Deadly Wands

by Brent Reilly

CHAPTER 72

  Billy now commanded six battalions of super-quads, fourteen marathoners, and ten near-marathoners. They faced fifty weak quad battalions and three hundred thousand two-wanders. Billy looked for doubt in their faces, but his commanders assumed they’d triumph like they always did. Even Midis never turned so much into gold.

  At least they didn’t have to confront fifty quad battalions at the same time. Twenty battalions flew ahead in an arrow formation, while ten protected their rear. Leaving just twenty babysitting the supply wagons.

  Billy hid the high-altitude quads in the Victory Pass. At 7500 meters in altitude, it was too high for the Mongols to breathe. The rest concealed themselves in a nearby forest. Billy watched several patrols fly high over them and waited until one inspected the trees. Then he sliced that squad up and led the near-marathoners bombers to battle.

  He expected to be seen, and was surprised how close they got, given how slow they flew, weighted down with bombs.

  Lone sentries hiding in clouds sounded the alarm when they were just five minutes out, and others quickly echoed it. The mountain pass went from east-to-west, and an enemy battalion each occupied the northern and southern rim.

  Billy watched the rapid reaction battalion rise to position themselves to attack him and could almost hear their glee in having such a fat target. Although Billy couldn’t see him at this distance, their general almost certainly popped up to personally assess the threat, and broke up a reserve battalion into one hundred squads to fan out to find other threats. The general was probably laughing at the sight of a bunch of weighted down Indians flying low and slow in broad daylight with no cover.

  As the rapid reaction battalion moved above and behind them, three more enemy battalions confronted them head on. Four coming after him, two on the mountaintop, and two flying patrols -- that left just twelve on the ground guarding the wagons.

  Excellent! This attack would not have worked if the enemy had another fifty thousand quads.

  While the Mongols focused on this faint, his best super-quads slew the sentries and patrols above the battleground and through this hole Team Red dived at maximum speed. As soon as an alert sentry shrieked a warning, Billy did his primal scream and flashed his fiery wands to keep their attention on him a little longer. His near-marathoners turned and flew straight up to form a wall to fire broadsides at the battalion diving at them from behind.

  The other three Mongol battalions rushed to attack, oblivious to Team Red diving behind them. The super-quads fired as soon as they got within range, then retained their relative positions because they could hit the enemy, but the enemy could not hit them. The three battalions had three options: a mass attack into those firing at them, turn on the bombers led by the Red Baron, or flee. And if all three made the same choice, they’d have been better off. Instead, each made a different choice. The battalion that rushed the super-quads died first; the battalion that turned their backs to the super-quads to attack Billy’s bombers died next; and those who fled lived several minutes longer.

  The battalion diving at the near-marathoners from behind could only shoot with their front quads, while Indians formed their wall at an angle so they could all fire back, despite the bombs on their backs. The Mongols should have rose in an arc to fall like a blanket so they could all shoot at the same time -- and even then, target only the highest enemies. Instead, a thousand Indians shot up one hundred Mongols at a time, ten times over, as they got within range.

  Good thing, too, since Billy had already left them.

  The Americans flew out of their bunkers to attack the two battalions on the mountaintop while his high altitude unit dove to bomb the quads in the pass eating lunch. Within the pass, the Mongols had no idea what was happening. As he hoped, Prince and Princess killed the general before he could sound the general alarm. Soldiers obey commands. The general didn’t send for them, so they continued eating. Until too late.

  Which is why Billy attacked at lunch time, with the bulk of the logistical train stuck in the pass.

  His near-marathoners raced to drop their bombs in the pass and joined the Americans, super-quads, and high altitude quads blasting the Mongols on top. The enemy had nowhere to go. Hence the efficacy of corralling them in the Torugart Pass. Taking the high ground turned the battle into a rout.

  Billy was not used to out-numbering the enemy. The super-quads pursued the enemy fleeing east and marathoners attacked those fleeing west. Now all he needed to worry about were the Mongols in the vanguard, those in the rear, and those flying distant patrols.

  The super-quads had almost ran out of targets fleeing east when Billy saw a shadow on the horizon. He led his team away, diving behind the mountain to get out of sight before rising sharply into the closest clouds.

  The vanguard has broken up their twenty battalions into groups of four thousand. Billy’s six thousand super-quads raced to get behind the first group unseen. Billy chased the enemy as they dove. Billy estimated his unit would arrive a little too late, so he screamed at the Mongols.

  Warned, the Americans rose straight up to get out of the angle of attack. This forced the Mongols to rise sharply, which fatally slowed them. With a gesture from Billy’s flaming wands, Team Red spread out to attack with swords. Those closest slowed to let the rest of the team catch up -- something the Mongols attacking his near-marathoners should have done earlier. Almost as one, they got within range to slice up four thousand Mongols from behind.

  By the time they finished them off, the next four thousand showed up above and behind them, forcing them to flee south. Billy hoped they would pursue him, but instead they joined the main battle.

  Billy couldn’t catch them in time, so he positioned his guys for the next four thousand. Who took forever to show up. But once they committed, Team Red flew out of cloud cover to smash them, then engage the four thousand they missed.

  But just a few minutes into this firefight, Prince warned them of the next group. Billy shrieked the signal to form up, but needed to give his guys time, so he popped up and flashed his four flames -- one man staring down four thousand.

  The enemy commander took his unit out of their steep dive to consider his options as they fell in formation at gravity speed. Every heartbeat felt like a victory. Billy could almost read his mind. He didn’t want to fight the Red Baron but, at the same time, thousands of comrades were fighting for their lives. So the bastard did the right thing and ordered his formation to form a square -- well, technically, four squares that looked like one big square -- to fire a huge volley that would cover everything near the Red Baron.

  Billy respected it. The leader made the correct tactical call. And he forced Billy to run like hell because not even the Baron could dodge or shield himself from four thousand fireballs. Looking west, Billy saw his super-quads still engaging the enemy, with their backs to the four thousand.

  So Billy didn’t see Prince, diving at maximum speed, behead the unit commander. But he did see Princess lead the five hundred Americans -- now formed up -- to shoot them from behind. So Billy positioned himself below the four thousand to look like an easy target. He spent a dangerous minute dodging thousands of fireballs -- or mostly dodging most of them -- as the Americans knocked them from the sky. Billy fell with them, to stay at their maximum range, until he ran out of room at the bottom of the pass. Now he raced west as his super-quads turned to attack what was left of the four thousand.

  Enough Mongols apparently survived to warn the rest of the vanguard because no more groups attacked from the east.

  The Battle of the Pass was a victory worth bragging about. Billy sent Zhu a propaganda video of him documenting the destruction of the Khan’s follow up force, showing a few hundred thousand dead in the pass, and thousands of smiling Indians bathing in gold coins. To boost Chinese morale and deflate the Mongols, Billy even lied and said the Indians freed the entire subcontinent. Zhu naturally dropped thousands of copies to the Khan�
��s troops when he bomb their armada. Losing his follow-up forces and India (as far as he knew) made fighting deeper into southern China futile. Genghis retreated that night and Zhu declared China independent the next morning.

  Some historians argued that this effectively ended the world war. What they didn’t mention is that Genghis Khan could have stopped it at any time by accepting William’s terms after the Summer Slaughter.

  They spent the afternoon finishing the enemy wounded, aiding their own injured, and stripping the corpses. The Mongols provided them food and tents. Billy posted plenty of sentries, but didn’t expect any night raids because his faster quads could chase them down. In the morning, they met at the scenic Lake Chatyr-Kul to discuss their options.

  The Mongols at Grandma’s end abandoned the heavy supplies, including most of the gold, and fled to the relative safety of the ten thousand quads guarding their rear. She now had ten kilometers of wagons to protect. None of them liked the idea of being anchored to one spot. They needed to get rid of them. Fast. Without turning themselves into air mules.

  Billy ran a proposal by his leaders. Since no one objected, he sent for the two Indian cousins who looked like twins, with their unit commanders.

  “You still have family in northern India?”

  “Several thousand,” one of them answered. He still couldn’t tell them apart.

  “Who rules there now?” Billy asked.

  “A greedy Mongol named Bekel. He has squeezed the land, people, and businesses into dry carcasses. It shames us since for centuries we were the most prosperous kingdom in India.”

  Billy caught them by surprise. “It’ll take decades for the Republic of India to consolidate the entire subcontinent.

  You can make their job easier if you restore the kingdom that Tamerlane took from you and turn it into a representative democracy.”

  The offer stunned them.

  “You’ll have to deposit the shares due the Indians, but the Americans and the super-quads have agreed to forfeit our cut to fund your new government. And the half that would go to my general war fund I hereby donate to your treasury on the condition that your elected leaders sign trade and mutual defense treaties with China, Persia, and the Republic of India.”

  “Agreed!” they shouted, jumping up and down like teenagers.

  “Then let’s leave the near-marathoners to move and protect the wagon train while the rest of us leave after sunset to liberate your kingdom.”

  The Indians gave Billy a group hug a dozen people thick. Someone started a song in Hindu and soon everyone was singing while they took turns embracing Billy.

  For Team Red, this solved their problem simply. They couldn’t just leave all that gold, yet they sure didn’t want to tie it around their ankles. Mongols controlled Tibet, Billy didn’t trust the new Persian government, while northern India was the closest place to send it.

  While everyone prepared to leave, Prince came back with word that the 20,000 or so survivors on the eastern end of the pass headed north, to circle around west to join up with the gold they were suppose to protect.

  “Do you know what I want you to do, Grandma?” Billy asked.

  She sighed. “Make sure the Mongols don’t ambush the wagon train.”

  “You’re a mind reader!” He turned to Princess. “Well, my wife, want to liberate a kingdom?”

  “You can call me your wife when you finally man up and marry me.”

  The silence felt incredibly uncomfortable.

  “At least you two talk like a married couple,” Bear remarked.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you,” Billy said, looking hard at Princess, “but now I’m really in a killer mood.”

  “I’d be in a better mood if you gave me more,” she shot back.

  "You're not pregnant enough?" he joked, patting her growing bump. "You don't see Blade here demanding more."

  "Well," Blade replied smiling, "not from you."

  "Ouch!" Billy turned to Prince. "If even Blade can develop a sense of humor, then I hold out hope for you, dear brother."