Sargasso of Lost Starships Rehidden

by Poula Anderson

in fury, stabbing a spear at Donovan's breast. The woman parried the thrust and hewed at her--she was gone, and the Terrans rushed ahead.

  The rocks groaned. Donovan saw them shuddering above her, saw the first hail of gravel and heard the huge grinding of strata. 'They're trying to bury us!' she yelled. 'We've got to get clear!'

  Wocha stooped, snatched her up under one arm, and galloped. A boulder whizzed by her head, smashing against the farther wall and spraying her with hot chips of stone. Now the boom of the landslide filled their world, rolling and roaring between the high cliffs. Cracks zigzagged across the worn black heights, the crags shivered and toppled, dust boiled across the road.

  'Basille!'

  Donovan saw Valdum again, dancing and leaping between the boulders, raising a scream of wrath and laughter. Morzacha was there, standing on a jut of rock, watching the hillside fall.

  Wocha burst around the sentinel peak. A line of Arzunians stood barring the way to Drogobych, the sunlight flaming off their metal. Wocha dropped Donovan, hefted her ax in both hands, and charged them.

  Donovan picked herself up and scrambled in the wake of her slave. Behind her, the Terrans were streaming from the collapsing dale, out over open ground to strike the enemy. The rocks bounded and howled, a woman screamed as she was pinned, there were a dozen buried under the landslide.

  Wocha hit the Arzunian line. Her ax blazed, shearing off an arm, whirling up again to crumple a helmet and cleave the skull beneath. Rearing, she knocked down two of them and trampled them underfoot. A warrior smote at her flank. Hal, gripping one mighty shoulder, engaged her with his free hand, his blade whistling around her ears. They fell away from that pair, and the Terrans attacked them.

  Donovan crossed swords with one she knew--Marovecha, the laughing half-devil whose words she had so much enjoyed in earlier days. The Arzunian grinned at her across a web of flying steel. Her blade stabbed in, past the Ansan's awkward guard, reaching for her guts. Donovan retreated, abandoning the science she didn't know for a wild whirling and hacking, her iron battering at the bright weapon before her. Clash and clang of edged metal, leaping and dancing, Marovecha's red hair wild in the rising wind and her eyes alight with laughter.

  Donovan felt her backward step halted, she was against the high stone pillar and could not run. She braced her feet and hewed out, a scream of cloven air and outraged steel. Marovecha's sword went spinning from her hand.

  It hit the ground and bounced up toward the Arzunian's clutch. Donovan smote again, and the shock of iron in flesh jarred her where she stood. Marovecha fell in a rush of blood.

  For an instant Donovan stood swaying over the Arzunian, looking stupidly at the blood on her own hands, hearing the clamor of her heartbeat and sucking a dry gasp into her lungs. Then she picked up the fallen being's glaive. It was a better weapon.

  Turning, she saw that the fight had become a riot, knots of women and un-men snarling and hacking in a craziness of death. No room or time here for wizard stunts, it was blood and bone and nerve against its kind. The Terrans fought without much skill in the use of their archaic equipment but they had the cold courage blended of training and desperation. And they knew better how to cooperate. They battled a way to each other and stood back to back against all comers.

  Wocha raged and trampled, smashing with ax and fist and feet and hurled stones, her war-cry bellowing and shuddering in the hills. An Arzunian vanished from in front of her and appeared behind with spear poised. The Donarrian suddenly backed up, catching the assailant and smashing her under her hind feet while she dueled another from the front. Hal's arm never rested, he swung to right and left, guarding her flanks, yelling as his blade drove home.

  Donovan shook herself and trotted warily over to where a tide of Arzunians raged about a closely-drawn ring of Impies. The humans were standing firm, driving each charge back in a rush of blood, heaping the dead before them. But now spears were beginning to fall out of the sky, driven by no hand but stabbing for the throats and eyes and bellies of women. Donovan loped for the sharp edge of the hills, where they toppled to the open country in which the fight went on.

  She scrambled up a rubbled slope and gripped a thin pinnacle to swing herself higher. He was there.

  He stood on a ledge, the heap of spears at his feet, looking down over the battle and chanting as he sent forth the flying death. She noticed even then how his hair was a red glory about the fine white loveliness of his head.

  'Valdum,' she whispered, as she struck at him.

  He was not there, he sat on a higher ledge and jeered at her. 'Come and get me, Basille, darling, darling. Come up here and talk to me!'

  She looked at his as Lucifer must have looked back to Heaven. 'Let us go,' she said. 'Give us a ship and send us home,'

  'And have you bring our overlords back in?' He laughed aloud.

  'They aren't so bad, Valdum. The Empire means peace and justice for all races.'

  'Who speaks?' His scorn flamed at her. 'You don't believe that.'

  She stood there for a moment. 'No,' she whispered. 'No, I don't.'

  Stooping, she picked up the sheaf of spears and began to crawl back down the rocks. Valdum cursed her from the heights.

  There was a break in the combat around the hard-pressed Terran ring as the Arzunians drew back to pant and glare. Donovan ran through and flung her load clashing at the feet of Takahashi.

  'Good work,' said the officer. 'We need these things. Here, get into the formation. Here we go again!'

  The Arzunians charged in a wedge to gather momentum. Donovan braced herself and lifted her sword. The Terrans in the inner ring slanted their spears between the women of the outer defense. For a very long half minute, they stood waiting.

  The enemy hit! Donovan hewed at the nearest, drove the probing sword back and hammered against the guard. Then the whirl of battle swept her antagonist away, someone else was there, she traded blows and the howl of women and metal lifted skyward.

  The Terrans had staggered a little from the massive assault, but it spitted itself on the inner pikes and then swords and axes went to work. Ha, clang, through the skull and give it to 'em! Hai, Empire! Ansa, Ansa! Clatter and yell and deep-throated roar, the Arzunians boiling around the Solanr line, leaping and howling and whipping out of sight--a habit which saved their lives but blunted their attack, thought Donovan in a moment's pause.

  Wocha smashed the last few who had been standing before her, looked around to the major struggle, and pawed the ground. 'Ready, lady?' she rumbled.

  'Aye, ready, Wocha. Let's go!'

  The Donarrian backed up to get a long running space. 'Hang on tight,' she warned. 'Never mind fighting, lady. All right!'

  She broke into a trot, a canter, and then a full gallop. The earth trembled under her mass. 'Hoooo!' she screamed. 'Here we come!'

  Hal threw both arms around her corded neck. When they hit it was like a nuclear bomb going off.

  In a few seconds of murder, Wocha had strewn the ground with smashed corpses, whirled, and begun cutting her way into the disordered main group of the Arzunians. They didn't stand before her. Suddenly they were gone, all of them, except for the dead.

  Donovan looked over the field. The dead were thick, thick. She estimated that half the little Terran force was slain or out of action. But they must have taken three or four times their number of Arzunians to the Black Planet with them. The stony ground was pooled and steaming with blood. Carrion birds stooped low, screaming.

  Hal fell from Wocha's back into Donovan's arms. She comforted his wild sobbing, holding his to her and murmuring in his ear and kissing the wet cheeks and lips. 'It's over, dear, it's over for now. We drove them away.'

  He recovered himself in a while and stood up, straightening his torn disarray, the mask of command clamping back over him face. To Takahashi: 'How are our casualties?'

  She reported. It was much as Donovan had guessed. 'But we gave 'em hell for it, didn't we?'

  'How is that?' wondered Cohen. She leaned again
st Wocha, not showing the pain that jagged through her as they bandaged her wounded foot except by an occasional sharp breath. 'They're more at home with this cutlery than we, and they have those damned parapsych talents too.'

  'They're not quite sane,' replied Donovan tonelessly. 'Whether you call it a cultural trait or a madness which has spread in the whole population, they're a wild bloodthirsty crew, two-legged weasels, and with a superiority complex which wouldn't have let them be very careful in dealing with us. No discipline, no real plan of action.' She looked south over the rolling moorland. 'Those things count. They may know better next time.'

  'Next time? Fifty or sixty women can't defeat a planet, Donovan,' said Takahashi.

  'No. Though this is an old dying race, their whole population in the city ahead, and most of it will flee in panic and take no part in any fighting. They aren't used to victims that fight back. If we can slug our way through to the spaceships they have there--'

  'Spaceships!' The eyes stared at her, wild with a sudden blaze of hope, women crowding close and leaning on their reddened weapons and raising a babble of voices. 'Spaceships, spaceships--home!'

  'Yeah.' Donovan ran a hand through her yellow hair. The fingers trembled just a bit. 'Some ships, the first ones, they merely destroyed by causing the engines to run loose; but others they brought here, I suppose, by inducing the crew to land and parley. Only they killed the crews and