IronStar (33 page)

Wrong question, Lieutenant. You
have already answered that question.
He
has already answered it. The
right
question is, can you hit your target? Steady… no shot… don't shoot just so you
can draw breath - stand down a moment, take a couple of deep breaths… he's
pointing this way. In a moment more, he'll move and you'll lose the shot. Ok,
this is an absurd distance to try for a headshot with a hand weapon, we don't
need finesse, a body hit will do. Breath in, out a little and hold… synchronize
with the slight wandering of the aimpoint, watch how it steadies for half a
second or a second at a time, just a bit off-target, tune in to its rhythm…
coming back now… CRAKK!
Peetha flinched at the report no more than a
fencepost would have.

Across the river, a puff of gray
smoke flew from the front of her target. The man sat motionless in her
magnified sights. A cheer rose from the Wrth, then slowly the man tilted to his
left and a few seconds later, tumbled bonelessly from his saddle. Riders
dismounted and surrounded him. Peetha's eyes were closed, Kirrah noticed, and
her face calm and composed under the brand on her forehead.

“It is done. Thank you, my
warrior-commander, for your shoulder. From this day, you and the people serving
here with you are no longer my students, but my warriors.”

It took another ten minutes for the
line of longbowmen to massacre the last of the Wrth crossing the river. Only
eight of them actually set foot on the south shore, and those only for seconds.
Like a conveyer, Kirrah thought - a brave, defiant, stupid, macho, ill-led
conveyer of dead soldiers coming to throw themselves at our arrows. So be it.
We have plenty.

When the last of the Wrth attackers
were drowned or cut down by the deadly shafts, the Talamae were able to return
their attention to the warships. The remaining damaged transport vessel was
smoking a little, but the fires were coming under control. With some
reluctance, Kirrah ordered the expenditure of more mortar rounds to finish the
job. Two shots holed the unlucky ship's bottom, leaving eleven more rounds
carried on the mortarmen's horses. Farther upriver, the two excise ships and
one damaged siege ship were moving away. A few more flights of fire arrows
completed the destruction of the other siege ship still wallowing mid-river.

A bedraggled-looking collection of
O'dai sailors was assembling on the north shore, well back from the river at a
distance they obviously believed was safely out of bowshot. Kirrah noticed that
the Wrth, who had excellent reason to know otherwise, did not enlighten their
allies about their potentially lethal underestimation of her longbows’ range.

The task force quickly bundled up
their supplies and set off in pursuit of the three remaining O'dai vessels
already half a kilometer up the river, paced by the somewhat reduced mass of
Wrth riding along the north bank. A group of Wrth remained behind, clustered
around their fallen leader. Kirrah rode with Peetha between Captains Crath’pae
and Og’drai, planning how to ambush the surviving enemy ships and find the
presumed Kruss aboard one of them. Moving inland, soon their horses pulled
ahead of the O'dai rowing up the river. By the time they reached the other four
boats they had sent on ahead, their plans were ready. Dismounting, Kirrah could
not remember a time she’d ever felt so weary.

When the O'dai approached their new
position, thirty archers rose from cover and loosed a rain of fire arrows on
the three warships. The O’dai sailors replied with a volley of crossbow
quarrels, which wounded two more of Rash’koi’s men. As the O’dai began to
reload, three of the four small Talamae boats pushed off from concealment on
the bank, loaded with a dozen soldiers each including Peetha and all the Wrth
converts. Pulling hard on their oars, they quickly covered the forty meters to
the nearest target, the damaged siege ship, last in line. More arrows kept the
defenders' heads down as the Talamae boatmen grappled to the larger ship. Soon
men and the few Wrth women under Peetha's command were swarming up the side of
the vessel on ropes.

Kirrah anxiously watched the first
of her soldiers pull themselves over the rail. Within seconds a fierce
hand-to-hand struggle was raving across the deck, most of it slightly too high
above the water to be seen from the low bank. The Talamae oarsmen clambered up
to join the fray. Flames licked greedily where oil-filled arrowheads had burst,
and from the look of things, the O'dai sailors were giving priority to the
boarders and letting the fire have its way. Both the other excise ships began
to row hard astern, with the evident intent of closing the thirty-meter gap and
assisting their besieged sister, and Kirrah ordered her mortars into action.

The first round landed square
amidships of the lead O'dai ship, just as it lost way in the current and began
to drift back towards its companions. The second shot took the other excise
ship on the foredeck, spraying sailors with splinters and shrapnel. All the
O'dai ships were dead in the water now, beginning to be carried back downstream
by the current. The third shot struck the lead ship just aft of the first
impact, throwing men and debris into the water. The fourth hit the second ship
just inside its near gunwale, blowing a two-meter chunk of rail halfway to the
near shore and leaving a ragged gap in the decking. Thirty enthusiastic archers
kept up a hail of fire and grenades against the excise ships, while sparing,
for the sake of their boarding party, the siege ship where savage fighting
continued. A fifth round landed in the water close to the side of the lead
ship, cracking the planking. Kirrah called a halt to the mortar barrage with
six rounds remaining.

Soon the struggling O'dai managed
to get ropes onto the contested siege ship, succeeding in turning the entire
flotilla into a drifting tangle of burning ships and vicious hand-to-hand
fighting. Kirrah quickly ordered another dozen men including Irshe into the
remaining boat, climbed in herself and set out to join the conflict.

As they reached the side of the
nearest ship, the waterline cracks in its planking could be heard audibly
sucking in river water. The clash and thumps of fighting carried down to them.
They swarmed up strands of ruined rigging trailing in the water and vaulted
over the rail to a scene of riot. On the adjacent siege ship, thirty Talamae
invaders were formed in two back-to-back lines across the stern, one line
battling with a desperate few sailors defending the tiller. The other line was
in turn surrounded by a mob of twice as many O'dai seamen on the central deck,
armed with swords and a few heavy crossbows. As Kirrah watched, another Talamae
was felled by a bolt at short range.

Everyone seemed to be occupied at
the moment… at her quick orders, Irshe's men loosed a flight of arrows that
took down all the enemy crossbowmen. His next volley followed quickly,
spreading shock and dismay among the O'dai attackers as eight of their men were
felled from behind. Peetha was visible whirling and slashing like a fiend,
blood up both arms and across her fiercely grinning face. All her Wrth were
simply outmatching the O'dai sailors in viciousness and sheer murderous energy,
except where outright numbers blunted the odds. On the north shore, Wrth were
gathering and firing indiscriminately into the melee with their lighter
crossbows. The three bound ships were beginning to spin slowly in the current.

Another five sailors came pounding
up a ladder from belowdecks, and turned in surprise to see Kirrah and her men
standing on their deck a few meters away. With a howl, they drew short swords
and knives and charged the Talamae archers. Kirrah drew and fired three shots
in quick succession, her weapon preset to seventy percent power. Each shot
struck one of the men in a leg or foot, and the two remaining attackers stopped
in stunned shock at the sight of the brilliant flashes and their companions writhing
on the bloody deck.

“Surrender!” Kirrah shouted in the
Talamae language. “Surrender and live!” The two standing men looked at each
other and turned, ran for the far side of the ship and plunged over into the
river. “…or
swim
and live, suits me fine…”, she added in a
conversational tone. Irshe cocked an eyebrow at her as he drew and loosed
another bodkin arrow. On the siege ship, the defenders were visibly giving
ground, under the combined assault of Peetha's warriors and the murderously
efficient longbow volleys. The damaged excise ship they stood on seemed to be
tilting slightly as the three burning vessels spun slowly in the current.

Kirrah watched as Peetha's sword
opened a hideous wound across the face of yet another opponent, followed by a
masterful parry of a second attacker's overhead swing, and a riposte that left
him clutching the spurting stump of his wrist. Suddenly the remaining O'dai
broke as a unit and ran for the rails, leaping into the water. In the space of
a few heartbeats, Kirrah's forces were in undisputed possession of three
tangled, damaged, burning ships, one settling slowly into the river. Cheers
rose from the Talamae on both ships and from the south shore.

In a few moments, one of the small
Talamae boats pulled away for the south shore, trailing a stout rope. As the
fleeing O'dai sailors began reaching the north shore, the enterprising boatman
reached the south bank with a tow line, where he was met by the remaining
twenty Talamae soldiers with horses, and they began pulling the ships to the
south side of the river. As these preparations continued, Kirrah returned to
the three O'dai she had crippled. Two were where she had left them, one seemed
to have dragged himself overboard.

“Where is the little one?” she
demanded. “The one with a tail?” The two men looked at one another blankly. “Do
you speak Talamae?” More blank looks, frightened and in pain from their leg
wounds. Captain Og’drai was summoned to translate. In another five minutes, the
entire tangled flaming mass was grounded and secured by ropes on the south
bank.

“What does the Warmaster gain, but
burning ships?” Captain Og’drai asked, as he arrived at her side. The fires
were becoming intense, the masts and rigging dropping dangerous flaming debris,
and flames shooting from the few portholes on the most damaged ship. The deck
under them was becoming warm.

“I believe there is still a
powerful enemy on board one of these ships,” Kirrah responded. “Watch closely,
people. Remember what I said, it will be small, but strong and very fast. It
may be armed as I am.”
Or worse, much worse… if it's really there, and not
just a comm unit used by some O'dai, and if it doesn't escape out the other
side of one of the ships in a military-grade powered suit and just
walk
across the bottom of the river…
“Peetha, get ten warriors mounted, and
everyone ready with ropes. If it runs, run it down and stop it.

“Captain, ask these men where they
have seen a small person, about as large as a six-year child, but with a tail
and wearing armor. Tell them when we find this person, we will help them off
the ship.” More words were exchanged, in a singsong patois that seemed to serve
the mariners.

“They beg your mercy, they have not
seen such a person, they know nothing about it. I think they are telling the truth.
They are very frightened.”
Can't say I blame them…
Within a few minutes
the fire forced them all over the side and into their boats, where they
transferred the injured men from both factions onto the south shore. Kirrah,
Irshe and Peetha stood watching as the ships flamed higher, sending billows of
gray and black smoke into the noon air. From the opposite bank, Wrth and O'dai
both watched the destruction with helpless fascination. One by one the masts
fell crashing to the deck or hissing into the river. Flames roared from gaps in
the decking. One of the ships was already settling onto the riverbottom, aflame
to the waterline.

“Warmaster, are you sure your enemy
is still in this… cookfire?” Peetha asked.

“Yes. No, I'm not sure it is here
at all, but if it was on one of these ships, it could still be hiding. Its
armor will protect it from the heat, from even direct flames for a few minutes.
But that protection will cost it some of its …strength. I still do not know
what type of armor it wears. We will wait until these ships are burned to the
waterline if we must.”

Another clatter and shower of
sparks as a piece of decking gave way. More crashes and bumps. Pieces fell into
the water with a hiss of steam. Moments later, one of the archers shouted as a
head in smooth dark-gray armor appeared out of the water, a few meters from the
bank. Suddenly spray flew as the rest of the hundred-twenty centimeter figure
erupted from the river, armored, two-legged, short-armed and with a thick
muscular tail. Inhumanly fast, it streaked up the bank and between the startled
Talamae soldiers. Kirrah drew her sidearm, horses reared and men made grabs for
the fleet figure. One man actually managing to step in front of it. In a blur
of scything limbs and claws the small figure seemed to run right up and over
the man’s body. In a heartbeat it was through their ranks and dashing west
across the open plains, parallel to the river. The unfortunate soldier in the
thing’s path swayed, bleeding from half a dozen deep slashes, and collapsed.
Eight mounted horsemen set out in pursuit. Incredibly, the gap continued to
widen.

“Down!” she shouted, taking aim at
the fleeing figure. Men dropped into the weeds around her. The pursuing
horsemen wove back and forth between her and the fleeing target. In twenty
seconds, all were out of reasonable beamer range.

“Kirrah's sky-enemies are faster
than a
tso’ckhai
,” Irshe murmured, as she put up her weapon in
frustration. “Look!” Indeed, even at a kilometer’s distance Kirrah could see
one of the long snake-like predators rear out of concealment on the
not-grass
and strike at the small being. The Wrth horsemen veered to give the
tso’ckhai
a respectful berth, but the Kruss actually ran down the length of the
monster’s body, easily evading its whiplash strike.