Fire Time

TWENTY

From his easternmost watchtower, Larreka squinted across the docks of Port Rua and the legion’s few ships at the hostile fleet standing into the bay. Fifty-eight lean hulls he counted—fifty-eight mainsails tinged red by the newly risen Rover. The Sun, not much higher, dazzled his eyes with long rays that splintered and showered off amethyst wavelets. He could barely make his tally, and doubted that the garrison artillery could strike home a stone or a fire arrow against that glare. The barbarians had no such handicap; and the wind, already hot, was behind them too. It fluttered and snapped the banner above him.

“Kaa-aa,” said Seroda, his adjutant. “Who’d have supposed they could muster that many?”

“Their chiefs a wily beast,” Larreka nodded. “He kept them in motion, in small groups, raiding amongst the islands and along the coasts. That way, we never got a real idea of the whole number of ’em. But he told their skippers to rendezvous at a particular time and place—I’d guess Plowshare Straits on Midsummer Day—and there they got their orders.” He tugged his whiskers. “Gr-r-nn, that can’t be his whole navy, not by a long cast. The bulk of it’s doubtless out blockading, in case anybody should try sending us help.”

“Then why are these here?”

“To cut us off. If we embarked on an unguarded bay, we’d have a fair chance of evading them at sea and getting home to fight on.” Larreka’s glance traveled across the town, low adobe buildings huddled together and painted in forlornly bright colors, to the river on which its western wall fronted, shallower now than erstwhile so that rocks glearned like basking monsters, and over the brown and black land enclosing the rest of the world. Dust devils were awhirl out there, dancers who related some violent dream. “Yes,” he said, “the campaign’s begun. Their foot should arrive shortly.”

In a moment he added, “Their top male is committing one foolishness, though. He’s forgotten the good old military principle: Always leave your opponent a line of retreat.”

“They must expect us to surrender eventually,” Seroda added.

“A retreat of sorts, yai? But, you see, it isn’t really. Those ships yonder say different. And in Valennen, especially these days, you can’t support a lot of idle prisoners. Either they massacre us or they put us to work—as slaves, scattered around the country, in mines and quarries, chained to wagons or plows or mill wheels—Me, I’d prefer the massacre.” Larreka ended on an oath, for he realized that he’d better assemble his troops while time remained and explain this to them. He hated making speeches.

After two sixty-fours in the legion, Seroda had no need to disclaim fear or lack of loyalty. He could say, “We might yet work out something. After all, it’d cost them plenty to take this post by force. They might still prefer to let us go.”

“In that case,” Larreka said, “it’s our reason for staying.”

Those barbarians whom the Zera Victrix killed in its last hours would not be available for an attack on Meroa and her children.

While the double afternoon blazed, the Tassu host reached Port Rua. They camped in their groundshaking thousands a kilometer from the walls, in an arc between river and bay shore. Their grotesque standards, polemounted animal or ancestor skulls, tails of slain foes, carven totems, made a forest wherein spearheads flashed as if it bore fruit. Their drums fluttered, their horns lowered, they shouted and sang and galloped to and fro in a smoke of dust.

The town walls were banked earth under a high stockade of phoenix, every log sharpened. Flanked by the towers at the corners, bartizans alternated with bastions. Each of the latter held a catapult throwing several darts at once, or a mangonel with incendiary ammunition. Below the landward slope was a dry ditch in whose bottom bristled pointed stakes. Soldiers lined the walkways back of the wall tops, mail and shields burnished, plumes and pennons flying like the banners enstaffed overhead. Spaced among archers were the few who had rifles.

Upon his return here, Larreka had shipped out most civilians, or they had left voluntarily. Those who remained were wives and servants, many native-born, practically members of the legion themselves. Their labor and nursing would be valuable. We’re not in such bad shape, he reflected. Yet.

A horn resounded thrice, and two loped from a gaudy pavilion. The first was a stripling who dipped the_flag he carried in a signal for truce. The second was huge and gold-bedight. Arnanak in person! Larreka thought upon his lofty post. Should I go talk to him? Their ethics wink at treachery.

No, wait, he is a brother in the Lodge.

And, over protests of his officers, Larreka ordered the north gate opened and its drawbridge lowered. Alone he went forth. He left off armor—why broil himself?—and wore simply his Haelen blade, a pouch, and a red cloak. The last was a confounded flapping nuisance, but Seroda had insisted the commandant couldn’t look too shabby when he met their gorgeous rival.

Arnanak spoke to his attendant, who swung flag in salute. He himself stuck sword in soil. With Larreka he exchanged the handclasp and words of their mystery.

Then; “Hail and haleness to you, sir,” he said. “Much would it gladden me if we could lay down the deathspears we bear.”

“Good idea,” Larreka said, “and easily done. Just go on home.”

“Would you do the same?”

“I am at home.”

“We couldn’t set you wholly free anyhow,” Arnanak sighed. “You had that chance earlier. Now I must make an end of the Zera.”

“Go right ahead and try, sonny boy. But then what’re we talking about, when we could be in the shade drinking beer?”

“I have an offer, because you are brave males. Surrender. We will cut off your right hands and keep you fed till you recover, then release you in your ships. You will never solider again, but you will return.”

“Ng-ng.” Larreka grinned into the earnest green eyes. “I could make a counter-offer, though I’d ask for a different pan of your anatomies. But why bother?”

“I would like you to live,” Arnanak urged. “Indeed, we’ll leave whole any who join us.”

“Do you think that kind would be worth having?” Yes, they would be, on account of their skills.

“Otherwise, it is death for all, save those unlucky few we capture and put to work.” Arnanak flung wide his great black hands. Light glinted and rippled off golden armrings. “You have no hope. If naught else, we can starve you.”

“We’re stocked up, including wells that give a better grade of water than you’ll dip out of the estuary. This hinterland’s picked clean where it isn’t burnt off. Want to see who gets hungry first? I’ll race you.”

“Aye.” Arnanak didn’t seem annoyed at having his bluff called. “And you’re in a good defensive position. Nevertheless, it is defensive, you’re bottled, and we outnumber you eight times over. Do you look for help from Beronnen? Let them try it; our shipmasters will be gleeful at the plunder. Do you count on the humans? Why, they haven’t even stirred to rescue those two of theirs that I hold.”

“Don’t underestimate them. friend. I’ve seen what they can do.”

“Do you suppose I worked, fought, schemed throughout these years as I’ve done, without learning a great deal about them and taking it into my reckonings? My hostages only confirm what I knew. They’re here for knowledge, they’ll bargain with whoever can best slake that thirst, and they won’t fight without provocation that I’ll make sure they never get.”

Arnanak paused. “You are right about our not laying siege, One-Ear,” he continued. “We’ll storm you. Unless you take my terms. Can you in honor refuse them on behalf of your folk?”

“Yes,” Larreka said. “I do.”

Arnanak smiled sadly. “I awaited naught else. But I had to try, no? Well, then… Brother Among the Three, I wish you a bold journey into the Dark.”

“And let Them be kindly to you,” Larreka answered, the olden words; whereafter they two embraced as the Faith enjoined, and went their separate ways.

Toward evening the wind shifted around and strengthened, till dust hazed stars and made a thick, hollowsounding darkness when neither moon was in sight. Under cover of this the barbarians moved their gear into position. It included the engines they took from those troopers who went north to regain Tarhanna. At the earliest dawnflush they started shooting, with these and with bows and slings. When the Sun rose, well-nigh red as the Rover, it saw a full battle.

Arrows whistled in sky-covering flights, stones went whoo-oo-thump; a steady barrage to keep down the heads of legionary sharpshooters. Thus halfway protected, Valenneners worked catapults and trebuchets to cast heavy missiles at the walls—every few minutes, a splintering crash, a shudder through the timbers. Howls, screeches, horn blasts and drum-thunder blew from the horde which roiled on the far side of the ditch. Both suns climbed, shadows shrank, heat grew. Grit, borne on gibing air, stung eyes and crunched between teeth.

Larreka moved about to supervise. A standard-bearer on the walkway above him held his personal flag on a long pole. Every commandant adopted an emblem on taking his vows. Among other values, it showed where he was, for those who might want to find him in a hurry. Of course, it attracted enemy fire, too; however, Larreka figured he should be used to that. His device had puzzled many: a hand that pointed a short sword skyward was clear, but not the English motto “Up Yours.”

There were orders to give— “Get these love-tokens collected to send back”—and words to say—“Good work, soldier,” especially if the fellow had been hit—and surveillances to make and occasional things to do himself.

For a time, the archers who could shelter in towers and bartizans repelled attempts to throw planks over the ditch. Naked barbarians reeled back, ripped by shafts and quarrels, or tumbled down the slope to lie impaled as the life ran purple out of them. But they got one trebuchet close and it kept hammering until a particular bartizan and its neighbor sagged into ruin. Nothing covered that sector save the bastion between; and a sleet of arrows had taken its crew.

Larreka watched through a peephole. The second strongpoint went out of action about midaftemoon. Wildly cheering, the horde surged about before making way for a gang who carried long, heavy boards to bridge the gap.

“Okay,” Larreka said. He had his arrangements—a fresh band to handle the mangonel, each member supported by two bearers of oblong shields that would somewhat protect him and themselves. They trotted forth and wound the weapon. Nobody appeared to notice them until Larreka fired a couple of rocks to get the range. Poorly organized, the natives couldn’t recommence a proper barrage in a hurry. Meanwhile the planks had been emplaced and a vanguard of well-armored warriors started across, Larreka’s third and fourth shots were incendiaries. Jars of blazing oil struck, burst, and scattered widely the pitch they also held. Casualties were heavy and the bridge caught fire.

“Best we go inside, sir,” a legionary advised. The arrows were falling in earnest.

“Not quite yet,” Larreka answered. This is fun, sort of. Like old days. “I think we can get that trebuchet, too.”

He needed three shots, and a pair of his males took mortal wounds. Nobody escaped whole-skinned. It was worth it, though. The engine that had been breaking down the defenses of Port Rua turned into a great red and yellow pyre. And the other injuries sustained were trivial—in Larreka’s case, a furrow across the right haunch, easily willed shut.

He got skimpy time to admire his achievement. He had just led his group back behind the stockade, and was saying, “Well done,” to a dying youth, when a runner brought news of six galleys rowing toward the estuary. Arnanak must have an amphibious assault in mind, doubtless conjoined with a fresh attempt on the shore sides.

Larreka considered, looked around the officers and, beyond them, enlisted soldiers who ringed him in, and asked, “Who’d like to head a really wild mission?”

There was the briefest stillness, then a cohort leader whom he knew for a promising lad took a step forward. “I will,” he said.

“Good.” Larreka clapped his shoulder. “Get a few volunteers, enough to bend sail on a ship. Wind and tide are right; you can come in after those bastards. They could beach, but they’ll use the fishery dock instead—I’m glad now we didn’t demolish it earlier—that being a lot handier. Set the ship afire and crash it among them. Escape in a boat, or swim. We’ll make a sortie, chop down the crews, and let you back in.”

“Sacrifice a whole ship?” wondered Seroda the adjutant.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Larreka reminded him. “We’ll torch the rest to keep ’em out of buccaneer hands. I’ve only delayed to see if we can find some use for them first, like this.”

His main attention was on the young officer. Through heat and dust and wind, the noise outside the walls and the vigils and quiet dyings inside, their eyes met. They both knew what the odds were. In the face before him, Larreka recognized that the soldier had begun—at the back of his mind—to shape the dream he hoped would see him through his death. The commandant tightened his shouldergrip. “Fare in love, legionary,” he said. That adieu went back to the last cycle of civilization.

A lull came in the combat. The Tassu ground forces grumbled back in a vast, disorderly mass, to take what rest and refreshment they could. Larreka figured the galleys would stand offshore till dark. Then the sailors would want moonlight while they established their beachhead and raised their scaling ramps. Probably they didn’t imagine they could get over the stockade. But they must number in the sixty-fours; staving them off would occupy males who’d be sorely missed at the landward crunch.

I’d better slack off myself while I can, Larreka thought. Weariness was lead within his bones. Accompanied by Seroda, he plodded along thinly trafficked lanes to the headquarters building. The broadcast tower on top reared skeletal against a sullen sky. The Sun was down and the Rover low: light the color of Terrestrial blood, shadows the color of Ishtarian. At least the next round of fighting will be cooler.

Irazen, vice commandant after Wolua’s disaster, met him in the entrance, a stout, scarred veteran, lacking in flair or imagination but—since matters had gone this far—a good bet to hang in and make the enemy’s victory expensive. “You’re right in time,” he said. “We have a call from the hostage humans. When they learned the situation, they—the female, anyhow—insisted on talking to you.”

Jill would. Well, Ian would want to almost as much. but he’d be more patient about it. What a pleasant surprise. She rose before his inner vision, narrow headbanded face in its coif of dusky-yellow hair, eyes more blue than skies above tropical islands when he had wandered thither in his youth and smile more bright and ready than sunlight on their surf, tall slenderness where hid the ghost of a chubby little person who had stumped out laughing for joy to meet him. Let the Three bring more such unto her, though he wouldn’t see them… Larreka trotted briskly down a hall to the communications room.

“Here he is,” the technician on duty said, and saluted his commandant. Larreka took stance before the blank screen.

“Uncle!” Jill’s cry broke through. “How are you?”

“Still on deck,” Larreka said, as they do in Haelen. “And you?”

“Oh, we, we’re all right—went for a sunset walk, and we’re sitting on a hilltop watching the dale underneath fill up with twilight—but. Uncle, you’re being attacked!”

“They’ve gotten small joy of it so far,” Larreka said.

“So far?” she pounced. “What’s next?”

“More of the same. What else?”

Silence buzzed. Maybe Jill and Ian whispered to each other. Or maybe not. This room on this evening was of all the world the most eerily unreal place to be in. When she spoke at last, her tone was hard: “How long can you hold out?”

“Why, that depends—” Larreka said.

A legionary obscenity cut him off. “I quizzed your technie while we waited for you. No help is coming. Right? You haven’t even had us, for what bit of good we might’ve done. Uncle, I know you, and God in heaven damn it, I claim soldier’s privilege—you level with me.”

“I thought we might simply gab for a spell,” Larreka said into the cold countenances of instruments and controls.

“I’m beyond the age where a piece of candy will do me,” Jill said. “Listen, I know. The rest of the Gathering has written you off. Supposing they did change their minds about what it’s worth to hold Valennen, as you hoped they would if you held out—supposing that, they’re too late. Arnanak’s outsmarted them. My people are… paralyzed, or leashed by their own Navy. Your retreat is blocked and, since you won’t surrender, you’re to be annihilated. Arnanak was quite frank about that to both Ian and me. Your aim now is to make your annihilation so expensive that civilization gets a breathing space. Right?” Jill’s voice broke across. “God damn it, I repeat, we can’t let the thing be!”

“All die at last, dear,” he told her in a surge of gentleness. “Look at it this way; I’m spared watching that happen to you.”

The shaken answer came: “Ian and I have decided we’ll get them off their asses in Primavera… somehow… But Ian, we will!” After she had shuddered, she spoke steadily. “Keep this circuit available to us. Stand by for a patch-in to Hanshaw’s office at any hour. You savvy?”

“What do you have in mind?” Larreka asked. A fear sharpened his words.

“We don’t know yet. Something.”

“You must not risk yourselves. That’s an order, soldier.”

“Not to save Port Rua?”

Larreka stared into the abyss before he remembered how he had sent the chief of cohort off on a fire ship, and Jill had always liked to think of herself as attached to the Zera Victrix. “Well,” he said slowly, “check with me beforehand, okay?”

“Okay, old dear,” she whispered.

Sparling’s dry, abashed tone: “Uh, considering drain on batteries, we’d better stick to immediate practicalities. Have you any estimate of how long you can hold out unaided?”

“Till sometime between tomorrow morning and the fall equinox. It involves a clutch of imponderables,” Larreka said, while he thought what a grand mate for Jill this Ian would have been if twenty years didn’t make such a grotesquely big difference to humans. “Eventually they’ll cross our barriers and breach our walls. We can’t shoot that many fast enough to prevent it. But if we inflict heavy casualties early in the game, Arnanak may elect to go slow, spending fewer males he’ll be wanting later on. Once they are inside, we’ll make them capture the town house by house.” He pondered, “Ng-ng, split the difference and call thirty-two days a reasonable guess.”

“No more than that?” Sparling asked low. “Well… we’ll have to think and act fast. I may already have the germ of an idea. Luck be yours, Larreka.”

Across the wilderness and those same two decades, little girl Jill said, “Smoo-oo-ooch.” The connection broke instantly—lest he hear her crying, Larreka thought.

He turned to Irazen, who had waited. “Anything further to report to me?” he inquired.

“Nothing important, sir,” his second replied.

“I want a nap. Action should resume shortly after first moonrise. Call me then.”

Larreka sought his quarters. They had been Meroa’s too, and still held things of hers and memories. As he doffed his armor, he stood before a photograph of the two of them and their latest child at the time, taken by a man in the early years of Primavera. Jacob Zopf had died a bachelor, his own race had no more memory of him than lay in their archives, but whenever she visited there, Meroa tended the Earth flowers she had planted on the grave of her friend. Well, you’re that sort, Larreka thought to her.

He stretched flat on his left side because he had the double mattress to himself, closed his eyes, and wondered what to dream about. Fun and fantasy were probably wisest—let him, say, have wings and see what happened. It could be too saddening to wake with a mindful of ghosts. And yet, how much longer did he have for living back through the past and his might-have-beens? If he wanted a good death dream, he ought to start planning and experimenting now. Of course, he might not get killed in any way that let him depart from existence in the style and company he wanted… “Ah, damn,” he growled, concentrated on the wedding of Jill and Ian, and drowsed off into a feast which turned out riotously merry.

Seroda roused him by lamplight as per orders. The barbarians ashore were on the move again. Their galleys had raised anchor and were headed from midstream to the fishery dock. They had made no attempt against the larger ship that stood a ways off from them; doubtless they supposed its crew merely watched for an unlikely chance to slip past their fellows in the bay.

“Okay, I’ll be along,” Larreka said through what was half a yawn, half a chuckle at things which had happened at his dream party. Seroda gave him a bowl of soup and helped him back into his battle kit. He left HO in a cheerful mood. Who knew, maybe his friends really would find a way to bail him out.

The assault on shore shouldn’t bring any surprises that officers on the spot couldn’t handle. The riverside was less predictable, more interesting. Larreka hied there. From a bartizan above the gate, he observed.

Caelestia had cleared the western hills and was rapidly swinging up among the stars. To him it looked like a red shield curiously emblazoned. Its light spilled through the hot air, across the barren land, sullen until it struck the water; then it suddenly turned silver-cool, a trembling bridge. The barbarian craft moved black across that glade. When they docked, the yells of their crews rent whatever peace had been in this night.

The trick would be to keep them busy till the fire ship arrived—same as they were supposed to keep the legion amused while their comrades hit the opposite end of town. Across moonlit roofs, Larreka heard the racket of that attack. Bows droned, missiles whistled. Only those invaders stopped who were struck. The rest advanced in zigzag dashes, hard for sight to follow among shadows. Many carried torches, which streamed and sparked from their haste.

Behind them, sails loomed phantomlike, limned by flames. The crash when ship smote dock went on through ground and bones. The blaze roared outward. Yet the Valenneners, however dismayed they might be, didn’t break and run. They struggled over the earthworks to the bottom of the stockade; they poured oil out of leather bottles onto the timber, and their brands kindled it.

Did Arnanak deliberately fool me into thinking this was a diversion? Chaos, this is the main event! “Out, out!” Larreka bawled. “Sally—shove ’em back—before the whole wall bums!”

He pounded down the ramp and to the gate. Sword unsheathed, he led his troopers forth.

Metal sang upon metal. The barbarians rushed in, recklessly brave, hewing, hewing. Outnumbered, the legionaries stayed behind their shields and worked. They drove a wedge into the enemy that warded those of them who doused the fires. Then reserve forces reached the scene, and the soldiers could advance. Step by step, stab by stab, they drove the foe back down to the burning ships and the tides beyond.

“Good lads!” Larreka cheered. “Come on, finish ’em off, in the name of the Zera!”

A blow rocked him. Pain forked from his right eye. Darkness followed. He dropped the Haelen blade and fumbled at the shaft in his head. “Already?” he asked aloud. Amazement gave way to a whirling and thundering. His legs crumpled beneath him. A trooper crouched close. Larreka paid no heed. In the red light of moon and flames, he called on the strength he had left, before it ebbed wholly away, to help him dream what short small death dream he could.