The Crystal Empire (43 page)

Many of them didn’t, their throats torn out in the attempt.

Should they be victorious, Oln Woeck understood from things he’d overheard before this trek, the Utes would take the hair from atop the a
n
imal’s skull, hang it in their lodges beside the scalps of valiant human warriors. At this terrible moment, ’twas the one thing about the Utes which made sense to him.

The valor of the Helvetian warrior, the Saracen Princess, their mighty canine ally, and Mochamet al Rotshild, who’d o’ercome his grief to scream his Arabic curses once again and fight beside them, was in vain, Oln Woeck thought miserably.

All was lost.

Why didn’t they have the sense to see it? Why lacked they the good sense to lie down before the instruments of His wrath with some re
m
nant of dignity? Why didn’t they give up?

He had, long since.

Of a sudden, lying there halfway upon the weather-slickened grass, halfway upon the muddy, blood-spattered gravel, awaiting the final merciless onslaught of the Utes, he’d something which resembled a cheerful thought. Through some terrible miscarriage or oversight, as may be, of justice, he was compelled to face the wrath of Him who might not be named. At least he wouldn’t have to face the wrath of Fir
e
claw, for now the man would ne’er find out what he’d done.

’Twas at this very moment that the sun broke blindingly from behind thinning clouds in the west. The vision-obscuring mist was swept away as if by an omnipotent—if somewhat ironic—hand. Five gigantic, po
w
erful, wheelless craft rode up upon their cushions of hurricane-force wind. From a distance they began to massacre the marauding savages, saving what r
e
mained of the Saracen party.

Likewise Oln Woeck for Sedrich’s vengeance.

The objects were like great mobile barns, seven, perhaps eight times the height of a tall man. Yet, on account of their great length and breadth, they appeared to cling low to the ground they traveled o’er. Mostly black in co
l
or, their surfaces were mottled, varying in texture as if to make them diff
i
cult to see in a dark or wooded place. Here, they stood conspicuous against the yellow meadow grass, like alien mou
n
tains, their flanks stea
m
ing from the recent rain.

Oln Woeck found himself wondering what their owners felt the need to hide them from.

Toward the front of each machine, a series of sloping platforms was crowded with the forms of oddly-dressed men, directing the fury of mu
l
ti-barreled weapons which had cut the Ute attackers down exactly as Oln Woeck’s razor—or Fireclaw’s now, for that matter—daily removed stubble from scalp.

When the machines were close enough to whip-slap the remaining tatters which the Saracens wore, they gave out a great sighing. Their motive magics ne’er altogether silenced, the machines settled a bit clo
s
er to the damp earth.

And lay motionless.

No trumpet sounded. Great ramps were lowered—or lowered the
m
selves—to the ground. Broad double doors opened in the machines’ sides. From them vomited hundreds, perhaps thousands of men-at-arms, haste
n
ing toward the recent scene of battle.

In utter, inhuman silence.

The fighting-men, if men they were, not some man-shaped variety of demon, wore skirts fashioned out of strips of rust-browned copper, waist to knee, cunningly beaten into the delicate semblance of feathers, and r
i
veted upon a backing of ebon-dyed leather.

Likewise fashioned of black leather—or mayhap of the hardened re
s
in such as the Helvetians were wont to use, ’twas difficult to say which—were their back- and breastplates, molded in the image of a n
a
ked human torso. Atop these, fastened at the shoulders with what may have been insignia of rank, they wore short, sheer cloaks of printed fa
b
ric, more images of feathers, mostly gray, contrived to blend into whate’er natural surrounding they should happen upon.

O’er their heads they wore hard helms, fashioned in the fierce shapes of the skulls of birds of prey or predatory animals. The warriors’ faces were concealed behind the smoky tint of blistered transparencies. From the crest of each helm there projected a slender black wand, gracefully curved and bobbing like the antennae of a butterfly.

As if a floodgate had been lifted within his mind, an overwhelming wave of insectile horrors crowded in upon him, images of loathsome, crawling hordes which suffocated sanity. He heard the gibbering again and forced himself to silence.

Wordlessly—yes, and in Jesus’ name like so many ants or te
r
mites—hard-armored groups of five formed up to sweep across the corpse-littered battlefield, finishing off the wounded Utes they happened upon. Oln Woeck suspected that this represented no act of mercy, but of straightfo
r
ward—insectile—thoroughness. Three of each five carried drawn swords of blackened steel, milled along the edges into deadly sawteeth. The other two, with short, peculiar weapons slung before their chests, stood watch. These also wielded some divining implement, a small black coffer to which they referred with great frequency, apparen
t
ly informing themselves som
e
how whether or not those whose bodies they trod among yet lived—thus meriting their grim attentions.

There was a clutter of other implements and weapons Oln Woeck couldn’t fathom even thus far.

One such group of five at last approached Fireclaw, who stood pan
t
ing, legs spread in a combat-stance, his greatsword held before him, dripping scarlet.

Ursi growled as they came near.

The Helvetian warrior spoke a warning word as if to render the giant bear-dog silent as these strangers. Unheeding of this gesture, one of the copper-kilts raised the blunt snout of a massive pistol. It gave forth a dull cough. Ursi started, then collapsed, the ebon fletching of a tiny quarrel pr
o
jecting from one shoulder.

Another copper-kilted group filed in behind the inert animal’s ma
s
ter, that he be surrounded.

Fireclaw had raised his sword, shifted weight to spring upon the armsman who’d shot Ursi. Without a word, the leader-at-arms of both groups hailed the Helvetian, tapped upon the odd-shaped weapon han
g
ing at his own armored chest, seized it by the handle hanging below it. Rese
t
tling its sling, he pointed toward a nearby evergreen, its scaly trunk perhaps the widest span across that which the outstretched fingers of an adult male human hand could measure. The leader raised the weapon, right hand upon the grip, left hand held beneath his forearm, clamping the receiver to it with his thumb. He peered through a tube attached to its side.

Suddenly the ripping noise came.

Oln Woeck cowered in terror. When he forced himself to look up again, the tree, shredded through its thickness, was toppling o’er. The leader-at-arms pulled at an odd rectangle upon his weapon where it pr
o
jected a hand’s width behind the grip. It snapped free. He cast it aside, where it struck a boulder with a dull, clinking noise, replaced it with a
n
other taken from a pouch he carried at his waist.

Turning once again to Fireclaw, he slapped at his hip, pointing a gauntleted finger at Fireclaw’s revolver, stretching out an upturned, empty hand to receive it.

Fireclaw dropped the point of his sword, unfastened his weapons belt, tossed it toward the man. In his loins, Oln Woeck felt an inexplic
a
ble flush of satisfaction at the sight, one which bloomed into something resembling beatification when the Helvetian was likewise silently co
m
manded to yield sword and dagger—and complied.

This ritual, complete with its demonstration of the destructive qual
i
ties of the strangers’ powerful weapons, was soon repeated for the edif
i
cation of Mochamet al Rotshild and the Princess Ayesha, who, as Fir
e
claw had b
e
fore them, yielded their own arms.

Knife Thrower, whose life might yet have been saved, despite his te
r
rible wounds, was fallen upon by the armsmen, his body pierced, his throat slashed with half a dozen saw-toothed knives from ear to ear, pe
r
haps as punishment for allowing a violation of the borders he, like the massacred Utes, had been supposed to protect inviolate.

Beside Oln Woeck, the Rabbi David Shulieman lay, obviously dying of his wounds, while their captors argued with incomprehensible ge
s
tures, apparently attempting to make up their minds about him. Not a single word was spoken. Finally the remaining barbarian sailor began shouting in his native language, perhaps objecting to this inhuman treatment of his new friends, more likely currying favor by denouncing them. He was a
l
lowed but a few words ere he was seized by both arms, hurried ’tween two burly armsmen into the nearest giant machine.

Oln Woeck suspected he’d ne’er be seen again.

Two of the great machines detached themselves from the others, heading off in the direction Fireclaw had opined the Ute village lay in. Ere long, above the ridge separating this place from that, flame-lit smoke began to rise. There came to them the blanket-ripping sound again which signified death occurring in great numbers. After a surpri
s
ingly short interval, the machines returned.

By this time, howe’er, the pitiable remnants of the Saracen party had other concerns. Soldiers were coming for them, threatening them with weapons, seizing them as they had Shrimp, dragging them toward the my
s
terious machines they’d arrived in.

Fireclaw himself went willingly, shrugging enemy hands away from his arms, speaking in low tones a few words of parting to his great dog who, under other circumstances, might have leapt, savaging many of the armsmen ere being cut down by their potent weapons.

In Fireclaw’s eyes, when he again looked up, Oln Woeck could d
e
tect the poisonous glint of something other than grief for his animal comp
a
nion: that same curiosity which had ere this led him to evil. It had mu
r
dered his father and his mother. It had driven him away from home. Now he wanted to go aboard the machines, wanted to explore them, wanted to see the greater machinery which had created them.

Mochamet, parrot flapping loudly at his shoulder, followed his e
x
ample. David Shulieman, upon a stretcher the armsmen had brought, offered no resistance, but the Princess squirmed, fighting the hands which forced her along.

Till she screamed.

Following the crane-necked gaze of the girl, Oln Woeck, with the rest of the party, turned toward the ridge to which they’d been backed by the Utes. Something was there, something dark, something terrible. Something huge enough to dwarf the great machine into which they were now being hurriedly dragged.

Perhaps this was what the copper-kilts had feared.

It rose like a bloated moon, black upon the horizon, unspeakable in its immensity.

“Or do those who commit evil deeds think that We shall make them as those who believe and do righteous deeds, equal to their living and their dying? How ill they judge!”—
The
Koran,
Sura XLV

O
ne of the women
gave a squeal, mocking him,

“I
won’t!”

The boy stood half inside the boat, a foot within the hull, the other on the planking where the craft lay canted. The air smelled of salt and i
o
dine, the sun skipping from unrippled water. Scattered about were his father’s tools. Clutched in his hands
—
one at his hip, the other thrust before him
—
he wielded a scu
l
ling oar.

Answered the foul-odored old man, his bony figure draped in u
n
bleached fabric: “Stay thy hand, boy! Too young thou art to pay the penalty! Give me that oar!”

The boy complied
—
after his fashion
—
thrusting it into the man’s s
o
lar plexus. The tip sighed into his midsection, two more feet following on its m
o
mentum with a hiss. The man pitched forward, half severed at the waist. He looked up. His nose was a sunburnt hook, his eyes the color of icebergs. Like his namesake, he wore only a breechclout dec
o
rated with the dried petals of the flower Dove Blossom took her name from.