Jack Chalker - Ghost of the Well of Souls

“From the next reef on, you are in Paugoth territory,” one of them warned.

“Yeah, and you better fight ’em, too, ’cause our whole clan’s gonna be gathering to see. If you beat ’em, you’re welcome to whatever you’re here for, and then leave the remains to us. If you lose, we will be waiting for you.”

In fact, Mochida was planning to wipe out the winner no matter who that might be, but he let it go. As far as he was concerned, Clan Tusarch was totally irrelevant. He was relieved that he hadn’t had to waste men and resources fighting his way there, but was satisfied in any event to be here.

No welcoming party, Ming noted. Looks like nobody talks to anybody around here. You’d figure that by now we’d be common knowledge.

Up above, following the small markers that Colonel Kuamba sent up every kilometer or so, the dark shadow of a very large vessel continued to slowly follow. It could not be ignored by anybody. Even more interesting, at the release of the next small buoy there was additional activity above. Three smaller vessels seemed to be accompanying the big ship, possibly put over the side by that ship, but equally possibly they’d simply joined it unnoticed. Still, they followed silently, going away now and then if the wind or waves were wrong, but tacking back without much of a problem and generally keeping formation. Those guys are good sailors, Ari noted approvingly to himself.

But what else were they? Supply ships? Certainly not reinforcements, since what would have been the purpose of the cryogenic stuff? But they were there for some reason, all right.

As the large V-shaped formation of Chalidangers moved into the targeted clan’s territory with a steady but slow and cautious pace, two small forms went over the side from the smaller boats above and swam down a bit and then across. They were not Chalidang, Kalindan, or any other race that Ari and Ming had yet seen, but seemed a kind of large animal designed for the water, yet almost certainly air breathers from the way they moved. They fanned out, took a good look at the situation, and then one headed back up and into one of the small boats once again, while the other paced the large formation about halfway between the reef and the surface.

“Friends of yours?” Ari asked the General.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. Although there are panels in the small boats and even in the large ship that allow one to look down here, the hard substance necessary to ensure that they don’t break and sink introduces some distortion and also has a limited field of view. The Imtre have exceptional vision as well as other senses, and they also have a great deal of experience in this kind of campaign in nontech environments. They aren’t much good at real fighting, but they’ll coordinate our surface forces with our combat line here.”

“Looks pretty complete. You don’t think the locals are gonna notice?” Ming asked him.

“Oh, they’ll notice. It’s just irrelevant. The only thing that can cross us up is if the clan does not come out for a fight like the last one did. And if they don’t, they’re finished here anyway and might as well commit suicide. No, they’ll come, and soon. Within the next few minutes, I’d say. Otherwise, I’m going to start blowing up their precious reef gardens, one by one.”

He didn’t have to bother, nor even explain how he could blow things up down here. The Clan Paugoth was suddenly there in full force and radiating irritation, if that was the word for it. Fury, maybe, was a better one.

“Who dares desecrate Paugoth lands?” thundered the local lord imperiously. If anything, his Voice of God impression was even better than the last one, both Ming and Ari agreed.

This time Mochida didn’t allow a mere lieutenant to answer. To the surprise of the Kalindans, and possibly even some of his men, the General decided to do his own talking, and rose up to be level with that huge fanged mouth flanked by bizarre eyes.

“I am Colonel General Anchun Mochida of the Imperial Chalidang Army,” he announced in tones that sounded not quite as impressive as the lord’s but good enough. “In ancient times an object of great value was stolen from His Majesty’s family and people by massed armies including the Sanafe, which received a piece of it as some sort of war trophy. I am commanded by His Most August Majesty to pay any price, fight any fight, do whatever needs to be done, to retrieve what is and was always rightfully ours. We are here to get the piece you still possess. If we receive it, your people and mine will be friends forever in the coming reorder of power in the universe and we shall go in peace, and quickly. Will you return it to us by your authority, wisdom, and leadership?”

The old lord seemed taken aback by this, and confused. “War? Stolen treasures? What nonsense is this? Even if any of that blather you just said is true, I have no knowledge of the object of your quest. Why do you search for it here?”

“But you do have it,” the General responded. “It is the Indestructible Trophy, that which marks a clan for the next year as the Clan of Clans.”

The Sanafean leader seemed amazed. “What? That old ugly stick? Its only worth is what it represents to the winners; it has no other value. You must be mad to come here with an army and a navy to take that, and your Emperor or whatever must be crazy, too, to send you on such a quest!”

That didn’t sit well with the Chalidang soldiers. There was a great deal of tensing up, and weapons were being fitted into tentacles and brought to bear. As the rumbling subsided, Ari noted that the Imtre above had gone and another had slipped off the third boat but was sticking very close to it.

“Silence!” the General commanded, and the troops did as they were ordered, but were very ready now, almost a coiled spring.

“If it is of no intrinsic value to you, then what will you take for it, or will you just give it to us and we will go?” the General pressed, knowing where things were leading, as everybody else on both sides did.

“If it has no intrinsic value then it cannot be priced,” the Lord of Paugoth responded logically. “Therefore, I cannot take anything for it, nor, because of what it represents to us and to no one else, may I give it away. There is only one way the Indestructible Trophy can ever change hands.”

“Very well, then, sir. It is by your choice that what follows follows,” the General said in a menacing tone. “Company formations!” he yelled crisply to his men, who began to reform in an impressive manner into five fighting groups. Above, the Imtre tensed and virtually surfaced, keeping only its head below water.

Ari and Ming decided that the better part of their own valor was to rise as close to the underside of the big ship as they dared and use its shadow and substance as protection. They had nowhere to run and couldn’t see much any other place, but they didn’t want to be in the middle of what had to be coming.

I got a bad feeling about this, Ari commented.

Me, too, but not for the same reason. They’ve looked over these tentacled fighters with their fancy armor and nasty weapons and they haven’t blinked. No species survives for long if they’re that stupid. Conclusion: they’re not that stupid.

Huh?

You know the limitations of intelligence. I’ll bet you that the General’s seen a million full-blown three dimensional recordings of the clans fighting each other, but when s the last time the clans fought somebody else?

Uh-oh. You think we’re better off maybe on the ship?

Probably, but I just got to see this.

The Chalidangers were totally confident of victory, and tended to regard the Sanafeans as backward primitives unable to sustain a coordinated attack. Clans, too, were relatively small, generally no more than five or six hundred individuals, with only the two hundred or so adult males actually fighting for blood.