Jack Chalker - Lilith - A Snake in the Grass

I heard Ti give a sharp intake of breath. “It’s beautiful!” she gasped, then looked over at me, apparently concerned that she was sounding too childlike. Finally she decided that she didn’t care. “I was born down there,” she said, pointing to the area of our old village. “There was a lot of bad there, but I’m part of it and it’s part of me. Can you understand?”

I nodded, although there was no place that could claim my own soul as Zeis claimed hers. I was the product of an alien society of strange forms and structures made by computer design and formed and shaped by plastic. Still, I had a reaction as close to hers as I could come, and one that was totally alien to my old nature and lifelong philosophy. I pulled her against my side and hugged her. “This can all be ours-,” I breathed, wondering as I said it whether in that moment I had ceased to be what I had been and joined the race of Lilith.

We sat on a high ledge and relaxed. Ti was holding a woven basket made of some straw like material, and she now pulled out its contents—a gourd pot, two smaller gourds, a flint, some of Father Bronz’s quar leaves, which would burn hot but slow, and some of his tea. Runoff from the mountains caused small waterfalls all along, so water was no problem. Also in the basket were some of the small pastries and a cheese like substance made from some insects in a manner I didn’t ever want to know.

I had to chuckle. It seemed absurd to have a picnic while watching a battle.

An advance guard of witches had “swept” the trails prior to sunrise, so we weren’t due for any unpleasant surprises-—not, at least, until the battle started. We could see the whole area, from the swamps to the Castle, a perfect vantage point. Still, everything seemed very tiny and far away. I wished we were closer.

Ti rummaged in her basket and came up with two collapsing wooden tubes. I stared at them in wonder, then turned them over in my hands. They were small telescopes, actually monoculars.

“Where did these come from?” I asked her won-deringly.

She gave me a satisfied smirk. “I made friends with a supervisor from Lakk, the Lady Tona’s besil pilot. When I spotted one on his belt, I asked about ’em, and got two. Thought we might need ’em.”

I was impressed. I had the bad habit of continually underestimating Ti and mentally kicking myself for it later. I’d actually tried to get her to stay behind, but that proved impossible. I was beginning to think she deliberately cultivated that childlike vulnerability so that she’d have an edge on everybody else, Warden power or not.

I put one to my right eye and studied the field. “Things should be popping any moment now,” I said tensely.

“Things are popping already,” she responded. “Look down there, near Artur’s fort. See?”

I trained my monocular on the spot, wishing I had something with better focusing and a stronger glass. “I don’t see—wait! Yes, I do too!”

They were there, already lined up in a neat formation, the great hopping wuks, their huge bulks almost invisible at this distance against the green of the valley. Behind them a formidable array of foot soldiers stood in perfect military formation.

I shifted my glass to the besil pens cut in the mountain above the stockade and saw signs of frantic movement. They would come shooting out of’ there, I knew, at some signal from the ground. Idly I wondered where Artur would be.

Next I looked at the Castle. The great door was shut, I could see, and red flags were flying from the pointed towers. I thought I could see figures on those towers, but it was pretty far to be sure. What was certain was that no pawns were in the fields or anywhere to be seen. They had been withdrawn to the base of the mountains, as far from battle as possible, to await the outcome.

I studied the trail heads next, down on the valley floor below. During the night the witches had infiltrated and now they stood, linked in a line rather than a circle, facing inward, at each point.

There was no way to carry out any movements of this sort without your enemy knowing about it, so nobody had made much of a secret of their movements. The witches had dispatched the guard and stood in such a way that they might reinforce each other if necessary, but though Artur could probably wipe out any coven of thirteen with his forces, this would be an open invitation for the coming Lakk forces to overrun his rear. Artur, I decided, would take his chances with the divided witches until he met and defeated the Lakks. The way his forces were now moving, I was sure he intended to meet the invader as close to the swamps as possible, fighting in the air over the dank and treacherous terrain and forcing the Lakks to land on solid ground piecemeal. There they could be mopped up in small batches before they could regroup into a major fighting force.

What we’d seen in front of the stockade had merely been the reserves, a bit more than half his force that could be thrown in where needed or committed against individual groups of witches if need be. It was really good military thinking, and I could see at a glance why Artur was held in such respect and why Zeis was considered unassailable by Lakk.

But there were only seven roads into the Keep, and each was blocked by thirteen witches. That left seventy-eight witches, and those seventy-eight were a tremendous amplified and coalesced Warden force. Zeis was the model of what you’d want to defend in a military sense, but its strength lay in the impossibility of establishing a beachhead against it. If a large enough force could be landed on solid ground, it would be the defenders who would be rolled back into a trap, totally surrounded by mountains.

“There go the besilsl” Ti shouted excitedly. I didn’t need the monocular to see the great dark shapes now out of their mountain stable lair. The riders were braced in special combat saddles that also supported long, pointed wooden lances. I looked out over the fog-shrouded swamp, seeing nothing for a moment Then, out of the murky grayness, a long, slow line of besils appeared. Unlike Artur’s besils, whose underbellies were dyed a reddish color, these were yellow underneath, the color of Lakk.

They came in slow and low, cautious until they had a full field of vision. Inside the valley, despite some wisps of ground fog, the eternal clouds had retreated past the thousand-meter mark, plenty of room for an aerial duel.

The Zeis besils neared the swamp, then stopped, their great wings beating so fast to keep them in place they were totally invisible. I never understood how anything that big flew, anyway.

The attacking formation split now, one-third going left, another third right, while the center column pushed, ahead, accelerating suddenly and with great speed. Hundreds of black, swift shapes weaved in and out, parrying and thrusting, lances attempting to score a hit either at the underbelly of the enemy besils or at the riders atop them. It was a battle in three dimensions at crazy angles and speeds and with sudden whiplike motions.

While the vanguard of Zeis besils were occupied, the swamp itself seemed-to come alive, eerie shapes moving to and fro in the fog. Emerging now were the great twelve-legged, hairy snarks, raised for fur and used in stews by the people of Lilith. These creatures of that swamp like terrain were somehow able to avoid sinking into the muck and mire by shifting their centers of gravity at will. Herbivores, they were totally harmless to people, but they made effective troop carriers when a swamp was to be the battleground, and Lakk Keep had bred them for just that purpose.

The great, hopping, green wuks leaped into action from the Zeis side, aiming at going so high and landing so exactly that they would come down right on top of the fragile snarks, spilling them and their contents into the swamp, ft should have worked, had the snarks contained combat soldiers, but this time was different.