The Miocene Arrow

by Sean McMullen

  The women and children of the estate were all there, dead. Many had been stripped naked, and some were battered from struggling before they had been killed. Serjon swayed, caught the edge of a table, and held himself up. Finally he forced himself to stand up straight, fought down a horror that he could never hope to articulate, and walked toward the closest body.

  He forced himself to look into thirty-nine dead faces, checking each woman and child for signs of life and noting down every name in a scrawl that was scarcely his own writing. Their hands were all cold as he checked each body for a pulse. Cold skin, and no beat of life at a single wrist for body after body. Three times thirteen, he said to himself. A very bad number. His mother and five sisters had died close to each other, as if they had tried to be together at the end. Cassender had died clutching something. Serjon eased back the girl’s lifeless fingers and plucked a Bartolican merchant officer’s pennant bar from her palm.

  “Thank you, Cassender, now sleep well,” he said as he kissed his dead sister’s cold fingers. “He will die for this, I swear it.”

  Serjon walked about the hall for some minutes, eyes streaming with tears, wanting to do something for the dead yet feeling as helpless as a ghost himself. Bronlar was not among the dead, he realized with a relief so intense that it caught him by surprise. She had not returned from Median, so she had been spared. To Serjon it made sense: if she had returned there would have been forty women and children, and they would have been safe. Still, he could not blame her, he had not noticed the number himself. Fate lay in wait, crouched ready to strew thirteens into the paths of the unwary. One could never afford to relax.

  Back outside, he made for the fabrication house. There he found the missing guildsmen, all neatly bound and shot—but not quite all. The senior guildsmen and guildmasters were gone. The ground showed the mark of hobnails in the softer parts, and carbineers wore hobnail boots with articulated soles of wood and leather. Carbineers had been there. Carbineers in their hundreds. They must have arrived almost as soon as the young warden’s little flock had ascended, but why do such monstrous murders? Why not torch the place, disarm the people, and leave them under guard? He checked every body for warmth or a pulse, but found nothing but cold skin.

  “Serjon!” The call came from outside. “Serjon, where are you? We have to get out!” The words were Old Anglian and the voice was familiar.

  Glasken was standing beside Serjon’s sailwing, holding Jeb Feydamor and calling out at the top of his voice. As Serjon came running up he laid Feydamor against a wheel. Kumiar was leaning against his own sailwing, his arm bandaged with strips of shirt through which blood was already seeping.

  “They came up the tramway branch line after you ascended,” babbled Glasken. “I’d just taken my pack and gun and was walking for the woods. I watched as they herded your people together and into the halls. The guildmasters were separated and marched down to the steam trams, where they were bound and clubbed unconscious. After that the shooting began where the men were being held. I could hear the women shrieking and screaming when they realized what was happening, but the doors were locked. When the carbineers were finished they returned to the refectory. The screams began again, and this time they went on and on and on.”

  Glasken reeled with the horror of the recollection, then shook his head clear and continued.

  “Only two carbineers were left to guard the steam trams. I killed them both, and the screams from the refectory muffled the sound of my shots. Jeb was all that I could carry, Serjon, he was all that I could carry. We had to get right away into the forest before the others came back. I’m over fifty, Serjon, I’m not as strong as I used—”

  “Glasken, shut up!” Serjon barked. “You did all you could, in fact you did more than I might have. Did they take the compression spirit?”

  “No, there’s plenty on the trolley.”

  “Then help me fill the sailwings’ tanks.”

  They pushed the wagon to Serjon’s sailwing and Glasken pumped compression spirit while Serjon stripped what he could from the sailwing to save weight. Jeb recognized Serjon, but his mumbles made little sense, while Kumiar had lost so much blood that he could barely stand.

  “I made it look like Jeb had freed himself and killed the guards,” Glasken called above the chugging of the compression engine. “There was laughing and cheering mixed with screams, then there was only one voice left screaming. When she was silenced the carbineers came out. God in heaven how I despise rapists! A man who cannot allure a woman has no right to sex, if I could make that law I surely would. Ah, it was barely ninety minutes in doing, and at the end it all looked so neat! There were two hundred of them, all carbineers. Nobody from Opal put up any resistance, Serjon.”

  “But why did they do it, Sair Glasken? Why?”

  “I don’t know! Don’t you think I didn’t wonder that myself? About ten minutes before you got back that other sailwing landed. I left Jeb in the woods and crawled over, just in case it was a trap. Kumiar was the flyer, and he was in a worse mess than his sailwing. I got him clear and patched him up.”

  “My family, Glasken! They murdered my family!” cried Serjon, flopping down in the dust. “Why?”

  “Perhaps they were in a hurry. Perhaps they could not bother to spare a few guards.”

  “I touched so many cold hands. They were all so cold.”

  “I know, I know, the hands go cold first, I have been a soldier, I have seen a lot of death. Strange, though … nothing has been looted and there has been no vandalism. Look at the place. It’s almost as if the humans were being swept away so that … someone else could march in and take over! Yes, yes. Those aviad bastards want this place intact!”

  “Aviad?” asked Serjon, looking up.

  “Don’t even ask. Get compression spirit and lamps, we owe it to the dead to burn this place.”

  “Burn it? Why?”

  “Sheer spite.”

  “My family has been here for centuries.”

  “Opal was lost with only two shots fired back, and they were mine! Come on, lad, help the dead fight back and cheat these bastards of their prize.”

  It did not take long to set the buildings burning, and with nobody to fight the flames they quickly took a strong hold. Serjon used a linkage strap to spin the compression engine of Kumiar’s sailwing from his own until it began chugging.

  “Well, Johnny’s for the road now,” said Glasken as he stood back from the aircraft.

  “No, I’ll take you,” said Kumiar. “You helped me when I landed.”

  “Me? Fly in that?” asked Glasken, pointing at the blackened, battle-flayed sailwing and looking doubtfully at the swaying flyer.

  “Prove your bravery, Sair Glasken, the girls will love you for it,” said Feydamor, whose head was clearing at last. “Leave your gun and pack, though. Take off your boots, have a piss, anything to save weight.”

  “Climb in behind the seat, I’ll tilt it forward for you,” Kumiar offered.

  Glasken kept his boots, and took a few things out of his pack before flinging it into the flames of a nearby building. He looked terrified but determined as he crawled into the sailwing; then Serjon helped Kumiar into the cockpit. Kumiar ascended first with Glasken, and then Serjon ascended with his father. They skirted Middle Junction, and quickly covered the extra thirty miles to Green River. Their luck held, and the overloaded sailwings encountered no enemy wings before landing at the wingfield. Here the Yarronese pennons still flew.

  In a state of near-exhaustion, Serjon and Kumiar told their stories of the attack on Evanston to the adjunct as Glasken and Feydamor described the atrocities at Opal to the presiding warden.

  “Five kills,” Serjon added to the story of his warden’s death. “A gunwing of Palissendier House, and an unknown gunwing, a regal, and two sailwings.”

  The adjunct steadied Serjon as he sat down in the short grass where Kumiar was already lying. As a medic came running the adjunct made some quick notes on his board.

&nb
sp; “Five for three is good,” said the adjunct.

  “No, that was just me,” replied Serjon. “Five sailwings destroyed on the ground by Lindrin’s sailwing crashing into them, and an interpretive kill of a gunwing should be made to Warden Ricmear. I saw no more. Both Yarron gunwings of the Jannian household were shot down.”

  “Shot up two gunwings on the wingfield, left them burning,” said Kumiar in a slurred voice.

  “That’s thirteen kills for three losses!” exclaimed the amazed adjunct.

  “Thirteen?” echoed Serjon in a quavering voice.

  “A disaster for the Bartolicans, sair. Thirteen for three.”

  “Thirteen?” said Serjon again.

  “Come now, rest while the sailwings are refueled and rearmed. Five victories on your first day—and two of them wardens! You must lead the flock of surviving sailwings to Median.”

  “Thirteen?” said Serjon yet again as the adjunct hurried away.

  Kumiar propped himself up against his parachute as the medics began sewing up the gash in his arm. Wincing with the pain, he called to Serjon.

  “Serjon. They … didn’t die because … we destroyed thirteen. Agh! I can read your thoughts. Careful!”

  “You don’t understand, Kumiar, it is my fault. I amplify the curse of thirteen for all those around me.”

  He got up and shambled away among the guildsmen and flyers, looking for the adjunct. He counted thirteen wings on the wingfield, and he was definitely not going to lead a flock of thirteen. Near the pennant pole was a group of flyers, all waiting for the adjunct as well.

  Serjon had been fighting a feeling of nausea for some minutes, and now it overwhelmed him. He sat down beside a tent with his face in his hands. The world seemed to be spinning … .

  “Easy, easy, give him room!”

  Serjon opened his eyes to find himself laid out on a stretcher, with a medic kneeling over him.

  “No injuries, but clammy skin, raised pulse and breathing, and—ah, you’re awake. What happened, Sair Feydamor?”

  “I was walking, then … felt giddy, nauseous.”

  “His first flight in anger was today,” said the adjunct’s voice. “He made his first kills—and also discovered the atrocities at the Jannian estate.”

  “Post-duel shock,” the medic pronounced. “Does he have to fly again today?”

  “Yes, yes. We need five flyers to be on Call patrol, and another eight to take the damaged sailwings to Median. A Call is on the way, too, it will be here in an hour. The Bartolicans have been dropping firebombs on some towns and wingfields during Calls, so we need the wings that can fight to be patrolling while the rest are evacuated.”

  The medic took Serjon’s pulse again. “Normally I would not let him ascend again today, but all the other rules are being broken so why not?”

  Serjon sat up slowly and turned to face the adjunct.

  “Do you still want me to lead the flock of eight to Median?” he asked. “I’m feeling better.”

  The flight to Median took ninety minutes, but the weather was kind to the damaged wings and injured flyers. Below them the tramway was dotted with galley carts and trams traveling east. Here and there were wrecks where the Bartolicans had attacked steam trams, but these had just been pushed aside to burn out. It was dusk when they landed. After another hour of debriefings Serjon finally made his way to the refectory tent. There he found Bronlar, sitting alone at a trestle table. In a world of male wardens, squires, and flyers she was greeted with either bewilderment or hostility, but never welcomed. He sat down opposite her, noting the untouched emu goulash with jasmine rice and beans on her plate.

  “So you heard?” Serjon asked.

  She nodded, and pushed her plate over to him.

  “No thanks, there are thirteen beans.”

  Bronlar plucked a single bean from the plate and ate it, but Serjon had no more interest in food than she did.

  “My father was not on your list of the dead, Serjon. Do you know what happened to him?”

  “The senior guildsmen were loaded onto a steam tram before the killing started. Glasken managed to rescue Jeb, but there were hundreds of carbineers and—”

  “No! Stop it, no more. They are gone, they were murdered. The Airlord will see that justice is done and return my father to me one day, dead or alive. No more on all that, please.”

  They picked at her meal from opposite sides of the table for a time, while outside the sound of a gunwing landing cut over the clamor of the crowded wingfield. Bronlar explained that the wardens meant to make a stand at Median and halt the Bartolican advance. Already they were demanding reparations amounting to over half Greater Bartolica’s territory.

  “So you had five victories today,” she added.

  “I’d rather have my sisters and mother alive again.”

  “You shot down a gunwing in clear air combat. You shot down a warden.”

  “So?”

  “Well, it shows that you are a great flyer. Duels are very hard.”

  “It’s luck, just damn, simple luck.”

  “Not so! It’s timing and reaction and tactics, and, and knowing sailwing flight like your own name.”

  “How would you know? Ever fought clear air?”

  “Yes, this morning above the Green River bridge.”

  Serjon blinked and looked up.

  “You fought? Today?”

  “If since I last saw you is today, then it’s today. I fought an armored sailwing for forty minutes before he misjudged a power dive to escape me and hit trees.”

  With a mighty cheer Serjon flung the top of the trestle table up into the air and aside, then lifted Bronlar off her bench. The carbineer guards at the door dashed in and several of the diners jumped to their feet before they realized that it was not a fight. The Jannian wardenate had been credited with fourteen victories that day. The finger of guilt had lingered before Serjon, but had moved on without pointing.

  “You saved me, you saved me,” Serjon cried again and again as he hugged Bronlar and whirled her around. “How can I repay you? Do you need a big brother? I’m very good at being a big brother.”

  Glasken and Feydamor arrived by galley cart the following day, but soon after that Bronlar and Serjon were sent to Casper in the south of Governor Sartov’s new region. The Yarronese wardens did not like the idea of commoner upstarts shooting down enemy wardens, and wanted them out of the way before any more fighting began.

  More accounts of atrocities came in with each steam tram of refugees, and they were always against guildsmen and their families, never against merchant or farming estates. Green River fell, and Bartolican steam trams began venturing out along the Red Desert tramway. The gunwings hastily assembled at Median challenged and fought the Bartolicans in the skies above the Red Desert, but left the ground defense to the Yarronese merchant carbineers. The Bartolicans had no qualms about using their wings for ground support, however, and within a week they had taken Creston, just twenty miles east of Median.

  Only now did the Yarronese begin blowing up tramway track, digging trenches, and erecting barricades in Median, but it was too late. Bartolican cart cannons began shooting fire shells into Yarron’s second-largest city. Airlord Virtrian couriered diplomatic protests to all the other dominions, but the accusations were so fantastic that his peers were either incredulous or uncertain of what to do. While they dithered, Yarron was brought to its knees.

  Calls did not scatter the Bartolican carbineers in the field; it was almost as if they could anticipate Calls in open country. A frantic meeting of the Airlord and senior wardens in Forian declared that Median, the domain’s second-biggest city, was the keystone of all defense plans. The merchant carbineers that were originally brought in to retake Middle Junction were ordered to stop and defend Median, but yet again the Bartolican invaders were ahead of their enemy.

  The Yarronese carbineers were trained for shootouts with outlaw bands of a dozen or so, and the Mexhaven-style mass battles had them at a distinct disadv
antage. Yarronese forces were up against a numerically smaller but ruthless enemy that was unbelievably well coordinated. Eight days into the undeclared war Median was under siege and close to falling. The Bartolican merchant carbineers controlled nearly a third of Yarron.

  5 August 3960: Middle Junction

  Rollins quickly became aware that the campaign had escalated into an invasion of an entire domain of outlaws: Yarron! On the fifth day of August he brought the MC5 east to the regional capital of Middle Junction and stopped in the sidings of the sprawling central depot. Almost immediately the officer he recognized as Warran Glasken came aboard and had an urgent, whispered conversation with Kalward. Dawn was a half hour away, and the lamps of the Middle Junction Tramway Depot were all alight. At least twenty red trams were stopped there. Some trams had battle damage, and most of the carbineers were milling about close by. At Warran Glasken’s whistle a squad of officers searched MC5, but left again, apparently without finding anything of note.

  Minutes passed. Suddenly there were shouts in the distance, followed by women’s screams that were cut short by a burst of automatic fire. Carbineers with reaction pistols summoned all tram commanders and drivers to be addressed by Kalward. So, he’s more than just the commander of a black tram, thought Rollins; then he stopped so suddenly that the reaction pistol of the carbineer behind him dug deep into his back. Before the line of drivers and officers lay two dead girls in dirty, torn robes, both shot in the back. All around them on the tramway tracks lay looted gold coins, model gunwings encrusted with gems, ornate ceremonial guns that were all inlay and tracery, bottles of expensive spirits, sacramental goblets and artifacts from various religions, and jewelry of a splendor such as Rollins had not dreamed possible.