The Horse Barbarians
( The Deathworld Series - 3 )
Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison
The Horse Barbarians
1
Guard Lieutenant Talenc lowered the electronic binoculars and twisted a knob on their controls, turning up the intensity to compensate for the failing light. The glaring white sun dropped behind a thick stratum of clouds, and evening was close, yet the image intensifier in the binoculars presented a harshly clear black-and-white image of the undulating plain. Talenc cursed under his breath and swept the heavy instrument back and forth. Grass, a sea of wind-stirred, frostcoated grass. Nothing.
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t see it, sir,” the sentry said reluctantly. “It’s always just the same out there.”
“Well I saw it-and that’s good enough. Something moved and I’m going to find out what it is.” He lowered the binoculars and glanced at his watch. “An hour and a half until it gets dark, plenty of time. Tell the officer of the day where I’ve gone.”
The sentry opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. One did not give advice to Guard Lieutenant Talenc. When the gate in the charged wire fence opened, Talenc swung up his laser rifle, settled the grenade case firmly on his belt, and strode forth-a man secure in his own strength, a one time unarmed-combat champion and veteran of uncounted brawls. Positive that there was nothing in this vacant expanse of plain that he could not take care of.
He had seen a movement, he was sure of that, a flicker of motion that had drawn his eye. It could have been an animal; it could have been anything. His decision to investigate was prompted as much by the boredom of the guard routine as by curiosity. Or duty. He stamped solidly through the crackling grass and turned only once to look back at the wire-girt camp. A handful of low buildings and tents, with the skeleton of the drill tower rising above them, while the clifflike bulk of the spaceship shadowed it all. Talenc was not a sensitive man, yet even he was aware of the minuteness of this lonely encampment, set into the horizon-reaching plains of emptiness. He snorted and turned away. If there was something out here, he was going to kill it.
A hundred meters from the fence there was a slight dip, followed by a rising billow, an irregularity in the ground that could not be seen from the camp. Talenc trudged to the top of the hillock and gaped down at the group of mounted men who were concealed behind it.
He sprang back instantly, but not fast enough. The nearest rider thrust his long lance through Talenc’s calf, twisted the barbed point in the wound and dragged him over the edge of the embankment. Talenc pulled up his gun as he fell, but another lance drove it from his hand and pierced his palm, pinning it to the ground. It was all over very quickly, one second, two seconds, and the shock of pain was just striking him when he tried to reach for his radio. A third lance through his wrist pinioned that arm.
Spread-eagled, wounded, and dazed by shock, Guard Lieutenant Talenc opened his mouth to cry aloud, but even this was denied him. The nearest rider leaned over casually and thrust a short saber between Talenc’s teeth, deep into the roof of his mouth, and his voice was stilled forever. His leg jerked as he died, rustling a clump of grass, and that was the only sound that marked his passing. The riders gazed down upon him silently, then turned away with complete lack of interest. Their mounts, though they stirred uneasily, were just as silent.
“What is all this about?” the officer of the guard asked, buttoning on his weapon belt.
“It’s Lieutenant Talenc, sir. He went out there. Said he saw something, and then went over a rise. I haven’t seen him since, maybe ten, fifteen minutes now, and I can’t raise him on the radio.”
“I don’t see how he can get into any trouble out there,” the officer said, looking out at the darkening plain. “Still, we had better bring him in. Sergeant.” The man stepped forward and saluted. “Take a squad out and find Lieutenant Talenc.”
They were professionals, signed on for thirty years with John Company, and they expected only trouble from a newly opened planet. They spread out as skirmishers and moved warily away across the plain.
“Anything wrong?” the metallurgist asked, coming out of the drill hut with an ore sample on a tray.
“I don’t know…” the officer said, just as the riders swept out of the concealed gully and around both sides of the knoll.
It was shocking. The guardsmen, trained, deadly and well-armed, were overrun and destroyed. Some shots were fired, but the riders swung low on their long-necked mounts, keeping the animals’ thick bodies between themselves and the guns. There was the twang of suddenly released bowstrings and the lances dipped and killed. The riders rolled over the guardsmen and rode on, leaving nine twisted bodies behind them.
“They’re coming this way!” the metallurgist shouted, dropping the tray and turning to run. The alarm slren began to shriek and the guards poured out of their tents.
The attackers hit the encampment with the sudden shock of an earthquake. There was no time to prepare for it, and the men near the fence died without lifting their weapons. The attackers’ mounts clawed at the ground with pillar-like legs and hurled themselves forward; one moment a distant threat, the next an overwhelming presence. The leader hit the fence, its weight tearing it down even as electricity arced brightly and killed it, its long thick neck crashing to the ground just before the guard officer. He stared at it, horrified, for just an instant before the creature’s rider planted an arrow in his eye socket and he died.
Murder, whistling death. They hit once and were gone, sweeping close to the fence, leaping the body of the dead beast, arrows pouring in a dark stream from their short, laminated bows. Even in the half darkness, from the backs of their thundering, heaving mounts, their aim was excellent. Men died, or dropped, wounded. One arrow even tore into the gaping mouth of the siren so that it rattled and moaned down into silence.
As quickly as they had struck they vanished, out of sight in the ravine behind the shadowed rise, and, in the stunned silence that followed, the moans of the wounded were shockingly loud.
The light was almost gone from the sky now and the darkness added to the confusion. When the glow tubes sprang on, the camp became a pool of bloody murder set in the surrounding night. Order was restored only slightly when Bardovy, the expedition’s commander, began bellowing instructions over the bullhorn. While the medics separated the dying from the dead, mortars were rushed out and set up. One of the sentries shouted a warning and the big battlelamp was turned on and revealed the dark mass of riders gathering again on the ridge.
“Mortars, fire!” the commander shouted with wild anger. “Hit them hard!”
His voice was drowned out as the first shells hit, round after round poured in until the dust and smoke boiled high and the explosions rolled like thunder.
They did not yet realize that the first charge had been only a feint and that the main attack was hitting them from the opposite side of the camp. Only when the beasts were in among them and they began to die did they know what had happened. Then it was too late.
“Close the ports!” the duty pilot shouted from the safety of the spacer’s control room high above, banging the airlock switches as he spoke. He could see the waves of attackers sweeping by, and he knew how lethargic was the low-geared motion of the ponderous outer doors. He kept pushing at the already closed switches.
In a wave of shrieking brute flesh, the attackers rolled over the charged fence. The leading ones died and were trampled down by the beasts behind, who climbed their bodies, thick claws biting deep to take hold. Some of the riders died as well, and they appeared to be as dispensable as their mounts, for the others kept on coming in endless waves. They overwhelmed the encampme
nt, filled it, destroyed it.
“This is Second Officer Weiks,” the pilot said, activating all the speakers in the ship. “Is there any officer aboard who ranks me?” He listened to the growing silence and, when he spoke again, his voice was choked and unclear.
“Sound off in rotation, officers and men, from the Engine Room north. Sparks, take it down.”
Hesitantly, one by one, the voices checked in, while Weiks activated the hull scanners and looked at the milling fury below.
“Seventeen, that’s all,” the radio operator said with shocked unbelief, his hand over the microphone. He passed the list to the Second Officer, who looked at it bleakly, then slowly reached for the microphone.
“This is the bridge,” he said. “I am taking command. Run the engines up to ready.”
“Aren’t we going to help them?” a voice broke in. “We can’t just leave them out there.”
“There is no one out there to leave,” Weiks said slowly. “I’ve checked on all the screens and there is nothing visible down there except these attackers and their beasts. Even if there were, I doubt if there is anything we could do to help. It would be suicide to leave the ship. And we have only a bare skeleton flight crew aboard as it is.”
The frame of the ship shivered as if to add punctuation to his words. “One of the screens is out, there goes another, they hit it with something. And they’re fixing lines to the landing legs. I don’t know if they can pull us over, and I don’t want to find out. Secure to blast in sixtyfive seconds.”
“They’ll burn in our jets, everything, everyone down there,” the radio operator said, snapping’ his harness tight.
“Our people won’t feel it,” the pilot said grimly, “and, let’s see how many of the others we can get.”
When the spacer rose, spouting fire, it left a smoking, humped circle
of death below it. But, as soon as the ground was cool enough, the waiting riders pressed in and trampled through the ash. More and more of them, appearing out of the darkness. There seemed no end to their teeming numbers.
2
“Pretty stupid to get hit by a sawbird,” Brucco said, helping Jason dinAlt to pull the ripped metalcloth jacket off over his head.
“Pretty stupid to try and eat a peaceful meal on this planet!” Jason snapped back, his words muffled by the heavy cloth. He pulled the jacket free and winced as sharp pain cut into his side. “I was just trying to enjoy some soup, and the bowl got in the way when I had to fire.”
“Only a superficial wound,” Brucco said, looking at the red gash on Jason’s side. “The saw bounced off the ribs without breaking them. Very lucky.”
“You mean lucky I didn’t get killed. Whoever heard of a sawbird in the mess hall?”
“Always expect the unexpected on Pyrrus. Even the children know that.” Brucco sloshed on antiseptic and Jason ground his teeth together tightly. The phone pinged and Meta’s worried face appeared on the Screen.
“Jason, I heard you were hurt,” she said.
“Dying,” he told her.
Brucco sniffed loudly. “Nonsense. Superficial wound, fourteen centimeters in length, no toxins.”
“Is that all?” Meta said, and the screen went dark.
“Yes, that’s all,” Jason said bitterly. “A liter of blood and a kilo of flesh, nothing more bothersome than a hangnail. What do I have to do to get some sympathy around here, lose a leg?”
“If you lost a leg in combat, there might be sympathy,” Brucco said coldly, pressing an adhesive bandage into place. “But if you lost a limb to a sawbird in the mess hall, you would expect only contempt.”
“Enough!” Jason said sharply, pulling his jacket back on. “Don’t take me so literally and, yes, I know all about the sweet consideration I can expect from you friendly Pyrrans. I don’t think I’ll ever miss this planet, not for five minutes.”
“You’re leaving?” Brucco asked, brightening up. “Is that what the meeting is about?”
“Don’t sound so wildly depressed at the thought. Try to control your impatience until 1500 hours, when the others will be here. I play no favorites. Except myself, that is,” he added, walking out stiffly, trying to move his side as little as possible.
It was time for a change, he thought, looking out of a high window across the perimeter wall to the deadly jungle beyond. Some lightsensitive cells must have caught the motion because a tree branch whipped forward and a sudden flurry of thorndarts rattled against the transparent metal of the window. His reflexes were so well trained by now that he did not move a muscle.
Past time for a change. Every day on Pyrrus was another spin of the wheel. Winning was just staying even, and when your number came up, it was certain death. How many people had died since he first came here? He was beginning to lose track, to become as indifferent to death as any Pyrran.
If there were going to be any changes made, he was the one who would have to make them. He had thought once that he had solved this planet’s deadly problems, when he had proved to them that the relentless, endless war was their own doing. Yet it still went on. Knowledge of the truth does not always mean acceptance of it. The Pyrrans who were capable of accepting the reality of existence here had left the city and had gone far enough away to escape the pressure of physical and mental hatred that still engulfed it. Although the remaining Pyrrans might give lip-service to the concept that their own emotions were keeping the war going, they did not really believe that this was true. And each time they looked out at the world that they hated, the enemy gained fresh strength and pressed the attack anew. When Jason thought of the only possible end for the city, he grew depressed. There were so many of the people left who would not accept the change, or help of any kind. They were as much a part of this war and as adapted to the war as the hyperspecialized life forms outside, molded in the same way by the same generations of mixed hatred and fear.
There was one more change coming. He wondered how many of them would accept it.
It was two hours before Jason made his appearance in Kerk’s office. he had been delayed by a last minute exchange of messages on the jump-space communicator. Everyone in the room shared the same expression, cold anger. Pyrrans had very little patience and even less tolerance for a puzzle or a mystery. They were so alike yet so different.
Kerk, gray-haired and stolid, able to control his.expression better than the others. Practice, undoubtedly, from dealing so much with offworlders. This was the man whom it was most important to convince because, if the slapdash, militaristic Pyrran society had any leader at all, he was the one.
Brucco, hawk-faced and lean, his features set in a perpetual expression of suspicion. The expression was justified. As physician, researcher and ecologist, he was the single authority on Pyrran life forms. He had to be suspicious. Though at least there was one thing in his favor: he was scientist enough to be convinced by reasoned fact.
And Ehes, leader of the outsiders, the people who had adapted successfully to this deadly planet. He was not possessed by the reflex hatred that filled the others, and Jason counted upon him for help.
Meta, sweet and lovely, stronger than most men, whose graceful arms could clasp with passion, or break bones. Does your coldly practical mind, hidden in that beautiful female body, know what love is? Or is it just pride of possession you feel toward the off-worlder Jason dinAlt? Tell him sometime; he would like to know. But not right now. You look just as impatient and dangerous as the others.
Jason closed the door behind him and smiled insincerely.
“Hello there, everybody,” he said. “I hope you didn’t mind my keeping you waiting?” He went on quickly, ignoring the angry growls from all sides.
“I’m sure that you will all be pleased to hear that I am broke, financially wiped out, and sunk.”
Their expressions cleared as they considered the statement. One thought at a time, that was the Pyrran way.
“You have millions in the bank,” Kerk said, “and no way of gambling and losing them.”<
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“When I gamble, I win,” Jason informed him with calm dignity. “I am broke because I have spent every last credit. I have purchased a spaceship, and it is on its way here now.”
“Why?” Meta asked, speaking the question that was foremost in all their minds.
“Because I am leaving this planet and I’m taking you, and as many others as possible, with me.”
Jason could read their mixed feelings easily. For better or for worse — and it was certainly worse than any other planet in the known galaxy — this was their home. Deadly and dangerous, but still theirs. He had to make his idea attractive, to gain their enthusiasm and make them forget any second thoughts that they might have. The appeal to their intelligence would come later; first he must appeal to their emotions. He knew well this single chink in their armor.
“I’ve discovered a planet that is far more deadly than Pyrrus.”
Brucco laughed with cold disbelief, and they all nodded in agreement with him.
“Is that supposed to be attractive?” Pdies asked, the only Pyrran present who had been born outside the city and was therefore immune to their love of violence. Jason gave him a long, slow wink to ponder over while he went on to convince the others.
“I mean deadly because it contains the most dangerous life form ever discovered. Faster than a stingwing, more vicious than a horndevil, more tenacious than a clawhawk, there’s no end to the list. I have found the planet where these creatures abide.”
“You are talking about men, aren’t you?” Kerk said, quicker to understand than the others, as usual.
“I am. Men who are more deadly than the ones here, because Pyrrans have been bred by natural selection to defend themselves against any dangers. Defend. What would you think of a world where men have been bred for some thousands of years to attack, to kill and destroy, without any thought of the consequences? What do you think the survivors of this genocidal conflict would be like?”
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