The Gods and their Machines (20 page)

‘Lakrem,’ Sostas pleaded, ‘there’s no need for this …’

Elbeth kept Chamus and Riadni between himself and his friend, but his eyes did not leave Sostas.

‘I’m deaf, Sostas, but I can still hear the dead.’

Both men stopped moving. Chamus and Riadni looked from one to the other, directly in the firing line. Riadni turned to gaze into her father’s eyes. Sliding her foot behind Chamus’s and her hand up behind his neck to clutch his collar, she tensed.

Elbeth began to stride towards where the two were
standing
and Sostas started forward at the same moment. Sostas reached out for his daughter, but Elbeth was going to get to them first. Riadni threw herself backwards, pulling Chamus with her and the two men were suddenly facing each other, only feet apart. Elbeth, his gun hand coming up, was
distracted
by the movement for an instant and Sostas whipped his gun up and fired at near point-blank range. Elbeth’s gun went off, but he was already falling backwards. He stepped back to catch himself, tried to aim his gun again and Sostas fired once more. The Hadram Cassal leader jerked as the bullet struck him and spun to hit the ground face down. He rolled over, but the gun fell from his limp hand and he gurgled a few slurred words before dying. Sostas calmly slid his revolver back into his belt and knelt to say a brief prayer over his friend. Then he turned and took Riadni into his arms.

‘It’s not over, Sostas listen,’ Chamus said to them. ‘I need to get to a radio, right now.’

‘The Hadram Cassal are all gone,’ Sostas said. ‘They took everything with them.’

‘There’s a glider mission heading out here tonight,’ Chamus told him. ‘They are coming to spread a disease. You know the rumours? The plague? They are going to release it all over this area.’

‘We’ve heard the rumours. They’re not true,’ Sostas shook his head. ‘I haven’t heard of a single case. It’s an Altiman lie.’

‘There haven’t been any cases, not yet,’ Chamus grimaced with pain as he stood up, ‘but tomorrow there will be. The rumours were all being spread to set up the story. Elbeth
knew it and he was going to let it happen.’

Sostas glanced down at the dead man. He scowled and then nodded to himself.

‘And you think you can stop it?’

‘The plan can’t work if people know about it before the gliders take off. I need a radio.’

‘There’s none in Kemsemet since old Barark sold his,’ Sostas said.

‘What about the aid column,’ Riadni put in. ‘They have one. But we’ve no horses. They’re hours away on foot.’

‘Elbeth wasn’t planning to walk out of here,’ Chamus said. ‘Where are their horses?’

‘They weren’t going to ride,’ Sostas said. ‘They were going to drive.’

He pointed to a small four-wheel-drive car sitting under camouflage netting near one of the caves.

‘Can you drive?’ Chamus asked.

‘Well enough.’

They helped Chamus walk over to the vehicle, but before getting in he stopped. There were spare fuel cans on the back of the car and seeing them had reminded him of something. He limped into the cave and came out a few minutes later with a piece of polished, carved wood under his arm.

‘What’s that?’ Riadni asked.

‘My propeller.’

One

I
t took them twenty minutes to reach his plane, during which time Chamus told the other two everything he knew, or suspected, about the glider mission. The car’s toolbox had the tools he needed to reattach the propeller and the job itself took very little time. There was no way to carry a passenger, short of lying one of them on the top of a wing, and he would not be able to land safely in the dark anyway, so flying to the aid station was out of the question. But if Riadni and Sostas failed to get to Yered in time, he hoped he might be able to somehow delay the gliders. Sostas shook his hand, then Riadni gave him a quick, timid hug, before he pulled on his helmet and climbed into the cockpit. He had shown Sostas how to spin the propeller, so once the engine was going, he waved and immediately started down the field. It was a bright moonlit night, but still far too dark to take off from an unlit strip under normal
circumstances
. It didn’t matter. He had seen the terrain in
daylight
. It was more than long enough and there was no time to clear the path of any small obstacles.

He pushed the throttle forward, the engine bellowed and
the plane lunged forward. It bumped and bounced down the rough earth of the field, eventually speeding into a
shuddering
run and then he was up.

He peeled away and set a heading for the north-west. He had a map on his knees and he had already marked the most likely route the gliders would take. They would need to cut loose from their tow-planes far enough away from the area that the planes’ engines would not be heard. He had flown with his father and grandfather in gliders and knew a bit about them. Flying a glider in the cooling air of the night was a tough job, without engines they relied on air currents for lift. The best route to take would be one that gave them plenty of thermals and updrafts on their way to and around their target. Like the range of hills that led down from the north-west to Kemsemet. And they would never make it back to their airfield, there was none close enough, but they would need enough lift after the strike to get a safe distance from the area. That narrowed down the routes they could take.

He flew to a point over an area of desert at the foot of the hills that Sostas had told him was uninhabited, calculating that if he could keep them there, they might lose their lift and either land or have to drop their heavy loads. Staying low, he hoped to catch sight of the gliders silhouetted against the moonlit sky. He flew large circles there, looking at his watch and waiting, hoping that he had chosen the right place, and knowing that he would not find out if Riadni and Sostas had succeeded until he landed in the morning, or until he spotted those gliders.

Sostas was driving as fast as he dared along the rough road. He could have cut across country on a horse, but the car could not jump ditches or fences, or scramble up and down banks.

‘Listen to me,’ he said to his daughter, ‘when we reach Yered, I have to leave you and get back to the farm …’

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘No, you’ll stay there. Send out the message. I’ll come back for you later.’

‘Leynid can send the message, Papa, I’m coming back home with you,’ Riadni looked up into his face. ‘I want to be with you and Mama and the boys. You can’t stop me.’

Sostas nodded grimly, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze.

They jolted along, chasing the light of the headlamps, Sostas having to refresh his rusty driving skills as they went. They had been driving for less than fifteen minutes since they had left Chamus when Sostas suddenly slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a skidding halt. There, in the glare of the headlights, was a boulder blocking the road.

‘Shanna forgive me,’ he breathed, closing his eyes and laying his head on the steering wheel.

Riadni gazed in dismay. It was one of the boulders they had used to block in Paronig’s truck. She had forgotten all about it. It seemed an age ago. Paronig and his men had moved the stone blocking their way back to Yered, but not the one behind them. Sostas would never be able to move the obstacle with only her to help. He threw the car into reverse and backed up the road. They would have to find another way.

Chamus had been airborne for nearly an hour. The night was still clear, but he was already doubting that the gliders would come, or that he would even see them if they did, for that matter. He could have been wrong about the whole thing, or he could have been wrong about the route they were going to take. The idea was so fantastic that he was not sure he even believed it anymore. And even if he did, Riadni and Sostas would surely get the message out in time. And the military were bound to be monitoring radio traffic. And they would stop it once they knew they had been found out. They had to.

He pulled his collar up. It was cold, and he had lost his scarf at some point during his journey through Bartokhrin. With all the waiting, he now had time to feel the weariness of the last few days creep over him, the hunger and thirst and the throbbing of his wound. The pain in his leg made using the rudder bar difficult and the exhaustion was
affecting
his concentration. But the fact that he was flying again made up for all of it. Something moving in the corner of his vision made him look around, but he could see nothing. Then he spotted them – three willowy, black shapes without lights, soaring above him to the north-east. He turned towards them, but his hand hesitated on the throttle. He had not really expected this. They were not supposed to be here. Even after all this time spent waiting for them, he was not sure what he was going to do. What if the fact that he was buzzing them was not enough to put them off? What if they were determined to carry out their mission no matter what he did?

He shoved the throttle forward. There was no time to think. He would have to make it up as he went along. He closed in on the three aircraft quickly. They spotted his bright yellow biplane with its navigation lights long before he could get to them and swung away to evade him. It was a waste of time. He had the advantage of power and speed. He swept in under them and climbed up right through their path, splitting their formation. They peeled away right and left. He clung onto the leader, harrying him by swinging to one side and the other in front of him and buffeting him in his prop-wash. Wherever the glider tried to turn, he swooped into his path to block him. He was aiming on getting it through to them that he knew their plan. If they radioed their base to report what was happening, they might get called back. Then it occurred to him that they might be under orders to maintain radio silence, or they might think he was just some prankster.

He let go of the leader and raced ahead to catch the others. They had not gone far. They were hard to spot though, their sleek black shapes could not be seen against the ground, he had to get level with or below them to be able to make them out. He banked left and right, trying to steer them round in circles. The manoeuvres were fun. He had never had a good enough reason to bully other flyers before. They were excellent pilots to stay aloft against all his antics, but he kept the upper hand. It was a little like herding sheep.

After a while, however, the gliders were still trying to make their way to Kemsemet and he was finding it hard to keep them together. He would stick with one and the others
would split off and fly well apart from each other. In the darkness, they had the advantage of being able to see and hear him, while they were nearly invisible from some angles. He started to panic. They were not going to turn around; this was not working. He was going to have to get serious. The thought of forcing another pilot down terrified him, but they would be flying over inhabited areas soon, where he would not be able to risk bringing them down. If he was going to do it, it had to be now.

He banked hard, flying a circle round the nearest glider and came in behind it, slowing almost to stalling speed as he closed on the aircraft’s tail. His propeller bit into the wood and fabric fin and tore it apart with a sound like a
lawnmower
catching a paper bag. He pulled up before he drove right up the back of the glider, missing its canopy by inches. He could see the glider’s pilot wrestling with the controls, spiralling slowly downwards towards the dark ground. Chamus thought his chances of making a landing were pretty good. He could not afford to worry about him. He sought out the next one and crept up on its tail. The pilot saw him coming in his mirror and banked away. Chamus turned with him, but could not slow down enough. He
overflew
and had to come around again. In his haste, he came in too fast this time, so instead of trying to take out the aircraft’s tail, he brought his landing gear down hard on the glider’s canopy. The slim fuselage lurched and tipped to one side. Its right wing came over, swinging straight at him and smacked the side of the biplane. He pulled away in time to stop it dragging backwards and ripping off his tailplane.

The glider tumbled towards the ground, and he watched
anxiously as it disappeared into the darkness. He rolled over and followed it down. He saw it level out and swoop down into a field. He smiled as he admired the pilot’s skill, but his smile disappeared when he flew over the end of the field. It was too short, and there was a deep gully at the end of it. The glider landed, bouncing a couple of times, rolling along the ground, and then, still moving at full tilt, it pitched into the gully and smashed against the opposite wall. Chamus swallowed what felt like a stone in his throat and gained some altitude. There was still one left. Weaving right and left down the bombing route, he searched desperately for the remaining glider. He switched his navigation lights off to make himself harder to see and flew lower, scanning the sky. There was no sign of the last flyer.

Chamus finally caught sight of the glider, catching
thermals
off a long ridge that ran in the direction of Kemsemet. He charged forward and cut across the black aircraft’s path, causing it to swing over the ridge and down into the valley on the other side. He tried catching the other pilot’s tail, as he had with the first glider, but this pilot was exceptionally good and was using his slower speed to jink out of Chamus’s way, forcing him to fly past each time or risk stalling. Chamus surveyed the valley in the poor light. It was a long, narrow passage with steep walls of rock and thin soil. If he could keep the glider between the two ridges, he could eventually run it into the ground.

He concentrated on trying to hold himself on top of the glider, gradually pushing it lower, but each time he managed to force it down, he had to give up as his engine hiccuped and threatened to stall. He had to fly past and pick up his
speed again. Each time that happened, it meant coming around again and catching up once more. He was losing ground. Each failure took them closer to the villages and farms at the edge of the desert. Then the glider pilot changed tactics.

As Chamus closed on the lighter aircraft, the air-force pilot pulled right up in front of him, nose up, slowing so abruptly that Chamus’s vision was suddenly filled with the slender black shape. He found himself staring right into the other man’s face. He jerked the stick to the left and rolled the biplane hard over, missing the other aircraft by inches. He stamped on the rudder bar and leaned back the other way to straighten out the roll, looking back, expecting to see the glider falling from the sky. But the other pilot had miraculously stayed airborne. He was amazed. Gliders were not made for aerobatics. He circled and tried to catch up again, but again the other pilot threw himself into Chamus’s path, forcing him to fling the biplane over to the side to save himself from smashing straight into the glider and killing both himself and the other pilot. When it happened a third time, he pulled away and hung back cautiously. The glider pilot had raised the stakes. He had realised that Chamus would not sacrifice himself and had turned each potential clash into an act of suicide, so that Chamus could not tackle the glider without giving up his own life.