“It’s the clouds, Captain Torl,” Keselo explained. “Most of the time, I’d imagine, the clouds out over the sea sort of plod along from here to there. When they come to mountains, though, they have to climb up one side and then slide down the other. That sort of scrambles them, so they’re thicker in some places and thinner in others. That’s why we see so many different shades of red in a mountain sunset.”
“Did you study everything when you were going to school?” Torl asked.
“Well, not quite everything, Captain,” Keselo replied. “My father had plans for me that didn’t thrill me very much, so I spent my years at the university stalling. I wasn’t interested in politics or commerce, so I dawdled a lot. Then I joined Commander Narasan’s army—probably more to irritate my father than out of any great enthusiasm.”
“Over in the Land of Maag, there’s really only one career for us to follow,” Torl said. Then he laughed. “When Skell and I were only boys, we used to slip into ships in the harbor of Kormo, hoping that we’d be a long way from shore before the sailors found us. You wouldn’t believe how many times Skell and I got thrown into the bay when we were young. We both got to be very good swimmers, though.” Torl squinted across the steep meadow that lay between the first breastwork and the second. “Nothing even resembling cover of any kind,” he noted. “I think life will get very unpleasant for the bug-people when the Malavi gallop over the top of them.”
The second breastwork was very much like the first—or like all the others Narasan’s army had been erecting for the past several generations, for that matter. Soldiers were creatures of habit, after all, and as long as something worked the way it was supposed to work, nobody ever tampered with the original design.
The first breastwork was about five hundred yards to the south. The distance between the two was a bit farther than was customary, largely at Prince Ekial’s request. “We’Il need quite a bit of room, Narasan,” the horseman had explained. “We’re going to hit the enemy several times, so don’t crowd us.” Then he’d grinned. “Just remember that every one of them we kill out there in the open will be one less that’ll attack your fort.”
It was about midmorning before Keselo saw any movement in the now-abandoned first breastwork. He shuddered back from trying to make any estimate of just how many of their enemies had been mindlessly sacrificed to provide a causeway for the main force to follow to safely cross Athlan’s mud-pit.
Since the first breastwork was some five hundred yards to the south, Keselo couldn’t see many details in the activity of the bug-people down there, but it seemed to him that the invaders were more than a little confused.
“I see that they finally made it across the mud-pit,” the youthful Veltan observed as he joined Keselo near the center of the breastwork. “Are they doing anything interesting at all?”
“It’s a bit difficult to see any details,” Keselo replied. “It’s quite a long way down the slope from here.”
Veltan peered down at the first breastwork. “From what I can see, they’re all very confused.”
“I didn’t think an insect was capable of confusion,” Keselo said.
“As an individual, it isn’t,” Veltan said. “It’s the overmind that’s confused. We just did something that no insect in all the world would ever do.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“We abandoned our nest.”
“Nest?”
“Insects wouldn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘fort,’ Keselo. From their point of view, all these assorted fortifications are nests, places designed to protect our queen and all of her offspring. The ones that finally managed to get across the mud-pit are searching that breastwork, probably in the hope of finding our queen—and all of her puppies, of course—so that they can kill her, and eat all of her children, and the eggs that haven’t hatched yet. There are a few life-forms that are more primitive, but insects aren’t really that much ahead of them. Life’s extremely simple for an insect. Their first obligation is to protect mother at all cost. They’ll even starve themselves to make sure that mother has enough to eat. If she doesn’t eat, she won’t lay eggs. That translates into ‘extinction’ in the minds of insects.”
“They seem to be approaching ‘honorable,’ don’t they?”
Veltan smiled. “‘Honor’ is an alien concept for insects, Keselo. That’s a human term and a human concept. Insects wouldn’t recognize honor if it walked up and slapped them across the face—of course, they don’t even have what we’d call faces. The insect queen—the ‘Vlagh,’ in their terminology—instills the need to protect her at any cost, and that need is paramount in the bug world. Bugs don’t think for themselves, Keselo. ‘Mother’ does all the thinking, and what my big brother calls ‘the overmind’ is the instrument of her thoughts. What she thinks, they all think. It’s a very simple kind of thing, but it works. The Vlagh has been around for millions of years, and she’s still there. That means that they’re doing something right, wouldn’t you say?”
“I think she just changed her mind, though,” Keselo said. “Quite a few of the bug-people just left the first breastwork behind, and they’re coming up the slope toward us.”
“Well, now,” Veltan said, “that’s very interesting. I’d have sworn that she wouldn’t do that until sometime tomorrow. She seems to be growing up. I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if she’d ordered her children to take that first breastwork apart, stone by stone.”
Keselo caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and when he looked more closely, he saw the Malavi horse-soldiers gathering among the trees off on the east side of the slope. Then he turned and looked toward a similar patch of trees on the west side. He wasn’t really surprised to see Malavi gathering there as well. “I think we might be in for a surprise, Lord Veltan,” he said.
“Oh?”
“If you look carefully, you’ll see horse-soldiers gathering off to the west. Then, if you turn, you’ll see more of them on the east side. I’d say that the bug-people are in for a very nasty surprise. It’s quite obvious that the Malavi will strike from both sides at the same time, and there won’t be many live bugs left after that.”
“That’s awful!” Veltan exclaimed.
“We are talking about our enemy, Lord Veltan,” Keselo reminded his friend.
There came a sudden shout from the west, and Keselo recognized the voice of Prince Ekial. The Malavi swept out of the forests to the east and to the west at a dead run. The west side seemed to be slightly uphill from the east, but not really all that much. The enemies that had been coming up the slope seemed to be caught up in confusion, not knowing which way to flee. A few of them brandished their stolen weapons, and others awkwardly raised what passed for spears, but they were obviously no match for the charging Malavi.
In the space of just a few minutes, there were only a few enemies left standing. Then Ekial shouted again, and the two bodies of horse-soldiers whirled around and rode their horses right over the top of those survivors.
Keselo shuddered. “Remind me never to insult the Malavi, Lord Veltan. I don’t think there’s anybody in the whole world that could survive an attack like that.”
The Malavi completed their second charge, brandishing their sabres in what seemed to Keselo to be a grossly overdramatic fashion.
The slope leading up from the first breastwork was now littered with dead enemies, and so far as Keselo could see, not a single one of them was even twitching.
“It gets more’n a little tricky, Subaltern Keselo,” the red-faced Sergeant Shwark said a few days later as the two of them stood beside a catapult just behind the front wall of the third breastwork. “Fire-missiles don’t behave exactly like rocks do, and catapultin’ anything downhill is a lot more difficult than uphill or straight across flat ground. A man what don’t know exactly what he’s doin’ will almost always overshoot.”
“You’re the expert, Sergeant,” Keselo replied. “I’d look sort of silly if I tried to t
ell a man who’s been catapulting rocks and fire at enemies for the last twenty years how he should do his job, wouldn’t you say?”
“Not out loud, I wouldn’t,” Sergeant Shwark said. “It ain’t none too polite to say nasty things about our officers.”
“You have very good manners, Sergeant,” Keselo said. “What I’d really like to see is a way to make a fire-missile break up into a lot of smaller fragments. I think we’d like to see them scatter—or spread out—before they hit our enemies. If the fire-missile stays all in one piece, it might engulf four or five enemies in fire, but these particular enemies wouldn’t really pay much attention to that.”
“Now that’s downright dumb, Subaltern.”
“I’d say that ‘dumb’ is a fairly accurate description, Sergeant.”
Sergeant Shwark squinted down the slope. “A skip-shot might work,” he said. “I don’t know that anybody has ever tried skip-shots with fire-missiles afore, but it’d prob’ly give you what you’re after.”
“Good,” Keselo said. “Now why don’t you tell me what you mean when you say ‘skip-shot’?”
“It’s a notion we sorta stole from another ormy a while back, sir,” the sergeant replied. “Most always, catapults is used t’ fling boulders at folks y’ don’t like much. That there other ormy thunk it over a bit, an’ it sorta come t’ ’em that flangin’ a whole lot of smaller rocks at the ormy they didn’t like would most likely kill a lot more than jist the four or five as would git skwarshed by a great big boulder. We tried it out a few times back in our home fort in Kaldacin, an’ it done real good—or seemed to. We couldn’t tell fer certain sure that it’d work on people as well as it seemed t’ work on tree stumps. Then a young soljer as warn’t none too bright in the first place come up with the notion of flangin’ them small rocks at the ground right in front of the soljers we didn’t like. He tole us it might work the same as a flat rock skippin’ over water does. Well, we give it a try a couple times, an’ believe me, sir, you wouldn’t want t’ be anywhere near where them little rocks come a-skippin’ after they hit solid ground. Now, iff’n we was a-usin’ fire instead of pebbles, thangs would get purty awful in a hurry.”
“I think you just earned your pay for this whole month, Sergeant,” Keselo said with a broad grin.
“I’m almost positive that it’ll work, Commander,” Keselo declared in the customary meeting the following morning. “If we use that ‘skip-shot’ Sergeant Shwark described, we’ll scatter lumps of fire all over the downhill slope to the front of this breastwork.”
“It sounds like it might work, Narasan,” Padan said. “I’d say let’s give it a try. The bug-people might not pay very much attention to their friends if all they do is just fall over dead, but if somebody I knew suddenly caught on fire, it’d get my immediate attention.”
“And if it doesn’t work, we could go back to throwing big gobs of fire at them,” Gunda added. “I’ll go along with Padan this time. Let’s try some skip-shots and find out if they work like they’re supposed to.”
It was shortly after noon when the first bug-men tentatively came out of the second breastwork and started up the slope. It seemed to Keselo that their enemies had broken out in a rash of wariness. They’d encountered some very nasty surprises in the last few days so they had no idea of what might happen this time.
“It’s up t’ you, Subaltern,” Sergeant Shwark said, “but if’n it was me, I’d wait a bit. Let more enemies get out in the open afore we stort settin’ ’em on fire.”
“I shall be guided by you, Sergeant,” Keselo replied.
“I’m a-thankin’ that y’ might just have spent more time at that there school in Kaldacin than y’ really should have, Subaltern. Real people don’t hardly never talk so formal.”
“I know,” Keselo replied. “I’m hoping that it’ll wear off—eventually. Have you any idea at all of what we should expect, Sergeant?”
“Nope. As fur as I know, nobody’s ever tried it afore.”
“We’re breaking new ground, then,” Keselo said. “I think that maybe we’ll call this ‘the Shwark maneuver.’ You’ll be famous, Sergeant.”
“Only if it works, Subaltern,” Shwark said. “Iff’n it happens t’ fall apart, I don’t think I’ll want my name attached to it.”
Keselo grew more and more tense as more and more of their enemies came out of the lower breastwork and started up the slope. It was growing increasingly obvious that the Vlagh had available servants beyond counting.
“I just came up with another idee, Subaltern,” Sergeant Shwark said enthusiastically. “What say you to the notion of not settin’ no fire t’ the first one we fling out at them folks a-comin’ up the slope. If we was t’ splash the stuff that burns all over most of them, an’ then threw fire down the hill, they’d almost all catch on fire, wouldn’t they?”
Keselo blinked. “That’s brilliant, Sergeant!” he exclaimed. “How in the world did you come up with that—just at the last minute?”
“I ain’t all that shore, Subaltern,” Sergeant Shwark replied. “It just seemed t’ come a-poppin’ outta nowhere.”
“Do it that way. Let’s see what happens.”
“Keep yer fingers crossed,” Shwark said, grinning. Then he ran over to the first catapult and took the torch away from the soldier who usually ignited the fire-missile. “All-right, shoot!”
“But—” the igniter protested.
“Keep your mouth shut!” Shwark barked. Then he glared at the catapult-crew. “I said shoot!” he barked. “Do it! Now!” The crew-leader jerked the release lever and the thick liquid that was normally on fire was hurled high into the air and then showered down on the advancing enemies.
Shwark turned sharply to the second catapult. “Touch off the fire!” he shouted.
The igniter laid his burning torch on the thick liquid in the catapult cup, and flame and smoke came pouring out.
“Shoot!” the sergeant roared.
The crew-leader jerked the release lever and the ball of fire flew out above the slope. It slanted down above the steep slope and then crashed down, almost exploding into hundreds of flaming gobs.
That in and of itself would have been disastrous for the advancing enemy, but the as yet unburning liquid launched by the first catapult suddenly took fire as well, and the entire slope was in flames.
Keselo stared down the slope in horror. No matter where he looked, he saw burning enemies—and they were mindlessly running in all directions at the same time. The fumes rising from the first catapult launch were suddenly ignited, and hundreds more enemy soldiers caught fire, and they too ran in all directions, igniting still more.
“A little extreme, perhaps,” the Maag ship captain Torl noted, “but it might even get the attention of the Vlagh herself.”
Then the warrior queen Trenicia, closely followed by Commander Narasan, came running up to the top of the wall. “What are you doing!” Trenicia screamed.
“It’s called ‘war,’ Your Majesty,” Keselo replied respectfully. “A bit unusual, perhaps, but it does seem to be working.”
“Wars are supposed to be fought with swords!” she fumed.
“The older ones were, I suppose,” Keselo admitted, “but fire is much more efficient. Look on the bright side, though. Your sword didn’t get so much as a single dent in the blade this time, and we still won.” He paused. “Isn’t that just dandy?” he asked her in wide-eyed innocence.
“Be nice, Keselo,” Commander Narasan murmured, trying his best to conceal the broad grin on his face.
INFERNO
1
It seemed to Ara that Dahlaine’s decision to concentrate on Crystal Gorge was very sound. There were other passes that led up through the mountains standing between the Wasteland and the North country, but after Ara had sent out her awareness to examine those other passes, she was positive that the servants of the Vlagh would concentrate on Crystal Gorge, since the other passes all led into that single ravine which was the only route through t
he ridge-line that effectively blocked all other possible invasion routes.
The fort the Trogites had erected near the lower end of the gorge should have most effectively stopped the incursion of the creatures of the Wasteland, but the servants of the Vlagh found a way to assault the Trogites and their friends rather than the fort itself.
Ara found that to be most irritating. What made it even worse, she felt, lay in the filching of the use of smoke as a way to drive the outlanders out of the gorge. The Vlagh was a thief—a very good thief, but a thief all the same.
The Trogites and their friends had devised many ways to block the creatures of the Wasteland. The barrier that now stretched across the north end of the gorge seemed most effective, and the mud-pit would have been a stroke of genius if their enemy had been human. The servants of the Vlagh were not intelligent enough to be afraid, so they crossed the mud-pit with an enormous loss, and they took the first breastwork.
The savage attacks of the Malavi slowed the advance of their enemies, but not by very much.
It was the use of what the Trogites called “fire-missiles” that was most effective. Ara found the innovation of the “skip-shot” by the humorous old veteran called Shwark to be a stroke of pure genius. She had come up with a way to make it even more effective, and it hadn’t been difficult to pass that on to Shwark at the last minute. Fire, it appeared, was the one thing that actually frightened the creatures of the Wasteland, so it seemed to Ara that fire might just be the best possible weapon to use in this particular war. This was confirmed by the mention of “a fire unlike any fire we have ever seen” in Lillabeth’s dream. It didn’t seem to make much sense to Ara, however. Fire was just fire, after all, and they all looked more or less the same.
The smoke that had driven their friends out of Crystal Gorge had pretty much died out by now, and the clouds Dahlaine and Veltan had called in to douse the gorge with rain had moved on, and the sky above was once again a glorious blue.