Of Chiefs and Champions Page 10

  Thanks to the miraculous carrier and the repaired Class Seven projector, Arsen was back in the forest glade far sooner than he had expected to be, arriving just before sunset on this world. Lisa was first to see him and hurried to his side.

  "Arsen, every time Mike tries to stand or walk, he loses his balance and falls unless somebody is there to catch him. He's fine, though, just so long as he's lying down or sitting. Understand, I still think it's just a concussion, but . . ."

  He nodded. "Okay, that's it, then. He stays here with Haighie. I'll make it a point to check on them every day or so, and when he's up to it, I'll get them over to rejoin us, one way or another."

  "Other than that, how are things going? Will everybody else be able to move out in the morning, do you think?"

  She shrugged. "Yes, I guess so, but there is just no way, Arsen, that as few of us as there are are going to be able to pack along all the things that are in that crypt, not as out of shape as most of you men are. Thank God for belly dancing, anyway."

  Arsen frowned. "Yeah, that's true, you're right, and that's one angle I hadn't even thought about, honey. Look, I tell you what. You have everybody just pack along the weapons and ammo, a few machetes and spades and ropes—you might need those, see, this is no hiking trail you're headed out on—a full canteen each and enough food for a cold lunch, plus ponchos in case it rains. Pick a spot to make camp before nightfall and I'll find you and deliver your bedrolls, food for supper and breakfast, the stoves and lanterns, the big squad tent that's baled up in there, and a jerry can of spring water to refill your canteens with. But you're going to have to see to it everything is folded and packed and rolled up before you hit the trail the next morning so I can easily get it to your next night's camp, honey."

  "How far is it, anyway, Arsen?" she asked, wrinkling up her brow. "And what kind of country, that we 'may need' machetes and shovels and ropes? I repeat, with the exceptions of us dancers, Simon, and possibly John, I expect to see your cousins and their friends fade fast and drag us back, slow us down, if they're able to go at all."

  Arsen sighed. "I wish to fuck I could think of something a little encouraging to say, honey, but I can't right now. I figured, before you pointed all this out, that it would be maybe two-three days, but I can see how wrong I was, now. So look, take it all slow and easy, huh? There's enough food, even with leaving some for Mike and Haigh, and with the carrier, I can always get more when this is gone."

  "The way you'll be headed, it's mostly like the woods around here, with now and then a glade like this and a few bigger open places, too. But most of it's going to be up and down, up and down, lots of little hills and some bigger ones. Some places, there's a whole lot of brush and bushes between the trees, too—that's when you may need the machetes; damned little of it is heavy enough to need a axe on. Simon ought to be a good hand at clearing brush. He's strong as a fucking ox, and a machete isn't that much different from a sword, I wouldn't think."

  "And what are you going to be doing between delivering and picking up our camp gear?" she demanded.

  "Mostly," he replied, "helping the folks over there to get their palisade repaired and strengthened, doing what little I can for the wounded ones, keeping watch on the Spanish base downriver, and now and then stealing a few hours of sleep, honey."

  Concern came into her blue eyes and she moved a bit closer, laying a hand on his forearm. "I'm sorry, Arsen, that was a bitchy thing to ask and a bitchy way to ask it. You've done so much to make us all safe and comfortable as we can be here, you've been on the go for most of the time since we found ourselves here . . . wherever here is. You must be right on the ragged edge of exhaustion, where you stand."

  "No." He shook his silver-capped head in negation. "Oddly enough, I'm not, and it's funny, too. I thought about it a little earlier and I figured out what it is. You can laugh at me if you want to, but it's still true."

  "See, I knew even back in school that whenever I finished, Papa would insist that I serve a hitch in the Corps, then come back and let him teach me to take his place whenever he decides to retire. I grew up spoiled rotten, but the Corps beat a lot of that shit out of me and the Nam took care of the rest of it, mostly. Even so, when I got back and was a civilian again, I knew that no matter what kind of fucking messes I got myself into, Papa and Ademian Enterprises and Uncle Rupen would always be around to drag my ass out of the fire."

  "But then all this weird shit came down. All the time we was back in England, I was in a kind of daze; it was nobody to help me except Uncle Rupen, who was gone from the rest of us most of the time, so all I could think of to do was drink."

  "But then we slammed down here and even before I found the carrier and got myself instructed by it, Greek John was asking me what to do and I had to beat up on Simon when he lit into us with that big old knife of his. Then when I'd been instructed and had learned how to use the carrier and make a lightweight, simple projector and was able to do things for everybody here, that made me feel good in a way I'd never felt good in before."

  "But that was like nothing compared to those Indians back there by the river, Lisa. Honey, those folks didn't have much to start off with, they're none of them really well-fed—and yet they say this is the good season—and after all the Spaniards done, they got way less now. They need me, honey, and it's a damn fucking good feeling to know somebody needs you and know you can help them. And that's just what I mean to do if it's the last fucking thing I do."

  He grinned, then, a little shyly. "That's it, honey. Do you understand any of it? Or do you think I'm just a raving nut?"

  With everyone except Mike and Haigh sweating through the hills and vales and brushy woods, Arsen sailed high and fast in the carrier, first checking the village of Squash Woman from on high, then, reassured by sight of the peaceful, unhurried activity therein evident, sweeping on downriver in the direction of the slavers' base. Only some five miles along the twisting river, he spotted them—a flotilla of some thirty of the long rowboats, some of the larger ones with simple masts stepped amidships, so that triangular sails of dirty, faded yellow-brown cloth could help them up the river.

  Where he poised, well above the treetops to one side of the waterway, Arsen could not espy an orange plume on any of the helms, but he knew that at least a few of the present party were veterans of Don Felipe's force when, as he was first sighted swooping in toward the leading boats, not a few of the smaller, oars—only ones were seen to hastily turn about and rapidly row a reverse course, running hard for home.

  As he came closer and descended lower, a half-dozen swivels fired at him. Not one came even close, however. Then, closer still, a ragged volley was fired by the smaller arms of the party, but such few as might have struck the carrier were deflected by its shields. Despite being first fired upon, he still was loath to directly slay men who could not possibly even threaten him with their primitive weapons, so he increased the magnification of the optics, sought out and found the kegs of powder he knew they would have aboard somewhere, and exploded two of them, trying hard not to see the men and pieces of men thrown into the muddy water, or those others thrashing and bleeding in the battered, fast-sinking boats.

  They were stubborn men, and he had to blow up two more kegs before they decided enough was enough and began to row the sound boats about trying to pick up wounded or drowning men, then beat a retreat back downriver. He trailed them until they were within sight of their river-island camp, military base, and slave pen. "Tough and determined as those fuckers are," Arsen thought to himself as the carrier sped back toward the riverside village, "I think the only sure way to get them out of our hair for good is going to be to assault that island, free the Indians they've taken, bash in or burn all their boats, completely disarm them—if we can do that without having to kill them all first—and leave them with just enough tools and rope to make rafts to go back downriver on." He sighed. "But, of course, like it or not, the only real way to keep them from coming back with more men and boats and guns is to
kill them, every motherfucking one of them or enslave them in turn or figure out a way to persuade them to join us. Hah! Fat fucking chance, Arsen." He sighed again, more deeply. "Well, I'll just do what it looks like I gotta do when I gotta do it and try to do it right."

  "Squash Woman, now, that old bird would like to see ever one of the cocksuckers dead meat, and you can't blame her for it, not after all they done to her and hers, and according to her and what few elders as is left, this ain't the first time they been hit by damn Spanish slavers, either. Which is why, of course, they're so poor and got so few warriors left to hunt for them and fight, and why this village is up here in the woods and almost to the fall line of the damn river, instead of someplace where they could grow a decent crop and where it's more deer and rabbits and such."

  "Funny, you all the time think about all the Indians being led by men, but Squash Woman's the leader of this bunch and no fucking mistake, either. She may look a whole lot like a museum mummy, but all you got to do is just talk to her, and you know damn well she's top dog. And it's not like it was just because they lost so many men to the slavers, neither—she's been the chief since she was one hell of a lot younger. She and those elders been running this bunch for going on thirty years now, they say."

  Again, his line of thought abruptly changed tracks. "I wonder if it's any way I could get a hold of another one of these carriers? It would take a lot off me if it was another one, with somebody steady and dependable like Mike Sikeena or Greg Sinclair to run it, to watch for those fucking Spanish. And whenever we do go against that island, it would be a lot better to have two gunships 'stead of just this one. Hmmm. Let's just see what the carrier has to say on the subject."

  After the split-second colloquy with the carrier's "brain," Arsen once more checked village site and river island, where he could see boats being pulled up and little two-legged figures hot-footing it to the triangular becannoned and stockaded fort, then he gave the necessary instructions and relaxed, napping lightly, while the device bore him to the location of the nearest other carrier.

  The one resting in the hold of the small ship tied up to the wharf of a river port and invisible until he bypassed its former operator's instructions to it was a snap. He did not even have to make use of his Class Three projector to send it where he wanted it to go, for there was a Class Five projector racked inside it and he had only to properly calibrate its controls and pass on to it the instructions that his carrier gave him, then watch it wink out of sight, on its way. He had no idea where the ship was, of course. He could hear voices up on the deck above, but the language was not comprehensible to him, although he thought it sounded a little like German.

  The second one was in a stone-walled room somewhere, and also set for invisibility until he altered that setting. He got a bit of a start on that one, however. He was just in the act of putting his smaller projector in place after calibrating and instructing it when the door to the room opened and a man dressed in a cassock came a pace or so in. But even so, Arsen was able to send off the carrier he was appropriating, then climb back into his and depart without trouble.

  Captain Don Abdullah de Baza spoke scornfully to his lieutenants. "I'll hear no more maunderings of djinn, afreets, wizards, and demons, gentlemen, if you please. Strange new machines and weapons are being devised every day, and this thing that explodes powder kegs is but one of them, some newfangled weapon developed by the accursed and excommunicated trespassers abroad in this land, assuredly. If you all would change your swaddlings and shake the cobwebs from out your empty skulls, you'd come to the same conclusion . . . you would if your terror hasn't addled and unmanned you, that is."

  "Now, true, I, like you, have no idea just why the trespassers have chosen this particular band of Shawnees to champion instead of using their very effective weapon against one of the big coastal towns or forts or to blow up galleons with. Maybe this is a test, to make sure that it works right and is reliable under adverse conditions."

  "We'll operate under that premise, gentlemen. We'll send no more parties upriver, for now . . . not in boats on the river, that is. But we will dispatch a strong force through the forest paralleling the east bank of the river, but under enough trees that maybe that thing can't see us coming this time. We will triumph, in the end, never you fear, for we serve King and Caliph and God is with us. No less a personage than the Holy Father of Rome so assures us."

  Sagaciously, Don Felipe held his peace, but one other of the lieutenants who, though uninjured, had had to be fished out of the river that morning when his boat had been blown apart showed far less wisdom or self-control.

  "But who ever heard of silver coffins sailing high in the air?" queried Don Antonio de la Torre. "Such smacks of the works of Satan, not those of God. How can we fight Lucifer and expect to win?"

  Captain Don Abdullah just snorted derisively. "Yes, and who five hundred years ago had ever heard of a scant handful of some arcane mixture of powders propelling stones and metal balls hard enough to kill armored men or knock down strong stone walls, Don Antonio? Clean out your hairy ears and listen to me, man. New things are happening every day, new sights are being seen in this modern world, and this flying thing can only be one of them. When finally one of our gunners is so fortunate as to knock one down, then we all will see it to be a work of man, not of some devilish imp of the Pit, I am dead certain of that."

  "Look you, man, I understand why you are as you are, just now. You suffered a hellish shock out on the river this morning. Death brushed damnably close by to you. So guzzle a few jacks of wine, stuff a hookah with hemp and smoke it, then go down to the slave pen, seek out an India who suits your fancy and have your will of her a few times, and by the morrow you'll be your old, brave, thinking self again." The captain's words were solicitous, caring, and a little jovial, but those that followed were not. "And you'd better be your old self by the morrow, sir knight, for do I hear you utter so much as one word dealing with The Fiend in context with this new weapon that has wrought such havoc upon us, I'll send you back downriver in disgrace. Do I make my intentions clear, sirrah?"

  The Castilian's over-prominent Adam's apple bobbed as he gulped. Then he nodded and replied, "Quite clear, my lord Capitàn."

  In contrast with the white bandages in which Arsen had earlier swathed her gashed head, Squash Woman's wrinkled and withered dark face looked like nothing so much as an old empty tobacco pouch, he thought as they two squatted, face to face, on either side of a small bed of coals on which nestled a stainless-steel pot, now emitting fragrant steam. But the black eyes were like two glittering points of obsidian.

  Arsen had discovered early on that so long as he kept wearing the silvery cap, he could project his words silently into anyone's mind and understand them too, no matter what language they spoke. Without the cap, however, he and whoever could not communicate; therefore, he had taken to wearing the headpiece most of the time.

  Squash Woman, for her part, had quickly realized that Arsen was not speaking as men and women customarily spoke, but as she was convinced that he was superhuman anyway, she just accepted this without worrying herself about such inconsequentials as how or why. He, whatever he was, had already done very well by her and hers. He had saved them from the white raiders, driven off those of them he had not killed (though she did regret that he had not saved some of them for proper torture-deaths), and made them leave a great hoard of metal objects behind—fine, keen-edged knives, long spears, axes of several kinds, and all of the fire-spitting metal tubes. Moreover, he had brought into her suzerainty no less than sixteen fine, strong young warriors; true, they were from a people who lived many, many, many days' marches away to the south and they spoke a language that no one save Arsen could understand, but she and her council still were glad to have them.

  "I do wish, Arsen," she remarked, "that you had seen fit to give me the whole beast rather than only the meat and bones of it, for so big and fat a beast would surely have owned a thick, strong, long-wearing hide, and ma
ny of my people will need foot coverings in the cold time coming."

  "You and they will have all that is needed, Squash Woman, that and more," he assured her. "Have you and the others continued to swallow the little colored beads with water and no chewing as I told you?"

  She nodded. "Your medicine is indeed mighty, Arsen, at scaring away pain-spirits. But next time you hunt, please bring me back the whole beast, Arsen, still full of blood, with the heart and liver and, especially, the brains, which are easier for us older ones to chew."

  Arsen sighed. Where and how was he going to be able to find and project a whole steer? The two sides of prime beef had come from out the locked and well-secured aging room of a meatpacker, and he hoped that the gold he had left was enough to cover their worth. He now had plenty of gold—at least, the first of the new carriers had contained with its other gear a bag of the precious metal that he estimated must have weighed in the neighborhood of ten pounds, but none of it coined, rather in the form of small, flat bars of two sizes; all of these were completely plain, unmarked save for bumps and scratches but so heavy and soft that he guessed them to be pure or almost pure gold.

  Arsen, skimming as low as he dared above the irregular heights of the treetops, finally spotted the orange fluorescent panels in a narrow vale between two hills, the grassy stretch being bisected by a foot-wide stream of sparkling clear water flowing over and around a bed of coarse gravel and mossy boulders. He brought the carrier to earth across the stream from the six people in sight—the four women, Simon Delahaye, and another figure who lay sprawled out on its belly, not even having bothered to remove its pack or equipment belt.

  Spotting Lisa easily by her blond hair and slender figure, which not even the stained, wrinkled, and spotted fatigues could disguise, Arsen stepped over the brooklet and said, "Where the hell are the others, honey?"