Deadly Wands (45 page)

He flew out the window to the local military
base, slew the guards, then the few remaining administrative
officers, logistical air mules, and the ill. Everyone else,
apparently, was out scouring the vast steppe for him. He took their
wands and money before burning the place.

Sex can be better than battle, but battle
lasts so much longer. And while nothing beats the moment of orgasm,
nothing compares to taking a human life. Especially the lives of
those he hated.

Billy fought a disorganized enemy all night.
He disappeared before dawn to take a nap fifteen minutes away,
before starting up again around noon. He could tell they found the
empress by how well organized they became. They tried to swarm him,
so Billy had to fly high enough to fight only a dozen at a time.
Furious at the death of their beloved empress, they continued
flying up to him, but could not overwhelm him at that height. He
disappeared in the dark to eat and nap, then returned after
midnight to ambush the patrols. Rapid reaction units chased him,
but could not catch him, so he fireballed everything flammable.

Billy repeated this for two more days before
a shrieking alarm captured everyone’s attention. He flew higher to
see a looming shadow on the horizon. That was Genghis Khan, so
Billy left, having delivered his message.

Hulagu’s last daughter -- already an old lady
-- held out a video wand as soon as the Khan reached the hotel
entrance. He watched it in silence as he stormed up the stairs and
burst into the room. There, in the bathroom, lay his wife in the
tub, covered in snow.

“This is how they found her,” his
great-granddaughter explained. “Her clothes had not been removed
and I could not see any violence other than the stomach wound.” She
paused dramatically. “Um, he put a pillow under her head and
covered the rest of her in a blanket. She looked like she was
napping. I don’t understand why that monster didn’t do any of the
terrible things that he threatened. Instead, he returned her body,
at great risk, instead of beheading her and feeding her body to the
wolves.”

Genghis had no answer to that. He couldn’t
figure this guy out. If he understood the Baron, he’d have killed
him long ago. Which was, in part, why Billy did it: to mess with
his head, to get under his skin, and to inflame his emotions.

The funny part was, Genghis didn’t even know
yet that he was going to Europe.

CHAPTER 60

Few people appreciate just how vast Siberia
is. Although larger than Europe, now fewer civilians lived there
than Peking, so Billy had to figure out an easier way to find his
Americans.

So when he came across a Mongol division, he
killed a sentry and put on his uniform as they settled in for the
night. It was a mixed unit, half filled with two-wanders as scouts,
sentries, and communications. The battalions formed a skirmish line
across one hundred kilometers facing south.

They’re looking for me, Billy realized. The
Empire had ten times as many two-wanders as quads. Having lost
several million quads recently, Genghis had little choice but to
utilize his available resources. Two-wanders can’t fly as fast or
as far, but they can shriek their wands just as loud. The commander
would simply rotate them twice as often to keep his quads well
rested.

After dinner and a refreshing nap, Billy
noticed sleeping Mongols as far as the eye could see. Because it
had few trees and less shade, the steppe resembled a grassy ocean
that never seemed to end. It was why the Mongols worshiped Father
Sky and Mother Earth, since they both seemed infinite, powerful,
and capricious. Billy walked through the quad companies, stabbing
as he went.

He didn’t need to kill them, either. He could
simply cut deep into an arm or leg so they could no longer operate
four wands. Better yet, they’d forever burden their families.

But he had to walk quickly in case one got
off a shot at him. Most of them yelled, so Billy tried to get out
of their line of sight before they shot him. Such were the
advantages of twenty-meter long blades. Whenever someone fired, he
just flew ahead to lose them in the dark. After all, he had several
hours to kill. Stabbing sleeping quads certainly beat fighting them
in the air when they shot back.

He heard someone shooting at him from his
right, so he headed in the opposite direction. A squad flew close,
so he dropped to the ground and pretended to sleep until they
passed by. More and more quads now looked for whoever was stabbing
their buddies, so he flew away to start with a fresh battalion.

He again got lucky by surprising the night
watch. Things went well for another hour before a wounded company
commander got his men looking for him, so he fled again to the next
unit.

All too soon, however, someone shot him in
the back. He dived to one side as soon as he heard the blast, but
they fired at close range and burned his stolen armor. Laying on
his belly in the grass, he used his boot wands to propel himself
down a gentle slope while his hand wands helped him avoid
obstacles. A fallen branch still smacked him in the face. Once out
of sight, he started again.

He cut deep into a commander’s bicep and the
bastard’s wand shrieked “attack.” Billy popped up and flew away as
dozens of blasts sought him out. He maneuvered through some trees
and over a hill, until he lost them between camps. He landed in a
secluded pocket and hid under bushes until they looked for him
elsewhere.

The meat he saved tasted delicious. After
resting, he found the next camp too awake, so he flew around
it.

And found the bomber battalion. They wore
different uniforms, so he changed clothes with a two-wander guard
who didn’t challenge him until too late. Sleeping next to a bomb is
nerve-wracking; sleeping near a thousand even more so.

His guard uniform allowed him to walk around
the camp. Bombers spread out more than other units, so he had to
locate the quads closest to the munitions. He wouldn’t have much
time -- he could see a dozen sentries flying above, and many more
patrolled farther out.

Billy played the part of the bored security
guard as he cut quads. Inevitably, one caught him. The veteran must
have been awake while faking sleep because Billy had not even
gotten to him yet. He let Billy slice several quads until Billy
showed him his back, then fired at point blank range. Billy hugged
the grass as soon as he heard the blast, and rolled away from the
shooter as soon as the fireball scorched his back armor.

The teenager used his boot wands to slide
across the grass until he could behead the cunning bastard.
Desperate, he ran to slash everyone getting up. With the whole camp
waking, Billy levitated munition packs to throw them at dense
clusters of quads while he blasted threats too close to bomb.
Troops launched high in the air under the logical assumption they
were being bombed from high altitude. Billy knew he only had
seconds, so made each one count. When the sky started raining
fireballs at him, he wisely escaped, close to the ground to use the
terrain to conceal himself.

The division stretched out east-to-west, so
he made himself visible flying south. Once the battalion committed
itself to chasing him, he reached maximum speed, then soared up as
soon as he believed they couldn’t track him in the dark.

Billy slowed his breathing to reach his
ceiling. The fliers below him looked like ants crawling south as he
raced north. They must inform the general in command, so he
ambushed the one Mongol flying east and put on his messenger
insignia. When a sentry flashed a challenge, Billy flamed the code
that he saw other messengers give.

The general must have the tent with all the
guards, so he shrieked a greeting and landed well away from them.
To avoid questions, he played the video that he took from the
messenger. The bomber commander recounted the attack and warned
that the Red Baron may be near -- which almost made Billy giggle. A
guard went inside and, a moment later, waved him in. Two guards
followed. Both the division and the battalion commander were just
getting out of bed.

Billy didn’t recognize the general, although
the battalion commander looked like a younger, slimmer version, so
he couldn’t address him by name. Instead he projected the video
again while positioning himself so his targets lined up.

“I’ve never seen a video that large,” the
general remarked, surprised.

Oh, crap! Billy didn’t dial down his wand
power and the head of security was already drawing wand. Billy
continued with the video to keep some eyes focused on that,
projected steel through three of his victims, while kicking up his
leg at the security leader, who looked puzzled until a sword from
the boot wand poked a hole in his chest. All those stretching
exercises his father made him do finally paid off!

Billy quickly finished them, but the guards
outside must have heard something, so Billy crouched down behind a
shield to cut them down as they charged in.

With a moment’s peace, he transferred wands
while eyeing the locked chests. The heavier one must contain the
division’s petty cash and the others probably organized the
administrative paperwork -- a big military unit fills out lots of
forms. The treasure chest was designed to fit within a big
backpack. Although Billy certainly didn’t need the money, the idea
of depriving the enemy of gold appealed to him.

No sooner did he heft the pack onto his back
than two more troopers entered. Billy got them both, but more
warriors outside started shooting in, igniting the tent. If they
took another heartbeat to aim, they’d have killed him. Billy sure
didn’t want to fight when loaded down with a few hundred kilos, so
he burned a hole in the ceiling when the sight of the other chests
caught his eye. It only took a second, so he torched them before
launching, laughing to himself. He knew better than most the hours
that went into keeping paperwork current -- who got paid, who was
out wounded, who deserved bonuses, who got penalized for drinking,
etc. It’s why he had Grandma do it. He just gave the staff pukes an
administrative nightmare, and all warriors in all militaries hated
bureaucrats.

Billy knew he took his ridiculous speed for
granted when he needed all four wands just to open the range
between the hundreds of quads chasing him. He couldn’t even shoot
at them without letting them catch up, and he could have blasted so
many of them. The gold acted like an anchor on his humility.

Billy rose to the south, then hit his ceiling
far too early. Appalled, he realized the weight made him need more
oxygen, which meant he couldn’t rise above the fanatics trying to
blast him to hell. He had often wondered how it felt to get hit in
the face with a fireball, then tumble out of control to earth,
screaming as the flames burned his lungs, coughing up smoke. He
searched for cover and didn’t see a cloud in the sky.

He only flew south to misdirect them. Now he
sped north. Only a few dozen of the fastest quads were high enough
to track him. He tried to clear his head to focus, but the previous
fighting had tired him out. If he only took half the gold, he’d
have escaped. The irony of exhausting himself before battle,
instead of the enemy, hit him like an angry wife. Yet he could not
afford to take the time to cut off his backpack. The prospect of
greed killing the world’s biggest philanthropist dizzied him.

Billy dived to increase speed. Something
about the terrain caught his eye. It took him an eternity to
realized what it was: if I was an American, that wooded ridge is
where I’d hide. He needed to lose the backpack anyways, so he
changed course, pulled up in an arc, and wiggled loose the
albatross on his back while tumbling head over heels in an
uncontrolled fall.

He righted himself in time to not splatter on
the bounders below -- unlike the chest full of gold. With the
weight off his mind, as well as his shoulders, he popped up to
greet his pursuers, flashing his wands and venting his fearsome
scream.

Billy watched them watch him, then check out
the coins that glittered below them. His momentum kept him flying
north, although he flew backwards at half speed.

“Go for the gold,” he whispered urgently.
“You don’t want the Red Baron.”

Apparently they disagreed. Their leader
signaled them to form up. About thirty total, Billy guessed.

Now, normally Billy wouldn’t hesitate to
engage so few enemies, but these guys knew who he was, and still
wanted to fight. His dad hated fighting enemies who wanted to fight
because it was so much easier to kill enemies when they didn’t want
to fight. These guys had calculated the odds, and still wanted to
engage the dreaded Red Baron.

Which meant Billy needed to run.

“The enemy only wants to fight when they
think they’ll win,” his father had taught him. “Knowing nothing
else, you can safely assume that you don’t want to fight when the
enemy expects to win. If you don’t have a clever trick up your
sleeve, it’s because they do.”

That’s when the obvious hit him: Genghis must
have given every division a company of super-quads assigned to kill
him. And not mercenaries, either, but fierce Mongols out for
revenge. Well, now he really didn’t want to fight these guys --
they had scores to settle with him.

Until a shadow rose behind them. Or perhaps
ten shadows. From the rocky woods where he splattered the
coins.

Billy flew lower and slower to lure the enemy
down. The shadows timed it carefully. Just as the Mongols
positioned themselves to fire on Billy, the strangers struck
silently like flying ninjas. They only needed to wound, and they
could injure more with steel than blasts. The unluckiest got cut
twice.

For his part, Billy fell back-first shooting
to make noise, keep their attention, and to look like an easy
target. The Mongols could either track his impossibly fast
fireballs, or they could avoid the guys slicing them up. But not
both.