Nu said, “I don’t understand,”
“Say that Route-line Cattle-king is compromised…”
“I think he’s delirious.”
“No,” said the mechanic. “Cattle-king must be your contact’s code name. I’ll spool up the oracle.”
“Does this mean the women are in danger?”
Loxal grunted, “No, just Telemnuk’s station. He’ll get word on today’s check-in to destroy his oracle. He should be okay too after that.”
“Then we did this for nothing! The information from Meldur can’t get through!”
“It’ll get through, Jek. Cheer up. We have back-up routes.”
“I see more gas bags pouring through the pass,” said the cannon operator. “I count four. They’re still quite a ways off, but that’ll change.”
I
nguska could also see the four new airships approaching out of the east. “Recommend we circle at our ceiling altitude and saturate them with rockets. It’ll mean moving in closer, but I think we’ll still be outside their cannonry range.”
“You think?” demanded the Horned One.
“Lord, they have a new kind of chariot. It’s impossible to be absolutely certain. If they hit one of us, the rest can move out farther before the target can take another shot.”
“Very well; signal the others.”
“T
hey’re circling around us at the very edge of our weapons envelope,” said the guildsman on the cannon.
The mechanic was on the periscope. “Range is between six thousand and sixty-five hundred cubits. Their clines are angling down… Rockets launched! Rockets inbound! Fire! Fire! Fire!”
The quadruple mount began to chatter in a continual stream. The earth shook like thousands of drum beats from an angry god. The driver twisted and turned, slowed and sped up to try to avoid the shrieking missiles, tossing Nu around the aft compartment.
Whump! Whump! Whump! Three rockets slammed in on either side and to the rear. The grinding tread rattled and screeched, but somehow did not break.
The aerial cannon rotated with a steady barrage. “I see one airship spiraling and on fire, two more are burning but holding their attack course!”
Another round of missiles plowed into the earth just in front of the vehicle. The Firedrake dropped into the fiery crater and then bounced up over the other side. Nu felt the heat on his back as flames roared in through the firing slits. The bad tread shrieked louder and rapped continually after the chassis crashed down outside the crater wall. The driver poured on speed.
Again, the sky cannons pounded from the roof.
Two more explosions rocked the sky.
The mechanic reported from the periscope; “Direct hit and one of the burning gas bags just blew up!”
“That leaves three and one of them’s burning,” the Guildsman on the sky cannon added. He loosed more shot where two of the remaining ships had foolishly clustered together on almost the same attack vector.
“There they go!” whooped the mechanic after two more concussions slammed in from overhead.
The gunner shouted, “Where’s the last one? I can’t see it!”
The mechanic swept the periscope three-hundred and sixty degrees around and used the tilt-angle up in all directions. “I don’t see it either.”
I
nguska’s ship dove into the smoke when the last two Vimanas blew up. The contours of the highlands allowed him to dip down into a shallow ravine that roughly paralleled the game trail toward the lowlands.
“It seems you’ve underestimated their weapon’s range,” said the Titan of the now much-diminished Second Sky-Lords.
“I have failed, my Lords,” cried the Altern with just the right plaintive whine that he knew was expected. His mind was really on the terrain that swept by so close below.
The pilot, who had worked the gas valves during the dive, reached over for the oracle set. “Should I call for more reinforcements, Lord?”
“No,” said the Horned One. “We’ll do this the old fashioned way. Better to get prisoners we can interrogate, anyhow.” He walked around to where Inguska could see him. “How well do you know the land here?”
The Altern swerved to keep the gondola from striking a clump of trees. “They’re using a behemoth migratory trail down to the low land jungles. It must go all the way to the river.”
The Titan smiled. “Can you get ahead of them and set us down where the trees thicken and the trail narrows?”
Inguska saw redemption dawn like the sun. “I know just the spot.”
T
he mechanic switched off the oracle and took off the ear piece. “Here’s the new plan,” he said to the others. “The tanker drake is moving forward to meet us—has been since our report this morning. A third vehicle will cross the river with extra fuel to get us all in. If our tread breaks, we’re to wait. Loxal’s talisman will lead them to us—or at least notify when they’re close. They want us to stay off the oracle unless it’s life or death.”
The driver said, “Looks like Command is in tune with the gods for a change.”
“I’m still worried about that missing gas bag,” said the guildsman on the sky cannons.
“Relax. You must’ve got it or else it would have called in more ships. They had plenty of time today for a third strike.”
The Firedrake’s tread had screeched and rapped all through the afternoon since the last attack, until they had found a complex of small forested knots to hide among for the night.
The mechanic reached toward the hatch. “I’d better use the time to repair the tread. We need the canopy spread, so I can use a phosphor lamp.”
Nu checked Loxal’s dressing and found him asleep from his most recent opiate infusion. Then he wiggled out the hatch just as the two Guild drivers finished erecting the camouflage web. The mechanic was already on the ground examining the tread. Nu squatted next to him and watched.
“Fortunately we didn’t stop with the broken part down,” the mechanic explained, as he clasped two detached tread rings and pointed to where only a single remaining ring had held the millipede together. Two other segments were broken completely off.
Nu asked, “Can you fix it?”
“I can roughly secure the two detached segments, but I can’t replace the missing two. It’ll still be pretty noisy, but it may hold long enough for us to close the distance with the approaching tanker.”
That was as good a bit of news as A’Nu-Ahki had heard all day—good enough that he slept most of the remaining night.
They started up again before sun-up. The mechanic wanted to make heavy tree cover as soon as possible. By mid-morning, clumps of jungle got larger and more frequent. The guildsman on the aerial weapon continually scanned the skies but saw no further sign of airships.
Just after noon, Nu sighted a pack of wyverna feeding on a spike-tail carcass—a sign that the rain-forest drew near. Minutes later, the jungle rapidly closed in, with only sporadic clearings every few minutes.
Nu crouched forward to the periscope to ask the mechanic for a quick look through the device.
That was when the world flipped upside-down and collapsed in a fiery tangle of blood and steel.
F
rom down the trail, Inguska watched the explosion under the Firedrake with immense satisfaction. A nice hidden package of solid rocket propellant lit off by a single shot from his hand-cannon had done the trick.
The Titan clapped him on the shoulder and stepped out from the concealing foliage. “Sometimes the older, simpler ways are best.”
Inguska heartily agreed as he followed his leader, with his hand-cannon leveled at the partly crushed and overturned vehicle.
They had left the Vimana to hover over the last big clearing, several thousand cubits deeper into the jungle—well behind the wall of trees from their approaching quarry.
As Inguska drew near the smoldering wreck, he saw that the driver was surely dead—the recessed window showed a half-decapitated body. Likew
ise, the weapon operator could not have survived beneath the weight of the twisted hulk. Nevertheless, one side of the vehicle had not collapsed completely. From there the Altern was sure he heard movement inside.
N
u did not know what had happened; only that a folded sandwich of blood and wreckage had crushed Loxal from his waist up. Had A’Nu-Ahki not crawled forward at the last second, he would have suffered the same fate. The coughing mechanic squirmed underneath him.
Nu rolled off him and, almost without thinking, reached toward what remained of Loxal. Inside the dead Assassin’s kilt pouch was the singing talisman. Nu pulled it out and placed it inside his own belt.
The mechanic, seeing what Nu had done, said, “Swallow it.”
“What?”
The bruised and bloodied guildsman pulled himself up to a low sitting position around the wrecked periscope. “It’ll come out harmless in yer stools. Otherwise they’ll take it and toss it.”
Somebody rapped on the hatch from outside.
Nu popped the talisman in his mouth and willed himself to swallow.
The mechanic kicked open the hatch and showed his empty hands to the man who looked in at them.
“Get out!” commanded a dark-faced fellow who brandished an ugly looking hand-cannon in their faces.
Nu and the mechanic wiggled their way out of the wreckage and stood unsteadily before their captor.
That was when A’Nu-Ahki noticed the horned giant looming farther off. He loosely resembled the sons of Samyaza, but slightly smaller, with fewer horns and less hide armor. The man with the hand-cannon shoved them forward to meet this creature.
The Titan peered first at the mechanic then Nu. “What were you doing on our borders?”
Both remained silent.
“Fair enough,” the creature smirked. “I haven’t enjoyed skinning a man alive since Salaam-Surupag. Let’s get them back to the ship, Inguska.”
The man with the hand-cannon nudged them forward and walked them further down the trail into the jungle. Nu tried not to let his mind fix on images of friends and relatives flayed alive. He was too shocked to focus on anything good or bad anyway.
The noises of the rain-forest seemed to mock the prisoners as they walked in front of Inguska and the Titan. Nu almost yearned for the simple days when only cockatrice and gryndel haunted the jungles of his life. After stumbling on for what seemed like hours, they reached a clearing where an airship’s engines rattled close above the trees. A rope ladder hung over the small swath of grass, and dragged on the ground. Nu stepped from the trees into the airship’s shadow.
Inguska said, “You two, up the ladder first.”
The mechanic started up the swaying rungs, followed by A’Nu-Ahki, whose arms burned with each pull on the ropes. Nu looked down, and saw the Demigod Altern pointing his hand-cannon up at him while the Horned Giant stood farther off.
Some birds flew from the trees at the other side of the clearing. Nu looked up to see his next hand-hold while his heart sank at the enormous silhouette of the floating leviathan’s belly. More birds screeched into the air at a sudden movement caught only in the corner of his eye.
The great airship exploded into a fireball sixty cubits above.
Everything after that seemed to move by in blazing slow motion. The mechanic dropped past Nu and landed on Inguska, knocking the hand-cannon into the weeds. The burning airship began to rise and heel over.
Nu released the ladder, and tumbled over the mechanic into a thorn bush that could have been a down cushion, as numb as he felt. The hand-cannon lay in the grass, halfway between him and the stunned Titan.
A’Nu-Ahki fought a swimming head and the screech in his ears. He scrambled for the weapon, just as the Giant regained his wits and saw him.
The burning airship howled over him, as Nu threw himself at the hand-cannon. A secondary explosion above the trees crackled through the air. It slammed both man and giant to the ground like flies in its concussion. The Titan held his hands to his ears and screamed, while Nu’s head spun.
A’Nu-Ahki pushed himself to his feet again on the swaying earth. Where’s the weapon? I’ve got to find that weapon!
The Giant was also up, still holding his head.
There—at the Horned One’s feet!
A’Nu-Ahki bowled himself into the boots of the Commander of Second Sky-Lords, knocking the Giant over again. He snatched the weapon from the dirt then rolled on top the fallen Titan, where he brought the hand-cannon up to the creature’s stunned face.
A tanker drake rumbled through the trees at the other end of the clearing, and rolled to a stop almost on top of A’Nu-Ahki.
In seconds, two Guild fusiliers had weapons trained on the Giant’s head while another helped the mechanic subdue Inguska.
Nu didn’t even hear the final crash of the flaming airship a few hundred cubits off in the trees. He busily crouched over on his knees, shaking, and vomited his guts out with the talisman.
Now this Seth, when he was brought up, and came to those years in which he could discern what was good, became a virtuous man; and as he was himself of an excellent character, so did he leave children behind him who imitated his virtues… They also were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order. And that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently known, upon Adam’s prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars; the one of brick, the other of stone: they inscribed their discoveries on them both…
—Flavius Josephus
Antiquities of the Jews, 2:3
(circa 95 AD)
16
Star-Signs
T
he comet blazed across the evening sky, visible even before the last light of day faded over the horizon. It signaled the end to many, for it had emerged out of the constellation of the Dragon Breaker and moved steadily into the head of the Great Leviathan that stretched over the southern sky.
A’Nu-Ahki muttered, “Unfortunately, it’s not the end people think.”
He stood atop a new ziggurat observatory that overlooked the Akh’Uzan monastery from next to the huge quarry where masons had cut the stones for both. Nu’s father sat with him on the circular track stone of the pyramid’s giant telescope to gaze at the brilliant cosmic interloper. The telescope assembly had arrived from Sa-utar the previous year.
Lumekki seemed in a talkative mood. “The priests say it’s a sign the Century War is ending. It’s about time, since it has actually dragged on for two. I guess nobody wants to remember it as the ‘Two Century War.’ That just doesn’t have the same ring…”
Almost five more decades! Nu lamented. Have the women in Meldur given up by now? I would have!
Rather than bring his father down, he said, “So what are the priests ranting about this time?”
“Nothing original; they paint Uggu of Lumekkor as the Dragon Breaker, and the Samyaza giants as the Southern Sea Monster. The movement indicates Assuri’s fall, which became certain after the armored breakthrough in the Battle of the Haunted Lands three years ago. Assuri’s inner fortifications are collapsing. Meldur will fall any time, according to the courier in the village. After that, Assur’Ayur is naked. Then you can count the days.”
A’Nu-Ahki spirits lifted some. “Now that’s prophetic insight! Anyone with half a year’s military training could have predicted that outcome, especially once Far Kush and Y’Raddu aligned with Lumekkor and the Iya’Baalim nomads invaded Assuri through the mountain passes from Nhod. With a multi-front war closing in on Samyaza, and the Kush Straits opened up to Dumuzi’s modern fleet, it was only a matter of time. The priests! Next they’ll want credit for their insight when the armistice is signed.”
“No doubt.” Lumekki’s laughter never touched his eyes. “Near Kush gets its blood money at our expense—Salaam-Surupag and Ayarak for services rendered by a willin
g vassal.”
“There’s still the repatriation. We’ve already seen over a hundred of our women returned. I notice each liberated city oracles-in lists of captured women to us first thing. Tubaal-qayin must have really lit a fire under their beds to make them so eager to appease us. I wouldn’t fret too much about Salaam-Surupag—it’s nothing but ruins anyway.” Nu sighed as he squinted through the eyepiece of the great tube. The telescope mechanism hunched like a gigantic cannon over half of the ziggurat’s flattened apex.
Lumekki said, “I wish I could be so philosophical. This war has changed the face of the world so much in such a short time that it will take another two centuries just to sift the rubble.”
“It must be hard for you, having watched from the army while Iyared’s father frittered away our strategic holdings. The sons of Samyaza were right about one thing—E’Yahavah has withdrawn most of his protection from Seti and left us a mere buffer state between powers that used to be our vassals. However they reshape the world, it won’t last long in its new form.”
“You put that so well,” Nu’s father mumbled with a sour grimace, as if Nu were trying to rub his nose in a decline that chronologically happened to coincide with his own lifetime of service.
Nu tried not to sound so serious. He lifted his face from the eyepiece and winked at him. “I’m supposed to be a seer, remember?”
“Yeah, well, it’s always easier to analyze the past than to predict the future. Which reminds me, when are you and Pahpi leaving for the peak? We need to seek E’Yahavah for an interpretation of this comet. I’m surprised nobody’s been up to inquire by now.”
“Why come to us when the priests will say exactly what you want for a price? And aren’t you coming too? I’m not the only seer around here.”
“No, I don’t feel up to it—the heat, that is. Pahpi gets a strange thrill from all the self-affliction and you need to melt off a few skels of fat. I think I will just wait it out down here in happy ignorance, if you all don’t mind.”
Dawn Apocalypse Rising (The Windows of Heaven Book 1) Page 25
