The Starfollowers of Coramonde (38 page)

Kisst-Haa and
another reptile-man lumbered up to block its way, their armored tails
thrashing. Kisst-Haa’s first blow missed; the scorpion’s movements were too
quick. It struck him down with a claw, and he lay still. The sting curled in,
quick as thought, transfixing the other reptile-man, piercing the scales of his
breast. He went down, filled with poison; the monster clambered on over his
body.

Off to one
side a ballista cracked, one of the many captured war machines. Its long shaft went
true, but rattled off the thick plates covering the creature.

Katya broke
through the lines of demoralized soldiers. She galloped behind the thing,
knowing its pedipalpi and stinging tail could only strike to the front. She cut
at the busy tail as hard as she could, but only notched her sword. The scorpion
whirled in an instant, catching her horse’s leg. She jumped free, but the
animal died with a pitiful whinny. The thing started for Reacher’s pavilion.
The King waited, analyzing its attack.

Van Duyn came
up with his M-l, to bar the way. The Garand belted against his shoulder over
and over, empty shell casings flying from its breach. He used a whole clip, but
the scorpion was unscathed. Its tiny median eyes and the smaller clusters on
its side margins might be vulnerable, but they were impossible to hit at this
range in torchlight. The monster swarmed past the helpless American.

Alone now in
his pavilion, Reacher collected a pair of javelins and a long firebrand, and
loped toward the captured siege machines. He knew scorpions usually lie in wait
and seize their prey rather than give chase, and had incorporated that in his
plan. Moments later the monster plowed into the deserted pavilion like a
reaping machine, flailing and snapping with its pedipalpi, shredding thick
fabric, crushing tentpoles. Finding its prey gone, it reversed field and backed
out of the ruin, its pectines listening, making its rasp of agitation.

The monster
had detected Reacher now, charging off on his trail. The King had gotten to the
ballista, now left unmanned, its crew gone to join their captain. Dropping his
javelines and propping his torch in the sand, he began spinning the winch to
prime the colossal bow-engine, his back and arms bunching with effort. Hand
over hand he turned the wheel that drew the great nock back.

He heard
rasping and left the machine as the scorpion flailed out of the night at him.
Reacher grabbed the torch and a javelin and dashed out onto open sand, moving
over it lightly, his stride resilient. The creature came after, wallowing a
little in the looser sand, away from the summit of the camp. The King raced in
a wide arc, drawing it along. When he had a fair lead on it, he dug his heels
in to stop in a spray of granules, and grounded the torch.

He poised,
took a few running steps and cast hard at his pursuer, then sped away again.
The weapon clattered at the thick carapace, glancing near the tiny median eyes.
The scorpion stopped, rasped in furious challenge, then hurried after. But
Reacher had dashed ahead, circled and come back to the half-cocked ballista. He
jumped to the winch, taking the wheel through full turns at a time.

Other
warriors caught up now, but he waved them back; no weapon they carried could
serve his purpose. The clash of chitinous armor came from the night. The King
found the last prop he needed, a thick-beamed brace, like a sawhorse of logs,
part of a disassembled trebuchet. He jerked it cleanly, to carry it at chest
height, walking step by slow step to set it in front of the ballista.

As the scorpion
came into the light again, on his fleet trail Reacher snatched the remaining
javelin and another torch. The scorpion sidled around to block him,
anticipating his moves now. He broke to the right, releasing the other javelin,
pivoting off his follow-through. The barbed head struck in among the foaming
pharynx, making a wound this time. The grating of the monster’s wrath drowned
out all other sounds, as it ripped out the javelin.

It tried to
close on him, but its claws clacked shut on empty air; Reacher had circled off
to the right. They began a hair-raising dance, the King trying to stay away
from his foe by staying close in behind it, the scorpion whirling madly to
catch him. Van Duyn and Katya arrived, but couldn’t intervene or shoot in the
darkness and constant, unpredictable motion.

Reacher
leapt, backpedaled and changed field. Spinning on its pairs of walking legs,
the creature came near but never quite caught the monarch of Freegate. Bit by
bit he teased and baited the monster to the position in which he wanted it.

He skipped to
the right, ducked under the claw that swung at him, and threw the torch into
the chattering pharynx. The scorpion hissed, but he disappeared just before the
sting smashed into the sand where he’d stood. Reacher whacked the sickle tail
with his cestus and, spinning on his heel, dashed away.

The scorpion
scuttled after, driven mad by the taunting. Reacher sprinted toward the
ballista, arms and legs pumping, head rising and falling in steady rhythm.
Behind him came the pounding of the beast’s walking legs, the creak of
unlimbering claws eager for his flesh.

Just before
he got to the ballista, he took to the air like a hart, and used the brace as a
springboard. The scorpion, an instant behind him, scrambled up with its pincers
spread. The King perched on the ballista’s long muzzle for a single glance
back; the monster was hauling itself up hastily, all in its rage, sure it had
him. Its walking legs clicked on the brace, its pincers clamped on the
ballista’s huge wooden stave, tilting its snout down.

Reacher
gathered himself and dove flawlessly over the rear end of the siege engine,
catching the halyard as he passed, tugging it free. The titan’s-bow released.

The shaft,
longer and heavier than a knight’s lance, tipped with steel, sprang point-blank
into the scorpion’s underplate, where its carapace was joined. The monster’s
breath whistled; its limbs thrashed, and it toppled, to writhe on its back in
the sand. Sluggish juices ran from it. It struggled to right itself, the
primitive nervous system surrendering to spasms. Soon, all its movements were
random, erratic. Gradually, they became feeble. The King edged closer; Van Duyn
and the Snow Leopardess joined him, along with revived Kisst-Haa. The
side-margin eyes seemed to pick the little monarch out, burning with impotent
hatred.

The tumult
had been heard in the prisoners’ tent but, shackled to their tentpole,
surrounded by glittering spears, they were ignorant of what it meant. Aranan
thought he knew though; in a way, he felt sorry for the King and his men, that
they must go down to a Summoning, and not the proper force of arms.

The curtain
was tossed back. The King of Freegate strode into the room. He had Aranan
unchained, then hauled him to his feet. Reacher turned and went back out; a
foot taller than the King, a hundred pounds heavier, the general was tugged
along helplessly, like some gangling adolescent.

Reacher
dragged him down the slope and flung him headlong to the ground before the
quivering body of the scorpion. Its legs and terrible claws waved aimlessly,
all but still. The long ballista iron rose from its carapace like a bare
flagpole. The general tried to form words, but no sounds came.

The King went
down on one knee beside him, taking the edge of his breastplate and yanking him
close. As ever, the words came softly.

“There is
your emblem itself cast down.” Aranan mouthed like a fish. Reacher shoved him,
and he fell back in the sand under the stars and the Trailingsword. “Tell me
now,” Reacher invited, “how your Mother Desert will deal with me.”

Aranan, in a
fit of childish pique, burst out, “Hold this deed in your heart; you will have
no other like it. Brave acts of arms will avail nothing if you are ill-starred
enough to win through to—” He caught himself.

“Go on with
it,” the King provoked him, “finish your threat.”

Aranan
yielded to the baiting. “March south then, you overweaning savage.
Shardishku-Salamá has that protection through which no mortal may win, the Host
of the Grave.”

Reacher, his
emotions veiled again, left the man there. He went to stand among the wreckage
of his pavilion, head bent in thought. The phrase took up residence in his
apprehensions:
the Host of the Grave.

All in a hot and copper sky,

The bloody sun, at noon…

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

THERE’D been no patrols from the
southerners. They must fear little, Springbuck thought, here at the inner door
to their heartlands. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
had thought to lead the flanking
party himself, but Hightower had gruffly pre-empted him.

Ironically,
the added light of the Trailingsword became a complication. Hightower decided
to minimize the danger of discovery by keeping to the shadows along the base of
the crags forming the valley. He’d gone among the thousands, picking whom he
wanted, five hundred men with infantry experience.

Armor had
been lamp-blackened, boots muffled, and metal sollerets and all needless
trappings abandoned. Scabbards were wrapped with dark cloth to prevent sound.
Each man had a light pack of provisions, climbing rope and water skin. Most
bore lances to serve as pikes, but some had bows and quivers.

They set out
under a new moon, bent to inspect the ground over which they must find their
way, each within arm’s reach of the man in front of him. At the fissures, they
would rope themselves together. The gradual coiling of their march went slowly.
Springbuck, seeing how difficult it was, hoped they’d have time to reach their
goal and dig in before daylight. Scouts had already been sent to find another
way, however precarious, to the end of the valley. The chaotic peaks and falls
of the region made it dangerous, even for practiced mountaineers.

Two hours
passed, during which Springbuck constantly revised his estimate of the
positions and speed of his flankers. He went back to his concealed camp twice,
to inquire after Gabrielle’s condition. She’d left the trance or coma into
which she’d fallen and entered natural sleep.

Came the
glowing of fire, with distant shouting. The fortress’ gates were thrown open. A
patrol exited, passing burning cressets in the bailey. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
waited for their traveling lanterns to send back just one fatal reflection from
his Warlord’s contingent. But the patrol passed down the valley, fifty strong,
without incident. With it came strings of spare horses, replacements.

An officer
voiced Springbuck’s own thoughts, “Lord, if they go that way they will
certainly come upon their ruined Gauntlet.”

“Aye, but it
isn’t to be helped. They aren’t many, and there are none in this territory to
whom they can take the tale. But we must beware that they don’t come down on us
by raid or sally.”

He wished he
could send some men after that patrol; he badly needed horses, and the
intelligent, courageous war mounts of the southern breeds would have outvalued
mere gold and gems. However, he needed every man, and held them at their
places. Tired as they all were, they got little sleep. The first remote hint of
dawn lifted their spirits somewhat.

The air
brought a resounding crack of boulders shifting, the tremor and scrape of a
rockslide. Springbuck knew Hightower and his men, heaving and levering with
lances, had managed to block the pass at least partially. Men in the ramparts
could be heard faintly, calling to find out what had happened.

The
northerners were all ahorse, meals gulped and prayers recited, by the time day
was bright enough to be of any use. They cantered out to wind their way down
onto the flatlands below, blowing trumpets and unfurling banners. The tip of
the sun watched the scene in minor arc. They drew up and gusted their
challenge. At first the enemy commander thought them mad, but knowing something
had happened in the pass at his back, he reserved judgment. He sent a mounted
party out the south gate, to look into the disturbance he’d heard last night,
and kept the rest of his men ready, some at the ramparts and others assembled
on horseback in the bailey.

Springbuck came
forward after a time. His trumpeter blew defiance, and a herald showed the
snarling tiger banner of Coramonde, crimson on black.

“What alien
blazonry is that you do display?” the commander shouted.

“Coramonde,”
Springbuck supplied.

“You are a
long way south, stranger; a foolish trip, only to die.”

“There is
scant office for words here, southern man! We mean to pass through this place.”

“Do you?
Demand our swords from us then, and you shall have them, but not hilts first!”

“As you wish.
We are at your disposal; prove your words on us.” He threw an offhanded salute,
but the commander ignored it. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
thought that the enemy, if
he were wise, would wait and see how the situation in the pass looked before
committing himself. Springbuck pictured it as he went back to his men. A
scouting party going up the pass would meet the jumble of boulders,
still-shifting gravel and blowing dust from fallen, powdered rock. They’d be
permitted to come close before men of Coramonde struck in ambush from high ground.
Arrows, boulders and other debris would be as deadly, thrown from the heights,
as the guns of Van Duyn and Gil MacDonald. It would be a mauled reconnaissance
detail that returned to the Condor’s Roost.

Passing time,
the
Ku-Mor-Mai
had his men withdraw to the opposite end of the field and
dismount to rest horses. The sun climbed and grew warmer. Many men broke out
the light silken awnings given them by the Yalloroon, to spare themselves the
heat. Seeing the distance an enemy must sally to reach them, Springbuck made no
objection.