The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time (54 page)

With a scream of triumph, the Prince exploded into action. As Michael fell, John used the pole as a crutch to get his good leg under him. He dove at Michael, swinging the piece of wood overhand like a samurai sword.

As Michael hit, Mariko’s scalp slid out through a slit in his shirt. Instinctively he grabbed it, realizing it was the answer to his prayers. Without stopping to think, Michael twisted to John’s right, away from the attack he knew was coming. Adrenaline flooded his system now that the threat was immediate.

John’s club slammed into the earth mere inches from Michael’s head. Michael rolled swiftly, narrowly escaping being smashed beneath the huge man as he thudded into the ground. His outstretched right hand, injured as it was, grasped and slipped from Michael’s sweaty and bloody body.

Instantly, Michael was on the Giant’s back. The ends of Mariko’s scalp were wrapped around his hands, forming a crude garrote. Michael crossed his arms, making a noose and looped it over John’s head and around his neck. Michael planted a knee in the middle of the Giant’s back, straightened his arms and heaved back with all his remaining strength.

John’s spine arced like a bow. The hair-garrote tightened horribly around his throat, choking the life from him. He waved the club desperately, feeling it smash into Michael with no effect. He tried to roll and buck, thrashing about frantically, but nothing could dislodge his tormentor.

Michael held on tight, refusing to be overbalanced by the writhing man beneath him, or to be knocked off by the flailing club. It hit him several times, breaking his nose, bruising his biceps and shoulder, smacking into his head. He ground his teeth together and held on. There was nothing in the world but pain. But so long as he held on, he would live. So long as he held on, his dead friends would be avenged. So long as he held on, his wife and family were safe from the beast below him.

The blows from the club got weaker. The struggles of the body beneath him eased. Eventually, through a haze of pain, Michael realized the man beneath him was dead.

Aftershock set in. Michael shook so hard he wept. It was all he could do to twist the broken piece of flagpole free from Prince John’s hand and use it as a crutch to lean against as he climbed wearily to his feet. He stood there for a moment, head down, shoulders bowed, then thrust Mariko’s scalp skyward in a clenched fist.

Thunderous cheers rained down from his friends on the bunker. He limped over toward the flag of truce, stooping to pick up John’s beret and stuff it into his shirt with Mariko’s scalp. He tore a strip from the flag and bound his leg, then started for the bunker. He was too numb to think about what his victory meant, or to realize he might still be in danger. Just putting one foot in front of the other without falling was the universe.

*

In the enemy ranks, dead silence prevailed. It was the sort of stunned hush that comes over a crowd when they see the impossible happen. Prince John had been defeated by an unarmed opponent, the same man who killed Prince Anthony.

In the lower ranks, men wondered to themselves what would happen next. Among the officers, no one wondered. They knew what to do.

General Marsh handed the Prince’s rifle to his best sniper, who rested it against the hood of the APC and centered Michael Whitebear’s back in the scope. It would be a difficult shot because the man lurched and stumbled as he walked over the loose rocks.

The sniper took a deep breath, let half of it out and gently curled his index finger over the trigger, keeping Michael’s back centered in the crosshairs. Part of him hated to shoot this particular man. Neither of the Royal Princes had been especially kind to him. But the thought of how the King would reward him for downing the man who’d killed John and Anthony perked him up. He would have a duchy at least, possibly even be made a baron. He would certainly be knighted. The important thing was that he would become a Royal and as such be forever exempted from common labor. The thought made him grin.

The sound of the gun as it fired and the kick of its discharge almost surprised him, but then that’s the way it should be. Through his scope, the sniper watched Michael spin and fall as the bullet tore through his back.

The shooter pulled his eye back from the scope and looked up at the General, his grin widening at the approval he saw there. That was the last thing he saw before the dark hole appeared in his forehead and the back of his head and a good portion of his brains burst outward, showering the ground and the men nearby. His body flowed loosely down the fender of the APC leaving a smear of gore as it flopped onto the ground.

High up on the cliffs above, Dan Osaka brushed tears from his one good eye as he lowered his rifle. Too late, he thought dismally. Just a couple of damned seconds too late. He had spotted the man taking aim, but hadn’t got his own shot off fast enough. He wished Minowayuh was here.

A roar of outrage echoed from the bunker as all along the line men charged over the edge and dashed toward Whitebear’s fallen form. The King’s soldiers surged forward as well, shooting as they ran toward the bunker. The battle erupted, bullets flying everywhere.

The Allies retreated back up the bunker, carrying their wounded with them, but not before one man reached Michael Whitebear. Jim Cantrell leaned down as he ran by and snatched his friend’s body from the ground, throwing him over his shoulder. Jim turned and ran back up the bunker, dancing and darting unscathed through a barrage of bullets. He threw himself and his friend over the top of the embankment, scraping his elbows and knees in an effort to cushion Michael’s fall.

“Oof!” The breath whooshed from Michael’s body.

Jim rolled over in amazement and stared at his friend. Michael’s eyes were open. They briefly had that soft, unfocused look, common to newborns and people regaining consciousness in strange circumstances. Then they sharpened into focus. He pointed to his chest and his lips twitched in a feeble smile as he whispered, “still ticking.”

Chapter 51: The Reckoning

A pair of litter bearers appeared and Jim turned Michael over to them, saying softly, as if to himself, “He’s alive.”

Suddenly Jim leapt to his feet and bellowed, “He’s alive!”

Men up and down the line took up the cry.

Jim jumped up on top of the bunker, shook his fist at the advancing enemy soldiers and cupped his hands around his mouth, screaming, “Did you hear that, you back-shooting sons of bitches? He’s alive!”

Such was the power of Jim’s professionally trained voice that his words projected over the sound of the gunfire. The enemy advance stumbled briefly, but then, urged on by their officers, the King’s army resumed its relentless charge.

Behind Jim, a series of red flares shot up into the sky. In the middle of the line, Adam Young’s trumpeter began blowing retreat. On either side of the river, Allied troops began a fighting retreat along the top of the bunker and up the nearest slopes toward high ground.

The King’s army, sensing the end was near, surged forward.

In Lake Zion, John’s flanking force was now close enough to hear gunshots echoing from the fighting. Sails dropped and outboards revved as they raced to close the back door on the Allies.

The Allied evacuation along the top of the bunker was only half over when Earl Baker slammed home the plunger on his detonator. A series of muffled blasts sounded from the depths of the twenty-four shafts the men had so laboriously dug. Clouds of dust billowed into the air from the mouths of the shafts.

Nothing happened.

On both sides of the river Allied troops stopped in their tracks, stricken with disbelief.

Earl Baker ran along the top of the bunker waving his arms to attract attention.

“Move your asses, you fools!” He was screaming at the top of his lungs. Didn’t they know something like this took a little time to develop?

“Run! Run! Run!” he yelled and proceeded to lead by example.

The men came out of their paralysis and dashed for higher ground.

The earth beneath their feet shuddered. Slowly, inexorably, the massive landslide that damned Lake Zion began to move.

The King’s army in the canyon below halted, confused, then stampeded in panic.

Above them, a monstrous landslide that had been an earthen dam shifted and groaned. At the base of the slide, jets of water sprung forth as if by magic. But these sprays of water were under pressure so intense they shot across the canyon and carved deep into the rock on the far side. Anything less resistant than rock, such as flesh, was simply vaporized by the force of the water.

Men toward the back of the King’s army, who either hadn’t realized their peril or the reason for the panic, suddenly saw the light. They dropped their arms, shucked their packs and added their masses to the terror and confusion that reigned in the narrow canyon bottom. They trampled each other into pulp in their haste to climb the cliffs. General Marsh turned his APC around and fled in horror, running down many of his own troops in his mindless desire to escape.

Cracks appeared in the dam, widening rapidly under the destructive force of the water into huge rents. Boulders the size of large houses slid down into the monstrous jets of water and were either carved up or blasted down the canyon with such force they ricocheted for miles--enormous bowling balls that flattened everything in their path. The gigantic mass of dirt and rock was collapsing inward and consuming itself.

Out in the Lake John’s armada felt itself gripped by an fierce current. The soldiers were puzzled but not alarmed, after all, the current was taking them where they wanted to go.

Up on the south rim, Adam Young, Jim Cantrell and Earl Baker stared in disbelief. On the north rim, Captain Parsons and Susan Redfeather stopped shooting at Prince John’s Rangers and gaped.

With a titanic roar, louder than a thousand freight trains, the dam bulged outward and gave way. For the briefest instant, men in the canyon bottom could look upwards at a wall of water several hundred feet high as it surged through the gap. Then it crashed into them with insane fury, tearing, crushing, rending and shearing them apart.

The force of the flood was so savage the water undercut the sides of the canyon, eroding them away like a high pressure hose blasts away an anthill, forcing the Allies and those few Rangers left alive, to flee away from the rims.

Millions of gallons of water raged through the narrow gap, widening it with each passing second, crashing and thundering down the canyon, smashing from wall to wall in a horrifying spectacle of nature unleashed. The sheer power of the foaming, churning water was awesome. It carved into the walls, gouging out millions of tons of rock and soil, grinding it all to sand and altering forever the shape of Provo Canyon. From a dark, narrow, somewhat forbidding place, it was transformed into an open valley more than a mile wide at its mouth.

The King’s Army simply ceased to exist. With awe-inspiring elemental force, the water swept over and mangled or dashed to death those unfortunates in its path. The APC bounced from boulder to boulder, wall to wall, like a pinball. Long before it was crushed and torn apart, the jelly-like mass of flesh inside had ceased to resemble General Marsh. Fingers of water plucked climbers from the walls and sucked them down into death. Only the lucky ones lived long enough to drown. John’s flanking force, caught in the irresistible current was flushed down Provo Canyon like a cockroach down a toilet.

No one would ever know how many men died in the cataclysm the Allies unleashed. The ravening water stripped flesh from bones and ground the bones to microscopic bits. Nothing was left. Even the Allies were stunned at the cost of their victory. Hardened warriors wept at the death of men who moments before had been trying to kill them.

The floodwaters raged out of the canyon, killing King’s men as far south as Payson. The waters poured through the ever-widening gap for days as the great lake emptied until, finally, it found its new balance as a river drainage. The force of the water cut a new river course erupting over The Fault and cascading for more than a mile before hitting the Gulf.

On the north side of Provo canyon, Captain Parsons and Susan Redfeather accepted the surrender of the remaining Rangers.

On the south side of the waters, two thousand strangely subdued Allied soldiers formed into companies and battalions and set up camps. For the first time in a week, they could sleep the death-like sleep of those who have given their all.

The following morning, the grim-visaged men and women turned toward Nephi. It was time to finish cleaning house. Among them Jim Cantrell, Daniel Windwalker, Dan Osaka and Lady Di formed a special unit whose task was to rescue Sara Garcia.

They had only been heading south for a few hours when they encountered Raymond Stormcloud, Sara Garcia and most of Dan Osaka’s in-laws. Jim and Sara hugged until their arms ached. Then they, along with Dan and his in-laws, headed back north. Lady Di, Daniel Windwalker and Raymond Stormcloud accompanied Adam Young and the rest of the men onward to Nephi.

*

In Nephi, panic reigned supreme. Slaves revolted and took to the mountains. An orderly evacuation was out of the question. People simply fled for the docks. Jamal Rashid barely stopped to grab the tapes he’d found in the Inquisitorium when Merriman’s half-eaten remains were discovered.

On the ships, sailors who had been offloading armaments suddenly found themselves cramming the ruling class in with those soldiers fortunate enough to have survived.

*

When the Allies arrived two days later, Nephi was a ghost town. Huge stockpiles of food, medical supplies, arms and ammunition lay abandoned at the docks. The sole remaining soldier on hand to greet them was Captain Allen Hoffman, who had been left behind when his jailers ran away. In their haste to flee, the pitiful remnants of the King’s Army hadn’t even shut off the lights.

There was no sign of the Troubled Land Band until Raymond led Daniel and Adam to the Lachelles’ apartment, where a swiftly scrawled note from Denise was found addressed, “To Adam Young, or current commander of the Allied Forces...even though our side has won, we in the band feel we will be more valuable in California, where we can keep an eye on the King. Jacques warns you in the strongest possible terms not to assume the man is defeated. He is a fanatic and will surely desire vengeance for the deaths of his sons and the loss of his army. When we have settled in, we will send a courier with details of how we can be contacted.”

Stunned Allied soldiers gathered on the docks of Nephi and stared out to sea, unable to believe it was over.

*

The ISS

“So, nothing? Not a word?” General Alice Anderson, commander of Project Genesis looked over Ludmilla Gargarin’s shoulder at the computer display. Perhaps it’s for the best, she thought. If they don’t have satellite uplink capabilities we won’t be tempted to talk to them.

“Nothing,” Ludmilla said. “Transmissions stopped just before that big flood in Utah wiped out the invading army.”

Ludmilla shook her head, adding, “I still can’t believe that was deliberate.”

The General gave her a half grin and said, “Believe it. Elena saw the whole thing from the observatory scope and she said the defenders evacuated their positions just before they blew the dam. The flood probably took out their radio station. It certainly wrecked everything else.”

Christine Jorgensen, who had been sitting quietly, thinking about the struggles of the people on Earth, nodded and said, “Hard to believe they would sacrifice everything--their towns, farms, so many lives...” her voice faded.

“Would you want to live under that obscene King’s rule?” Ludmilla asked. The question was purely rhetorical.

*

Luna City

Little Angela Kent knocked on the door to Yuri’s bedroom and waited, shifting from foot to foot until he grunted permission to enter. She slipped inside and found him hunched over his computer focused on his Call of Duty first person shooter game.

“Hey!” He yelled as she snatched off his headset and killed the feed. “What do you think you’re doing? I was just about to set a new pointstreaks record.”

She quirked a smile at him and waited for him to notice she was dressed in her pink shorts and top. Her smile grew wider as she saw his pupils dilate. He’d noticed. Good.

She gave her head a practiced toss and her long blonde curls danced in the light gravity.

He’d known her all his life, but for the first time Yuri noticed how pretty she was--how her deep blue eyes sparkled when she smiled at him.

He stood up and cleared his throat. Why did his shirt collar feel so tight?

“Are you coming to the concert tonight?” Angela asked.

“What concert?”

“You goof,” she said playfully slugging his shoulder. “The Loonie Tunes are performing tonight. It’s a celebration for restoring full power.”

*

The mess hall had been rearranged so the seating half-circled a stage, leaving a small area for those who wanted to dance. Linette Laverne, less than two months after having her foot amputated, rolled up in a small electric golf cart, parked it, then limped up onto the stage and took her normal seat. She was glad she wouldn’t have to stand during the performance.

“How’s the new foot?” Pauolo Guzman asked as he hopped up onto the stage and unhooked his guitar case. Pauolo fit the bill of small, dark and handsome perfectly.

She flexed it at him. In a high top tennis shoe you couldn’t even see it. “Great, considering it came from your machine shop.”

“Seriously,” he said, as she unpacked her clarinet. “You up for this?”

“Pauolo, I suited up and went outside yesterday. If I can get back up on that horse...” She gave a Gallic shrug, then put on her exaggerated French accent and said, “W’en ‘ave I evair not been ready for ze fun, oui?”

He chuckled and gave her shoulder a squeeze, then leaned down and kissed her cheek.

Ten minutes later the rest of the Loonie Tunes band arrived.

Commander Clark Kent with his bass guitar, Captain Henri Dupree with his keyboard, Heinz Obermann and Connie Cho with their violins, Leila Yoruba with her jury rigged drums, Isabella Cortez with her classical guitar and Olivia de Garza with her superb soprano, though every member of the band contributed vocals.

An hour of set up and tuning passed by which time the crowd had gathered.

Clark stepped up to a microphone and said, “We’d like to open with an old favorite from The Troubled Land Band called ‘Constitutional Erosion.’”

Herein lies the problem

Folks forget the past

and lessons learned so long ago

simply do not last

Cause our minds are on the present

and the future’s bearing down

and the wisdom of The Founders

is nowhere to be found