Return to Kaldak Part 3

"Trouble up there," she repeated, trying to push him back down on to the bed. She might as well have tried to push down a stone wall. Blade put an arm around her.

"It is like-when we were in bed. I hear the noise the bad men are making. I think I heard noises like this before. Then I knew what do. Maybe I still do."

"You'll be no more than a lamb in the claws of a great hawk!" Sparra shouted. She seemed ready to weep with anger and frustration. "Stay down here and you'll be out of danger."

Blade knew that if a grenade or mortar sh.e.l.l came down the shaft, he would not only be out of danger, he would also be dead, and so would Sparra if she was still here arguing with him. By now he was fully dressed. The only weapon he had was his blunt-tipped pruning knife, but he'd armed himself from his enemies more often than he could remember.

Blade leaped high and swung himself up into the mouth of the shaft. Sparra muttered something about magnificent male animals too dumb to know danger when they should run away from it, but followed him.

Blade didn't know how to climb the shaft quickly and still look confused, so he didn't try. He took the shaft as fast as he could. On the surface he and Sparra had a chance, even if the Tribesmen overran the whole estate. They would not be rats in a trap.

By the time Blade reached the surface, a pitched battle was raging all over the estate. Explosions, laser blasts, individual gunshots and the rattle of machine guns, shouted orders and screamed rage and agony-everything blended into one continuous deafening uproar.

Sparra poked her head out of the shaft, heard the din, and swallowed hard. Sweat broke out on her forehead. She looked on the edge of panic. Blade remembered tales of what the Tribesmen did to City women. He also remembered what one band of Tribesmen had nearly done to Kareena, before he killed them.

He bent down, gripped her by the hair, and pulled her face up to his. "No fear," he said sharply. "I know what to do now. Give me your-" He pointed at her pistol, pretending not to know the word for it. She shook her head.

"You-"

"Get down!" Blade shouted, pus.h.i.+ng her back into the shaft and flinging himself over the mouth. The whistle of the incoming mortar sh.e.l.l rose to a deafening screech. A moment later the explosion crashed against Blade's ears. Fortunately it seemed to come from the other side of the wall to his left.

Then the wall sagged, split and cracked into its original stones, and collapsed. The roar drowned out the battle, and the dust was so thick Blade could hardly see ten feet. He lay across the mouth of the shaft until the wall subsided into a pile of rubble, in spite of Sparra's curses from below.

As the dust cloud thinned, Blade saw that at least one of the estate's defenders had been unlucky. The man lay across one block of stone with another on his legs. From the way he was lying, Blade knew his back was broken and his legs crushed. His magazine rifle lay intact beside him, though so did an ammunition pouch. Blade scooped them up, while the man whimpered and begged someone to kill him. Sparra now had enough control of herself to do as he asked.

Her pistol shot seemed to waken the battle around them again. Something exploded among the tumbled stones of the wall. This time Sparra didn't need urging to hit the dirt. Blade stayed down until he'd inspected the rifle. As he'd thought, it was very much like an early twentieth-century army rifle-bolt-action, with a rectangular magazine holding seven rounds. He'd won marksmans.h.i.+p contests with an Enfield not too different from this; he knew he could make himself unpleasant to the Tribesmen with it.

Then Sparra's pistol went off almost in his ear. He looked up and saw dark figures running toward them across the rubble. Or at least they were trying to run. The bad footing reduced them to an undignified stumble. It also slowed them considerably. Sparra fired again, and shouted to Blade, "Tribesmen, you idiot! Or were you one of them?"

Blade started shooting. He dropped two men before the others started to duck, and a third as he spent a little too long looking for cover. Then bullets whistled around Blade as the others opened fire. The shooting seemed fairly random, but Blade was afraid of ricochets off the stones lying all around.

He put his mouth close to Sparra's ear. "We'll have to stay down for a bit. If they charge, you go back down the shaft. I can hold them off better with the rifle."

She looked at him, dark eyes enormous in a face pale with caked dust. She seemed bewildered at Blade's transformation from half-wit into soldier. Well, there'd be time enough to sort things out if they both lived through the night! At least he was doing his fighting in front of a witness who might be persuaded to keep her mouth shut.

Blade refilled the magazine from the loose rounds, found another filled magazine in the pouch, and put that ready to hand. He now had fourteen rounds ready to stand off any rush by what looked like less than ten men. With Sparra's pistol as well, that should be enough, even in the darkness. Blade would still have given a lot for a submachine gun or one of the laser rifles.

The rifle fire from the Tribesmen began to die away. Blade heard scrabbling noises and hoped they were retreating. The battle noise continued, but now from farther away. It sounded as if the Tribesmen had attacked simultaneously all around the estate, hoping to overwhelm the defenders by surprise and sheer weight of numbers. Now that the defense was rallying, they were moving their new attack to where the first rush had found weak spots. That was better tactics than Blade had ever heard of the Tribesmen using. Either they'd found a war chief who knew modern warfare, or they were getting leaders.h.i.+p as well as weaponry from Doimar. Neither was a very pleasant idea.

Blade again suggested that Sparra should go back down the shaft. "They'll need word of how things are here," he pointed out.

"Yes, but if the Tribesmen attack again and kill you, things will change. So my information will be useless back at the Great House. My gun will not be useless here."

Blade gave up. Sparra was a soldier with a sense of duty just as strong as his, not a woman to be protected. At least she'd adjusted to the idea that he could be treated as a rational adult. He'd have to be careful, though, not to make it appear that his memory was coming back too fast.

Then a steamboat whistle sounded from the river, and a rocket shot up against the sky, trailing green fire. A moment later the darkness gave way to dazzling white light, as a cl.u.s.ter of flares burst high over the estate.

Blade counted at least a dozen Tribesmen in sight. Some flinched at the glare, then froze in position. Others, less well trained, jumped up. Among them were two carrying a thick black tube on a tripod. To Blade, it looked like a heavy laser. Snap-shooting, he picked off one of the men. The other stayed up a little too long, trying to keep the laser from smas.h.i.+ng on the rocks. Blade's second shot and Sparra's pistol bullet hit him almost together. He went down, and the laser fell on top of him.

"Cover me," whispered Blade, handing the rifle to Sparra. Then he dashed across the rubble toward the laser. Surprise kept the Tribesmen from shooting until he was picking it up. The first shots were wild, and Sparra picked off two men who rose to aim better. Then the flares died, and before the Tribesmen's eyes could readjust to the darkness Blade was back under cover with his prize.

"That's Doimari Oltec," said Sparra grimly. She examined it. "And it's fully charged, too- I think-" She broke off to shoot at a Tribesman who'd jumped up and was running off to the left. He screamed and went down.

"I hope you got him," said Blade. "I think he was a messenger, sent to warn reinforcements that we've got the laser. If you got him, they may be walking right into our sights in a bit."

"And if a message gets through?"

"Then we'll probably have mortars or grenades coming over soon. You're sure you don't want to get away while you still can?"

She bit him gently on the ear. "No-and do you remember your name now, my friend? If I am going to die with you, I'd like to know it."

"Call me Voros. That sounds more right than anything else."

"All right, Voros. I don't care what the Laws or the Monitor might say, I would always think I was a coward if I left you now." Blade squeezed her hand, and they settled down to wait, no longer a man and a woman but just two infantrymen waiting for the enemy.

They didn't have to wait long. A whistle blew in the darkness, then a more solid part of that darkness began to move toward them. As it came closer, it broke up into individual Tribesmen, their faces and ragged clothing darkened but each holding a s.h.i.+ny new rifle. Some of the rifles even had bayonets. Moving out ahead of them was a single figure with a whistle on a cord around his neck and a short-barreled laser in his hand. Blade held his breath. If anyone warned that officer even now- No one pa.s.sed the word, and the Tribesmen paid for it. As the Tribesmen who'd taken cover rose to join their comrades, Blade raised the laser and opened fire. His first blast hit the officer and the whole squad behind him. One of them must have been carrying demolition charges. He exploded as the laser hit him, and grisly pieces of his body rained down. The squad behind him froze, and Blade cut them down before they could move. Then both he and Sparra were firing into the confused ma.s.s of men coming on behind the two point squads.

Perhaps the Tribesmen were new warriors who'd never before faced point-blank laser fire. Or perhaps the surprise and the loss of their officer confused them. In any case, they turned and ran after only a minute of Blade's laser work. They fired a few wild shots, but after another demolition man blew up they stopped doing even that. Five minutes after the attack began, it was over. There wasn't a living Tribesman in sight, except a few moaning wounded, writhing among the far more numerous corpses. The stench of burned flesh and ozone was strong enough to turn even Blade's cast-iron stomach.

In the silence Blade heard the steamboat whistle again, then the hiss and crackle of heavy lasers. "That's probably the City Regiment from Kaldak," said Sparra. "Late as usual, and of course they won't come in here. They'll go off chasing the Tribesmen, and try to get the glory without doing any real fighting."

"There's something to be said for that, It's always risky, new troops moving into a battle area at night. Easy to make mistakes and shoot your friends."

Sparra frowned. "That is true. It is also more than I really expected you to know about war. What were you?"

Blade realized that he'd said a little too much, but luck saved him the need of replying. A hail came from out of the darkness.

"Hoaaaa! Is anyone there?" It was Chyatho's voice.

"It's Sparra," she called back. "The Tribesmen tried to come through here. But the man who'd lost his memory-Voros, he calls himself-he'd captured one of their lasers. He butchered them, Chyatho."

Blade heard mutterings, then from someone else, "By the Laws, she's right. You can't see the ground for the dead, some places."

Chyatho came forward, his pistol drawn, leading a squad. Blade recognized Terbo the rifleman and the crossbowman from the squad by the river. Then Chyatho noticed Blade's laser and Sparra's lack of clothing. His face hardened.

"What have you two been doing, besides killing Tribesmen?"

"Nothing," said Sparra. Blade stood silently. Chyatho was only too obviously carrying a big chip on his shoulder. Blade's suddenly revealing his newly regained wits could provoke him even more. It would be better if Sparra handled the matter.

"Nonsense!" said Chyatho.

"Nonsense?" repeated Sparra. "What else do you think we've had time to do?" She waved a hand at the bodies of the Tribesmen.

"She's right, Chyatho," said Terbo. "Now calm yourself and let's start-"

"No, before that!" shouted Chyatho. Blade quietly s.h.i.+fted his footing, to be ready if the man attacked. His voice was ugly. "You were gone long enough to do anything you d.a.m.n well pleased, the way you always do!"

"I swear by the Law that I have taken or given away nothing which was yours," said Sparra coldly. Blade rather wished he could slip away in the darkness, because this quarrel could do him no good. But if he vanished, Chyatho would probably take his anger out on Sparra.

Chyatho wasn't too angry to notice Blade's stance. "He's listening and understanding what we say!" he screamed. "He was lying, and so are you, b.i.t.c.h!"

Terbo grabbed Chyatho's shoulder. "Come on, Chyatho! It's been a long night, and you're half out of your mind-"

Chyatho let out an animal's screech, twisted out of Terbo's grasp, and hurled himself at Sparra. Before Terbo could draw his pistol, Chyatho was too close to the woman for him to fire without danger of hitting her.

With only his bare hands, Blade wasn't similarly handicapped. He caught Chyatho in a judo hold and the man shot up over Blade's shoulder with a yell of surprise and fear. Unfortunately, he twisted half out of Blade's grip in mid-flight. Blade had intended to drop him on a patch of soft earth to the left of the shaft mouth. Instead Chyatho landed head-down on a solid lump of rock. Everyone heard the sickening double crunch as his neck snapped and his skull caved in.

Terbo knelt by Chyatho for a moment, to make sure he was dead, while Sparra covered the other men with the laser. From her expression, it was obvious that any man who batted an eye was likely to get a laser beam through his guts.

Finally Terbo rose and looked hard at Blade. "You have got your wits back, haven't you?"

There didn't seem to be any point in lying. "Enough to remember I was a fighting man, and most of what I knew when I was."

"Then I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to hand over your weapons."

"Why should I trust you?" said Blade.

"No reason, except you can trust me more than some of the other men. Chyatho had a good many friends. If I take your weapons and put you under my protection, none of them will dare touch you until Monitor Bekror himself has given his judgment. Otherwise you may find yourself fair game, with a lot of hunters around. How many eyes and ears do you have?"

"Do what he says, Voros," said Sparra. "He's rough-spoken but I've never known him to break an oath, even to an enemy." she added in a tight whisper that only Blade heard, "I've caused Chyatho's death tonight. I don't want to see you die, too."

"All right," said Blade. He reversed the rifle and handed it b.u.t.t first to Terbo. Something flying droned overhead, and green laser light flared off to the left, followed by machine-gun fire. Then darkness and silence returned.

Chapter 7.

Blade spent the rest of the night in an informal sort of protective custody. Sparra took command of Terbo's squad and led it off into the darkness while Terbo himself mounted guard over both Blade and the body-strewn rubble.

That worried Blade. If he was in danger of death from Chyatho's friends, what about Sparra? He probably couldn't do anything to help her tonight, but it was always better to know for sure things like this.

"You and she did get together, didn't you?" was Terbo's reply. "And don't lie."

"We did," said Blade.

"I thought so, That phrase of Sparra's-'nothing which is yours'-I've heard it before. So has Chyatho. This must have been one too many times."

"Whose side are you on?"

"The side of not getting any more good fighters or live loins killed tonight," said Terbo. "That's why I'm protecting you. It's also why I will hunt down any man who touches Sparra for this night's work if the Monitor doesn't do it first."

"Are you--claiming Sparra-now that Chyatho is dead?" As long as he was pretending to recover his wits, he could ask what would otherwise have been stupid questions.

"I am not," said Terbo. "You see, I am dead-Joined. I can be a Protector to the children other men father, but never put one into a woman myself. Sparra has borne Chyatho a son, and is young enough to bear more to another man with live loins. It would go hard with both of us if I claimed her. Oh, I have bedded her at times when both of us were in need. But I would not claim her. I advise you not to, either, at least until you have all your wits back. She will say ten words to your one, otherwise."

Blade laughed. "So I suspected."

After that they talked freely. Terbo had been a soldier for more than twenty of his forty years. In fact, he'd fled as a boy from a village overrun by the Doimari advancing to the great battle where the Sky Master Blade defeated them. With both parents dead he was adopted by a Kaldakan family, then went into the army as soon as he was old enough for them to take him. Since then, he'd fought in most of Kaldak's major battles and a good many of the minor ones, in several different units of Kaldak's army.

"Not the City Regiment, though. Never those high-nosed types. They don't take village boys," he added. He sounded more resigned than bitter.

"The City Regiment?" Blade recalled hearing Sparra mention it, after they heard the steamboat whistle and saw the rocket.

"We call them the Sitting Regiment, out here," said Terbo.

Most of Kaldak's fighters were local-defense troops, under local control and armed with whatever came to hand. In fact, some of the cities and districts which joined Kaldak did so on the condition that they maintain their own armed forces. Monitor Bekror's troops were one of those almost feudal private armies.

Then there were the five battalions of the City Regiment, crack troops armed with the best Oltec and Newtec. They rode in hovercraft, flew in balloons, dropped by parachute, and controlled robotic Fighting Machines. They were the strategic reserve, held back most of the time and thrown in only when a situation got beyond what the local troops could handle.

Then they fought well. Even Terbo would admit as much. They were brave and could use their weapons with devastating skill. What Terbo and men like him resented was the feeling that they were used as bait. "We suck 'em in, anyone the High Commander wants flattened. We take all the pounding. Then the Sitters come charging out, do all the damage, and get all the glory."

The quarrel between elite troops and the ordinary infantryman went back as far as war itself, Blade knew. He remembered how the war effort of Doimar was nearly wrecked from the start by the quarrel between the regular soldiers and the scientists who controlled the Fighting Machines. He wondered what happened in Doimar after the battle, when the Seekers withdrew the Fighting Machines and left the infantrymen to fight or die. It couldn't have done any fatal damage, or Doimar wouldn't still be a menace.

It didn't help that between battles the City Regiment was close to civilization and all its comforts. "When they're not training, they'll be sitting on a cus.h.i.+on with a girl on their laps and good liquor in their cups. When we're not training, we're building bridges and roads, clearing rubble, harvesting crops, things like that."

Blade nodded sympathetically. The conversation died away as they waited for dawn.

Dawn brought a squad of the City Regiment, men and women in blue uniforms, all armed with laser rifles and led by a tall woman with hard yellow eyes which didn't miss much. They took over Blade's position and chased him and Terbo out almost as if they'd been Tribesmen. Blade was happy to go. The smell of death was getting too thick, and he was hungry.

Blade learned about the battle from listening to the talk in the barracks over breakfast. The Tribesmen had surprised the estate because n.o.body was expecting them. An even bigger surprise was their Doimari weaponry, both Newtec and Oltec.

However, the City Regiment must have somehow known about the attack in advance. Their Fourth Battalion had been ready on riverboats an hour's steaming upstream. As soon as they got word of the attack, they came in. Thanks to the determined resistance by the people on the estate, the Tribesmen were still concentrated around it when the Fourth arrived. Less than half the Tribesmen got away, and those who had were being chased.

It was "a famous victory." Or at least it would be, when the damage was repaired, the dead were buried and forgotten, and everybody stopped worrying about the Doimari a.s.sistance to the Tribesmen. Everyone wondered if the rival city was starting the war again in earnest.

Everyone also seemed to know that Blade had his memory back, and that he'd done heroic work against the Tribesmen. Many also seemed to know about Chyatho's death. Blade got a mixture of congratulations which he accepted and black looks he did his best to ignore.

After breakfast, a messenger summoned him to the Monitor's hall. Bekror was red-eyed with fatigue and grief. He'd been up all night, in the thick of the fighting for most of it. One of his sons was dead, and one of his daughters had miscarried as a result of the attack.

However, his voice was brisk and steady as he spoke to Blade. "You did the work of seven men last night, Voros," he began. "You will be rewarded for it, whatever you decide."

"I-decide?" said Blade. He wasn't entirely pretending to be confused.

"Yes. You got your memory back last night, didn't you?"

"Some of it, sir."

"Do you remember where you came from?"

"No. I don't think it was one of the big cities, but that's all I can even guess."

"So I heard. If you had come from around here and had kin who could avenge you, you could stay and be well protected. The Laws know I would gladly keep you around. Or you could return home. But you have no home, and it's just not safe for you to stay here."

"It's Chyatho's death, isn't it?"