Legion Of The Damned - 01 - Legion of the Damned (46 page)

 

 

 

 

 

Loose gravel slid out from under the dooth’s hooves, the animal backed away from the precipice, and Wayfar Hardman swore. The snow had turned to sleet and attacked the scarf that covered the lower part of his face.

The dooth found firmer footing and refused to move. The chieftain jerked the creature’s head around and kicked its barrel-shaped sides. Slowly, and with a good deal of grunting, the dooth picked its way upwards. Rocks scraped by on Hardman’s right, some marked by ancient tools, the legacy of ancestors long dead.

Damn Windsweet anyway, for leading the human up here and forcing him to follow. He was too old for such trails and saw no purpose in them anyway, ending as they inevitably did on some high and rocky plateau.

Still, there was some sense in it, he supposed, since the two of them were outcasts, unlikely to gain admission to an established village, a fact that still made him feel guilty. So, with bandits to avoid, and the Legion to watch for, the high country offered a rough and ready sanctuary.

A piece of rock projected outwards. Hardman let the reins fall slack, allowed his mount to edge her way around it, and reassumed control. The trail opened up a bit after that, and the Naa was about to kick the animal in her sides when a rifle shot rang out. A rock bounced into the air, tumbled end over end, and fell from sight.

“Hold it right there.”

Hardman pulled back on the reins. The dooth came to a halt. The chieftain held his hands chest-high and palms-out. The wind ripped his words away.

“This is not the sort of greeting I expect from my future son-in-law!”

There was a pause followed by another order. “Unwrap your scarf.”

Hardman did as he was told and felt hundreds of tiny ice-cold cannonballs pepper his face. The voice was closer now but the Naa kept his eyes straight ahead.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Follow the trail. I’ll be along in a while.”

Hardman rewrapped his scarf, kicked the dooth into motion, and grinned. Booly trusted no one and that was good. His daughter’s life would depend on it.

The trail wound through the site of an ancient rock slide. Hardman could see where Booly and Windsweet had pushed some of the more recent boulders off the path, and he marveled at their energy.

Once past the rock slide, the trail shelved sharply upwards, turned through a rocky defile, and ended on a windswept plateau. A thin coating of sleet had turned everything white. Tumbledown stone walls showed where ancient windbreaks had stood. The people who had lived there had been very tough, or so desperate they had preferred the rigors of the heights to the dangers below.

A rock bounced off his shoulder. Hardman smiled. The human, accustomed to endless supplies of ammunition, had fired a warning shot. His daughter, knowing that every bullet was precious, had thrown a stone instead. Her voice was thin but determined. He could see the handgun from the corner of his eye and it was rock steady.

“Show your face.”

Hardman unwrapped the scarf.

Her voice was hesitant. “Father?”

Hardman felt a lump form in his throat. He spoke around it.

“Who else would ride all the way up here for a cup of your tea?”

Hardman swung his left leg over the dooth’s woolly neck and hit the ground just as his daughter threw herself into his arms. She pressed her face against his chest. The smell of her filled his nostrils and he was glad that she couldn’t see his tears. He used the top of her hood to wipe them away.

“So you chose to live the life of brellas rather than buka.”

Windsweet laughed and reminded him of the cub that had played around his feet. “Come! I’ll serve the tea you came for!”

“In a moment,” Hardman admonished. “First the supplies I brought you ... then the dooth.”

They had barely unloaded two enormous saddlebags full of food when Booly appeared. His winter whites rendered him almost invisible against the sleet-covered rocks. The males eyed each warily, neither sure of what to say, both wishing for some sort of divine intervention. It was Hardman who held his hands palms-out. The words came more easily than he’d thought they would.

“My daughter loves you, human, and that’s good enough for me.”

Booly grinned and placed his hands against the chieftain’s. Their fingers intertwined. “Thanks, Wayfar ... and I have a name. It’s Bill Booly.”

Hardman scowled. “That’s not a name ... it’s a collection of sounds. Longrun Banditkill. Now,
that’s
a name.”

Booly shook his head in mock surrender, led the chieftain’s dooth into the cave where their own animals were quartered, and left it to chew on a bundle of dried grass.

They had taken the best of the underground dwellings. A doothskin blocked most of the wind and a spiral stairway led down to the common room. The interior was spacious, but not overly so, and a dooth-dung fire glowed in the ancient fireplace. There was very little smoke, but what there was trickled up through a funnel-shaped chimney and was vented to the outside. Colorful blankets were hung here and there. Booly and Windsweet had worked hard to make the space pleasant, and Hardman was impressed. The human dumped one of the saddlebags into an alcove and he did likewise.

“This is nice, very nice, just right for an aging father. I’ll bring my things and move in.”

Windsweet laughed and beamed her pleasure. This was a dream come true. To have both of them there, and reasonably happy with each other, was all she could possibly hope for. Except for the little one, of course ... and only she knew about him.

“Come,” Booly said, beckoning Hardman to a place by the fire. “Warm yourself and tell us about the journey. How did you find us?”

Hardman took his coat off and held his hands to the fire. He grinned. “It was like following one of the roads that the Legion builds. A blindfolded cub could have done it.”

Booly gave a snort of derision. “Maybe, if I’d been alone, but Windsweet led the way.”

Hardman chuckled. “That explains it, then. The truth is that it took me quite a while to find you. My daughter can make life extremely difficult when she wants to. Something you’ll discover for yourself in the very near future.”

Windsweet made a face from across the room, Booly laughed, and wonderful smells filled the cavern as dinner started to simmer. It was only after they had eaten and were sitting or lying around the fire that the conversation turned serious. Booly made the question sound like a statement.

“There was fighting. We saw contrails when it was light and the flash of explosions when it was dark.”

Hardman signaled his agreement. “True. Other humans came. They destroyed the fort and fought many battles.”

Booly felt a tightness in his throat. “They destroyed Camerone? Never!”

“‘Never’ is the time of fools,” Hardman said levelly as he used a bone to pick his teeth. ”Trust me when I tell you the fort was leveled. But i
t sounds worse than it actually was, since every single human left the fort
prior
to its destruction and took the riffraff from Naa town with them.”

Booly remembered how it had been with thousands of troops and hundreds of vehicles pouring out of the fort. He had assumed that the Old Man would defend Camerone to the death, which showed how much he knew. Chances were that the Navy and Marine Corps had believed the same thing. If so, they had wasted a lot of time, energy, and lives attacking something of little strategic value. He grinned.

“So who won?”

Hardman looked Booly in the eye. “You tell me, human. The others left and the Legion remains. That looks like a victory to me. But in a war where worlds are valued as villages, and entire solar systems stand for continents, who can say? And the smelly ones will present difficulties as well.”

“Smelly ones?”

“He means the Hudatha,” Windsweet said, wrinkling her nose. “The ones Surekill captured smelled horrible.”

Booly sat up in alarm. “You’ve seen more of them?”

“Yes, many more,” Hardman affirmed. “They land all the time. And spy machines too. It’s the same in the south. The most recent arrivals said interesting things before the flames consumed their words.”

Booly remembered how the Hudathan had screamed as he fell into the pit. He felt sick and Windsweet had turned away. “What did they say?” he asked.

Hardman was silent for a moment as if choosing his words with great care. “They said their ships are as numerous as the stars ... that they will strike soon ... and the Legion will die.”

Guilt rose to pull Booly’s spirits down. He should be there when the Hudathans struck, fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with his comrades, not here cowering in a cave.

Hardman watched, gauging the human’s reactions, guessing at his emotions. His voice was calm. “You could help them.”

Booly showed a flicker of interest. “Really? How?”

“My scouts tell me that while the Legion fought bravely and sent many warriors to the next world, they suffered heavy casualties. That, plus the fact that many legionnaires were shipped off-planet during the last month or so means they will be severely outnumbered.”

Windsweet had told Booly about her father’s spies, but he still marveled at the extent of the chieftain’s intelligence network. “So?” he said.

“So the Legion could use some help, allies who know every nook and cranny of the planet’s surface, and are proven warriors.” The last was said with obvious pride.

It took Booly a moment to realize what Hardman was suggesting. It didn’t make any sense. “You mean it? The Naa would fight with humans? But why? You fought the Legion for years. Here’s your chance to be rid of them once and for all.”

“But at what price?” the chieftain countered. “It’s true that humans occupy our planet, but only a small part of it, and they smell good. Most of the time anyway.”

Windsweet laughed and so did Booly. The truth was that the Naa’s culture and the Legion’s culture were complementary. That, plus the fact that the Legion had never allowed colonists on Algeron, meant the natives had been spared the horrors of full-scale colonialism. But that was something Booly saw no reason to go into.

The legionnaire frowned. “What about the southern tribes? How do they feel?”

“The same way,” Hardman replied. “They too will fight. But only until the Hudathans are vanquished. Things must return to normal after that.”

Booly was surprised. He’d never heard of such cooperation outside the area of commerce. And how were the two groups communicating with each other?

“The passes remain closed,” Booly pointed out. “How do you know the southern tribes will cooperate?”

Hardman grinned. “The Legion has supplied them with some excellent radios over the years. The southern tribes are adept at copying such things and making more.”

It made perfect sense and Booly wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. He’d seen no hint of such technology in Hardman’s village but hadn’t looked for it either. It seemed that Naa had anticipated the possibility of an escape and concealed some of their capabilities. Obviously, there were things Windsweet had neglected to mention as well. He looked at her and received an innocent smile in return.

“So,” Hardman said pragmatically, “contact the Legion and let’s get to work.”

Booly looked away. “I wish I could ... but they’d shoot me.”

Hardman smiled. “Not necessarily. I hereby designate you, Longrun Banditkill, as emissary for the Naa tribes.”

Booly started to object, had second thoughts, and let them flow. The idea made sense. By working together the Legion and the Naa
might
defeat the Hudathans. That would go a long way towards reducing the guilt he felt. It wouldn’t hurt later on either, when the war was over and he lived among the Naa.

Which led the human to another thought: Why settle for a temporary alliance? The Naa might have sufficient leverage to gain additional incentives, like better medical care, technical assistance, or who knows? Total independence wasn’t out of the question. Not only that, but he had an idea that would allow him to contact St. James quickly, efficiently, and with very little risk to himself. He nodded slowly.

“You know what? I think it could work.”

 

War Commander Niman Poseen-Ka held the bubble-shaped terrarium up to the light. The recurved road crossed the bridge just so, entered the village at exactly the right point, and turned into the main street. Each building was positioned just as he remembered it, a little better than reality, but so what? The terrarium modeled his world the way it could’ve been had it been more predictable. Or was it simply his mood? He felt good, very good, and why not? The court of inquiry had gone his way, his strategy had been vindicated, and the upcoming battle would provide the perfect oppor
tunity to rid himself of the traitorous Moder-Ta, Spear Commanders Two and Five, and the human called Baldwin. Yes, life was good.

Poseen-Ka placed the terrarium on his desk, stood, and walked over to the view port that graced one wall of his cabin. The planet Algeron filled most of it. It was an unusual planet with a single world-spanning continent and towering mountains. And while different from Hudatha, it was similar as well. So much so that it might be worth colonizing, a possibility that caused Poseen-Ka to forbid the use of nuclear weapons and plan a conventional attack.

That a human fleet had already destroyed the planet’s major military base took some of the fun out of it, but the recon units assured him that many of the troops had escaped and would put up a creditable tussle.

And, he knew, this contingent of humans included the same sort of cyborgs who had played such an important role in the destruction of Spear Three and the defense of outposts like the one on Frio II.

Yes, he looked forward to battle ahead, but must be careful. The humans had proved themselves to be extremely resourceful in the past and would be fighting on their home turf. He had accused others of overconfidence and must be sure that he avoided the same error himself. That was why he’d wait until his entire fleet had emerged from hyperspace before undertaking the sort of all-out attack that the ill-fated Niber-Ba should have launched but hadn’t.