Star Soldiers (15 page)

"It is our wish to visit the Venturi of the coast—and not to come upon them by a well-marked road—"

The Llor's tiny circle of a mouth moved in the Fronnian equivalent of a smile.

"Ha. Then it is true—that which has been whispered from mouth to ear—that the day of reckoning with
those
is coming? No longer shall the hooded ones keep the trails, nor be the only buyers and sellers to carry goods from one village to the next! That is good to hear, Lord. Eat up the Venturi forts along the coast if you will—and all the Llor shall speak kindly of you to the Ruler of the Winds. For when those fall, then there shall be rich spoil for all."

Eagerly he consulted the map. "Now here is a path—it lies among the western mountains and there may be Cos. But to
you
what are Cos—you may brush them out of your way as we brush the fas-fas beetles from our floors. And this path will lead you directly to the sea above Po'ult. May your hunting there prosper, War Lord!"

"Indeed may it," piously returned Hansu. And he moved his fingers in the Three Signs of those air, fire, and water spirits who must be consulted on Fronn before any major undertaking.

The Corban warmed still more and became their champion with the guen herders, personally inspecting the stock his fellow citizens had run out from the village corrals, and rejecting ten animals, much to the bafflement of his men who were prepared to make a handsome profit from the ignorance of off-world men, for Hansu insisted on paying for the animals. That night he gave a feast, using a month's supplies with the abandon of a Chortha of a province. To the future conquerors of the Venturi he would deny nothing. And a handpicked corps of guides, selected from the most hardy and far roving of the guen hunters, was detailed to accompany the Horde to the foothills of the western mountains.

That was a day and a half journey—mounted—and Hansu pushed them to the utmost, driven himself by the desire to get out of the dangerous level country before they were sighted by a Mech patrol.

On the morning of the third day when they were well on the mountain trail they found the Llor guides gone. Distant behind them was the smudge of smoke in the sky and bits of charred grass drifted down. The hunters had lighted a plains fire to drive the wild guen into a netting place. Hansu watched that haze with satisfaction. It would effectively cover their trail, which was perhaps why the Llor hunters had lit it.

Now began the old nightmare of climbing, climbing and being ever alert for an attack. Though the hunters had insisted that this route lay on the edge of Cos-held country and that the mountaineers had very seldom troubled the caravans which used it, they could not be sure of a peaceful penetration. And the Llor had been unable to answer Hansu's questions as to whether the Venturi caravanmen had some pact with the Cos which insured that safety. However, the Terrans had no alternative but to advance.

The trail was marked with those narrow stone pillars erected by the Venturi, the pictographs on them untranslatable. And it was made for the use of guen.

That night they went without fire, camped in small groups, strung out with sentries between. But the hours of darkness were not broken by alarms and they sighted no beacons on the heights.

Kana had tramped behind Hansu for most of that day, and now, his blanket pulled about him for warmth, he crouched by an outcrop trying to snatch some sleep while the Blademaster sat cross-legged a yard away and listened to the reports of scouts.

"—no deal with these Mechs?"

"Not a chance." Hansu's voice brought him fully awake. "Mills said that Hart Device was in command."

"Device! I still think Deke musta been wrong. Device wouldn't go outlaw—"

"That's just the point, Bogate. If Device is the commander at Tharc—and I see no reason not to trust information Mills died to bring us—then this is no matter of a Mech Legion gone outlaw. Hart Device is a new leader—just as Yorke was. His Legion is small but tough, well equipped, and Hart has the reputation of delivering. I'd be willing to lay half a year's pay that he has a large percentage of vets—just as we have. I wonder—" His voice trailed off.

But Kana, tired as he was, caught that hint. A Legion, a Horde, both consisting of well-trained men, locked in a death struggle. No matter which won in the end, the death toll would be high. So many veterans removed from action. It was beginning to add up to an ugly sum.

"If the Code's broke"—Zapan Bogate's rumbling whisper had thoughtful undertones—"hell's to pay! Why—Archs won't have a chance!"

"Not at the old game, no. But that is no reason why we can't start a new one."

"But—we're Combat men, Hansu—"

"Sure. Only there's no rule about who or what we have to fight." There was an absent note in the Blademaster's voice as if he were thinking aloud.

"Anyways, now we got just one job." Bogate heaved himself up. "To get outta these blasted hills and see the Venturi. We gonna try to take 'em, sir?"

"Not if we can help it. They may welcome us with open arms if what that Corban hinted is true and the Llor have turned against them. Their territory is too rough for the Mechs. This Po'ult of theirs is built on an island off the coast—sheer rock straight up from the sea. They have their own ways of getting ashore and you can't bring up heavy stuff to batter it."

"Good place for us to hole up—if they'll let us."

"That's what we'll have to arrange, Bogate. If we can make them see we have a common enemy, maybe they'll make it a common war. Take scouts out in the morning as usual."

"Yes, sir."

At dawn the trek began again. Snow lay in patches along the trail, and the patches became solid sheets, drifting across the track, drifts through which men on foot beat a way for the slender-legged guen. But in that struggle they lost animals, for the wild, newly captured mounts were not tough enough for a battle such as this. The second cart became a casualty—and with it one of the medical corpsmen who did not have a chance to relinquish his drag rope as it slithered over the edge of a drop and plunged to a slope far below.

"Alert!" The war whistle shrieked the message along, to set numb hands unslinging rifles, freeing sword-knives. That was the only warning they had before the battle of the pass began. But now they were not tangling with Cos but with a party of Llor in flight, desperate to win through, back to the plains and safety. And because of their desperation they came on without caution, trying to hack their way through the Horde.

The struggle was a short one, the rear guard of the Horde never firing a shot. But it was bloody. For the Llor died to a man and they had been so reckless in their attack that they cut down in their insane scramble men who would not normally have been drawn into a hand-to-hand combat.

The Terrans, already spent with their struggle through the snow to these heights, licked their wounds that night and camped, sick with weariness, on the edge of the battlefield. Wind-driven snow covered the fallen and the Combatants who could keep their feet moved among the wounded striving to ward off frozen death.

"Raiding party being chased home—" The sear breeze pulled the words from between Mic's chapped lips. "Maybe we're marching straight into a fire someone else started. Hope the Venturi won't think we're more of the same—"

Rey rubbed one cheek with a handful of snow. "Never a dull moment." He wheezed and then coughed until his whole rangy body shook. "Next time we have a premonition about any enlistment—me, I'm going to believe it! What a paradise replacement barracks was—why did I ever leave Secundus?"

Kana beat gloved hands together. Secundus seemed very far and long ago. Had he
ever
eaten in a room where flame birds flitted on the walls? Or was that a dream and this present nightmare stark reality?

"We'll just plow on and on through this"—Mic kicked a pile of snow— "until it is deep enough to bury us. Then next season they'll find us all nice and stiff and export us as `native art'—"

"Were these Llor running from a brush with the Venturi?" Rey wondered. "I thought they were afraid of them. Remember all that trouble about the spy just out of Tharc? We weren't to touch the traders. And even when they found their man the Llor didn't say anything to the caravan people."

"The Llor believe now that they are going to take over Fronn," Kana said. "They must have hated the Venturi for a long time and see a good chance to get back at them now. You scouting tomorrow, Rey?"

"I am—for my sins. And you?"

"Likewise."

Mic nursed his healing arm. "They're sure whittling us down to size, these mountains. Have bad luck every time we climb. Fifty lost back there—twenty here—and more wounded—"

"Not as bad as when the wing bombed us," Rey reminded him. "As long as we can fight back—"

"Yes, I know. But see you come back from scout, you long-legged byll!"

"You know"—Rey stopped rubbing the snow down his jaw line— "that's an idea. If a fella could get him say ten-twenty of those birds and train 'em—as the fur faces trained their horks. They don't make any noise before they jump, do they?" He turned to consult Kana as an authority. "No? Well, put 'em on the enemy's track and let 'em go. Better than a Mech crusher in country such as this."

"And just who is going to catch and train them?" Mic was beginning, when another Arch appeared out of the dark.

"Karr?"

"Here!"

"Report to Blademaster."

Kana groped his way to where Hansu had holed up between two overhanging slabs of rock forming a half-cave. The faint blue of a captured Llor torch gave a ghostly, morbid hue to the faces of those clustered about it. And one of them had no face at all—only the blank mask of a hooded Ventur.

"Karr, sit down." Kana folded up just inside as the Blademaster turned back to the hooded one.

"Will this man do?"

The muffled head moved, but no word was spoken for a long moment as Kana shifted under the gaze of eyes hidden behind round holes. Then the trader made an assenting gesture which was more a quick jerk than a Terran nod.

"This Ventur was a prisoner of that troop of Llor," Hansu explained. "He's going back to his people and you're the AL man who'll accompany him to make contact. We want a base—a chance to hide out until we can notify Secundus. Use your judgment, Karr. You are the only AL trained man we have left. Make the best deal you can with them. Impress upon them that we're as much against the Llor now as they are—tell their leaders what that Corban said to us."

"Yes, sir."

Hansu looked at his watch. "Take rations and extra ammunition. We have no idea how far we now are from Po'ult—the map isn't accurate. And"—he hesitated, his eyes boring into Kana's— "just remember—we have to have that base!"

"Yes, sir."

The trail ran along a broad ledge from which the snow had been scoured by the night winds. Below was the dull, dark green of twisted trees and a gray expanse laced with white where tempest-driven waves beat upon the water-worn rocks of the western seashore.

Kana's pace slowed as he looked out over that heaving floor of water. Winged creatures wheeled, dipped, and screamed over the narrow strand, seeking out tidbits thrown up by the flow. But, save for them, he might have been viewing an empty world.

No sun shone today and under the pewter clouds the land stretching down to the sea was grim and forbidding.

"We—go—"

Kana started. In all the five hours that they had been traveling together those were the first words the Ventur had spoken. Now the trader hovered impatiently at the far end of the ledge, waiting to climb down to sea level. Traces on the path marked the retreat of the Llor twenty-odd hours before. But there were no signs of any Venturi pursuers.

They had seen no one so far though they had passed numerous sites intended by nature for easy defense. One might well believe that the traders had no wish to protect their territory.

Now the Combatant toiled down the slope to come out upon a well-marked, smoothly surfaced road along the coast. And within a few minutes they did face a Ventur sentry.

The hooded one who kept watch there conferred with the guide while Kana allowed them the privacy these strange people appeared to desire. He did not join them until the wave of a gloved hand brought him to the small building. Out of this the two traders pushed the first mechanical vehicle the Arch had yet seen on Fronn. It was scarcely more than a platform of metal, possessing three wheels, one at each corner of its wedge shape, and no visible motor. The Venturi guide seated himself on the narrow point and motioned Kana to take his place on the wider section behind. Hardly had the Terran pulled his legs under him than they took off—not at the skimming speed a land jopper would have displayed on his native world—but faster than a marching stride.

As they whisked along he saw no indication of any military patrol. It was as if the Venturi, having driven the Llor into the mountains, no longer worried about an attack, which argued an amazing self-confidence with strength to back it.

The road curved and curled, following the natural contours of the shoreline. They came around one such curve to front the Venturi port.

Here the sea bit into the land in a great semicircle of a bay, a natural harbor into which the traders had built a series of wharves. Inshore clustered windowless, high-walled buildings with the look of warehouses and trading depots. It was as they approached these that Kana saw the first signs of the recent battle. But all the Venturi in sight were going about their business with no hurry or confusion. From the odd ships at the wharves—their superstructures completely covered to give them the look of giant turtles—poured a steady stream of goods— Or did it?

The vehicle stopped and Kana got off. No—those ships were being loaded, not unloaded! The flat cars were transporting goods to the sea, not away from it. It was apparent that the traders were stripping the depot—it had all the signs of an orderly evacuation.

"Come—"

Again his Venturi companion hurried him on. They slipped through a maze of lanes between the buildings, hugging the walls at times to avoid swiftly moving cars piled with bundles and bales. And at last they came to a smaller structure so close to the sea that the waters dashed up on its outer wall.