The Horse Barbarians

14

“I do not like it,” Kerk said. “I do not think that it can be done.”

“Kindly keep your doubts to yourself,” Jason whispered as they came up to Temuchin. “I’ll have enough of a job selling him this in any case. If you can’t help, at least stand there and nod your head once in a while as if you agreed with me.”

“Madness,” Kerk grumbled.

“Greetings, oh warlord,” Jason intoned. “I have come bringing aid that will turn this moment of disaster into victory.”

If Temuchin heard, he gave no sign. He sat on a boulder with his hands over the pommel of his sword, which stood upright on the ground before him, looking straight ahead at the sealed pass that had stopped his dream of conquest. The last rays of the setting sun lit up the sheer, vertical faces of the towers of rock that formed the gate.

“The pass is now a trap,” Jason said. “If we try to climb the rubble blocking it, or clear it away, we will be shot down by the men concealed behind it. Long before we can have forced passage, the reinforcements will have arrived. However, there is one thing that can be done. If we were to stand on the top of the higher spire of rock, on the left there, we could drop the gunpowder bombs down on the enemy, keeping them at bay until your soldiers had climbed the rockf all.”

Temuchin’s eyes went slowly up the smooth fall of rock to the summit high above. “That stone can not be climbed,” he said without turning his head.

Kerk nodded and opened his mouth to agree, then made an oofing sound instead as Jason planted an elbow in the pit of his stomach.

“You are right. Most men cannot climb that rock. But we Pyrrans are mountain men and can climb that tower with ease. Do we have your permission?”

The warlord turned deliberately and examined Jason as though he were more than a little mad. “Begin then. I will watch.”

“It must be done during daylight. We will need to see in order to throw the bombs. Then there is special equipment in our saddlebags that we must make ready. Therefore the climb will begin at dawn and by afternoon The Slash will be yours.”

They could feel Temuchin’s eyes burning into their backs as they returned to the others. Kerk was baffled.

“What equipment are you talking about? None of this makes sense.”

“Only because you have never been exposed to accepted rock-climbing techniques. The piece of equipment I will need first is your radio, because I have to call the ship and have the other equipment made. If they work hard, it can be done and delivered before dawn. See that our men set up camp as far from the others as possible. We want to be able to slip away without being noticed.”

While the others unrolled the fur sleeping bags and dug the fire pits, Jason used the radio. The inoropes were arranged in a rough circle while he crouched in the center behind the concealing bulk of their bodies. The duty officer aboard the Pugnacious sent a messenger to awaken and call in all the men, then copied down Jason’s instructions. There were no complaints or excuses as a war emergency is a normal part of Pyrran life, and delivery of the equipment was promised for well before dawn. Jason listened to a repeat of his instructions, then signed off. He ate some of the hot stew and left orders to be awakened when the completion call came through. It had been a long day, he was on the verge of exhaustion, and tomorrow promised to be even worse. Settling down in his sleeping bag, boots and all, he pulled a flap of fur over his face to keep the ice from forming in his nostrils and fell instantly to sleep.

“Co away,” he muttered, and tried to pull away from the clutching hand that was crushing his already well crushed arm.

“Get up,” Kerk said. “The call came through ten minutes ago. The launch is leaving now with the cargo and we must ride to meet it. The moropes are already saddled.” Jason groaned at the thought and sat up. All of the heat was instantly sucked from his body and he began to shiver.

“M-medikit-t,” he rattled. “Give me a good jolt of stimulants and painkillers because I have a feeling that it is going to be a very long day.”

“Wait here,” Kerk said. “I will meet the launch myself.”

“I would like to, but I can’t. I have to check the items before the launch returns to the ship. Everything must be perfect.”

They carried him to his morope and put him into the saddle. Kerk took his reins and led the beast while Jason dozed, clutching the pommel so he would not fall. They trotted through the predawn darkness and, by the time they had reached the appointed spot, the medication had taken hold and Jason felt remotely human.

“The launch is touching down,” Kerk said, holding the radio to his ear. There was the faintest rumble on the eastern horizon, a sound that would never be heard back at the camp.

“Do you have the flashlight?” Jason asked.

“Of course, wasn’t that part of the instructions?” Jason could imagine the big man scowling into the darkness. It was inconceivable for a Pyrran to forget instructions. “It has a photon store of x 8,ooo lumen-hours, and at full output can put out 1000 LF.”

“Throttle it down, we don’t need a tenth of that. The verticapsule is phototropic and has been set to home on any light source twice as radiant as the brightest star—”

“Capsule launched, on this radio bearing, distance approximately ten kilometers.”

“Right. It does about 120 an hour wide open so you can turn the light on now on the same bearing. Give it something to look for.”

“Wait, the pilot’s saying something. Take the light.”

Jason took the finger-sized tube and switched it on, turning the intensity ring until a narrow beam of light spiked away into the darkness.He pointed it in the direction of the grounded launch.

“The pilot reports that they had some trouble making a stain take on the nylon rope. It’s on now, but they can’t guarantee that it will be waterproof, and it is very blotchy.”

“The blotchier the better. Just as long as it resembles leather from a distance. And I’m not expecting any rain. Did you hear that?”

A rising hum sounded from the sky and they could make out a faint red light dropping down toward them. A moment later the beam glinted from the silvery hull of the verticapsule and Jason turned down the light’s intensity. There was a faint whistle of jets as the meter-long shape came into sight, dropping straight down, slowing as its radar altimeter sensed the ground. When it was low enough, Kerk reached up and threw the landing switch, and it settled with a dying hum to the ground. Jason flipped open the cargo hatch and drew out the coil of brown rope.

“Perfect,” he said, handing it to Kerk. He burrowed deeper and produced a steel hammer that had been hand-forged from a single lump of metal. It balanced nicely in his palm: the leather wrappings on the handle gave it a good grip. It had been acid-etched and rubbed with dirt to simulate age.

“What is this?” Kerk asked, pulling a metal spike out of the compartment and turning it over in the light.

“A piton, a solid one. Half of them should be like that, and half with clips-like this one.” He held up a similar spike that had a hole drilled in its broad end through which a ringlike clip had been passed.

“These things mean nothing to me,” Kerk said.

“They don’t have to.” Jason emptied the cargo compartment while he spoke. “I’m climbing the spire and I know how to use them. I only wish that I could take along some of the more modern climbing equipment, but that would give me away at once. If we had any in the ship, which we don’t. There are explosive piton setters that will drive a spike into the hardest rock, and instant-adhesive pitons that set in less than a second and the join is tougher than the rock around it. But I’m not using any of them. But I have had this rope wrapped around one of those monofilaments of grown ceramic fiber, the ones we use instead of barbed wire. With a breaking strength of more than z,ooo kilos. But what I have here will get me up the spire. I’ll just climb until I run out of handholds, then I’ll stop and drive in a piton and climb on it. For overhangs, or any other place where I need a rope, I use the ones with the rings. And these are for use close to the ground.” He held up a crude-looking piton marred by hand-forged hammer blows and pitted with age. “All of these are made from bar-steel stock, which is a little rare in this part of the world. So the ones Temuchin and his men will see have been made into artificial antiques. Everything’s here. You can tell the launch to take the verticapsule back.”

The jets blew sand in their faces as the capsule rose and vanished. Jason held the light while Kerk tied the plaited leather rope to the end of the stained nylon line, then stowed this in the backpack, along with the rest of the equipment that Jason would use during the climb. Behind them, as they rode back to the encampment, the first light of dawn touched the horizon.

When the Pyrrans marched up The Slash, they saw that a desperate battle had been fought during the night. The dam of rubble and rock still sealed the neck of the valley, but now it was sprfnkled darkly with corpses. Soldiers slept on the ground, out of bowshot of the enemy above, many of them wounded. A bloodstained nomad, with the totem of the lizard clan on his helm, sat impassively while a fellow clansman cut at the bone shaft of the arrow that had penetrated his arm.

“What happened here?” Jason asked him.

“We attacked at night,” the wounded soldier said. “We could not be quiet because the rocks slipped and rolled away while we climbed, and many were hurt in this way. When we were close to the top, the weasels threw bundles of burning grass on our heads and they were above us on the clifftop in the darkness. We could not fight back and only those who were not high on the rocks lived to come down again. It was very bad.”

“But very good for us,” Kerk said as they moved on. “Temuchin will have lost prestige with this defeat, and we will gain it when we climb the rock. If we can—”

“Don’t start the doubting act again,” Jason said. “Just stand by at the base here and pretend that you know exactly what is going on.”

Jason took off his heavy outer clothing and shivered. Well, he would warm up quickly enough as soon as he started his ascent. From below the tower looked as unclimbable as the side of a spaceship. He was tying the piton hammer’s thong around his wrist when Ahankk walked up, his face working as he tried both to sneer and to look dubious at the same time.

“I have been told, jongleur, that you are so stupid you think you can climb straight up rock.”

“That is not all you have been told,” Jason said, slipping his arms through the pack straps and settling the pack on his back. “Lord Temuchin told you to come here to see what happens. So get comfortable and rest your legs for the moment when you must run to your master with the glad news of my success.”

Kerk looked up dubiously at the vertical face of rock, then down at Jason. “Let me climb,” he said. “I am stronger than you and in far better condition.”

“That you are,” Jason agreed. “And as soon as I get to the top, I’ll throw down the rope and you can climb up with all the bombs. But you can’t go first. Rock climbing is a skilled sport, and you are not going to learn it in a few minutes. Thanks for the offer, but I’m the only one who can do this job. So here we go. I would appreciate a lift so I can get a grip on that small ledge right over your head.”

There was no nonsense about climbing up onto the Pyrran’s shoulders. Kerk just bent and seized Jason by the ankles and lifted him straight up into the air. Jason walked his hands up the stone face as he rose and grabbed onto the narrow ledge while Kerk steadied his feet. Then his toes scrabbled and caught on a protruding hump and the climb had begun.

Jason was at least ten meters above the ground before he had to drive his first piton. A good bit of ledge, wide enough to lie down on, was well beyond the reach of his outstretched fingertips. The rock surface here was interlaced with cracks, so he picked a transverse one at the right height before him. The first piton was one of the disguised ones; he jammed it into the crack. Four sharp blows with the hammer wedged it in solidly. Slowly and carefully — it had been a good ten years since he had done any real climbing, he stepped out and eased his weight onto the piton. It held. He straightened his leg, sliding up the rough surface of the rock until he could reach the ledge. Then he pulled himself up to a sitting position and, breathing heavily, looked down at the upturned faces below. All of the soldiers were looking at him now, and even Temuchin had appeared to watch the climb. The enemy was surely taking an interest in what was happening, but the swell of the rock face cut them off from sight and arrow-shot. They could come to the edge of the canyon’s wall, but they could not reach him unless they climbed the tower as well.

The rock was cold and he had better keep moving.

There was no way to estimate the height accurately, but he thought he must now be at least as high as the rim of the canyon. He had his toes jammed into a wide crack and was trying to drive a piton at an awkward angle off to one side when he heard the shouting below.

He bent as much as he could and called down, “What? I can’t hear what you are saying.” As he did this an arrow cracked into the rock at the place where his head had been and spun away and fell.

Jason almost fell after it, keeping his grip only by a convulsive clutch at the ribbed surface of the rock. When he turned his head, he saw a weasel tribesman hanging from a leather strap that was tied tightly about his body. He had a second arrow notched and ready to fire. The men holding the other end of the strap were out of sight on the rim of The Slash, but by lowering the bowman below the bulging outcropping they had put him within bowshot of Jason.

The warrior carefully drew the arrow back to the point of his jaw and took aim. The hammer was tied by its thong to Jason’s wrist so he would not lose it, but he still clutched the piton in his left hand. With a reflexive motion, he hurled it at the bowman. The blunt end caught him in the shoulder. It did not injure him, but it deflected his aim enough so that the second arrow missed as well. He pulled a third from his belt and notched it to the bowstring.

Down below the soldiers were also shooting their bows, but the range was long and the overhead aim difficult. One arrow, almost spent, sank into the bowman’s thigh, but he ignored it.

Jason let go of the hammer and took out a piton. It was tempered steel, well weighted and needle sharp. And he had had one try already so he knew the range. Taking the pointed end in his fingertips he drew well back beyond his head, then threw it with all the strength of his arm.

The point caught the bowman in the side of the neck and sank deep. He let go of his bow, scratched for the weapon with his fingers, shuddered and died. His body vanished from sight as the others pulled him up.

Someone had quieted the men below and he heard Kerk’s voice cutting through the sudden silence.

“Hold on and brace yourself!” he shouted.

Jason looked down slowly and saw that the Pyrran had moved back from the base of the cliff and was holding one of their bombs, bent over and lighting it. Frantically, Jason kicked his toes in farther and, making fists of both hands, he jammed them deep into a vertical crack in the stone face.

Below him, the soldiers retreated from the base of the cliff. The foreshortened figure of Kerk reached back and back, until his knuckles appeared to be touching the ground. Then, in a single, spasmodic contraction of all his muscles, he hurled the bomb almost straight up into the air.

For a heart-stopping instant Jason thought it was coming right at him, then he realized it was going off to one side. It seemed to siow as it reached the summit of its arc, before it disappeared behind the curve of rock. Jason pushed hard against the cold stone.

The boom of the explosion was transmitted to him through the stone, a shuddering vibration. Fragments of rock and bodies blew out into space behind him and he knew his flank was safe. Kerk would be ready if the same trick were tried again. Yet there was still a feeling of unease.

“Kerk!” Jason shouted. “The piton!” He spoke in Pyrran. “What happened to the piton I dropped? If Temuchin should see it.

One glimpse would be enough to reveal that they were off-wonders. The nomads were familiar enough with the appearance of alien artifacts.

One, two thudding heartbeats of time Jason waited before Kerk called back to him.

“All… right…. I saw it drop… picked it up while they were all looking at you. Are you hurt?”

“Fine,” Jason whispered, then drew a deep breath. “Fine!” he shouted. “I’m going on now.”

After this it was just work. Twice Jason had to sling a loop of rope through the carabiner of a piton and sit in it to nest. His strength was giving out and he had used the most potent stimulants in the medikit by the time he reached the foot of a chimney that went right to the top of the tower. It looked to be about ten meters high and the two faces appeared to be parallel all the way up.

“One last try,” he said, spitting on his hands and instantly regretting it as the saliva chilled and froze. He brushed the ice from his palms and took off the pack The less weight, the better; even the hammer had to be left behind now. He piled the discarded items at the foot of the chimney and slung the coil of rope around his neck so that it nested on his chest.

Wedging his back against one wall he walked up the other until his body was parallel to the ground, held up by the friction of his shoulders and his feet. He pushed higher with his arms, then walked upward with his feet. Centimeter by centimeter he worked his way up the chimney.

Before he reached the top he knew he would not make it.

Yet, at the same time, he knew he had to make it. Going back down would be just as hard as keeping on upward. And if he fell, he would break at least an arm or a leg at the foot of the chimney. Where he would simply lie and die of thirst. There was no chance of anyone else’s getting up here to help him. It would be better to keep on.

With infinite slowness the sky appeared above, closer and closer, and slower and slower as the strength ebbed from his limbs.

When he finally reached the spot where his toes were actually at the lip of the rock, he had no strength left to pull himself over the edge. For a few seconds he rested, took a deep breath and straightened his legs. He twisted as he did so and clutched at the crumbling edge of rock. For a moment of time he hung there, neither falling nor able to pull himself out of the chimney. Then, ever so slowly, he pulled and scraped with bloody fingertips until he dragged himself out and lay exhausted on the tilted summit of the pinnacle.

The top was amazingly small; he saw that as he lay gasping for air. No bigger than a large-sized bed. When he was able to, he crawled to the edge and waved at the waiting men below. They saw him and a ragged and spontaneous cheer went up.

Was there anything to cheer about? He went to the fan side and looked, moving back as the waiting bowmen on the difftop below fined at him. Only two arrows rose high enough to hit him, but these were badly aimed. He looked again and sa* the enemy position spread out like a model below him. Everything was visible and within easy range, both the men on the rim of The Slash and the rows of bowmen protecting the top of the rockslide.

He had done it.

“Good man, Jason,” he said aloud. “You’re a credit to any world.”

Sitting cross-legged, he made a large loop in the end of the line and passed it around the summit of the rock itself, making an immovable anchor. Then he let the leather-tipped end over the edge and paid it out slowly, until a signaling tug told him that it had reached the ground. He shortened the rope with a quickly knotted sheepshank and gave the agreed upon signal, three tugs on the line, to show that it was secured. Then he sat down to wait.

Only when the rope began to jerk violently and stand out from the cliff did he get up. Kerk was right below, looking unwinded and fresh, with an immense load of bombs slung on his back. He had taken the rope in both hands and walked straight up the face of the cliff.

“Can you reach down to help me over the edge of the cliff?” Kerk asked.

“Absolutely. Just don’t squeeze or break anything.”

Jason lay face down, with the rock rim in his armpit, and reached oven. Kerk let go with one hand and they seized each other’s wrists in an acrobat’s hold. Jason did not try to pull, he probably could not have lifted Kerk’s weight if he had tried, but instead he spread-eagled and anchored himself as well as he could against the stone. Kerk pulled himself up, threw an ann oven the edge, then heaved his body oven.

“Very good,” he said, looking down at the enemy below. “They do not stand a chance. I have extra microgrenades that we can use. Shall we begin?”

“You’re letting me throw out the first bomb of the season? How nice.” As the explosions roared and rumbled into a continuous thunder, Temuchin’s army shouted a victorious echo and started up the rocky slope. The battle was decided and would soon be won, and after it, the war would be won as well.

Jason sat down and watched Kerk happily bombing the natives below. This part of the plan was complete. If the next step worked as well, the Pyrrans would have their mines and their planet. Their last battle would be won.

Jason sincerely hoped so. He was getting very tired.