The battle had begun.
EIGHT
Another explosion shattered the afternoon, hurling rocks and chunks of dirt into the air. It was still far off, on the ridge of the gorilla outpost, but the city apes scattered in fright and confusion.
Caesar was already shouting orders, even while the thunder of the blast was still echoing through the valley. “Pile those wagons into a roadblock! Bring them down here!”
Chimpanzees and orangutans began scurrying to drag wagons and carts out to block the main road. Caesar and Virgil grabbed one of the nearest wagons, a massive heavy vehicle, and began dragging it toward the end of the street, toward the sounds of fighting.
The humans in the corral were forgotten. They pressed against the fence, watching the battle unfold before them.
Up on the ridge, at the gorilla outpost, a frenzied gorilla was trying to get his machine gun working. He fumbled with thick fingers, trying to unjam the frustrating gun, burning his fur and his skin as he did so. A second gorilla, still holding the belt he had been feeding into the gun, watched impatiently. Around them whizzed the bullets of the other gorillas. The rifles popped loudly.
Suddenly the mechanism was clear; the gun was unjammed. The gorilla shouted happily and jumped down behind the gun again, then fell to the ground abruptly beside the gun, his eyes glazed and startled.
Another gorilla seized the handles of the gun and, stepping over the body of his comrade, swung it around to face down the slope. He began firing in short, steady bursts.
Behind him other gorillas were firing their guns. Their automatic rifles rattled with staccato precision. But the gorillas were all badly shaken. They seemed ready to bolt.
The mutants came swarming up toward them. The column of vehicles rolled easily up the hard-packed road. Only the strongest of the mutant wagons had survived the trek across the desert, and now they came lumbering up the slope toward the gorilla outpost. Mutants were piling up toward the ridge, firing their guns and screaming, throwing grenades and occasionally falling and dying as gorilla bullets smashed into them. Here and there, a mutant would tumble backward, down the hill, but the main thrust of the mutant army was forward.
The mutants kept coming. The gorillas began falling back, edging up toward the top of the ridge. As the mutants drove them upward and backward, shells from the vehicles below began falling among them, cratering holes in the hillside.
For a moment, the battle hesitated as gorillas and mutants met face to face for the first time. The gorillas drew their swords and began hacking, only to fall helpless before the mutants’ guns. And then the mutants rolled forward, onward, and upward.
The mutant army reached the crest of the ridge and teetered precariously. The gorillas were trying to make a stand.
From his jeep, far below, Kolp watched through his field glasses. His gunners kept firing the big 105mm rifle in a series of small, almost apologetic, coughs followed by massive explosions on the ridge, gouts of smoke and flame.
Suddenly the gorilla defense crumbled. The first gorilla broke and ran, followed by another and another. The mutants screamed triumphantly and chased them up the ridge and over. They poured over the crest of the hill, tossing grenades into the machine gun emplacements. The explosions hurled guns and gorillas into the air.
But then the gorilla cavalry arrived.
They came riding up from the valley below. Slowly at first, they rode four and five abreast. They came moving steadily down the road, building up speed as they headed toward the battle. They urged their horses faster and faster. They drew their swords and held them high. They screamed their challenges before them. Aldo was in the lead, shouting, “Attack! Attack! Kill all humans!”
As the cavalry roared up the road, they ran into the gorillas retreating from the ridge. They scattered before the onrushing horses. The road ahead was almost jammed with fleeing gorillas, some walking, some almost running, some helping wounded comrades. But as they heard and saw the mounted gorillas approaching, they jumped for the sides of the highway. As the cavalry passed heavily through them, they stopped, began preparing places along the road to fight again. Some turned and began following the cavalry.
Some of the mounted gorillas were shocked at the sight of their troops in retreat; but Aldo and the other leaders only shouted louder, “Attack! Attack!” They waved their swords and urged their horses faster and faster. Hooves pounded harder on the road.
Watching them from the top of the ridge, Kolp smiled grimly. He lowered his glasses and remarked, “Here comes the circus. Monkeys on horseback. Get ready for the performance!”
The cavalry reached the bottom of the slope and began pounding up toward the ridge. Great clouds of dust rose up all around them. The charging black riders came galloping upward, a mounted, moving, thundering apocalypse.
The horses labored and puffed. The gorillas kicked them upward, heedless of their foaming sides and mouths. Flecks of lather spattered the riders. Dust clogged the noses and mouths of horses and gorillas alike.
And then they topped the ridge and saw a semicircle of automatic weapons trained on them. They were riding head on into the guns of the mutants; the mutants were spread out across the top of the road.
Aldo was the first to react. “Off the road! Off the road!” he shouted. He signaled desperately for his troops to turn.
But it was too late, the cavalry had too much momentum. The riders in front were trying to wheel about; their horses were rearing in fright. The riders from the rear came piling into them; horses toppled and screamed. Hooves flailing, bridles jerking, they whinnied and turned.
And then the mutants opened fire.
The bullets slammed into the cavalry. Aldo and a few of the others managed to get out of the way of the hurtling hot lead. Aldo’s horse leapt over a fallen log and crashed through the trees. Behind him, other gorillas and horses followed.
The gorilla cavalry lost its organization. More and more riders were arriving all the time, piling into the confusion and bloodshed; horses were moving in all directions. The smell of blood panicked them even more.
“Fire!” shouted Kolp. “Fire! Kill the monkeys!”
The gunners held their fingers down on their triggers, too shocked by the carnage ahead of them to stop. Horses stumbling and screaming, gorillas falling beneath them, more riders charging up from behind them, the ones in front trying to escape, trying to get out from under and back down the hill.
“Fire!” Kolp kept shouting. “Fire! Kill the monkeys! Kill them! Kill them!”
The cavalry was trapped between charging and retreating, trapped between the automatic weapons of the mutants and their own, still arriving, rear. The cavalry died. Bloodily. Without honor. Without glory. In a savage, senseless, wasteful orgy of carnage.
They died violently. Without even the justification of having lived that way. They died for guns, and for Aldo’s game. And there was no honor in their death. Only ugliness, hate.
The gunfire began to peter out. From a steady rattle of explosions, it degenerated into recognizable bursts, and then only occasional staccato blasts. Whenever anything moved—a horse trying to get up, a gorilla moaning, an arm or a leg jerking—it was silenced by gunfire. Soon nothing moved.
For a moment, there was silence. Only the smell of smoke and guns crackling as they cooled. There were occasional distant pops, and then even those were silent. The mutants’ ears rang with the memory of the noise, and the heap of bodies steamed in the sun.
And now the road was clear.
Below, Ape City waited.
From the ridge, Kolp could see tiny figures running in and out of the trees. Chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas. Here and there, a horse ran riderless.
“We’re wasting time,” he said. “Let’s finish it. There’s a whole city of them waiting for us.”