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Chapter Sixteen

They were brave, braver than Carcharoth had imagined their kind could be. He admired that courage—it made them enemies worthy of his fire. He only wished he had more fire to give them. The tank on his back was lighter than it had been, lighter than it should be. Even so, he'd sent scores screaming into the abyss. And Dagor had gone back to warn Titus. Even if he finally fell here, the Citadel would not be surprised by this devious thrust from behind from within. He had accomplished his mission. For a Soldier, there was no higher satisfaction.

But why should he fall here? True, the cattle had wounded him with their weapons, but the wounds did not kill him, and any wound that did not kill, he could ignore for as long as need be.

And how could any wound be mortal? He was not merely Carcharoth Battlemaster, he was Carcharoth Balrog. When the flame thrower he carried on his back ran out of fuel, would he not strike fire from thin air with his fingers? Was he not as near immortal as made no difference?

"Come to the oven," he cried. "Come and be burned! Come to me!"

 

"My turn," Barak said quietly, and slid toward the next group of silently forming men. Hammer-of-God tried to hold him back, tried with all his strength. Barak broke his grip as easily as if he'd been a clingy toddler. He took his place somewhere near the back of the line. Jackson consoled himself, just a little: had he not grabbed Barak, Chaya's son might have been at the fore.

The men lined up for the fourth assault on the bridge, and solemnly clasped hands, one with another. They had seen what had happened to their friends, to their brothers. That they were ready to go on together, death-sworn though they were, spoke of men's—what? Courage? Idiocy? Hammer-of-God Jackson, for once, had no sure answer ready to hand.

The covering fire picked up again. Hammer-of-God prayed for a lucky bullet, a killing bullet, to find the Cyborg at last.

Heads bowed, leaning forward as if against a wind with snow in it instead of fire, one by one the commandos advanced across the bridge. Hammer-of-God noticed he was not breathing. The lead man was almost to the far side, almost, almost . . .

Again flame wrapped warriors in incendiary embrace. But this time things were different. Each tongue of flame, though fatal to its target, fell short of the last. Carcharoth's curses were music to Hammer-of-God. The Battlemaster had wasted fuel toasting Strong Sven, who really did want to betray the raiders to him, and now had none to spare.

Men fell spinning, screaming, into the crevasse. But one, the last, to whom the flame gave only a partial molten kiss, stayed on his feet, hideously burned though he was.

"Barak," Hammer-of-God whispered. This was worse than he'd imagined, worse even than falling to your doom after the fire got you. To stay alive, to keep trying to fight—Not for the first time, he saw what Sauron blood could do.

A scream of anguish went off by his ear. He reached up, snagged Sannie as she started after Barak far too late, and tripped her up so she fell heavily against him. "Don't cry, myn moaie meisie," he muttered. It was his eyes that were wet, though. "Go, Barak," he heard himself praying. "Go on."

Flame thrower empty at last, Carcharoth committed a last act of insanity: he leaped out onto the bridge, defying the enemies of the Citadel alone and weaponless, save for himself. Torchlight showed blood from three or four wounds on him, but only a heart shot or a head shot would kill a Cyborg dead, and even then you couldn't be sure.

And Barak still moved, as he fought for a few seconds more life . . . three, no, two steps more, to close with the Cyborg . . . . My turn next, Hammer-of-God thought, and scrambled to his feet. Going forward now was a relief; dying in battle held no terror for him.

Barak and Carcharoth grappled. In his madness the Cyborg had forgotten that Sauron genes were not confined to the Citadel. Barak seized him in a way that left him open to any of a dozen killing counters the Battlemaster cared to make and—jumped, still grasping his prize, into the Abyss.

"BAARAAAAK! Am Bandari Hai!" Hammer-of-God's voice rose to a deep-throated roar.

The commandos roared with him. One by one, they ran across that perilous, blackened bridge toward the Citadel. The thin air slashed their lungs like surgical steel, and they shouted all the louder to try to drown out memories of screams of burning men.

 

No more flame lashed out. No other defenders waited for them on the other side of the bridge. And after a time, the thin air and exhaustion muted the fedaykin's first blind rush of grief and rage.

So, when Sannie collapsed to her knees, retching dryly, Hammer-of-God signaled a halt. His hand was shaking.

The fedaykin flung themselves down. Some shook. One or two curled up, temporarily—he hoped—rejecting the unbearable. He heard the whirr of a prayer wheel and a low-voiced chant. Only the Tibetans would have that much breath left.

Pain stitched itself across his chest. Not now, God. I've got an appointment with some Saurons. You'll have to make do with the leftovers.

Barak would have laughed at that. Oh God, Barak. It was his son dying all over again. He'd put his whole life into those boys, into every soldier he'd ever trained.

If Barak were here to laugh, maybe he could simply give in, lie down, let it go . . . what am I even thinking?

Sannie sank down nearby. He felt bodies at his back as others of the death commandos pressed in. They are my brothers and my sisters, he thought. My kin, more than those in Strang. We are bound with blood and worse than blood. With fire.

Hammer-of-God saw Sannie gather herself to speak and braced himself.

"General, when we enter the Citadel, I remember that the plans—if Sven wasn't lying—said there's a very narrow door. Just as with the fire bridge, we'll have to go to through one at a time." Another deep breath. "Barak is dead. I wish to follow him. I'm going first. As one of the Seven, I claim the right."

The argument that erupted was waged in whispers, not shouts, but it was nonetheless heartfelt and vicious. "A woman leading the way?" The glory-drunk fur-hats were squabbling over the right to plunge into a second furnace.

Their post of greatest honor was a post likely to be held very briefly—albeit for the rest of someone's life. She claimed it; it was therefore hers, and they could say what they wished.

She was of the Seven; she did not have to request where she could command.

Who would have thought it, that the lanky girl from the farm down the road, the girl who loved a Bandari and left her home to soldier with him would turn into a woman who could meet the eyes of so many angry men and simply repeat: "It is my right."

He was proud of her, and that made it even worse.

He gestured the fedaykin abruptly to silence.

Say what you must, her eyes commanded him.

"We'll see," he told her. "First we scout. Then we'll see. I just worry about whether anybody in there knows we're coming." Their lives depended on the answer. Carcharoth back there had been crazy as a bedbug—crazy as Chaya, his mind whispered. If he were as out of it as he seemed, he might have gone in thinking he could take out three hundred of the best of Haven all by his lonesome. Battlemasters didn't have to answer to anybody. With a little luck—suffering Jesus, just a little . . . But how could the Cyborg know and no one else? How indeed. Still, his solitary appearance argued for it.

A tunnel, angling downward, almost a chute into the innermost heart of the Saurons' strongest keep. They'd have to hit it fast and ready to fight. Sure, there were mostly women and children in the innermost keep, but some of the women were Sauron and all of the children. Furthermore, some women of the tribes had gone over in mind as well as in body. They would be armed. They would fight, Jackson thought. How well would they fight? He didn't have any way to guess. No matter what nonsense Shulamit babbled about Sigrid, you didn't see Sauron women out on the steppes. If they fought as well as Shulamit, that would be bad enough.

Don't think about it, Hammer-of-God warned himself. They are enemies, not women like Chaya or Aisha or Sannie here . . . faces rose up before him. There would be Soldiers, too. It would be good to kill Soldiers, if he could. He must. Because beyond the innermost fastness stretched the rest of the Citadel. With the TAC, the machine that foretold the future like a prophet or a skilled gambler. He had seen the rusting hulk of the one at ruined Angband. Badri had used it to help bring down those walls. What Badri had used, he could use—or destroy.

And if he couldn't, Sapper's men could.

They padded through the tunnel. It narrowed until they were practically bent double—no problem for the others, but Hammer-of-God's back was on fire and his leg threatened to give out. He ignored the pain. All Haven vanished as he focused on the tasks before him, the space right in front of his eyes.

And finally, the way was blocked. By the dust that lay thickly everywhere, it had been blocked a long time. Carcharoth must have found another way in.

"Blow it," Hammer-of-God ordered the engineers. With one arm, he gestured everyone back up as best he could in the passageway. It was deliberately cramped so that fighters would have to approach one by one. The engineers could widen that entrance, but there was no denying it. Someone—one or two someones—had to go through it first and face whatever was going to be shooting from the other side. And their chances?

He'd lived through a couple such squeezes himself and called himself a lucky man. Maybe not, though. Because this time, with Barak gone, he knew he couldn't be the first to go through. "Maybe, General, if they saw a woman, they'd be surprised, and I could get the jump . . ."

Don't count on it, Sannie-girl.

" . . . just long enough for some more people . . ." Scuffling behind her, a profane objection from Smite-Sin, predictably enough, and hisses of "down!" from the engineers, who wanted to light the fuses.

In the flickering light, Hammer-of-God caught a glimpse of her eyes. Barak was dead. She had turned her back on her home. Where could she go?

Nowhere but forward.

"Take the lead, Sannie," he ordered. And God bless.

The door blew. Even before the rocks had stopped falling and the dust cleared, Sannie was through, screaming . . . .

God damn! Determined not to follow a woman into battle, Smite-Sin tried to push past her.

"Get back, Smite-Sin, you bliddyful!" Hammer-of-God shouted. Gasim and Nazrullah followed them out. He hurled himself after the pair of them, desperate woman and jealous man, but he was caught up in the rush, too old, too slow, too sore to get anywhere near the front. A pack of suicidal maniacs, he thought. At last he plunged after them, feet first through the gaping hole in the wall. Women's and children's mouths opened in what he knew were screams. His ears still rang from the blast. He couldn't hear them.

And not everyone was screaming. Intently they had co-ordinated a defense, women and children as well as the few men. Sannie hit the ground. She would have come up shooting, but Smite-Sin fell heavily, fouling her legs, tripping her.

And a small woman with a round face that would have been flower-pretty if it hadn't been twisted in rage opened fire and cut them both down.

"Good shot!" The voice was high and shrill, piercing the deafness brought on by the explosion. Incredibly, a tiny child ran forward to snatch up Sannie's weapon.

"Gimilzor, get back!" the woman cried. Her voice bore an accent Hammer-of-God knew. The Golden Tamerlanes spoke that way, and every one of the fedaykin knew it.

One or two of them held their fire. Fools! It was the last thing they ever did. A tall, blond woman picked off Suleiman Tepe. She adjusted her aim minutely. At him, wouldn't you just know it. Time slowed, as it always did when his life went on the line, and he dropped and rolled. His leg shrieked pain. A bullet whined by his ear. Damn, she was fast. She too looked familiar. Ice walked through him. Maybe Shulamit hadn't been babbling after all.

Damn, were those children rushing him?

He lashed out with the barrel of his weapon and drew his saber to beat them away with the flat. If he weren't good enough to drive off a Sauron child . . .

The ringing in his ears had stopped. Behind him, he heard shouts. The calm part of his mind that let him plan even while he was fighting ticked off voices . . . Nazrullah, Gasim, Abdul, Rahman, Leshi, Lopsang . . . present, accounted for, and fighting like Hell, which was how this inner Citadel looked. Blood splashed the walls. Sauron blood was the same color as anyone else's: he saw plenty of both.

Then that damned woman with the pretty face and the bloody mind rose from a barricade she'd built of chairs.

She had a clear shot—or series of shots—at the entrance the fedaykin had blasted. In a second or two, she'd open fire. A few good shots and she might even stem the flood of men and women down into the Citadel. Blood already stained the floor from the speed of their attack. They still had a better-than-even chance of carrying this off.

But not if she blocked their rush. One good shot, though, and she wouldn't be a problem. You're really going to shoot her? he asked himself. Damn right.

He raised his weapon. It would be close.

Gasim ran up beside him. "Allahu Akbar!" he screamed, which was predictable. Then "Allah!" in a voice of pure shock—which was not. And then, strangest of all, the khan of the Golden Tamerlanes cried out, "Chichek! Daughter!" Maybe he was going to ask Hammer-of-God to hold his fire. Jackson never got the chance to find out. Something slammed him in the side of the head, like all the muskylope kicks in the world boiled down to half a liter. Blood spraying from the wound, he crashed to the floor, the rifle clattering beside him.

 

It was a rare opportunity, Deathmaster Sharku thought with irony that was becoming characteristic these days. His Regiments had to build and fortify a camp on the old Roman legionary model, ditch, earthwork, and all. Necessity dictated it, of course, with this area of the Shangri-La Valley overrun with screaming nomads. The Northeast Valley hadn't seen war in centuries. Now most of it lay in ruins. Worse, the nomads had built enormous earthworks, fortifications to seal the Valley away from the ruins of Nûrnen and the road to the Citadel.

"Those bastards are all around us," Mumak said. He pointed south into the Valley. "Enough of them down there to keep Ghâsh busy a while."

"Or us, if we let them." Sharku examined the earthworks ahead of him. "Amazing. The Bandari have got those cattle doing real work."

Mumak grinned. "Glad to see you think that way. All this talk of enemy warriors, I was afraid you'd stopped thinking like us."

"I don't know why I let you talk to me like that."

Mumak grinned again, then turned serious. "Double walls. We're investing Nûrnen, and the rest of them have us surrounded. Reminds me of something I read—"

"Alesia," Sharku said.

"Right. Julius Caesar at Alesia. Ended right, though. Caesar cut off ten thousand right hands, as I recall." He pointed out to the plains. "There's more than that out there."

Hard fighting and sheer grim determination combined with nomad inability to carry out a real strategic plan even when the Bandari gave them one had brought Sharku's Regiments to the hills south of Nûrnen. Now his Soldiers were building double walls from mountain to mountain, sealing off the roads north into the Karakul Pass.

His troops, working with Soldier efficiency even on the edge of exhaustion, had the earthwork almost completed. The road to Nûrnen—the ruins of Nûrnen now—and the Pass was blocked. The hills to the south were rough and tangled, passable only to small parties. Small parties of nomads were infiltrating through there all the time, but they were so many less for the horde to use. They'd be a menace in the Valley too, but priorities were priorities.

His body was trying to tell him that he could relax a fraction, eat, sleep. His mind was still in combat mode, revving like a drillbit that has eaten its way clean through a mountain and hasn't figured out yet that it's gnawing on air.

Mumak pointed toward the Citadel. It was far into the pass, almost invisible beyond the earthworks surrounding Nûrnen. "Looks like a sally," he said. "Odd. I'd think Carcharoth would stay inside the walls. What's he doing out there?"

"What the TAC tells him to do, I suppose. Mumak, someone's got to study that thing. We can't trust it any more."

Mumak shook his head. "That's a Hell of a thing for us to admit."

True enough, Sharku thought. One of their advantages, not just that the TAC gave good advice, but everyone, Sauron and cattle alike, knew it, knew in their very bones that the Race would never make an important mistake.

Except we did. This time, and the last three hundred years, ever since Diettinger died, we told the damn computer to show us how to hide, and it did, and what has that done for us?

"Hard fighting up there," Mumak said. "Maybe we ought to go help?"

"What for? The Walls are holding. There's half a million of those nomads crammed into this part of the Valley. Give them a week and they'll eat everything in it. Then they eat their horses, and each other, and they're all dead. All we have to do is keep them bottled up, don't let them get down where there are still crops to raid. Let the bastards starve."

"Goes hard, letting cattle run around in our city." He pointed to the ruins of Nûrnen. "Goes hard."

"It will go harder storming those earthworks. Mumak, it's time we learned strategy again, stop throwing lives away fighting cattle. Any Soldier wants to die for glory, can do it against the Empire, not cattle. This is our world! And we'll need every one of the Race to take it." He turned toward his headquarters tent. "Get some sleep. Truenight in an hour. We won't be able to do anything until it's light anyway."

 

He rubbed his eyes. They felt as if he'd washed them in sand and dried them with red-hot metal. His tent was pitched and waiting. The last meter of earthwork was packed into place. As he stood near the middle of the camp, still as a tentpole and about as central to the structure of the whole, he heard a raw voice bellow, "All right, maggots! Knock off!"

Sharku ducked into his tent. He wanted to sleep with a desire that was almost sexual in its intensity, but habit and Soldier discipline kept him awake, even after he'd choked down a ration packet and a cup of water and lain on his cot.

His ears tracked the movements of the camp: the posting of sentries, the dispensing of rations to men so tired they ate in slow motion, the rasp of snores as man after man succumbed to sleep. "Orderly."

"Sir."

"Bring in a night lamp after I'm asleep. Then get some sleep yourself. We've work to do, but for now, we can all use some rest." The last glow of Cat's Eye faded into truenight as he lay down on the bed.

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