Part 11

The castle grounds were crowded with my eight hundred fighting men, two hundred girls, the land animals, birds and platforms. On the water were the boats, with sea animals to draw them. I had some four hundred men in this division—a total force of about fourteen hundred.

A busy scene of moving lights, voices, commands, the fluttering of the excited birds; behind us, on every housetop, in every window and point of vantage in the city, a throng of spectators watched.

The last preparations held a myriad details.

“Maxite,” I said, “the platform with the Frazier beam—have them hold it until last. Then I’ll come down.”

Maxite’s orders went out over the aerial he carried on his shoulder. I could hear the echo of his voice down there in the garden. I swung the grid on my chest to catch the rays from an image-finder erected on the waterfront. Alice and Dolores were down there. I had not wanted them in this fighting, but they insisted, and I had put them in the division of boats.

“All ready, Alice?”

She glanced up at the image finder; it stood on a post at the shore front. On my grid was the image of her figure standing there, with her insulated suit like a black cone around her, and her helmet in her hand.

“All ready, Leonard.” Her smile was grim, excited, tense, but I could see no fear in it.

“Be careful, Alice. Keep Dolores with you . . . and obey orders.”

“Yes.” She turned away.

Sonya, standing beside me, laid her hand on my arm. “We’re going to win, Leonard. And Altho—” She gestured. “I seem always to be getting his thoughts, Leonard. Again . . . just now.”

We knew that Altho was still alive, that Talon was going to keep Altho with him. Sonya very often had fragmentary communication. She had seemed to be getting it a few hours ago, and now, suddenly, we realized what evidently Altho had been trying to tell her. A messenger rushed up. He had come from one of our scout platforms.

Talon’s forces had started for Kalima. The brutemen with the heads mounted upon them were dragging heavy apparatus along the shore road. And there were rafts on the sea drawn by swimming brutemen. The rafts were already half way to the Virgins’ Island!

There was no time to be lost. Maxite’s aerial sent his voice to the seventy men and twenty girls who were equipped to receive it. Each of them urged his squad to greater haste.

The individual girl flyers rose first. One by one, each mounted upon a giant bird, they rose from the castle grounds, and began circling in the air. These girls were not protected against Talon’s electric rays.

It was my plan to keep them very high in the air, beyond what we estimated was the effective range of Talon’s black flash. They were armed only with small explosive bombs, but were expert at dropping them upon a mark.

A hundred and fifty of these mounted girls gathered now in a hovering group, then in wedge-shape, flew in a wide, slow circle. The birds were well-trained, capable of flying swiftly to great heights. And the most agile of the young girls; Sonya had selected them carefully.

This unit was the swiftest, most mobile of my forces. Sonya was to lead it. She was presently ready, bringing up her great gray bird, with its rug saddle upon which she would recline on its back between its great spreading wings.

She was dressed, as were all the girls in the air squadron, in a single dark flowing garment from shoulder to knee, with her hair bound tightly in braids around her head. The small metallic bombs were in a belt at her waist, bombs fitted with a chemical most explosive.

She offered her hand in my own fashion.

“Good-bye,” I said. “And remember, Sonya, keep well up, and listen to my signals. Do not attack until I order it.”

She leaped upon her mount. It rose over me with dangling legs; the rush of air from its wings was on my face. In a moment I saw her up there, taking her place just below the girl at the point of the wedge.

From the garden, the first of the flying platforms rose. There were three of this size, each with twenty men and some ten girls. Forty birds were harnessed to each platform: birds in tandem along each side, and two long strings in front. Four girls were to drive them; the other girls had bombs, and the men had the smaller range electronic needle-pipes.

These platforms were fairly swift. They were insulated underneath, with the shaggy black fabric of woven wire through which the insulating current circulated. And they had side shields which could be raised; and dangling, insulating curtains beneath some of the birds.

I stood watching the three platforms as they rose majestically, joined the mounted girls, and circled with them over the city.

The land forces were starting. Jim was leading this division: eight hundred men, most of them mounted individually upon the giant _lops_—a four-footed animal, more like a giant cat than anything I can name; handsome beasts, larger than an earth-horse, with great claws, a mass of shaggy red hair, and a tail like a plume of fur.

Each with a rider, they padded through the village streets. Some were harnessed to our larger projectors, and our wind device, which I planned to have Jim establish down the shore opposite the Virgins’ Island. With it, Jim could lash the narrow channel waters to a fury.

The small land force passed into the city and vanished. From the distant housetops I could see the waving crowd to mark its progress. I turned away. The boats on the river had started, a fleet of ten long, narrow, metallic boats, with insulated sides and shields, boats drawn by sea-like mammals, agile, swift, and intelligent.

There were some forty men and a few girls on each of the boats. A large long-range needle projector was mounted in the bow, behind the black screen.

It could throw an electrified, imponderable blade of metal over a curved path, with almost the speed of light for an effective distance of over a mile. And these boats had light-flares, wind projectors, and horizontal bomb projectors.

They sped down the estuary, with the mammals leaping like dolphins in the water ahead of them; then they stopped, circled, came back, and waited in a line in midstream. From the city a great shout of enthusiasm went up at sight of them. On one of them were Alice and Dolores.

Our three other flying platforms were long strings of birds, our longest-range rising, heavier, smaller platforms, each with weapons—a giant projector on each of them, with a few men to handle it.

Maxite said, “We’re ready for you, Leonard.” He had dropped, for the first time, my royal title. We stood, two friends, parting with a handclasp. His face was very solemn. I think he, too, was thinking of the homecoming. “I’ll follow you with the finders, Leonard. Keep voice connection if you can. Perhaps . . . I will see what you might overlook, and I can advise you.”

I nodded. A simple handclasp. He turned away, to watch our fate from his room beneath the castle.

My platform with the giant Frazier thought-beam we had constructed, was ready. I was to operate it alone. I had learned to fly its six birds. I clasped my black, cone-shaped robe about me. My black helmet dangled like a hood behind my shoulders.

I ran down the castle stairway. From the city a roar of enthusiasm went up. I turned and waved a hand.

Departure for battle! The people expected a martial gesture, and I gave it to them. But within me was a shudder.

I leaped on the black platform. It was no more than six feet wide and twice as long, crowded with the projector, the batteries and intensifiers, and much other scientific apparatus.

I gripped the reins, shouted to the six birds whom I had trained to know my voice and respond to my commands.

My platform rose over the castle grounds. Around me, the girls and the other platforms circled. Down in the estuary the ten black boats were starting in a double line. Out beyond the city, on the road toward the sea, a thin black line showed in the yellow moon glow—Jim’s land division. The city beneath me was a frantic, waving mass of humanity.

I shouted through my aerial. The girls and the platforms broke their circle and started forward. With my platform leading them, we swept in a great arc over the city, and away into the moonlit sky.

XVII THE BATTLE

The Warm Sea was a body of water some one hundred miles long by ten miles wide at most places. It lay in a bowl-like depression of rolling country. Bays and caves indented its shores in some places; in others cliffs came sheer to the water.

Kalima lay at what I might term its southern end. The sea broadened here into a sheet of water nearly twenty miles wide, which I had learned to call Kalima Bay. To the north it narrowed. The Virgins’ Island divided it, with a narrow channel on each side, beyond which it opened again.

To the left along the west side of the sea, the road from Kalima wound northward. The west channel of the Virgins’ Island was very narrow—two thousand feet at the utmost—but it was deep, with a sandy strip of beach on the mainland, a bluff of fifty feet, with the road on top. It was along the west side that Talon’s land forces were coming. And on the same road from Kalima Jim’s force was marching to oppose them.

Our water division of ten boats headed into the center of Kalima Bay, and there I halted them. They lay drawn in a black ring on the placid water. To one side of me, the squadron of girls flew now in a circle at about the threshold foot level. The platforms hovered near them.

Along the shore I could see the slow-moving line of Jim’s army, crawling like a black snake over the winding, moonlit road. I had hoped that the head of it would be approaching the bluff near the west channel of the Virgins’ Island. But it was not that far as yet.

I spoke into my aerial. “Make it faster, Jim!” The image of him showed his smiling face. Good old Jim, always smiling. “Right,” he said.

From this height there was no sign of Talon. Behind me, from Kalima, Maxite had sent out an aerial image-finder. Its pink whirling ball came sailing past me overhead.

I sat enshrouded in my black insulated suit. I switched the current into it; I could hear the current hum; smell its faint acrid odor. The apparatus of the Frazier projector was already assembled. The pulse-motor was on my wrist; the head-band I now adjusted on my forehead. I made all the connections, but I did not turn on the current.

Before me were my smaller instruments. A bank of image-grids was lashed here; voice receivers were at my ears, my speaker aerial was on my shoulder. I caught the rays from the image lens mounted in Maxite’s castle room. I tuned into it, saw his pale, intent face, heard his grave voice.

“No sign of Talon, Leonard?”

“No. I’m holding the girls and the boats ready. I’ll go higher myself—your lens just passed me.”

“Yes. But it shows nothing yet.”

“I’ll send one beyond it.”

“Good luck, Leonard.”

I nodded and disconnected. Sonya was calling me.

“Can’t we go forward?”

“No.”

From the boats down there I caught Alice’s voice, but her image did not register; it was dark in the boat behind the black shields which enshrouded it.

“Len, have you seen Talon’s rafts yet? Mett says he wants to know what our boats are to do?”

“Nothing. Stay as you are.”

“Be . . . very careful of yourself, Leonard.”

“Yes,” I said. I cut off, urged my birds upward. At nearly ten thousand feet I hung poised. Far up the Warm Sea, on the west road Talon’s approaching force was visible. And on the water, I saw the black blobs of his rafts, four of them, evidently huge affairs, crowded with men and apparatus. One of them was in the yellow moonlit path. I could see the swimming figures in the water, harnessed, drawing the raft slowly forward.

The pink ball I had sent out passed Maxite’s. It sped toward Talon’s rafts. On my grid I caught a glimpse of the wooden raft, with dead black beams standing up from it vertically in the air. Hundreds of figures crowded there. A black beam caught my whirling lens, burned it. The grid went dark.

Talon’s land force was almost to the Virgins’ Island channel to the north. The rafts were over near that shore. It was what I wanted to know. Talon would use the west channel.

I dropped my platform downward, and adjusted my helmet, though I kept its visor open. Talon’s land force would reach the channel before mine could get there. I had hoped that Jim would be able to set up our wind projector on the bluff there to command the narrow water. But Talon would be there first unless I could halt him.

I turned to my aerial and gave the order for a general attack.

I rose again, high in the air, and urged my birds forward. Beneath me, the scene of battle spread out like a map of three dimensions. Far down, our boats showed as tiny blobs speeding through the west channel.

They were fast, but not so fast as the squadron of flying girls.

Sonya came leading them upward. They passed me, a giant flying wedge heading over Talon’s rafts. There were four rafts, three close to the shore, perhaps for protection of the land force. But one of the rafts was farther out, separated from the others. It was still several miles beyond the north tip of Virgins’ Island.

Sonya’s squadron was the first to make contact with the enemy. The girls headed for this isolated raft. They were ten thousand feet or more above it. My heart was heavy with apprehension. I could see the black rays from the raft standing up into the air. Would they reach that high?

It seemed not. The girls went safely over them, wheeled, and came back. They had dropped a bomb. I saw a glowing spot of light as it fell. It struck the water, wide of the raft. A surge of water mounted upward, with a spot of red light where the bomb had burst, then another, a score of them. I began to hear their sharp reports.

The raft was lashed by the waves, but still unhit. But the brutemen pulling it were disorganized, many of them killed, no doubt. The raft stopped its forward progress. Its black beam wavered, then seemed to connect into one narrow black ray.

It shot up through the girls, cut a wide swath through them. Some wavered, came fluttering down, falling, recovering, limping slowly back toward Kalima, struggling to keep above the water. Others fell like plumets into the sea. Half our girls, undoubtedly, were killed or wounded by that single black blast.

Our boats swept through the channel. Three stopped in midstream; seven surged on. Lights flared, our lurid but penetrating red flare of light went up in an arc from one of our halted boats, and burst over Talon’s land force. It seemed that thousands of figures were there on the land. They had spread out from the road; over by the bluff, just beyond the north end of the channel, they were erecting a huge piece of apparatus.

The light flares died. But the gunners on our three boats which had stopped in the channel had the range. I could see the streams of their electronic needles, straight paths to the shore. Dim violet beams, with white radiance where the great metallic needles were striking Talon’s army.

There must have been a chaos on shore. Then from a projector there in the darkness, a great hissing rose. A yellow glow, almost like the moonlight, became visible. It waved, fanshaped from its source: a light that lingered, persisted in the darkness, spread until all along that section of the shore it hung like hovering yellow smoke, a barrage against which our electronic needles launched harmlessly. I could see them materialized into white solidity as they struck it, then flaring red, and yellow as they fused and burned.

The gunners on our boats tried curving their beams. Some were effective, curving in a great violet arc, up over the barrage, or sidewise around its edges. I judged that some were finding their mark, though the barrage was constantly shifted to check them.

The scene everywhere was now a chaos of flashing colored lights. The girls who had escaped the black blast had wavered, gone higher. Their bombs were falling wide; the sea everywhere here was lashed into foam where the bombs were bursting. A chaos of light, sound and smell: mingled electrical hums, the pungent, acrid electronic odors, the hiss of the flares, the sharp crack of the exploding bombs.

The girls for a moment withdrew, off to one side, very high up. They could not hit their marks; the black beams from the rafts, now spread purely for defense, rose cone-shaped, a cone extending widely over them to protect their swimmers. The bombs, those few that were accurately aimed, exploded in mid-air, as they struck the cone.

A chaos of swift, simultaneous action was everywhere taking place. Our great projectors on the flying platforms opened fire, downward at the rafts. But now from shore a solid black beam suddenly came sweeping out. It caught one of our platforms. The birds fell. The platform, its insulation inadequate, shriveled on the colorless blast, and went down, a tangled mass of birds and struggling human figures.

The beam swung. It caught another platform, and another. All six—the only six we had—were surprised by it, caught there, low over the channel, before they could escape. One by one they were crashing down into the water. The last one tried to dive; it was struck just as it neared the water level.

This black beam from Talon’s shore projector was raking the channel from end to end. It seemed to have a range of several miles—a longer range than any of our weapons. It destroyed our six platforms, and then swung upward at our girls. But they were just beyond it. They wavered as they felt its effect, and then went higher and farther away.

Talon’s white light flares were now continuous from shore. The scene was a dazzling glare of white, with alternating periods of blackness. The black beam, guided by the white flares, sought other victims. It swung on our boats, three of which were bombarding the shore, the other seven heading for Talon’s rafts.

The three closest ones caught the black blast full. It burned through their insulating shields, as it had burned the platforms. One boat sank like a stone. Another up-ended; the third tried to retreat.

But its animals evidently were caught at the water surface and destroyed. It lay there, its needle-beam wavering. Then it, also, was hit full by the black beam. It shriveled, disappeared. The water down there was gruesome with black struggling figures.

The beam swung after our other seven boats. They were headed to attack the rafts. They felt the beam but they were farther away, and their side insulation withstood it. I roared orders at them, and by some miracle my voice got through. Alice answered me.

“Head back!” I commanded. “Around the island. Into the east channel.”

It was all very swift. I had been fairly high and about a mile away when the black beam began its deadly work. It flashed by me several times, but my lone platform, with its six birds, was a small, inconspicuous object. The beam missed me; its handlers were evidently after bigger game.

In my ear Maxite’s voice sounded, “Keep the girls away, Leonard! Retreat! Our land forces are too close!”

I gave the orders. Maxite’s pink blobs of fire were constantly arriving from Kalima. He had seen our disaster. The black beam mounted on the shore seemed impregnable, unless perhaps from the rear I could assault its gunners with the Frazier thought-beam. I told Maxite my plan and he approved.

I swept back toward the Virgins’ Island. I would go back and come up over the west mainland, flying low. I could make such speed that in a few minutes I would be behind Talon’s barrage. Talon’s rafts were all well out from shore now, gathered in a group.

I swung within a mile of them. Their black, cone-shaped barrage was over them. They had made no attack, except the one upward blast at the girls, and no attack now was being made on them.

During those brief moments when we had bombed them, their swimming brutemen must have suffered severe loss. Many dove, and climbed to the rafts. But some were still swimming.

The rafts were heading slowly for the north tip of the in the other channel.

My birds were flying with tremendous speed. Occasionally I passed wounded birds, and wounded girl riders clinging desperately to them, trying to get back to Kalima.

I sailed over the island, toward Kalima, and then turned and passed inland above the road. Jim’s forces were drawn up in an arc, extending from the sea, back inland some half mile.

The heavy insulating shields were erected at intervals. The projectors were ready, and our wind projector was erected at the shore. It seemed a safe condition. Five miles or more of open country was between this line and Talon’s black beam. I could not see the beam from here.

But Talon’s yellow shore-barrage glowed clearly. Save for that radiance, the scene up there was now dark. A lull had come to the battle. The first engagement in which we had been so decisively worsted, was over. A momentary lull it was, while Talon seemed waiting to see what we would do next.

The scene was dark and silent. The night was darker now as well. Black clouds obscured the moon and all the stars to the north. And in the silence I heard a low muttering thunder.

I passed over our line, ordering Jim to remain inactive.

“Why?” he protested. “Don’t I get in this at all, Len?”

But I kept him there. It was no time for us to plunge recklessly at Talon. He had surprised our first attack and worsted us in the conflict. I was not willing to try that again.

Flying low, I headed over the rolling hills for Talon’s present land base. I put on my helmet, drew up the insulating shields that lined the sides of the platform. At my wrist the pulse-motor was throbbing.

I switched on the Frazier current, gripped the controls of the huge projector. If I could concentrate my thoughts enough . . . with intensity enough. I was letting them rove now, gathering strength. If I could halt that devastating black beam, and then order another attack, all our remaining forces attacking at once—

In my ears suddenly was Maxite’s voice, “I’m ordering Jim to use the wind projector. Talon’s forces are making for the island. We may be able to blow them away, toward the East Channel, where our boats can get at them.”