Whistling Past the Graveyard (17 page)

Prospero waved his gigantic arm. “None of this was supposed to happen. This was sabotage. This is a perversion of everything I stand for.”

“You got into bed with Cobra,” Flint said with a cold sneer. “What did you
expect
would happen?”

Prospero’s eyes shifted away. “I had his word. The Commander. He gave his word that my systems would never be used against human assets. Only against other machines of war.”

Flint turned his mouth and spat blood onto the sand. “You’re a God damn liar,” he said. “Or you are the greatest fool who ever walked the earth.”

Prospero shook his head again. “You love war, Chief. You’re incapable of understanding the higher purpose in all of this.”

“Maybe. I know people, though, and you can tell yourself whatever fiction will get you through the night, but anyone who does this does it for one purpose only. Money.”

Prospero’s eyes were unreadable in the glow from the burning buildings.

“Believe what you will,” he said. “But then why did I save you?”

Before Flint could answer, the faceplate slid back into place and the
Caliban
unit stalked off. Flint could hear its clanging footsteps as it headed away―not into the desert, but back into the burning building.

Then the darkness and shock and blood loss reached for Flint and took him down into the world of shadows.

-18-

The Island

A Joe rescue team landed thirty-one minutes later.

By then the EMP had done its work and all of the drones lay still and silent. Merely machines now.

Medical teams were flown in from Area 51. Doc Greer was in the worst shape and he was airlifted to a Las Vegas hospital for emergency surgery. Scarlett, Law, Flash, and Flint were all battered, but none of them were in any immediate danger. Order would need a vet’s attention.

The only member of the team unaccounted for was Shock Jock. His body was never found and the search was ongoing. Had he been with Kong’s team? A mole inside the Joes? It was a horrible thought.

Or would his body be found buried under the tons of rubble of what was once the Island?

Flint thought about that as the chopper lifted him and the other survivors into the air.

Monster, Schoolgirl, Teacher’s Pet, and Jukebox were still down there. Bodies in black rubber bags. Heroes whose real names would never appear in any headline. Heroes who had died fighting a battle the public would never know about. What had happened at the Island was classified. The death toll would be attributed to an industrial generator explosion. There would be no medals awarded.

There would be four more photos on the wall of the Pit. And the world would move on.

Flint sipped water to wash the taste of blood from his mouth.

Prospero had gotten away. He had gone into the burning building and taken Professor Miranda in his steel arms and then…vanished. Walked out through the smoke, leaving a hole big enough for Law and Scarlett to pull Doc Greer’s body out to safety as the building collapsed in flames around them.

From the air, Flint watched the last of the buildings go crashing down. There wasn’t enough water in the desert to fight that kind of conflagration. It would all be ash and charred metal.

It was a defeat. The Joes had lost before, but this felt somehow worse. Dirtier.

Prospero was out there. The Caliban unit was out there. So was Skyjack.

Destro, too.

And Cobra.

Flint stared down at the destruction and ate his pain and endured.

This was a defeat, but the war would go on.

-19-

Ice House

The Commander sat in his chair and sipped a lovely red wine. The
Goldberg Variations
played softly, filling the room with beauty. On the screens in front of him Destro and Prospero were screaming at each other from two separate secure locations. Each of them had called him within twenty-four hours after the Island incident; each of them boiling with righteous rage. They screamed about betrayal, about the sabotage of efforts. They each vowed revenge and retribution. And seeded through their diatribes, each threw covert pitches at the Commander about how their particular technologies were the only sane course worth pursuing, and they fired off coded emails with revised prices. Over and over again, even as the war of screams and threats raged.

The Commander conferenced their calls together and sat back to watch the fireworks.

“Ah,” he said to himself, “I do love the free market.”

Author’s Note on “The Death Song of Dwar Guntha”

Celebrated anthologist John Joseph Adams is a frequent co-conspirator of mine. I’ve done stories for a number of his anthologies, ranging from apocalyptic to zombies to the Land of Oz. He’s always fun to work with, and he’s demanding enough to encourage writers to do some of their best work.

This next story is one I did for his book
Under the Moons of Mars: New Adventures on Barsoom
, which contains all-original stories set in the world of John Carter of Mars, the creation of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The anthology included stories by some amazing writers including Joe R. Lansdale, Peter S. Beagle, Garth Nix, Chris Claremont, S.M. Stirling, Catherynne Valente, and others.

My story, though set in that world, uses John Carter only as a minor supporting character. I wanted to view Barsoom through different eyes than the former Confederate soldier transporter from Earth. I wanted to tell the story of another kind of fighting man of Mars.

A Story of John Carter of Mars

-1-

My name is Jeks Toron, last padwar of the Free Riders, and personal aide to Dwar Guntha. When he dies, however he dies, I pray I will go with him into the realm of legends and that our song will be sung in Helium for a thousand thousand years.

That is not a heroic boast—I won’t fall upon my sword at the death of my captain; but I have been in a hundred battles with him, and we have grown old together…and war is not an old man’s game. For odwars and jedwars, perhaps, but not for fighting men.

Dwar Guntha? Ah, now there is a fighting man. Was he not with John Carter when the Warlord raided the fortress of Issus? Aye, he was there, leading the mutiny of loyal Heliumites against the madness of Zat Arras. He was a man at arms in the palace when Carter was named Jeddak of Jeddaks—Warlord of all Barsoom. And in the years that followed, how many times did Guntha ride out at the head of the Warlord’s Riders? Look closely at Dwar Guntha’s face and chest, and in the countless overlapping scars you’ll see a map of history, a full account of the wars and battles, rescues, and skirmishes.

Now, though…?

John Carter himself is old. His children and grandchildren, and grandchildren of his grandchildren are old. We red men of Helium are long-lived, but that old witch time, as they say, catches up to everyone. Guntha’s right arm is not what it was, and I admit that I am slower on the draw, less sure on the cut, and less dexterous in the riposte than once I was. Even the heroes’ songs for which I and my family have been famous these many generations have become echoes of old tales retold. In these days of peace there are few opportunities for songmakers to tell of great and heroic deeds; just as there are few opportunities for warriors to pass into song in a moment of glorious battle.

It seems to me, and to Guntha, that we live in an age of city men. City men, or perhaps “civilized” men, seek deaths in bed, just as our great grandfathers once sought that long, last journey down the River Iss.

We spoke of such things, did Dwar Guntha and I, as we sat before a fire, warming our hands on the blaze and our stomachs with red wine. The moons chased each other through the heavens, leaving in their wakes a billion swirling stars. Tomorrow might be our last day, and so many days lay behind us. It sat heavily upon Dwar Guntha that our last great song may already have been sung.

I caught him looking into the flames with a distance at odds with the hawk sharpness he usually displayed.

“What is it?” I asked, and he was a long time answering.

Instead of speaking, he straightened, set aside his cup, and drew his sword from its sheath of cured banth hide. Guntha regarded the blade for a moment, turning it this way and that, studying the play of reflected firelight on the oiled steel. Then with a sigh he handed it to me.

“Look at it, Jeks,” he said heavily. “This is my third sword. When I was a lad and wearing a fighting man’s rig for the first time I carried my father’s sword. A clunky chopper of Panarian make. My father was a palace guard, you know. Served fifty years and never drew his weapon in anger. First time I used the sword in a real battle I notched the blade on a Tharkian collar. Second time I used it the blade snapped. When Zat Arras fitted out the fleet to pursue John Carter after he’d returned from Valley Dor, Kantos Kan himself gave him a better sword. Good man, that. He was everything Zat Arras was not, and the sword he gave was a Helium blade. Light and strong and already blooded. It had belonged to a padwar friend of his who died nobly but had no heirs. I used that blade for over twenty years, Jeks. It tasted the blood of green men and black men, of plant men and white apes. And, aye, it drank the blood of red men, too.”

He sighed and reached for his cup.

“But I lost it when my scouting party was taken prisoner in that skirmish down south. Now, why do I tell you, Jeks? That’s where we met, wasn’t it? In the slave pits of An-Kar-Dool. Remember how we broke out? Clawing stones from the floor of our cell and tunneling inch by inch under the wall? Running naked into the forests, wasted by starvation, filthy and unarmed.”

I smiled and nodded. “We were armed when we returned.”

Guntha smiled, too, and nodded at the blade. “That was the first time I used that sword. I took it from the ice pirate who sold us into slavery. I snuck into his tent and strangled him with a lute string, and for a time I thought I would throw this sword away as soon as its immediate work was done.”

“That would have been a shame,” I said as I hefted the sword, letting the weight of the blade guide the turn and fall and recovery of my fist on my wrist. The balance was superb, and the blade flashed fire as it cut circles in the air.

“And so it would,” he agreed, and his smile faded away by slow degrees. “Yet look at it, Jeks. See the nicks and notches that have cut so deep that no smith can sharpen them out? And along the bloodgutter, see the pits? Shake it, you can feel the softness of the tang and if you listen close you can hear it cry out in weary protest. I heard it crack yesterday when we fell upon the garrison that was fleeing this fort. Hearing it crack was like hearing my own heart break.”

I lowered the sword and looked at him. Firelight danced in his eyes, but otherwise his face might have been the death mask of some ancient hero.

“I know of fifty songs in which your sword is named, Guntha,” said I. “And twice a dozen names it has been given. Horok the Breaker. Lightning Sword of the East. Pirate’s Bane and Thark’s Friend. Those songs will still be sung when the moons are dust.”

“Perhaps. They are old songs, written when each morning brought the clash of steel upon steel. What do we hear each morning now? Birdsong.” He grunted in disgust. “Call me superstitious, Jeks, or call me an old fool, but I believe that my sword has sung its last songs.”

“There is still tomorrow. The pirates will come and try to take this fort back from us.”

“No,” he said, “they
will
take it back, and they will slaughter us to a man and bury our bodies in some forgotten valley. No one will see us die and no one will write our last song.”

“A death in battle is a death in battle,” I observed, but he shook his head.

“You quote your own songs, Jeks,” he said, “and when you wrote it you were quoting me.”

“Ah,” I said, remembering.

“Tomorrow is death,” said Guntha, “but not a warrior’s death. We will try and hold the walls and they will wear us down and root us out like lice. Extermination is not a way for a warrior to end his own song. There are too few of us to make a stand, and all of us are old. Where once we were the elite, the right hand of John Carter, now we are a company of dotards. An inconvenience to a dishonorable enemy.”

“No—” I began but he cut me off with a shake of the head.

“We’ve known each other too long and too well for us to tell lies in the dark. The sun has set on more than this fortress, Jeks, and I am content with that.” He paused. “Well…almost content. I am not a hero. I’m a simple fighting man and perhaps I should show more humility. I have been given a thousand battles. It is gluttony to crave one more.”

Again I made to speak and again he shook his head. “Let me ramble, Jeks. Let me draw this poison out of my spirit.” He sipped wine and I refilled both of our cups. “I have always been a fighting man. Always. I could never have done temple duty like my father. Standing in all that finery during endless ceremonies while my sword rusted in its sheath for want of a good blooding? No…that was never for me. Perhaps I am less…civilized than my father. Perhaps I belong to an older age of the world when warriors lived life to its fullest and died before they got old.”

“You’ve fought in more battles than anyone I’ve ever heard of,” I said. “Perhaps more than the great Tars Tarkas or the Warlord himself. You’ve
been
in most of their battles, and a hundred beside.”

“And what is the result, Jeks? The world has grown quiet, there are no new songs. The Warlord has tamed Barsoom. He’s broken the Assassins Guild and exposed the corruption of the nobles in the courts of Helium, made allies of the Tharks and Okarians; overthrew the Kaldanes, driven out most of the pirates except these last desert scum, and brought peace to the warring kingdoms.”