And he will not do it yet. The weather was overcast and they would move at night. The Tzaatz did not know of the force assembled against them, would not know until it was too late. Or so I hope. The Telepaths had searched the minds of their enemies for knowledge of the coming onslaught, but even they could not see everything. There were too many risks in an operation this size, too many loose ends to control them all.
Another kzin climbed aboard, a kzinrette. C’mell!
“You should not be here!” He spoke before she could.
“I should not be anywhere else.” She leapt easily to the front of the travel platform, moved to the tiller bar where Night-Prowler was. The other silently gave way to her.
“Where are the kits?”
“They are with M’mewr.” Expertly C’mell unhooked the tiller bar from its restraints and tightened up the harness lines. Their tuskvor snorted in response to the pressure but didn’t balk.
“They need their mother. C’mell…” he started to reason.
“And their father.” She waved a paw. “Who will make sure you are safe if I don’t?” She pulled the bar back to raise the beast’s head. It grunted and started to move. “And now it is too late for me to leave.”
Their beast lumbered forward and he started to argue. Already the other tuskvor were starting to move with them, the vast herd reacting like a single living organism, gathering momentum. C’mell pulled on the bar to haul the huge head around to set their direction. South! To the mountains and down through the passes, through the northern valleys and into the Plain of Stgrat, to the heart of the Patriarchy, to the Citadel, to battle and to destiny.
I am committed. Pouncer abandoned his argument. Around him the herd picked up speed. The great beast swayed beneath him. There was no need to give any other order. That quickly the plan was in motion. He moved to the side of the travel platform and looked out into the gathering darkness. Strangely, he felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Now we travel, and my work is done until the battle begins. Those he had trained were now acting on their own, carrying out the well prepared plan. He looked to the back of the tsvasztet where Battle Captain of Ccree Pride hunched over the combat console with headphones on. Ccree Pride’s experts had isolated the Tzaatz command bands. Even without breaking the enemy crypting they would be able to identify enemy units, and with the consoles carried on every command tuskvor, they would be able to triangulate and know their positions. The czrav had vocom too, but they wouldn’t use it until the final stages of the battle, when the total security of telepathy was less important than the speed and flexibility of direct vocom. On top of dens scattered through the high forest, jammers would be switching on to delicately confound the ground scanners on the orbital fortresses, while overhead Black Saber’s sensors watched the Tzaatz forces for the first sign that the czrav advance had been detected. Inevitably it would be discovered, despite deception and camouflage and countermeasures. It was impossible to move such a vast force in stealth, but with luck and the Fanged God’s favor they would be through the bottleneck of the mountain passes and into the Plain of Stgrat by then, where it would be much harder for the Tzaatz to mount a defense.
On the other side of the travel platform Quacy Tskombe paced, worried. The only way they were going to get Ayla back from the Tzaatz was to take the Citadel, he knew that. But what will they do with her when the attack starts? They could kill her on a whim, or as a last-second vengeance for their defeat. Or the attack could fail.
He turned to Ferlitz-Telepath, unable to keep himself from asking the question again. “How is Ayla?”
Tolerantly Ferlitz looked away, closed his eyes, concentrating. Tskombe saw the pain cross his face and flinched. After a time Ferlitz looked at him again. “She is still alive, still in pain.”
“Can you tell her we’re coming?”
“It is still too far, and too large a risk if she knows.”
Tskombe breathed in, breathed out. “I know, I know.” He looked out into the gathering darkness, listening to the relentless rumble of the czrav army’s advance. Hang on, Ayla, I’m coming. Trina came to stand beside him. Now she is the one who comforts me. He sat down on the prrstet and concentrated on the next phase of the advance. Morning should see them at the northern foothills, the following evening should see them starting the ascent through the passes. The passes were the critical point, and they needed to get through them in darkness.
“Ferlitz, how are our guides?”
Again the telepath closed his eyes, this time reaching for the minds of the scouts pre-positioned along the planned route, and along alternate routes as well in case something forced them to change plans. This time he was lost in the mind-trance for a long time, sometimes muttering to himself. Tskombe himself got flashes of images, a high mountain meadow still sunlit as the lower elevations were not, a river crossing seen from a nearby hill, a camouflaged hiding place beneath a burstflower bush. Ferlitz is sharing what the scouts see. Along with the images came a sense of rightness and safety. So far there were no ambushes. But we have only begun. It would take three days to ride from the passes to the Citadel, and it was certain battle would be joined before they got there.
The night passed uneventfully. There was a rotation set up between them, so someone would always be awake to watch the combat console, but he and Pouncer weren’t part of it. They would alternate, unless there was a battle, in which case the kzin would lead and Tskombe would make sure he got the information he needed. Quacy was surprised to have so much of Pouncer’s trust so quickly, but it seemed he was simply stepping into Ayla’s shoes as kz’zeerkti zar’ameer. She has done a lot here. His thoughts returned to her again unbidden, and he pushed them away. She needs me to be strong now, to do my job to get her out. Eventually exhaustion overcame him and he slept, rocked asleep by the steady swaying of their tuskvor. Fitful dreams made his slumber far from restful, but it was welcome all the same.
Dawn found them in the foothills, as expected, and there was no sign the Tzaatz had noticed their presence, either in the telepathically gathered reports of the scouts or in the imagery downlinked from Black Saber. Tskombe grew tense as the sun rose in a cloudless sky, leaving them vulnerable to the sensors of the orbital fortresses and the Tzaatz ships in orbit, but they continued on their way unmolested. The interference the czrav were beaming skyward was subtle, so as not to give the game away. It was possible to laser-jam the optical sensors as well, but that too-obvious measure had to wait until the battle was joined. The vast tuskvor herd was too big to simply escape notice, but the camouflaged tsvasztet on their backs might, and the Tzaatz didn’t know enough about the beast’s migratory patterns to realize how unusual their movement south was at this time of year. Darkness came again and they were climbing into the passes. A few more hours is all we need. Tskombe managed to avoid asking Ferlitz-Telepath about Ayla again. The Gifted kzin was spending nearly all his time in the mind-trance now, relaying messages, checking on the advance scouts, searching out the minds of Tzaatz commanders, still too far away to read clearly.
We should have brought another telepath. He had known that from the beginning, but every commander in the force needed a telepath to communicate with his or her command, and even among the czrav there weren’t enough to go around. The air grew cooler as they climbed through the passes, and by midnight the lead elements were on their way down again. The Plain of Stgrat lay open before them. We’re through. For the first time since they’d started he allowed himself to relax, and he slept again, dead to the world.
He was awakened by Trina shaking him. “Hey! They’ve started fighting.”
He rolled off the prrstet. War seemed was no different from peace; the rumble of the herd went on unchanged. But that will change soon. He went back to the combat console, where Pouncer was conferring with Battle Captain.
Pouncer looked up. “The scouts found a Tzaatz rapsar patrol. I tasked V’rli with eliminating it.”
“Results?”
/> “We will know soon.”
Tskombe studied the display. The advance of the czrav army was a red tide across the map, the last elements still pouring through the passes of the Long Range, the lead elements spreading out into a broad frontal advance. A blue icon marked the Tzaatz patrol, no doubt from the garrison at Skragga Pride’s ancestral estate. Advance elements of Ztrak Pride were already assigned to deal with that garrison, but now they were chasing down the patrol.
“I’m getting code bursts.” Battle Captain’s voice was tight. “They don’t seem to be getting an answer.”
“Hrrr. We need our surprise to last longer.”
Ferlitz-Telepath, still deep in the mind-trance, stirred. “Blood…they leap…” After a moment his eyes flickered open. “V’rli reports success. We have no losses.”
There was a collective release of tension. The first obstacle is clear. Tskombe knew better than to relax. We were lucky. It will get harder. He looked to Trina, who seemed to be fascinated by the entire venture. Will her luck keep her safe? He no longer doubted she had it, he only wondered if it would last.
His beltcomp said an hour had passed when Pouncer ordered the main force to stop. V’rli’s unit advanced by itself to take on the Tzaatz garrison that stood guard over Skragga Pride. Ferlitz-Telepath watched the battle through the minds of the combatants, and again he shared the images with Tskombe. Two Tzaatz guards on rapsar raiders, bored and tired, the rest of the garrison asleep. Suddenly a huge shape looms from the darkness, a tuskvor, the ground shaking beneath its footfalls. Sudden fear, the rapsari bucking and turning to run, a huge head swinging down, tusks spreading gore, and the herd moves through, pop-domes crushed underfoot, fear and confusion, dark shapes with variable swords dropping from the flanks of the tuskvor to slice out the lifeblood of anything they find, a rapsar sniffer running in panic, a huge foot coming down, and angry bellows echoing from the distant valley walls.
That quickly it was over. Victory in the darkness; the Tzaatz hadn’t known what hit them.
“I have an uplink signal.” Battle Captain’s words were clipped.
“What? Where?” Pouncer scanned the combat display. A blue icon appeared, deeper into Skragga Pride territory.
Tskombe shook his head. “The scouts missed an outpost.”
Pouncer’s tail lashed. “Battle Captain, jam the signal. Ferlitz, relay that to V’rli. Have her destroy it at once.”
Battle Captain’s paws flew over his board, isolating the signal for jamming. “There is a downlink.” He paused while he checked readouts. “Our surprise advantage is gone.”
“We knew we’d lose it soon.” Still, Tskombe was disappointed. They had a long way to go, and now the Tzaatz would have days to prepare their defenses. Ztrak Pride closed on the previously unknown enemy and destroyed them too, and he dared hope that the message from the doomed outpost might get lost between the orbital fortress and the Citadel. Pouncer ordered the advance resumed as the first rays of dawn shone over the eastern horizon. Days blend into each other in combat, I’d forgotten that. How many other lessons would he have to learn anew? Hopefully not many. And none critical. He couldn’t resist asking Ferlitz how Ayla was again, though he knew the Tzaatz would not execute her, if that’s what they were going to do, until the last possible moment. He got the same answer as before. She’s alive, that’s all that matters.
In the early light of dawn the army was an impressive sight, the herd spread out from horizon to horizon in battle array. In the high forest the trees were taller than the tuskvor and it had been impossible to gain a sense of the immensity of this vast, living fleet. C’mell and Swift-Claw traded places on the tiller bar. Night-Prowler prepared dried meat while Z’slee checked her weapon yet another time. Life on their cramped, moving world continued unaffected by the violence and death at the front of the formation, kilometers in front of them. Our turn will come soon enough.
The sun was barely up when the first gravcar came over. It came fast and high, well out of range of any hand weapons. It zoomed over the length and breadth of the herd and then vanished again without slowing down. At least they didn’t start shooting. Tskombe had little trust in the restraint of the Tzaatz, if only because he had little himself. If I saw this herd coming toward me I would use every weapon I could lay hands on.
Battle Captain immediately started reporting crypted transmissions from the gravcar and identifying enemy positions by their answers. The orbital fortresses started downlinking, probably sending imagery.
Tskombe smiled, imagining the consternation in the Patriarch’s Tower. “Jammers to full,” he ordered. Kchula-Tzaatz must have known something was coming. It seemed unlikely that he could have understood the scale until he saw it. The question now is, what will the response be?
The response wasn’t long in coming. A phalanx of gravcars came in low and fast. As they swept over arrows rained from their back compartments, fired by Tzaatz warriors who crouched low to take advantage of the cover of their sides. Tskombe held his breath as they swooped in and ducked behind the tsvasztet’s side. He needn’t have bothered; the gravcars were moving too fast for effective shooting and all the arrows went wide.
The Tzaatz learned from that and the next pass was slower, the fire more accurate, but the czrav were prepared, and heavy ballista rounds arced into the air from the back of tsvasztet specially modified to carry them. It seemed a waste of effort—no weapon driven by spring tension could throw a projectile hard enough to penetrate cerametal—but to his surprise one of the gravcars was suddenly yanked from the air, as though an invisible giant had swatted it down.
“Nets.” Pouncer had followed his gaze. “Monomolecular filament nets trailing the leader rounds. The other ends are attached to boulders.”
As Tskombe watched, another ballista fired and caught a car, and this time he could see the heavy stones yanked hard from the back of the tsvasztet, though he still couldn’t see the monofilament. The sudden load was too much for the gravcar’s polarizers and it pitched forward, its own momentum driving it into the ground. It tumbled and broke up on impact, but warriors from the next tuskvor in line still leapt to the ground to see what they could kill.
The gravcars circled wide after that, but staying out of ballista range put them out of effective arrow range as well. It was a standoff.
“It was the Cherenkova-Captain’s idea.” Pouncer’s ears were up and forward as he watched the duel, and Tskombe noticed anew that half of the left one was missing. He is battle-scarred. Tskombe looked forward, past where C’mell was again steering their tuskvor. The gravcars flew off in that direction. So far so good, and the Tzaatz aren’t using energy weapons.
Dziit Pride overran another Tzaatz garrison later that day with little more effort than it had taken Ztrak Pride the previous night. Black Saber downlinked imagery showing their route. It was surprisingly empty of resistance, but that anomaly was explained when he sent down the area around the Citadel. The Tzaatz had decided to make their stand there, using the natural defenses of the river backed by the fortress. The imagery was full of ranked assault rapsari, some almost the size of tuskvor. The difficult wooded areas were patrolled by raiders and packs of the vicious harriers. So the battle will be joined there. Darkness fell with little further action, though gravcars continued to circle and harass them. The night grew cold beneath ice-hard stars and he tried unsuccessfully to sleep on the steadily rocking prrstet. He could hear Pouncer working with Ferlitz to identify the thoughts of enemy commanders. There was consternation and even fear among the Tzaatz, but mostly there was confidence, and Tskombe had the uneasy realization that the Tzaatz telepaths would also be searching out his mind to learn Pouncer’s battle plans. The czrav telepaths back in the dens should have been blocking his thoughts, but he called up Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony in his mind anyway. It would help him relax and make it hard for the enemy to learn the czrav strategy in case the blocking didn’t work.
From Ferlitz they learned that Ftzaal-Tzaatz had tak
en personal command of the battle. The knowledge was the source of the confidence with which the Tzaatz awaited the attackers, but by the time sleep finally claimed Tskombe, Ferlitz hadn’t managed to read the Black Priest’s thoughts. A judicious dose of sthondat extract had failed to help, though it had put Ferlitz deeply into the mind-trance. Morning arrived, seemingly an eyeblink later. Dawn was bloodred as 61 Ursae Majoris climbed over the eastern horizon, and there was something else, a scent in the air like wood smoke. Instinctively his hand went to his side where his respirator should have been hanging. A long forgotten voice from the Infantry School spoke in his head. In the event of a gas attack you will have nine seconds to don the respirator. The inhaled dose of cycloserasine necessary to kill a warm blooded being was so low you could count the molecules individually, and if you could actually smell its warm, inviting odor you would be dead before your next breath if you hadn’t already injected the antidote. What do the rules of honor say about war gases? He held his breath but he wasn’t wearing UN battle armor and he had no respirator and he recognized the ridiculousness of an act that might extend his life another forty seconds. The herd surged forward indifferently and no one else on the tsvasztet died in twitching convulsions. He breathed out and breathed in, and another red glow beyond dawn on the horizon warned of the true nature of the threat. The grasslands were burning ahead of them. The Tzaatz had set the savannah on fire to disrupt the herd.
“Even now the Tzaatz tread the edge of honor.” Pouncer had come up beside him, leaning forward to assess the red glow. It stretched across the horizon, reflected from the clouds overhead.
“As long as they don’t cross the line.” Tskombe paused. “How are we going to deal with that?”
“Hrrr. Ferlitz-Telepath has known the minds of our route scouts. There are places the fire has died down. Tuskvor can cross fire, if it is not too serious.”