Twilight at the Well of Souls

Dillia

Asam and Mavra Chang looked out on their army. It wasn’t huge, by the standards of the history of the universe, but it was immense in terms of the Well World.

“Six weeks,” Asam muttered to himself, “all this in six weeks.”

She heard him, turned, and smiled. “If we had more time, we’d do even better,” she told him. “The Entries are still coming through.”

It was, in fact, mostly an Entry army, an army composed of creatures that flew, crawled, slithered, spun, and even oozed. Roughly a hundred and fifty to two hundred from something like eighty hexes—eight thousand alien creatures. To that were added over a thousand Dillians, the best chosen by Asam to avenge Dillian honor, and perhaps a thousand more native Well Worlders who decided, on their own or on orders from their governments, to join this side for the fight.

Such an army had several problems, of course, mostly in terms of communications and logistics. Though simply insuring that the commanders of each racial company had translators and using Com speech where possible eased the former quite a bit.

As for feeding the horde, they would take with them what they could and forage what they could not. They were not an army of conquest but one on the move; still, their sense of destiny made them disregard a lot of feelings about property rights where they were going. Almost half the force were herbivores, like the Dillians, and could get along most anywhere even if the fare was less than appetizing. For the rest, well, they’d taken on some provisions but they would never last—or keep—over the long march. Food worried Mavra most of all, since some of the species were perfectly edible to some of the others.

Another problem was that they were getting too many from the west; redundancies better picked up along the way or left to prepare the way. Many simply hadn’t followed instructions, some couldn’t. One couldn’t adequately brief a billion-plus people.

The premium went to weaponry, and some of it was formidable. Nontech hexes required the crossbow, sword, axe, and pike. The Dillians could hold their own there, with some of the others getting training as they went along. In addition to the Dillians some of the others could handle projectile guns. It took very little training to use a submachine gun effectively, only discipline.

It was the high-tech hexes they feared. Dillia could not supply that sort of armament, and precious little could be bought or stolen by a neophyte army reborn naked into this world. And not much could be arranged for in six weeks, either.

“I’m just amazed that so many of the hexes who voted against us are represented here,” Mavra noted. “I would have expected a lot more trouble.”

Asam shrugged. “Not that many hexes will actually lay their lives on the line, no matter how they side politically. There’s a pretty good backlash of feeling that things would be a lot nicer if we’d only go away, which is what we’re trying to do. That’ll intensify when a force this size crosses a border. It’s easy to rattle the saber if the enemy’s five thousand or more kilometers distant.”

She nodded hopefully, then said, “But some will fight.”

“Some will fight,” he agreed. “And the decisive battle they’ll try and force will be a nasty one. Don’t kid yourself on that. A lot of these people will die before this is done.”

That was a sobering thought, and for a while she was silent. Finally she said, “There’s word that a deep-water army is forming, too. Did you know that?”

“I expected as much,” he replied. “Gypsy said we weren’t the only ones—and each hex is getting an equal number of Entries. Remember, Brazil called a lot of his old buddies to him, and there was the crew of your little world. I expect that deepwater force will be necessary, too.” He took out an overall map and studied it.

“You think he’s really going by sea, then?” she asked. “Up the Josele-Wahaca Avenue?”

“Seems logical,” Asam replied. “I’ll bet something is, anyway. This computer of yours, the one that planned this, seems to have been quite a dirty trickster so far.”

She nodded. “And it’s a combination. Obie, Brazil, and Gypsy.” She paused. “Gypsy… I wish I knew more about him. Who he is. What he is. He scares me, even though he’s on our side. He’s like an Obie himself, all that huge computer capacity embodied in one being.”

“But your computer mostly did that sort of thing to other people,” Asam pointed out. “This Gypsy can only do it to himself.”

“So he says,” she retorted. “I’m not sure I totally trust him.”

“Your computer trusted him,” he noted.

She nodded. “But if he has equal power to Obie, then Obie could have been fooled. He’s too convenient, too good to be true.”

“We can’t do anything about it,” he said philosophically. “When the time comes, we’ll know—and then deal with it as best we can. What else can we do?”

She nodded grumpily. As it was, there were too many things in this operation that smelled. Enough to fool Ortega and the Council? She wondered. Who was fooling who?

The army moved. It was fairly easy at first, traveling up through Gedemondas along well-established trails, camping in long lines where possible and posting nocturnals as guardians of the camp. No opposition was expected in Gedemondas, of course, but it worried Asam that, strung out as they were and in cold, high altitudes, they were as vulnerable as they would ever be. Nothing opposed them, though. Gypsy had been correct; they would be unimpeded until Brazil, somewhere, sometime, surfaced.

She had hoped to contact or gather Gedemondans in the passage, but they were out of sight as usual. Occasionally one would be spotted, far off, or they would hear the eerie calls of the great white creatures echoing through mountain passes and around rocky walls, but nothing else. She was more than disappointed; she felt she had gone through that whole damned trip for nothing.

On the western slope of the Gedemondan mountains was a plain, the only flat area in the whole hex. Looking out on it from the high trail, she had the first twinges of memory.

That plain, so empty and peaceful now… She remembered a different time, a time when far different armies converged on that plain for a horribly bloody battle so very long ago.

Down on the flat, the sensations were even greater. They had come through just before the major armies had converged, she recalled. And over there they had met their Dillian guide, by that cabin—no, not that cabin, but the cabin’s predecessor, perhaps. And there from the north, had come the Yaxa on great, soaring orange wings…

She talked about it a lot with Asam, who had become her closest friend and confidant. He was warm and kind and understanding—and fascinated by her memoirs of a great event that he knew only from the dimness of history books.

Alestol, to the south, with its carnivorous plants exuding poisonous and hypnotic gasses, they were happy to bypass. The Alestolians had massed on the border, it was true, but could not get at the army if it didn’t come to Alestol. Although mobile, they were plants, they required occasional rooting in a soil that contained a certain balance of minerals and suspended gasses necessary to their continued existence. That had left Palim as the focus of intense diplomatic activity, with the council and Mavra’s forces playing on the huge, elephantine creatures. Their’s was a highly advanced high-tech hex whose inhabitants weighed in at more than a ton each.

But they were gentle giants; they had withdrawn when the warring forces of the Wars of the Well had approached, working out safe passage for one while taking no sides. There were never more than twenty thousand or so Palims in their entire hex—and, therefore, their entire race. They could see no profit in a fight and had voted abstention on the council. They abstained now.

But a hundred and twenty-one of them, all Entries, all former Olympians, joined the force. They were welcome. As herbivores they would place only a slight drain on supplies, but they could carry ten times the weight of any Dillian without even noticing—and just the sight of them was fearsome.

Next was Olborn, about which Mavra Chang still had nightmares. A theocracy whose magic could transform enemies, dissidents, and even casual travelers into donkeylike beasts of burden, they had almost done it to her. For many years she had suffered, half-human, half-donkey, because of them. Her only solace was that the long-ago war had not been kind to them.

And yet, they had voted on the council with the opposition. She had to wonder if her name, after all those centuries, was still cursed in Olborn.

And, true enough, at the border their advance aerial scouts told them that a large armed force of Olbornians was waiting for them. They even brought back photographs of the massed troops, great cats that stood upright and wore some kind of livery that indicated a well-organized army.

“Should be relatively simple,” Mavra commented, looking at the photos. “This looks like the way they lost to the Makiem alliance a thousand years ago. We just outflank them and cut them to pieces.”

Asam shook his head worriedly. “Uh uh. Think about it. It may be in the dim past for me and most o’ the Well World, but that was the most significant event in their history, not to mention the most humiliatin’. I just don’t think they’d be dumb enough to do it again. Just a gut feelin’, o’ course—but there’s some dirty work afoot here.”

“I don’t know…” she responded hesitantly.

“We’ll pull up close to the border but we won’t cross right off,” he said firmly. “I want more recon, day and night, of that area. They’re just too much like targets in a shootin’ match.”

“Those are machine guns they’re packing,” she pointed out. “And those are gun emplacements. This isn’t any pushover—particularly with that swampy area, there, of over fifteen hundred meters. They’ve cleared it—see? We’ll be coming into them, there in the trees, over fifteen hundred meters of open ground that’s also soggy, maybe even quagmire.”

“You’re thinkin’ too much in the past,” he admonished. “I know a little o’ the history here. Hell, woman, that damned war was the most interestin’ thing in the history books to me! After them pussy cats got sliced to pieces by the Trelig alliance, well, it blew hell outa their religion. I mean, how can you be the Well World’s chosen people and get wiped up like that, like I’d swat a fly with my tail? They turned on the priests, there was a wholesale massacre, and a real revolution. O’ course new, strong leaders finally took over. Hard rule was clamped back on, this time by what was left o’ the military and the aristocracy. They got tramped on because they didn’t truck with other folks, other hexes. Nobody to help ’em out. This is a pragmatic lot now. Bet on it. And they been workin’ on their magic, too. I think we got trouble if we do the expected thing here. I want a lot more recon here—and I want a staff meetin’ soon after.”

“All right, all right,” she said, surrendering. “It’s your show.”

Asam frowned at the photographs. “How many scouts did we send out?” he asked worriedly.

“Fifteen, I think,” somebody replied. “All aerial, of course.”

He nodded. “And how many got back?”

“Why, all of them,” the officer, another Dillian, responded. “I don’t even remember a report of anybody being shot at.”

“That’s what I thought,” he murmured. “Damn! It don’t make sense a’tall! Not a bit! Five thousand pussy cats all lined up in neat rows, so’s they’re easier to attack, and fixed gun emplacements so obvious we could wipe ’em clean with an air attack. And with all that firepower there, do they take shots at us? Try and knock us out o’ the air? They do not! They sit there, posin’, and smile for the camera. It stinks, I tell you. Stinks wors’n a Susafrit—beggin’ yer pardon, there.”

One of the commanders, a strange, round creature with short quill-like hairs all over its body, just shrugged. She was used to it by now: to all but her own kind, her race literally stank when it wanted to. It came right out of the pores in the skin.

“Now, then,” Asam continued, “let’s take a look here again. What would you say the regular, orthodox military move would be here?”

“Use our flying people to drop hell on them,” one of the commanders said. “Then, when they scatter to their positions, send forces of one or two thousand on either side and close in on the main one when we get into position. Encircle and that’s it.” It sounded simple.

“And what’s the last thing you’d do?” he prodded.

“Attack straight on,” another said. “Suicide.”

He nodded. “And yet, that’s exactly what I intend to do. Go in with a limited aerial attack, keepin’ most of the force in reserve to cover the flanks. Then we’ll send in our biggest, nastiest-looking crowd first, the type that won’t get bogged down there. I also want a squad of flyers—those bat fellows will do—to drop a load o’ rocks and buckshot on that swamp before dawn. Lots of it—and from a height.”

Mavra watched him with growing admiration and fascination. This was his first large-scale battle, yet he sounded like all the generals of past history. Crisp, professional, analytical.

“Buckshot?” somebody asked.

He nodded. “Got to be mines in there. Tell artillery to bring up the cannon in rows, too. I want a pattern of fire from just across the border slowly advancin’ until it’s covered the whole territory—before our people go in. And emphasize strongly to the troops that they keep advancin’ as long as they don’t hear retreat blown. Understand? Reserves follow the first wave in sections, wave after wave. Pack ’em in—and move up the artillery as soon as you can. Expect flank attacks. And when you get to them trees, here’s what you do…”

Mavra listened with amazement at his detailed instructions. And, after they’d left to convey the message to their troops, she told him, “You’re going to kill a lot of people if you’re wrong.”

“I’m gonna kill a lot of people if I’m right, too,” he responded gravely. “But this’ll be our test, how our dscipline works, how all our units work together. And, if I’m right—and I am—I’ll be the genius who won the battle.”

Asam had been right about the mines, but he hardly needed the artillery barrage. The Olbornians understood a lot more about war this time, of course, but they themselves were a thousand years removed from any practical experience. On the theory that the more mines you had the more enemy you got, they’d sunk them by the hundreds in that muddy swamp. When the aerial bombardment of rocks and buckshot finally hit one, it set off every one near it. The chain reaction was spectacular in the predawn sky; it looked as if the entire world were blowing up. The concussions reverberated for kilometers in all directions, practically deafening all sides and almost knocking several ghostly aerials out of the sky.

Asam, who had not slept all night, immediately sent word to the artillerymen to cancel the carpet and concentrate on widening the area covered. He was certain now that the mines had been laid in close rows and that hitting one in a row would set off the entire row.

He was correct.

Mavra, who had never seen anything like it before, looked at the exploding, bubbling mass uneasily. “You expect people to charge into that?” she asked, aghast.

He nodded. “On the run and laying down fire all the way.”

With first light, he signaled for the attack to proceed, and at the same time diurnal aerials took off to either side while more started dropping much more lethal stuff into the trees, mostly inflammables.

The Olbornians, although shell-shocked, knew that the attack was coming and went to their emplacements. They had a good, solid defense line—from the air it could be seen that they had raised bastions, star-pointed redoubts that could cover each other every step of the way. To secure an area, three bastions would have to be taken at the same time while the ones on either side still receiving a withering fire from the ones farther down.

Olbornian artillery waited for the leading wave to get almost to the center of the clearing before they opened up their presighted cannon. Palim, Dillians, Slongornians, Dymeks, Susafrits—they started to go down. Creatures that were crablike aided creatures that were insectival; creatures that were elephantine shielded creatures that were centauroid. And each wave moved quickly to fill in for its fallen comrades.

Asam studied the scene through field glasses and nodded approvingly. “Uh huh. They’re holding together, those people of yours.”

“They’re religious fanatics,” she muttered cynically. “They love to die for the cause.” Still, she could not deny that, within her, she felt a great deal of admiration for the courage being shown there. And they were all volunteers.

A meter-long creature with a segmented body, dozens of legs, and six pairs of transparent wings came in with a buzz and dropped new photos at Asam’s feet. Their thorax-mounted cameras were providing him with the kind of intelligence the Olbornians could only wish for.

“They’re breaking,” he noted, a satisfied tone in his voice. “By God! They’re retreating!”

She smiled at him. “That means we’ve got them.” He shook his head violently. “Uh uh. They’ve just realized I caught on to their little game and they’re trying to draw us in while they get word to the flanks to change tactics. Whether we win or not will depend on whether there’s enough command organization down there to do what I ordered when they reach the trees.” He reached over and nodded to his signalman, who was standing with a limelight reflector facing the battle scene.

“Form the columns,” he snapped, and the message was sent. “Split ranks and form defensive perimeters.”

Not everybody below could be held back by iron discipline, of course. For them, too, it was their first battle, and seeing the enemy falling back was heady stuff to an already emotionally pumped-up force. The ranks behind, though, not having had to face the brunt of the assault, were more easily led, Dillians taking the lead, and a defense line was established across the open area through which more troops poured, some going forward but the bulk peeling off to right and left.

And suddenly the forest erupted with living bodies. Olbornians, yes, but not just Olbornians. The very ground seemed to come alive with hundreds upon hundreds of huge mouths all filled with infinite rows of sharp teeth.

Again the leading forces were taken by surprise and went down; the ones still rushing through the new line, though, formed reserves that peeled off to right and left to support their comrades under attack.

Mavra looked through her field glasses and shook her head. “It’s too far away,” she sighed. “What are they?”

“Well, the ones dropping from the trees are more Olbornians, of course—and I think I see a lot of well-prepared sniper nests up there, too. But they used the forest and the natural color of their allies to disguise the main force.”

“Allies?” she echoed, confused.

He nodded. “Giant lizards, with the biggest mouths and biggest bellies you’ve ever seen. They can lie absolutely motionless for days, but when they want to move, they move! I’ve seen Zhonzhorpians run on two legs at over twenty kilometers per hour—on all fours they can be almost twice as fast and climb a tree or a slick wall right after you.” He looked into the glasses again. “Ha! See? They forgot a machine gun isn’t a death-ray! It can put up a withering fire, but it can only fell what it hits, and it can’t hit everybody!” He turned to the signalman. “Make for all reserves to flank!”

Almost as the signal was transmitted, the remains of their fighting force, some thousand or so soldiers, crossed half a kilometer up and half a kilometer down from the battle and started to close.

Asam sighed and put down his glasses. He looked suddenly very old and very tired. “We got ’em,” he sighed. “We won. A lot o’ fightin’ yet to do, but it’s ours.”

She looked at him in some confusion. “I still don’t understand all this,” she told him.

He grabbed for a flask, uncapped it, and took a long pull. It was a lot stronger than ale, but he downed it like it was water.

He coughed slightly, wiped his mouth with his hand, and let the flask, which was on a chain around his waist, drop. He sighed and grinned.

“Allies,” he told her. “And who could they get? Not Alestol—they’re stuck in their hex. Not Palim, surely. That left Zhonzhorp, to the west. A high-tech hex. It’s where those excellent rifles and cannon were manufactured. The Zhonnies voted against us, too—as did most, o’ course—and they would also like to see the battle fought on somebody else’s territory. Keeps from messin’ up the landscape.”

The reserves were attacking, closing in now.

“The Olbornians will be comin’ back now to try and hit us, but it’ll do ’em no good. See? Right now some of our flying folk are givin’ it to ’em good, just beyond the trees there. When we combine, there’ll be little left in the way of an enemy in our area, and our combined force will push out at the Olbornians. That’ll be that. Better part of a day is all.”

“I’m still confused,” she persisted. “Why did you attack the way you did?”

He grinned. “Well, if we’d split up into three main bodies, there would’ve been maybe two, three thousand tops, to cross that open area. The pussy cats would be down to that number or so after the bombardment, so it’d be fairly even: their turf, our superior racial forms for this kind o’ thing. Most of us are harder to kill than them. Then, as the flankers came to the aid of our forward attackers, they’d be hit by the Zhonzhorpians. Again, equal numbers, but their turf, their surprise. Their three forces would be back to back to back, so to speak. If any carried, they could be hustled to some place in trouble. We’d be divided, an enemy force between any two of ours. They’d have held.”

She rushed to him, gave him a hug, and kissed him. “Oh, Asam! What would I have done without you?”

He looked down at her and smiled. “Found another sucker,” he said dryly.

She wasn’t sure whether or not he was kidding.