Part 33 (2/2)

One man stepped his horse forward as she reined in, her Changeling face flushed and gaunt with fury.

”NO! You don't understand! It was a trap! We were to provoke them, get them to chase us along the beach, stringing them out along the narrow strip of firm ground this side of the beach!” He pointed back towards the sea. ”Short, box canyons all along there, our people hidden, waiting for them to nearly pa.s.s, then charging out to cut their ranks to pieces we could deal with! Everyone's down there, but I've called them out! They're right behind me!”

”Everyone? How many is that?”

”As many as we could muster. I've seen what you've done. As few as we are, we're all ready to fight for you! We couldn't be sure you'd come! We planned our own defense, and those who died knew the certainty of it! They knew you were here! They died for you!”

She could not speak, for her eyes had detected movement beyond these men, riders appearing at points along the last hills leading down to the sea. They came over the hills from ascents of steep canyons, riders in single file from countless points south as far as she could see. As they reached flat ground, they galloped to join lines, trickles streaming into a growing ma.s.s of cavalry until the roar of hoofbeats came to her ears, louder and louder. They streamed over the hills like an army of ants, more trickles coming from the beach to join them until the gra.s.s was covered with a black ma.s.s of riders and the ground trembled beneath her feet.

She remembered the Tumatsin propensity for understatement.

The man who'd spoken to her didn't look so afraid, now. ”We're here! You tell us what to do, and we'll do it!”

The thunder of approaching horses made it necessary for her to shout. ”We follow the force that attacked us, and hit it from behind, destroy it if we can, and continue on to the city! Moshuguang in front, with lasers, but after what we've been though, the weapons will soon be spent!”

She looked at the Moshuguang commander for a reaction, but he only nodded.

”The Moshuguang drop back, and we go in fast with bow and sword! We don't have heavy armor to slow us! We have to move! The enemy isn't waiting for us! Now!”

She turned her horse, and climbed up the hill, the Moshuguang commander going with her, his troops following, then the great ma.s.s of Tumatsin home guard riding hard to catch up. They went over the hill, and down through the lifeless area scoured by cosmic light, the towering cloud still above them, still releasing wet mist to cool earth now turned to gla.s.s. The devastation she'd wrought continued up the far slope, extending many meters out onto a small plateau and the broad valley heading southeast.

There were bodies there: men and horses, scorched black, the smell of cooked meat in the air. Kati felt sorry for the horses. Further up the valley were a few more bodies of fang-toothed men only partly burned, but dead from shock, their horses gone. She rode hard, outdistancing the Moshuguang with their heavy armor and large horses not bred for the mountains. It wouldn't do, and then she began noticing the curved, sparkling sheets of thin-filmed metal scattered to either side of her, growing in number until she suddenly stopped with the realization of what she was seeing.

”They've taken off their armor so they can ride faster!” she shouted, as the Moshuguang caught up to her. ”Take off your armor, and let the Tumatsin get in front! We have to ride even faster now!”

They lost precious minutes in getting the Tumatsin moved to the front, but it was a welcome rest for the horses. Kati reared her horse.

”Now! As fast as we can ride! If we get close enough, use your bows! For SHANJI!”

Her horse leaped forward, and the men howled behind her. They thundered up the valley at a gallop. How long? An hour? Four? The Tumatsin mounts were relatively fresh, and again she was on a mountain horse. She hoped it was like the dear one she'd ridden from the city: a good horse, an incredible horse, willing to put out full effort for her. But for how long?

There were enemy riders along the rims of hills to her left, appearing, then disappearing in groups of four or five. She worried about a trap, if they were being enticed into a flank attack from above, but then she saw the dust ahead, dust kicked up by many riders where the valley began curving south towards the city. She waved an arm and pointed, hoping the others would see the dust and know they were rapidly gaining on the ones they pursued.

Riders within the dust cloud were moving at a trot, and her force was rapidly closing in on them. The sound of Tumatsin hoofbeats was a dull roar in Kati's ears, and she saw a soldier of Mandughai turn in his saddle to see them. He waved his arms wildly, shouting ahead. She was now a hundred meters away, closing fast, and saw a few figures visible in the cloud of dust. The enemy horses were already tiring; their stamina was poor, perhaps due to many weeks in transit to Shanji.

Kati turned to see the front rank of packed Tumatsin only a horse's length behind her. She grabbed bow and quiver, and held them overhead. ”Shoot into the cloud! As deep as you can!”

She wrapped the reins loosely around the saddle horn, and made a knot, then nocked an arrow at full gallop, pressing tightly with her knees. She fired her arrow in a high arc, well into the dust cloud, and used her bow to beckon the others to do the same.

Shouts behind her, then a long pause. She nocked another arrow, and drew her bow as there was a commanding shout behind her.

A yellow cloud that was a thousand arrows arched high over her head and fell into the swirling storm of dust.

She heard horses scream, and men, and then another cloud of arrows was on its way, and then another. Kati fired with them as fast as she could, her arrows flying blindly into the cloud without a target. Shower after shower of arrows arched into the cloud, and then dust was swirling around her, her vision suddenly limited. Ahead, a horse had fallen, bristling with arrow shafts. Its tusked rider charged her on foot, sword raised, and she fired her last arrow through his throat.

Fallen horses and men were everywhere, and men stumbling towards both sides in panic. One dared to meet her, sword arm c.o.c.ked defiantly. She rode him down, but felt the pain of a sword-slash deflected from the saddle to her leg as he fell beneath her. She threw down bow and quiver, unsheathed her sword, and screamed as she raised it.

The sound of her people thrilled her, the screams of a thousand s.h.i.+zi.

She rode into the scattered, fallen soldiers of Mandughai, slas.h.i.+ng left and right. Most of them escaped her blade, only to be crushed by the wave of horses behind her, and then suddenly they were running on gra.s.s, and the dust was gone. She was ten meters behind the remainder of those who'd escaped her by the sea, and a last volley of arrows from her people shrieked by her head to strike them. Men went down by the dozens, but the others charged on, and now she could see why.

Far ahead, the dome of the Emperor's city glistened, and they were heading down a final slope to the broad valley of plowed earth and barley stubble now covered with horses and struggling men, black smoke belching from the ruins of three downed flyers. As far as she could see, horses were charging each other, men fighting hand-to-hand, blades flas.h.i.+ng. She caught up to a dark man who turned to slash at her. She parried his move, then stuck him in the throat and pushed him from his horse with her foot. She was riding among Mandughai's ranks, slas.h.i.+ng and parrying, not wondering where her terrible strength came from. Her people were piling in behind her, enveloping the invaders like an amoeba encountering a bacterium, absorbing them, cutting them down, cras.h.i.+ng straight through with the weight of their numbers, then charging down the slope to the stubble fields, Kati waving her sword, hoa.r.s.ely screaming the word that empowered them all.

”SHANJIIII!”.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

THE FALLEN.

The moment had been electric when Mengnu shouted the name of their world. Her eyes had blazed emerald green, ivory jutting beneath her lip; the purple aura surrounding her had seemed supernatural, yet he'd not been afraid this time. In a way, he still loved her, and now it was said she would be Empress over all of them.

Lui-Pang watched her ride alone up the mountain trail until the glow that accompanied her disappeared in trees at the edge of the cliff. His courage rose. One girl, supernatural or not, was riding alone to lead a small force against an army of unknown strength, and he was left with a far greater force in defending the city.

Still, there were rumors that the enemy camp had been examined from s.p.a.ce with the instruments on the mother s.h.i.+p, and that the number of invading soldiers was at least three times their own. There was also the matter of experience; none of them, young, old, even their officers, had ever known battle. What was the experience of those who would come at them from the valley to the north?

Lui-Pang pondered these things as he mounted up with the other young troopers at the rear of the long lines of cavalry reaching from the gate to far beyond the barracks where the dome intersected the mountain. Hours earlier, before Mengnu's arrival, the Moshuguang's elite guard had gone out on foot, leading their horses to dig in along the valley slopes and establish a cross-fire against approaching infantry. Each man carried an extra power pack, giving him a capability of six hundred bursts, but against a sizable force it would surely not be enough. It would serve mainly to deplete the capability of an enemy on foot or horseback to return laser fire when charged by Hansui cavalry.

He looked for Master Yung, but couldn't find him. He'd said that Mengnu was no longer his student. The student days were over. Today they would be soldiers, and veterans if they survived.

It was still dark, and two hours after Mengnu had left they all filed through the gate and out of the city, marching hundreds of meters into the fields to form their companies of three hundred in twelve blocks four wide and three deep across the valley. Somewhere in front of them, up on the slopes, the Moshuguang were dug in, lasers poised. Lui-Pang looked for a sign of them and saw nothing.

Their wait was not long. The first sign was a dull sound, like heavy breath, coming up the valley towards them. Lui-Pang's horse snorted, hooves stomping nervously. Far ahead an officer shouted, but he couldn't make out the words.

The second sign was more dramatic and nearly drove their horses into a panic. A flyer hummed behind them, lifting out of the dome and heading straight west towards the cliffs. Even at this distance, he could see it was full of men. A few troopers cheered them.

The sky was lit up by a single, blinding flash that came over their heads from the stars in the northwest, and the flyer was gone, leaving a ball of sputtering gas that settled slowly to the ground and seemed to explode there. But the sound was drowned out by the crack of a horrible thunder that shocked his ears and made his horse jump, screaming. Lui-Pang fought to control it; the closeness of their ranks was all that kept it from running.

Weapons in s.p.a.ce. More rumors, now verified. Weapons that could destroy an army in a flash, and they were sitting there, in the open, a target much larger than the flyer.

Everyone was looking up, waiting for death to come from the sky, some still fighting to control their animals. Lui-Pang had never felt so vulnerable and watched the stars, waiting for one to suddenly brighten.

Calm returned slowly. If s.p.a.ce weapons would be used against them, it should have happened by now, and hadn't. The flyer was the target, not men on the ground. Even his horse was settling down. Lui-Pang tried to do the same, and failed. The dull roar still came up the valley, the sound of many feet, many horses. Getting louder.

They were coming.

The sound was soon loud enough to distinguish hoofbeats from the armor-clanking steps of men, then there was a loud whine and seven flyers rose through the opening in the dome. This time, n.o.body cheered. Seven flyers, with laser cannon and crews of three, formed into a vee and came over their heads at low alt.i.tude, turbines screaming as they headed down the valley. Half a kilometer, then one. Lui-Pang held his breath, then cried out as the light came out of the sky from a point further east than before, seeming to come right towards him but striking only the flyers with terrible precision. Three flyers went down in fiery ruins to crash and explode, while the others were only b.a.l.l.s of ionized gas popping and sputtering. A column of air clear out to the stars glowed eerily red and green. The thunder was as before, and again Lui-Pang fought for control of his terrified horse. With the shock and fright came a strange relief. The flyers were indeed the targets, not ground troops. The thing he had to fear was on the ground, not in s.p.a.ce, and an hour later laser fire began coming from the valley slopes northeast of him. The Moshuguang had opened up. The enemy was within laser range.

There was shouting from the front ranks, and word was pa.s.sed back. ”No lasers! String your bows! Ready an arrow! They're a kilometer out, infantry coming on the run! No cavalry! First shot at two hundred meters!”

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