Iron Gray Sea: Destroyermen (22 page)

“Thank God!” he breathed.

“I’m not shot?” the princess asked.

“No, but Mr. Bigelow is. He saved your life!”

“Go to him, I beg you!”

“Aye.” Sean stood and looked down at the gamekeeper, but the poor man was clearly gone. “Did he speak?” he asked the boy.

“Aye,” replied the boy through tears of his own. “I understood but a single word—but it made no sense!”

“What was it?”

“McClain.”

“Sur,” Ruik interrupted over the screams of the wounded man he still guarded. “Those other men, on horses—they shot the coach driver. They come this way now!”

“Bind that man,” Sean directed Ruik, “an’ gag ’im. We need ’im ta live, fer a time at least, but I’ve had enough o’ his screamin’! Have ye other than small shot fer that musket?”

“Some,” Ruik said.

“Load it, then.” He paused a moment, deciding whether they could really trust the youngster. He snorted. “Boy? Can ye use Mr. Bigelow’s fowler? He keeps ball in ’is pouch.”

“I know how to load, but I’ve rarely shot.”

“But ye can?”

“Aye.”

Princess Rebecca had restored her clothing and was already pulling the wads atop the bird shot in her double with a corkscrew-shape device on the end of her ramrod. She poured the shot on the ground, then dropped a single large ball down each barrel. They
thunk
ed
against the powder wads. “They’re loose,” she said in a strange tone. “I have never loaded a weapon for the express purpose of shooting a man before.”

Sean looked at the girl. Despite her words, she still sounded so . . . calm that it worried him. He fished in his pouch and handed her a portion of a paperlike insect’s nest. “Those’re not men,” he snarled. “Ram more waddin’ ta hold the balls in place, lass,” he added. “Ye have a few fixed charges with which to reload. Do ye not?”

The princess nodded. The riders were coming hard now and were barely half a mile away. Sean clasped the long pistol to his side with the stump of his left arm and proceeded to load it. The process may have looked odd, but he managed it quickly enough.

“How . . . what you want to do? How we do this?” Ruik asked. With the excitement, his normally excellent English had slipped a bit.

“Well, clearly we must kill ’em or drive ’em off. Don’t fire till I give the word, but then choose yer target wi’ care. We’ll not fire a volley! Princess, yours an’ mine’ll be the least-accurate shots, an’ we must save ’em till they’re nearly on us.”

“I don’t think I can hit a man on a running horse!” the boy cried.

“Are ye daft? Ye an’ Lieutenant Ruik’ll shoot at the horses! Surely ye can hit a target such as that! Wi’ luck, ye’ll dump the riders, an’ p’raps goad the others into firin’!”

Even Ruik knew it would be next to impossible for the riders to hit a mark at a gallop—more difficult than deliberately striking a distant ship with a single, aimed shot from the pitching deck of his own
Simms
.
Walker
could do it, but she had advantages no other ship—or man—could match. “I hate to shoot horse,” he said sadly. “They not want to hurt us.”

“Aye,” Sean agreed, “but ye’ve no choice.” He’d seen how delighted Lemurians were to “discover” horses. Most, except possibly some he’d heard of on the Great Southern Isle, had never imagined forming communicative, even emotional bonds with any animal. But so far, every Lemurian he’d seen meet horses automatically liked them and considered them almost people. “Make ready!” he warned.

With a terrified squawk, Petey bolted upslope, running and soaring as fast as he could. “Useless bugger,” Sean said with a grunt. “But maybe smarter than I thought.”

Ruik took a knee to aim his piece, and the boy followed his example.

The six horsemen galloped in against the four of them, short capes flowing behind them. Most apparently carried pistols or some kind of shortened musket, but two had long, heavy swords in their hands. Sean warned tersely that those might be the most dangerous. The range closed rapidly and the tension mounted.

“They coming right at us,” Ruik advised the young man beside him, his pronounced accent the only sign of his nervousness. “That make it easy. Just aim high.” The gamekeeper’s fowler had no rear sight to adjust for elevation, and he’d heard that one of the problems the Imperials had with training novices for their expanding forces was that they tended to jerk their shots low.

“H-how high?” the fellow stuttered.

“That depends,” Ruik confessed. “Faactor Bates know better the range to . . . trip a horse. I tell you when he say!”

Just waiting for the charge was one of the most terrifying things Princess Rebecca had ever faced. She knew they had to stand their ground, but the fearsome horses and the killers atop them came on with an energetic, remorseless purpose. She knew Sean Bates loved her as his own and would give his life to save her. She also knew he was a skilled and confident fighter, despite his handicap—but, oh, what she would give to have Dennis Silva with them at that moment! The range narrowed inexorably, the horses gasping as they barreled up the slope, hooves thundering, spraying damp clods of earth high in the air.

“At yer convenience, Lieutenant Ruik!” Sean cried at about a hundred paces. For an instant, nothing happened, and in that time, their enemy advanced another twenty or thirty yards. Then Ruik fired, and Rebecca thought she actually saw the vapor trail of his ball cross the humid gap. A deep
thwack!
followed the sound of the report, and one of the horses staggered and slowed.

“At its nose!” Ruik shouted, and the boy fired next. His ball had an even more dramatic, if accidental, effect. It struck another onrushing horse square in the knee, and it shrieked hideously and tumbled, likely crushing its rider, who was thrown clear, but couldn’t move before the horse rolled over him. The other four assasins sank their spurs and charged in, almost on top of them, pistols aimed and swords raised to strike. Rebecca and Sean took careful aim. Pistols barked, but the balls
vroop
ed harmlessly past, and Rebecca fired at a man. She missed! Maybe the pistol shots had rattled her—but she was already rattled! Despite what Sean had said, her target
was
a man! Determination swept her fear aside and she squeezed the rear trigger, blowing the same man backward out of his saddle. A terrible scream drew her gaze to the left. Ruik had avoided a sword stroke with an ease that had to have disconcerted his attacker, and with a powerful leap, he snatched the man from his horse. The loyal beater wasn’t as skillful or agile, and another sword had slammed diagonally across his chest as its wielder galloped past.

Without thinking, Princess Rebecca dropped her fine fowler and pulled her short hunting sword from the leather sheath at her side. She charged the mounted murderer as he yanked his reins back and turned for another pass. She knew she didn’t have a chance, but in that instant, her fury overrode all other concerns. A heavy boom roared behind her and the target of her rage pitched and dropped his weapon with a yelp. The horse bolted, but after only a few strides the rider toppled from his lurching mount and lay still in the scrub. Princess Rebecca whirled and saw Sean toss his long pistol aside.

That quickly, somehow, only one mounted assassin remained. His horse stood still, perhaps forty paces away, and the rider was jamming his empty pistol into his belt.

“You are the very spawn of Satan!” he screamed at her. “Cast forth from the underworld, from the chambers of fire and darkness to do his bidding! On behalf of His Supreme Holiness, Emperor of the World by the Grace of God, I shall strike you down yet!” He wrenched his own sword from its scabbard then and came for her, urging his horse to a gallop. Princess Rebecca merely stood there, unable to run, her short sword raised to deflect the blow she knew she couldn’t stop. She felt small and all alone in the face of utter evil—until Sean Bates stepped in front of her, raising his own sword.

At that moment, another shot sounded—deeper, louder—and the assassin fell, wailing, to the ground. The horse passed by harmlessly, and the princess and Bates rushed to the fallen man. An instant later, they were joined by Lieutenant Ruik. He was covered in blood and his musket stock was dark and slick. A wisp of smoke still curled from the muzzle of the weapon. Together they regarded the would-be killer. He’d spoken without the accent of the Holy Dominion, but clearly he was a devout follower of its twisted faith. The man had a gaping, bloody hole in his lower-left chest and he spat blood at them.

“You will all die.” He coughed. “This entire land, and yes, even that of your unholy, demon friends will be washed clean with your own blood!”

“Yer makin’ quite the putrid puddle on this land now,” Sean said coldly. “Nothin’ll ever grow on this spot again!”

“I am dying,” the man conceded, “but soon I will be in paradise. You will burn in the lowest chamber of hell!”

“I just may,” Sean conceded, “But I’ll tear yer black heart out wi’ me teeth when I find you there!” He paused, vaguely disappointed, suspecting the assassin hadn’t heard him. He was dead. Briefly, he hugged Princess Rebecca close, then turned to Ruik. “A fine, timely shot!” he complimented. “But how did ye get ta be such a mess?”

“I needed to reload,” Ruik replied, flicking his ears toward the man he’d dragged down. “He not let me.”

Sean stared at the bloody heap Ruik indicated. “What did ye do? Tear ’im limb from limb?” Ruik didn’t answer, but Sean knew many Lemurians had amazing upper-body strength, particularly sea folk—from which the Navy drew nearly all its officers. “Aye. Well,
he’s
dead, then. Did we take any alive?”

“Just the one we start with,” Ruik said, “if he’s not dead too now. The one whose horse I shot, he run for coach.” He pointed. “He take fresh horse, I bet. We never catch him.”

Princess Rebecca shaded her eyes. “We won’t, but perhaps they might!” Some distance beyond the coach, charging up from the city, was a squadron of Horse Marines, the Imperial standard flying at the head of the column.

“Aye, here’s the Marines—just in time!” Bates muttered sarcastically. He looked at the Lemurian. “The boy?”

“Dead,” Ruik replied, blinking regret.

“He was loyal,” said the princess, “and we never even knew his name.”

“We’ll find it out,” Sean promised her.

“I just . . . something just occurred to me,” Ruik said, his English beginning to return to normal. “Those Marines that are coming so fast. Why are they coming at all? Nobody can see us from the city.”

“Maybe the shots were heard?” the princess speculated doubtfully.

“Nay,” Sean said, his brows knitting. “We’ve been shootin’ all mornin’. That’s what we came here to do. The lieutenant’s right; somethin’s afoot. P’raps they already
know
what this was all about.”

CHAPTER
14

////// Grik India

March 12, 1944

First Fleet “Northern” Allied Expeditionary Force

“W
ould you look at that!” Colonel Billy Flynn blurted when Captain Bekiaa-Sab-At led him to the vast open clearing and he viewed the . . . extraordinary sight before him. He wasn’t the only one staring. Many of his Rangers had already fanned out to secure the discovery, and most of them were gawking as well. The First Amalgamated and elements of the 6th Maa-ni-la Cavalry were responsible for screening the northern flank of II Corps’ leapfrog advance along the western road toward the looming, sawtooth escarpment ahead. The objective was another major crossroads beyond the mountain gateway on the more open land beyond that had been identified by reconnaissance flights as a potential marshaling area for significant Grik forces. The enemy might infiltrate through the forest, but they could only move artillery and massed troops by road.

Unfortunately, the time it took to secure the frontiers around Madras, and the recon required to confirm or amend Allied strategy previously based only on captured Grik maps and Hij-Geerki’s notions, had delayed any “lightning” thrusts to seize that next strategic crossroads. The Grik command had likely used that time to catch its breath. In several respects, maybe that was a good thing. The “Northern” AEF had needed a breath itself after the sporadic but fierce fighting that punctuated the consolidation, resupply, and reorganization required after the improved but still chaotic aftermath of the invasion. Also, the enemy had reacted to the capture of Madras as hoped, and sent most of its known armies northeast. This allowed III Corps and the newly constituted V Corps (together constituting the “Southern” AEF) to cross the narrow land bridge from Ceylon with little resistance, and secure that vital approach. The Cavalry-heavy V Corps was now racing north across a relatively open coastal plain to link up with Rolak’s I Corps as it began its push south. Hopefully, the V would take the Grik assembling to oppose Rolak in the rear.

The Allied High Command, from CINCWEST on down, was pleased with the campaign so far. Not only had they avoided a bloody smash-up at the crossing; they believed they’d dispersed the enemy into smaller, more manageable packets. They’d done the same with their own forces of course, but the Allies’ superior training, discipline, weapons, and growing cohesion
should
justify that risk. The Allies had uncontested control of the air after destroying a few snooping Grik zeppelins, and the rest, wherever they were, seemed reluctant to come up. Ultimately, they also had the only real deepwater port on the east coast firmly in their hands, and they were just now coming to grips with what an important industrial center Madras had been for the enemy. The sheer tonnage of enemy shipping and stockpiles of coal, timbers, and plate steel they’d captured was mind-boggling. The plate steel was an ominous discovery, but correspondence from Courtney Bradford had predicted that much of the enemy’s entire coal reserves would be in northeast India, and losing Madras had to hurt them.

Consequently, however, along with the element of surprise, II Corps’ ability to move quickly had also been lost. It couldn’t simply march down the rough road in column, so scout regiments were tasked with the difficult chore of moving forward through the dense forest on either side of the broad dirt “highway” one at a time, until they found defensible positions or land features where they forted up in the old Roman style. Only then did their opposite number do the same. Once the flanks were secure, General-Queen Protector Safir Maraan brought her corps up the road. It was a drawn-out process that slowed the rapid advances they’d made following the invasion, but only the Grik knew all the forest pathways that might allow them to strike a longer column in the flank. This way, they hoped, the corps as a whole would maintain greater cohesion and more rapid internal lines of support, and could rush troops to any major point of contact with the enemy.

“I already
have
looked at it, sir,” Bekiaa responded dryly, blinking mild frustration. “That is why I thought you would wish to.”

“Jeez,” Flynn murmured, ignoring her tone. “I bet no damn Grik ever built
that
.”

They’d seen some very weird things since the landing at Madras almost three weeks before; things unlike any they’d encountered yet. Again, the Grik noncombatants—if there really was such a thing—had fled or been slaughtered, but there were giant, furry, buzzard things, kind of like flying skuggiks, that had “cleaned up” the countless Grik dead. They were almost as big as the dragons Second Fleet had encountered, but they had beaks instead of toothy jaws and avoided anything alive. There were deadly snake . . . things . . . in abundance, much to their unpleasant surprise, most of which lived in the trees instead of on the ground. They had short, grasping claws along their bodies that allowed them to cling tightly to trees and limbs instead of drooping about. Lemurians as a race weren’t accustomed to snakes and only a few had ever seen one. Courtney Bradford actually suspected that the rare snakes described to him were probably transportees themselves, since there were so many things that would happily root them up and eat them. Rhino pigs would keep them off Borno, for example. Regardless, Lemurians instinctively hated anything that looked like a snake, and God knew how much ammunition they’d wasted before fire discipline had been restored.

Other new discoveries included bizarre gliding and tree-leaping rodents that infested the forests as thickly as insects, and there were tiny hummingbird-like creatures that behaved like mosquitoes. Added to the real mosquitoes, the needle-nosed little devils contributed significantly to the misery of the Allied troops.

They saw very few large animals besides Grik—and the adolescent Griklets that had apparently been released to harass them once again. As on Ceylon, it grew evident that without the Grik, there was a big hole in the local food chain. Almost nothing substantial or easy to catch had been seen, leaving everyone to wonder again what the Grik ate besides one another—and their enemies, of course. Hij-Geerki had been a “frontier clerk,” basically, and though he’d been to Ceylon and had given them some useful information, he’d never been in a position to explain how large populations of his species fed themselves in older, more established parts of its empire. It was well-known that frontier and expeditionary Grik relied on “prey” and even each other for sustenance, but he had no idea what else they ate in the sacred ancestral lands. Prey—of any sort—had to be scarce and, obviously, no species could rely entirely on itself for sustenance, particularly when it needed more numbers, not less.

Another new mystery had taunted them in Madras. Mixed with the usually simple adobe Grik architecture they’d grown accustomed to, were ancient, far more sophisticated ruins that didn’t make any sense at all. So far, they’d discovered only tantalizing fragments, incorporated directly into Grik construction, but now Flynn gazed at a granite cliff face adorned with strikingly ornate ruins carved from the living rock. His first impression was of a temple of some sort, and arched entryways surrounded by crumbling columns extended deep into the cliff. His second impression was that it was very,
very
old. Only when his focus expanded and he began to digest the entire scene did he begin to form a possible answer to one fundamental question about the Grik, at least the “locals.”

The ruins they’d found had been incorporated into another structure as usual, but in this case it formed one wall of an immense, recently cut, tree-staked pen that nearly filled the clearing. Inside the pen, shuffling and lowing, their ribs becoming visible along their sides, were hundreds of large, greenish gray beasts with long tails and oddly duck-shaped heads. They were actually bigger than the Asian elephant-size brontasarries in Baalkpan, and maybe two-thirds the size of a super lizard. Their hind legs were much larger than their forelegs, and they stumped around, cowlike, mostly on all fours, vainly rooting at the dirt for something to eat.

Me-naak mounted cav ’Cats eased forward, their slathering mounts snorting and sniffing, but the penned animals showed no fear. Some merely raised their large heads and gazed disinterestedly at the new arrivals. Flynn was glad to have cavalry, even if meanies gave him the creeps. They were a pain in the ass to feed; worse than medieval heavy horse, he suspected, because there certainly wasn’t any forage for the dedicated carnivores and they always seemed tempted to forage on his troops. Oddly, they obeyed their riders about as well as any horse Flynn had seen, and even appeared to bond with them to a degree. Sometimes, in a capricious fit, they might try to eat one, but that was rare.

The point that struck him then was that whatever they were, meanies were obviously predators—yet the penned . . . whatever the hell they were weren’t afraid of them. That meant there
likely
weren’t any large predators around, other than Grik of course, and hadn’t been for a very long time. Also, since the pen had to have been made by Grik, the creatures inside apparently didn’t consider
them
predators either, in the traditional sense.

“My God,” Flynn exclaimed. “Dino-cows. They’re
cattle
for slaughter, I’ll bet. Orderly!” he shouted back down the trail Bekiaa brought him. A young ’Cat scampered up, slate and chalk in hand. They had paper now and ink, but it was simpler and more economical for orderlies to carry the older tools. First, not all of them could read or write English. And second, their dispatches would be transcribed before transmission or distribution.

“I tripped on a root,” the near youngling apologized, blinking too fast for Flynn to decipher the meaning. “I thought it was snake!”

“Caap’n Bekiaa!” cried a Ranger sergeant who trotted up and slammed to attention, tail straight.

“What have you found?”

“There is rolls of leaf fodder, stored in those . . . cave holes, an’ a . . . gizmo for diverting spring water to the pen, but no sign of Griks here for days.”

“Get this out,” Flynn snapped, suddenly terse, and the orderly ’Cat poised his chalk. “Have discovered more goofy ruins of non-Grik origin. More important, we’ve found a big . . . herd of large animals, apparently corralled as live rations for the enemy. Most of the structure enclosing the animals is of recent construction, and I must therefore assume a large enemy force is nearby.” He rubbed his eyes. “Maybe they were expecting us to stick to the road and we took ’em by surprise. The caretakers here probably weren’t fighting Grik, anyway.” He looked at his orderly. “Forget that part, write this: “Recommend Air Corps keep a lookout for similar sites. Placement may give clues about enemy plans.” He looked at Bekiaa. “They can’t count on us or each other for rations until after the fight, and they’ll damn sure need something to tide them over if they want to gather up anything big enough to face us.” He paused a moment, then nodded at the orderly.

“Run on. Get that to the Division runners as quick as you can, then get back here.”

“Yes, sur!”

“You think they eat these things all the time?” Bekiaa asked, gesturing at the pen. “Scuttlebutt says the flyboys been seein’ dino herds on the high plains we’re headin’ for, specially round water, but nothing in the woods or coastal plains.”

“Maybe the Grik live mostly down here, but herd these things down from up there. Who knows? Maybe they raise ’em and just let ’em graze up high.” Flynn waved at the trees. “Flyboys can’t see crap down in these woods from above. There could be a million Grik within five miles of the damn road at any point.”

“But . . . no dino-cows were in Maa-draas.”

“Maybe not, but I bet if somebody looked again, they’d find pens where they’d been.” He shook his head. “Or maybe they just carted in the meat. Killing something that big in the middle of a city might drive all the Grik there wild!”

“Then what about the bones? We should have found bones.”

“I may not be Courtney Bradford, but I know a thing or two. There’s lots of industrial uses for ground or powdered bone—and, hell, maybe they eat that too. The point is, if I’m right, the Air Corps should be able to tell us soon.” He looked at the pen again, then back at the sergeant. “Form a detail to feed and water those damn things, then tell Captain Saachic some of his cav ’Cats are going to have to learn to be cowboys. I want them all herded to the rear. Whether we can eat ’em or not, I’m not leaving them here for the Grik.”

* * * 

The next morning, the Rangers returned to the road near a narrow lake just west of 3rd Division and the rest of Safir’s II Corps. They were moving to shoot the gap through a rocky, wooded pass bordered by a swift, steeply falling river and high, jagged crags. They were joined by the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Marines, as Flynn had requested, and were screened by Captain Saachic’s company of the 6th Maa-ni-la Cavalry. An hour after daybreak, they proceeded to do what they’d been doing all along: leaping forward to establish a defensive position to support the 1st Sular (this time), and another company of the 6th. The difference was that Flynn’s leap would also be a reconnaissance in force at the end of a longer limb, and the 1st Sular and 6th Maa-ni-la would follow almost immediately. In the confines of the gap, the only avenue for support was from the rear, so Safir would bring the rest of the Corps through as quickly as she could. No one had forgotten the near-catastrophic ambush this new Grik commander had laid for them on Ceylon, so Safir didn’t mean to leave any real spaces between the various regiments for the enemy to exploit.