Short Fiction Poul Anderson (reading a book .TXT) 📖

“I thought it was just your usual talk to women.”

“It may have been⁠—then,” he admitted. “But it hasn’t been since, and it isn’t now.” His sword-calloused hand found hers. “Don’t forget, Ellen. I love you. I will always love you.”

“Anse⁠—” She turned toward him, and he saw her eyes alight. “Anse⁠—”

A bugle shrilled through the rain, high and harsh ahead of them. Dimly, they made out the monstrous bulk of the castle, looming through the misty gray light, its towers lost in the vague sky. Janazik’s sword flashed from its sheath.

“The battle begins,” said a voice out of the blurring rain.

Anse drew Ellen over against a wall and kissed her. Her lips were cool and firm under his, wet with rain; he would never forget that kiss while life was in him.

They looked at each other for a moment of wonder, and then broke apart and followed Janazik.

The loyalists charged in a living wave that roared as it surfed against the castle walls and spattered a foam of blood and steel. From three sides they came, weaving in and out of the hailing arrows, lifting shields above them, leaving their dead behind them.

The blaster cannon mounted on the walls spouted flame and thunder. Warriors were mowed down before that whirling white fury, armor melted when the lightning-like discharges played over it, but still the assault went on with all the grim bitter courage of the Khazaki race.

Old siege engines were appearing, dragged out of storehouses and hiding places where they had been kept against such a day of need. Now the great catapults and ballistae were mounted; stones and fireballs and iron-headed bolts were raking the walls. A testudo moved awkwardly forth up the steep hill toward the gates. It was blasted to flaming molten ruin, but another got underneath the walls and the crash of a battering ram came from under its roof.

Shadowlike in the blinding rain, the warriors flitted up toward the walls. No spot of cover was too small for one of those ghostly shapes; they seemed to carry their own invisibility with them. Under the walls⁠—scaling ladders appearing as if out of nowhere⁠—up the walls and into the castle!

The ladders were hurled down. The warriors who gained the walls were blasted by cannon, cut down by superior numbers, lost in a swirl of battle and death. Boiling water rained down over the walls on those below, spears and arrows and the roaring blaster bolts. But still they came. Still the howling, screeching demons of Krakenau came, and died, and came again.

Anse cursed, softly, luridly, pain croaking in his voice: “We can’t be with them. They’re being slaughtered and we can’t be with them.”

“We’re needed worse here,” said Janazik curtly. “If only Pragakech can maintain the assault for an hour⁠—”

He and Anse loped in the forefront. Behind them came Gonzales, Ellen, and a dozen picked young Khazaki. They wove through a maze of alleys and streets and deserted market squares, working around behind the castle. The roar of battle came to them out of the gray mist of rain; otherwise there was only the padding and splashing of their own feet, the breath rasping harsh in their lungs, the faint clank and jingle of their harness. All Krakenau not at the storming of the citadel had withdrawn into the mysterious shells of the houses, lay watching and waiting and whetting knives in the dark.

The paths dipped steeply downward, until, when they came around behind the citadel and stood peering out of a tunnel-like alley, there was a sheer cliff-face before them. On this side the castle was impregnable. The only approach was a knife-edged trail winding up the cliff, barely wide enough for one man at a time. At its top, flush with the precipice edge, the wall was built. Against this wall, commanding the trail, there had in the old days been an archer post, but lately a cannon had been mounted there.

Yet that very security, thought Anse, might be a weakness. Except for that gun, the approach wouldn’t be watched, especially with the fight going on elsewhere. So⁠—

“Give me your weapon, Alonzo,” said Janazik.

“Here.” Gonzales handed him the blaster pistol. “But it only has two charges left in it.”

“That may be enough.” Janazik slipped it under his cloak. Then he wound a gold brassard about his arm and started up the trail. A couple of his Khazaki came behind them, then Anse, Ellen, and Alonzo, and finally the rest of the warriors.

The trail was steep and slippery, water swirling down it, loose rocks moving uneasily beneath the feet⁠—and it was a dizzying drop off the sheer edge to the ground below. They wound upward slowly, panting, cursing, wondering how much of a chance their desperate scheme really had.

Ellen slipped a little. Anse reached back and caught her hand. He smiled lopsidedly. “Now I don’t want to let go,” he said.

“I wonder⁠—” Ellen looked away, then back to him, and her eyes were wide and puzzled. “I wonder if I want you to, Anse.”

His heart seemed to jump up into his throat, but he let her go and said wryly: “I’m afraid I have to right now. But wait till later.”

Up and up⁠—Later! Will there ever be a later?

And if there is, what then? I’m still more than half a Khazaki. Can we live together in the great civilization I hardly comprehend?

It was simpler when Janazik and I were warring over the planet⁠ ⁠… Janazik! I wonder if two beings of the same race could ever know as close a friendship as that between us two aliens. We’ve fought and laughed and sung together, we’ve saved each other’s lives, sweated and suffered and been afraid, together. We know each other as we will never know any other being.

Well, it passes. We’ll always remain close friends, I suppose. But the old comradeship⁠—I’ll have to give that up.

But Ellen⁠—

Up and up⁠—

Janazik whistled, long and loud, and called: “Hail Volakech! Friends!”

He could dimly