The Fabulous Riverboat (18 page)

Three runners reported. The attack had been launched from three places, all from The River. The main body was concentrated here, apparently to seize the Parolandoj leaders, the larger factories and the amphibian. The other two armies were about a mile away on each side. The invaders were composed of men from New Brittany and Kleomanujo and the Ulmaks from across The River. The Ulmaks were savages who had lived in Siberia circa 30,000 B.C. and whose descendants had migrated across the Bering Straits to become Amerinds.

So much for King John's spy service, Sam thought. Unless—unless he is in on the attack. But if he were he wouldn't be standing out here where he's likely to get killed any moment...

Anyway, Arthur of New Brittany would never make a deal with the uncle who had murdered him.

The rockets continued to arc down from both sides, the five-pound warheads with their rock-fragment shrapnel taking a toll. The Parolandoj had the advantage; they could lie flat while their rockets exploded among upright targets. The invaders had to keep moving, otherwise they might just as well go home.

Nevertheless, it was frightening to lie on the ground and wait for the next noisy blast and hope that it would not come closer than the last one. There were screams from the wounded that were not, however, as heartrending as they would have been if Sam had not been so deafened that he could barely hear them and if he also had not been too worried about himself to think of others. Then, suddenly, the rockets had quit blowing up the world. A huge hand shook Sam's shoulder. He looked up to see that many around him were getting to their feet. The sergeants were yelling into the stunned ears of their men to form a battle array. The enemy was so close now that neither side was using the missiles or else they had all been launched.

Ahead was a dark body, a sea of screaming whooping fiends. They ran up the hill and the first, second and third ranks fell, pierced by arrows. But those behind did not break. They leaped over the fallen and kept on coming. Suddenly, the archers were being hammered down or thrust through or clubbed.

Sam kept close behind Joe Miller, who moved ahead slowly, his ax rising and falling. And then the giant was down, and the enemy were struggling on top of him like a pack of jackals on a lion, Sam tried to get to him; his ax smashed through a shield and a head and an uplifted arm and then he felt a burning pain along his ribs. He was pushed back and back, while he slashed away with the ax and then it was gone, wedged in a skull. He stumbled over a pile of wood. Above him was the burning floor of his smashed house, still held up by three burning pylons.

He turned on his side, and there was the handgun, the Mark I, that he had left by his bedside. Near it lay three packages of powder with the nitrate-soaked twists and a number of the plastic bullets. The explosion had hurled them out of the house.

Two men whirled by him in a dance, their hands gripping each other, straining, grunting with the strain, glaring into each other's bloody faces. They stopped, and Sam recognized King John—his opponent was taller but not as thickly built. He had lost bis helmet, and he, too, had tawny hair and eyes that were blue in the light of the flames overhead.

Sam broke open the pistol, put in the bullet and the charge as he had done that morning up in the hills, locked the barrel and rose to his feet. The two men still struggled, one slipping back a little, then the other, trying to throw each other. John held a steel knife in his right hand; the other man, a steel ax; each was grasping the weapon hand of the other.

Sam looked around. No one was coming at him. He stepped forward and extended the muzzle of the big pistol, holding it steady with both hands. He pulled the trigger, the click sounded, the gun was jarred to one side by the heavy hammer, there was a flash, he had the gun back in line, a boom, a cloud of smoke, and John's assailant fell to one side, the entire right side of his skull blown away.

John fell gasping onto the ground. Then he raised himself, looking at Sam, who was reloading the gun. "Many thanks, partner! That man was my nephew, Arthur!"

Sam did not reply. If he had been thinking more coolly he would have waited until Arthur had killed John and then blown Arthur's head off. It was ironic that he, Sam, who had much to gain by John's death, should be responsible for saving him. Moreover, he could not expect gratitude from John. The man had no such thing in his soul.

Sam completed reloading the pistol and strode away, looking for Joe Miller. But he saw Livy reeling backward as a big Ulmak, whose left arm dangled bloodily, drove her back with blows of a stone ax on her shield. Her spear had been broken and in a few seconds he would have beaten her to her knees or shattered the shield. Sam reversed the pistol and broke the Ulmak's skull from behind with the butt of his gun. Livy fell exhausted and weeping on the ground. He would have gotten down to comfort her, but she seemed all right and he did not know where Joe Miller was. He plunged into the embattled mass and saw Joe on his feet again, demolishing heads, trunks and arms with sweeps of his great ax.

Sam stopped a few paces from a man who was coming up from behind Joe, a large ax in both hands. Sam fired, and the bullet took part of the man's chest off.

A minute later, the invaders were running for their lives. The sky was graying. By its light it was evident that Parolandoj were coming in from north and south. The other two columns, had been shattered, and the reinforcements were outnumbering the invaders. Moreover, they brought rockets which blew up the boats and canoes waiting for the defeated.

Sam felt too exhilarated to be depressed by the losses and the damage. For the first time he came out of the blue funk that always seized him during a fight. He actually enjoyed the battle during the last ten minutes.

A moment later his pleasure was gone. A wild-eyed and naked Hermann Goring, his scalp caked with blood, appeared on the battleground. His arms were raised straight up, and he was shouting, "Oh, brothers and sisters! Shame! Shame! You have killed, you have hated, you have lusted for the blood and the ecstasy of murder! Why did you not throw down your arms and take in your enemies with love? Let them do with you what they would? You wauld have died and suffered but final victory would have been yours! The enemy would have felt your love—and the next time he might have hesitated before again waging war. And the time after that and the next time he might have asked himself, 'What am I doing? Why am I doing this? What good is this? I have gained nothing—' and your love would have seeped through the stone over his heart and—"

John, coming up behind Goring, struck him on the back of the head with the hilt of his knife. Goring fell forward and lay on his face without moving.

"So much for traitors!" John shouted. He stared around wildly and then yelled, "Where are Trimalchio and Mordaunt, my ambassadors?"

Sam said, "They wouldn't be stupid enough to hang around here. You'll never catch them. They'll know you know they sold out to Arthur."

John's striking of Goring was illegal, since free speech was every one's right in Parolando. But Sam did not think that arresting John would be the right course at that moment. He, too, had felt like hitting Goring.

Livy, still weeping, staggered past. Sam followed her to where Cyrano sat on a pile of corpses. The Frenchman was wounded in a dozen places, though not seriously, and his rapier was bloody from tip to guard. He had given a splendid account of himself.

Livy threw herself on Cyrano. Sam turned away. She had not even thanked him for having saved her life.

There was a crash behind him. He turned. The rest of his house had fallen in, bringing the pylons with it.

He felt drained of strength, but there would be little rest for him today. The casualties and the damage had to be assessed. The dead had to be taken to the rendering factory up in the hills, since their fat was used to make glycerin. The practice was gruesome but necessary, and the owners of the bodies did not mind. Tomorrow they would be alive and well again somewhere far away along The River.

In addition, the entire population would have to be kept ready for a call to arms and the work of erecting the walls along the Riveredge would have to be speeded up. Scouts and messengers would have to be sent out to determine just what the military situation was. The Ulmaks and the Kleomenujoj and the New Bretons might launch a fullscale attack.

A captain reported that Kleomenes, the leader of Kleomenujo, had been found dead near the Riveredge, where a piece of rock shrapnel had entered his skull. So ended the half-brother of the great Spartan, Leonidas, who defended the pass of Thermopylae. Or so he ended in this area, at least.

Sam appointed some men to leave by boat immediately for the two countries. They were to inform them that Parolando did not intend to take vengeance if the new leaders would guarantee friendship to Parolando. John complained that he should have been consulted, and there was a short but savage argument. Sam finally agreed that John was right in principle, but there was no time to discuss certain matters. John informed him that, under the law, Sam had to take the time. Any decision had to be agreed upon by both of them.

Sam hated to agree, but John was right. They couldn't be giving contradictory orders.

They went together to inspect the factories. These were not badly damaged. The invaders had not, of course, wanted to wreck them since they had intended to use them. The amphibian, the Firedragon 1, was untouched. Sam shuddered when he thought of what might have happened if it had been completed and had fallen into the hands of the enemy. With it, they could have crushed the Parolandoj in the center and dug in to fight on the perimeter until reinforcements came. He would set up a large special guard around the vehicle.

He fell asleep after lunch in a Councilman's hut. It seemed that he had just closed his eyes when he was shaken awake. Joe was standing over him, breathing bourbon fumes from his tremendous proboscis. "The delegathyon from Thou! Thity jutht landed."

"Firebrass!" Sam said, standing up from the chair. "I forgot all about him! What a time for him to show up!"

He walked down to The River, where a catamaran was beached near the grailstone. John was already there, greeting the delegation, which consisted of six blacks, two Arabs, and two Asiatic Indians. Firebrass was a short, bronze-skinned, curly-haired man with big brown eyes flecked with green. His huge forehead and shoulders and thickly muscled arms contrasted with his skinny legs, making him look all top. He spoke in Esperanto at first but later used English. It was a very strange English, full of terms and slang that Sam did not understand. But there was a warmth and openness about Firebrass that made Sam feel good just to have him around.

"We better go back to Esperanto," Sam said, smiling and pouring three more slugs of scotch into Firebrass' cup. "Is that spaceman's lingo or Soul City dialect?"

"Marsman's," Firebrass said. "Soul City English is pretty wild, but the official language, of course, is Esperanto, though Hacking was considering Arabic. But he isn't too happy about his Arabs anymore," he added in a lower voice, looking at Abd ar-Rahman and AM Fazghuli, the Arab members of his delegation.

"As you can see," Sam said, "we are in no condition to have a long, leisurely conference. Not now. We have to clean up, get information about what's going on outside Parolando and set up our defenses. But you are welcome, of course, and we'll get around to business within a few days."

"I don't mind," Firebrass said. "I'd like to look around, if you don't mind."

"I don't, but my co-Consul has to give his consent, too."

John, smiling as if it hurt his teeth to be exposed to the air—and it probably did this time—said that Firebrass was welcome. But he would have to be accompanied by a guard of honor every time he left the quarters that would be assigned to him. Firebrass thanked him, but another delegate, Abdullah X, protested loudly and occasionally obscenely. Firebrass said nothing for a minute and then told Abdullah to be polite, since they were guests. Sam was grateful, though he wondered if the speech and Fire-brass' command had not been prearranged.

It had not been easy to sit there and listen, though the vitriolics had been hurled at the white race in general and no one in particular. It troubled him, but Sam had to agree with Abdullah. He was right about conditions as they had been. But old Earth was dead; they were living in a new world.

Sam personally conducted the delegates to three huts, side by side, owned by men and women who had been killed last night. Then he moved into a hut near the delegation.

Drums boomed by the grailstone. After a minute, drums from across. The River thundered back an answer. The new chief of the Ulmaks wanted peace. The old chief, Shrubgrain, had been put to death, and his head would be delivered within the hour by canoe if peace could be arranged. Shrubgrain had failed his people by leading them to defeat.

Sam gave orders to transmit a request for a conference with the new chief, Threelburm.

Drums from Chernsky's Land said that Iyeyasu, who ruled a twelve-mile stretch of land between New Brittany and Kleomenujo, had invaded New Brittany. The news meant that the New Bretons would not be bothering Parolando, but it also worried Sam. Iyeyasu was a very ambitious man. Once he had consolidated his state with New Brittany he "might decide he was strong enough to take Parolando.

More drums. Publius Crassus sent his congratulations and wannest regards, and he would be visiting tomorrow to see what he could do to aid Parolando.

And also to see how hard we've been hit and if we'd be easy pickings, Sam thought. So far, Publius had been cooperative, but a man who had served under Julius Caesar could have his own brand of Caesarism.

Goring, his head wrapped in a bloody towel, staggered by, supported by two of his followers. Sam hoped he would take the hint and leave Parolando, but he didn't have much faith in the German's perceptiveness. He went to sleep that night while torches burned