Barrington Bayley - Star Winds

Back in his headquarters, news was waiting for Baron Matello that something unusual was happening outside on the plain. He hurried to the observation post and peered through the eyepiece that, by means of lenses and mirrors, brought a view seen from a narrow slit high in the adamant wall of the Aegis.

On the sloping ground before the Aegis, the Kerek were encamped in force. But now something was astir in the riotous sprawl of tall tents and grounded galleys.

The bombards and catapult guns were abandoned. Men and Kerek rushed to and fro in apparent panic, jostling together. Galleys were hastily taking off, both human and alien forms clinging to their sides and sometimes falling away as they ascended raggedly into the sky.

A ruddy, wavering light illuminated the scene. This in itself was not so unusual—the planet’s sun burned sometimes white, sometimes red, sometimes both together in a fiery, whirling manner. The light was, however, much brighter than normally.

Was this what had caused the Kerek to take fright? Intrigued and excited, Matello continued to watch, until the glare increased so much that he snatched himself away from the eyepiece with a cry, holding his streaming eye.

A visible cone of light came from the lens. Curtly Matello gave the order for the observation slit to be closed up.

They all sat huddled blindly in the adamant shell, waiting and wondering.

The star which the Aegis circled had never been particularly stable, though human memory could not, of course, know that. Ever since mining had begun on the planet, the sun’s temperature had never varied by more than a degree, and its unsteady appearance, the disk writhing and whirling like a flame, had generally been taken to betoken no more than an unusually mobile photosphere.

With the violent etheric storm that was now sweeping through the southern part of Maralia, however, the depths of the star became disturbed. The photosphere began to flash and boil, blasting out in fantastic storms as extra energy poured from the core. The amount of radiation it sent winging through the ether increased, erratically but substantially.

The effect on the small mining planet, the only one of three to be inhabited, was to scorch and bake it unmercifully. The atmosphere expanded, became unbreathably hot and thin. The landscape was pounded by furious red and white light, by great waves of searing heat. The mining towns burned like paper in a furnace, the Kerek camps burned, their ships burned as they vainly tried to claw through the sky. Only a few survived, those who were quick enough to seek refuge in the deepest mines.

For a week the solar storm continued. On the whole planet, one place was safe—the Aegis. Slits and flues tightly closed, the fortress remained cool, unaffected by the drenching energy that poured futilely onto its adamant exterior, for fire and ether could not penetrate those walls of pure earth. For several months the denizens skulked within, not daring even to open an observation slit for fear of what might come pouring through it.

Outside, meanwhile, the sun quieted and the planet gradually cooled, like a ball of clay that was taken out of an oven. Eventually those within the Aegis peered out. More cautiously, they ventured out, finding a world even deader than it had been before.

Further empty months passed. And then a military starship bearing a Maralian standard sailed over the mountain range and set down before the Aegis. At first Matello and the king were suspicious. It had puzzled them when no Kerek arrived to replace their brothers annihilated by the wild sun, and they suspected trickery. But at length a party from the ship was admitted, led by the young Baron Rodrigeur, whom Matello had met briefly once and thought he recognized.

Rodrigeur, though barely above twenty years of age, was capable and self-confident, and already hardened by war. In the king’s own quarters he told an incredible but heartening tale of a series of ether storms more violent and widespread than anything previously known, dashing the Kerek fleets to pieces before they could effect a proper occupation of their latest conquest. In the respite, Maralia had rallied. And though the struggle still went on, the cause was no longer regarded as completely hopeless.

Those present listened in amazement. “A miraculous delivery!” King Lutheron breathed.

Rodrigeur turned to him apologetically. “Your brother Murdon currently reigns in your place, Your Majesty,” he said. “Everyone had thought you dead, until it was remembered that the Duke of Koss’s Aegis lies close to where the first battle took place and it was suggested you might have token refuge here. I was dispatched to investigate, as soon as could be managed.”

“And where is the seat of government?” Lutheron asked sternly.

“At Myrmidia, liege-lord. All the western part of the kingdom lies in Kerek hands.”

“But not for long!” Matello blazed. “We have half a chance of victory, you say? A quarter of a chance is good enough for me! Let’s be away from here, liege-lord, and into the fray!”

“Steady, Sir Goth,” King Lutheron murmured. “First, we travel to Myrmidia. It will be interesting to see how my brother takes the news of my continuing good health…”

Captain Zebandar Zhorga, his armor clinking, scrambled down into the shallow dugout where the field surgeon had just finished stitching up the wounded trooper. The injured man lay on the bare dirt, heavily dosed with laudanum. His leather jerkin had been cut away and his tunic ripped open; bloodstained bandages were about his middle.

“How is he?” Zhorga demanded.

The surgeon shrugged as he packed away his instruments. He did not speak until he was able to turn away from the barely conscious soldier.

“What do you expect?” he muttered. “He’ll be dead before sunrise.”

Zhorga nodded, feeling very, very sad. The injured trooper was Rachad Caban.

He looked up over the rim of the dugout, at the drooping violet trees that perpetually dripped moisture into the marshes. It was this accursed world that did it. Elsewhere Rachad might have stood a good chance of recovering from his injuries. Here wounds turned septic almost immediately, producing a rotting gangrene and death within hours.

Previously the planet had been uninhabited, but the Kerek appreciated its strategic value and had moved in to begin converting its atmosphere. That could not be allowed, with the war swaying back and forth across Maralia the way it was, and King Murdon had sent in Baron Matello at the head of a large force—as punishment, perhaps, for his formerly stubborn allegiance to the disgraced and imprisoned Lutheron—to prevent it.

“Ah, Rachad, you’ve come a long way with me,” Zhorga muttered, staring down at the pale, blank face with its enlarged pupils. “What a pity you have to turn in your ticket now.”

It was one of those flying sickles that had sliced the young man open. Zhorga wondered if it might be kinder if he were to finish the job now. But instead he turned and clambered up the walls of soft red earth and made his way back to what he had been doing when he heard of the incident—supervising the placing of a great bombard to assail Kerek positions.

For about an hour Rachad drifted into a dreamless sleep. When he awoke, his whole body seemed to be burning.

Blurrily he saw someone come softly down into the dugout and lean over him. His vision cleared somewhat, and he gasped as he recognized a small, slightly monkey-like face, with quiet brown eyes and silky hair.

For a moment he could not speak. He stuttered.

“Master Amschel!”

The alchemist wore light leather armor and a brief, almost superfluous iron helmet. He ran his eyes over Rachad, as if inspecting him, then reached inside his leather hauberk, producing a small phial.