Scorpio Invasion (18 page)

“Paz! Chaadur! Paz! Chaadur!”

Well, now...

We shot them as they stormed in again. We cut them down as they tried to get at us. We held them. Good red blood ran to mingle with the green. But we held them.

From around the Kyro arrows fleeted into their ranks. The two fliers lifted off and another two touched down. This time I judged the Shanks put out only fifty men from the two. Maybe that was it. Maybe the other four fliers were fighting ships and not troop carriers. If so, then our chances had been immeasurably increased. Surely, we eight hundred in cover ought to see off four hundred charging across the open?

But, then, these were Shanks doing the charging.

I said to Larghos and Moglin: “We have held them twice. They will come in again, probably two or three times. But they are weaker and growing ever weaker still. You will hold them. I am off to put the final part of the plan into operation.”

“Quidang, prince!”

The leaders of the other gangs forming the army knew of the plan. In their heaps of rubble and their barricaded cellars they would fight and kill Shanks whilst I got on with it.

“Fan-Si!” I was brisk. “Bring your half dozen girls and follow me.”

Eight of us, we climbed back through the ruined buildings. At the rear a small party under Deldar Tongo the Lash kept lookout. They reported no single sign of an enemy to our rear. I sent them all but two back to reinforce the front.

“That is one thing I’ve noticed about Schtarkins,” I told Fan-Si and her girls as we hauled the branches and leaves away. “They tend to stick to a frontal attack, and to what they’ve decided. I’ve an idea the Shants, who are not quite like the Shanks, are more flexible.”

Quickly we had the camouflage removed and I jumped up into the voller with a most abbreviated observation of the fantamyrrh. The girls followed smartly. I’d gone through the drills with them a number of times and they knew what to do.

A most careful look up was necessary. I didn’t want to rise out of the ruins slap bang under a Shank flier.

Feeling the significance of the occasion I pushed the controls over and we floated up steadily until I could hold her level with the shattered top of the wall. A Shank was just flying past, going towards the Kyro, about two hundred feet above us. I let him go. There were two more being busy dropping fire pots over on the other side. We were in the clear.

Instantly I shoved the levers over to full lift and speed and up we soared into the mingled streaming lights of the Suns of Scorpio.

To breathe clean sweet air again! The stink of the battle blew away from my nostrils. The noise from below flowered up obscenely; but we flew high and fast above in the pure air.

So rapidly we rose, I was able to soar up above that Shank who’d been heading into the square. Fan-Si, very commanding, very strict, hurled the first fire pot.

“Smack in the Heart!” she exclaimed in glee. The Heart is the word often employed in archery-conscious Loh to designate the Chunkrah’s Eye.

The Shanks down there were smart. Our fire pot went up and over the side; but Fan-Si’s girls were hurling down more and as I drove on towards the other fliers the fellow below us began to burn.

Greasy black smoke wafted away as he turned, trying to find a place to land.

I banged the coaming. “Come on! Come on!” We sprang on, the air buffeting us, and I the only one whose hair rippled in the breeze.

Trust Fan-Si to choose all Fristle fifis for this task!

The Shanks had seen us. They began to rise. Well, now was the time to see if Farris had given me a splendid craft, or only a good one. I knew she was not of the fastest; but in a game like this, maneuver and lift were the key factors, unlike a normal airplane, more like a Harrier.

Hurtling headlong on through thin air I brought the voller across the nearest Shank as he rose. Arrows flicked up and fell away. The short Shank bows were of little use in these conditions, no matter how effective they might be from the Shank sailing ships of the oceans. The fifis dropped firepots. The second Fish Face burned.

Now we were over the kyro. Down there Shank bodies strewed the flagstone everywhere. The quick decision made, I turned slightly to get at the third Shank aloft; the two on the ground would have to wait.

I yelled: “Look around for the other ships. There should be five.”

Fan-Si shrieked: “I cannot see them!”

“Well, we’ll have this shint before us first.” With that our voller crossed clear along the Shank from stern to stem and the fire pots burned down.

Back we turned, a slewing broadside turn in the air, and went haring back across the kyro.

The fliers down there attempted to get off. They did not succeed.

They burned.

Now we could give our full attention to the search for the remaining five Shank flying ships.

Fan-Si spotted three of them, at last, going fast and low over the ground some way off, heading away from the city.

“What in a Herrelldrin Hell are they up to?” I growled.

Then I saw. Beneath the Shanks tiny dots ran and stumbled, and fell.

One of the gangs had broken and fled. I did not know who commanded, nor did I really wish to know, not then.

“The last two!” I roared. “Where the hell are they?”

This time Finsi the Silver cried out, pointing. Yes, there they were, flying high and fast, heading northeast.

“They’re running!” I exclaimed in wonder.

All I could do now was drive as fast as possible after the three fliers tormenting the Pazzians on the ground as they fled.

Many dots lay on the grass and did not move.

We soared on and I climbed up for altitude.

“Report fire pot situation.”

Fan-Si, instantly, said: “We have twenty left.”

Good girl! She was a capital first lieutenant!

The three Shanks ahead were rising. They circled once, and I tensed as their prows pointed towards us. They continued their swing until their sterns showed. Then they flew away.

The only explanation I could find for this odd conduct was that they’d lost their landing force entirely, and suspected there were more aerial forces on our side about to be committed. After all, we’d popped up out of nowhere, giving them an almighty shock. They’d weighed their chances. They’d lost their landing force and half their aerial force. They might be rigid and might blindly follow through a plan once committed; in this situation they had the sense to know when to pull out.

I stood at the controls, easing the speed down, and watched the Fish Heads as they flew off. I know my face bore a brooding malevolent look of intolerant determination. They might have gone for now; they’d be back!

When they did, we’d either have to be a long way away, or be ready for them.

Gently I swung the voller back to the ruined city of Clovangjin.

A lot of clearing up would be necessary. There would be pain at good folk dead. Dulled though that pain might be by our undeniable victory, the agony would remain.

Somberly I brought the voller to earth at the side of the kyro. Larghos, Moglin, a whole crowd of people flooded out, flocking about us, cheering and waving their weapons. Someone yelled: “Hai, Jikai!” and that great cry was taken up until the square rang with sound. That jubilant noise rose above the stink of blood, both red and green, over the strewn bodies, Shanks and Pazzians, soared up like a benediction.

Hai Jikai!

“Shank ships lie shattered, fly scattered,
over the burning land:
Fish Faces fall fear-filled
as Chaadur our Chief has planned.”

Thus sang Larghos the Throstle, warbling a spritely tune for so doggerel a verse. Still, I felt his stanzas might improve with time and polishing. The most important factor was simply that these people were able to sing about their exploits. A legend was in the making.

All the same, even if this little gang calling itself an army was in the legend-fabricating business, we couldn’t hang around Clovangjin much longer. If I knew my Shanks — as I did, I did, to my sorrow! — they’d be back mob-handed.

The survivors of the gang that had broken were rounded up and parceled out among the other gangs. I took pains to impress upon these folk the example thus set: “Turn your back on an enemy and you’re done for.” I was now deliberately bringing down the inflated image of Prince Chaadur, deflating the pompousness. I spoke hard. “You have proved you can beat Shanks. Next time you fight ’em, remember that.”

So, now, we marched in the blaze of the suns, singing of our victory.

Clovangjin lay to our rear; our faces were turned towards the mountains. Had we hung around the ruined city the Shanks would surely have discovered us. This time they’d arrive in overwhelming numbers. Quite apart from the little fact that we’d all be dead or slaves, a defeat for this army now would set back my plans. To clear the entire mountain and valley area out I saw, belatedly, was for the moment beyond our strength. Patience, growing strength, more patience and then the time to strike — all very well and laudable in guerrillas.

That whole process was going to be far too slow for me.

Having got the show on the road, I turned back to the city where the voller nestled hidden in the rubble. Flying on over the column I looked down to see my little army trudging along, waving up to me, very blasé about airboats now. I smiled. Scouting ahead and keeping a most wary eye open for the first sight of tiny dots in the sky in any direction, I soon picked a likely spot for our first camp. Setting the flier down between bushes I trusted she’d be safe until I returned, then I started back for the army.

Fan-Si wanted to mock me for slogging along in the dust with them when I could have waited for them to turn up and guided them the last few ulms. Moglin tut-tutted. Larghos had stopped singing, and now he said: “My throat is drier than the Glarkie Dunes.” This was one of the names given to the desert to the east over She of the Sundering. Larghos went on: “If anyone should ride in the boat of the air it should be the musical artist.”

Someone threw a small pebble at him, and we all laughed.

Still, Larghos had a point.

I said: “I would gladly ferry you all in relays. But there are two reasons against that. One is that continuous flying is going to attract unwelcome attention.” I stared back at the people following; none of them offered a comment. “The other is that you’ll get fat and lazy if you fly everywhere. You must toughen your muscles and learn endurance.”

Fan-Si’s comment, I suppose, could be rendered in a very weak terrestrial play on words, so that I could report she said: “Endurance, yeah, en-durance vile.”

No one threw a stone at the Fristle fifi.

We made camp just as the twin suns sank, illuminating the rocks and gulleys with a medley of greens and reds, streaming long shadows, and concealed our cook fires with slabs of rock. Sentries stood watch and watch as normal. By the morning when we breakfasted cold, everyone lay in good hidden positions. No one spoke. As the morning wore on so the tension grew. Luz and Walig scaled the Kregen sky. A few wisps of vapor coiled and disappeared. Beetles and insects scuttled over the ground.

The Shanks appeared just after the hour of mid.

Twenty-five fliers, black-hulled, purposeful, cruised over the ruined city. One interesting fact was on offer here. Some of the fliers up there differed slightly from their fellows. Not by much, true, but by enough to suggest they had been built for a different purpose. They flew a patrol circle, gradually widening the diameters, checking every inch below.

I suppose everyone of us held his or her breath when a Shank flew directly overhead. I know I did, by Krun!

So, as I thus cowered in a hole in the ground, I reflected with not a little ironic humor that the stories and legends of Dray Prescot painted him as a hero larger than life. Heroic stature, grandeur of character, nobleness of deed — oh, yes, my fine feathered friend Dray Prescot! Hiding in a hole in the ground!

All the same, all the same, by Vox! I didn’t stand up and shake my sword at the Fish Heads in block-headed defiance. I stayed in my little hole.

From experience, we Pazzians knew the Shanks flew Extermination Patrols. The country of Tarankar formed a mixture and variety of prospects, from the tall mountains to the coastal plains and bluffs. Forests clothed much of the land, streams wended their ways into rivers and so to the sea. The Fish Heads kept the people they required to slave for them and the rest they killed. The country was not teeming with Freedom Fighters. There were scattered bands, and little armies like ours, and sometimes, to the shame of Paz, these forces fought among themselves. Where food is hard to come by, allegiances and loyalties tend to go to the wall. I’d managed to combine these gangs into a cohesive whole. But our strength remained pitiful.

So, thus somberly brooding, I watched the last of the flying ships wheel and depart. The last black hull vanished beyond the hills.

Fan-Si stood up, breathing deeply. “The shints!”

“Aye,” agreed Moglin the Flatch, and he stood up and put his arm about her waist.

This summation accorded well with our position. The plans would have to change, to adapt to the realities, instead of being based on my high-flown ideas of what I might achieve alone.

We resumed our trek. Because the Fish Heads had found no one on this patrol did not mean they would not look again. Clovang was no longer a friendly spot for Freedom Fighters.

Over the next sennight we marched secretly. We had enough food and we found good water. I put on a brave face. By this I mean I encouraged the little army, taught them, shouted at them, told them that the day of reckoning would arrive. I did not tell them that I intended to leave very soon. We experienced one tussle, a fleeting moment of combat, in which, short though it was, we lost twenty-five people. It happened in this wise: I had taken the voller up to scout a pass ahead through a cliff wall leading to an escarpment. The Shank flier was just about to lift off from beside a grove of trees as I appeared over the crest, for I was flying low.

Fan-Si did not wait for orders.