Orion in the Dying Time Part 28

He was already unlimbering the compact double-curved bow that had been slung across his back, his horse's reins clamped in his grinning teeth. The other Mongols were also fitting arrows to their bows without slowing their charge in the slightest.

I got the strong mental impression of Shaydanians hiding in those bushes and behind the knoll. Mounted on dragons. I kicked my horse into a harder gallop and tried to catch up with the impetuous Subotai.

The sauropod reached the rise of the knoll and, instead of climbing it or going around it, turned to face us. It made a screeching, whistling hoot and raised itself up on its hind legs, its head rearing more than forty feet above us, the talons of its forefeet glinting viciously in the sunlight.

Subotai let loose an arrow that struck the beast squarely in its exposed chest. It screamed and lunged toward him. Subotai's horse panicked and reared up. A lesser man would have been thrown from his saddle, but Subotai, practically born on horseback, held his seat.

A dozen more arrows flew at the monster, striking its chest, belly, neck. I was close enough to hear the solid chunking thud each missile made as it penetrated the reptile's scales. My sword was in my hand and I drove my horse to Subotai's side, ready to protect him as he regained control of his mount.

Then the trap was sprung. From both sides of the knoll half a dozen fighting dragons sprang, with Shaydanians mounted on their backs, guiding them. All the horses panicked at the sight of these fierce, terrifying carnosaurs dashing toward them. Several of the men were thrown. My own horse bucked and reared, wanting desperately to get away from the sharp teeth and claws of these ferocious monsters.

I controlled my mount mentally, blocking out the vision of the dreadful devils as I drove it headlong into the nearest of the carnosaurs. My one thought was to protect Subotai. Already dragons were crunching some of the downed men in their voracious jaws, their screams rising over the dragons' hissing snarls.

From behind me I heard an enormous deep roar, like a giant enraged lion, and the ground-shaking thunder of thousands of horses' hooves. Subotai's entire guard was charging out of the woods toward the beasts that threatened their lord.

My senses went into hyperdrive as I charged my poor terrified pony straight toward the claws of the nearest carnosaur. I saw bubbles of saliva between its saber-sharp teeth, saw its slitted reptilian eyes turn away from Subotai toward me, saw the Shaydanian mounted on its back focusing his attention on me also.

The carnosaur swung one mighty clawed hand at me. I slid off my saddle and dropped to the ground, sword firmly in my hand. The carnosaur's claws lifted my pony entirely off the ground, gouging huge spurting furrows along its flank, and threw it screaming through the air.

I saw all this happen in slow motion, as if watching a dream. Before the dinosaur finished its clawing kill of my pony I ducked low and leaped between its hind legs, ramming my scimitar into its groin with every bit of strength in me.

Then I saw the Shaydanian topple from the screeching carnosaur's back, an arrow in his chest. Before he hit the ground I glanced over my shoulder to see Subotai already nocking another arrow, reins still in his teeth, lips pulled back in what might have been a grin or a grimace.

The carnosaur started to topple upon me and I had to skip quickly away as it floundered to the ground with a bone-shaking thump. My sword was still buried in its groin, so I dashed to the crushed b.l.o.o.d.y remains of one of the Mongols and picked up the bow he had dropped in the final instant of his life.

By now the rest of Subotai's thousand were in arrow's range and all the carnosaurs were under relentless attack. The Mongols are brave, but not foolhardy. Their first goal was to rescue their leader, Subotai. Once they saw that he was out of trouble they hung back away from the enemy and attacked with arrows.

Quickly, methodically they picked off the Shaydanians mounted atop the dragons. The carnosaurs themselves were another matter. Too big to be more than annoyed by the Mongols' arrows, they dashed at their tormentors, who galloped off a safe distance before returning to the attack. It was like a bullfight, with the huge monsters being bled until their strength and courage lay pooling on the gra.s.s.

As they fired at the milling, screeching carnosaurs I jumped atop one of the riderless horses and followed Subotai as he rejoined his men. He had never let go his grip on his bow, and he was firing at the beasts even as he rode away from them, turning in his saddle to let an arrow fly while his pony galloped toward the rest of the warriors.

The poor outnumbered beasts tried to escape but the Mongols showed no more mercy than fear. They pursued the carnosaurs, pumping more arrows into them until the animals slowed, gasping and hissing, and turned to face their tormentors.

Then came the coup de grace coup de grace: Mongol lancers charged the weakened, slowed carnosaurs on their sinewy little ponies, a dozen scarred dark-skinned St. Georges spitting a dozen very real hissing, writhing dragons on their spears.

I rode back to retrieve my sword as Subotai trotted back to the carca.s.ses by the knoll and got off his pony to examine the bodies of the slain Shaydanians.

"They do look like the tsan goblins that the men of the high mountains speak of," he said.

I looked down at the dead body of one of Set's clones. Its reptile's eyes were open, staring coldly. Its reddish scales were smeared with blood where three arrows protruded from its flesh. Its clawed hands and feet were stilled forever, yet they still looked dangerous, frightening.

"They are not human," I said, "but they are mortal. They die just as a man does, and their blood is as red as ours."

Subotai looked at me; then past me to where his men were laying out the bodies of the slain Mongols side by side.

"Five killed," he muttered. "How many of these dragons does the enemy possess?"

"Hundreds, at least," I said, watching the Mongol warriors as they tore branches from the bushes around the knoll and began to build a makeshift funeral pyre.

Thinking of Set's core tap that gave him the energy to leap backward in time, I added, "He can probably get more to make up his losses in battle."

Subotai nodded. "And his city is fortified."

"Yes. The walls are higher than five men standing on each other's shoulders."

"This skirmish," said Subotai, "was merely the enemy commander's attempt to determine how many men we have, and what kind of fighters we are. When none of his scouts return home, he will know the second, but not the first."

I bowed my head. He had military wisdom, but he could not realize that Set had witnessed this fight, seeing us through the eyes of his clones.

"You must go back and bring the rest of the army here," Subotai decided. "And do it quickly, Orion, before the enemy realizes that we are only a thousand men-minus five."

"I will do it this night, my lord Subotai."

"Good," he grunted.

I was about to turn away when he reached up and clasped me on the shoulder. "I saw you charge into that beast when my mount was bucking. You protected me when I was most vulnerable. That took courage, friend Orion."

"It seemed the wisest thing to do, my lord."

He smiled. This gray-bearded Mongol general, his hair braided, his face still shining with the sweat of battle, this man who had conquered cities and slain thousands, smiled up at me as a father might.

"Such wisdom-and courage-deserve a reward. What would you have of me, man of the west?"

"You have already rewarded me, my lord."

His dark eyes widened slightly. "Already? How so?"

"You have called me friend. That is reward enough for me."

He chuckled softly, nodded, and took me to the tent his men had pitched for him. As the sun went down we shared a meal of dried meat and fermented mare's milk, then stood side by side as the funeral pyre was lit and the bodies of the slain Mongols properly sent on their way to heaven.

I held my face immobile, knowing that the abode of the G.o.ds was nothing more than a beautiful dead city in the far future, a city that the G.o.ds had abandoned in fear for their lives. There were no G.o.ds to protect or defend us, I knew. We had no one to rely on except ourselves.

"Now," Subotai said to me as the last embers of the pyre glowed against the night's darkness, "bring me the rest of my army."

I bowed and walked off a way from the camp. Moving the entire army and all their families and camp followers would not be easy. Perhaps I could not do it without aid from Anya or the other Creators. But I would try.

I closed my eyes and willed myself back to the bleak city of wooden huts and mud hovels. Nothing happened.

I concentrated harder. Still no result.

Throwing my head back, I stared up at the stars. Sheol glimmered weakly, a poor dulled reflection of its former strength. And I realized that Set had blocked my way through the continuum, just as he blocked Anya when we had first come to this time and place.

He had trapped me here, with Subotai and barely a thousand warriors.

I heard his hissing laughter in my mind. I had led Subotai into a trap. Set intended to keep us here and slaughter us down to the last man.

Chapter 36.

I could not face Subotai. He had followed me on faith, believing that I would lead him to a land where he and his people could live in peace once they had conquered the aliens who controlled the area. He had trusted me and called me friend. How could I tell him that I had led him into a deadly trap?

This was my doing, my fault. I could not look upon the battle-hardened face of my Mongol general again until I had corrected the situation. Or died trying.

I had learned one thing of supreme importance from Set. Energy is the key to all powers. Cut off the source of his energy and your enemy becomes helpless. Set's source of energy was the core tap that reached down to the molten heart of Earth. I had to reach it and somehow destroy it.

The tap was deep inside Set's fortress, which lay more than a day's march from where Subotai's troops had camped for the night. I had to get there, and quickly, before Set unleashed an attack upon Subotai that would slaughter all the Mongols.

But I was cut off from my my energy source. Set had put a barrier between me and the heavens that prevented me from utilizing the energy streaming in from the sun and stars. Was this shield merely a bubble that covered the immediate region around me, or had he wrapped the entire planet in a shimmering curtain that blocked the energy streaming earthward from the stars? energy source. Set had put a barrier between me and the heavens that prevented me from utilizing the energy streaming in from the sun and stars. Was this shield merely a bubble that covered the immediate region around me, or had he wrapped the entire planet in a shimmering curtain that blocked the energy streaming earthward from the stars?

It made no difference. The fact was that I was cut off from the energies that would allow me to fight Set. There was only one thing to do: reach his own core tap and either destroy it or use it against him.

There was no way that I could accomplish anything in this one night. I took a horse from the Mongols' makeshift corral and rode toward the northeast and Set's fortress. I only hoped that I could reach it before the devil launched an annihilating attack upon Subotai.

The sun rose dim and hazy, a weak pale phantom of its usual glory. Set's shield was incredibly strong, I realized. Pterosaurs were already crisscrossing the watery gray sky. They could not miss seeing me riding alone across the wide plain of gra.s.s.

I wondered what Subotai was thinking of me. Probably he was not alarmed yet, thinking that I had returned to Muscovy and was making preparations for bringing the rest of his army to him. I hated to think that he would believe I had betrayed him. I did not fear his anger or punishment, but I felt miserable at the thought that he might feel I had broken his trust.

Despite the wan appearance of the sun, the day became quite hot. Set's shield was selective, allowing the longer wavelengths of sunlight to reach the ground and heat it. I knew that if I had the proper instruments with me, they would show that none of the higher-energy wavelengths were penetrating the shield. Nor were any energetic cosmic particles getting through, I was certain.

Late in the afternoon a trio of Shaydanians mounted on fighting dragons appeared out of the shimmering heat haze, heading directly for me. The pterosaurs had done their job. I was to be killed or captured and brought before Set once again.

For the first time since I had known them, these Shaydanians bore weapons. They each carried oddly convoluted lengths of bright metal strapped across their backs. Once they spotted me they unslung the devices and, clutching them in both hands like rifles, urged their two-legged carnosaurs into a trotting pace.

I slid off my mount and shooed it away from me. I had already sacrificed one pony to the carnosaurs. That was enough. Idly I thought that I must be acquiring some of the Mongols' reverence for horses.

As the carnosaur-mounted devils approached me I focused my consciousness on the nearest of the three, reaching into his mind for a brief moment. The rifles, with their bulbous metallic blisters and needle-slim muzzles, projected streams of fire, like a small flamethrower. Set realized that he could no longer rely on fangs and claws to deal with the Mongols; he needed weapons. What more terrifying weapon than a flamethrower, especially coming from a reptilian that already had the Mongols worried that they were facing supernatural demons?

I saw something else in the Shaydanian's mind during that fleeting instant: they were not under orders to take me alive. Set had no intention of taking further chances with me. These three clones of his were going to kill me, here and now.

My senses shifted into hyperdrive immediately and the scene slowed as if time were stretching like a piece of warm taffy. The three Shaydanians lifted their rifles to their shoulders, aiming at me through diamond-shaped crystal sights. I saw their taloned fingers tightening on the curved triggers.

As they aimed at me their attention was shifted momentarily from guiding their mounts. The fierce two-legged carnosaurs, directed mentally by their riders, continued to trot toward me. But their tiny brains were not under the firm control of the Shaydanians, for one fleeting moment.

Desperately I sent a lance of red-hot mental energy into those three dinosaurs' brains. They screeched and reared to their full height, throwing two of the Shaydanians to the ground and forcing the third to drop his rifle and clutch at his mount's hide with both clawed hands.

All this I saw in slow motion. Even as the two thrown Shaydanians were falling toward the ground, I ran and dove full-length for the rifle that was spiraling through midair. I grabbed it before it touched the gra.s.s. As my fingers tightened around it I heard the thumps of the two riders. .h.i.tting the ground hard.

The dinosaurs were still hissing, the two freed of their riders galloping off away from us. The third, though, was under his rider's control once again and heading straight for me.

I rolled away from a stamping clawed foot that would have crushed me under the carnosaur's weight and fired from the hip at its rider. The stream of flame sliced him in two across midtorso. As his severed body slipped bloodily from the dinosaur's back, the beast wheeled and came at me, ma.s.sive head bent low, cavernous mouth gaping, lined with saw-edged teeth the size of my scimitar.

I pulled the rifle's trigger as hard as I could while dodging sideways. The stream poured flame down its gullet and slashed down the length of its thick neck. It hit the ground with a tremendous thud, literally shaking the earth, bellowing like a runaway steam locomotive to the very last.

I looked up. The two other Shaydanians were scrambling for the rifles they had dropped. I fired at the nearer of them and he toppled over dead. But when I turned to the third of them, my rifle did not respond. It was empty, its fuel depleted.

The Shaydanian had reached his own rifle and was picking it up from the gra.s.s. I threw my useless weapon at him and charged after it, drawing my scimitar from its scabbard. The rifle hit him like a club, knocking him down again on his rump. Before he could train his own rifle on me I was close enough to kick it out of his hands.

He glowered at me through his red slitted reptilian eyes and scrambled to his feet. Hissing, he advanced on me, clawed hands reaching out. I slashed at him with the scimitar once. He raised an arm to block the blow, but I swung the blade under and then lunged at him. The point penetrated the scales of his chest and went completely through him. With a final hiss of death agony he collapsed and, sliding off my blade, fell to the bloodstained ground.

Immediately I projected a mental image at Set. I sent him a scene that showed two of his clones lying dead on the b.l.o.o.d.y gra.s.s but the third standing over my own burned corpse. With every ounce of cunning in me, I presented myself mentally as one of Set's clones, and the body at my feet as my own.

"You have done well, my son," came Set's mental voice. "Return now with the corpse so that I may examine it."

I mentally called one of the carnosaurs back to me and mounted it for the trip back to the fortress by the Nile. Had Set truly believed the false message I had sent him? Or was he merely drawing me to his fortress so he could dispose of me more easily?

There was only one way to find out. I headed the dinosaur toward the fortress, concentrating every moment on my phony image so that even the pterosaurs scouting high overhead would "see" what I wanted them to, and report it back to Set.

It was nightfall by the time I reached the garden by the Nile. The fortress was a short ride away. I would reach it in darkness, which suited me well. I knew there was no chance of my keeping up my deception once inside Set's walls-if Set had been deceived at all.

The sky was utterly black and starless, as dark as the deepest pit of h.e.l.l as I rode the carnosaur up to the curving fortress wall. The faint phosph.o.r.escent glow of the wall itself was the only hint of light in that night made frighteningly black by Set's energy shield. Not an insect buzzed, not a frog peeped or an owl hooted. The murky shadows were as silent as Set's reptilians themselves. The night was eerily, unnaturally still, as if Set was mentally controlling even the wind and the flow of the Nile.

Climbing from the back of my mount to the top of its thickly boned head, I reached as high as I could along the wall. My hands fell short of its top, but the surface of the wall was not perfectly smooth. Like the sh.e.l.l of an egg, there was a slight, almost microscopic roughness to it. Not much, but perhaps enough to climb with. And the wall curved inward. Yanking off my Muscovite boots, I clambered barefoot along the slippery curved surface while directing the dinosaur to go on the gate alone.

Several times my precarious footing on the egg-smooth wall faltered and I almost slid back down to the ground. I had to consciously prevent my hands and feet from sweating and becoming slippery. At last, after what seemed like an hour of painfully slow climbing, I reached the top of the wall and slid myself flat on my belly across its edge.

I could feel the energy humming from deep within the fortress. It made the wall vibrate. The eggsh.e.l.l-like material was warm, not from the day's sunshine but from the energy pulsating from below. Now my task was to reach the source of that energy, the core tap at the heart of this fortress.

I quickly realized I was not alone on the wall's narrow top. Peering into the darkness, I saw nothing ahead of me. Turning around to look behind, my guts twisted in sudden fear. One of those enormous dead-white snakes was slithering toward me, its beady eyes glowering red hatred, its jaws already open, its fangs already dripping venom.

"Did you think you could trick me, foolish ape?" Set's voice in my head sent a shiver through me. "Did you really believe that your monkey's mind could be superior to mine? Welcome to my fortress, Orion. For the final time!"

If ever my body went into hyperdrive, it was at that instant. I rolled over on my back and kicked my legs over my feet like an acrobat to end up standing on the b.a.l.l.s of my feet even as the huge snake sprang at me.

Its first strike fell short because I was no longer where it had expected me to be. But it immediately drew itself together, coiling for another strike as I drew my scimitar from its scabbard. The snake's immense body was thicker than my arm and at least twenty feet long. It hissed and reared back in slow motion, then struck at me again.

This time I was ready. With a two-handed swing I slashed its head from its body and saw it go sailing off slowly into the darkness below. Its decapitated body hit me in the chest, smearing blood on me and staggering me backward several steps. For long moments the headless serpent writhed and twitched while my senses returned to normal and my breathing slowed down.

"How many can you fight, simian?" Set taunted me. "I have an unending source of creatures to do my bidding. How long will your strength last against my legions?"

For a second or two I stood there in the darkness, seeing nothing but the faint glow of the phosph.o.r.escent wall's top curving off into the gloom like a softly lighted highway. More snakes were on their way, I knew. And squads of Shaydanians armed with flame rifles or more. All under Set's mental control.

I searched my memory to ascertain exactly where along the wall I stood in relation to the gate. Then I dashed off in the other direction.

I heard bodies stirring in the circular courtyard below. Probably Set's clones rousing themselves to come after me. He had fighting dragons penned down there, too. And sauropods. And human slaves.

All under his control. But could he control them all at the same time?

I reached the spot where I remembered the pterosaurs' roost to be and leaped down into the darkness. Sure enough, I landed only a few feet below in the midst of the sleeping winged lizards. They hissed and squawked and flapped their huge clawed wings as I swung my sword wildly among them, driving them into the air.

With one hand I grabbed the clawed feet of a pterosaur as it launched itself off their roosting platform. I was far too heavy for it to support and we sank, the beast screaming and flapping madly, to the hard-packed earth below. I let go of my animate parachute once I saw the ground below me. I hit with a jarring thump and rolled over, the pterosaur disappeared into the shadows, flapping and wailing like a banshee.

Confusion. I had lost the element of surprise; indeed, I had never had it. But I could cause confusion there in the courtyard. Let's see how firm Set's control is over all his menagerie, I said to myself.