The Seventh Science Fiction MEGAPACK ®. Robert Silverberg
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groaned. Donovan saw them shuddering above him, saw the first hail of gravel and heard the huge grinding of strata. “They’re trying to bury us!” he yelled. “We’ve got to get clear!”
Wocha stooped, snatched him up under one arm, and galloped. A boulder whizzed by his head, smashing against the farther wall and spraying him with hot chips of stone. Now the boom of the landslide filled their world, rolling and roaring between the high cliffs. Cracks zigzagged across the worn black heights, the crags shivered and toppled, dust boiled across the road.
“Basil!”
Donovan saw Valduma again, dancing and leaping between the boulders, raising a scream of wrath and laughter. Morzach was there, standing on a jut of rock, watching the hillside fall.
Wocha burst around the sentinel peak. A line of Arzunians stood barring the way to Drogobych, the sunlight flaming off their metal. Wocha dropped Donovan, hefted his ax in both hands, and charged them.
Donovan picked himself up and scrambled in the wake of his slave. Behind him, the Terrans were streaming from the collapsing dale, out over open ground to strike the enemy. The rocks bounded and howled, a man screamed as he was pinned, there were a dozen buried under the landslide.
Wocha hit the Arzunian line. His ax blazed, shearing off an arm, whirling up again to crumple a helmet and cleave the skull beneath. Rearing, he knocked down two of them and trampled them underfoot. A warrior smote at his flank. Helena, gripping one mighty shoulder, engaged him with her free hand, her blade whistling around his ears. They fell away from that pair, and the Terrans attacked them.
* * * *
Donovan crossed swords with one he knew—Marovech, the laughing half-devil whose words he had so much enjoyed in earlier days. The Arzunian grinned at him across a web of flying steel. His blade stabbed in, past the Ansan’s awkward guard, reaching for his guts. Donovan retreated, abandoning the science he didn’t know for a wild whirling and hacking, his iron battering at the bright weapon before him. Clash and clang of edged metal, leaping and dancing, Marovech’s red hair wild in the rising wind and his eyes alight with laughter.
Donovan felt his backward step halted, he was against the high stone pillar and could not run. He braced his feet and hewed out, a scream of cloven air and outraged steel. Marovech’s sword went spinning from his hand.
It hit the ground and bounced up toward the Arzunian’s clutch. Donovan smote again, and the shock of iron in flesh jarred him where he stood. Marovech fell in a rush of blood.
For an instant Donovan stood swaying over the Arzunian, looking stupidly at the blood on his own hands, hearing the clamor of his heartbeat and sucking a dry gasp into his lungs. Then he picked up the fallen being’s glaive. It was a better weapon.
Turning, he saw that the fight had become a riot, knots of men and un-men snarling and hacking in a craziness of death. No room or time here for wizard stunts, it was blood and bone and nerve against its kind. The Terrans fought without much skill in the use of their archaic equipment but they had the cold courage blended of training and desperation. And they knew better how to cooperate. They battled a way to each other and stood back to back against all comers.
Wocha raged and trampled, smashing with ax and fist and feet and hurled stones, his war-cry bellowing and shuddering in the hills. An Arzunian vanished from in front of him and appeared behind with spear poised. The Donarrian suddenly backed up, catching the assailant and smashing him under his hind feet while he dueled another from the front. Helena’s arm never rested, she swung to right and left, guarding his flanks, yelling as her blade drove home.
Donovan shook himself and trotted warily over to where a tide of Arzunians raged about a closely-drawn ring of Impies. The humans were standing firm, driving each charge back in a rush of blood, heaping the dead before them. But now spears were beginning to fall out of the sky, driven by no hand but stabbing for the throats and eyes and bellies of men. Donovan loped for the sharp edge of the hills, where they toppled to the open country in which the fight went on.
He scrambled up a rubbled slope and gripped a thin pinnacle to swing himself higher. She was there.
She stood on a ledge, the heap of spears at her feet, looking down over the battle and chanting as she sent forth the flying death. He noticed even then how her hair was a red glory about the fine white loveliness of her head.
“Valduma,” he whispered, as he struck at her.
She was not there, she sat on a higher ledge and jeered at him. “Come and get me, Basil, darling, darling. Come up here and talk to me!”
He looked at her as Lucifer must have looked back to Heaven. “Let us go,” he said. “Give us a ship and send us home,”
“And have you bring our overlords back in?” She laughed aloud.
“They aren’t so bad, Valduma. The Empire means peace and justice for all races.”
“Who speaks?” Her scorn flamed at him. “You don’t believe that.”
He stood there for a moment. “No,” he whispered. “No, I don’t.”
Stooping, he picked up the sheaf of spears and began to crawl back down the rocks. Valduma cursed him from the heights.
There was a break in the combat around the hard-pressed Terran ring as the Arzunians drew back to pant and glare. Donovan ran through and flung his load clashing at the feet of Takahashi.
“Good work,” said the officer. “We need these things. Here, get into the formation. Here we go again!”
The Arzunians charged in a wedge to gather momentum. Donovan braced himself and lifted his sword. The Terrans in the inner ring slanted their spears between the men of the outer defense. For a very long half minute, they stood waiting.
The enemy hit! Donovan hewed at the nearest, drove the probing sword back and hammered against the guard. Then the whirl of battle swept his antagonist away, someone else was there, he traded blows and the howl of men and metal lifted skyward.
The Terrans had staggered a little from the massive assault, but it spitted itself on the inner pikes and then swords and axes went to work. Ha, clang, through the skull and give it to ’em! Hai, Empire! Ansa, Ansa! Clatter and yell and deep-throated roar, the Arzunians boiling around the Solar line, leaping and howling and whipping out of sight—a habit which saved their lives but blunted their attack, thought Donovan in a moment’s pause.
Wocha smashed the last few who had been standing before him, looked around to the major struggle, and pawed the ground. “Ready, lady?” he rumbled.
“Aye, ready, Wocha. Let’s go!”
The Donarrian backed up to get a long running space. “Hang on tight,” he warned. “Never mind fighting, lady. All right!”
He broke into a trot, a canter, and then a full gallop. The earth trembled under his mass. “Hoooo!” he screamed. “Here we come!”
Helena threw both arms around his corded neck. When they hit it was like a nuclear bomb going off.
In a few seconds of murder, Wocha had strewn the ground with smashed corpses, whirled, and begun cutting his way into the disordered main group of the Arzunians. They didn’t stand before him. Suddenly they were gone, all of them, except for the dead.
Donovan looked over the field. The dead were thick, thick. He estimated that half the little Terran force was slain or out of action. But they must have taken three or four times their number of Arzunians to the Black Planet with them. The stony ground was pooled and steaming with blood. Carrion birds stooped low, screaming.
Helena fell from Wocha’s back into Donovan’s arms. He comforted her wild sobbing, holding her to him and murmuring in her ear and kissing the wet cheeks and lips. “It’s over, dear, it’s over for now. We drove them away.”
She recovered herself in a while and stood up, straightening her torn disarray, the mask of command clamping back over her face. To Takahashi: “How are our casualties?”