The Half-Ax tally were better than that. Already they were fighting their way out of the bottle we had hoped to sink them in. Jarter was firing again, but the fighter with the cutter was leading the retreat and they didn’t slow. They were shooting back at her too, with crossbow bolts and at least one gun, so she scarce could stick her head up to get her aim right but had to fire through the branches and hope for the best.
Our enemies were going to get out of the pen unless something was done to stop them. I guess that was when I found that other Spinner, that I believed was lost. Just like at Calder ford, I stopped thinking what to do and went straight to the doing of it. “Elaine,” I said, “full forward.” She had never shut down Challenger’s engine, and she got us moving at once.
“Where are we going, boss?” she asked.
“The path! We got to block the path and hold them in!”
A tree was in our way but it was a small one and we crushed it down. We burst out of the woods into the middle of the path, closing the pen with a fourth wall of solid metal.
“And traverse,” I said. “Ninety degrees right.” Traverse was what Challenger called it when his bottom half stayed right where it was while his top half spun round in a circle. Quick as a whip, Elaine swung the turret round. The big gun turned with it to point straight at the advancing fighters.
“You know we’ve got nothing to throw at them but harsh language, right?” Elaine said.
“I do know that,” I muttered. “But they don’t. And they seen a gun before.”
I got what I hoped for. In the face of that wide, round muzzle, the grey soldiers stopped where they were. Caught between the fire behind them and the tank in front, hemmed in on their two sides by our barricade, they had nowhere to go.
The leader gave up on signing at last and yelled a word. An arrow went by his head but he didn’t flinch from it or seem to notice. The bearers dropped that big bag they were carrying and spilled something out of it. The rest of the tally closed in around them with their weapons pointing out in all directions.
The man with the cutter on his hand slashed at Challenger’s flank – once, twice, three times. “Can he hurt us?” I cried.
“My plates have refractive properties,” Challenger said. “He would need to hold the field stationary against them for more than a minute. He appears not to know that.”
“We’re fine,” Elaine translated. “For now.”
A gun boomed, and then another. The Half-Ax soldiers were firing outwards, not to hit our people but to keep them pinned where they were. Another plume of fire belched out of the darkness and set fire to one side of our wall. At least that showed us Catrin was still alive.
I could not make out what else the Half-Ax soldiers were doing, but there was a great deal of movement from the middle of that huddle. Something was being put together there. Something made of dark metal that stood on four wide-splayed legs like a jump-frock or a toad.
“What is that thing?” I muttered.
“Unclear. Analysing.”
“There’s a ton of handheld kit that fits the profile,” Elaine said. “Could be a mortar, or an RPG. Could be a field shield.”
The thing reared up its head at last, over the heads of the grey women and men.
It was a gun. Not as long as Challenger’s, but somewhat wider. I thought at first there was a smaller gun sitting on top of the big one, but then one of the fighters set his eye against it and I saw it was a spyglass.
“They’re going to break down our barricade!” I said.
“No. The elevation is too high for that.”
“Then—”
“Mythen Rood,” Elaine said. “Spinner, the bastards are going for your base!”
Even as she said it, a line of white light lit up the path bright as day as something left the barrel of the Half-Ax gun and made its shrieking way into the sky. The trees on either side bent outwards, away from the gushing force of that launch. The fighters crouched down as a sudden wind plucked at their clothes.
Most of my stomach climbed up into my mouth. “Elaine,” I said, “turn us ninety degrees and advance.”
She had got to take us back before she could turn. When she did, it felt like I was the stone in a slingshot. Challenger swung round in a big arc, then advanced quickly down the path. The soldiers backed away in front of us, since the barricade stopped them from escaping to the side.
Then the barricade was flying up into the air in pieces as Challenger’s flank rammed right into it. I was turning our trap, that had took so long to build, into scattered kindling. But also I was riding right over that Half-Ax gun and any of its crew that were too slow to move out of my way.
A great many things happened then, so quick and close I couldn’t follow. Challenger reared up into the air like a mole snake that’s ready to strike, throwing me right out of my seat. Then he settled back down again with a slam, so hard and sudden it was like the floor was a clenched fist that had punched me. I only heard the sound after I was down on the ground, and I didn’t so much hear it as feel it – the bellowing of a huge mad thing trapped far under the ground.
I tasted blood. I wondered whose it was.
The magic mirror flickered and was gone, flickered and was back again – only now it was a blur of shapes and colours. The ground outside wasn’t flat any more, but tilted up like the side of a hill. On the steep slope, what seemed like men and women screamed and ran and fell. I couldn’t see them clearly, or make out what it was that was tormenting them, or even remember who they were.
Then one of them was lifted into the air and dangled upside down for a few moments before he was snatched away into the dark.
A great bulk loomed over the Half-Ax fighters, leaning down. They shrank away from it, but there was more movement from behind them. A slow, heavy sliding forward.
In the blink of an eye, one of the grey soldiers was gone. And then another, and another. The air writhed with quick, darting shapes like the cords of whips.
Thank the dead god, our plan had worked. The trees were waking up at last because of the heat from our fires, and snatching at the food that came readiest to hand. Challenger’s roof thrummed and shook as heavy branches lashed themselves against it, but we were safe in our metal house.
The magic mirror went dark, then cleared. The blurred shapes wrestled and writhed. A voice screamed a word that might have been a name. Or maybe a prayer.
Dark, then clear. The few fighters that were still on their feet tried to squeeze around Challenger’s sides, tripping and sliding on the shattered wood and their shattered comrades.
Dark, then clear. A Half-Ax woman clawed at the side of Challenger’s turret, her eyes as big as saucers and her mouth open on a scream. She held on as long as she could, but was dragged away at last down the path, scrabbling and flailing, and disappeared among the roots of the trees.
Dark, then clear.
Save for us, the path was empty.
That was the last I knew, for a long while. Like the magic mirror, I flickered out into nothing but quiet and dark. I was grateful for it.
Koli
34
There is a quiet kind of grieving where you just sink into yourself and the world seems to go a long way away for a while. Time stops moving, and even your thoughts is like honey in Janury. The sadness trickles through you all slow and cold and sleepy.