"Tomanâk! Tomanâk!" Bahzell thundered his war cry, and Walsharno's whistling trumpet counterpointed his deep-throated bellow as smoldering ichor fountained across them in a stinking fan. The hradani's sword yanked free of the ghastly wound as the charging courser swept onward, and he brought it down in an axe blow that slashed the demon's remaining inner claw entirely off.
Walsharno's pounding hooves carried them clear of their monstrous foe as the no-longer-silent demon reared up, hissing and screaming in pain. It writhed, its maimed forelimbs flailing, smoking blood spouting from its wounds, and Bahzell and Walsharno used the distraction of its agony. Walsharno's forehooves dug into the smoldering hillside, plowing deep furrows through its torn and scarred turf as they braked his forward speed, and his rear feet flashed up in a piledriver blow to the demon's shoulder. Despite its size, despite its weight, the monster went down, tumbling onto its side, and Walsharno recovered his balance, leaned back to gather his weight on his hindquarters, then pivoted and brought both forehooves hammering down on the side of the creature's neck, just above the gaping wound Bahzell's sword had torn.
The demon flailed madly, throat half-severed and half-crushed. It managed to jerk its head back up, fangs slashing, but it was hurt, weakened, clumsy, and Bahzell leaned aside in Walsharno's saddle. The head darted past him, and that proved just as deadly for this demon as it had for the first one. The five-foot blade came slashing down one final time, trailing streamers and prominences of blue fire, and the demon gave one last coughing, grunting cry as the hammering steel severed its spinal column and sent it crashing to the ground in quivering ruin.
XIII
"Jack! Jack!"
"I'm okay, Boss!" Mashita's voice was shaken, but Houghton had never heard a more welcome sound in his life.
"Good." Houghton realized he was still clutching the gunner's joystick in a death grip and made his hand relax. He reengaged the electric safeties on both cannon and machine gun, then took his hand off the joystick and drew a deep breath.
"How bad is it?" he asked.
"That's kinda hard to say with a couple hundred tons of dead whatever-the-fuck-those-things-were stacked all over the deck," Mashita replied. "I know the front right suspension's screwed, but I don't know about any of the other axles. And I can't see jack-you should pardon the expression-with this thing lying across my vision slots. Not to mention my hatch; I'm gonna have to crawl back through the tunnel to get out."
"Somehow, I'm not surprised." Houghton heard a flicker of genuine humor in his own voice and gave himself a shake.
"I take it you're still okay, too, Wencit?"
"Indeed I am, Gunnery Sergeant," Wencit said. "And perhaps you're beginning to understand why I wanted the most powerful ally I could summon," he added dryly.
"From what I could see, your boy Bahzell's pretty bad damned news all by himself," Houghton said.
"Champions of Tomanâk tend to be that way. Speaking of which . . . "
The wizard, Houghton realized abruptly, never had closed the commander's hatch. He'd stayed right where he was, sticking up out of it, even as no less than three demons-and Houghton was certainly prepared to concede the applicability of the term after what had just happened-came charging straight at him. Which meant either that he was an even bigger lunatic than Houghton had thought, or else that he was an even more powerful wizard than he'd suggested. Or, more probably, both.
Now Wencit clambered up to perch on top of the turret, resting one heel nonchalantly on the outstretched forelimb of the final demon.
"So, Bahzell," Houghton heard over his helmet headphones, "fancy meeting you here!"
Bahzell's ears twitched straight up in astonishment at the familiar voice coming to him from the outlandish looking vehicle half buried in dead demons.
*You know, he can be really irritating when he turns up this way, can't he?* Walsharno observed.
"Aye, that he can. Still and all, I'm not so very tempted to be complaining about it this evening," Bahzell replied judiciously.
*There were only five of them, you know,* Walsharno grumbled.
"Which would have been only about four too many, I'm thinking."
*All right, be that way.*
"And could you be so very kind, Wencit," Bahzell said, raising his voice but speaking with exquisite courtesy, "as to be explaining to us how it is you've happened along at just this very moment this time?"
Walsharno trotted towards the vehicle, just as a second hatch opened in its roof and a stranger in a uniform which looked just as outlandish as the vehicle itself poked his head and shoulders up out of it.
"As to that," Wencit said, "the person you want to be thanking is Gunnery Sergeant Houghton here. He and Corporal Mashita were kind enough to give me a ride."
"And just how was it you . . . inveigled them into anything as daft as that? Did you ride up to them out of a snow flurry in a swamp?"
"I've only used that particular technique once, I'll have you know," Wencit said in dignified tones. "In this case, I simply mentioned to them that I had a friend-two friends, actually-who were about to get themselves into trouble all over again. Once I'd explained, they decided they didn't have anything better to do tonight."
"Did they now?" Walsharno reached the vehicle and halted. Sitting in the saddle, Bahzell was taller than the ungainly-looking thing, and he reached his right hand towards Houghton.
"I'm thinking as how no one in his right mind would be after volunteering for something like this," he said. "Still and all, it's grateful I am. And impressed."
Bahzell's voice was the deepest one Kenneth Houghton had ever heard. It seemed to roll up from his toenails and then rumble around inside that vast chest of his until it reached critical mass and came spilling out with the power of James Earl Jones on steroids.
That was Houghton's first thought. Then he noticed Bahzell's tufted, foxlike ears, thrusting up through the special openings in his helmet.
Nope, still not in Kansas, Toto, he told himself wryly.
"I probably wouldn't have volunteered if I'd really realized what we were getting into," he heard himself saying aloud as he reached out to take the proffered had. "And I imagine I'm even more impressed with you than you are with me." He shook his head. "You may think I'm out of my mind, but I know you are! At least I had an LAV and not just a sword!"
"Ah, well, as to that, I'd a bit more than 'just a sword' working for me." Bahzell's grin showed white, strong teeth.
"That's true enough," Wencit said. "On the other hand, if you two can tear yourselves away from your mutual admiration society, there are still some rather unpleasant people in the neighborhood."
"Aye, so there are." Bahzell nodded. "In fact, I've the oddest notion, given what's just been happening here, as how those unpleasant folk have been putting themselves to quite an effort so as to invite Walsharno and me to their little get-together. You wouldn't be knowing anything about that, would you, Wencit?"