mongols didn’t even enjoy overwhelming numbers. While the American battalions covered each other, the enemy didn’t attack at the same time or at the same place, much less fly around to strike from above.

  At dawn, the Americans slaughtered the wounded, chased down survivors, and packed the valuables. By noon, they surprised the nearest enemy units, then emptied Bank of Mongolia branches since the enemy could not stop them.

  Billy called a meeting after dinner. Ten thousand troops looked up at him on a hill, where he used his wand to amplify his voice.

  “We are so weighted down that we can only average half our usual distance. One hundred thousand enemy quads are within a thousand clicks, and will now be hunting us down.

  “The enemy knows where we are and where home is, so they’ll throw everything that have at us. If we fly as a division, they’ll spot us. If we break up into companies, they’ll kill us. So we cannot stay here and we cannot go home. What do you want to do?”

  Atop a boulder, Billy heard more curses than suggestions. “Tiny, got any ideas?”

  “I hear Madagascar is nice this time of year.”

  “They’ll mobilize every resource, but for how long? Apart from these marathoners, we’ve already killed a few hundred thousand enemies in Europe. Every quad assigned to us is not killing Frenchmen or guarding gold. How long can they wait until those men are needed back at their old jobs? The French will endanger their lines. Bandits will rob banks. Rebels will empty supply depots. Can they afford to maintain their mobilization for one month? Two? Three months?”

  Billy examined their faces to see who saw where he was heading.

  “You’re not my only employees in danger. Our brothers and sisters in Central Asia can’t go home because a huge force blocks the Bering Strait. That division is what made our success possible because they forced the Khan to strip Europe of its best quads. Without those heroes keeping half a million quads busy in Siberia, many of you would now be dead.

  “Tiny told me that our sister division had to break up into companies to hide and forage better. They’ll starve this winter. Imagine them dying of hunger beside the huge fortune they’ve accumulated. Many of you trained alongside them at American University. These are friends, not strangers.

  “By spring, they’ll be dead and their plunder lost. Many of you will have to replace them in Siberia or else the Khan will send those Mongols to France. Genghis will finally conquer Europe and then exterminate the Americas.”

  Billy now hovered over their gloomy faces, thousands of eyes glued to him. Hovering is actually very hard, but he made it look easy. The Red Baron theatrically raised his arms to the heavens. “Oh, if only those heroes had friends with a few months to kill!”

  The dark mood lightened instantly and their laughter thundered across the grassy hills.

  “Joining our sister division doubles our combat strength. The Mongols broke up into battalions to chase our companies, which makes killing them safer and easier. I say we deposit our loot i
n Helsinki, then take a tour of Siberia!”

  The thunderous applause elated him. He could feel his father smiling down at him.

  By the time they reached the Bering Strait, the Americans killed many times their number, including most of the specialty quads that worried Billy.

  While the marathoners exhausted the blocking force, Billy had the near-marathoners bomb them from the other side. Blowing a hole in the human wall, the marathoners crossed into Alaska hauling a year’s worth of plunder to enjoy the winter with their families.

  Billy didn’t want to kill them all; he just wanted to bleed them so that the Khan kept replacing them. Billy would rather have enemies at the Bering Strait than in France. Just feeding them, thousands of kilometers from the nearest farm, tied up support personnel who’d otherwise do something useful for the war effort.

  The smarter move would have been for Genghis to gather his total strength and invade the Americas. But, instead of flying where the Americans hid underground bunkers, attack where they were least expected -- like the American east coast.

  Mongol editorials ripped The Great Khan. A new giant walked the earth, and he barely stood five feet tall.

  With Mongols no longer threatening France, Billy could finally take his uncle home.