“The Marines will go first,” Chapelle said to Lieutenant Bekiaa-Sab-At on the next barge. Bekiaa was originally from
Big Sal
’s forewing clan and was yet another one of Chack’s many cousins. She was brindled like her relatives and had trained under Risa. She wasn’t as ... freespirited ... as Risa, but she’d seen action at the Baalkpan docks at the height of that terrible battle.
“Be careful,” Gilbert warned. “There was some sort of Marine-eatin’ booger in the aft hold.” He gestured up at the tangled mess. “No tellin’ what’s moved in since.”
“Charlie Company!” Bekiaa called to the Marines on the second and third barges. “Prepare to grapple!” She waited briefly while the thirtyodd ’Cats that had accompanied them from the ship prepared. “Execute!” Heavy treble hooklike implements arced upward, trailing stout lines, and disappeared into the foliage. Raucous, indignant cries filled the air as flocks of lizard birds exploded from the mass and swirled above them, along with a cloud of flying insects. Most of the hooks caught something when they were pulled taut, and after heaving the barges closer, the Marines scampered up the lines. Many had to hack their way through and over the bulwark to the deck, but when a sufficient number had managed the feat and there’d been no cry of alarm, Bekiaa grabbed a dangling rope and scurried up after her troops.
Chapelle grinned at Ben Mallory. “Now we just wait a little while for them to check things out. It won’t be long before you can kiss your prizes!”
Something big jostled the barge from below, spilling the men and’Cats to the deck.
“Whoa there!” chirped Isak, grabbing for the bulwark. The barge tilted and creaked as whatever it was slowly scraped along its bottom. All the men had Springfields and a couple of the ’Cats had Krags. All went for them at once, snatching them up or unslinging them from their shoulders.
“Goddamn!” bellowed Laney. “It’s one o’ them pleezy-sores!”
The barge righted and something cruised away from it, rough, pebbly back, streaming water. There were big swirls alongside like it had very large flippers, or maybe feet like an alligator. An extremely long tail slithered through the water behind it, probably providing most of the propulsion.
“What
is
that thing?” Mallory asked. Already, seven rifles and a pistol were aimed at it. Moe, the Lemurian Hunter, had his massive crossbow leveled at the beast. “It’s too damn big to be a croc.... Isn’t it?”
“Hold your fire!” Chapelle ordered. “We might just piss it off. Maybe it’ll leave us alone.”
“Nothin’
ever
leaves us alone,” Gilbert predicted darkly.
“It come back!” Moe exclaimed.
“What is happening?” Bekiaa shouted from above.
“There’s some big beastie down here, Lieutenant!” Chapelle replied. “You stay right where you are!”
The creature described a long, leisurely arc, settling on a heading that would bring it back to the barge. It didn’t accelerate or anything, so maybe it was just curious. Of course, they could see only a small fraction of its mass and they already knew it was big enough to overturn the barge. Its curiosity might kill them. ’Cats on the other barges had clustered near the middle, clinging to the heavy machinery, tool crates, and supplies. The few Marines who’d remained behind aimed muskets at the thing as it approached. It slowed.
“Ugly devil,” Laney said.
The head was fairly clear now and it didn’t look like a croc. It was huge, about four feet wide and maybe seven feet long, but it was broader and more rounded and there were no grotesque, interlocking teeth. The eyes, while mounted like a croc’s, were even larger in proportion to its body and possessed an almost mesmerizing, alluring quality. If Courtney Bradford had been there, he would have been fascinated, but he also would have told them that the shape of the head was cause for greater concern than any crocodile.
“I think he’s kinda cute,” Mallory said.
With an erupting spray of water, something pink, shiny, and rather bulbous darted from the creature’s suddenly gaping mouth and slammed into Sammy, knocking him back against the hot, exposed boiler. Just as quickly, the ’Cat was jerked toward the bulwark. He hadn’t even had a chance to cry out. For an instant, everyone was too stunned to react—everyone but Moe. The powerful old Lemurian dropped his crossbow and clamped onto Sammy’s legs. The blur of motion slowed just enough for the others to see what was happening. Sammy was still sliding toward the open mouth, with Moe along for the ride, but now realization had dawned.
“Shoot it!” Russ yelled. Seven rifles cracked almost together and Ben’s pistol barked quickly, filling the sudden silence while the others worked their bolts. Muskets roared from the other barges and heavy lead balls slapped into the monster’s body while the riflemen fired another volley into the thing’s head. Both its eyes were reduced to spattered, gelatinous orbs, and white bone glared around a ragged, bloody gash between them. It started to convulse.
“Grab Moe!” Russ shouted, and Isak and Gilbert dove on the ’Cat. The creature in the water jerked backward and began to flop and roll. Sammy shrieked in agony as the massive “tongue” was torn away, leaving his entire arm and shoulder naked of fur. The terrible beast continued to flail with wild, mindless abandon, sometimes lunging almost entirely out of the water and drenching the barges when it splashed back down. Once, its whipping tail nearly swept the Marines in the second barge over the side, but eventually the convulsions ebbed. Finally, the mighty lake monster floated still, the brackish water around it turning black with blood under the afternoon overcast.
Bekiaa’s corpsman had crossed from the adjacent barge and was tending Sammy’s wound. A lot of skin had come off with the fur.
“You okay, Moe?” Gilbert asked.
“Swell,” the nearly toothless ’Cat replied, using the term he’d heard Silva use so often. It sounded strange coming from him.
“Well, you done good,” Gilbert said. “You know, I bet that was the booger that got Chack’s Marine in the aft hold of the ship! Chackie said he was there one second, standin’ on some ammo crates to stay outta the water and then”—he snapped his fingers—“pop! He was gone.”
“Stands to reason,” Chapelle replied. “If it wasn’t the same one, it was probably something like it. That thing was damn big, though. I hate to think there’s a hole in the ship big enough for it to come and go.”
“Maybe it growed some since then,” Isak said hopefully.
“There not be many monsters like that, big as that, ’round here,” Moe said judiciously. “Be like too many super lizards in one place. I bet they no agree so well. We git off boats quick now, though. Bloody water, big food, other things come soon, I bet too.”
CHAPTER 11
Rangoon
T
he plan had seemed so simple, so clear, in
Dowden
’s great cabin riding at anchor in Port Blair. Now, in the vast, thick, reeking darkness of the misplaced river the Amer-i-caans still called the “Ayarwady,” nothing whatsoever was clear. There was no moon to speak of, and what little there was, was heavily smothered by an oppressive, visible humidity, almost a fog. As reported and expected, there were no channel markers of any kind and leadsmen in
Dowden
’s bows constantly tossed their lead as the steamer crept slowly upstream against the moderate current.
Dowden
made just enough steam to keep steerageway and continue her advance with her heavy burden of troops and the long train of troop-packed barges behind her. If she’d been a coal burner or a side-wheeler, this would never have worked. Telltale sparks from her funnel or the noisy, churning white water alongside would have betrayed her to anyone watching from shore. As it was, commands were kept to a minimum and muted, and even her engine had been muffled with blankets, wrapped around what was accessible and otherwise hung as baffles in the engineering space.
Nakja-Mur
was under the same discipline, with much the same burden. USS
Haakar Faask
, another new steamer that had arrived a few weeks earlier, had the newest, most powerful engine, and behind her trailed
Donaghey
with her sails all furled, as well as her own allotment of nearly two dozen barges filled with troops, field artillery, and a short company of the 3rd Maa-ni-la Cavalry with their silently purposeful “me-naak” mounts. The paalka teams to pull the guns were kept inconveniently muzzled and stowed belowdecks on the frigates to prevent them from causing alarm with their shrill cries.
General Safir Maraan, Queen Protector of B’mbaado and representative to the Allied Assembly, was immaculately groomed for battle, as always. In fact, she was practically invisible on
Dowden
’s quarterdeck in her black cape with her almost blue-black fur. She wore a silver-washed helmet, though, that complemented her form-fitted, matching breastplate, and that was how Lord General Rolak picked her out of the gloom and the milling throng of nervous, excited, whispering warriors.
“This creeping around in the dark always makes me uneasy,” he confessed quietly, joining her by the rail.
Safir grumbled a chuckle. “An admission I never expected from you, O valiant opponent.”
Rolak chuckled back. “I will never be your ‘opponent’ again,” he said. Then his voice turned serious. “You are the daughter I always wanted of my one mate who passed into the Heavens too soon.”
Safir touched his scarred, furry arm. “And you have become as my father, as the noble Haakar-Faask did before you.” She paused. “Do not make me mourn you today as I still mourn him—and my true sire.”
Rolak grinned in the darkness. “Fear not. I am already too old to die properly, bravely, on an honorable field against respected foes. That time is gone.” His tail drooped. “There is no honor in this war, as I have said many times. It is not fun.”
“It is not fun,” Safir agreed, “but there
is
honor.” She huffed. “You know that. The honor comes with the cause, a cause far greater than any we had before: the very survival and freedom of our people—even if it is just the freedom to choose ‘fun’ wars!”
They both chuckled then. They knew that few of their allies would understand. They also knew that for them to succeed, for the Alliance to endure, “fun” wars were over forever. Things could never be as they’d been before, with Aryaal and B’mbaado remaining apart from others of their kind. Any wars of the future would always be like this: desperate wars of last resort.
“But why are you uneasy?” Safir asked at last. She gestured at the southwest bank of the river. There had been lights there, obscured in the riverside wood of unfamiliar trees ever since they’d entered the river mouth. Most were probably lingering cook-fires, left unattended by sleeping Grik. A few rough structures eyed the river with lights from within, but there was no sign that the stealthy squadron had been detected. They’d seen only two Grik ships moored near the once impressive harbor facilities they’d passed, and one appeared half-sunk. The garrison here had clearly been abandoned, and the Hij in charge understood that the remaining ship represented suicide, not escape.
“Oh ... you know. These night antics of the Amer-i-caans still disturb me,” he admitted. “Just on the off chance that this battered old sack of bones was to manage a noble deed, or even die an honorable death ... I’d like for the Sun to see it.”
Safir slapped the admittedly old but still rock-hard arm this time. “Shortly we will be in position, I hope, and the Sun will not be long in coming! If you die
any
kind of death today, the Sun will watch me taunt your corpse! Do you understand me, ‘Old One’?”
Rolak patted her shoulder. “Yes, my Queen!” he replied lightly.
“Besides,” Safir added, suddenly somewhat concerned for Rolak’s state of mind, “you
cannot
die. You still owe your life to Captain Reddy! I was there when you made the pledge, remember? You may only die in
his
service, you know!”
“This is not?”
“Absolutely not! You must be at his side, protecting him from something ridiculous and foolish!” she declared.
The deck shuddered beneath their feet and the apparent motion of the ship, slow as it was, came to an abrupt halt, spilling quite a few soldiers and Marines to the deck with a clatter of equipment. The curses that followed were almost as loud. Runners came and went, barely visible, and there was a muted discussion near the wheel. Rolak and Safir looked on with interest. After a short time Commodore Ellis joined them.
“We’ve hit a snag or something,” he said. “Who knows, maybe we strayed from the channel. The lead showed deeper water.... It doesn’t matter. This is as far as we go. I’d hoped to take you another mile or so, but we knew it was dicey. No friendly pilots on
This
river.”
“Is the ship in danger?” Safir asked.
Jim Ellis shook his head. “Nah, we’ll back her off okay once the troops and equipment are off her. We could probably back off now, but we’re running out of night anyway.” He regarded the two generals, his friends, in the gloom. “Just keep an eye on that right flank,” he reminded them. “Especially now. We’ve got no idea what’s out there and we won’t be able to cover you much with the ship’s guns for a while. At least until daylight shows us the channel better.” He paused. “Be awful careful, both of you. This whole thing is ... different. We’ve never done anything on a
continent
before. Pete’s scouts saw nothing on the northeast side of the river, and the enemy you’ll be facing was kind of strung out. Like in the plan, if they don’t get wise, you shouldn’t have much trouble establishing a strong beachhead anywhere along here. The forest opens up a lot past the shore ... supposedly.” Jim shook his head. “Captain Reddy’s right. Being blind is sure a pain. I’ll be glad when
Big Sal
’s planes show up and tell us what they see! Anyway, if they stick to their usual routine, they’ll run around like chickens with their heads cut off for a while until they get sorted out. Use the time to dig in and wait for ’em to come at you, then slaughter ’em!”
Safir blinked amusement in the dark. “We have done this before, Commodore, and we know the plan well. We will ‘watch our flank,’ and I have high confidence in that aspect of General Alden’s strategy. It
should
work, and it might well be the only way to prevent ‘seepage.’ ” She grinned predatorily.
“I know,” Jim agreed. “I guess I just wish I was going with you.” He turned to his exec, who’d drawn near during the conversation. “Send: ‘This is it. All forces will immediately disembark and proceed to their relative positions according to General Alden’s plan. There is no geographic objective other than the shipyard, and that needn’t be taken intact. The only real objective it to kill Grik and practice new tactics. Maintain maximum communication and physical contact with adjacent units. Nobody is to go running off on their own.’ ” He took a breath, wondering if he’d forgotten anything. He started to add “be careful,” but decided that, like Safir, the various commanders would probably think he was carrying on too much about the obvious. “Send: ‘Good Hunting,’ ” he said instead, then turned back to Safir and Rolak. “Just promise you’ll remember: just because the Grik have always done things a certain way doesn’t mean they always will. I guess I don’t really expect anything fancy—this time—but keep reminding your NCOs particularly to expect the unexpected. Someday they’re liable to get it.”
The landing was discovered fairly quickly, but that didn’t mean surprise was totally lost. Guttural shrieks and excited, high-pitched cries echoed from the trees along the shoreline in the vaguely graying, predawn haze. One of the strident Grik “battle horns” brayed insistently. Only a few barges actually made it to shore before the Grik in their area knew something was up, but the commotion arising along the roughly three-mile shore upstream of the Rangoon docks appeared to confuse the enemy far more than it rallied them to any sort of coordinated effort. Several companies piled ashore in the face of headlong Grik counterattacks, but these were poorly timed, terribly executed, and totally unplanned. Each may have been composed of anywhere from a dozen to two hundred warriors, and they simply attacked what they saw. In other words, they behaved in a perfectly predictable fashion. So far. Except for a couple of companies of the 5th Baalkpan that took some casualties from one of the larger attacks that met them right in the water between the barges and the shore (and the short, greenish “flashies” drawn by the splashing), the rest of the Allied troops brushed aside the ad hoc enemy efforts. Immediately, the army began to expand its foothold all along the shore.
To encourage further disarray among the enemy, at least at first, the big thirty-two-pounders of the steam frigates, and
Donaghey
’s eighteens pulsed with fire, flashing on the dark water of the Ayarwady through the mist and gunsmoke like the most intense cloud-to-cloud lightning imaginable. The thunderous booming of the guns was muffled some by the dense air, but the pressure of each report seemed even more intense. The fused case shot that had worked with such surprising efficiency and reliability at Singapore had long since been replenished and then some. Now it flashed over the landing troops like meteors, trailing short, luminous, sparkling tails. Half a mile inland, it detonated unseen except for periodic brief stabs of light that rained fragments of crude iron down through the trees and among the rudely awakened camps of the enemy. Rolling booms reached the ears of the army several seconds later, and droplets of moisture shivered from the leaves.
Safir Maraan strolled slowly along in the rapidly brightening dawn, hands clasped behind her back. She uttered no orders. She’d come ashore with half her personal guard, her Silver Battalion of the Six Hundred, and they had things well in hand. For organizational purposes, the Six Hundred was considered a regiment with two battalions, Silver and Black. Unlike the rest of the B’mbaadan and Aryaalan troops who’d adopted their own distinct colors, the Six Hundred still clung to their old black and silver livery. They also trained right alongside Pete’s Marine regiments and were crack troops. They knew exactly what they were doing and needed no distractions from her. Thrashing, hacking, chopping sounds reached her from the front as the perimeter was expanded. For just an instant, she allowed her thoughts to stray to her beloved Chack, and as she’d expected, his presence, his very scent suddenly filled her heart just as quickly as she opened it. The Sun and the Heavens only knew what unthinkable distance separated them, but for a moment he was with her, beside her on the field that day. Back where he belonged.
A paalka squealed behind her and she coughed loudly to stifle the sob that had risen to her lips. Consciously, she restored the stones to the wall that protected the Orphan Queen from herself at times like this—times she’d never known before she’d met the “re-maak-able” wingrunner-turned-warrior. Times when she didn’t want to be a queen or general or even a warrior anymore, but just a mate to the one she loved.
The paalka squealed again and she shook her head, turning to see a pair of the heavy beasts, their palmated antlers bobbed and capped, being dragged from a barge and taken to a picket line. She still marveled at the creatures. They were infinitely better draft and artillery animals than the stupid, lumbering, dangerous “brontasarries,” as the Amer-icaans called them. They were really too broad and large to ride, but except for their annoyingly high-pitched cries they were among the greatest gifts the Allies had yet received from Saan-Kakja and the Maa-ni-los. She watched as the barges withdrew, headed back to the ship for more troops or equipment, and another barge landed to disgorge its cargo of two more paalkas and four light guns under the anxious, tailtwitching glares of the gun’s crews. None too soon.
“My Queen,” cried a “lieuten-aant,” rushing to stand before her. “Cap-i-taan Daanis begs to report a substantial Grik force marshaling to our front!”
Safir peered upriver. The coming day had actually made it suddenly, if likely briefly, more difficult to see in the haze. “Are we well connected to the 3rd B’mbaado and the rest of Lord General Rolak’s command?”
“Yes, my Queen.”
“What is Cap-i-taan Daanis’s definition of a ‘substantial force’?”
“Perhaps six or seven hundreds so far. There may be many more on their flanks. It is ... difficult to tell.”
Safir nodded. “Of course.” She glanced around at the beachhead they’d secured. She would have preferred it bigger, deeper at least, but it was sufficient. As long as they had a contiguous battle line and enough room to land their subsequent waves in relative safety, it would be enough for the time. “Very well. Tell Cap-i-taan Daanis that his company may lay aside its garden tools and prepare to receive the enemy!”