No human bodies in sight. So far, the navy folks were holding their own.
I used my wrist implant to take another direction reading on the Mayday. Now, the signal was coming from the far side of the canal. The recovery team must have decided it was crazy to go farther into the marsh; instead, they’d headed across the water, where the land wasn’t cleared for crops. Nothing over there but scruffy black forest, and the ground sloping upward into low hills. The navy people were obviously running for cover and getting the heck out of Hollen valley. Good, I thought, they’ll be okay now. The recovery folks were retreating, and they didn’t have far to go till they’d be safe; Counselor had said there was no Mandasar population once you got to higher ground. I could go back the way I’d come, without having to worry about the navy team… and I’d better do that fast, before I ran into someone who wanted to slice first and ask questions later.
When I turned around, the starlit marsh was alive with warriors galloping in my direction.
The Mandasars hadn’t seen me yet: I was standing in dark shadows under trees. One of the unconscious warriors lying in the mud must have got off a signal before he was stunned — it only made sense that someone would be carrying a radio. Now the whole militia was charging toward the battle site… and I wanted to be long gone before they arrived.
As quietly as I could, staying in shadow, I knelt and slipped into the canal. The water was just as cold as at lunchtime; just as muddy too, with the stagnant smell of algae right under my nose. I took a deep breath, then slipped beneath the surface, swimming with my eyes shut because I wouldn’t be able to see in the black muddiness anyway.
My plan was to reach the trees on the other bank and just hide in the woods. I wasn’t one of those stealthy stalker-types who could slip silently past a horde of warriors on the hunt. My only hope was that they wouldn’t bother to search the far side; none of their people lived over there, so the warriors would likely concentrate their efforts on patrolling the main valley rather than making forays across the canal.
I slid onto the opposite shore just before the first warriors arrived. When they saw the heaps of unconscious bodies, they broke into an angry chatter that covered any noise I made creeping into the woods. I kept going, crouched low and moving as fast as I could, trying to put distance between me and the Mandasars. Any second, I expected someone to shout, "Look over there!" But they were all too busy gabbling over their fallen comrades, and pointing toward the evac module bobbing quietly in the water.
As I moved, things squished softly under my feet. I didn’t know what they were: insects, or puffballs, or jellyish Celestian lifeforms, I couldn’t tell. Fleeing through the dark doesn’t give you much chance to appreciate alien ecologies. I just hoped I wouldn’t disturb any teeny critters with venomous bites. The Mandasars would’ve cleared out all larger predators — their race has no guilt about endangering species they don’t like — but they wouldn’t bother to deal with anything whose teeth were too small to go through carapace. Black widow spiders, for instance. The closest real black widow was surely forty light-years away, but I still managed to make myself nervous about them as I slunk through the pitch-dark forest.
Every now and then, a puff of breeze brought the burning-wood smell of Musk B. The warriors behind me were keyed up, just itching to fight something. If I were a worker or gentle, I’d be heading for home real fast — warriors would soon be swiping at trees just to work off their tension. It wouldn’t surprise me if they hauled the escape pod out of the canal and tin-snipped it to ribbons; with so much musk in the air, they’d be looking for anything to attack.
The land under my feet angled upward in fits and starts: a little slope, then a level patch, then another slanty climb. The sound of angry voices faded behind me. I was just thinking it might be safe to rest when I came across a heavy slash of damage to the forest’s undergrowth.
It looked like someone had driven a bulldozer through here, on a big swath leading backward to the canal and forward up the wooded hillslope. That could only mean one thing: a warrior had come to this side of the canal and was plowing his way after the navy team. He must have spotted them running away from the scene of the battle… and like a typical musk-mad lunatic, he’d charged after them on his own instead of waiting for reinforcements.
That was good news for the recovery team — if the warrior had stayed behind to tell the militia what was happening, the whole forest would be crawling with berserker Mandasars. As it was, the warrior probably got himself stunned cold as soon as he got close to the navy folks.
Still… I decided to follow the smashed-down trail. If nothing else, I could make better time taking the flattened path than trying to pick my way through the brush.
Three minutes later, I heard noises ahead of me. Crashing. Something going WHUMP. Branches breaking.
I ran forward without thinking. The noises got louder: grunts and the clack of pincers closing on empty air. A warrior had just missed grabbing hold of somebody.
My eye caught a silvery glint on the trail in front of me: a stun-pistol tossed away. Usually, the guns have a green light telling when there’s enough juice in their batteries for another shot… but as I sprinted past, the light didn’t show the tiniest flicker. The stunner was completely tapped out, while up ahead some poor unarmed someone was trying to fight an angry warrior bare-handed.
The trail broke into a level clearing; and that was where the unarmed someone had decided to make a stand. It wasn’t a full navy recovery team — there was only one person, ducking away from a warrior even bigger than Zeeleepull. In the dark I could only see silhouettes, but that was enough to tell me the target under attack was a woman. She moved fast and dodgy, as if she’d done a fair bit of martial arts. Still, general combat training doesn’t teach you the specific ways to take down a Mandasar warrior… and a fight to the death isn’t the best time to start experimenting.
The warrior hadn’t noticed me yet. Even better, he had his back to me; and that meant his tail pointed in my direction. Since it worked so well before, I launched myself forward with a run and a dive, landing on the warrior’s shell and cinching my arm around his neck.
My move took both the warrior and the woman by surprise. She gasped, then dived to one side, out of my field of vision. I hoped she was going to put some distance between herself and the Mandasar’s feet, because he started to buck and bounce like crazy; if the woman didn’t get clear, she’d be trampled to paste.
"Keep back," I told her, half-whispering for fear of being heard by someone back at the canal… which was crazy because the warrior was shouting his head off. "Don’t worry," I said to the woman, "it’ll be okay."
I hoped that was true. This ride was ten times worse than my scuffle with Zeeleepull; the warrior beneath me had worked himself into frothing battle frenzy, not to mention he thought I wanted to kidnap his family. His neck may have pinched as my arm rubbed up and down the shell plates on his throat, but it would take more than a little chafing to make him surrender.
As the warrior hopped and heaved, I did too: flopping about on his back, waiting for him to get tired enough to slow down. It took a long, long time; at least it felt long, though maybe it was only a minute. At last I could feel him weaken to the point where he might actually be using his brain to think of new tactics… so I leaned forward again like I did with Zeeleepull, held the warrior’s snout shut and pushed my palm to seal over his nose. Speaking in Mandasar, I whispered, "I am Blood-Consort Edward York, last and rightful husband of Verity the Second, High Queen and Supreme Ruler of all those who tread the Blessed Land. If you fear her name, you will yield; if not, be named her enemy and pay the price of your folly."