Ethrian fled toward his body.
6 Year 1016 afe
The Desert
S HIH-KA'I CLAMBERED TO the top of the grey dune. His legs ached. He was soaked with perspiration. He felt greasy inside his field gear. He was tired and short on patience. What am I doing out here? he wondered. I belong with the Fourth Demonstration.
He stopped. The breeze felt good, though it had to work to penetrate his field dress. He surveyed the tower of dust still falling in the distance. Other dusts piled up around his boots, gently driven by the wind.
"Very spectacular, Lord."
"Thank you, Pan ku. I thought it might say something to our friends over there." He stared at the solitary mountain. Other Tervola joined him. "Am I seeing things?" he asked. "Or is that a creature carved out of stone?"
"I believe so, Lord," said a Tervola named Meng Chiao. "It looks old."
"Perhaps. But it's alive. It's the source of our trouble. Set up a transfer behind the dune. I'm returning to the fortress. I'll be right back."
"As you wish, Lord."
Shih-ka'i slid and scrambled down the west face of the dune, began trudging toward the nearest active portal. "I'm too old for this," he grumbled.
"Lord?"
"Talking to myself, Pan ku. Ignore me."
He wondered why he needed to be here on the line. He was no field officer. The novelty? He had never served with a combat legion.
He stopped. "Pan ku, there's no need for you to dog me. I'm coming back. Why don't you wait here?"
"If you command me to, Lord. Otherwise, I wouldn't feel right."
"All right. If you don't mind the exercise and the sun." The man's devotion gave Shih-ka'i a small, pleasant feeling of worthiness. Rare were the Tervola who inspired the personal affection of their men.
"I don't mind, Lord."
Shih-ka'i transferred to the Seventeenth's headquarters. Had he become too dependent on that one sorcery? It had its limits, and he dared not lose them in the bigger picture. His brethren had learned that the hard way during the last war. A large force could not be supported through transfers alone. They were too slow. They had too small a capacity. Their lifespans were limited. Only a few could operate within a small area. More began interfering with one another. Still, they were superb backing for small tactical operations. To move and supply a legion, old-fashioned boot leather and wagon wheels remained the most practical approach.
Portals had their dangers, too. Sometimes people disappeared. That had happened too often during the western war. The wizard Varthlokkur had learned to tamper with the transfer stream.
Shih-ka'i shuddered.
Easy, he told himself. It's just weariness working on your nerves.
Nerves were not the whole problem. He was apprehensive about that stone thing. Caution was indicated. It was a complete unknown.
Tasi-feng greeted him. "What's happening out there, Lord?"
"We found the center of it. Giant artifact shaped like an animal. Looks like it was carved from a mountain. I sent Hsu Shen to take a closer look. Are the ballistae ready?"
"They're waiting, Lord. I inspected them myself. The Candidates did a good job. Every shaft was properly impressed and ranged. All we need is someone to target up front."
"I'll do that. How many shafts?"
"Twelve were all we had, Lord. Six in the trough, six standing by."
"Should be adequate. The damned thing will look like the moths have been after it before we're done. Let's look them over."
The ballista battery waited in a field outside the fortress. At first glance the engines looked like common siege equipment. The frames, troughs, and cranks were of standard imperial design. The specialized pieces were the bows and strings. Those had been prepared in a thaumaturgical arsenal hidden deep in the heart of Shinsan. Not even Lord Ssu-ma knew its location.
The shafts, too, had come out of that arsenal. They were of a very dark, hard, and heavy material. Inlaid into them were traceries of silver, gold, and a dull greyish metal. The heads were crystals in spearhead shape. They glowed with a fierce inner fire.
Shih-ka'i thumbed one, asked, "Ever wonder what one of these costs?"
"A small fortune," Tasi-feng guessed.
"I'm sure. Crank one back. And set me a portal here so I can jump back and forth."
"I arranged a portal earlier, Lord. Over here. I thought you'd want to range them yourself."
Shih-ka'i scowled. Lord Lun-yu was too damned efficient. Or he himself was too predictable. "First three at two-minute intervals. I'll come back if I want more." He surveyed the crews. Candidates all. Ordinary soldiers were not permitted to operate specialized equipment. It became dangerous in the hands of the untrained.
"You. Go ahead and shoot."
A ballista string whipped forward. There was a tremendous crack. A shaft hurtled into the air, a quicksilver sliver slicing into the distance. It did not follow a normal, gravity-defeated arc. It was still climbing when last it caught the sun.
"Two-minute intervals," Shih-ka'i reminded. He entered the ready portal. Pan ku followed as soon as the portal permitted.
A minute later Shih-ka'i topped the dusty dune in the far desert. He faced westward, waiting for a silver sparkle to appear over the mountains. "Hsu Shen run into anything yet?" he asked.
"No, Lord. He's halfway there."
"Signal him to take a position where we can see him, then to wait. I don't want him too close to target. Ah. Here it comes."
He sealed his eyes, reached with Tervola-trained senses, touched the hurtling shaft. Another part of his mind found the stone thing. He etched a mental line from spear to target. "Coming down, men. Shield your eyes."
The shaft hurtled toward the earth. Impact! Light-balls swarmed the touchdown point like a hundred round lightning flashes blasting away in rapid succession.
Shih-ka'i opened his eyes. "I'll be damned," he murmured. He had missed by two hundred yards.
Roaring, rising heat sucked up dust from hundreds of feet around the impact point. A pool fifty feet in diameter bubbled and splashed like overheated water. "Warm your hands around that," Shih-ka'i said. But his cockiness had fled.
He had missed. That could be no accident. He faced west again, watching for the next flash of silver.
He concentrated harder this time. He retained control till the moment of impact. And this time he felt the will resisting his own.
He opened his eyes. "Another miss!" But this time the first great upwelling of molten earth splashed the flank of the stone thing. He had brought the weapon in close.
"More power on the impression?" he asked the other Tervola.
One of the oldest, exiled by Lord Kuo, replied, "No, Lord. Range and impression felt perfect. It's the targeting. Something is resisting."
"Then I didn't imagine that."
"No, Lord. I suggest we all target the next one."
"Absolutely," Shih-ka'i said. "I want to see what happens when we get a direct hit."
"It's coming, Lord."
Shih-ka'i felt for the shaft and found it. He drew his targeting line. His brethren came in. They made of the line a tube from which the missile could not escape.
The missile hurtled down. The will trying to shunt it aside failed. It struck. Shih-ka'i opened his eyes.
Gouts of molten rock had blown out of the stone thing's haunch. "Dead on," he crowed. "Dead on. Now we wait."
They did not wait long.
"Is that someone standing on its head?" Shih-ka'i asked. He squinted, could not be sure. His eyes weren't what they had been.
"Looks like two of them, Lord."
"Curious. Can you tell what they're doing?"
"No, Lord."
A great angry bellow shook the desert. It filled the universe and rattled Shih-ka'i's teeth in his jaws. Dust devils raced across the barrens, circling in panic. Shih-ka'i pictured this as the flight of frightened ghosts. He smiled at his own imagination. "Prepare to defend yourselves," he ordered.