Джеффри Лорд: The Ruins Of Kaldac

She wanted to weep, partly from the smoke but more from pride in the way Kaldak's people were standing up to the battle. The soldiers of Blade's own England couldn't have done better, she thought.

It was time to join the retreating soldiers. There was nothing more she could do here, and she might be needed at the controls of the Hovercraft. The battle was getting to the point where her father might need to change his orders suddenly, and that could mean moving.

One more thing to do, though-make sure Saorm's body wasn't left for the flames. She called four unwounded men over, they lifted it, then followed her out of the smoke toward the waiting army of Kaldak.

Through the eyes of the last of the scout waldoes, Blade saw the Kaldakan advance guard streaming out of the burning forest. Good. They were retreating fast, but they weren't routed, even though that forest fire was something he hadn't expected. Anyway, it would be a problem for Peython and Kareena. Now it was time for the waldoes to march.

Blade signaled to one of the Kaldakans he had selected to control the main console. The man was handling it well, switching frequencies from the scout waldoes to the combat ones. Then Blade looked to the left and to the right, to make sure Bairam and Sidas were in their chairs and that everyone else was out of the way as they were supposed to be. Then he signaled again to the man controlling the console. That would be the last movement he'd be able to make for quite a while without a couple of dozen waldoes imitating it.

The controller switched on the three chairs, and Blade stood up. So did Bairam and Sidas. Forty miles away, so did ninety combat waldoes, thirty responding to each chair. Blade flexed all his limbs, cut in the vision and sound circuits, and saw waldoes all around him doing the same thing. It was grotesque, like ninety gigantic metal puppets all doing gymnastics in unison.

Blade and his comrades bent down and gripped wooden rods. Ninety waldoes also bent down and picked up metal bars four feet long and three inches thick. They had no grenades, but they would still be well-equipped for close combat.

Blade saw one of the waldoes fall over, heard Bairam curse, and sighed. Peython's son was so excited that Blade would have rather had someone else in the third chair, but there wasn't anyone else.

«All right,» said Blade. His voice came out distorted by the helmet and the controls in his mouth. «Waldoes-forward march!»

And they marched. Eighty-nine waldoes tramped forward, crushing down the bushes which had screened them, and stumbling down the low slope behind. They weren't in good order to begin with and it got worse as they moved, because they were moving at three different paces. They all did move, and by the time they reached level ground they were moving fast.

Thirty miles an hour, Blade calculated, was the waldoes' top speed. They were five miles from the valley. Ten minutes' marching. That should give the Doimari plenty of time to put their heads into the trap, without giving them time to spring one on the Kaldakans.

«Waldoes-right face!» shouted Blade. He felt more like a drill sergeant than a commanding officer. «And test your clubs.»

Eighty-nine right arms swung eighty-nine metal bars. The arm jammed on one of Sidas's waldoes, smoking and sizzling. Sidas had the wisdom not to make the waldo drop its club. Otherwise all his waldoes would have dropped theirs and had to pick them up again. Bairam's waldoes swung their clubs more wildly than the other men's. Blade heard clangs and crashes as clubs struck other waldoes and hoped Bairam's enthusiasm wasn't doing any damage.

«Forward-march!» again, and the waldoes started off. They jammed together for a nerve-wracking minute at the narrowest part of the path between the hills. Blade froze his waldoes in place and let the other two men sort theirs out. Then the waldoes set off. The ground shook under their feet as nearly three hundred tons of metal accelerated. Dust rose in a fog, and the clanking and squealing of long-unused joints and cables was as loud as the sounds of a battle.

Most of Bairam's waldoes rapidly pulled ahead, then some began to drop back, joints smoking. The boy was pushing them too fast. When Blade saw two of them literally trip over their own feet and fall, he'd had enough.

«Bairam! Get out of that chair and stand back. You'll wreck half your waldoes before the battle starts, the way you're going!»

Bairam looked both rebellious and ready to burst into tears. Then the controller moved quickly in obedience to Blade's hand signal, cutting off the power to Bairam's chair, after switching its frequency to Blade's. Without blinking or missing a step, Blade took over Bairam's waldoes. Bairam muttered a few comments on the sex habits of Blade's parents, then stamped off to join the spectators.

Halfway to the battlefield now. The smoke from the burning forest was beginning to spread across the landscape. Blade could now hear the sounds of the battle ahead over the din of the waldoes themselves. It was impossible to tell who was doing what to whom, but no mortars were firing. That probably meant the Doimari were doing what he wanted them to do-move across the valley after the Kaldakan advance guard. They'd also have to go around the forest, but that wouldn't spoil Blade's plans.

Then Sidas's chair suddenly began giving off smoke and sparks. The controller seemed to leap halfway across the room to cut its power, then drag Sidas clear. He was rubbing scorched spots on his arms and legs but otherwise seemed unhurt as he ran toward the next activated chair. Reluctantly Blade froze all the waldoes in position. He didn't want to take the risk of controlling all of them single-handed, not when battle was so close.

As Sidas ran, Bairam snatched up a bucket of water and emptied it over his comrade. It was just as well for Bairam that Blade could do nothing but curse at this helpful gesture. Throwing water around near a shorted-out chair could have knocked out the whole command center and lost the battle in a second! But there was no time to explain electricity, and probably not much point in explaining it to Bairam at all. At this moment Blade would have promised his right arm to bring the waldoes a mile closer to the battlefield.

Then Sidas was in his new chair and controlling his waldoes again. A few had fallen when Blade stopped them, but only one stayed down. Eighty-six left now, and only minutes to the battlefield. The smoke was getting so thick that Blade wondered if it would interfere with lasers. It was certainly getting thick enough to interfere with his vision.

The last bend into the valley was the sharpest, and getting all the waldoes around it was the hardest job yet. They had to slow down almost to a walk, to make sure that a dozen waldoes didn't go down on rough patches of ground. For a minute the waldoes would have been a magnificent mortar target, and Blade found his palms sweating. The smoke he'd feared now came to his rescue. It swirled back and forth across the valley, completely blocking the view of the Doimari.

The Kaldakan waldoes were almost ready to move again when the first Doimari infantry drifted out of the smoke. They were only a straggling line of scouts, but that was enough for Blade.

«Sidas! Your lasers!» he shouted, and bit down on the firing button for his own weapons. In his excitement he'd forgotten to turn all of his waldoes directly toward the Doimari, and most of the beams shot wide. That did no harm. The Doimari were too frozen with surprise and fear to react in time. On the second volley, more than fifty laser beams struck the scouts. Blade saw a few smoking bodies fly into the air, but most simply vanished as if they'd been vaporized. Probably some of them were. The rest must have been buried under the mass of smoking earth thrown into the air. From behind the smoke came the screams of men on the edge of the destruction, not too badly burned to cry out.