Arthur H. Landis - Camelot 02

by Camelot in Orbit

  “It will-if you can find him.”

  “He’ll be in the one place he has to be. Indeed, he dare not be elsewhere.”

  “You speak true, Buby. But if you’re killed-there goes the ballgame.”

  “Hooli,” I said carefully-“and all the rest of you, too. By the time we reach the Hoom-Tet temple every man of mine will have learned how to handle the laser beam. In essence, the Dark One will have to kill us all before he’s safe. He cannot do that, Hooli.

  Moreover, the chances now with the ship or with the laser should be exactly equal. What say you?”

  He held a moment in thought, then said, “You’re right, Launcelot.” And then, “The best to you. And whatever he is when you find him, no matter if it’s the Holy Grail itself-blast it!

  ya’all hear? Bye now, Buby. You’ll get your diversion.”

  At my instructions certain young captains rode off instantly to alert their troops to the advent of Hooli’s fire balls. “The force-field will remain,” I told them, “and the fire-balls will be ineffective. But it will allow us proper entry without the Dark One scanning….”

  Entry to the tunnel, built over a hundred years before by the hands of passionate, fearful, sybarites, was in a small grove some three hundred yards from the wall itself. Its guardian, the old man who owned the orchard-a Hoom-Tet worshiper you can bet-made the sign of his god when Lors Sernas and his six captains bade him open. He offered no resistance. More! When he was told by Sernas that we went to slay the Dark One, he wept for joy.

  Two things then: I bade my Marackians to exchange their northern shields for those of Om-and Murie and Caroween dismounted, joined our group, and dared me with their eyes!

  Murie, for the record, had the grace to advise me firmly that, “In this, the final onset, there was no question but that the royal house should have a part.”

  I nodded. There was no time for argument. Even as we filed into the down-sloping depths of the mile-long work, a fire-ball bounced harmlessly off the “field” before the western gate. In its bursting light the mass of our warriors leapt and howled and waved their weapons.

  I whispered mentally, “I thank you, Hooli.” To which a tiny voice said sweetly, “You’re more than welcome!”

  We fell into a sort of trot. The tunnel’s width allowed this. As we jogged, I explained to everyone how, in the event of my death, the laser stone at my belt could be directed toward the destruction of the Dark One. They understood, and told me so. And that was that…. Air vents had been built at points along the way, each lead to an erstwhile Hoom-Tet follower’s domicile; though, according to Lors, this was most likely no longer true, since the tunnel had been built so long ago.

  Fifteen minutes of jogging and the floor slanted suddenly upward, to end finally ‘neath a grating in what we found to be the inner court of the Hoom-Tet temple. At a shrill whistle from Sernas the grate was lifted by a terrified young priest-neophyte. Obviously a visitation by twenty-two armed warriors, under the surrounding circumstances, was anything but appreciated.

  We climbed out into a courtyard wherein the fountains and porno-statuary cast weird shadows ‘neath the ghostly light of far-off Fomalhaut II which, I noticed, was also in a north-south line above the temple of the pyramid. The live-in priests and acolytes came running, summoned peremptorily by a now stern visaged Lors Sernas. They lined up against an inner wall which was one huge, ongoing mozaic of writhing, naked bodies, with copulation being the simplest scene projected.

  “By the gods! Sir Collln,” Hoggle-Fitz said sotto voce in my ear. “What manner of place is this?”

  Receiving no answer, he moved closer to examine a particular tableau, stared hard, muttered, and returned to my side.

  There were forty priests, excited to the point of hysteria, thinking they’d been discovered.

  Ten of them were women, pretty, with pleasant, intelligent eyes. Murie and Caroween both glared at them. Lors Sernas introduced me and I told them briefly what was happening; that all the world was in revolt against the Dark One; that he held no spot of Om excepting the pyramid, which we intended to attack and seize, right now.

  Some recognized me as the benefactor of the previous day who had given them gold. They passed the word and a single question was asked of me-“Would Hoom-Tet suffer, too?”

  “Why so?” I asked in turn. “What harm has lusty Hoom-Tet done to anyone? I’d say,

  ‘tis the opposite. Fear not, sir priests. I promise you, no harm will come to Hoom-Tet or his followers!”

  “What then of Ormon?” Hoggle-Fitz breathed fiercely in my ear.

  “No harm, old comrade,” I said softly. “Hoom-Tet’s no threat to him.”

  “He’s a nasty, dirty, god, Father,” Caroween intruded firmly. Rawl laughed aloud and got slapped, proving he’d shown some interest himself in Hoom Tet’s pecadillos. Murie, her lips firm-pressed, glared at me furiously.

  A final burst of Hooli’s fire-balls lighted the western sky. “Lead on to the outer gate, sir,” I told Lors Sernas. “And you,” I grabbed two young acolytes with keys at their belts, “will open them.” I raised my voice. “All other servitors of Hoom-Tet will stay precisely here, ‘cepting for those whom your head priest will choose to send through the tunnel to act as guides to our army.”

  They bowed low.

  I said solemnly to my small company, “Loose swords and follow me.”

  The outer gates opened, Rawl, Fitz, Unghist, Sernas, and myself, went out to view the pyramid. It seemed a pile of awful, stygian blackness. Moreover, its very height distorted the fact that its southern base was still two hundred yards away. I focused my contacts to ten mags. The entry doors were open. A faint light shone from the interior.

  All around us was deadly quiet. Hish was a ghost city, its citizens huddling in stark terror in their homes; their doors double-locked against the death-throes of the Dark One-should he be beaten. The clear air gave a night-black, velvet texture to a sky wherein the stars were truly diamonds, blue-white and brilliant. Fomalhaut II, the size of a magnified Sirius, gave the starlight a ghostly intensity.

  I threw an arm around Hoggle’s shoulders for I felt a need to assuage his fears, his obvious confusion. Things had moved too fast: the Vuuns; the Omnians who were now “our friends”; the existence of new, unacceptable, gods whose statues must not be toppled. It was all too much for him…. “I count on you, old warrior,” I told him softly, “to be the first with me to enter yon dread pile. I warrant you’ll find sufficient devils there to last your remaining years. But whatever happens, friend, remember this: ‘Tis our final battle. And we fight, not just for Marack, but for all of Fregis, too.”

  He came alive at that. His bulbous eyes actually gleamed in the starlight. “By the gods, Collin,” he whispered loudly and with a tone of relief that I was not angry with him. “In this, I’m your man, and you know it. To test my sword ‘gainst Ormon’s mortal enemy is a thing I’ve lived my whole life for….” He sniffed and wiped his nose; said gruffly, “And that we two shall be the first to enter is both an honor and a gift-for which I thank you deeply, Collin.”

  I called the others from where they stood next the shadowed, inside walls: first Sernas’ six Omnian captains, then Griswall, Tober, Charney, and our new student-warrior, Onlis, with Murie and Caroween. Unghist’s four Yorns brought up the rear. Rawl moved to join with Griswall and the princess.

  My orders given, we jogged determinedly out upon the expanse of polished flagstones. We were twenty-two swords, two abreast in the starlight-to bring down the greatest citadel in all of Fregis-Camelot!

  The sound of our passage was as the wind in heavy bracken; an occasional tinkle of well-oiled steel, the lightly cadenced pat of soft boots against the flagstones. At a hundred feet I bade them draw their swords….

  Six priest-warrior guards stood suddenly at the entrance, led by a cowled wizard. In my mind I had debated the question of parley in such a case-and then dismissed it! To reach the inner great hall, was to win us half the g
ame. To be caught in the lengthy entry passage could be disastrous. And so I’d told them, “Attack instantly, when I attack! Leave not a sword alive behind us!”

  And so it was.

  At twenty paces, the wizard-and his cowl was by no means empty-called out to ask what we wished there-but we came on, rushing…. Their swords were out, but hardly raised.

  Five thousand years of nothing had in no way either sharpened their wits or their reflexes despite this, the Dark One’s “crisis hour.”

  With one lightning blow I split the wizard’s cowl and skull down to the breastbone.

  Stout Hoggle seized his man’s sword-hand with his own huge paw to dash the fellow’s brains out with his own sword’s haft. The others were slain as swiftly. Two minutes at best, and we burst out of the ill-lighted, granite tunnel and into the magnificence of the hall.

  As we ran, two things had touched my mind: A moment’s elation that I’d not been forced to use the laser and therefore now had a double-charge-and the hopeful thought that perhaps my tactically stupid Kaleen had emptied the pyramid of warriors, to serve his host.

  The first was true-the second, a prayer for children.

  As ants to the central command of the Dark One’s control, the priest-warriors had instantly gathered in the great hall. A hundred awaited us on the polished flagstones. Others came streaming from all the corridors, the warehouses, barracks, and all the honeycomb of cells.

  Seeing their line of blades, stout Hoggle-Fitz cried fiercely, “Well, now, Sir Collin, I’m bound to think we’ll earn our victory!”

  I’d called forth the pyramid’s imprinted schematic to my mind’s eye as we ran. The exit to the passageway which led to the second large room above lay across the great hall, in the northwest corner. Their strength, limned in the light of a myriad blazing tripods, plus a Kaleen glow from the high ceiling, was impressive.

  Wasting not a second (we hardly broke our stride), we simply smashed into their line, broke through it, and headed for the exit.

  There’s a “high” one gets from bloody battle which is almost indescribable. For those who are prepared to die the “high” sometimes comes before the battle, and remains throughout. I’ve never felt it. Indeed, the only thing I’ve ever felt is a certain bone-deep fear, held down by the knowledge of my own superior skill (imposed neural conditioning and straining), and my strength which was twice that of the strongest Yorn. But Rawl has explained it. “To the man who has it,” he told me, it adds to his prowess, gives him an unbeatable edge. It’s a mind thing: you have to work at it. If the enemy, however, is equally skilled and is also possessed of a “high,” a form of parity exists. The fighting then can become no-quarter, bloody, and terrible beyond belief.

  Fortunately our enemy possessed no such “high”-and damned little skill. Their attributes were courage and desperation. But desperation is no substitute for confidence, nor does it replace discipline and control. Its drive is suicidal, actually, with those so smitten accepting the blade to prove their courage-by dying!

  So we slashed through the first line-to find it replaced by a second, a third, and a fourth; becoming, finally, a mass of screaming priests who thought only to fling themselves upon our swords, to stop us. Whirling our blades in a lightning display of “murder,” we “tacked” this way and that to avoid the crush of bodies, fallen or otherwise. The square of the hall was three hundred feet from wall to wall. I swear to the gods of all the galaxies that we had no choice but to carpet all that expanse with bloodied corpses.

  We were a “force” of driving, slashing, winnowing steel. Nothing could stand against us! A thing more terrible than the fighting; that which actually sickened us, was the shrieks of the wounded and dying. For the hall was an echo chamber! And, too, the heat of the place, the effect of it upon the burst entrails of a hundred slitted bellies, created a stench no man could stand for long.

  We reached the exit, drove through it to the sharply inclined passageway beyond.

  Four swords abreast, we drove on and up, gained purchase, and paused for the first time to lean upon our weapons.

  The greater number of warrior-priests had been cut off below; less than a hundred were above. But, as we quickly found, they were the pick of the Dark One’s warriors.

  We breathed deeply, filled our lungs with the fresher air of the corridor. We’d lost just three of ours, a Yorn, our new student-warrior, Ollis, and one of Sernas’ captains-and that was all!

  What was that ancient Terran story? One hundred Greeks had died at Marathon-and ten thousand Persians!

  We’d slain at least a hundred; disabled as many more. All of us were wounded, but only lightly. To this day the carnage we wreaked in that abattoir of the great hall of the pyramid, is a thing unreal, scarcely believed in our own minds.

  The time factor now was slim indeed. We’d entered the tunnel at 20:45, Greenwich.

  Fifteen minutes there; fifteen more to the entrance to the pyramid, and a half-hour in the great hall. It was now 21:45. At 22:30 the stuff would hit the fan. The room above was at 200 feet. With an incline ratio of one-to-five, we had a thousand feet to go…. As a last resort, I’d use the laser!

  Since we’d entered the pyramid, there’d been a thrumming in the air. What the Dark One sought to accomplish with it, I never knew. By that time I’m sure he knew that there could be no mind seizure in my presence. The thing he didn’t do, however, which was the only thing he should have done; the only thing that would have made any sense against me, was to destroy the corridors and block all entrances and exits. There was no way I could unblock them. He must have known it!

  I had little time to reason why he didn’t. I was just glad such was the case.

  Four to the rear and four to the front. The advance up the incline continued. There were nineteen of us left. With only eight to fight at any given moment, we spelled each other off and saw to it that those our shield-men struck down stayed down, while we marched over them. Murie and Caroween shared the fighting. I never ceased to fear for them, despite the fact that excepting, Rawl, Griswall, and Hoggle-Fitz they were the equal of any of our company. The steel strength of Murie’s wrist and sword arm was unbelievable; her speed and stamina, unmatched. At one point, when the Dark One’s wizards led a charge of spearmen to come boiling up the corridor from below, it was Murie who tore the first spear from the hands of its owner, killed him with it, and drove the others back. On orders from me, the Yorns, under Unghist, charged the lower line and seized strong spears for all of us.

  The pace and scope of the fighting, however, began to tell. A quarter of the way to the second chamber, we lost another Yorn. Then brave young Charney fell, cut to the breastbone by the wild swing of a huge, maniacal wizard. Rawl and two Omnian captains, who made up the shield front at that point, killed the man and led a charge to send his screaming cohorts back up the passage.

  In another melee, wherein I led the foursome-Sernas, Tober, and a captain-we’d killed ‘til our arms were tired and were then set upon by a solid phalanx of spears. I seized the first spear, emulating Murie, and the man who held it. I lifted him, hurled him flat, to be impaled upon the blades of his half-crazed companions.

  We marched right over that “phalanx”; but in the process lost two of our captains who were pinned ‘gainst the walls and slain by the thrusts of a dozen faldirks.

  And so it went!

  Stout Hoggle took a spear’s thrust through the side, but still fought on. Another Yorn died, spitted by a dozen blades. His death screams were unsettling. I don’t know why, except that they had an irdic, banshee keening to them. Caroween, blinded by a wash of blood, unloosed when a shield’s edge cut her forehead, fell back to stanch the flow. Rawl, seeing, howled to the heavens-he’d thought her dead-and leaped into the very midst of an oncoming squad of red-robed wizards. Hoggle-Fitz, with a gerd-like roar to the trinity, and despite his wound, followed suit. The death cries of the wizards then joined with the Dark One’s “thrumming,” and the whole of it melded with t
he ghastly howls of the wounded and dying in that endless passage, blood-wet for all its length now, and filled with the gagging stench of opened bodies.

  We lost young Sernas in the struggle for the entrance to the second room. We’d slain the last priestwizard in the corridor, burst through the great doors so hastily barred to usand were met by a double arc of spears to bar our way. A hurled shaft pierced his plate and hauberk; he’d not had time to get his shield up. He called to me as his life’s blood poured around him-“Hey, now, my lord? What of your Ormon? Have I known him long enough for grace?”

  Stout Hoggle answered for me, yelling, “He’ll not reject you, young sir. Believe on it.

  He’ll take you to his heart” And so saying, he sliced the spear arm from the man who’d done the deed.

  “I do thank you, my Lord of Marack,” the young man breathed faintly. And then softly to me, “‘Tis still a pity, sir, that our poor but happy Hoom-Tet has such little power….”

  His eyes closed. We advanced-and the fighting raged beyond him. The exit leading to the final corridor and the room at the pyramid’s top was, again, at the northwest corner of the room. This time, however, we had but a hundred feet to go.

  Unlike the great hall the second room was more a privileged “club room” for upper priests and wizards. A soft glow from a hidden source outlined its every feature. It was thickly carpeted. Great leather chairs were strewn about amongst many tables for dining, games, and such. Along the length of the east wall was a bar of some sort, and with shelves of glasses, mugs and bottles to the rear. And, too, and this would have delighted our lecherous young Sernas, great tapestries hung on every wall; each one depicting scenes which outdid in every way the simple efforts of the priests of the Hoom-Tet. The Dark One most certainly catered to his wizard’s tastes.

  We were now thirteen, a baker’s dozen. The thought intrigued me. I even laughed.