by David Weber
"I remember very clearly," the old shaman said, "and this wasn't here in my father's day. The fields of Voitan and H'Nar stretched outward through this region. But as I recall, they had been drained from a swamp that surrounded the Hurtan River." The shaman clapped his false hands in regret. "I fear that this may fill the valley of Voitan. It may stretch all the way to T'an K'tass."
"And how far is that?" Kosutic asked.
"Days to the south," Cord replied. "Even weeks."
"And north?" Pahner asked, looking at the swamp and no longer chuckling.
"It stretches as far north as I have knowledge of," the Mardukan said. "The region to the north, even in the days of Voitan, was held by the Kranolta, and they didn't permit caravans through their lands."
"So," Roger said dubiously, "we have to make a choice between going several weeks out of our way to the south, getting hit by the Kranolta the whole way. Or we can go north, directly into their backyard. Or we can try to navigate the swamp."
"Well, your Marines and my people may have some problems," Cord admitted. "But not the flar-ta. They can easily make it through a swamp no deeper than this."
"Really?" It was Kosutic's turn to sound doubtful. "That thing that was chasing you was in a desert. These things—" she jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Patricia "—don't look that different."
"The flar-ta and the flar-ke are found everywhere," Cord pointed out. "They prefer the high, dry regions because of the absence of atul-grack, but they can be found in swamps as well."
Pahner turned and looked at D'Len Pah. The chief mahout had taken over Pat when her original mahout was killed in the first ambush, and now waited patiently for the humans to make up their minds.
"Do you think the pack beasts can cross this, Pah?" the captain asked skeptically.
"Certainly," the mahout said with a grunt of laughter. "Is that what you've been jawing about?"
He tapped the beast in a crease in the armor just behind her massive head shield to get her in gear, and the flar-ta whuffled forward. She moaned dolefully when she saw the black muck, but she stepped into it anyway.
The pack beast's feet each consisted of four toes with leathery bases. They were equipped with heavy digging claws, and their pads were broad and fleshy. They were also webbed, and now Patricia spread her toes wide, more than tripling the square area of her foot. That foot sank into the sloppy mud but found "solid" footing well before the belly of the creature touched the water.
"Hmmm." Roger watched thoughtfully. "Can she move out into the swamp?"
Pah prodded again, and the beast grumbled but moved out into the black water. Obviously, she was as at home in the swamp as in the jungle, but a moment later she burbled and started to back up hastily as a "V" ripple started towards her from deeper in the swamp.
Roger picked up his rifle from where he'd leaned it against a tree and flipped it off safe. Beads from Marine rifles started bouncing off the surface as the panicking beast lumbered back up out of the water, but the prince only drew a breath and led the approaching ripple.
Pahner flicked the selector switch on his bead rifle to armor-piercing as he realized that the lighter ceramic beads were simply skipping off the water, but just as he was about to fire, Roger's big rifle boomed, and the ripple turned into a whitewater of convulsions. The creature jerking and flopping at the center of the maelstrom was longer and narrower than a damnbeast but otherwise similar, with the same mucus-covered skin as a scummy. The green and black-striped beast thrashed a few more times as the huge hole blown through its shoulder and neck bled out, then rolled over to float belly-up on the surface.
"Dinner," Roger said calmly, jacking another round into the chamber.
"Well," Pahner observed with a sniff, "that's half the problem solved. We'll pile the rucksacks on the beasts and follow them through the swamp."
"It will make Kranolta attacks less likely, as well," Cord said ruminatively as the mahouts waded into the water to retrieve the kill. "Such swamps are useless to the forest people. They won't be as at home there as in the forest, and they'll never expect us to cross it here. But," he continued, gesturing into the swamp with his spear, "somewhere in there is the Hurtan River. And that the flar-ta will be unable to cross."
"We'll build that bridge when we come to it," Kosutic said with a laugh. "First, we have to deal with—"
"The Mohiiinga," Roger and Pahner chorused.
* * *
Poertena slipped and went under for a moment before Denat could pull him, puffing and spluttering, to his feet. The armorer spat out foul-tasting water, but he'd still managed to keep his bead rifle from going under.
"T'anks, Denat," he began, then broke off as his helmet started to pop and hiss.
"Shit!" He tore off the helmet as the earphones began to howl. "Modderpockers are suppose a be waterproof," he grumped. He'd deal with it later.
The company had been slogging through the waist- to chest-high swamp all the long Mardukan afternoon. The going was slow and hard, with the black mud sucking at their boots and chameleon suits, and hidden roots and fallen branches grabbing at their ankles. Most of them were coated in muck from top to bottom after repeated falls.
The only exceptions were the marksmen sitting on the flar-ta.
"Look at t'at stuck up prig sittin' up there," Poertena grumbled, glaring at the prince who was on the lead pack beast.
"You'd be up there, too," Despreaux said, moving forward to check on her Bravo Team, "if, of course, you could shoot as well as he can."
"Rub it in," the armorer muttered. "An' watch where you step. One o' these modderpocker swamp-beast eat you!"
* * *
Roger's head twitched to the right, tracking a ripple in the water, but it was small and heading away. The ride wasn't much different from normal, although it was perhaps a tad smoother. The flar-ta crushed most of the fallen limbs or trees they encountered without even breaking stride.
The swamp's flora ran to smaller species than in the jungle, and many of those he'd seen seemed relatively young. Cord had indicated that these areas had been fields in his father's day, so perhaps that explained their lack of age. Which, in turn, might explain their smaller size, now that he thought about it.
He turned to look behind him at the Marines sliding through the swamp and patted the snoring Dogzard on her head. The poor bastards were covered in the thick black mud and looked as worn and dragged as he'd ever seen them. The necessity of holding their rifles up out of the muck and pushing their way through it was obviously telling on them. It was particularly hard on the grenadiers, who had their boxes and bandoliers of grenades piled on their heads and shoulders with the heavy grenade launchers held up out of the slop. All in all, it made him feel like a shit to be sitting on Patricia's back.
The only consolation was that he'd been contributing. The caravan had attracted a host of carnivores as it passed through the swamp, and the Marines' bead rifles, even when switched to the heavier tungsten-cored armor piercing rounds, weren't as effective in the water as his big 11-millimeter magnum "smoke-pole." The lower velocity, heavier slugs punched into the water, rather than tending to come apart on the surface.
But he wasn't happy about it, especially with night coming on.
* * *
Pahner moved forward, pushing against the drag of the swamp as he responded to a call from the lead mahouts. He sloshed up alongside, and D'Len Pah looked down from the slow-moving reptiloid and pointed his goad stick in the direction of the descending sun.
"We must rest the beasts soon," he said. "And it will be very difficult to move in the dark."
Pahner had recognized the inevitability an hour before. There was no end to the swamp in sight, and apparently no island-forming uplands. And even if there'd been islands, they would have been inhabited by something.
"Agreed," he said. "We're going to have to stop somewhere."
"And we need to unload the packs," the mahout said. "The flar-ta will sleep standing up, but we mu
st unload them. Otherwise, they will be useless tomorrow."
Pahner looked around and shook his head in resignation. It was the same wet, weird vista as it had been for the last few hours, so he supposed here was as good as anywhere.
"Okay, hold up here. I'll go get started on unloading them."
* * *
"We can't just dump the stuff in the swamp," Roger said. It was meant as an observation, but his tone made it sound like a protest.
"I know that, Your Highness," Pahner said testily. Just when the prince started to get a grip, he said the wrong thing at the wrong time. "We're not going to dump it in the swamp."
"Going vertical?" Lieutenant Gulyas asked. Because he was a couple of months senior to Jasco, he'd taken over as XO when Sawato was killed, turning his platoon over to Staff Sergeant Hazheir, its senior surviving NCO. It didn't really require more. Second Platoon had been hit hard, both in the ambush and before, and was already down to half its original complement.
"Yep," Pahner responded, looking up. The trees in the area weren't the giants of the rain forest they'd traveled under for weeks. They were lower, more like large cypresses, with branches that spread out to choke the light and red vinelike projections that reached up from their roots to search for oxygen.
"Start setting up slings. We'll sling the armor off one piece at a time, then sling the rest of the gear in bundles." The company had plenty of issue climbing-rope. The lines were rated to support an eighty-ton tank, but the forty-meter length that each team leader carried weighed less than a kilo. There was more than enough to lift all the gear.
"What about the troops?" Roger asked. "Where are they going to sleep?"
"Well, that's the tough part, Your Highness," Kosutic told him with a grin. "This is how you separate the Marines from the goats."
"Besides the usual method—with a crowbar," Gulyas said, completing a joke as old as armies.
* * *
"T'is really suck." Poertena didn't even bother to try to get comfortable.
"Oh, it's not all that bad," Julian said as he adjusted the strap across his chest. The ebullient NCO was coated from head to toe in black, stinking mud, and exhausted from the day's travel, so his manic grin had to be false. "It could be worse."
"How?" Poertena demanded, adjusting his own rope. The two Marines, along with the rest of the company, were tied with their backs to trees. Since they had no choice but to sleep on their feet, the ropes around them were designed to keep them from slipping down into the chest-deep muck. As tired as they were, there was a distinct possibility that they wouldn't wake up if they did.
"Well," Julian replied thoughtfully as the skies opened up in a typical Mardukan deluge, "something could be trying to eat us."
Pahner had the sentries walking the perimeter and shining red flashlights on each individual. It was hoped that a combination of the movement and the light would drive off the vampire moths. Of course, there were also the swamp beasts to worry about, and it was always possible that movement and light would attract them, but there wasn't a great deal he could do about that.
All in all, it looked like being a very bad night for the Marines.
* * *
"No, Kostas," Roger said, shaking his head at the item Matsugae had produced. "You use it."
"I'm fine, Your Highness," the valet said with a tired smile. The normally dapper servant was covered in black slime. "Really. You shouldn't sleep in this muck, Sir. It's not right."
"Kostas," Roger said, adjusting his chest rope so that he could keep his rifle out of the muck but still get to it quickly, "this is an order. You will take that hammock and sling it somewhere and then climb into it. You will sleep the entire night in it. And you will get some goddamned rest. I'm going to be on the back on that damned pack beast again tomorrow, and you won't, so I can damned well spend a night sitting up. God knows I've seen enough 'white nights' carousing. One more won't kill me."
Matsugae touched Roger on the shoulder and turned away so that the prince wouldn't see the tears in his eyes. Without even realizing it, Roger had started to grow up. Finally.
* * *
"Now that was something I never thought I'd see," Kosutic said quietly.
The sergeant major had managed to rig a line so that she was out of the water, dangling in her combat harness. She didn't know how long she could manage it, but for the time being at least she was off her legs. If she did sleep, she figured she was going to look like something from a bad horror holovid: a dead body dangling on a meat hook.
"Yep," Pahner said, just as quietly. He'd slung himself against a tree like the rest of the company. He had a hammock packed as well, but he'd bundled O'Casey into it. There was no way he was going to use it unless every member of the company had one. And Roger, apparently without prompting, had come to the same decision.
Amazing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
"Wake up."
Julian shook the private by the arm. The bead rifleman dangled limply from the tree, her face gray in the predawn light, and pried one eye open. She looked around at her wet, indescribably muddy surroundings and groaned.
"Please. Kill me," she croaked.
Julian just shook his head with a laugh and moved on. A few moments later, he found himself looking up at the sergeant major, spinning slowly on the end of her rope and snoring. He shook his head again, thought about various humorous possibilities, and decided that they wouldn't be good for his health.
"Wake up, Sergeant Major," he said, touching her boot as it swung into range.
The NCO had her bead pistol out and trained before she was fully awake.
"Julian?" she grunted, and cleared her throat.
"Morning, SMaj," the squad leader chuckled. "Wakee, wakee!"
"Time for another glorious day in the Corps," the sergeant major replied, and pulled an end of the rope to release the knot. She splashed into the water, still holding her bead pistol out of the muck, and came up coated in a fresh covering of mud. "Morning ablutions are complete. Time to rock and roll."
"Sergeant Major, you are too much," Julian laughed.
"Stick with me, kid," the senior NCO told him through her brand new mud. "We're gonna see the galaxy."
"Meet exotic people," Pahner said, untying himself and stretching in the early dawn light.
"And kill them," Julian finished.
* * *
After changing socks, the company moved out on cold rations and vague dreams of dryness. Pahner, recognizing the danger to the Marines' feet, started cycling the company up onto the flar-ta two at a time. Even with the company's reduced manpower, however, it would take most of the day to get everyone up for a brief respite. And it would be brief.
As the morning progressed, there was no sign of a break in the swamp, nor of the sort of increasing depth that might signal a river ahead. In fact, the humans could see no change at all in their surroundings, but the pack beasts seemed to be getting less and less happy about continuing.
Finally, when one balked, Pahner slogged up to D'Len Pah.
"What's wrong with the beasts?" he asked.
"I think we might be in the territory of atul-grack," the mahout answered nervously. "They're very frightened."
"Atul-grack?" Pahner repeated as Cord's nephew Tratan waded up, and the young tribesman started waving all four arms in agitation.
"We must go back!"
"What?" Pahner asked. "Why?"
"Yes," the mahout said. "We should turn around. If there are atul-grack around, we are in grave danger."
"Well," the human said, "are there, or aren't there?"
"I don't know," Pah admitted. "But the beasts act as if they're afraid, and the only thing that would frighten flar-ta is atul-grack."
"Would someone please tell me what the hell an atul-grack is?" Pahner demanded in frustration.
His answer was a deafening roar.
The beast that exploded out of the swamp was a nightmare. Solid and low, like a damnbeast, the gray and
black-striped monster was at least five times as large—nearly as large as the elephantine flar-ta. Its mouth was wide enough to swallow a human whole and filled with sharklike teeth, and it sprinted across the swamp like a tornado, water fountaining skyward from every impact of its six broad feet, as the company's weapons opened up on all sides and the pack beasts erupted in pandemonium.
Roger rolled off of Patty's back as she hot-footed away from the charging carnivore. He came up sputtering, covered in mud, but he'd managed to keep the rifle out of the swamp.
Dogzard had followed him, spinning through the air out of a sound sleep and splashing into the water beside him. The sauroid planted her amphibian hind feet in the muck and shot her head above water just long enough to determine the problem. Then she promptly ducked back under and swam away at top speed. She was a scavenger, not a fighter. And certainly not a fighter of atul-grack.
The carnivore was intent on pulling down one of the flar-ta as its dinner. It was being bracketed by grenades and hit on either side by dozens of rounds from the bead rifles, but it charged on, ignoring the pinpricks, and Roger realized that it was charging dead at Captain Pahner, who was sliding out of its way as fast as he could while firing a bead pistol at it one-handed.
The prince put the dot of the holographic sight on the beast's temple, led it a little, and let fly.
* * *
Sergeant Major Kosutic stood up, coughing and spluttering. One of the pack beasts' tails had hit her hard enough to harden her chameleon armor and throw her ten meters through the air and into a tree. She spun around in place and immediately spotted the bellowing carnivore that had started the ruckus. The friction-sling of her bead rifle was still attached, and she raised the weapon, then froze and checked. A twig frantically inserted into the barrel came out dry, so she switched to armor piercing and took careful aim at the head of the beast.
* * *
The two shots sounded as one, somehow echoing clearly in a lull as the rest of the company was reloading. Armand Pahner abandoned dignity and comfort for survival and threw himself into a long, shallow dive out of the way as the beast slid to a halt where he'd been standing in an all-enveloping bow wave of water, muck, and shredded swamp vegetation.
