City Of The Living Dead

Chapter 21

The march of the Warland villagers started off with a literal bang, but rapidly became a first-class headache for Richard Blade. The villagers had great enthusiasm and great endurance, but they had no real discipline. They straggled behind, they ran on ahead, they made camp when and where they pleased, they built fires until Blade was sure the smoke would warn the Shoba's army. None of the men would willingly follow the orders of any chief but his own, and none of the chiefs would take orders from anybody at all except Blade and Naran. Blade was certain these people would be brave enough on the battlefield-if he could get them that far without throttling half of them in sheer frustration. He was not at all sure if that courage would be enough against the disciplined advance and firepower of the Shoba's infantry or the hammering charges of his cavalry.

The villagers could not really hope to face the Shoba's army in the open field. Neither could the people and androids of Mak'loh, not when the Shoba's archers could outrange the shock rifles. How could they avoid such a battle, though, unless the Shoba's men could be baited into an attack on the city itself?

Blade's beard grew longer and his temper grew shorter as he led the twelve thousand villagers in a wide swing to the south. They came up on the opposite side of the city from the Shoba's army and made camp under cover of the forest beyond the range of the enemy's scouts. It was five days since they'd passed through the breach in the Wall.

Luck was on their side. The Shoba's commanders knew their business well-too well to risk dispersing their forces in the face of an enemy whose powers had not yet been fully revealed. So they set up a vast, fortified camp three miles from the northern edge of the city. That was well beyond the range of the mortars, and Blade wondered at first if the enemy had guessed Mak'loh's secret weapon. A quick flight over the camp set his doubts to rest. The camp site had been chosen because it lay between two streams, and therefore had plenty of fresh water.

The camp was a formidable thing, a square over a mile on a side. It was surrounded by a protective ditch, high earth embankments, and a palisade of sharpened logs on top of the embankment. It would take the mortars to do much against the camp, but to get within range they would have to be brought out of the city. In that case they'd have to be protected, and protecting them against the Shoba's army would take every man the city and the villagers had between them. Otherwise, the mortars would be quickly overrun, and with them would go Mak'loh's best chance of victory.

It would have to be a battle in the open field, however unsuited this weirdly assorted army Blade led might be for such a battle. He resigned himself to this fact and set about planning the best tactics.

The Shoba's army kept a close watch on the northern wall of the city. In fact, they cleared all the ground between their camp and the city until nothing larger than a rabbit could get in or out without being noticed. On the other three sides of the city, they kept watch with nothing more than occasional cavalry patrols. They seemed to be waiting for Mak'loh to show its hand.

Blade would be happy to let them wait as long as they pleased. The night after the Warlands army made camp, a convoy of trucks rolled out of a gate in the south wall of the city. It brought to the camp a month's food and the promised two thousand shock rifles, then returned before dawn brought the enemy's patrols. Doubtless the drun-riders saw the wheel tracks, but could not follow them up. Druns were stronger than horses and faster on level ground, but much less surefooted. As long as the villagers were shielded by the forest, they'd be safe from detection.

A number of Geetro's people came out in the convoy to instruct the villagers in using the rifles. Blade gave them their orders, then flew back into the city, and sat down with Geetro and Sela to make their plans for the battle.

Mak'loh had a number of assets that could give it a resounding victory if they were properly used. There were the mortars. There were the six-wheeled trucks. There were the robots-the last few Watchers and all the work models. There were the thousands upon thousands of worker androids. They could build or tear down anything that might be needed for any plans Blade might make. Finally, there was the wall around the city. Blade had often cursed it, for Twana had died there. Now he was grateful for it. It kept the Shoba's men out of the streets of Mak'loh and completely concealed from them anything that might go on there. The androids patrolled it too well for anyone to climb it. The Shoba's men could only stare at it from a distance and wonder who and what lay behind it.

Dawn, and Blade was climbing up through the branches of a tree on the edge of the forest nearest the enemy's camp. The leaves were still damp.

He found a high branch that would bear his weight and crawled out on it. The camp was already coming awake in the gray light, with drums and trumpets, smoke curling up from cook fires, and the clink of armor and thud of feet as the night guard marched in and the morning guard marched out. Both lines of men marched with the snap and precision Blade had always seen in the Shoba's men. Their discipline and training were unbroken.

Surrounded by their own palisade, three wooden siege towers rose to the left of the camp. Each tower stood fifty feet high and was mounted on solid wheels that were sections of whole trees. Three more were under construction. All six would soon be spearheading an assault on the walls of Mak'loh. They would be virtually invulnerable to the shock rifles or to any weapon the Warlanders carried. As Blade had expected, it wasn't safe to leave the initiative to the Shoba's soldiers. They could do too much with it. An army like that had to be confronted with an attack so violent and so sudden that it simply couldn't react fast enough.

Behind him under cover of the forest lay the twelve thousand fighting men of the Warlands villages. They were stripped to weapons and loinguards for speed and ease of movement. Their chiefs walked among them now, promising death to any man who held back or who spoke above a whisper before the High Chief Blade gave the signal. They needed surprise.

Beyond the camp, the rising sun was beginning to strike fire from the high towers of Mak'loh. Blade had lived among them for so long that he'd forgotten their beauty. Now he was more aware of that beauty than ever before, with the heightened awareness that sometimes came to him as he waited for battle.

He'd have to wait for quite a while this morning. Sela and Geetro had to make the first move.

Sela stood at the head of her company and looked behind her. Three thousand humans and six thousand soldier androids were drawn up in lines by the city wall. Around them on the other three sides rose lower walls, built from demolished buildings by the hordes of worker androids. Anyone coming in through the new gates in the city wall would find himself boxed in by these walls. He would then find himself under fire from android riflemen and even the mortars.

Sela hoped the mortars wouldn't be needed to hold the city today. They could do so much more in the battle in the open that was now less than half an hour away. Much depended on how fast the Shoba's men responded to Mak'loh's challenge, of course. Blade thought they wouldn't resist a chance to crush a weaker foe, and Sela hoped he was right.

Sela raised her hand and signalled. Three sharp explosions sounded from the city wall. The metal plates that disguised both sides of the new gates tottered and fell, inward and outward. Sela looked through the center gate to see green grass rolling away toward the distant sprawling mass of the enemy's camp.

Then she raised her hand again, fired her rifle into the air, and led her people toward the gateways.

Sela's humans and androids came out of the gates faster than Blade had dared hope. There would be no danger of the Shoba's army launching a quick attack in the hope of catching their enemy divided and unformed. Good. Such an attack might not win the battle for the Shoba, but it would certainly make it far more costly for Mak'loh. It would probably mean Sela's death, at the very least.

Before the Shoba's soldiers realized what was going on, nearly all of Sela's army was out of the city. Then the trumpets and drums began to sound, building into a steady din that was almost painfully loud even to Blade. The soldiers ignored it, bustling around with the furious purposefulness of ants. A thousand riders mounted up and trotted out to support the morning guard. Another column marched off to protect the siege towers. Other detachments went off to guard the camp and the slaves. All the rest formed into a massive column and marched out of the camp toward Sela's army.

By that time Sela had formed her army for battle, with two lines of androids in front and a third line of humans. A small reserve of androids stood behind the humans. It was a simple formation, as Blade had intended. His total plan for today's battle was complex, but each individual piece of it was fairly simple. It had to be that way-no one under his command was really a trained soldier. If the Shoba's men had come two years later- But they hadn't.

Now the Shoba's army was nearly all out of the camp and forming up for battle. With their gleaming armor and bristling weapons, the Shoba's men looked far more warlike and ferocious than Mak'loh's army with its coveralls and rifles. They formed a line stretching two miles from end to end; and they moved forward with drums, trumpets, and the steady thud of more than thirty thousand pairs of marching feet. The archers led this time, with the musketeers behind. On the flanks rode the cavalry, their massed druns looking like great patches of some weird fungus creeping across the earth. In the gaps between the massed infantry, the cannon rolled forward.

Blade was impressed. It was easy to say that the Shoba's army was formidable. It was another thing to see it going into action and realize just how formidable it was, how much work had gone into creating that discipline and those well-chosen formations.

Blade hoped Sela's army would not crumble away at the mere sight of the enemy's advance. The androids would probably not retreat without human orders, but if panic swept the humans ….

Now the Shoba's army was within mortar range of the city. They were coming straight down to the attack, as Blade had hoped. He shifted his gaze to the camp. Soldiers were still moving about inside the palisade, but only a comparative handful. Three or four thousand, at most-not enough to defend the camp against any serious attack, if the palisade were breached.

Silver-gray smoke suddenly gushed up behind Sela's army, swiftly forming into a wall. Blade shrugged. That wasn't quite according to plan. Apparently Sela had decided her people could no longer simply stand and watch the enemy come at them. They had to do something. So she'd ordered the smokescreen laid down. A little ahead of time, to be sure. But of all the things she could have done, it was the one least likely to alarm the enemy.

In fact, it didn't seem to be alarming the enemy at all. The cavalry was reining in, but it didn't matter whether it charged or not. The infantry was marching steadily on, and now the range was down to no more than five hundred yards. They would be within easy range for the mortars inside the walls of Mak'loh.

Sela saw the enemy's cannon pulling to a stop and their crews scurrying about to load and aim them. She felt a cold fluttering in her stomach at the thought of those balls of solid iron smashing into her people. She hoped she'd done enough to steady them, by ordering the smokescreen laid down.

Brrroooommm. A long, ragged explosion, as half a dozen of the cannon went off together. A ripping sound overhead, like an enormous piece of fabric tearing apart. Then thuds and screams as the balls struck. They'd landed among the reserve androids to the rear. A shiver went along all three lines. Sela tried to will every set of feet in her army to stay rooted to the ground.

The advancing enemy was slowing down. The archers took two extra steps as the musketeers behind them stopped. Then they nocked arrows, drew, and let fly.

Ten thousand arrows whistled down on Sela's army. She heard screams of both fear and pain as they struck, but not many. Every human and android wore a helmet and new armor that protected not only the body but the limbs. Ten thousand arrows that should have cut down half the army killed and wounded less than a hundred.

Without raising her head, Sela lifted her radio to her lips and spoke quickly. «They've opened fire, Geetro. Time for the mortars.»

«Understood, Sela.» A faint chuckle, then silence.

A second volley of arrows whistled down, and a third. Then there was a long pause. The Shoba's archers seemed to have trouble understanding why the enemy was still on its feet after so many arrows pumped into the ranks. They began to shoot individually at picked targets, rather than in massed volleys.

Before they could shoot many more arrows, the first mortar salvo arrived. Twelve short savage whistles were followed by twelve thunderous explosions. Twelve columns of smoke mushroomed up, carrying with them weapons, bits of armor, chunks of flesh. Around the base of each column was a wide circle where mangled soldiers lay or crawled blindly, as if a giant hand had crushed them flat. The explosions died away. There was a moment of silence, broken only by the screams of the wounded and the whistles as a few hardy archers let fly. Then the second mortar salvo came down, the shells falling almost where the first twelve had. Again the smoke and the flying pieces of what had been human beings; again the ear-pounding roars, again the screams.

Sela raised her rifle and fired twice into the air. On either side of her, human and androids dashed forward. A few went down to lucky arrows. More started to go down as the archers realized they were facing a charge and began shooting flat instead of lofting their arrows, hitting unprotected faces. Musketeers swarmed forward and opened fire. White smoke spread along the enemy's front, joining the gray smoke of the mortar bursts. The cannon kept shooting, and some of their balls plowed into Sela's advancing lines.

None of it did any good. A hundred and fifty yards from the enemy more than eight thousand humans and androids of Mak'loh threw themselves flat on the ground. They raised their rifles and their grenade launchers, and suddenly the air between them and the enemy seemed to turn into white fire.

Now it was as if the great hand had slapped every soldier in the Shoba's front rank in the face. They went down by the hundreds, lying still or kicking furiously, eyes staring, faces bleeding or blackened, smoking patches on chest or stomach or thigh. The riflemen didn't try to aim; they simply pointed their weapons and held down the triggers.

A rapid pop-pop-pop sounded as powder exploded in muskets or in musketeer's pouches. A louder series of explosions crashed out, as the grenades started falling around the cannon. The men were suddenly bloody rags, the cannon sagged as wheels were smashed, and barrels of gunpowder ready for loading went off with terrifying roars. On top of it all, the mortar shells still came down, the salvoes growing ragged as some crews fired faster than others.

Now the commanders must have started giving orders, because the Shoba's men began to move back. It was an orderly retreat by men who hadn't lost their courage or forgotten their skills, in spite of the sudden horrors all around them. Both musketeers and archers kept their faces to the enemy and kept firing. They didn't hit very often. Sela's people stayed flat on the ground as they fired. A rifle had the edge over a bow or a musket that way. A man did not have to stand to use it or even load it.

They left bodies behind every step of the way, but eventually the Shoba's men drew out of rifle range. Sela kept her people from leaping up and dashing in pursuit. That would bring them under the mortars, and Blade had many horrible tales of what happened to soldiers who ran in under their own artillery. Sela thought that seeing what the mortars did would be enough. There were broad patches of ground completely carpeted with bodies, not one of them intact, and sodden with blood and pulped flesh.

As if her thought of him had conjured him up, Blade's voice sounded on the radio.

«Sela, hold your position. We're moving out against the camp now. Geetro, it's time for the mobile column to go to work. Are they ready?»

She heard Geetro's voice saying, «Yes,» quietly, then heard him shout:

«Mobile column-mount up and move out!»

Blade scrambled down the tree as if it were catching fire, the High Chief's collar bumping and bruising him with every movement. He'd seen the mortars and Sela's people do their work on the Shoba's army. Now it was the turn of the second wave-the mobile column of trucks carrying riflemen and the mortars, and the Warlanders attacking the great camp.

On the lowest branch of the tree, Blade stopped, unslung his rifle, and fired it three times. He heard shouts and more rifle fire from behind him and hoped none of the villagers had hit any of their comrades in their enthusiasm. Then he scrambled down the last twenty feet of the tree and ran forward. Behind him the forest came alive with the crackling branches and scurrying feet as the Warlanders stormed forward.

They came out of the forest and onto the open ground that stretched a mile and a half to the camp. Now they could run even faster. They splashed through a shallow stream as if it weren't there, except for some athletes who leaped it at a single bound. Some of the men fell, others staggered along with twisted ankles, many began to sweat and pant. None of them slowed down as long as they could put one foot in front of the other.

Blade was out ahead of all of them. The camp grew steadily larger ahead. White smoke dotted the top of the palisade as musketeers on guard let fly. The range was impossibly long, but the sight of twelve thousand men running toward them was enough to unnerve even soldiers of the Shoba.

They might be unnerved in the camp, but they could still hold it if the palisade were unbroken. The mortars were supposed to break it open, but where the devil were they? Blade had an unpleasant moment of wondering if the villagers were going to be caught out with an intact palisade. They could be cut to pieces if that happened.

He tried to signal the men behind him to slow down, but they were all too blind with fatigue or excitement or both to pay any attention. The charge swept on toward the camp, and Blade knew that all he could do was lead it and hope.

Sela ran along the lines of her army. Both humans and androids were already at work binding up minor wounds and laying out the dead. Nobody seemed to be ready to lie down unless they were dying or crippled. The courage she saw raised her spirits, while the amount of blood she saw soaking into the ground made her mouth tighten into a grim line.

She reached the far right flank of her army as the mobile column roared out of the smoke behind her.

There were more than a hundred trucks in the column. Ten carried mortars and their crews and ammunition. The rest were packed with android riflemen and humans with grenade throwers. Their sides were built up chest-high with heavy plastic that would stop an arrow or a musket ball. In front each carried a ten-foot metal bar, curved like a bow and studded with foot-long spikes.

On the open ground that the Shoba's men themselves had cleared of all trees and bushes, the trucks could move at nearly their full speed. They poured out of the smoke in a wild uproar of whining, growling engines, rumbling wheels, humans and androids shouting or cursing. None of the riders fired. They had strict orders not to. They only hung on grimly as the trucks swung in a great circle toward the flank of the Shoba's army.

As the trucks came on, trumpets called to the cavalry. A thousand lances dipped, and the hooves of a thousand druns made even more noise than the mobile column. The mortar carriers at the rear of the column slowed down and turned off toward the camp. The others rolled straight on toward the oncoming cavalry.

The Shoba's cavalry and Mak'loh's mobile column closed. Arrows plunged into the solid masses of bodies in the backs of the trucks. Humans and androids tumbled out, to writhe or be crushed flat under the wheels of another truck. Rifles flared and grenades arched out, to pick riders out of their saddles or blow druns limb from limb.

Flesh and blood crashed into metal. Sela put her hands over her ears and closed her eyes. Her mind was simply not made to see and hear what was happening to the Shoba's cavalry, not without breaking. After a little while, though, she forced herself to open her eyes.

She saw druns and their riders going down and trucks crushing them into pulp. She saw other druns impaled on the spikes the trucks thrust in front of them and carried along screaming and writhing. She saw a lance drive through the bubble cab of one truck and skewer the driver. She saw a truck hit a pile of fallen bodies at full speed and flip high into the air, turning end over end and spilling out all its riders. She saw dismounted cavalrymen and dismounted androids rolling over and over, kicking and writhing, like some weird animal with four arms and four legs. She saw five hundred of the Shoba's cavalry die, and the other five hundred break and flee. A shiver went through the infantry when they saw that, and Sela felt like cheering. There were things that could shake the solid courage of the Shoba's men.

Then she saw the mortar trucks stopping and the crews leaping out, pulling their clumsy weapons with them and setting them up. She saw the smoke puffs as the mortars opened fire, and finally she saw the familiar smoke columns begin to rise around the camp.

Were the mortars in time to keep Blade from having to throw his mob of villagers against the camp's unbroken defenses? She knew that if that happened, he would die with them. He was that sort of man. If he had been a man of Mak'loh, not of England… Ah well, Geetro was not to be despised.

Blade was fifty yards out in front of his men and less than a — hundred yards from the ditch around the fort. Then the first mortar shells struck. They fell inside the camp. He saw the flying bodies and heard the screams. Good shooting, but not good enough. They had to break the palisade, the eight-foot wall of spike-pointed logs, and they had to break it soon.

The mortar shells started coming down faster now. Blade was almost up to the ditch before the first one struck near the palisade. The logs were cut from full-sized trees, and they would resist anything except a direct hit. Blade hurled himself across the ditch, clawed at the far bank, struggled to hold on to his rifle, and finally pulled himself up onto the level ground. Arrows and musket balls started biting into the earth around him as he stood up and ran on toward the palisade. It loomed higher with every step he took.

Behind him the Warlanders were coming up to the ditch. Some carried ladders or rough planks they threw down and crossed the ditch on those. Others carried bundles of brushwood on their backs and threw those into the ditch until it was filled. A few bold spirits tried to leap across, imitating Blade. Most of those fell into the ditch and floundered about in the mud of the bottom, screaming and swearing. Their comrades dashed up to the palisade on Blade's heels.

The logs were still unbroken when Blade reached them, but for only a moment more after that. A mortar shell came down squarely on top of a cluster of archers on the raised firing platform. The palisade opened like a mouth, spewing flame, smoke, mangled bodies, and chunks of logs. It spewed its mouthful into the faces of the Warlanders, and some of them went down. Others stopped and hung back. Blade saw the danger of the whole attack faltering at the exact moment when it might succeed. He ran toward the gap in the palisade, ignoring the fragments from other mortar bursts whistling about his ears. He found time to shout into his radio:

«Geetro, we're at the camp. Stop those damned mortars-now!»

He got no answer. Then he ran up to the gap and plunged through it, just as another mortar shell burst among the enemy soldiers gathering to defend it. Blade threw himself on his face, and only the blast touched him. The soldiers ready to cut him down took all the fragments. Blade rose to his feet, not quite steady and bleeding from the nose. He took a slow step forward, raised his rifle, saw more enemy soldiers running up to block his path, and charged.

He charged with his rifle wide open, firing from the hip. A dozen men went down before the power cell burned out. Blade snatched it clear, ignoring scorched fingers, but didn't have time to reload. The enemy were all around him. He fought with rifle-butt and bayonet, stabbing throats and cracking skulls, until a sword hacked through the barrel of the rifle. He drew the sword at his belt and hacked a large, clear circle around him. In the process he left an equally large circle of bodies on the ground at his feet.

Then his lone fight was over. The mortar shells stopped falling, and the Warlanders poured in through the gap behind him. They fired their rifles with more enthusiasm than accuracy, shot arrows, swung swords and axes. They nearly trampled Blade into the ground in their desire to come to grips with the Shoba's men.

Blade saw Naran pass, carried on the shoulders of two strong men. The chief carried a rifle and fired as he rode. Each of his bearers carried a spear, and, as they passed enemy corpses, thrust deeply into them to make sure they would stay dead. Then half a dozen men were lifting Blade, and on their shoulders he rode forward after Naran, to the taking of the camp.

The Shoba's men in the camp fought well. For every two of them who died, a Warlands villager also went down. But there were three times as many attackers as there were defenders, so as savage as it was, the battle for the camp did not last long. In half an hour Blade was able to stand beside Naran on top of one of the captured siege towers and watch the last stage of the battle of Mak'loh.

Sela and Geetro joined, and their combined forces moved against the Shoba's army. The riflemen and grenadiers fired from the trucks and from the ground. Overhead the mortars hurled their shells into the enemy's ranks. The Shoba's army gave ground, slowly at first, then not so slowly. They held together longer than any army Blade had ever seen would have done against such an attack.

In the end, though, they gave way. They left the field in good order, but they left it very nearly at a run. They left behind their camp, all their supplies and guns, and nearly half their comrades. The mobile column chased them out of sight, to make sure they went on retreating and didn't try a surprise assault on the city walls somewhere else. Along with the trucks went the last few Watchers, fighting their last battle.

At first Blade was disappointed. He liked the kind of thorough victory that left not one enemy soldier alive and free. Then he realized that perhaps things could be worse. True, if the Shoba got half his army back, he might launch another attack. Let him. With the menace of the Shoba still hanging over them, Mak'loh and the villagers would be forced to stand together.

They had an uneasy alliance. Without a common enemy, it might break up over any one of a dozen issues, starting with the division of the loot from the camp. With an enemy still to face, the alliance might last for many years, until each people could stand on its own. By then, perhaps, each people would also have developed some trust and regard for the other.

So perhaps it was better that some of the Shoba's men were getting away. Mak'loh and the Warlanders might not see how much they needed each other unless somebody forced them. He himself would not be around long enough to do the job; that was certain.

Sela and Geetro didn't enter the camp until the day was fading into twilight. By that time Blade had things sorted out as well as possible. Slaves and prisoners had been counted, guards set, and everyone fed. He greeted Sela and Geetro sitting on the ground, leaning against the nearest backrest. That happened to be the head of a sniffer sprawled on its side. Dead or merely stunned? Blade didn't know and didn't care. He did know that he hadn't slept for nearly two days, and he'd been operating at nearly top speed for several weeks before that. He was not precisely getting old, but he was no longer fresh out of Oxford either.

«Hail, Blade,» said Geetro, with an elaborate bow. Sela joined him, although she burst out laughing as she straightened up: After a moment, so did Geetro.

«So-it is done,» Sela said. «Blade, do we need to waste breath thanking you?»

It was Blade's turn to laugh. «Not at all,» he said. Then, more grimly, he said, «There are many dead and wounded tonight in Mak'loh, who will not be thanking me at all.»

«True,» said Geetro. «But which is better-some dead now, or all dead in another hundred years? When those are the only choices, I think even those who have died would wonder. Those who live are sure. Blade, Mak'loh owes you whatever chance it has for a future. May we have the wisdom to make good use of the chance you have given us.»

«I share that hope,» said Sela. «But what about the villagers of the Warlands? I think it may not be so easy to keep their friendship and get them to work with us.»

Blade smiled. Sensible, clear-sighted Sela, keeping her mind on the practical matters and letting Geetro make the grand gestures and use the high-flown words.

«I don't think the villagers will be any problem, as long as there is danger of the Shoba attacking. I would suggest that you deal with Naran as much as possible, for as long as he lives. Don't assume he's got more power than he has though. He always has to take the advice of the other chiefs, and sometimes-sometimes-«Blade put a hand to his temple, as his head whirled in a spasm of dizziness.

«Blade, were you wounded?» asked Geetro. «I should… «

«No,» said Blade. «I wasn't wounded. I think…»

Then he could no longer speak, because his head was suddenly a roaring whirlpool of pain that swirled faster and faster. It sucked him in, although he fought to hold onto the world around him. He saw Geetro and Sela leap forward to grip him, but he felt nothing. They felt nothing either-he saw that clearly on their faces. He was as intangible to them as the air. He felt the rifle slung across his chest, he felt the great collar of golden bars around his neck, he thought he felt the rough hide of the sniffer's head under his hand.

Then he no longer thought or felt, as the whirlpool of pain sucked him down, out of everything into nothing.