The Miocene Arrow

by Sean McMullen

  “Eventually, perhaps,” said Laurelene.

  “By then you will be someone else, sair Virtrian,” said Theresla.

  “I know it may seem like a stupid question, but why did you free me?” he asked.

  “I need a flyer,” said Theresla.

  “Lies,” snorted Laurelene. “She was sorry for you. So was I.”

  “But I do need a flyer,” retorted Theresla, sounding hurt.

  “Your escape discredits the Archwarden,” said Laurelene. “It has been decided that discrediting the Archwarden is more important than shooting down a hundred Bartolican gunwings, so here you are. You will be safe here for now. I have already had one of my maids dressing up as a man and being accidentally seen by visitors. There are tales going about concerning me having a secret lover.”

  “But, but—”

  “You don’t have to share either of our beds, of course. I am hardly an enticing mistress—”

  “But older women are said to be more grateful,” Theresla interjected.

  “Besides, Semme Theresla has habits that might alarm you,” Laurelene countered.

  At her words Virtrian realized that Theresla was not eating meatballs but whole roast mice. She noticed his stare.

  “I marinate them in a secret recipe before cooking them so the bones are rendered crumbly,” Theresla assured him. “Try one?”

  Virtrian declined.

  24 July 3961: Occupied Senner

  Two days later, in occupied Senner, several divisions of nomad carbineers launched a coordinated attack on a string of Bartolican garrisons under the cover of Cosdoran gunwings. Only five of the twelve garrisons fell to the initial onslaught, but the others were left under siege and isolated. The nomad commanders all had microscopes and sample slides of aviad hair. All prisoners were screened very carefully, and three were shot without explanation.

  Although it was meant as no more than a test of resolve on the part of the allies, it proved to be a good guide to the state of Bartolican resolve as well. Fast courier sailwings escaped north with word of what was going on, but no flocks of gunwings swarmed out of the north in response. The allies’ wings bombed the garrisons during a Call and Sennerese nomads swarmed over trapfields on the trailing edge of the Call. Still no flocks of Bartolican gunwings droned across the desert from the northern skies.

  “Give them time,” counseled Triglaw, the military liaisory from Cosdora counseled the Sennerese Archwarden. “They are merely luring your forces north until they are overextended, and then there will be a monumental counterattack. That is the Bartolican way. Overwhelming advantage and a battleground of their own choice. Our gunwings report major buildups of gunwings, heavy sailwings, and carbineers south of Condelor.”

  Sriek hak-Hale gazed down at the map woven into the rug on the floor of his tent. Coloured blocks denoted garrisons, troops, and wingfields.

  “Sartov promised that he would begin a mighty diversion in two days,” the Sennerese Archwarden replied.

  “Pah. He says he will be our salvation, but he tells nothing of what he will do. You should trust the word of an ally that has sailwings and gunwings over this battlefield.”

  “Senner may have only nine wardens in gunwings, but we use those few to great effect,” hak-Hale pronounced as he reached out to adjust the disposition of two blocks. “Our own wardens report no buildup of Bartolican carbineers, only the wings.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “No, but your own people may be deceiving you.”

  “I have fought duels over less.”

  “Then challenge, if you have a mind to. My feeling is that you value victory over Bartolica more than a squabble over some minor point of honor. Duels are a luxury of peacetime, sair Triglaw.”

  The liaisory did not reply.

  “As I was about to say,” continued hak-Hale, “my own feeling is that you do not want Senner to overwhelm the undefended southernmost parts of Bartolica before your own carbineers take Evanston and are free to march west.”

  “Such accusations are not the basis for an alliance. Many of our wardens and squires have died flying cover for your nomad carbineers.”

  “But many more of my carbineers have died taking the garrisons. I have made my decision, sair Triglaw. We shall trust the eyes of our own wardens and advance across the Bartolican border. If it is a trap, we shall fight bravely and take many Bartolicans with us as we die. If not, we shall drive them into the Salt Lake or shoot them down, then end the war all the faster.”

  25 July 3961: Condelor

  The royal palace of Condelor was subjected to a search without precedent in that entire century after the escape of Airlord Abdicate Virtrian. Although a great deal of stolen and hoarded property was discovered and several people were found in bedrooms where they had no business, the Airlord Abdicate of Yarron was not among their number. The guards who had been on duty in the palace dungeon complex were tortured according to the double-blind method, but their confessions established only that they were lying to avoid further pain.

  There were thirty other prisoners who had been left to their fate in the dungeons. Only the Airlord Abdicate was missing, and it was abundantly clear to Stanbury that he had been freed during a Call.

  “Why were you keeping him alive?” demanded the aviad chief of his Inner Guard, Paraville. “Surely he was better dead?”

  “I sought to keep him as a symbol of Bartolican victory,” said Stanbury. “Victories are so transitory, they fade in the memory without visible symbols. Where were your ‘special forces’ during the Call?”

  “They were engaged in … important but routine duties elsewhere in the palace.”

  “Spying on my own people, you mean.”

  “Most of my people are in the field, fighting!” retorted Paraville firmly but quietly. “Dozens, hundreds have died due to Sartov’s featherhead hunt. There are but six on duty in Condelor, including me, and do not forget that we spy as much for you as for ourselves. There is sedition among your own people, Archwarden, or have you forgotten it?”

  Stanbury swept the reports from his desk with his arm.

  “Useless!” he cried. “What is going wrong? Victories were so easy to pluck from the fields and skies until a few weeks ago. People wanted to have me assassinated because they thought anyone could be archwarden and oversee a procession of triumphs. Now they want me to be archwarden so that they can blame me for everything that goes wrong.”

  “But little has gone wrong. The bombing of the palace was a tragic accident, and the escape of the Airlord Abdicate does nothing for the Yarronese war effort. Impressions of defeat are all that you see, you are just a pessimist.”

  “Impressions are everything!” Stanbury retorted, the veins of his temples standing out alarmingly. “The four regions that are Greater Bartolica are held together by impressions. One impression is that a girl of nineteen with no experience of combat or dueling is their airlord. The Sennerese are advancing north even as we speak, and the carbineers defending the capital are from Pocatello. Pocatello!”

  Stanbury seized Paraville by the lapels of his coat, then pushed him backward. The aviad stumbled back over a chair but recovered without falling. He slowly righted the chair and set it neatly on a rug.

  “The Pocatello carbineers are as loyal as any.”

  “They are shopkeepers and artisans, recruited or impressed mere weeks ago. There’s not a one of them who would not march back to his wife and a bowl of carbonara pasta if given a chance. Put a line of nomads before them and they’d run back. Were it not for the Bartolican gunwings the nomads would be swarming through the suburbs by next month.”

  Stanbury had personally ordered a flock of ninety Bartolican gunwings to provide support to the garrisons in Senner, and reports were returned that they had turned the tide for now. In fact there were no Bartolican gunwings flying over Senner. Somewhere in the chain of command it had been decided that perfectly good gunwings could not be risked in fighting when carbineers cou
ld slow the enemy down first. Besides, the aviad supreme command had decided that Bartolica was losing the war, and was now useful as nothing more than a supply of gunwings. Stanbury would be furious when he found out, but in a fortnight he would probably be in a cell or dead so it hardly mattered. In the meantime Kalward had infiltrated the Yarronese base at Wind River, where the really useful, long-range wings were being built. He would prove his loyalty by restoring the solar powered ferrywing to working order, and after that the radical aviads would have a new client.

  8

  FAILING IN LOVE, AGAIN

  24 July 3961: Wind River

  Jeb Feydamor had still been in mourning for his dead stepson and heir when Serjon had returned from Condelor alive. Like many others in the chivalric guilds, Feydamor was torn between praise for the boy’s courage and condemnation for his attack on the Condelor palace.

  Of more immediate concern was the stolen Sandhawk that Serjon had flown from Bartolica. Two days after Serjon’s return Feydamor was examining the aircraft as head of an assessment crew. It had been dragged clear of the stream where it had landed, but no effort had been made to repair it or remove parts for more detailed inspection. The big compression engines were by the Milarvis guild and had an extremely good weight-to-power ratio. The wings were well over the old limit, while the airspeed indicator was calibrated to an ambitious 250 mph.

  “The Bartolicans seem convinced that the old limits can be exceeded safely,” Feydamor dictated to a clerk who was following him about with a board. “The airframe is made of an extremely light and strong laminate-ashwood and silk combination.”

  His fellow guildsman Terrica came around from the other side of the sailwing.

  “Under the control of an experienced warden this thing could match all but our most advanced prototypes,” Terrica said, and the clerk hastily switched to another board. “What we really need to know is just how many of these Sandhawks have been built.”

  “Very few, perhaps two or three,” said Feydamor. “This thing must have cost as much as twenty standard gunwings. It has processes and materials in it that are just not practical, and it must be a nightmare to tune and maintain. It might be fast, tough, and light, but it’s of no use in a war. The engine’s fuel consumption on boost must be three times that of our triwing gunwings.”

  Terrica reached up and ran his hand along the leading edge of the wing until he touched the gun barrel.

  “If it can destroy twenty or thirty of our gunwings for every Sandhawk lost, surely this is a good bargain. Any accountant would approve.”

  “Believe me, Terrica, I could design engines to run almost as well as these for a quarter the cost. This one has polished and engraved access covers, hollow reamed struts, dynamic pitch control, and more. This is the sort of thing that a committee of guildsmen might come up with. It’s impractical. Our young heroes picked the wrong gunwing to steal. If the Bartolicans kept with such a design they would soon be defeated by bankruptcy.”

  Feydamor stood back and stared at the big gunwing with his hands on his hips.

  “Pack up and get back to the utility cart,” he said to the clerk. “Sair Terrica and I will be there soon.”

  “What do we report on this thing?” asked Terrica when they were alone.

  “Declare that we have learned its secrets and have a half dozen of the local militia posted to guard it until the Northwind Campaign is over. After that it can be dragged to the nearest wingfield by a couple of compression carts and be made nightworthy—if anyone can be bothered. Believe me, sair, this thing is of no military use to anyone.”

  26 July 3961: Wind River

  Two days later the Northwind Campaign was ready to be launched. Almost the entire force of Sartov’s Air Carbineers was ready to depart in the half-light before dawn, and the steam engine trolleys were being dragged from aircraft to aircraft at the run by frantic guildsmen.

  “So, you have your own super-regal now,” Serjon said to Ramsdel. “Are you also against me for accusing Bronlar of what she did?”

  Ramsdel wrapped his glittering green and gold arms about himself as if cold, yet the day was pleasantly warm.

  “You were there, I was not and I make no judgments. I heard you reprimanding two of your flock yesterday. You were almost hysterical.”

  “The idiots flew behind me after I’d given strict orders about never flying behind me.”

  “But it’s traditional to cover one’s leader—”

  “Not when the leader is me! I can look after myself, my victories say as much. My flock must only fly in a tiered line.”

  A super-regal thundered down the flightstrip and rose into the blue sky, drowning all conversation for some moments.

  “This was a terrible decision,” Serjon said grimly as they watched the second super-regal beginning to move. “I warned the Airlord but he would not listen.”

  “About what?” asked Ramsdel.

  “The date. This is July twenty-sixth, and twenty-six is twice thirteen—” He got no further. Ramsdel put his fingers between his lips and gave a piercing whistle. Immediately a dozen flyers and wardens converged on Serjon, pinned his arms, lifted him from the ground and dunked his head into a quenching trough. This done, they departed without a word.

  Serjon shook himself like a wet terrier. Only Ramsdel was still standing beside the trough as he wiped the water from his eyes and dusted drops from the fraying gold embroidery of his flight jacket.

  “Wha—What in the name of Hell’s Call was that for?” Serjon gasped.

  “That was your bad luck for the day,” Ramsdel replied in a very earnest tone. “Now nothing can go wrong with the battle.”

  Northwind struck the Bartolican-held tramway precisely between Median and Green River, in a remote part of the Red Desert. The super-regals and regals parachuted a hundred carbineers down beside the rails, where they began tearing up the sleepers and rails and piling them into a fortification.

  Meantime the gunwings attacked the marshaling yards at Median and Green River, destroying many trams and starting fires in the compression spirit stores. The two air battles over the provincial cities meant that the super-regals and regals managed to make five ferry runs that day, dropping another three hundred carbineers, six cart cannons, and two galley carts at the break in the tramway. Two forts were established, one mile apart, both from piles of sleepers and rails. The ferry flights continued through the night and all through the next day, and by dusk on the 27th there were a thousand men defending the two improvised forts. All were well supplied with food and ammunition and securely dug down against any attack.

  The following day the super-regals bombed other stretches of tramway while gunwings shot up steam-tram-drawn trains that were being rushed from as far away as Forian with carbineers. The air battle was almost continuous, aided by the continuing fine, clear weather. Sartov was using a month’s accumulation of compression spirit each day, but after four days the Bartolican relief forces were still unable to run trams more than five miles west of Median. A column of eight thousand carbineers began marching west, but a wingfield had been carved out of the desert at what was now called Fort Sartov. Precious compression spirit was ferried in, and the defending gunwings no longer had to make the half-hour flight from the Wind River wingfield.

  A column of two thousand Yarronese militia had begun marching straight across the Red Desert for Fort Sartov on the evening before the first attack, and after five days they had crossed the sixty miles of wilderness to the outpost. Day by day the Bartolican air attacks grew heavier, and Sartov began to cut back on flights. Yarronese losses had been acceptable, but the reserves of compression spirit were running down. Sartov even resorted to sending his flyers over a hundred miles southwest to Vernal in Cosdora, where the Airlord had stockpiled compression spirit and ammunition in response to his request. All the Cosdoran aircraft were by now covering a massive ground attack by Senner on Condelor and holding off the Airlord’s Militia Flock of Greater Bartolica.


  The master plan was Sartov’s, even though his Yarronese carbineers and air carbineers had such a difficult task. A series of attacks by his militias in occupied eastern Yarron had lured heavy Bartolican reinforcements over the Red Desert during the previous fortnight, so that more than a third of all Bartolican carbineers were east of Median when the tramway was cut. Now the Dorak resistance lashed out, destroying nine key tramway bridges on the morning of the 26th and attacking dozens of trams. Dorak also became impassable to Bartolicans.

  A Call came to Sartov’s aid as it swept over the advancing column of Bartolican carbineers. His sailwings attacked the helpless carbineers while gunwings battled in the sky above. It was unchivalric, but it was the way pioneered by Bartolica. The sun set on the 30th of July with twenty thousand Bartolican Carbineers still cut off from Condelor. Serjon had eighty-nine victories painted on the side of his gunwing, with another thirty-seven unconfirmed. Ramsdel was made a warden after nursing his super-regal back over the Red Desert with all his crewmen dead and two engines on fire.

  The climax came on the first day of August, when the Yarronese and Bartolican carbineers clashed just to the north of Fort Sartov. The Bartolicans had a numerical advantage and better weapons, but the Yarronese had better morale. The battle was on open ground in midmorning, and by the late afternoon their combined casualties exceeded four thousand killed or wounded. The result of the battle was inconclusive. The Yarronese retreated to the sanctuary of Fort Sartov and Fort Virtrian while the Bartolicans debated whether to lay siege or continue on to Green River. The following day the Yarronese heavy sailwings attacked with racks of reaction guns bolted to their wings, pinning the Bartolicans down. The Fort Sartov break in the tramway was holding.

  Over in the west the combined ground forces of Senner, Cosdora, and another four newly allied dominions had bed-gun a march on Condelor on Serjon’s unlucky July 26th. Thirty-nine thousand carbineers, nomads, militiamen, and Montrassian exiles began a forced march of a hundred miles that had Condelor as its destination. The flocks that were to have struck the Sennerese had been diverted to the battle above the Red Desert, leaving just one hundred gunwings and sailwings to defend Condelor against the combined flocks of Cosdora, Senner, Omelgan, Pangaver, and Charlsand. The flocks mauled each other in the air, but neither could break free to provide ground support for the carbineers. Deprived of aviad support, air superiority, and battle calculor coordination, the outnumbered Bartolican carbineers were unable to halt the advance. After eight days of skirmishing, the allied column faced the Condelor city militia of fifteen thousand at the Ogden ruin. The battle lasted five hours, during which the Condelor militiamen were routed. The allied carbineers fanned out to encircle Condelor while Stanbury frantically called for fresh carbineers to be sent from the regional capitals.