Deadly Wands (13 page)

“Our fleet lost contact with a ship, so our
marathoners went looking for it. Instead of our boat, they found an
American fishing vessel that sailed much too low in the water, just
as you warned. Enemy marathoners chased ours away, which began a
week of cat-and-mouse. Having babies to protect motivated our
marathoners more, as you foresaw, so they only sank one more ship
before we destroyed all seven of theirs. Putting marathoners on
board saved our fleet. It only takes one incendiary to sink a
ship.

“I didn’t know they captured seven American
fishing vessels, so I asked the troops in the forts to search their
coastlines. Once they found the first hidden cache of bombs, food,
and supplies, I island-hopped along the Aleutians to the Kamchatka
Peninsula and soon ran into Genghis Khan sneaking through
Manchuria.

“Dad, you were right, damn you. One hundred
marathon battalions are coming. At least once I hope to catch you
wrong about something.”

William hit himself in the forehead. “He’s
waiting until mid-summer for the easiest foraging. He over-learned
his last mistake. Crap! He’s gonna bypass the fortifications. It’s
a hit-and-run.”

Liz left to warn Anchorage; Billy flew
farthest, to San Francisco, for the locals who recently disbanded;
and William looked for his students, who hopefully were back from
Alberta. Each battalion of two-wanders spread out on every hilltop
to track the enemy. The division that guarded each fort split up to
utilize the Baron’s bunkers, then began hunting and fishing in case
they were besieged.

The Great Immortal arrived at the Strait a
week before his marathoners to hear what his spy network reported.
He liked everything he heard: that the Baron was far away,
vacationing with his wife, the fifty thousand students were off in
Alberta, the Baron dismissed his veterans, and the only force
between him and San Francisco were American Jack’s defensive
lines.

Genghis apparently learned the value of speed
because he arrived before either father or son, leaving Liz to
organize defenses. Privately she was thrilled when Anchorage’s
10
^th
Division chose her as their leader. Then the
responsibility for so many lives chilled her. Later she realized
they elected her for morale purposes because they had been
defending this town for centuries. They didn’t need to be told what
to do -- her mere presence told them help was on the way.

Genghis hoped to sack San Francisco, but
dropped that hope when he couldn’t find his supply fleet or the
hidden depots. He kept to the coast and flew around the lines of
fortifications, who nevertheless bombed him every night. William
warned them not to fight in daylight, so they stuck with
hit-and-run night attacks, sometimes using the Khan’s own bombs.
Genghis countered by flying at night and taking short naps in the
day. The farther they flew, the less food they needed, and the
likelier they’d survive.

Genghis had every reason to believe he caught
the Baron by surprise. Scouts couldn’t find anything unusual. He
couldn’t find the bombs they spent a year burying along the coast,
so the Khan secured the Anchorage munitions depots while his armada
rained down fireballs on the rest of the city. His reserves
patrolled in a wide perimeter to avoid being surprised.

While the quads who could fly the farthest
joined the 1
^st
Division, those who could fly the highest
got the 10
^th
. They broke into companies to hide in
bunkers to bomb the Mongols constantly.

In fact, the only thing that surprised
Genghis was the team he sent for the bombs themselves got bombed,
in a huge explosion that cooked a few thousand marathoners. Locals
poured out of bunkers to kill anything near the ground, before
retreating when overhead patrols started targeting them.

This led to a stalemate since the Americans
couldn’t challenge the Mongol marathoners in the air, yet the
Mongols didn’t have the bombs to force their way into the bunkers.
And using precious marathoners against two-wanders in tunnels was a
waste of talent, so Genghis called it a victory and left while he
could.

When the Mongols landed for lunch, the
9
^th
Division used cloud cover to drop on them from high
altitude. The Mongol rapid-reaction division eventually chased them
down as they fled to the south. The volunteers suffered more
casualties than they caused, but they unknowingly cost the armada
precious energy.

William had no idea if his wife lived or
died. He cursed himself for letting the visiting troops return home
after the party. He couldn’t reach the Mongols before they attacked
Anchorage, so he waited for them to come north while coordinating
an attack with Jack’s 7
^th
and 8
^th
Divisions.

His students couldn’t beat experienced
formation fliers in daylight, so he hid them a thousand clicks from
Anchorage. His well rested students dropped fifty thousand bombs on
the exhausted marathoners while they slept. While four divisions
fought at high altitude, William led the division with the lowest
ceiling around to attack at tree-top level from the south. With
most Mongol fighting high above, William faced the sick, injured,
and those attending them. The bombs killed several thousand and
injured twice as many more; now William killed the injured and an
equal number helping them until sentries warned William that
Mongols above were dropping on them.

The students left to rest, eat, and pack more
bombs. The 8
^th
Division bombed as soon as the Mongols
laid down again, and the 7
^th
struck an hour after the
8
^th
left. William had this students attack a few hours
later near ground level from four directions -- at maximum speed,
they fireballed everyone on the ground, then disappeared in the
dark. As the students flew north, the 8
^th
returned to
wake the enemy up with another bombing run two hours before
dawn.

Billy arrived alone in the morning to harass
the enemy. At noon, the Mongols caught up with the students, who
had been napping. Armed with food kits and water sacks, William
used his students as bait to lure Genghis away from the Strait.
It’s why he insisted they continue wearing student uniforms. The
trick was letting the enemy get close, but not too close. Genghis,
suspecting the well-rested students may have greater endurance that
day than his tired marathoners, broke off just after dark. William
sent Billy to track them while his students bunked at the sixth
fort. After the 6
^th
Division bombed from high altitude,
Billy wounded those helping the injured. He then got the
5
^th
Division to bomb them before midnight. The
6
^th
returned a few hours later.

The students slept several hours before
launching their pre-dawn attack. One division dropped bombs to
force the sleepy Mongols into the air. Then the other forty
thousand flew through a ravine to surprise the enemy with
blades.

Genghis chased the students northward, where
William knew Billy gathered Jack’s ten divisions.

That’s when Liz, leading the veterans from
San Francisco, overtook the Mongols. William, Liz, and Billy
sandwiched the enemy. Genghis signaled retreat, but could not
execute it before the Americans engulfed his marathoners with
several times as many troops.

The joy of seeing each other alive gave
William, Liz, and Billy new reserves as they led their teams to
victory. At one point, William saw his wife decapitate a battalion
commander and yell out to him, “Best! Vacation! Ever!” Left rock
hard, William had to find release in battle.

All four forces had flown a lot already, so
the battle made up in intensity what it lacked in length. The fight
didn’t end so much as pause for ever longer periods. Billy, with
his enviable ten year old batteries, continued hunting them through
the night.

Numbers now mattered. The fliers from the
fortifications finally proved useful as something other than
support, communications, and target bait. One hundred thousand
quads and ten thousand two-wanders finally got the fight they took
this job for. Having more eyes in the air was instrumental in
finding the enemy hiding on the ground. Genghis and a few thousand
marathoners escaped, but had little to show for their trip.

“Genghis may have infinite quads,” William
concluded with satisfaction, “but he will soon miss those
marathoners.”

CHAPTER 14

Billy dueled more while his parents
vacationed more. William’s father once told him that life is an
adventure, not a vacation, and bad stuff happens on adventures. So
William tried to make his wife happy while he could. Who knows what
would happen when they started raiding again the following
spring?

Given the Summer Slaughter, as it became
known, the Mongols held their annual games in mid-winter, when it
was too cold to raid, and near the Ural Mountain Range, far from
the Bering Strait. It kind of pissed William off that they held it
at all, given how many he killed at the last one.

So the family went to the winter games, and
took along some English quads for protection. While William fought
one at a time, the Boy Wonder took on teams of four. It amazed
William that anyone would even challenge the boy. Apparently they
assumed a lucky shot would win them the ton of gold that Billy
offered.

His identity as the Boy Wonder leaked, but
they didn’t know when. What they did know is that they couldn’t
sleep at night, which meant they had to leave.

As was his habit, William looked out of his
ger through a slit before leaving at dawn for another day of
dueling. The Matriarch and two great-granddaughters, Emily and
Mary, chatted like gossipy girls so the enemy would not see them as
threats. Mary recently won the female dueling championship in
England and Emily, a prodigy six years older than Billy, showed so
much promise that William gave her his best backup wands. Cousins
Tommy and Timmy protected them on the other side.

Despite their loud chattering, the ladies
monitored several Mongols arguing over the sale of a horse thirty
meters away. One whipped out his wand and angrily fired in the air
as soon as William’s head popped out.

Just then a few dozen quads quietly raced
over the nearest hill. Timmy shrieked a warning and the six of them
flew up while shooting down. Billy and Elizabeth, both waiting
inside for his all-clear, quickly followed. The men arguing over
the horse rushed them in a skirmish line while more fliers closed
in from other directions.

Rotating as they flew up, William estimated
nearly one hundred attackers this time. English reinforcements
piled out of nearby huts. A detachment broke off to occupy those
English while about forty chased after the family.

Billy led them low over the tribes
friendliest to them. As he hoped, hundreds of wands shot up the
ambushers. Billy turned to another friendly horde, one they lived
with the longest, and now thousands of wands greeted their
attackers, who broke off amid heavy casualties. The family stopped
to finish them off before going after the detachment battling their
backup unit. Attacking from above and behind, the eight super-quads
decimated them.

A handful escaped and Billy went after them.
He took them out one by one until he wounded the fastest, who he
presumed was their leader. This one he brought back alive to
publicly torture before the horde leaders. Like the others they
caught alive over the last two years, he confessed that some
nameless rich guy paid them to kill the Boy Wonder. But, unlike
previous confessions, this guy had completely erased his wand of
all memories. William barked an order to test the wands of the
others, all of which had also been erased. Eighty sets of wands,
all virgin-clean.

"Continue questioning him while I examine his
comrades," William told Billy before flying off. Within the hour
William returned. "They all look like seasoned professionals. Every
wand they carried radiates power. Any luck with this guy?"

"No," Billy replied, unusually frustrated,
gesturing to several nomads who seemed to enjoy the task of seeing
just how much pain this guy could endure before dying. "He's a lot
tougher than I am. They now want to finish him using four horses to
tear off his limbs."

William shuddered, then shrugged. "I should
have killed you in Peking."

Billy nodded in agreement. They concluded
long ago that the only way to stop the assassination attempts was
to stage Billy's death. Or, rather, the Boy Wonder's. But that
would seriously limit where they could duel Mongols. There’s no
point in staging a death if the Boy Wonder would be discovered
dueling again.

Tommy, one of Liz's half-brothers, landed
before them so hard that he tumbled. He looked ready to cry. "The
bastards got the girls."

Neither William nor Billy understood him.
"What do you mean?”

Tommy, still on his knees, pointed east.
Before their next heartbeat, father and son flew to the other side
of the huge encampment, with Tommy close behind. They found three
of their English bodyguards tending their wounded, several enemy
corpses near them. They landed next to the Matriarch, still
bleeding, and Emily, one side of her upper body badly burned. They
killed Mary several times over.

“Where’s Elizabeth?” William asked.

Timothy led them to Elizabeth.

There, in a tree-covered gully, they found
Liz's mutilated naked corpse. Father and son broke down
immediately. William had not cried since his siblings died, and
Billy hadn't cried since he accidentally torched Arslan, his
favorite hunting dog, when he was three.

“Noooooo!” William sobbed. “I thought I’d be
next.”

The ambushers targeted the Boy Wonder in his
moment of greatest distraction. A dozen fireballs flew out of
nowhere. Billy popped sideways to avoid the worst of them, but not
even he could evade them all. Timothy, the devoted father of six,
threw himself in front of a fireball about to hit Billy in the
back. He project two large shields and used his body to knock Billy
to the ground. Billy suffered only minor burns, but fire swallowed
Timothy whole. Billy would remember his screams for the rest of his
life.