Hunt the Space-Witch! (13 page)

Dovirr and his men isolated a pocket of perhaps fifty
Dhuchay'y
, fencing them in with a wall of flashing steel.

“To the sea with them!” Kubril shouted suddenly, and Dovirr joined the shout. It was a fitting doom.

“Aye, to the sea!” he shouted.

They drove the panic-stricken aliens before them to the edge of the seawall—and the Seaborn, realizing what was being done, leaped from the water in delight to seize the huge amphibians and drag them down into the element of their birth—and the element that would bring them death. Onward, onward, the Earthmen forced the aliens, who one by one dropped into the arms of the waiting, jubilant Seaborn.

From the heart of Vostrok now poured reinforcements—the rest of the
Dhuchay'y
enclave, no doubt. Dovirr smiled grimly. The aliens had returned to their abandoned province expecting to find crushed serfs; instead, they were getting a most unexpected welcome.

The aliens who advanced now bristled with weapons; hand-cannons sent thermal vibrations skimming toward the Earthmen. Heat rose; the Terrans in their armor poured sweat. Around him, Dovirr saw men falling. He dropped back, crouched behind a dead
Dhuchay'y
, sliced upward at the sickening bulk of an alien.

Suddenly, a shout went up.

The city-people! The people of Vostrok were joining the battle!

They came thundering down out of the city by the hundreds, carrying kitchen-knives, benches, any improvised weapon at all. They fell upon the doomed aliens with murderous anger.

Dovirr was like a demon, fighting everywhere at once on the blood-soaked pier. Once, venom-laden
Dhuchay'y
talons raked his shoulder; he retaliated with a swift, vicious thrust.

“On! On! They fall before us!”

The
Dhuchay'y
reinforcements were being driven into the sea as remorselessly as had the first wave. The thunder of cannon came less frequently; suicide battalions of Seaborn swarmed everywhere, climbing up on land to engage in combat until, gasping, they were forced to slip back into their own medium.

Golden blood stained the water. Scaly bodies lay strewn like pebbles.

Red-maned Duvenal, the Thalassarch of the Northland Sea, appeared suddenly at Dovirr's side, his mail hanging rent and his chest visible, bloody, within. Still, Duvenal grinned at the sight of Dovirr.

“Ho, young Sea-Lord!
This
is battle!”

“Indeed, Duvenal. And guard your left!”

The Northerner whirled and sank his mace deep within a
Dhuchay'y
skull; at the same moment, another alien appeared from nowhere and sent the Thalassarch reeling with a backhand swipe of a taloned arm. Dovirr sprang to Duvenal's aid, felling the alien with a thrust through its beady eye.

“Duvenal?”

The red giant staggered to his feet. “Fear not for me; attend to yourself.”

Dovirr ducked as an alien scimitar whistled over his head. A javelin hummed past and buried itself in the thick scales of the creature's throat; it tottered, and Dovirr applied the coup-de-grace with a two-handed swipe.

He looked around. The
Dhuchay'y
ranks were thinning. His muscles throbbed with excitement, and he urged his men on with a roar that could have been heard clear to Vythain.

Warm blood trickled over the ground, tickling his bare feet. The sea heaved in tumult. Overhead, sea-birds wheeled and screamed, spun in the air, shouted raucous commentary on the frenzy beneath them.

Everywhere, aliens died.

The frightful carnage continued more than an hour. At last, hanging on his sword, gasping for breath, covered from head to foot with sticky, slimy alien gore, Dovirr paused, for there was no enemy left to smite.

Dovirr groped inside his tunic for the
Dhuchay'y
amulet.
Halgar?

As if from a great distance came the weary voice of the Seaborn leader.
I hear you, Dovirr
.

The battle has ended. How is it with you?

We are still searching the sea-floor for eggs of the alien
, Halgar reported.

Excellent. Have your men bring our boats to shore
.

The Seaborn towed to the pier the flotilla of boats the Sea-Lords had left at the edge of the battle-zone. Those who had survived carried bodies of dead and wounded into the boats, seized the oars, rowed out to the waiting mother-ships a league away.

Dovirr was the last to leave the pier. He stood ankle-deep in alien blood, looking around, feeling sorrow that Gowyn had not been with him to share in Terra's greatest triumph.

Night was settling over the now-peaceful scene; the moon hung glistening in the sky, and faint sprinklings of stars appeared against the black bowl of the heavens. Leaning on his sword, Dovirr looked upward.

Somewhere out there was the home world of the
Dhuchay'y
. Somewhere, deep in the blackness.

Dovirr smiled. Perhaps it was not for him, nor for his children, nor for his children's children—but the ultimate battle was yet to be fought. Up there—out on the homeland of the star-marauders.

In the meanwhile, he knew the alliance between Seaborn and land-man would have to be strengthened. Neither could have thrown back the alien horde without the other; together, they had been triumphant.

Kubril stood at his side. The First Officer smiled. “The boat is waiting,” he said.

“Very well.” Limping, for an alien spear had dug into the flesh of his calf, Dovirr walked toward the boat, dreaming of a bright world of tomorrow.

He cupped his hands. “Row to the
Garyun
for all you're worth! The battle's over; there's tribute to be collected!”

The Flame and the Hammer

Chapter One

The night the torturers of the Imperial Proconsul came to take his father away, Ras Duyair forced himself to carry out his Temple duties as usual.

They had seized the old man just before sundown as he was about to enter the Temple. Ras heard about it from one of the acolytes, but setting his teeth determinedly, he went about his task. It had to be done. His father would not want Temple routine disturbed.

With straining muscles, Duyair wheeled the ancient atomic cannon on the Temple wall about on its carriage and pointed it at the star-spattered sky. The snout of the antique weapon jutted menacingly from the parapet of the Temple of the Suns, but no one on Aldryne—least of all Ras—could take the cannon too seriously. It was of symbolic value only. It had not been fired in twelve hundred years.

Ritual prescribed that it be pointed at the skies each night. Duty done, Ras turned to the obsequious acolytes of the Temple who watched him. “Has my father returned?” he demanded.

An acolyte clad in ceremonial green said, “Not yet. He's still under interrogation.”

Ras angrily slapped the cool barrel of the giant gun and looked upward at the canopy of stars that decked the night sky of Aldryne. “They'll kill him,” he muttered. “He'll die before he'll give up the secret of the Hammer. And then they'll come after me.”

And I don't know the secret!
he added silently. That was the ironic part of it. The Hammer—a myth, perhaps, out of the storehouse of antiquity. Suddenly the Empire wanted it.

He shrugged. The Empire probably would forget all about it in a few days; Imperial people had a way of doing that. Here on Aldryne they had little to do with the Empire.

He crouched in the firing bucket of the cannon. “Up there are ten dreadnaughts of the Imperial fleet. See them? Coming out of the Cluster at four o'clock. Now watch!” His fingers played over the impotent control panel. “Pouf! Pouf! A million megawatts at a shot! Look at those ships crumple! Watch the gun dent their screens!”

A dry voice behind him said, “This is no time for games, Ras Duyair. We should be praying for your father.”

Duyair turned. Standing there was Lugaur Holsp, second only to his father in the Temple hierarchy—and, standing six-three without his buskins, second only to Ras's six-six in height among the men of the Temple of the Suns. Holsp was wiry, spidery almost, with deep shadows setting his cheekbones in high relief.

Duyair reddened. “Ever since the age of fifteen, Lugaur, I've raised that cannon to the skies at nightfall. Once a day for eight years. You might forgive me a fantasy or two about it. Besides, I was just amusing myself—breaking the tension, you might say.”

A little self-consciously he climbed out of the bucket. The acolytes seemed to be grinning at him.

“Your levity is out of place,” Holsp said coldly. “Come within. We have to discuss this situation.”

It had begun several weeks earlier, on Dervonar, home world of Emperor Dervon XIV and capital planet of the Galactic Empire.

Dervon XIV was an old man; he had ruled the Empire for fifty years, and that was a terribly long time to preside over a thousand suns and ten times as many worlds.

He had been able to rule so long because he had inherited an efficient governing machine from his father, Dervon XIII. Dervon XIII had been an adherent of the pyramid system of delegating responsibility: At the top of all was the Emperor, who had two main advisers, each of whom had two advisers, each of whom had two advisers. By the time the system reached the thirtieth or fortieth level, the chain of command spread out over billions of souls.

Dervon XIV in an old age was a tired, shrunken little man, bald, rheumy-eyed. He was given to wearing yellow robes and to sighing, and by now his mind clung to just one
idée fixe:
The Empire must be preserved.

To this end, too, were the endeavors of his two advisers bent: Barr Sepyan, Minister of the Near Worlds, and Corun Govleq, Minister of the Outer Marches. It was Govleq who came before Dervon XIV, map in hand, to tell him of trouble along the Empire's outer rim.

“A rebellion, sire,” he said, and waited for the aged eyes to focus on him.

“Rebellion? Where?” There was a visible stiffening of the old Emperor's manner; he became more commanding, more involved in his immediate surroundings, and put down the gyrotoy with which he had been diverting himself.

“The name of the system, sire, is Aldryne, in the Ninth Decant. It is a system of seven worlds, all inhabited, once very powerful in the galactic scheme of things.”

“I know the system, I think,” the Emperor said doubtfully. “What is this talk of rebellion?”

“It springs from the third world of the system, which is named Dykran—a world chiefly given to mining and populated by a stubborn, intransigent people. They talk of rebelling against Imperial control, of paying no more taxes, of—your pardon, Grace—of somehow assassinating Your Majesty.”

Dervon shuddered. “These out-worlders have high plans.” He picked up the gyrotoy again and spun it, peering deep into its depths, staring fixedly at the lambent kaleidoscopic light that burned there. Corun Govleq watched patiently as his master played with the toy.

At length the Emperor lowered the gyrotoy and, picking up a crystal cube that lay at his right hand, said sharply,
“Aldryne!
”

It was a command, not a statement. The crystal transmitted it instantly to the depths of the royal palace where the Keepers of the Records toiled endlessly. The Hall of Records was, in many ways, the capstone and heart of the Empire, for here were stored the facts that made it possible to govern a dominion of fifty trillion people.

Within instants the data were on the royal desk. Dervon took the sheets and scanned them, blinking his tired eyes frequently.

ALDRYNE
—seven-world system affiliated with Empire in Year 6723 after war duration eight weeks. Formerly independent system with vassals of its own. Current population as of 7940 census, sixteen billion.

Capital world Aldryne, population four billion, now ruled by theocracy stemming from ancient form of government. Chief among many splinter religions is a solar-worship cult whose main attraction is alleged possession of the legendary Hammer of Aldryne.

HAMMER OF ALDRYNE
—a weapon of unspecified potency now in possession of the ruling Theoarch of Aldryne, one Vail Duyair. Attributes of this weapon are unknown, but legend has it that it was forged at the time of Imperial assimilation of the Aldryne system and that, when the proper time comes, it will be used to overthrow the Empire itself.

DYKRAN
—second most populous world of the Aldryne system, inhabited by some three billions. A harsh world, infertile, chiefly supported by mining operations. A tax rebellion there in 7106 was quelled with loss of fourteen million Dykranian lives. Dykranian loyalty to Empire has always been considered extremely questionable.

Emperor Dervon XIV looked up from the abstract of the report on the Aldryne system. “This Dykran—this is the world that rebels? Not the name world Aldryne?”

“No, sire. Aldryne remains calm. Dykran is the only world of the system that rebels.”

“Odd. The name world of a system is usually the first to go.” Frowns furrowed Dervon's forehead. “But I venture a guess that they won't be long in joining if the Dykranians make any headway in their rebellion.”

The Emperor was silent for a long while. Minister Corun Govleq remained in a position of obloquy, body bent slightly forward at the waist, waiting. He knew that behind the old man's faded eyes lay the brain of a master strategist. One
had
to be a master strategist, Govleq reflected, to hold the Imperium for fifty years in these troubled times.

At length the Emperor said, “I have a plan, Corun. One which may save us much future difficulty with the Aldryne system and particularly with the name world.”

“Yes, sire?”

“This semilegendary Hammer the name world has—the thing that's supposed to overthrow us all when the time comes? I don't like the sound of that. Suppose,” Dervon suggested slowly, “suppose we get our Proconsul on Aldryne to confiscate this Hammer, if it actually exists. Then we use the Hammer itself to devastate the rebellious Dykranians. What better psychological blow could we deal the entire system?”