John Varley - Wizard

"We're being bombed!" Cirocco cried out. She had half risen. Gaby tried to pull her down, but she was pointing to a third flight of buzz bombs coming from the northeast. They were far too high for the ramming tactic, and just before they were directly overhead, they lifted slightly, exposing ebony underbellies with landing legs drawn up tight. More of the deadly eggs were released. Hornpipe combined with Gaby to pull Cirocco down just as the bombs exploded, sending a shower of sand over the prone bodies.

"You were right!" Gaby shouted over her shoulder as she leaped to her feet. Chris took little comfort from it. He got up, turned to find Valiha, and was lifted bodily before he quite knew what was happening.

"To the cable!" Valiha called. Chris almost dropped his water gun as she sprang forward. He looked over his shoulder and saw a river of flame running down from the dune behind them, and out of it emerged all the denizens of hell.

There were hundreds of them, and most were on fire. The wraiths were disorganized clusters of tentacles, tangled snarls that bore no resemblance to anything Chris had seen. They were the size of large dogs. They scuttled like crabs, and just as rapidly, all at once with no wind-up. They were translucent, and so were the flames, so that, burning, they became writhing areas of violent light that cast no shadows. Chris's ears were tortured with an almost supersonic screeching and metallic pings like red-hot metal cooling.

"That was great bomb placement," Gaby shouted, suddenly appearing to his right, mounted on Hautbois. The Titanide had Robin cradled in her arms. "It's hard to think the buzz bombs are working with the wraiths."

"I wouldn't count on them being on our side, though," Chris said.

"Neither would I. You got any ideas on what to do next?" She pointed to the sky, where Chris saw two flights of three buzz bombs wheeling around for another pass.

"I'd say keep running," Valiha said before Chris could get anything out. "It looks to me like they're not used to dropping bombs. They had two chances while we were helpless and they missed both times."

Hornpipe and the Wizard had matched the pace of the other two Titanides and now galloped along beside them.

"Okay. But they could change tactics. If it looks like they're coming in low, hit the dirt. And if we're going to run, don't do it in a straight line. And spread out a little. More targets might confuse them."

The Titanides put the orders into effect. Valiha began a zigzag progression toward the cable, totally different from her usual effortless glide. Chris had to hold tight to stay on her back. When the buzz bombs were positioned for another run, she redoubled her efforts, sending up great sprays of sand as she leaned into her turns, hooves churning.

"They're keeping high," Chris told her.

"Good. I'll keep-"

"Turn toward them!" he shouted. Valiha obeyed instantly, and Chris ducked as three bombs sailed over his head, seeming close enough to touch. Yet they hit fifty meters away. Chris saw that he had been right. The momentum of a bomb that fell short could still spray them with the liquid fire. His ears rang, but the main force of the devices was expended in incendiary effects rather than concussion.

"That's napalm," Cirocco shouted as for a moment Hornpipe and Valiha drew close in their erratic paths. "Don't let it get on you. It sticks and burns."

Chris wanted no part of it, sticky or not. He was about to say so when Valiha shrieked and stumbled.

He was thrown forward against her back, hitting his chin and snapping his teeth together. He sat up, spit blood, and looked over her shoulder. Glassy tentacles had wrapped around her left foreleg. They seemed too ephemeral to exert the force that was tearing her flesh and pulling her down into the sand. Yet they were doing it Her knees were already buried.

His hand had no feeling in it as he aimed the gun and squeezed a stream of water over the wraith. It released Valiha, backed off half a meter, and began to shake. Chris thought it was dying.

"The water's not hurting it!" Valiha shouted. She was using her club to flail at the thing. Two tentacles broke off and slithered independently before slipping into the sand. "It's shaking it off."

Chris could see it. Injured, the creature nevertheless began to close on Valiha again. It was a nest of glass snakes. Somewhere near the center, not held to a defined spot, was a large pink crystal that might have been an eye. It more nearly resembled one of the invertebrate chimeras of the sea than any land creature, yet it had the supple strength of a whip.

Valiha reared on her hind legs while Chris held on only by winding his fingers in her hair. She didn't seem to notice. She came down on the creature with her front hooves, reared and did it again, then jumped over the twitching remnant and hit it so hard with her hind legs that pieces were still rising when she leaped forward again.

Chris looked up, and the sky was filled with buzz bombs.

Actually there were no more than twenty or thirty of them, but one was too many. Their pulsing exhaust rattle shook the world.

The next thing he knew, Valiha was kneeling in front of him, shaking his shoulders. His ears were ringing. He noticed that Valiha's hair was singed on one side and that her left arm and the left side of her face were bleeding. Her yellow skin was nearly invisible behind a coat of sand which adhered to the sweat.

"You're not bleeding too badly," she said, causing him to look down and see tears in his clothing and redness beneath. A patch on his pants was smoldering, and he quickly slapped it out. "Can you understand me? Can you hear me?"

He nodded, though he was very shaky. She lifted him again, and he fumbled with his feet, trying to straddle her back. When he was in place, she took off again.

They were only a hundred meters from the first of the cable strands. Just before they arrived, Chris heard a subtle alteration in the sound of Valiha's hooves. Instead of the muffled thumps of deep sand, it was turning into a satisfying clop-clop as they emerged onto hard rock. Soon they were close enough to touch the massive strand. Valiha wheeled around, and they looked out over an empty expanse of desert. Nowhere could they see Cirocco and Hornpipe, Gaby, Hautbois, or Robin. Though they could hear the distant thunder of pulsejets, the sky was clear of buzz bombs.

"Over there," Valiha said. "To the east."

There was a commotion on the sand. Many wraiths created a shifting cloud over something lying motionless.

"It's Hautbois," Valiha said quietly.

"No. It can't be."

"But it is. And over there, to the right of the remains. I fear that is our companion Robin."

The small figure had come into view from around the curve of the cable strand. She was three or four hundred meters from the two of them. Chris saw her stop short of the carnage. She crouched. She put her hands to her mouth, then straightened, and Chris was sure he knew what she was about to do.

"Robin! Robin, don't!" he shouted. He saw her stop and look around.

"It's too late," Valiha called out. "She no longer lives. Come to us." She turned to Chris. "I'm going to get her." He held her wrist tightly.

"No. Wait for her here." It felt like a damnably unheroic thing to say, but he couldn't help it. He kept seeing the tentacles of the wraith pulling Valiha down into the sand. He looked at her legs and gasped. "That thing..."

"It's not as bad as it looks," Valiha said. "The cuts are not deep. Most of them."

It looked awful. Her left leg was covered in drying blood, and at least one of the gashes had torn loose a flap of her skin. He looked away, helplessly, back to where Robin was running toward them. She was unsteady, her legs and arms flying without much control. Chris ran out a short way to meet her and hurried back, supporting her under one arm. She collapsed on the rock, gasping, unable to speak but clutching the hard surface to her like an old friend. Chris turned her over and took her hand. It was the one without a little finger.