Legions of Antares (28 page)
He looked very real. He was eager and dressed in plain gray clothes and a hat of the kind they call a havchun was clamped around his head quite concealing every last vestige of red hair. His apparition held with clarity.
“By the Seven Arcades, majis!” he said. “I am overjoyed to see you—”
“You look damned real, Khe-Hi,” I said to the lupal projection. “Damned real. Tell me the news!”
The corner of the street and kyro held a convenient nook under a balcony and were anyone to glance at us we would look just like any couple of chaps having a chat early in the morning. My clothes were somewhat wrinkled, it is true, and the fur was more mildewy than I liked, and I could swear the trousers had shrunk; but we’d pass, we’d pass. One thing was certain; no one would guess only one man stood there.
Thinking this I heard Khe-Hi say that the armies had begun their advance. I felt relief. At least, something was going right. “And I am pleased I found you so easily. Deb-Lu guided me, I am happy to say.”
“I am going to join in the mayhem,” I said. “So will bid you good day. By Krun!” I said, reaching out a hand. “You do look real!”
I put my hand on Khe-Hi’s arm expecting it to pass through as through vapor, and I hit his arm, and felt the flesh and bone.
“Oh, no!” I gripped on. “You’re real!”
“Of course I’m real!” Khe-Hi was most hurt. “I mean, majis, I am real. It’s just that I am here that surprised you.”
“Now what in the name of a Herrelldrin Hell am I going to do with you, Khe-Hi?”
We solved that problem by both going up to the highest pinnacle of the Great Temple we could reach. There was no trouble. Among the sightseers were a number of soldiers; but they did not stay long. Ruathytu was under arms. Yet in the nature of cunning stratagem little evidence showed. And, the Hamalese did not know on which precise day we would strike. So when the first waves came in there was a breathing space before the reaction and Khe-Hi and I could be picked up. Kytun did the picking, as one would expect, flying a smallish waspish voller.
The Battle for a City is a somber, blood-chilling business. It is also riotous, uproarious, exciting and frightening. Much depends on the characteristics of the combatants. My Djangs are a blood-curdling lot, to be sure.
“This is the moment, Dray!” called Kytun as he stood with wide-braced legs astern of his pilot who raced the waspish craft between the Temple and the Hanitchik.
“Aye,” I said, looking up to where the Djang aerial armada swooped on the city. Hamalese airboats and saddle flyers rose to do combat and the sky filled with scurrying battle. “Thyllis is dead — shot by a villain unhanged — and Phu-Si-Yantong claims to be emperor now.”
“Then he’s next!” roared Kytun, face aflame as he watched his fellows hurtling into the attack.
Vollers cruised in low to slip the ground forces past the Hamalese defense. Regiment after regiment of Djangs leaped out and raced to take up positions. One thing was sure, they knew how to do that evolution in a way to make the swods who had exercised with Vad Homath look the coys they were. Hordes of flutduins with black beaks pointed, and wide yellow wings bearing them purposefully on, flew to tangle with the fluttrells and mirvols of Hamal. My Djangs were superb. After the first clash between the aerial cavalry we had no further problems with Hamalese saddle flyers.
The odd idiot might come flying over, screeching and waving his crossbow; but he usually didn’t get back.
Make no mistake. The Hamalese fought and they used all the expertise and cunning and sheer professionalism of the iron legions. But they had very many mercenaries in the ranks now. The old iron legions, those men who had marched and conquered, were either far away or dead. I do not think of all the clashes that took place as the city was cleared, that the Hamalese won one.
When Seg’s army arrived the end was certain. Acting on my strictest instructions fire was not used as a weapon against the city. We burned the skyships. The small agile fliers piloted by Djangs who were masters of their craft would fly up and over a monstrous Hamalian skyship. All her serried rows of varters would shoot, and sometimes the Djang would be shot out of the sky, sometimes he would get through to drop his pots of combustibles. We had more small nippy vollers than there were of enormous skyships.
So, working smoothly together, the forces from Djanduin and from Vallia together with those of Hyrklana and the Dawn Lands entered into Ruathytu, capital city of Hamal, and took it with all its buildings and walls and treasure.
Quite a day, from the first day to the last, for we had given the Hamalese no chance of creating a siege situation. One of the last pockets of resistance was by the Arena. Strong parties had already secured the palace and the Hanitchik and the Temple and now we rather fancied the Jikhorkdun.
A burning skyship had fallen across the north-south boulevard called the Arrow of Hork and black drifts of smoke fouled the air and visibility. Now I have deliberately refrained from detailing the regiments and the people involved in what came inevitably to be called the Taking of Ruathytu. Suffice it — they were there! Now Nath Karidge who was always the Light Cavalryman par excellence, said, “By the Spurs of Lasal the Vakka!” which is your light cavalryman’soath to the life and nothing mild about it. “Let us go straight into them with a yell!”
The Chuktar commanding a brigade of nikvoves reined up beside Nath Karidge, and resplendent they both looked, cavalrymen, used to getting on with the job. This Chuktar Nalgre was a Heavy Cavalryman and everything about him told you that, so I suppose you could say he was a strong cavalryman as he said, “By Rorvreng the Vakka! You lights would bounce. Let us heavies go in!”
“Tsleetha-tsleethi,” I told them. “This is an infantry party.”
No need to ask or guess which infantry were here and raring to go in. Apart from a few unfortunate wights in the second regiments, they were all here. They dismounted and formed up, turning from cavalry into infantry as their feet hit the ground. Reconnaissance of the Arena, which was an enormous place, revealed forces dug in and ready to contest every last stone, every patch of sand. I turned to face the two regiments, ready and waiting, 1ESW and 1EYJ, and I decided I would not throw them away in a stupidity like this. There was no need to take the confounded Jikhorkdun.
“Let ’em rot in there!” I called, making a joke of it, turning their minds away from the expected fight. And then, up there, bursting through the black shroud of smoke over the Arrow of Hork, a voller pitched end over end. She was surrounded by flutduins, and the superb birds were ridden by Djangs and Valkans. The voller crashed out of sight into the Arena. One of the flutduins planed away and glided in to land nearby. Jiktar Eriden ti Vulheim saluted and said, “The voller tried to escape, strom. There is something odd about her, for she was stuffed with damned Katakis and yet they tried to run.”
So I knew.
“You have done well, Jik Eriden. The swods are going in and your flyers will give them cover.”
“Quidang!”
So, with a heavy heart, I gave the orders my lads expected, curtailing their puzzlement over my remarks about not fighting for the Jikhorkdun. In there, trapped with his vicious Katakis, Phu-Si-Yantong stood at bay.
The mercenaries who fought were mostly Chuliks and Khibils, with a scattering of others like Brokelsh and blegs and a large number of numims who outnumbered the Fristles, which is unusual. Most of the other mercenaries had fled, prepared to change sides. There was a single group of Pachaks, about a dozen, and they fought until the end, their nikobi not to be dishonored.
We fought our way into the Jikhorkdun with the black smoke acidic and raw in our mouths and nostrils. The fight raged under the seating, through the tunnels, past the caged areas and so out onto the silver sand. No time now for thoughts of the Arena in Huringa in Hyrklana. We fought Katakis in the Jikhorkdun of Ruathytu, and they were driven on through fear of their Hyr Notor, Phu-Si-Yantong.
My lads of the Sword Watch and the Yellow Jackets got stuck in in splendid style. The Katakis, joined by others of their evil kind, withstood the first attacks. Tails swished and the bladed steel glittered. The suns were nearly gone and I wanted this business finished before they sank.
That was easier said than done. Darkness leached the light from the scene. When a city is taken, no matter how many orders are given, something is going to burn. Flames licked up from the houses and villas. The stars began to glitter down erratically between the smoke clouds. And still the Katakis fought to protect their lord.
No doubt the Wizard of Loh saw his people could not win. He had had every faith in Katakis as immensely powerful fighters; now that they were beaten he had no more time for them. Battling with half a dozen whiptails over the sand was not the kind of duty an emperor should concern himself with. I knew that. But when my lads went roaring into battle I couldn’t lag in the rear. And I’d been picked on by six whip-tails out to finish me. The scrimmage was a pore-opening skip and jump and three of the bladed tails lay on the sand before the EYJ came in from the left and the ESW came in from the right, and a howling bunch of maniacal Djangs catapulted through in the center. So I could be hauled off by Khe-Hi who looked flustered and agitated and, if it were possible, walking along six inches in the air.
“Well, Khe-Hi?”
“Deb-Lu and I — we face a battle now such as you would not comprehend — look!”
And he turned and stared up at the empress’s box overlooking the silver sand. The palanquin stood there, the cloth of gold curtains drawn back. A few torches threw liquid gleams on the gold and the purple, and drove clustering shadows about the form of Phu-Si-Yantong. He was indistinct. A hint of movement, of blackness with purple-gold, the glitter of gems. An arm lifted and something flashed.
At my side Khe-Hi drew in a ragged, gasping breath. He stiffened. His arms did not raise from his side as though he was about to go into lupu, rather he became inflated, taller, drawn up by a force he called down to him — fanciful notions? I do not know. I only know that between the two Wizards of Loh grew a circle of shimmering light in thin air, high between them, twisting and hurling off sparks, brighter and brighter, glittering. The disc of light moved back and forth as each sorcerer strove to overcome the other. This eerie manifestation of power is called the Quern of Gramarye. I had seen one destroy a bazaar. I stood back.
Sweat poured from Khe-Hi’s face. His eyes glared and his teeth were gritted. He exerted his powers to keep Yantong at bay, forcing all his knowledge and art into the struggle. His teeth grated together, nerve-shudderingly, and then he managed to pry his jaws apart and to gasp a few words. “Deb-Lu! Deb-Lu-Quienyin! Deb-Lu!”
And Khe-Hi-Bjanching, borne down by the colossal supernatural power of Phu-Si-Yantong, fell. I caught him in my arms. His face was slack; but still his eyes glared and still the radiant disc of light spun and coruscated in thin air as the opposing thaumaturgical forces met and clashed. I held Khe-Hi gently and I did not interpose my head between his eyes and the Quern of Gramarye. A new look appeared on his face, a fresh resolution and a disc of light spun more rapidly and the light increased ten fold and bathed all the Arena in light. So I knew Deb-Lu had joined his comrade and together they sought to stem the onslaught. And then, again, the disc of light brightened, and Khe-Hi husked out: “He has another Wizard of Loh!” and they struggled on, occult powers pitted one against the other, seeking for the advantage, supernatural strengths revealed through the coruscations of light bursting from the Quern of Gramarye.
The unearthly light illuminated the gray stones, caught in the cornices, silhouetted the dark standards. It splashed like fire across those serried rows and ranks of empty seats. But no spectacle like this had been witnessed in the Arena, the silver sand did not shake to the stamp of iron-studded boots and shiver with the blood dropping upon it, it lay bathed in a light flaming from realms and dominions far removed from everyday.
This was the battle to decide our fates.
Wizards of Loh, locked in mortal combat, in the fight to the death.
Among the terrible scenes going on all about as a great city fell to her enemies, none could be more terrible than this sorcerous struggle.
The end came with unexpected suddenness and violence. Deb-Lu had often expressed his deepest respect for the powers of Yantong, and Khe-Hi would bite his lip if they were mentioned. Yantong had received sorcerous help from another Wizard of Loh and this more clearly than anything else indicated his own frame of mind. No more the tinkling tingling bells. No more the cloth of gold. No more the beautiful half-naked slave girls girt in silver and pearls. No more the snap of a finger to gain instant obedience.
Quick, sudden and deadly.
The Quern of Gramarye swelled, bloated, grew and smashed straight across the Arena. It crashed into the empress’s box and blew everything there away. It roared on as an insensate fiery whirlwind. It carved an enormous cavern through the Jikhorkdun and walls and ceilings fell and smashed into the black gaps of its passing.
And as for Phu-Si-Yantong, no doubt he was a smeared black atom among all the wreckage.
Thus fell Ruathytu of Hamal, the great city.
Thus died Phu-Si-Yantong, Wizard of Loh.
Now we must spit on our hands and take a hitch in our belts and trusting in the pantheons of the gods and beneficent spirits begin to reconstruct the land against the greater perils ahead.
[i]
When a Kregish word contains the letter ‘n’ followed by an apostrophe, this generally indicates the word ‘nik’ — small or half — has been elided.
A.B.A.
Alan Burt Akers was a pen name of the prolific British author Kenneth Bulmer, who died in December 2005 aged eighty-four.
Bulmer wrote over 160 novels and countless short stories, predominantly science fiction, both under his real name and numerous pseudonyms, including Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Philip Kent, Bruno Krauss, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Chesman Scot, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford, and Tully Zetford. Kenneth Johns was a collective pseudonym used for a collaboration with author John Newman. Some of Bulmer’s works were published along with the works of other authors under "house names" (collective pseudonyms) such as Ken Blake (for a series of tie-ins with the 1970s television programme The Professionals), Arthur Frazier, Neil Langholm, Charles R. Pike, and Andrew Quiller.