by David Weber
"You and Gronningen are our high-country experts," Roger said, with a smile in his voice.
"Sure," the sergeant grumped. He didn't mention that that position had previously been occupied by Dokkum. The native of the planet Nepal had been an expert at everything involving "elevation." Unfortunately, "had been" was the operative term. He'd died just before Ran Tai.
"This isn't going to be a short movement," the NCO went on after a moment. The carpeting Mardukan jungle had given way to a more open, deciduous forest, but even that stopped well short of the tops of the ridges. There was a faint track, a trail left by the local equivalent of goats, along the ridgeline, but getting to it would be difficult. The ridge was at least five hundred meters above their present position, and those meters were damned near vertical.
"We'll get the Vashin moving by just before dawn, one way or the other," Roger said. "I need you in position by then."
The Mardukan night was eighteen hours long, which would give the squad at least fifteen hours to effect the move. Julian thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded.
"Can do, Boss." He shook his head in mock sorrow. "I need to get less competent, or something."
Roger chuckled and clapped him on the back.
"Just imagine the stories you'll be able to tell in the NCO club. You'll never have to buy a beer again."
Julian looked back up at the trackless mountain and nodded.
"Now there's a motivator. Free beer. Free beer. I'll just keep repeating that."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Macek spat over the edge of the ridge and shook his head.
"You look into the abyss, and the abyss looks back," he muttered.
"Less philosophy, more climb," Gronningen growled back from where he'd paused on a wide spot at the base of the second peak.
The squad was strung out along a knife-edged ridge, the top of the saddle between two mountains. The "flat" surface was no more than a meter wide, with sheer drops on both sides. And the assault team would have to cross a nearly vertical shoulder of the second peak to get into position above the citadel.
"There was a shelf," Julian said, puffing slightly. The ridge was nearly five thousand meters above Mardukan sea level, which meant that even with the slightly thicker atmosphere, oxygen was in short supply. More than that, Julian had let Gronningen set the pace, knowing the indomitable Asgardian would push them to the limits ... and he had. "About another hundred meters up and to the northwest," the NCO added with another pant.
"I think I see it," Gronningen agreed. He dialed up the zoom on his helmet and studied the terrain feature. "Narrow," he opined, then removed his helmet and wiped at the sweat on his forehead. The night had gotten downright cool, and there was a strong wind blowing up from the valley, but the pace had everyone sweating as if they were still in Marduk's jungles. "Really narrow."
"Best His Nibs could spot before sundown," Julian replied, checking his toot for the time. "Four more hours until we need to be on the walls."
"We can make that easily," Gronningen said, replacing his helmet and picking up his pack. "If we keep going, that is."
"Lead on, Mule," Julian said. "Onward and upward."
* * *
Julian leaned out from the narrow ledge and sent a laser sweep across the top of the fortress far below.
"Two thousand meters."
"Right at The Book's outside drop limit," Macek said with a dubious headshake. "Long way to fall."
"It is that," Julian agreed unhappily.
The ledge was, indeed, narrow—a thin shelf of slightly harder granite intruded into the surrounding matrix. Some latter-day earth movement had shifted and folded the mountain, thrusting the horizontal dike outwards, exposing it to erosion. Over time, the remnants had become a half-meter wide section of granite, suspended over a two thousand-meter drop.
"It's the only choice we have, though," the squad leader added. "I want everyone to spread out. It looks like we're right over the inner battlements. Watch your distribution, and for God's sake, don't get entangled—this damned spider-wire'll slit you in half if you give it a chance."
"Yeah, but it works," Gronningen said as he surreptitiously attached a clip to the sergeant's descent harness. The combination of his voice and the night wind concealed the tiny sound it made as it clicked home ... and then he pushed Julian off the cliff.
There wasn't a thing Julian could do—the blow to his back was too unexpected. He was thrown well out from the cliff, and found himself almost automatically shifting into a delta-track, a sky-diving position for maneuvering. His brain ran frantically through a list of ways to survive the drop, but nothing came to mind, nor could he understand why one of his best friends had just succeeded in killing him.
* * *
Macek spun in place, his bead rifle level, but Gronningen held up one hand with a screaming spider reel in it. It was obvious that the other end of the wire was attached to Julian.
"What the pock are you doing, Gron?" the corporal snarled. "You've got about two seconds to explain!"
"Just this," Gronningen said, with a rare smile. He attached the reel to the wall with a mag-clamp and laid on the tension. "I mean, now we know it works, right?"
* * *
Julian gazed down at the battlements, a hundred meters below him. He'd been observing them fairly carefully for the last several minutes, since the spider-line had slowed him to a halt. There wasn't much else he could do; the line had him suspended almost head-down.
He heard a faint rattle of rock, and then Gronningen appeared next to him, fully inverted.
"Gronningen, what are you dicking around at?" Julian asked with deadly menace.
" 'I love you, too, man,' " the Asgardian quoted. "You remember in Voitan, I said 'You gonna pay'?"
"Oh, you son-of-a—"
"Ah-ah!" The Asgardian grinned. "I pull this clamp, and it's really gonna smart when you hit the top of that thing."
"Oh, you son-of-a ..." Julian stopped and sighed. "Okay. You got me. Jesus, did you get me. I promise, no more jokes. Just ... don't do something like that again, okay?"
"You should have seen Geno," Gronningen said with another grin, as he handed a fresh spider-spool across to the squad leader. "I think he nearly burst a blood vessel."
"Well, I'm proof positive that you don't die of fright on the way down," Julian said. "Jesus. This isn't a truce, though. I'm gonna get you. Just you wait."
"I tingle with anticipation," the Asgardian told him with a chuckle. "You got a good grip on that reel?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Good," Gronningen said, and flicked off the clamp that was holding the sergeant suspended.
Julian tried not to scream as he dropped into empty air again.
* * *
Macek looked around the top of the battlements with an expression of disbelief. Except for the eternal sighing of the wind, there wasn't a sound to be heard, and there was no one in sight.
"Okay, I'll bite," he whispered. "Where's the guards?"
"I don't know," Julian said. "Not here."
The top of the gatehouse was about thirty meters across, with a trap door at either end. The gate filled the pass from side to side. On the southeast side, a narrower walkway led to the top of the secondary keep, apparently a barracks or headquarters. Gronningen walked back from there, shaking his head, while Macek grimaced.
"Don't tell me they don't post sentries," he said. "That's ... insane."
"It's freezing," Julian pointed out. "I mean, it's only about ten degrees out here. If they were out in this, they'd be catatonic, maybe dead."
Gronningen consulted his toot, then nodded with a remote expression.
"Fifty or so, Fahrenheit, yes?" he said. "Not cold, but brisk."
"More than just brisk for scummies, man," Julian said.
"So they just don't guard at all?" Macek asked. "Still not too smart."
"They're used to fighting Shin," the squad leader replied, "and I don't think they can move in this,
either. Look at the Vashin. They're all huddled around fires being torpid. This kind of cold can kill Mardukans."
"So they're all inside waiting to hit us on the heads as soon as we stick 'em in there?" Macek asked. "It's a clever plot to lure us to our deaths?"
"No, that was the recruiter who got us to join the Marines," Gronningen said. He walked over to the nearer trap door and pulled at the handle. The door was outsized, designed for Mardukans, and Gronningen was probably the only man in the company who could have lifted it. It didn't even quiver, though, and he knelt down to examine it more closely. Light seeped up around the edges, and he grunted as he found the darker shadow where a latching bar cut across the light.
"Not a problem," Julian said, kneeling beside him. The sergeant slipped a device from his belt and slid the incredibly sharp, flexible ribbon-blade into the crack. It sliced through the half-meter ironwood bar as if it hadn't even been there.
Gronningen was ready, and air hissed in his nostrils as he heaved upward. The door rose a few centimeters, and Julian got under it and threw his own weight against it. Between them, they raised it shoulder high, and Macek propped it up with a piece of wood.
There was no ladder, but it was a simple enough proposition—after climbing the mountain—to lower themselves into the room below. The chamber was about fifteen meters on a side, with a high, domed ceiling, and a stairway in the west corner. It, too, was deserted, with a dead coal fire in a hibachilike affair in the middle of the room.
"That's a quick way to asphyxiate," Macek observed in a whisper.
"Out?" Gronningen murmured, pointing to a door on the east side. "Or down?"
"Down," Julian whispered back promptly, although his expression was puzzled.
The spiral stairs led to a passageway—high for the humans, but low and narrow for Mardukans—that went both right and left, towards the gates and the barracks, respectively.
"Right," Julian said, and led the way.
The passageway turned, apparently following the shoulder of the hill, and opened onto a large room with barred windows through which a cold wind blew. The room was at the base of the gates, and stairs disappeared upward into the gloom where the gate controls were presumably located.
Other than some litter in one corner, the room was empty.
"This is getting silly." This time, Macek didn't bother to whisper.
"We'll try the barracks," Julian said. "There has to be somebody around here."
They followed the same passage back in the opposite direction, towards the barracks. They had to deal with two more barred doors along the way, but finally they entered the main hall of the keep. It was a vaulted monstrosity, with a huge fire pit in the middle and the ubiquitous cushions that served Mardukans for chairs scattered around the pit.
No one was using any of the cushions, however. Instead, the middle of the pit was filled by a group of Mardukans, arranged in a fairly neat pile. Half-burned logs and ash had been dragged out of the center and pushed to the side. Obviously, the Mardukans had set a fire in the pit during the day so that they could sleep on the warmed rock underneath at night.
And every one of them was in the semi-hibernation torpidity that extreme cold induced in their species.
"Oh, puhleeease! " Macek exclaimed in disgust. "This is it? I rode all the way up here, played mountain goat, and then jumped off a damned cliff for this?"
"I think these guys must've taken the short airbus to school," Julian said. "The Vashin at least try to keep one guy per squad awake. This is idiotic. Geno, get up to the roof and signal the prince. Tell him we've taken the 'fortress.' "
"Will do," Macek said with a sigh. "But this really bites."
"What? You wanted a fight?" Gronningen asked, looking at the heaped Mardukans. The entire garrison's weapons were stacked neatly along one wall, and all of their armor was laid out in ranks. Obviously, they were ready to get up in a few hours, when things warmed up, and start banging horn with the best of them. "I think this is great," the Asgardian announced.
"Whatever," Macek grumped. "It just offends my sense of professionalism."
"And Gomer here pushing me off the cliff didn't?" Julian asked.
"Nah," the corporal replied with a grin. "In fact, that was about the most professional payback I've ever seen!"
* * *
The column rounded the last corner of the interminable track just after dawn. It had started to rain again, but with the increased elevation, it was a cold, miserable rain that ate into the Marines' uniforms like acid. The chameleon uniform was, technically, all-environment—capable of handling anything from jungle to arctic. But the Marines had been slogging across a hostile world for nearly six months, and it showed.
The uniforms were a tattered patchwork of different cloths. There were whole sleeves and legs of dianda— the silklike flax of distant Marshad—as mute testimony to the terrible battle at Voitan. The dianda, in turn, was patched with the fine sedgelike cloth of K'Vaern's Cove and Diaspra. All of the patches were of faded dark cloth, which had the virtue of low visibility but blended poorly with the changeable chameleon cloth.
The Marines looked as faded as their uniforms. Their faces were drawn and pale, from the ascent into the mountains, from the cold, from the ongoing low-level vitamin deficiencies of their coll –oil supplements substitute, and from the omnipresence of war. All in all, Roger thought, the company looked on its last legs.
He walked to the front of the column and waved an ironic salute at Captain Pahner.
"I make you a gift of the Fortress of Shesul Pass, with fifty turom, one hundred and twenty rather questionable soldiers, and a rich booty of small arms," he announced, and Pahner chuckled.
"I think you're getting too into this, Your Highness."
"Just trying to make like a Roman, Captain," Roger replied with a grin. "Seriously, we should probably rest up for a day or two before we move on."
"We can't discount pursuit," Pahner pointed out.
"No," the prince agreed. "But when you get a good look at this place, I think you'll agree we can also leave a nonexpendable rearguard to hold any pursuit off." He waved to O'Casey as she joined them.
"Ms. O'Casey." He greeted her with a nod. "The mountain air appears to agree with you," he said, and it was true. In many ways, the academic looked better than the Marines about her.
"That's a long walk to force on an old woman," his chief of staff replied.
"Well, the captain has almost convinced me to let you take a break," Roger joked. "The Krath must've had plans for this pass; the facility's area is far larger than necessary for the garrison. There are sufficient quarters to house all of us in relative comfort, although they don't appear to have discovered the chimney, so the fires fill the rooms with smoke."
"If you don't mind, Captain," Doc Dobrescu said, dropping down from one of the passing carts, "I have to agree. We've got a lot of wounded and injured, and these carts are pure hell on them. Give them a couple of days under a roof and warm, and they'll be able to heal much faster."
"All right," Pahner said. "We'll stay. Two days. Your Highness, I assume the Vashin are down from the cold as well?"
"They're not doing well," Roger agreed. "Actually, they're more used to it than I expected, probably from being from the northern plains, but the most they can do is to maintain sentries."
"We'll let them rest as well," Pahner decided. "We should be able to go down to about ten percent security. I'd really prefer to put out a sentry group down the valley, but we'll settle for putting them up on the walls. Sergeant Major!"
"Yes, Sir," Kosutic replied. The carts had reached the open bailey of the fortress and were now stopped in a line. Roger noticed that most of them were being driven by Marines, and the handful of native teamsters driving the rest had small charcoal braziers burning under their seats.
"We're stopping here for a day or two," Pahner told Kosutic. "Leave the carts mostly packed; there should be stores in the castle, and we'll live off of them. Te
n percent security, Marines only. Get everybody bunked down and working on gear."
"Yes, Sir," Kosutic repeated, making no effort to conceal her obvious relief. The sergeant major was like iron, but she knew when a unit was on its last legs. Now she looked up and shook her head.
"Speak of the devil," she said, and grinned as Julian walked towards the command group. But the intelligence sergeant didn't grin back, and her own smile faded as she absorbed his expression.
"Sirs," he said, nodding at the officers, then held up a small device. "I found this in the commander's quarters."
Pahner accepted it, turned it over in his hands, and frowned at the maker's mark.
"A Zuiko tri-cam?" he mused.
"I think they must have been in contact with the port," Julian said darkly. "We may have a real problem, Sir."
"Maybe," Roger said. "And maybe not. We need to find out where it came from. Get some of the locals functional and find out."
"Yes, Sir," the sergeant said. He turned towards the fortress' main entrance, then stopped. "Or, maybe not."
One of Rastar's Vashin was walking slowly towards them, trailing a plume of smoke. One of the ways the cavalry coped with the cold was by toting small braziers of charcoal around with them like incense censors.
"Captain Pahner," the cavalryman said slowly when he finally reached the group, and saluted. "Marine. Gronningen. Has. Found. A human." The sentence seemed to have taken everything he had, and he dropped his salute and stood like a statue.
"We have got to get lower. Soon," Kosutic said to fill the gap in the conversation.
They'd all known that this moment would come, but this was the first "new" human they'd had contact with since crashing on the planet. And while the Mardukans might have stopped them from getting off-planet at any time, the humans could stop them if they realized what they faced. How to handle the local humans had been considered and debated at vast and exhausting length, but it had been impossible to make any clear plans without more information than they had. Now the moment of reckoning was upon them.
