Deadly Wands (58 page)

Billy tilted his head as if he didn’t
understand Bear’s flawless Mongolian. No one had ever mentioned the
irony of rebels overthrowing Mongolia speaking Mongolian. Then he
studied everyone else, who nodded their heads in agreement without
losing their puppy-dog faces. He recognized it as hero-worship, but
because he was so in awe of his father, he didn’t know how to
accept it from others. Billy didn’t hide his impatience.

“I’m gonna go kill me some Mongols.”

They descended upon the Mongols like divine
fury. They approached from the opposite side, but in a tighter
skirmish line flying over the trees instead of walking for a faster
strike.

They caught the Mongols as they either packed
in the rain to leave or treated their casualties. They pierced the
camp like a knife through flesh. They moved fast to avoid becoming
fat targets, while cutting and slashing to wound as many as
possible, knowing those wounds would soon become fatal. Like
phantoms, they disappeared as quickly as they appeared.

At their rally point, Billy called another
leadership meeting. “We can’t sleep in the rain without tents, so
let’s hit them from above when they fly away.”

Everyone liked that idea. They even knew the
enemy would head west, so the super-quads rode a circle 8 pattern
above the rain clouds until a long shadow rose beneath them. Lousy
visibility worked both ways and the enemy didn’t see them until
Team Red stabbed them in the back with long blades. The bastards
didn’t even try to fight back as a group -- they couldn’t see or
hear their commanders anyways -- so they broke formation and
scattered like rats. Every warrior loves a cheap kill. They wounded
several thousand without suffering any casualties other than the
common cold.

The rain stopped as dawn broke and Billy,
although unable to get up, called another leadership meeting. “Find
their wounded.”

They surrounded the enemy wounded in the
dense woods and blasted until none survived. Then they swept the
neighboring areas and found a few thousand injured Mongols hiding
in small groups. Mali hunted them all day.

After eating breakfast from the enemies
supplies, they slept nearly nude to dry out. They feared illness
more than Mongols. A cold is nothing to sneeze at.

Billy slept all day and woke up the next
morning barely able to move. He had been unconsciously sucking up
wand energy so his body could heal itself. What was different this
time was the number and severity of his wounds required far more
juice than even he was used to. It felt like he slept in a warm
salt bath with weights tied to his limbs. He looked like a drunk
trying to get up.

“Kick me,” he begged Prince, who didn’t need
to be told twice. Then he liked it so much he continued kicking
until Billy rolled out of range. It took the teenager several
painful minutes just to stand up. Everyone watched, and nobody
helped. “What’s happened to me?”

Most of them had never seen the Red Baron
scared before. It now endeared him to them.

“You’ve grown old, you poor bastard,” Bear
kindly informed him.

“But I don’t have time to grow old!” the
teenager complained with complete sincerity.

Blade laughed so hard she wanted to punch
him.

“I know what he needs,” Princess confidently
told everyone, using her wand to levitate him behind some
bushes.

That afternoon they caught up with the enemy.
Team Red weaved through the trees. Sentries sounded the alarm, but
they were quickly overrun. Steel works better than blasts in the
woods because it's easier to dodge fire than steel. The trick was
to advance as far as possible before organized resistance pushed
back. Then both parties trade shots behind trees, and no one dies.
This stalemate negates the greater abilities of the better quad,
and gives the advantage to the side with more shooters, who can
flank.

But what it also did was expose the enemy’s
back to Billy’s main force who attacked them from behind. The
Mongols now found themselves between a rock and a boulder. With
nowhere else to go, the Mongols flew up -- exposing themselves to
the super-quads hovering above.

The battle soon ended with few casualties for
the good guys. Four thousand quads destroyed a force five times
larger.

CHAPTER 75

Grandma and the surviving Americans looked
relieved to see Billy. The Indians were all either in India or
taking the caravan there.

“The Khan put his treasury in big steel boxes
too heavy to fly off with, but the survivors broke one open and
took all that they could carry. Plus a lot of bombs. So the good
news is that the enemy is weighted down. The bad news is they have
twelve thousand quads and over one hundred thousand two-wanders.
They disappeared west before we could get more eyes on them.”

“Then let’s fly a thousand kilometers
southwest tomorrow morning, and start a systematic search for
them.”

Except the first day of their search yielded
nothing, and Prince did not return. Nor the next day, which really
bothered them. Finally, Prince flew in after midnight on the third
day and woke Billy up.

"I wondered if you got tired of all the gold,
glory, and women," Billy said in greeting while handing the
dehydrated quad a leather bag of cold water. "Thought maybe you
took up fishing."

"I did," Prince said. "And I caught a whale.
I found them near Herat."

Billy blinked like he was spit on. "Herat?
But that's way the hell to the south. Our last report had them far
to the west, so... oh right!"

"They're gonna intercept the wagon train full
of gold as it returns to India," Prince finished his thought.

"They chose to avoid undefeated super-quads
and instead snatch tons of gold? But of course they’d do that. Why
would they do anything else? Now why didn't I think of that?" He
eyed his brother-in-law. "But you did, didn't you? Otherwise, why
fly so far to the south?"

"I actually caught one of their outer patrols
and followed them back to the main force. The bad news is that
pro-Mongolian Indians fleeing northern India have doubled their
quad force.”

"This is why I surround myself with those
smarter than me," Billy said. "You just saved ten thousand
lives."

"Don't bother flattering me. I can't give you
children."

"Grandma is gonna flip. She didn't think of
it, either. Now go wake up your sister so she knows you’re okay,
but don't tell her she snores. It only happens when I’m
sleepy.”

Prince looked enormously pleased.

And that’s how a leader turns a rival into a
friend, Billy told himself, hoping Prince never learned that Billy
had already warned the Indian near-marathoners that he was using
them as golden bait.

Knowing where they were and where they needed
to go told Billy where to intercept them. He hoped to find them on
the ground, preferably at night, but instead Team Red ran into them
at high altitude.

Billy found it strange that the enemy made
themselves so visible when they had so much cloud cover to hide in,
so he looked around and saw movements within clouds on either side
of him suggesting two other enemy units. The Mongols obviously
wanted to use their superior numbers to negate Team Red’s superior
ability by engaging them from three sides. Which was smart. Much
smarter than letting Team Red ambush them on the ground.

The problem with flying really high is
suddenly flying much higher -- just one heavy breath could leave a
quad gasping. But Team Red was used to high altitudes, while the
enemy hopefully was not.

So Billy signaled "line formation" while
slowing down and climbing higher. The companies behind him quickly
lined up on either side of him as the Mongols rose, five hundred
meters away.

Each Red company flew in a 10 X 10 box-shaped
formation. Slowly rising at a thirty degree angle exposed the enemy
to the entire company. All one hundred could now fire instead of
just the ten in the front line. Or, rather, all four thousand
quads.

The Mongols closed as fast as possible, so
Billy signaled to rise backwards at a thirty degree angle. Given
the power of their wands, they could fly backwards while firing
down almost as fast as the enemy quads could rise using all four
wands. Billy's textbook aerial broadside devastated the Mongols.
And the higher they rose, the worst the devastation, because
Billy's troopers were already acclimated to very thin air, while
the Mongols were not. Like rising from deep underwater, the faster
they rose, the more it hurt.

The Mongols had four times as many quads, but
their front broke under the withering fire before they could get
within blasting range. The few survivors dived straight down while
they could.

Billy then turned into the Mongols on his
left flank who had wind at their back, and therefore would close
faster. His formations rotated so everyone had a clear shot, and
the turn evened out the distance between the two lines. Still, the
Mongols were closer, higher, and approached faster. Billy was
unable to have his people fly backwards because of the third Mongol
force rising behind him.

So he flashed all four wands to unnerve the
enemy and climbed higher to buy his team more time. Their wands had
the benefit of higher altitude, but the disadvantage of firing into
the wind.

From that angle, only the Mongols in the
front line could fire. Billy's fliers could therefore unleash
several times the volume while firing from beyond the enemy's
range, and were better positioned to dodge blasts without bumping
into their neighbors. The enemy broke like cheap pottery.

Having destroyed the Mongols hoping to
out-flank them, Billy led his team forward to put distance between
the Mongols behind them. Billy turned his fliers to face the
remaining Mongols, while leading them gradually higher, suspecting
this would leave the Mongols literally breathless. The Mongols had
two bad choices: attack or expose their backs flying away. They
chose to die fighting. With the wind behind them, Billy's
super-quads had no problem shooting them up.

Later, nobody could believe it: what many
considered the war’s last battle was a perfect score. This fight
would soon became popular at video libraries across the world as an
example of the effectiveness of formation maneuvers.

And solidified the Red Baron's legend.

CHAPTER 76

Team Red took the remaining munitions carried
by the wagon train and used them on the huge number of two-wanders
waiting to bomb the Indians.

Some of their bombs struck enemy bombs and
the fireworks blinded the eye and deafened the ear. The shrapnel
not only shredded bodies, but sent gold coins everywhere. They now
had to chase down the two-wanders who could not possibly dogfight
them. Good thing they had great endurance, because that’s how they
spent the next week, while Indians from the wagon train searched
the enemy camp for coins in the mud.

This campaign over, Billy called another
leadership meeting. “We should escort the wagons to Delhi so nobody
steals them. But then what? Tonight, I want everyone to think about
how we can defeat the Mongol Empire and tomorrow we’ll discuss our
options. But you should all know that I could use a break. I have a
woman to marry and babies to kiss.”

“You already know what to do,” Grandma
insisted. “I can see it in your devious eyes. Why not just tell us
now?”

“Because I want to see if anyone can come up
with a better idea, because mine is pretty crazy.”

Red’s proposal spoiled their celebration.
They just beat four hundred thousand Mongols, but they didn’t feel
like they did. They reduced the Mongol Empire to just Mongolia and
northern China. In just a few years they re-wrote the world map.
Now what?

The following morning they voiced their
opinions. Billy laid out the consensus:

“It seems we agree that the best duelers
should continue dominating Mongol arenas to get rid of their best
quads. Some of you want to form specialized hit squads and go after
their super-quads, Imperial Guards, and government officials.
Others want to help the Indians and Africans crack the Mongol
resistance. I agree that we should field more marathoners in
Siberia to raid Mongolia and bleed their treasury. And most of you
want to see your families and spend your new wealth. I approve of
it all.

“But I haven’t heard a way to defeat the
Mongol Empire, so let me know what you think of my idea.

“Most quads are tired of fighting. They want
to rest, enjoy their families, and spend their treasure. So we must
give them time to do that. Late at night, when their lack of fresh
wand juice gives them the shakes, they will contrast the wild times
they had with us with their boring, peaceful routine. But they will
need a compelling reason to leave their families to risk their
lives again.

“So we need a powerful catalyst to bring them
to the same place at the same time. They don’t need money or fame
or better wands, and the Mongols will no longer look like a lethal
threat to their lives, families, and kingdoms. So how do we
motivate them to fly across the world and finally finish off the
Empire?”

Billy studied their faces and could tell no
one had any idea how to end this war. His father did. Dad explained
how in Peking when Billy was just eight years old.

“I got nothing, bro,” Prince said to break up
the long silence.

Billy gave it up like a virgin. “I’m gonna
challenge Genghis Khan to a duel at the next Olympics.”

The group exploded. They turned to each other
and screamed into faces screaming back at them. They blasted the
skies, flew dances, and burst into song. Prince levitated Billy
onto Tiny who carried him around like a sports champion. After
basically ending a world war, they didn’t feel like celebrating.
Now they couldn’t do anything but celebrate. The Indians heard the
news and reminded them that the Mongols left barrels of wine with
all that gold. Although already in motion, the need to party
stopped the caravan and thousands of quads drank themselves
silly.