Deadly Wands (63 page)

That winter was the longest of Billy’s life.
To reduce how many wands he sucked, he blasted bedrock and flew
constantly. Princess seemed desperate for him to impregnate as many
quads as possible -- as if the world would need them in twenty
years.

The next spring, Billy led his American
marathoners and near-marathoners to the southern end of the Ural
Mountain Range, where they met one hundred European and Indian
marathon battalions that he borrowed for the summer. Ivan the
Terrible stockpiled tons of food, bombs, and supplies at a dozen
hidden locations near their targets. More importantly, Siberians
and Russians drove herds east to make sure they wouldn’t starve,
while many of the near-marathoners worked as supply mules.

With a quarter-million long-distance quads,
Billy sacked the cities he avoided the year before. When Genghis
approached with a million troops, Billy simply sacked cities in the
opposite direction, forcing Genghis to chase him. Once tired
enough, Billy would attack at night, then backtrack them to eat up
the Khan’s supply train. Billy evaded the armada to concentrate on
easier prey. Whenever Genghis got too close, Billy would strike
hard and then fly away to burn more cities.

With Genghis in western Mongolia, Grandma led
Team Red and three hundred thousand half-marathoners from Alaska,
down Siberia, to strike what was left in Manchuria and eastern
Mongolia. They swept everything within several hundred clicks of
the coast. A supply fleet sailed parallel so they ate something
other than fish and rabbits. In Korea they picked up one hundred
thousand Asian marathoners eager to kill Mongols and take their
stuff. Having pre-deployed bombs all winter, they overwhelmed the
cities that defied them the previous summer.

William’s dream finally came true: no one
lived in Mongolia.

With summer ending, both forces in western
Mongolia struggled to feed themselves, but Billy had fewer mouths
and longer legs. Billy pretended to send his Americans home, when
really they just went to Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake, to
fish it out. Billy led the European marathoners west, to their last
stashes of food. Genghis took the opportunity to try to catch him
while he had them out-numbered. He pushed his troops and stretched
his supplies, since he could no more live off the land than the
raiders.

Billy stayed just out of reach until his one
hundred fifty American battalions surprised the Mongols from
behind, after overwhelming the slower Mongols that Genghis left
behind. No sooner did Genghis organize his armada to face the new
threat than Billy attacked as well. Team Red rotated divisions to
exhaust the hungry Mongols, until Genghis wisely fled with only one
hundred thousand troops. Billy sent the Americans home before
winter started and chased the Mongols down with the Europeans until
the enemy scattered.

Only for a Persian to stab Billy in the back.
Even pregnant, Princess caught him before he dove a kilometer and
divided her time between healing her husband and torturing the
traitor. The fool didn’t erase his wand memories, which led them to
several others back home who soon perished, along with his
family.

What Billy hated even more than getting
stabbed again was being unable to move for a week. Nobody could
even carry him to safety if Mongols attacked.

“You apparently killed a lot of his family,”
Princess explained the next morning. “But he hated Mongols even
more than you because they suppressed his people while you set them
free. He understood why you killed his pro-Mongolian family
members, but his honor code still demanded he avenge them.”

Billy survived two assassination attempts the
previous summer, but this one nearly killed him. To keep the
Mongols away and to enrich his European marathoners, Billy had them
loot northern China. Weighing them down with wealth was a surefire
way to keep his followers following. Plus, the less money Genghis
had, the fewer mercenaries he’d hire.

Because they both knew that the Olympics
would be more than just an historic duel.

CHAPTER 80

Overlooking the crowded Peking Stadium Arena,
Genghis Khan smiled for the first time in years. Instead of the Red
Baron interrupting his beloved Olympics, the games went off
flawlessly. Foreign news agencies fawned over the Khan’s charm,
wit, and generosity. In fact, it was the most successful Olympics
in history. Tourists filled every hotel within flying distance,
boosting the local economy. If they spend enough, the tourists may
actually pull the Empire out of its decade-long economic
depression.

Of the several million Mongol descendents who
moved here or just visited, the one hundred thousand sitting with
him in the Peking Stadium represented the most powerful -- who
refused to fight the war. Most of them preferred running their
businesses than the hazardous job of facing the Red Baron.

Genghis hoped watching the duels would get
their blood pumping enough to fight. They had enough quads and gold
to win the war. So he charmed them, culminating in this exclusive
honor of attending the final award ceremony with the Great Immortal
at the famous Peking Stadium Arena.

Genghis went out of his way to welcome
athletic teams from his former enemies. Beating Mongols in sports
helped them recover from centuries of humiliation. Few realized
that public relations was the Empire's most effective weapon. He
charmed the world media into dispelling the negative caricature
that Mongol-haters had of him. One summer event would not erase the
hostility, but it was a good start to resettling relations.

While critics portrayed Genghis Khan as a
villain, his own people saw him as a great man who brought peace,
prosperity, and security for the most people on Earth for the
longest period in history. A lone woman could cross from one end of
the Empire to another reasonably sure of her safety. The Olympics
was less about sports and more about spreading this message to the
rest of the world.

Now more than ever.

The only dark spot was that damn American
Indian dominating every wand event -- something he expected Jirko
to do. The Indian arrived in Peking a few months before the
Olympics and remained undefeated. Genghis wanted to poison him
until his spies showed him an interview of the arrogant bastard
bragging that he’d beat the Red Baron to prove he was the world’s
best dueler. Even better, the Red Baron publicly accepted the
Indian’s challenge!

Well, that was the best news that Genghis
heard in a long time because he could not re-conquer his Empire
with the Baron alive.

And the Khan was glad he didn't poison the
Indian because it turned out that he flew for the English Olympic
team. King Richard and his extended family came all the way to
Peking to cheer their new champion, who married the king’s favorite
granddaughter.

When crowned several years ago, King Richard
reassured Genghis that England would stay neutral, despite the
pressure his neighbors put on him. When Genghis lost his air forces
in Europe, the king repeated his neutrality, despite being called a
traitor by the rest of Europe. Genghis Khan valued loyalty. England
didn't blow with the wind like most countries, so he didn't regret
not poisoning the Indian who won so many medals for the
English.

And King Richard turned out to be a delight
at the supper table. Genghis was now very glad he didn’t kill him
two decades ago, as Ambassador Tamerlane demanded, when his
daughter’s elopement voided their treaty.

Queen Susan, however, gave him the evil eye.
Or perhaps she gave that to everyone. He wondered if she blamed
Mongols for her wound.

“My dear Susan,” Genghis asked soothingly in
his grand dining hall, “would it be too painful to share with us
how you lost your eye?”

The Matriarch gave Genghis Khan a look that
would have turned softer men into stone. Then she sighed.

“I fell on an Irishman.”

“Before you wed, I hope. I’ve heard sex is
possible in the air, but I’ve never managed to pull it off. Or,
rather, put it in.”

She closed her eyes to search her wand for
the video. “Some English mothers were picnicking with our babies in
Ireland when some Irish bandits mistook us for rich victims. They
planned to rape us and ransom our babies.”

She started the video just after Billy had
screamed over the hill. Susan stood on her chair so the few
thousand guests could watch.

They saw a few hundred men yelling in Gaelic
rush closer, clearly expecting to butcher them. The wand swung to
show a few dozen women leave their babies in the grass as Susan
commanded them to form a wall. Spacing themselves a meter apart,
vertically in the air, is hard enough for trained professionals.
These scared mothers had just moments to execute a complex
maneuver. Susan led them higher to force the attackers to look into
the sun.

Then the fireballs began. Susan and one other
blasted at three hundred meters -- beautiful fireballs, bright
colors, tight spacing, while accurately leading their targets. The
men charged too closely together to dodge effectively, which
allowed the ladies to funnel their fire into a narrow space where
it was hard to miss. The bandits fell like rain. The men should
have prevented this by spreading out vertically and horizontally to
flank the mothers in a classic envelopment maneuver. If fear made
them cling to their buddies, then they must have been terrified.
The best quads in front faced a meteor shower from the female
broadside. Efforts to evade only made them collide with those
around them. Those behind, flying all out, smashed into those
burning in front. What should have been an easy victory became a
bloody defeat.

The survivors fired once they got into range
until the mass of men struck the middle of the wall. The video
devolved into a free-for-all, glimpses of steel, fire, and death
played out to a soundtrack of grunts, groans, and growls. Susan
clearly fought like a demon bitch, so maybe she was born with the
evil eye.

The Matriarch had been spitting giant
fireballs, alternating her hand wands every heartbeat, as the
ambushers rose up to kill her. She jumped onto a man’s face,
breaking his jaw with her boot, then popped vertically a few meters
to avoid two men and slice a tendon at maximum range. She saw one
granddaughter get cut in the shoulder and a great-granddaughter
fight off three more. Susan dropped on one and sliced the other two
when something knocked her from the sky. She fell onto the head of
an Irishman, her face slapping the top of his helmet, slashing her
eye. Yet she barely paused. She wrapped her legs around the guy
long enough to slice his head off -- they’d later find an infant
playing with his face. This put her into freefall. Her feet smashed
into another Irishman who she savagely hacked, while still falling.
The recording suddenly showed a wide shield, then a fireball hit,
and finally her wand blasted the bastard who almost fried her.
Someone crashed into her, and her wand recorded her punching him in
the face, splattering his nose in an explosion of blood before her
other wand-blade slit his throat. The video watched him fall. The
grass had more corpses than babies, and a few dozen men were still
desperately fighting to the death when Susan ended the fun.

“Not all fights involve Mongols,” she said in
the stunned silence.

Now Genghis Khan understood why they called
her the Matriarch. She could beat a few hundred murderous ambushers
with just a bunch of girls. He was tempted to ask for a copy to
humiliate his recruits.

“Remind me never to invade England,” Genghis
said loudly to great laughter. “King Richard, I imagine you don’t
argue often with your queen.”

This was the first time Richard had ever seen
this video. “Not unarmed, anyways.”

Everyone laughed. Even Susan, who finally
managed to look more like a grandmother than a dueling
champion.

Genghis thought of his wife. Borte loved
witty banter and would have really enjoyed these English.

What Genghis Khan didn’t know is that, as he
surveyed the Peking Arena, Mara helped Billy’s son William put on
bright red custom armor. Grandma and her son Jim stood
uncomfortably in their own red suits, while Elizabeth danced in
excitement in hers. Their job was to lure the four largest Mongol
air units away from the marathoners flying in. The four fake Red
Barons would tire them out, then take them over the ocean where,
hopefully, many of them would lack the energy to return. Those who
survived would be lured to the Baron’s huge marathon force, one at
a time. Their most important job was to keep those air units busy,
tired, and apart.

Grandma did not look forward to pissing off
fifty thousand vengeful Mongols, but the other three looked eager
to be chased all day. But now she understood why Billy gave them
all Millennial Wands -- because they were gonna need them. Two
hundred thousand quads chasing four fake barons -- Grandma chuckled
at the crazy stuff Red came up with.

King Richard sought to avenge his daughter’s
murder via fifty thousand English and Irish quads dressed as
civilians who would pounce on police, militias, and smaller enemy
units. Lady Mara, although pregnant again, was especially eager to
avenge her older sister’s death.

Then, to the dismay of millions, reports came
in that the Red Baron caught pneumonia in Alaska by working himself
too hard. Apparently he never recovered fully from his near-fatal
wounds from the previous summer. Genghis found that hard to
believe, but his spies followed the marathon armada south to San
Francisco. The Khan expected the Baron to make a last-minute rush
north, but instead they flew farther south to Los Angeles, which
made it impossible for the marathoners to reach Peking in time.

Or so he thought.