Sergeant Adib Julian, Third Platoon, Bravo Company of The
Empress' Own, opened his eyes, looked around the inside of
his cramped, one-man bivy tent, and frowned sleepily.
Something was different, but he couldn't tell what.
Whatever it was, it hadn't twanged his finely honed
survival instincts, which at least suggested that no
thundering hordes of Mardukan barbarians were likely to
come charging through the sealed flaps at him, but that
sense of change lingered. It poked at him, prodding him up
out of the depths of slumber, and he checked his toot. The
implanted computer told him that it wasn't quite dawn, and
he yawned. There was still time to sleep, so he rolled
over, pushing aside a pebble in the dirt, and shivered in
the cold . . .
His eyes snapped wide, and he unsealed the tent opening
and popped out into the predawn light like a Terran
prairie dog.
"It's cold!" he shouted in glee.
Bravo Company had been marching uphill for the last
several days. They had long since passed out of the
valleys around the Hadur River, and the city-state of
Marshad lay far behind them. In fact, they were beyond any
of the surrounding cities that had the dubious pleasure of
lying on the borders of the late, unlamented King Radj
Hoomas' territory.
They'd made better time than they'd anticipated, yet
despite the rigorous pace and steadily increasing upward
slopes they faced, they had enjoyed a period of remarkable
respite. Between the sale of the captured weapons gathered
in Voitan, the remnant funds from Q'Nkok, and the lavish
gifts T'Leen Sul and the new Council of Marshad had
bestowed upon them, they had been able topurchase all
their needs along the way.
In many cases, that had been unnecessary. Several towns
had hosted them like visiting dignitaries . . . for more
than one reason. The towns had been fearful of Radj
Hoomas' ambition and avarice, and were delighted to do
anything they could for the aliens who had put an end to
them. They'd also been fascinated by the off-world
visitors . . . and, in many cases, they'd wanted to get
them out of town as quickly as possible.
The trader network in the Hadur had spread accounts of the
destruction of the entire dreaded Kranolta barbarian
federation at Voitan, the battle at Pasule, and the
Marshad coup far and wide, and the message encapsulated in
all the stories was clear. The humans were not to be
molested. The few times they'd run into resistance—once
from a group of particularly stupid bandits—they had
successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of classical
Roman short-sword-and-shield combat techniques against
charging Mardukans without ever being forced to resort to
bead rifles or plasma cannon. But thanks to the stories
which had run before them, any potentially ill-intentioned
locals had known that those terrifying off-world weapons
lurked in reserve . . . and had no desire at all to see
them any more closely than that.
The Bronze Barbarians of The Empress' Own, veterans all,
were well aware of the advantages inherent in a fearsome
reputation. This one had come with a higher price tag than
they had ever wanted to pay, but it also meant that they'd
been able to travel for several weeks with virtually no
incidents. That happy state of affairs had given them time
to lick their wounds and get ready for the next hurdle:
the mountains.
Julian had been off guard duty the night before, but
Nimashet Despreaux had had the last shift. Now, as he
stood grinning hugely into the semi-dark, she smiled at
him while groans sounded across the camp. The female
sergeant bent over the fire, picked something up, and
walked over to where he was dancing in delight.
"Hot coffee?" she offered, extending the cup with a grin.
The company had practically given up the beverage; it was
just too hot on Marduk in the morning.
"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you," the NCO chortled.
He took the cup and sipped the brew. "God, that tastes
awful. I love it."
"It's bloody freezing," Corporal Kane grumped.
"How cold is it?" Julian asked, diving back into his bivy
tent for his helmet.
"Twenty-three degrees," Despreaux told him with a fresh
smile.
"Twenty-three?" Gronningen asked, furrowing his brow as he
sniffed the cool air. "What's that in Fahrenheit?"
"Twenty-three!" Julian laughed. "Shit! I'd set my air-
conditioning to twenty-three!"
"Something like seventy-three or seventy-four Fahrenheit,"
Despreaux said with a laugh of her own.
"This feels much colder," the big Asgardian said
stoically. If he was cold, it wasn't showing. "Not cold,
but a bit chilly."
"We've been out in over a forty-degree heat for the last
two months," the squad leader pointed out. "That tends to
adjust your perspective."
"Uh-oh," Julian said, looking around. "I wonder how the
scummies are handling this?
* * *
"What's wrong with him, Doc?" Prince Roger had awoken,
shivering, to find Cord seated cross-legged in the tent,
still and motionless. Repeated attempts to get the six-
limbed, grizzly bear-sized Mardukan shaman to wake up had
resulted only in slow groans.
"He's cold, Sir." The medic shook his head. "Really cold."
Warrant Dobrescu pulled the monitor back from the Mardukan
and shook his head again, his expression worried. "I need
to go check the mahouts. If Cord is in this bad a shape,
they're going to be worse. Their cover isn't as good."
"Is he going to be okay?" the anxious prince asked.
"I don't know. I suspect that he's probably sort of
hibernating, but it's possible that if they get too cold
something will shut down and kill them." Dobrescu took
another breath and shook his head. "I've been meaning to
do a really thorough study of Mardukan body chemistry and
physiology. It looks like I waited a bit too long."
"Well, we need—" the prince began, only to break off at
the sound of shouting from outside the tent. "Now what the
hell is that?"
* * *
"Modderpockers, let me go!" Poertena shouted. He snarled
at the laughing Marines who were crawling out of their one-
person tents to sniff at the morning air. "Gimme a pocking
hand, damn it!"
"Okay, everybody," St. John (J.) said, slowly
clapping. "Let's give him a hand."
"Now that," Roger said, "is a truly disgusting menage
a . . . uh . . ."
"Menage a cinq is the term you're looking for," Doc
Dobrescu said, laughing as he walked over to the pinned
armorer and the four comatose Mardukans wrapped tightly
about his diminutive form.
Roger shook his head and chuckled, but he also waved to
the Marines.
"Some of you guys, help the Doc."
St. John (J.) grabbed one of Denat's inert arms and
started trying to disengage it from the armorer.
"This really is gross, Poertena," the Marine said as he
tried to pull one of the slime-covered arms off the
armorer.
"You pocking telling me? I wake up, and it not'ing but
arms and slime!"
Roger began to haul on Tratan as the Mardukan groaned and
resisted the pulling Marines.
"They seem to like you, Poertena."
"Well," the armorer's response sounded mildly
strangled, "they tryin' to kill me now! Leggo!"
"They like his heat," the warrant officer grunted as he
helped Roger heave, then said something unprintable under
his breath and gave up. The united efforts of three
Marines had so far been unable to get Denat to release his
grip, and the bear hug actually did threaten to kill the
armorer. "Somebody build a fire. Maybe if we warm them up,
they'll let go."
>"And somebody help me get Cord," Roger said, then thought
about the weight of the Mardukan. "Several somebodies." He
looked over to the picket lines where the mahouts made
their camp. "Did anybody notice that the packbeasts are
missing?" he asked, bemusedly.
* * *
"We passed through a cold front," the medic said, shaking
his head. "Or what passes for one on this screwy planet."
Captain Pahner had called a council of war to consider the
night's events. The group sat near the edge of the camp,
looking down on the forest of clouds that stretched into
the distance from their foothills perch. Above them, the
true mountains loomed trackless.
"What cold front?" Julian asked. "I didn't see any cold
front."
"You remember that rain we had yesterday afternoon?"
Dobrescu asked.
"Sure, but it rains all the time here," the NCO replied
skeptically.
"But that one went on for a long time," Roger
noted. "Usually, they just sort of hit in short spurts.
That one rained, and rained, and rained."
"Right." The medic nodded. "And today, the air pressure is
a few points higher than yesterday. Not much—this planet
doesn't have much in the way of a weather system—but
enough. Anyway, the cloud layer got suppressed," he
gestured to the clouds, "the humidity fell, and the
temperature . . ."
"Dropped like a rock," Pahner said. "We got that part. Can
the locals handle it?"
The medic sighed and shrugged.
"That I don't know. Most terrestrial isothermic and
posithermic creatures can survive to just above freezing
temperatures as long as they don't stay that way too long.
However, that's terrestrial." He shrugged again. "With
Mardukans, Captain, your guess is probably as good as
mine. I'm a doc, not an exobiologist."
He looked around at the camp, and especially at the flar-
ta.
"The packbeasts, now, they seem to be better adapted. They
burrowed underground last night on first watch and stayed
there till things warmed back up. And their skin is
different from the Mardukans', scaled and dry where the
Mardukans' is smooth and mucous-coated. So I think the
packbeasts can make it, if we stay below the freezing
line. But I don't know about the locals," he finished
unhappily, gesturing at Cord and the lead mahout.
They had been speaking in the dialect of Q'Nkok so that
the two Mardukan representatives could follow the
conversation. Now Cord clapped his hands and leaned
forward.
"I can withstand the conditions of last night with dinshon
exercises. However," he waved a true-hand at D'Len
Pah, "the mahouts are not trained in them. Nor are any of
my nephews, except Denat, and he poorly. Also," he pointed
to patches on his skin, "it is terribly dry up here. And
it will only get worse, from what Shaman Dobrescu says."
"So," said Pahner. "We have a problem."
"Yes," D'Len Pah said. The old mahout looked terrible in
the light of midmorning. Part of that was the same dry
patches that affected Cord, but the greater part was
bitter shame. "We cannot do this much longer, Lord Pahner,
Prince Roger. This is a terrible, terrible place. There is
no air to breathe. The wind is as dry as sand. The cold is
fierce and terrible." He looked up from the scratches he'd
been making on the ground with his mahout stick. "We . . .
cannot go any farther."
Pahner looked over at Roger and cleared his throat.
"D'Len Pah, we must cross these mountains. We must reach
the far coast, or we will surely die. And we cannot leave
our gear." He looked up at the towering peaks. "Nor can we
carry it over the mountains without the flar-ta. It's not
like we can call Harendra Mukerji for a resupply."
The lead mahout looked around nervously. "Lord
Pahner . . ."
"Calmly, D'Len," Roger said. "Calmly. We won't take them
from you. We aren't brigands."
"I know that, Prince Roger." The mahout clapped his hands
in agreement. "But . . . it is a fearsome thing."
"We could . . ." Despreaux started to say, then stopped.
With the loss of most of the senior NCOs, she was being
groomed for the Third Platoon platoon sergeant's position.
This was the first time she'd been included in one of the
staff meetings, so she was nervous about making her
suggestion.
"Go ahead," Eleanora O'Casey said with a nod, and the
sergeant gave the prince's chief of staff a brief glance
of thanks.
"Well . . . we could . . ." She stopped again and turned
to D'Len Pah. "Could we buy the packbeasts from you?" She
looked at Captain Pahner, whose face had tightened at the
suggestion and shrugged. "I'm not saying that we will, I'm
asking if we could."
Roger looked at Pahner. "If we can, we will," he said, and
the Marine looked back at him with a careful lack of
expression.
His Royal Highness, Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander
Chiang MacClintock, Heir Tertiary to the Throne of Man,
had changed immeasurably from the arrogant, conceited,
self-centered, whiny spoiled brat he'd been before a
barely bungled assassination by sabotage had shipwrecked
him and his Marine bodyguards on the hellhole called
Marduk. For the most part, Pahner was prepared to admit
that those changes had been very good things, because
Bronze Battalion of The Empress' Own had been less than
fond of the aristocratic pain in the ass it had been
charged with protecting, and with excellent reason.
Pahner supposed that discovering that a dangerously
competent (and unknown) someone wanted you dead, and then
coping with the need to march clear around an alien planet
full of bloodthirsty barbarians in hopes of somehow taking
that planet's sole space facility away from the
traditional enemies of the Empire of Man who almost
certainly controlled it, would have been enough to refocus
anyone's thoughts. Given the unpromising nature of the
preassassination-attempt Roger, that wasn't something
Pahner would have cared to bet any money on, of course.
And he more than suspected that he and the rest of Bravo
Company owed a sizable debt of gratitude to D'Nal Cord.
Roger's Mardukan asi—technically a slave, although anyone
who made the mistake of confusing Cord with a menial
probably wouldn't live long enough to realize he'd stopped
breathing for some odd reason—was a deadly warrior who had
become the prince's mentor, and not just where weapons
were concerned. The native shaman was almost certainly the
first individual ever to take Roger seriously as both
prince and protégé, and the imprint of his personality was
clear to see in the new Roger.
All of that was good. But it never would have occurred to
the old, whiny Roger even to consider that such a thing as
a debt of honor might exist between him and a troop of
barbarian beast drovers on a backwoods planet of mud,
swamp, and rain. Which, much as Pahner hated to admit it,
would have been a far more convenient attitude on his part
at this particular moment.
"Sir," he said tightly, "those funds will be needed for
our expenses on the other side of the mountains. When we
get out of here, we'll need to immediately resupply. That
is if we don't run out on the way. Or have to turn back."
"Captain," Roger said steadily, sounding uncannily like
his mother in deadly reasonable mode, "we have to have the
flar-ta, and we will not take them from mahouts who have
stood by us through thick and thin. You yourself said that
we're not brigands, and shouldn't act like them. So,
what's the answer?"
"We can improve things for them," Gunny Jin said. "Wrap
them in cloths so that they don't lose so much moisture.
Put them in a tent with a warming stove at night. That
sort of thing."
D'Len clapped his hands in regret. "I do not think I can
convince my people to continue on. It is too terrible up
here."
"If you think we can continue," Cord said, "my nephews
will do so. I, of course, am asi. I shall follow Roger
wherever it leads."
"Let's put it to a vote," Roger said to Pahner. "I won't
say that we'll go with it either way, but I'd like to see
what everyone thinks."
"All right," the captain agreed reluctantly. "I think,
though, that we're going to need all of our funds on the
far side of the mountain. Desperately. Still," he added
with a shrug. "Despreaux?"
The junior NCO cleared her throat. "It was my idea."
"So noted," Pahner said with a smile. "I won't hold it
against you. I take it that was a `buy the beasts' vote?"
"Yes, Sir, but D'Len Pah hasn't said he'll sell."
"Good point," Roger said. "D'Len? Can we buy them from
you?"
The old Mardukan hesitated, drawing his circles on the
stony ground.
"We must have at least one to make it back to the
forests," he temporized.
"Granted," Roger said promptly.
"And . . . they aren't cheap," the mahout added.
"Would you rather bargain with Captain Pahner or
Poertena?" the prince asked.
"Poertena?" The mahout looked around wildly. "Not
Poertena!"
"We'll strike a fair bargain," Pahner said severely. "If
we decide to buy them." He thought about it for a
moment. "Oh, hell. When. There isn't a choice, is there?"
"Not really, Captain," Roger said. "Not if we're going to
make it over the mountains."
"So," the commander said to the mahout. "Are you willing
to bargain for them? In gems, gold, and dianda?"
The mahout clapped his lower hands in resignation.
"Yes. Yes, we will. The flar-ta are like children to us.
But you have been good masters; you will treat our
children well. We will bargain for their worth." He
lowered his head and continued, firmly. "But not with
Poertena."
* * *
"Good t'ing they didn't know I was coaching you over tee
poc—tee radio, Sir," Poertena said as they waved to the
mahouts, slowly making their way back downslope.
"Yep," Roger agreed. "How'd I do?"
"We got pock— We got screwed."
"Hey," Roger said defensively. "Those things are priceless
up here!"
"Yeah," Poertena agreed. "But t'ey takin' tee money down
t'ere. We prob'ly pay twice what they flar-ta is worth.
T'at more money than t'ey ever see in t'eir po . . . in
their lives."
"True," Roger said. "I'm glad that Cranla went with them.
Maybe he can keep people from taking it before they buy
their new mounts."
"Sure," the armorer complained. "But now I out a fourth
for spades. What I gonna do 'bout t'at?"
"Spades?" Roger asked.
"What's spades?"
* * *
"I can' believe I get taken by my own pocking prince,"
Poertena grumped much later as he and Denat watched Roger
walk away, whistling cheerfully while he counted his
winnings.
"Well," Cord's nephew told him with a remarkable lack of
sympathy, "you keep telling us there's a new sucker born
every minute. You just didn't get around to mentioning
that you were one of them!"
* * *
Cord raised the flap of the cover as the flar-ta came to a
halt. The three remaining Mardukans had ridden the big
packbeasts for the last several days while the humans had
searched for a path through the mountains. To avoid the
cold and desiccating dryness, the three had huddled under
one of the hide tents. There, in a nest of wet rags, they
had spent the day, warmed by the sun on the dark tents.
But as the packbeasts continued to stand motionless, Cord
decided to brave the outside conditions. Pushing aside one
of the moistened clumps of dianda, the shaman slipped out
from under the tent and began to walk towards the front of
the column, and Roger looked up and smiled as he
approached.
"We might have hit a bit of luck," the prince said,
gesturing at a pile of rocks. The cairn was clearly
artificial, a fairly large pile of stones at the mouth of
one of three valleys diverging from the river they'd been
following.
The humans had been hunting back and forth in the
mountains for a week and a half, looking for a relatively
low way across. Several promising valleys had so far
yielded only impossibly steep ascents. This valley would
not have been considered promising, since it narrowed
abruptly up ahead and bent sharply to the south out of
sight. However, the existence of the cairn was
indisputable.
"Could be some traveler's idea of a practical joke,"
Kosutic said dubiously. The sergeant major shook her head,
looking up the narrow track. "And it'll be a bitch getting
the beasts through there."
"But it's the first indication we've had that there's ever
been anybody up here," Roger said stubbornly. "Why would
anyone lie about the path?"
Pahner looked up at the path the valley might take.
"Looks like there's a glacier up there," he said. He
nodded to the stream roaring out of the valley. "See how
white the water is, Your Highness?"
"Yes," Roger said. "Oh. Yeah. I've seen that before."
"Snowmelt?" Kosutic asked.
"Glacial runoff," Pahner corrected. "Dust particles from
the glacier grinding the mountains. At least part of this
stream has its origin in a glacier." He looked at Cord and
then back at the flar-ta. "I don't see them being able to
make it in glacial conditions."
"There is that," Roger admitted, looking up at the snowy
caps. "But we still need to check it out."
"Not we," Pahner said. "Sergeant Major?"
"Gronningen," she said instantly. "He's from Asgard, so he
could care less about cold." She paused and
thought. "Dokkum is from New Tibet. He should know
something about mountains. And I'll take Damdin, too."
"Do it," Pahner said. "We'll make a solid camp here in the
meantime." He looked around at the coniferlike trees. "At
least there's plenty of wood."
* * *
Kosutic looked around the narrow defile with critical
eyes. In the week since they'd started up the valley, they
had yet to find a spot the packbeasts couldn't negotiate,
but this was pushing it.
"You think they can get through?" Dokkum asked. The little
Nepalese was taking the slow, steady steps he'd taught the
others when they tried to take off like jackrabbits. The
simple method of one step per breath was the only way to
move in serious mountains. Anything else would wear humans
to the bone between the thin air and steep slopes.
Kosutic measured the defile with the range finder in her
helmet and looked at the ground. "So far. Much worse and
the answer would be no."
"Heya!" Gronningen shouted. "Heya! By Jesus-Thor!" The big
Asgardian was perched at the top of the slope, shaking his
rifle overhead in both hands.
"Well, I think we found our pass," Kosutic said with a
breathy chuckle.
* * *
"Damn," Roger said, looking at the view spread out below
the company.
The last of the flar-ta were scrambling up the defile as
he stepped aside to get a better look. The broad, U-shaped
valley at their feet was clearly glacial shaped, and in
the center of the deep bowl directly below them was an
immense tarn, an upper mountain lake.
The water of the lake, still several thousand meters below
their current altitude, was a deep, intense blue, like
liquid oxygen. And it looked just about as cold. Given
their surroundings, that was hardly surprising. What was a
surprise, was the city on its shore.
The town was large, nearly as large as Voitan once had
been, and did not fit the usual huddled-on-a-hilltop
pattern of every other Mardukan city the humans had yet
seen. This town frankly sprawled around the shores of the
lake and well up the valley slopes above it.
"It looks like Como," Roger said.
"Or Shrinagar," O'Casey added quietly.
"Whichever it is," Pahner said, stepping out of the way of
the beasts as well, "we need to get down to it. We've got
less than a hundred kilos of barleyrice left, and our diet
supplementals get a little lower every day."
"You're always such an optimist, Captain," Roger observed.
"No, I'm a pessimist. That's what your mother pays me to
be," the Marine added with a smile. The smile quickly
turned to frown, however. "We have a smidgen of gold and a
few gems left after we paid the mahouts. Oh, and some
dianda. We need barleyrice, some wine, fruits, vegetables—
everything. And salt. We're almost out of salt."
"We'll figure it out, Captain," the prince said. "You
always do."
"Thanks—I think," the commander said sourly. "I guess
we'll have to." He patted a pocket, but his store of gum
was long gone. "Maybe they chew tobacco down there."
"Is that why you chew gum?" Roger asked in surprise.
"Sort of. I used to smoke pseudonic a long time ago. It's
surprising how hard it is to kick that habit." The last of
the flar-ta was trotting by, and the captain looked at the
line passing down the defile. "I think we'd better hurry
to get in front of the band."
"Yep," Roger agreed, looking at the distant city. "I'm
really looking forward to getting to civilization."
"Let's not go too fast," Pahner cautioned as he started
forward. "This is liable to be a new experience. Different
hazards, different customs. These mountains are a fairly
effective barrier, especially for a bunch of cold-blooded
Mardukans, so these folks may not take all that kindly to
strangers. We need to take it slow and careful."
* * *
"Slow down," Kosutic called. "The city isn't going
anywhere."
The company had been moving through the twisting mountain
valleys towards the distant city for the last two days. It
turned out that the pass they'd exited from was on a
different watershed, which had required some backtracking.
The delay meant that they'd run out of fodder for the
packbeasts, who were becoming increasingly surly about
life in general.
Fortunately, they'd recently entered a flatter terrain of
moraines and alluvial wash. It was well forested, and by
slowing down they'd been able to let the flar-ta forage.
But that only worked if the point kept the pace down.
"Gotcha, Sergeant Major," Liszez replied over his helmet
com, and slowed down, pausing for a moment to look around.
The path they were following was wide for a game trail,
and well beaten. The vegetation was open on either side,
and the lower limbs of the coniferlike evergreens had been
stripped off by some forager, which permitted good sight
distance . . . unlike the damn jungle.
He'd stopped at the edge of an open area. It looked like
whatever had been eating on the trees had used the
clearing for rooting, because the ground was torn up and
turned over in every direction. It was also fairly smooth,
however, and the path continued on the other side.
The morning was clear and cool, with the dew just coming
off the bushes. This area was a blessed relief for the
company, but they still wanted to keep moving. Not only
did they look forward to a respite in the city, but the
faster they went, the sooner they would reach the coast.
The coast was, of course, only an intermediate stop, but
it had begun to loom large in the minds of the company.
The coast was an end in itself now, and on maps it looked
like they were nearly there. They weren't. At best, it was
weeks away through the jungles on this side of the
mountains, but at least it was getting closer and closer.
And that was a damned good thing, Liszez told himself,
because good as their nanites were at extracting usable
nutrition from the most unlikely sources, there were
limits in all things. The severe losses the company had
taken at Voitan and Marshad "helped" a good bit, in a
gruesomely ironic sort of way, because each dead Marine
had been one less charge on the priceless cache of vitamin
and protein supplements packed on the animals and on their
own backs. Fewer mouths meant they could stretch their
stores further, but once the stores were gone, they were
gone . . . and the shipwrecked humans were dead. So the
sooner they could get their butts aboard a ship and set
sail, the better.
Liszez looked over his shoulder and decided the column had
closed up enough. He reminded himself to keep the pace
down, checked his surroundings for threats, and moved out.
On his third step, the ground erupted.
* * *
Roger looked at the trees. The stripped bark reminded him
of something, and he glanced at his asi.
"Cord, these trees . . ."
"Yes. Flar-ke. We need to be careful," the shaman said.
Pahner had finally convinced the prince that the lead
packbeast was not a place for the commander to be, but
Roger still insisted on driving Patty and covering the
column with his big eleven-millimeter magnum hunting
rifle. So far in the mountains the only hazards had been
inanimate, but Marduk had taught them not to let their
guards down, and the prince keyed his radio on the reserve
command frequency.
"Captain, Cord says that this area is flar-ke territory.
Like where we first met him."
Pahner didn't reply for a moment, and Roger remembered the
Marine's incandescent rage on that long ago day. The
prince never had explained to the captain that the
company's free-flow com net had been so unfamiliar—and
confusing—to him at the time that he genuinely hadn't
heard the Marine's order not to fire at the flar-ke which
had been pursuing Cord. It had been Roger's very first
personal experience with a full-fledged tongue lashing,
and Pahner's fury had been so intense that the prince had
decided that anything which sounded like an excuse would
have been considerably worse than useless.
At the same time, even if he had heard the order, he would
have taken the shot anyway. He knew that. And he hadn't
taken it to save Cord, either—no one had even known the
shaman was there to be saved. No. He'd fired because he'd
hunted more types of dangerous wild game than most people
in the galaxy even realized existed, and he'd recognized
the territorial strop markings on the trees in the area.
Markings very like those which surrounded them now . . .
"I see," the captain said finally, and Roger knew the same
memories had been passing through the older man's mind.
They'd never discussed the episode again, and Roger
sometimes wondered how much that owed to the fact that the
flar-ke so closely resembled—physically at least—the flar-
ta packbeasts with which the company had become intimately
familiar. Flar-ta could be extremely dangerous in threat
situations, but the huge herbivores were scarcely
aggressive by nature, and a part of the captain had to
have noted the relative passivity of the flar-ta and
transposed it to the flar-ke, at least subconsciously, as
proof that he'd been right to order his troops not to
fire. The old Roger probably wouldn't even have considered
that point, but the new one recognized that Pahner had no
more taste for admitting he might have been wrong than
anyone else. That was a very natural trait, but one which
was an uncomfortable fit in a man like the captain, who
had an acutely developed—one might almost say
overdeveloped—sense of responsibility. Which was one
reason Roger had never brought the matter up again. He'd
learned not only to respect but to admire the Marine, and
he was determined to let sleeping dogs lie rather than
sound as if he were defending past actions . . . or trying
to rub Pahner's nose in a possible error.
"He's really worried," Roger said diffidently into the
fresh silence.
"I know he is," Pahner replied. "He's said often enough
that however much they may look like flar-ta, they're
completely different. I just wish I knew exactly how that
worked."
"The closest parallel I can think of is probably the Cape
buffalo back on Earth, Captain," Roger offered. "To
someone who's not familiar with them, Cape buffaloes look
an awful lot like regular water buffaloes. But water
buffaloes aren't aggressive; Cape buffaloes are. In fact,
kilo for kilo, they're probably the most aggressive and
dangerous beasts on Terra. I kid you not—there are dozens
of documented cases of Cape buffaloes actually turning the
tables and hunting down the game hunters."
"Got it," Pahner said in a completely different tone, and
switched to the company frequency. "Company, listen up—"
he began, just in time for the first screams to interrupt
him.
* * *
Kosutic never knew how she survived the first few seconds.
The beast that erupted out of the ground caught Liszez
with a tuskhorn and threw the grenadier through the air to
land in a sodden, bone-shattered lump. The Marine didn't
even bounce, and the animal couldn't have cared less. It
was too busy charging straight at the sergeant major.
Somehow, she found herself propelled to one side of the
beast by a muscle-tearing turn and dive that landed her on
one shoulder, and she'd flipped the selector of the bead
rifle to armor piercing even before she hit the ground.
The tungsten-cored beads penetrated the heavily armored
scaled hide which the standard beads would only have
cratered, and the creature screamed in rage. It pivoted on
its axis, but the NCO had other problems to deal with—an
entire herd of the giant beasts had burst out of the
ground and was stampeding towards the company.
They were very similar in appearance to the packbeasts,
but with months of Mardukan experience behind her, the
differences were now obvious to the sergeant major. The
flar-ta looked somewhat like a cross between a triceratops
and a horned toad, but the armor on their forequarters was
actually fairly light, their horned head shield did not
extend much beyond the neck, and their fore and rear
quarters were more or less balanced. These creatures were
larger by at least a thousand kilos each, and their side
armor was thicker than the cross section of a human
forearm where it covered the shoulders and heart region.
The head shield extended far enough up and back that a
mahout would never have been able to see over the top, and
their forequarters were immensely strong.
The sergeant major avoided a stamp from one of those
sequoia-thick legs and spun again to dodge the flail of a
tuskhorn. She straightened and put three more rounds into
the head shield, and watched in disbelief as at least two
of them bounced off the unbelievably refractory bone
armor.
The corner of her eye caught a flicker that sent her
flipping backwards in a maneuver she never could have made
practicing, and the space she'd just been in was overrun
by another of the giant horned toads. She dodged and
rolled twice more as the herd thundered past, then flipped
the bead rifle to burst and began hammering the one she'd
been battling.
The beast charged at her, and she dodged again. But it had
learned the first time and turned with her. The sergeant
major knew she was dead and tried desperately to twist
aside but she couldn't quite evade the tuskhorn that
suddenly rolled sideways as Patty plowed into the larger
beast at full speed.
Roger pumped three fatal rounds into the exposed
underbelly of the wounded beast, then leaned over to offer
the sergeant major a hand.
"Come on!" he shouted, and jabbed the packbeast in the
neck the instant the NCO's hand locked onto his
wrist. "Hiya! Come on, you stupid bitch! Let's get out of
here!"
The beast spun on its axis with a bellowing hiss and
charged back towards the embattled company. Patty appeared
to have forgotten that she was a flar-ta. She was on the
warpath, and the mountains had better beware.
* * *
Pahner swore vilely as Roger's packbeast accelerated
straight towards the stampeding giants.
"Action front!" he called over the company frequency. He
saw a couple of javelins skitter off the armored front of
the charging beasts and shook his head. Most of the
company had one magazine of ammunition left. If they used
that up, there was no way they could take the spaceport.
But if they all died here, it wouldn't matter.
"Weapons free! Armor piercing—do it!" He dodged a milling
packbeast as he pulled his own rifle off his
shoulder. "Move the packbeasts forward! Use them as a
wall!"
He had a brief flash of Roger hitting the avalanche of
flar-ke. By some miracle, the boy was able to convince his
mount to go through the charge rather than ramming one of
them head-on. As they passed the head of the column there
was a glimpse of the prince pumping fire into the
stampede; then he disappeared into the dust.
The experienced CO knew a moment of despair. The charge
had hit them from the front and come on, headfirst, down
the long axis of the column. That meant the Marines could
target only the head shields, which were the most heavily
armored part of the attacking beasts, and the fire that
was starting to pour into the charge was having negligible
effect. He saw a single beast go down, but in another
moment the company would be engulfed in a charge of
elephants, because nothing was going to stop them.
The first grenades started to fall into the mass, but not
even that was enough to turn them. And the only way to
kill them was to hit them from the side. It took just a
moment for a thought to percolate through his shock, and
his sense of guilt for the lives that momentary delay cost
would live with him the rest of his life.
"On the packbeasts!" he yelled, grabbing for a dangling
strap on the flar-ta he'd been dodging and swinging
himself frantically aboard. "Everybody on the packbeasts!"
The stampede hit like a meat and bone avalanche. From his
precarious perch, Pahner saw dozens of the Marines go down
under the feet and tusks of the giant lizards. But many—
most—of the others were scrambling onto the company's
mounts.
Even that wasn't the most secure situation, but at least
it gave them a fighting chance as the enraged flar-ke
charged clear through the company, then turned to charge
right back. The good news was that they didn't seem to
realize which was the greater danger and directed their
fury at the packbeasts rather than the insignificant
humans who were actually hurting them, and they slammed
into the flar-ta like lethal, ancient locomotives. The
thudding of massive impacts and screams and shrieks of
animal rage and pain filled the universe, but the
company's bead rifles were finally able to come into play
in the melee. As one of the giant herbivores charged,
massed fire from the Marines perched on its flank would
smash into it from the side. They were using ammunition
like water, but it was that or die.
The situation was a complete madhouse. The Marines, some
surviving afoot, some perched on packbeasts, some even
having attained the safety of the treetops, poured fire
into the rampaging herd. At the same time, the flar-ke
were charging and slashing at the company's packbeasts and
the Marines who'd been dismounted.
Pahner spun from side to side, snapping orders for
concentrations of fire where he could, then looked up just
in time to see Roger come charging into the melee. Where
and how the prince had learned to use a flar-ta as a war
steed was a complete mystery, but he was the only member
of the company who seemed at home in the maelstrom.
He'd apparently picked his target from outside the mass,
and he and his mount charged in at full speed. The impact
when the galloping Patty hit the larger beast was a carnal
earthquake.
The target squealed in agony as the flar-ta's tuskhorns
penetrated its side armor and slammed it down to its
knees. As the sergeant major poured fire into the flar-ke
to either side of them, Roger pumped rounds into the
exposed underbelly of Patty's target. Then, using nothing
more than words and thumping heels, he backed the
packbeast off its victim and charged back out of the mass
to wind up for another run.
Pahner slapped Aburia, who was driving his own beast, on
the back of her head.
"Get us out of here! Try to line us up for a charge!"
"Yes, Sir!"
The corporal goaded the beast into a lumbering run, and
dismounted Marines dashed in from either side as they
cantered through the melee. Pahner snatched them up as
they came alongside, snapping orders and passing over his
own ammunition.
As he cleared the last embattled pair of behemoths he
heard another thunder of flesh headed into the battle.
Roger was back.
* * *
"I wish the mahouts were here," Berntsen said as he hacked
at a ligament.
"Why?" Cathcart asked. The corporal wiped at his face with
the shoulder of his uniform. Everything else was coated in
blood.
"They used to do this."
The company had halted in the open area created by the
burrowing beasts and set up defenses. With this much meat
around, scavengers were bound to come swarming in, but the
unit could go no further. The casualties had been
brutal . . . again.
The friendly Nepalese, Dokkum, who'd taught them all about
mountains, would never see New Tibet again. Ima Hooker
would never make another joke about her name. Kameswaran
and Cramer, Liszez and Eijken, the list went on and on.
"Tell you one thing," Cathcart said. "Rogo was right the
first time. These motherfuckers are bad news."
"Yeah," the private admitted, pulling on the heavy skin of
the dead beast. "He was right all along."
* * *
"You were right back on the plateau, Roger," Pahner said,
shaking his head over the casualties laid out inside the
perimeter. "These are not packbeasts."
"Like the difference between buffaloes," Roger repeated
wearily.
He'd just finished sewing up Patty's wounds, using the kit
the mahouts had left and a general antibiotic provided by
Doc Dobrescu. He'd been forced to do the work himself,
because no one else could get near the grumpy beast.
"Cape and water, you mean?" Dobrescu asked, walking up and
sitting down on a splintered tree trunk.
"You were saying something about them just before it all
fell into the crapper," Pahner said. "I'd never heard of
them before."
"You're not from Earth," Roger pointed out. "Of course,
most people on Earth never heard of them, either."
"They have in Africa," Dobrescu said with a bitterly
ironic chuckle.
"So what are they?" Pahner asked, sitting down himself.
"They're a ton of mean is what they are," Roger said. "You
go out after buffalo, and you take your life in your hand.
If they scent you, they'll swing around behind and sneak
up on you. Before you know it, you're dead."
"I thought buffaloes ate grass."
"That doesn't mean they're friendly," Roger told the
captain tiredly. " `Herbivore' doesn't automatically
equate to `cowardly.' " He gestured at the mounded bodies
of the flar-ke. "Capetoads," he snorted.
"What?" Pahner asked. There were a million things to do,
but at the moment they were getting done. He was, for
once, going to just let the camp run.
"They look like horned toads, but they're nasty as Cape
buffalo." Roger shrugged. "Capetoads."
"Works for me," Pahner agreed. He sniffed at the smells
coming from the cooking area. "And it appears that we're
about to find out what they taste like."
One guess," Dobrescu said, with a grunt of effort as he
shoved himself to his feet.
As it turned out, they tasted very much like chicken.