The Wizardry Cursed

Thirty-four: REC0N BATTLE

For three days they trekked across the plain. The tree-studded veldt gave way to grassy savanna and the grass grew shorter and sparser. The soil was brick red now and vegetation grew poorly. Water was something you found in greenish sinks instead of rivers or streams and trees became a memory.

Several times they saw large columns of dust to the north, as if distant armies were on the march. They tried to go between them and saw nothing. The herds had been left behind them on the veldt and now even the antelopelike runners were scarce.

There were signs, however. Twice they crossed ground which had been torn up by treads. Once the tread marks were accompanied by what appeared to be enormous footprints, as if some unimaginable two-legged beast had been following the vehicles.

On mid-afternoon of the third day they were approaching a low ridge of reddish earth when Karin called a sudden halt.

"Wait." She held up her hand and dug something out of her pouch. "There is magic ahead of us."

Gilligan reached for his gun. "What kind?"

"It doesn’t tell me that, only…"

With a thundering roar a tank burst over the hill. Beside it came three two-legged robots, springing forward on back-flexing limbs. While the tank nosed up and over the hill, the robots leaped over the ridge like giant grasshoppers.

Stigi reared back, wings spread and neck extended, and roared a challenge. Karin dropped to one knee and had the bow off her shoulder and an arrow nocked in one fluid motion. Without seeming to aim she fired at the tank.

The arrow hit the tank’s armor without seeming effect. With a roar of its engine it continued down the hill straight at the party.

"Run for it!" Gilligan yelled and dashed to his left to try to circle the attackers. Seeing his action, Karin broke right.

Stigi had a different idea. The dragon inhaled and blasted a gout of flame straight ahead, bathing the tank in fire. The flame splashed off the tank, but here and there it caught. A tiny tongue of orange licked out of the deck behind the turret. It spouted thick black smoke and grew larger. The tank stopped and the tongue turned into a gout of orange and black as something in the machine’s engine compartment caught.

Meanwhile Karin had dropped to her knee and fired another arrow at one of the robots. Again her aim was true and again the robot continued to advance apparently unheeding.

Karin tried to run again, but as she rose she got tangled in the lower limb of her bow and went sprawling into the sand. She rolled to the side and threw her arm up in a futile attempt to shield herself from the advancing robot.

The robot never noticed. It continued unerringly straight toward the place where she had been. Then it emitted a despairing whine and toppled into the sand beside her.

Karin looked up, shook sand from her eyes and tried to locate Mick and Stigi.

Mick’s sudden dash had attracted the attention of two of the robots and now he was frantically dodging blasts of energy from their snout cannon. By a combination of broken field running and dive-and-roll, he had managed to stay ahead of them so far, but the robots had split up and they were coming at him from different directions.

Karin grabbed another arrow, but Stigi reached Mick first. With a roar, the dragon charged full on into one of the robots, catching it at knee level in a way that would have earned him a clipping penalty if they had been playing football. The robot lurched forward onto its snout, then got its feet under it and tried to rise.

It got halfway up when a whipping blow from Stigi’s tail hammered it to the ground again. This time the robot didn’t try to rise. It swiveled its body around to face the on-rushing dragon and let loose with a bolt from its cannon.

Fortunately energy cannons don’t work any better than regular ones when the barrel is full of sand. There was a muffled "whump" and the cannon barrel glowed cherry red and went limp. Stigi grabbed the fifteen-foot-tall robot in his powerful jaws and shook it the way a terrier shakes a rat, slamming it into the ground and tossing it into the air until pieces began to fly off.

Meanwhile, Karin’s arrow had found the third robot. It took two more steps and collapsed with the iron arrow sticking straight out of its back.

Craig frowned at the glowing display. He had sent a light scout force scooting along the southern edge of the play area to try to get behind his opponent’s main body. Now something had knocked them out.

Sending a stronger force south to engage whatever his scouts had hit was bad strategy. It would dilute his main strength. He decided to send a recon flier south to check it out. Then he turned his attention back to the battle that was shaping up between his warbot columns and his enemy’s main force. If he worked quickly enough he might be able to catch them in a pincer.

"Mick, are you all right?"

Gilligan put his hands on his knees and bent forward to take deep, heaving breaths. He was too winded to talk so he shook his head and made a waving off motion to Karin.

Mechanically, Karin walked over to the third robot and pulled her arrow out of its back.

"Stigi, release!" she commanded. With a clank and a clatter, the dragon reluctantly dropped its much-mangled new toy so Karin could retrieve her arrow.

By this time Mick had gotten enough breath back to stand up and look around. Off in the distance he could see plumes of dust rising into the burning sky. Karin was staring intently at the flaming mass that had been the tank.

"Come on!" Gilligan grabbed her arm.

"But my arrow!"

"We don’t have time," he panted. "Let’s get the hell out of here before reinforcements arrive."

She nodded and they set off, Karin at a fast walk, Gilligan at an exhausted shamble and Stigi, prancing from pride, bringing up the rear.

After about a half a mile, they stopped for a moment to get their bearings and let Mick catch his breath.

"Were those more of your people’s creations?" Karin asked.

"The only place I’ve seen stuff like that is on Saturday morning cartoons." He caught her puzzled look. "No, we don’t have anything like that."

"The enemy then."

"Whatever they were before it’s a safe bet they are our enemies now." He looked out at the dust clouds in the distance.

"I’ll bet they are not alone either."

"Probably not," Karin said in a small voice. Then she put her head up. "We must go more carefully and quietly," she added more firmly.

"What we must do," Mick told her, "is get the hell out of here while we still have the opportunity."

"You are free to go."

"Look, we dodged the bullet this time, but only barely. What do we do if we meet a bigger force? And another thing. That unit is going to be missed. This place has about as much cover as a billiard table and when they start looking we’re going to stand out like bugs on a plate."

"We must find out more," Karin said stubbornly.

Mick threw up his hands.

"All right, but if we’re going to commit suicide, let’s at least do it intelligently. Let’s find some cover and rest while we work out the best approach."

Finding cover turned out to be easier said than done. Finally they discovered a deep wash that offered some protection from ground level observation. Stigi hunkered down against the bank and made like a rock and Karin and Mick sat in the shade near his head.

"We had best move only at night from now on," Karin said as she dropped down next to Gilligan. "That way they cannot see us."

"Don’t bet on it. There’s a real good chance at least some of that equipment has infrared sensors. At night we will stand out even better."

"What do you suggest then? Aside from turning back?"

"I think we’d better look for cover. The land’s been getting drier ever since we left our old campsite, so I don’t think we’re going to find any forests. But its also been rising. I’d be willing to bet that there are places not far from here that are cut up by arroyos and canyons. That’s not as good as trees but it will give us some cover."

Karin nodded. "Since the land rises off to the east, that is the way we should go then."

She stopped and frowned. "What is that sound?"

Gilligan’s hearing was damaged from years around jet engines, but he heard it too, a low, hissing whine. Unlike Karin he knew what it was.

"Get down!" he shouted.

The black bat shape glided over the gully without stopping or turning. There was no time to hide. Mick and Karin froze where they were. Stigi opened an eye and for an awful moment Mick was afraid the dragon would stick his head up to see what was going on, but there were no interesting smells or sounds so the dragon decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

Eventually the flier meandered off to the south and finally over the horizon. They stayed frozen a long minute more and then relaxed.

"A scout?" Karin said shakily.

"Probably. Trying to find those things we knocked out."

"Then we had best move quickly. Perhaps we can reach those hills you spoke of by nightfall."

She signalled Stigi to his feet and Gilligan shouldered his pack.

"What the hell is that?" Mikey demanded. He had taken his time coming in answer to Craig’s urgent summons and he obviously wasn’t happy about being called to give a second opinion on a piece of metal.

"I think it’s an arrow. We found it sticking in the hull of a burned-out tank on the edge of the wargame area," Craig told him. "I don’t know how it works yet, but it’s magic somehow."

"And all metal, too. What have you got out there? Robot Indians?"

"Whatever it is did a number on one of my Troll class tanks and three Springer Warbots. One of them was all messed up, like it had been run over by a bulldozer."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"I just figured you should know about it."

"All right, I know. What are you going to do?"

"I’m going to send some more patrols down that way. And mount more sensors on the stuff I’m testing." He paused. "Oh yeah, I’m going to send drones out to map and scout this whole fucking island. Maybe there’s something out there we ought to know about."

He looked at Mikey. "I thought maybe you had some magic or technology or something that could help," he said hesitantly.

"Shit," Mikey said informatively.

"Huh."

"I said shit. S-h-i-t. Shit. That’s what all this robot stuff is. It’s shit."

"How are we going to fight without weapons?" Craig demanded.

"And you call those weapons?" Mikey sneered. "Things that can be wiped out by arrows."

He came around the table and moved close to Craig. "Listen to me, little man. The ones who brought us here have got power you can’t imagine. They gave us the ability to create fucking anything and what do you do? You waste your time with comic book toys."

"They’re not toys!" Craig yelled. "They’re the most powerful weapons man has yet devised!"

"Man has yet devised," Mikey mimicked. "That’s how limited your thinking is. This hasn’t got anything to do with man. We’re beyond man." He stepped back and grew calmer. "You were a mistake, do you know that? Instead of spending your time really learning about how to dominate worlds, you hide down here with your toys. Why don’t you come up to the real world and let the Ur-elves show you what power is?"

"I don’t like them," Craig mumbled. "They make me uncomfortable."

"And because you’re uncomfortable you won’t take advantage of what we’re offered. Christ Jesus! Play with your toys. You’re too fucking pathetic to do anything else!" With that he turned and stomped off.

He stopped at the door. "Oh yeah. From now on, if you’ve got anything to say to me, you come see me."

"Goddamn motherfucker sonofabitch!" Craig screamed at the door. That arrogant bag of shit! Just tossing it off like all the work he’d done was nothing. Just didn’t count next to his high and mighty projects.

He grabbed the iron arrow off the table and threw it against the wall. It clanged off and the wastebasket scuttled under it to catch it as it fell.

Goddamn that sonofabitch! Why, he could take on NATO and the Warsaw Pact and stomp them both with what he had here. There wasn’t an army on earth that could stand against what was here in the castle and out in the wargame area.

With an angry gesture he turned on the scanner. The central display showed the arrays of forces in neat green and gold symbols. Around the edges were six smaller screens, each showing a view of part of the battlefield in full color. The units were poised and ready. Except for scouts nothing had moved since he found the destroyed patrol.

Looking at the main map he saw that a platoon of green tanks was just over a small rise from a battalion of yellow armor. Perfect situation for the kind of fast-moving ambush he loved. With the mouse he turned both units on and took control of the green force. Quickly he moved them into position hull down behind the ridge and opened fire on the advancing battalion at barely 200 yards.

Six yellow tanks died in the first salvo and four more before the yellows could return fire. Their first shots were ineffective but they were maneuvering for cover and the next green shots only destroyed two more tanks.

Twelve to nothing. It was the time to scoot, but Craig held his ground, firing salvo after salvo into the deploying yellow forces.

Now it wasn’t all one-sided. The yellow battalion had taken cover and was returning accurate fire. The battalion’s SP battery opened up, walking volleys of tank-killing shells toward his platoon’s position. First one and then another of his green tanks blew up and turned dark.

"Goddamn you!" Craig yelled and ordered his remaining tanks to charge directly into the lead elements of the battalion, all guns firing. He lost two more tanks in the wild charge and then he ran the survivors head-on into the remains of the battalion’s transport section. Tanks ground over jeeps, butted trucks off the road and smashed scout cars. Then the battalion artillery began firing into its own supply train and in seconds it was all over.

Craig screamed in frustration and scanned the board. There was a section of warbots in the next hex over, 130-ton monsters with limited flight capability. They were also on the gold side, but that didn’t matter. Taking direct command of the unit, Craig sent them hurtling toward the armored battalion even as it reorganized for the march.

The battalion was massacred before it could even deploy again. Salvo after salvo of missiles tore through the armored column. Multi-gigawatt battle lasers raked it from end to end, blowing up tanks and simply melting smaller vehicles. Finally the warbots themselves closed, smashing tanks beneath their enormous feet and picking up vehicles and flinging them for hundreds of yards.

"Yes!" Craig yelled and hunched over the screen. As fast as he could move the mouse he ordered a general engagement. Everything was to attack everything else.

What had been a relatively well-planned large-scale exercise turned into a mechanical armageddon. From one end to the other the central plain of the exercise area blazed with explosions, laser blasts and burning vehicles and robots. Artillery batteries fired on the units they were supposed to be supporting or turned their guns on each other. Recklessly tanks crashed together. Warbots tore other warbots limb from mechanical limb.

Where the battle wasn’t fierce enough or the destruction great enough, Craig took direct command of his units, overriding their carefully programmed tactics in an urge to slaughter. Blind and unheeding, robots charged forward in obedience to their master’s command. They didn’t even break stride when they reached laser range. Instead they slammed into each other, flailing with their arms and butting their heads against each others’ armored carapaces.

Finally it was over. On all the plain there were no more units capable of movement. Every damaged unit had fired off every available round, even if it meant beating the bare earth senselessly with machine guns. The few units that had ammunition they could not fire set it off in the magazines in an orgy of self-destruction.

Looking down on the destruction he had caused, Craig felt more relaxed. His fury at Mikey had died to a dull resentment. The guy was an asshole, but hey, it didn’t matter much. They’d go into battle soon enough and when they did, Craig would show him what this stuff was worth.

As he rose from his command chair Craig remembered about the scouts. He still needed to scout the rest of the island. Well, he’d start making more tomorrow.