by Robert Adams
A few days along the trail, in a raging tantrum because Cabell would not immediately inject him with one of the last few dosages of opiates, Braun shot the well-meaning noncom out of his saddle. But as he turned his attentions and his smoking pistol on Old Johnny, the old cannibal sped a wickedly barbed wardart into the thigh of the scientist’s good leg and then, regretfully, put another into the chest of the trooper just as that man fired a rifle at him.
In the fresh agony of the sharp iron blade deep-seated in his flesh and grating on the femur, Braun dropped both pistol and reins, and the mule set off at a flat-out run toward the south, with the screaming man firmly strapped into the saddle.
Old Johnny had returned to the campsite in time to tend the stricken men and nurse some of them back to health, but it was long weeks before they were capable of marching on to the base. There they discovered that Dr. Harry Braun had, after everything, been dragged in alive by friendly natives and had reported that all of the remainder of the expedition were long dead that he was the sole survivor.
It had long been an ill-kept secret that Dr. David Sternheimer had nurtured a deep and abiding love for Dr. Erica Arenstein for centuries, and when once he had learned from Jay Corbett the truth of her murder, his vengeance had been savage. Not only had Dr. Harry Braun been summarily stripped of all his privileges and rank, his mind had been forcibly transferred from the new, healthy body to mother one — a body a good deal older and slowly dying of colonic cancer. Then he had been assigned menial, degrading duties in a place where Sternheimer could keep an eye on him.
For most of the following year, careful and meticulous preparations had been made both at the Center and at Broomtown Base. Then, in the spring, a large, well-armed and lavishly supplied force of Broomtown men had set out for the site of the buried pack train under the overall command of General Jay Corbett. Gumpner, now a major, was in command of the battalion of troopers and the civilian packers, while another civilian, Johnny Kilgore, led the scouts assigned to the new expedition.
They bore everything thought to be needful for retrieving the lost treasures. There were explosives to blast the huge boulders into movable sizes, sledgehanmiers, picks, shovels, crowbars, axes and other hardware, cables and strong cordage and chains, as well as collars and draft-harness sets for the big mules. A number of the troopers were trained experts in the use of the explosives, and not a few of the civilian packers had been drafted into the expedition from their normal occupation of stone-quarrying.
The memory of the vast hordes of bloodthirsty Ganiks had not faded from the minds of the planners, either. The men of the battalion were far better armed than had been the few who had defended that defile. In addition to the rifles and pistols, the sabers and axes and bayonets and dirks, there were machine guns, mortars, shotguns and both hand and rifle grenades.
There were not just one but two of the big, long-range radio transceivers, each complete with its heavy, bulky battery pack and bicycle-powered generator for recharging. In addition to the regular once-per-day broadcast, Jay Corbett had Sternheimer’s carte blanche. He could call in to either Broomtown or the Center when and as he wished to do so.
Although he was almost the antithesis of a superstitious man, Sternheimer had grudgingly admitted to Jay that he had had several unexplainable dreams that made him think that Dr. Erica Arenstein was still alive somewhere up in that wild country, and he had almost begged the general to watch carefully for any signs of his lost love.
Privately, Cothett felt certain that the missing woman was long months dead, and he did not quite know what to make of the emotional pleas of the normally cold, distant, correct and objective Director, but he had finally agreed to keep his eyes peeled for a trace of Erica Arenstein, then had shoved the matter to a far recess of his mind.
It had been shortly after the first blastings that the first of the monsters of the ilk of that one now stinking and covered with feasting flies on the table had manifested itself. They averaged three and a half meters in length and a thickness of thirteen centimeters, were annulated and covered with a thick, viscous slime. Seen at a distance, they might have been taken for huge earthworms. But at close range, when their beady eyes and wide mouths filled with double rows of sharp teeth became evident, it was clear that this was no worm.
They were aggressive and vicious, could move as fast as most snakes and had jaws powerful enough to easily sever a finger or a toe or to tear off sizable amounts of flesh. No one had ever heard one of the creatures utter any sound, but they were unremittingly fierce and devilishly hard to kill. Even with most of its body blown loose from the head by explosive rifle bullets, one of them had still managed to propel the head close enough to a quarryman to clamp the dying, tooth-studded jaws down on his foot, shearing right through the tough hide brogans to the flesh beneath.
Aware of the Director’s long-held interest in unusual animals, Corbett had reported these creatures to the Center on his daily report and had suggested the dispatch of a trained man to properly examine them. Dr. Mike Schiepficker had been coptered up far enough for a mounted escort of troopers to meet him.
Actually, Corbett reflected, a large armed escort had really been unnecessary, this time around, and he could not conceive of any explanation for it, not one that made any sense. Nor could Johnny Kilgore, who had ranged farther afield and seen more.
Where, just bare months in the past, there had been a country aswarm with large and small mounted war or raiding parties of savage Ganiks, they had seen none, not one single living Ganik, and the one dead one they had chanced across had been many days trek southward of here, that one killed by a bear. Their woodland camps sat tenantless — some of them, according to Johnny, had been attacked and/or burned, the signs were there — and even the plateau which had recently been home to thousands of the cannibal raiders was now utterly deserted, now affording a habitat only to a herd of scrubby ponies and other wild creatures.
And, again according to old Johnny, not only had all of the bunches of outlaw Ganiks disappeared from their usual haunts, but all of the families of Ganik farmers were gone as well, their farms and farm buildings sitting empty and obviously unworked for many months.
So the machine guns and mortars reposed still in their crates and cases in the rear of the supply tent, and the only shots anyone had fired hereabouts had been at game or to dispatch specimens of these huge, wormlike beasts in and about the work site.
When the last portions of the creature that Schiepficker intended to save had been immersed in the preservative and the containers scaled, the zoologist washed and dried his hands, then nodded to Corbett.
“Thanks again for your help, Jay. Now I guess we’d best get on the horn and tell Sternheimer of my findings and suppositions.”
But even as the two men left the tent, a trooper trotted up, red-faced and streaming sweat in the heat. He rendered the abbreviated hand-salute of a cavahyman, then panted, “General Corbett, sir, Major Gumpner says come at once. Old Johnny Skinhead is back again. He’s brought him a prisoner, another Ganik what says Dr. Arenstein is still alive, or was a month ago when he left her, leastways.”
Chapter IV
The valley was narrower at the foot of the ridge than it became farther northward; therefore, the descending columns of New Kuhmbuhluhn horsemen found it necessary to ride on some hundred yards before there was room to extend to full battle front. Both the advance and the extension were accomplished at a slow walk, partly to spare the horses and partly to minimize confusion, the fiercely independent and often unruly noblemen of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk never having been fond of or amenable to unit discipline or drills.
Following a recently conceived plan, Prince Mahrtuhn Gilbuht led his Second Battle toward the enemy’s left, his ranks of horsemen spanning the distance from the eastern bank of the stream, across the road and to the foot of the flanking knoll. King Mahrtuhn led his own First Battle up the center, his ranks extending from the western bank of the stream to about halfway to the
western knoll. Prince Byruhn’s smaller Third Battle could only cover the remaining distance by reducing the depth of the formation. Once formed to royal satisfaction. King Mahrtuhn’s massed trumpeters winded the call and the three battles began their advance.
For their part, the Skohshun formation remained just as they had been when first the Kuhmbuhluhners had crested the ridge for all the time it took the cavalry to descend, form up and start forward. Then, drums rolled, and the first two ranks of pikemen knelt and angled their long weapons so as to present an unbroken succession of foot-tong, polished-steel pikeheads — half of them about brisket-high, half of them about head-high, where the horses could easily see them. Most of the ranks behind lifted their pikes to shoulder level, holding them with the points at a slight angle downward from the horizontal, ready to stab or thrust. The rearmost ranks of pikemen simply stood in place, their weapons still grounded, ready to fill the positions of fallen comrades in the ranks ahead.
Arrayed on the far right of the Third Battle, the right flank of Bili’s condotta was some twenty yards distant from the left flank of King Mahrtuhn’s First Battle, and the young thoheeks could have wished it were twice that distance or even more. The worst thing that could happen to him and his people, even worse than not being supported in meaningful force at the proper time, would be to have a covey of hotheaded noble arseholes charge along the same stretch of front that Bili was attacking just as he had commenced his attack; but he could do nothing more, now, than to maintain as much distance as possible from the First Battle and pray Sacred Sun that such did not occur.
Observing the disciplined precision of movements, the calm, professional impassivity of the pikemen up ahead, then recalling the ill-controlled, moblike aspects of the royal battles with whom he now rode, Bili could not conceive of any possibility of King Mahrtuhn’s winning the battle looming close, and he mindspoke his principal lieutenants.
“Remember my words of last night, all of you! Barring the most impossible variety of miracle, the New Kuhmbuhluhners haven’t the chance of a wet snowball in a red-hot skillet, not against foot of that caliber yonder. Do that which we planned, but no more unless we are substantially reinforced and I greatly doubt that we will be.”
He broke off the farspeak, then, and mindspoke his huge black stallion, Mahvros. “It will be up to you, my brother, to see to it that all of the herd comes to me and my fighters immediately I mindcall you. Will Mahvros do that, for his brother?”
The big warhorse beamed assurance and undying love, even as he and every other horse in the three battles commenced a jarring gallop in response to the summons of King Mahrtuhn’s trumpeters.
With a deafening cacophony of screaming horses, shouting, roaring, shrieking men and clashing metal, the First and Second Battles and two-thirds of the Third crashed against the pike line. Many horsemen were thrown as their mounts refused to impale themselves on the flashing points ahead. Others fended off seeking points with shields while hacking savagely at the tough oaken or ash hafts with sword or axe, or made to transfix the pikemen with lances that were mostly so much shorter than the pikehafts as to be worse than useless.
Standing in his stirrups, Prince Mahrtuhn Gilbuht swung his heavy axe with both big hands at a probing pike even as another point was jammed with force through the eyehole of the stallion’s chamfron. With a shrill scream of mortal agony, the massive destrier reared, his steel-shod forehooves flailing empty air, while his rider fought to maintain his seat, Then another pikepoint was jammed its full length into the unprotected belly of the horse and the beast tried to back off the hellish steel, lost his balance and came crashing down, pinning his royal rider beneath his ton and more of weight.
On the left, Prince Byruhn had learned well his hard lessons on how to deal with a pikeline, nor had he carried out to the full his royal sires orders. He led his nobles in riding up and down the glittering hedge of steel, just beyond their easy reach, swerving closer in no set pattern to hack at the hafts, while his mountaineer axe throwers picked off pikemen, here and there, with accurate casts of their deadly hatchetlike missiles.
Bili’s condotta began the charge in company with all the rest of the New Kuhmbuhluhn horsemen, but ten yards out from the closest pikepoints, the condotta came to a practiced halt. They dismounted, unslung bucklers from off their backs, drew their swords and sabers and advanced at a trot in three-quarter armor with closed helms. When they were almost within touching distance of the bristling array of pikepoints, each third or fourth warrior allowed blade to dangle on knot and withdrew from behind the buckler what looked at a distance to be a head-sized ball of brown cordage.
* * *
The brigadier reined up a lathered horse beside where Colonel Bruce Farr sat his own mount. The brigadier’s lined old face was red, and there was frantic haste in his voice.
“Colonel, your drummers must order your left-flanking companies to immediately ground pikes and draw shortswords! They . . .” Then he groaned, “Oh God help us all, now it’s too late.” Then he mouthed nothing save snarled curses as he stood in his stirrups to see over the heads of his embattled pikemen.
The colonel rose himself, and what he saw shook him to the flinty core.
* * *
Taking a good grip on the dangling cords, the men and women cast the specially woven nets in such fashion that they ensnared a maximum number of the thrusting points of the third through eighth ranks of pikemen. Then, after hacking down or thrusting into the two ranks of kneeling pikemen, they fell onto their backs and began to swiftly worm their way under the points and hafts of the lengthy weapons. Knowing that their very lives depended upon it, they moved amazingly fast, and soon their already-bloodied blades were chopping, slicing, stabbing at the unarmored, unprotected thighs and loins, hips and bellies, arms and faces of the pikemen.
Skimpily armored and with both hands being occupied in keeping the long, heavy haft of the pike in place, hampered from any easy movement by both the weight of the pike and the close-packed formation, the helpless men could but scream and drop, dead or dying. At length, some of the men whose points were ensnared anyway dropped their hafts and drew their shortswords.
Most of them never even got close enough to blunt their edges on their opponents’ armor-plated bodies, however, for the broadswords and sabers were sufficiently longer to have point in face or throat or an edge hacking at neck or arm before the pikemen’s sidearms could reach striking position.
Bili lopped off an arm still grasping a pike just above the cuff of a mailed gauntlet, then turned to confront a man who had already hacked once or twice at the backplate of his cuirass. But before he could strike, the point of a pike struck hard at his breastplate, slid down the groove of its fluting and plunged into the lower belly of his erstwhile opponent.
A mighty, full-strength hack of Bili’s heavy blade all but severed the haft and its iron-strip reinforcings. The force of the blow did tear the point, sideways, out of the unfortunate’s belly, ripping a wide opening that spilled his intestines out to dangle like a bloody sporran between his widespread legs.
* * *
The brigadier slapped at a pikeman with the flat of his sword, shouting, “Damn you, whoreson! Ground your pikes — you had no order to present! Ground pikes, all of you! Thrust into that melee, you’re as likely to spit one of your comrades as any of those Kuhmbuhluhners.”
He turned to the regimental commander and snapped, “Dammit, colonel, where are your short-haftmen? Halberds and warhammers, that’s all that can put paid to those murdering bastards.”
Farr shrugged helplessly. “Sir, the earl ordered almost all of my short-hafts to reinforce the section of the line in the streambed. Only some few sergeants remain with me.”
To the knot of aides who had followed him, the brigadier shouted, “One of you . . . Lieutenant Bryson, ride to Colonel Pease and bring back all his shorts at the double. The rest of you, dismount, adjust your gear and draw your swords. You too, Colonel Farr, and your staff off
icers and sergeants. We’ve all got better armor and longer swords than our brave pikemen. I can’t just sit here and watch them butchered out there.”
Suiting his actions to his words, the old warrior swung down from his saddle, lowered and carefully secured his visor, then tightened the knot on his wrist before drawing his long sword. At a limping run, he led his scratch force through a lane opened in the two ranks of uncommitted pikemen.
* * *
When there were no more throwing axes, Prince Byruhn drew back some fifty yards from the pike line and surveyed what he could see of the overall combat. The dust and the distance made the area assigned to Prince Mahrtuhn Gilbuht, his nephew, faint and unclear, while to his immediate right, the First Battle was become a swirling mass of mostly mounted New Kulunbuhluhners and unmounted Skohshuns armed with poleaxes, warhammers, short pikes and greatswords industriously hacking and stabbing and slashing at each other just a bit out from the pike line.
Due principally to the great clouds of roiling dust that this combat had raised, he did not for a long moment notice that just to his left of this broil, there was a jagged gap of some thirty yards width in the lines of pikes.
Roaring gleefully, the mighty prince whirled his overlong battle brand high over his helmeted head and led his battle directly into that undefended expanse.
* * *
