by Paul Kidd
They all milled about with the local ranchers and riders, drinking and chattering, dragging equipment from the aircraft. A mad clatter of beetle-horse claws announced the arrival of a breathless mayor, along with Toby and Samuels. Snapper met them at the aircraft ramp, looking every inch the swashbuckler.
“Mayor Baker! Guys! We’re back – fresh from Mistral, the city in the sky! With acid by the ton, and useful goodies! Ready for the crisis.”
“My word!” Samuels stared at the aircraft, which was pinging and ticking as the overheated hull cooled down. “Mistral…?”
“Yep, and we’re back here just in time to help save the world.” Snapper surged forward. “There’s good news and bad news. Let me be explain!” She paused momentarily. “No, wait. Let me sum up! Kenda was a spy from an enclave of pure humans bent on wiping out all splicers and re-conquering the earth. They control the Screamers. They now have five hundred plasma rifles, Screamers and an army, and they’re on the way to try and kill us all!”
Toby blinked.
“That’s the good news?”
“That’s the bad news. The good news is that we’re back, and have a half assed plan to fix it all!” Snapper tossed a heavy bottle up to Toby. “We’ll need that, the beer garden, you guys, and a bunch of maps. Half assed plan will then become a plan to save the entire beautiful mutant world!”
Toby hefted the bottle.
“What’s this?
“Talisker whiskey! It’s great, you’ll love it. A hundred and seventy five years old! Tastes like coal!”
Kitterpokkie was already racing forward, organising wagons that had come rattling up from the ranches down the road. Vaqueros were dismounting to form a chain of porters. The mantis had an inventory written out in her notebook, and was a furious storm of industry.
“Acid to the town ammo factory. Careful careful careful! And tell them to get busy. We’ll need cotton – about three tons of it. Sheets, pants, spare shirts, cotton bales – everything we’ve got.” The pink mantis pointed to the explosives. “Those go to the Boneyard. The silver goes to the ammo factory. And… the mercury, there! All that stuff – to the Boneyard. Mister Samuels sir!” She waved a claw. “Could you see to the storage of this equipment?”
“Indeed, Miss K!” The raven was mystified. “But what is all of this?”
“The salvation of civilisation and the death knell of our enemies, sir.” Kitt collected a first aid kit from the aircraft, then clambered up onto her budgerigar. She frowned at Snapper.
“Half assed plan indeed! We have the tools! We have the knowledge, and we have the advantage of surprise! Now we merely need to make the details happen!” She looked about. “Right! Now someone please feed me. I am utterly pining for a hot meat pie.”
Mayor Baker rode forward, almost blank with amazement.
“The pub will make you one! With chips and all the trimmings.”
“Thank you, dear Mayor.” Kitterpokkie made certain that the emptying of the aerodyne was well in hand. “Please do not mess about with the aircraft itself. It is apparently on the verge of exploding. Anyway, can’t stop. Work to do, work to do! ”
Kitt and Snapper rode off with the Mayor. Beau mounted Pendleton and collected up the other riding beasts. He looked after Snapper and shook his head.
“Hopefully marriage will never change her.”
Toby looked about in confusion.
“Marriage?”
“I shall tell you all about it over a cold ale!” Beau clucked his tongue, and Pendleton began trotting off towards the town. “It is good to be home.”
Throckmorton finished off a bottle of cider. He collected his personal goods – crossbow, gold chip, opera glasses and gold encrusted hat – and whirred happily off towards the town, while behind him, riders laughed to one another as they loaded up the wagons.
The hussars had come home.
Chapter 17
Thirty kilometres east of Spark Town, excavation crews raised clouds of dust. With shovels and carts they cleared aside deep, hard-packed dirt, then hauled away rubble from an ancient buried railway station.
The workers were human – pure human, untainted by the GeneStorm virus – crusaders come to scour mutation from the earth at last. The engineers were hard men – powerful, muscular, and trained from birth in near monastic fervour. They dug with single minded energy, hacking wide a path into the dark.
As the diggers worked, more men arrived, riding up and out of the great tunnel beneath the ground. Clad in uniforms of green and grey, all were mounted on fine purebred horses: fifty men armed with long rifles and straight, basket hilted swords. The riders galloped past the engineers, past a picket line of riflemen, galloping out towards the west. Dismounting nearby, they walked forward to take cover in the brush. Armed and ready, the men stared coldly off westward, where mutant hordes and foully warped nature spread their stain across the earth.
Kenda led the mounted scouts. Finally he was in uniform again, with the insignia of a full major. The hated green dye had been bleached out of his skin and hair. He had his vicious sword – blooded in three duels – a plasma pistol and a breech loading rifle. He scanned the empty lands to the west, and gave a predatory smile.
The mutants were utterly unaware that their doom had finally come. To the south, their six pathetic little villages all blundered about their affairs. Spark Town was still without ammunition. And with Snapper and ‘Captain’ Beau now dead, their mounted arm was leaderless. They would be smashed between the hammer of a wave of Screamers and the anvil of the purist army. Then the army would move to exterminate the false humans at the monastery, and the villages to the south. A lightning campaign could scour the lands clean in a month.
One month, and the fertile lands would be fit for re-colonisation and re-seeding at last.
It had taken a mere two days to muster the army and gather the surviving Screamers from their breeding pens – and another five days to travel the length of the tunnel beneath the sands. Speed was of the essence; they had to move before convoys from the southern villages could bring aid to Spark Town. They would be most easily conquered if their guns were empty, and their ammunition stores utterly gone. The invading army was fifteen hundred men – fifteen hundred against the five hundred inhabitants of Spark Town.
Not that numbers mattered anymore. Five hundred plasma rifles would end the battle in a single, searing flash. The Spark Town rifles were deadly – long ranged, fast and accurate – but they could not stand against the horror of true human firepower.
The radio at Kenda’s belt crackled. He lifted the hefty, home-made set to his ear.
“Spyglass Alpha here – over.”
The radio buzzed and sizzled.
“Acorn Alpha, this is Holdfast. Passage open. First Foxhounds are now being deployed.” The distant engineer commander let the triumph ring in his voice. “Sunray requests personal report from Acorn Alpha – over.”
“Holdfast Alpha – Acorn Alpha is inbound. Out to you.”
Kenda conferred with his other scout commanders. The men had sighted no movement out across the hills – no dust clouds. The lands to the west were deserted. The mutants were far off in their towns and ranches. Kenda mounted his horse, turned for one last glance at the hills, then rode back towards the old rubble mounds.
It was good to be mounted on a true horse again. Mere transport, but at least untainted by warped, spliced genes. Kenda rode past mounds of excavated dirt, past wagons tipping rubble out cross the mutated grass, and came to the new ramp that plunged at an easy slope down to meet the ancient subway tunnel.
Men were marching up out of the tunnel – human soldiers, uniformed and in high spirits. Fifteen hundred men and women, formed into ten companies: the entire force of the Pure Crusade. Each company had one platoon armed with plasma rifles, and two others with weapons copied from the rifles of Spark Town. Every company was followed by a wagon drawn by heavy horses – a wagon that carried rifle ammunition, rations, tents and tools. Behin
d the companies came support wagons – a generator for recharging power plants, a hospital wagon, and the command caravan itself.
General Hendricks and his staff were mounted on horseback, watching the companies form into pairs, each led by a field major. Officers came galloping to them with reports: signallers used some of the few, expensive radios to gather messages. Kenda rode forward, and gave the general an immaculate salute with his sword.
In his sixties, the general was hardened by a life spent in training for the final crusade. He looked out across the western hills with a telescope, and seemed well satisfied.
“Major Kenda! Are your scouts satisfied that the invasion forces are unseen?”
Kenda turned to look to the west. He gripped his long sword, regretting that it would not find real prey.
“No tracks. No dust clouds, sir. Now dry season’s come, the ranchers will have their herds down at the main river. Only prospectors would come out here east of Spark Town.”
“You’re certain none of these prospectors are nearby?”
“I destroyed all of them on Mistral, General.” Kenda’s relished the memory of that sweet moment – the robots closing in to vaporise the security bunker – hellfire closing in to tear the mutants apart. “No – the task force has achieved absolute surprise.”
“Excellent.”
The human troops were now well clear of the subway tunnel and already marching to the west. From down in the jet black tunnel, there now came a terrible, echoing sound.
Riders burst up out of the tunnel: ‘beast herders’ armed with rifles, and all carrying Screamer lures. The men rode swiftly to the open paths through the dirt mounds. They waited as a last rider came galloping forth, looking behind himself as he rode.
The Screamers came out into the light.
The creatures screeched to one another, in violent, senseless anger. They had been bred from the worst of the GeneStorm’s twisted mutants, fed on cattle in the breeding pens of the military enclave. These were the last of them – five hundred of the monsters. There were no cattle left to breed more. But it would be easy to increase their numbers now. If they were still needed, the monsters could breed in the corpses of mutants. Or if they were no longer needed, the abominations could be destroyed. Bio weapons were always risky. The GeneStorm plague itself was proof enough of that.
The Screamers came thundering up out of the tunnel, surging about, sensing the call of the electromagnetic lures. The beast herders spurred off and away from the army, drawing the Screamers off to the north, then thundered west towards Spark Town. They deliberately kept the monsters out of line of sight of the marching infantry: Screamers could go mad with hunger if they saw so many men. They needed to be kept on a separate line of march.
The general sheathed his telescope next to his fine new plasma pistol.
“Five hours march to Spark Town. We will cross the hill range here, cross the plains, then rest behind the tributary creek line three kilometres from the target.” He consulted an ancient watch that still kept perfect time. “We’ll unleash the beasts on the town just before dawn. Plasma rifles can destroy the gates. We may hardly even need to engage.” The general nodded to Kenda. “Your scout riders can have the honour of blasting the gates. One good volley from a half dozen plasma guns, Major, then ride clear and enjoy the slaughter. Your men can ride down any of the mutants who attempt to escape the town.”
“Yes sir!” This was far more to Kenda’s liking. He saluted with his sword. “Thank you, sir.”
Kenda rode back past the fast-marching columns of infantry. A dark joy was overflowing his heart. His men had an excellent mission. No mere scouting task. They would spearhead and oversee the total extermination of the mutant enemy.
His sword would reap new victories after all.
The scout riders were already mounted and waiting. They caught their officer’s mood as he rode to them. His lieutenants turned to greet him, eager for the kill.
“Sir – good news?”
“Excellent news, Lieutenant. Excellent news.” Kenda saw the dust raised by the Screamers as they swarmed off through a pass in the northern hills.
“We have work to do…”
In the hills more than a kilometre away, Spark Town riders were watching. The picket lines had been sitting carefully in place for many days – patient hunters and range riders waiting in cover, watching for the enemy. They waited now to double check the enemy numbers. The marching columns of men were finally moving out, the Screamers led north and then west, heading for the dry watercourse that would take them to Padbury, red-rock gully, and thence to Spark Town.
The leader of the range riders – the massive crocodile who haunted Spark Town’s pub – lifted up the radio every scout team now carried. Looted from Mistral they were far more sophisticated that the handsets used by the humans. They even opened up a virtual video conferencing screen. The croc thumbed open the radio and the window shimmered into view. He saw Snapper, who was obviously out in the field with the main cavalry force.
“Snapper? They’re on the move, mate. They’ve got about… fifty unarmoured riders as a scout screen, but they’re moving on foot. About fifteen hundred riflemen.”
Snapper nodded. “Screamers?”
“Reckon there’s about five hundred of the buggers. There’s four guys on horseback leading them on. I reckon they’re heading for red-rock gully just like last time. Padbury, then down the gully to Spark Town again.” The croc looked along the humans’ line of march. “The main force is heading straight west. That puts them crossing the open ground north of Pink Hill ranch.”
“Okay. Sterling work, mate. You’re a legend.” Snapper looked briefly behind her, then back again. “We’re getting ready. You guys fall back – don’t be seen. Just keep a tag on them. The monks and southerners have a skirmish line back at Pink Hill ranch.”
“Looking forward to the show.” The croc switched off the radio, then slipped forward to find his fellow riders – his little sister, one of his brothers, and two monks from the brotherhood monastery. He put a hand on a monk’s shoulder and took another quiet look at the advancing enemy and their cavalry screen.
“All right – looks like it’s on for young and old! Let’s get back to Pink Hill.”
The group – crocodile mutants and human monks who lived in the weird-lands – withdrew to their hidden budgerigars. Mounting up they sped softly away, bird claws raising no dust as they kept to the mutant grass that followed an ancient drainage ditch.
Behind them, the tramp of fifteen hundred pairs of boots echoed out across the hills.
“Ammunition issue! Carbines! Carbines!” Snapper rode past the table and caught a pouch of hefty carbine bullets. “Pistol rounds to the left. Shotgun rounds over at the tree! Two carbine packs per rider! One of pistol or shotgun only!” Over the past few days, the ammunition makers of Spark Town had worked like demons, conscripting every child or aged genius in town to help with mixing, stacking and packing. But rifle and carbine bullets had taken priority over pistol rounds. “Load up and fall in! Load up and fall in!”
Budgies squawked, cockatoos screeched and beetle-horses fluttered their wings. The cavalrymen of Spark Town were forming into units about the huge aerodyne aircraft that still sat on the flat ground outside of town. Three hundred Spark Towners had been joined by fifty black-uniformed riders from the monastery – humans from the wastelands keen to stand next to their splicer kin. There were another hundred riders from the south – most armed with muzzle loading guns, but all kitted out with armour, sharp swords and excellent mounts. The groups were falling in, forming up into their squadrons of fifty. Riders with banners marked the position of each squadron, helping sort the chaos swiftly into order.
The town walls were defended by the injured, and those far too young to be in the main battle line. Cantankerous oldsters were utterly insistent on joining battle, and their experience was valued: Toby’s generation were as mean as cut snakes, all were veterans of the Skull-Bi
ter war. They took charge of squadrons and moved them into the shade of the nearby trees.
The aerodyne was serving as a focus for the high command. Mayor Baker was there, along with Toby, Samuels, Kitterpokkie, Throckmorton and Beau. Snapper rode up on Onan, dressed to the nines in her best black hussar pelisse, dolman and black breastplate. She saluted with a cavalier sweep of her big sword.
“How are we doing?”
Kitterpokkie had spread a hand drawn map out across a fallen log. She tapped at it with a pen.
“The Screamers are definitely heading for red-rock gulley. Scouts just reported them moving in.” The mantis stood up and began gathering her equipment. “Throcky and I will move out now.”
They had a good team with them – eight part time prospectors all armed with rifles, six-guns and shovels. Pack animals were laden down with high explosives from Mistral, radio detonators and entrenching tools. Kitterpokkie mounted up onto her lavender budgerigar, settling her plasma gun beside her. Beau swung up onto Pendleton, handed a little bag to Throckmorton, and passed the plant a handful of crossbow bolts tipped with explosive power heads.
Kitterpokkie fussed over her gear, visibly upset to be leaving Snapper in the lurch.
“Now you’ve reminded Samuels how to do it? Switch broadcast to ‘on’, and then enable data share. We’ve already identified that the files are there.”
“Yep yep yep! Just like we practiced.” Snapper kissed her friend. “Give my respect to our fellow riders. Keep your radios on.” Snapper reached over to clasp Beau’s hand. “Ready to lead them in?”
“Honoured. Truly honoured.” Beau shook his head. “Forgive me – a handshake will not do.”
The fox-pheasant kissed Snapper and held her for a moment.
“Ride well.”
“Ride well.”
Snapper kissed Throckmorton on one of his heads. “Throcky – keep them out of trouble.”
“Throckmorton will.”
There was no time to lose. Kitterpokkie, Beau, Throckmorton and their team headed out, galloping like lightning to the north, heading for red rock gully. Throckmorton honked his horn in farewell as he was towed like a mad kite behind a fast galloping budgerigar. Pendleton fluttered his wings, and then they were gone.
