Doomsday Warrior 08 - American Glory Page 18

  “Come now, General Rockson, we have much to do,” Panchali said with a smile, putting his arm around the Freefighter’s shoulder. Having beaten him in drinking and punch-me-punch-you, he was, as far as the Sikh was concerned, an honorary member of the Royal Sikh Army. “Come, see our siege equipment,” Panchali said with pride as he led Rockson to a grove of high trees beneath which sat ten immense wooden contraptions, apparently pulled by hand all the way around the fort. Rockson walked up to the exotic war machines, staring at the wide wheels, the steel cups at the ends of the long wooden poles which were attached to pieces of rubber stretched far back, ready to snap their loads forward.

  “Catapults, General Rockson,” Sikh Ragdar said, jumping down from the platform of one where he was supervising final adjustments on the ancient device. “A weapon as old as war itself,” the young Asian general declared, walking over to Rockson and Panchali. “But as you’ll see, effective—yes, quite effective.” The air of confidence that both generals possessed unnerved Rockson, since he didn’t know whether they could really do everything they claimed or were actually madmen carrying out a terrible bluff that would bring him and his men into the jaws of catastrophe.

  “This—this is your artillery?” Rockson asked with growing trepidation, his head threatening to start pounding again at any moment.

  “This and our artillery units, of course,” Panchali said, sweeping his hand to the right where hundreds of men sat cross-legged, their long bows next to them, quivers of arrows behind their backs awaiting the call to attack.

  Rockson put his hand over his face, feeling slightly faint, and groaned. “Giant slingshots and bows and arrows—that’s how we’re going to take on Killov? Just blow and the walls come tumbling down?”

  “Exactly, General Rockson,” Panchali said, slapping him hard on the back. “We’ll huff and we’ll puff and we’ll blow those goddamned walls straight down to hell.”

  Seventeen

  All across America, in the dead of the night, the Freefighters and their Sikh allies edged toward the KGB-controlled Red fortresses. Catapult and machine gun, mortar and grenade units—all marched side by side toward the imposing walls of the concrete cities looking skeptically at one another—as if scarcely daring to believe that they were on the same side of the war together. But love and death make strange bedfellows—and what man will dare tell the man covering his flank to go, leaving him exposed? So they shut their mouths and marched and tried to guess—since men are wont to die when they march into battle—just who would be alive and who dead when the morning sun cast a crying eye on the bloody fields of dawn. At the stroke of 1:00 A.M. they struck. K-Day, Killov’s day to die, had arrived.

  All was bedlam in the woods north of Fort Minsk as the Sikh army made its final preparations. The immense catapults, looking more like mobile drawbridges than functioning weapons, were pushed up to the very edges of the forest and placed in open spaces between groves of trees so they had a clear line of fire to the fortress, Other towering devices made of logs lashed together in upright configurations were also placed near the mile-long clearing that surrounded the Red stronghold. But Rock, sitting on the sidelines, couldn’t figure out what the hell they were—as he saw no buckets for heaving things, no stretched strips of rubber pulling their load back. He and the Rock team—Archer, Chen, McCaughlin, Detroit—stood by the edge of the woods watching Panchali and Ragdar rush madly around on horseback overseeing the last-second adjustments and problems. The Freefighters had never felt so helpless. They were the ones who strode into battle in the first ranks, the men who were used to running shows, not being stagehands in them. They sat on their haunches resting for the battle and watched what may have been—next to them—pound for pound the toughest fighting force on earth.

  “Catapult crews—man your weapons,” Panchali screamed out through cupped hands from atop his Arabian stallion. Robed, turbaned warriors rushed to the weapons and filled their yard-wide steel cups with wooden boxes sealed tight as drums, packing two or three of them into each firing cup.

  “First inning,” Rock said as he and the others stood up, unslinging their Liberators, Chen his star-knives, Archer his sturdy crossbow. The Doomsday Warrior looked over to the left about 150 yards away where half of the Century City Freefighter army milled about, waiting for their chance. The rest of the men were spread around Fort Minsk to create diversionary attacks against the other three walls. The fortress looked impregnable from where Rockson stood, a veritable mountain taking up the whole sky to the north. He felt a churning sickly feeling in his stomach as he wondered if his whole plan to ally with the Reds was insane, if he’d perhaps gone mad from breathing in too many radioactive poisons.

  “Fire!” Panchali screamed, whipping his long curved scimitar through the air in a lightning flash. The “artillery” units slammed long metal levers on the sides of the catapults and the tree-sized arms shot up and forward, pulled by the super-taut, foot-thick plasti/rubber slings. The loads shot like rockets through the night air, the boxes spinning wildly, end over end, with none of the perfect trajectories or geometric purity associated with the smooth arc of an artillery shell. But then beauty doesn’t matter much when you’re trying to blow the other man into mush. Nearly twenty of the explosive-filled crates migrated over the barren field in a curve that took them almost 300 feet up. They reached their peak altitude just about mid-field and then came barreling down like a shipment of supermarket goods lost in space.

  Several of the guards patrolling the twenty-foot wide walkway atop the north wall had a few seconds to rub their eyes and wonder if they’d been drinking too much as they saw the sky raining boxes. Just a few seconds. Then the TNT-laden parcels slammed into the top and side of the wall and released their pent-up energy in a fraction of a second. Tremendous explosions lit the night, making the entire field between the Freefighters and the fort as bright as day for a moment as the special deliveries ripped out boulder-sized chunks from the wall and sent them whirling off along with clouds of concrete dust. The catapult teams instantly pulled the firing cups back down, winding them back on a pulley, and loaded them up with more “Dust Makers,” as they were known to the Sikhs who manned them.

  “Fire!” Panchali screamed out again, bringing his sword down as if he were slicking off a head. Another load of careening crates took off with all the grace of a one-legged orangutan. But somehow, though they flew completely lopsided, looking as if they should just drop from the sky like stones, they bee-lined toward their targets, every one coming down within thirty feet of their targets. The north wall of Fort Minsk shook as if in the grip of an earthquake as hairline fractures spider-webbed across it and more truck-sized chunks were bitten out from the top and spat into a dusty cloud that rose into the night air.

  “Fire at will,” Panchali commanded the catapulters, who began sending off a barrage every thirty seconds. The Sikh general turned to a second line of warriors, standing behind the high wooden walls that had been constructed.

  “Shields forward,” Panchali yelled, spinning his sword around above his head like a propeller blade. “Archers forward!” Eight of the sixty-foot-high wooden constructions, built on wheels as tall as two men, started forward, each hauled by a team of a dozen horses. They moved slowly, creaking as if they would topple over, but they moved—out of the woods and across the field toward the fortress already lit up with curtains of flame where some of the explosives cases had ignited wooden structures just inside. Teams of archers, their quivers bursting with arrows mounted with sticks of dynamite, marched behind each of the moving walls of lashed trees and branches, their bows filled and ready.

  “When the hell do we get to join the party?” Detroit yelled out to Ragdar who rode over to the mounted Freefighters, champing at the bit to get into the action.

  “Ah, first we must soften up the meat, tenderize it,” Ragdar laughed, showing a mouthful of pearly teeth. “Then we will eat the beast.” He laughed again and headed off to give final orders to the next
assault force that had moved up from the woods to the edge of the open fields—thousands of Sikhs carrying long wooden ladders beneath their arms—twenty men to a ladder, kneeling in the dirt as they awaited the go-ahead order.

  The giant wooden shields had gotten only halfway to the fort when the batteries atop the north wall which hadn’t yet been damaged opened up from every side. Flares shot up from the KGB gunners and burst into light, illuminating the cleared field with the intensity of a noonday sun. But a stream of arrows instantly shot into the air from behind the moving walls, zeroing in on the flares. They detonated with loud pops high above the Sikh archers’ heads—and took out the burning flares, disintegrating them with the blast force.

  Detroit whistled through his teeth as he sat atop his ’brid next to Rockson. “These fucking guys got their shit together,” the black Freefighter said appreciatively. “And I thought I knew it all. See that?”

  “It’s what you could call the crude approach to war,” Chen said. “Just blow up everything in your way.”

  “Crude, but efficient,” Rock answered. “Frighteningly efficient.” They watched as the archers, protected from exploding artillery shrapnel by the fort, drew to within a hundred yards of the wall. Suddenly they rushed from behind the mobile shields and unleashed a volley of arrows over the top of the shattered ramparts. The dynamite-laden barbs filled the air like a swarm of locusts, looking for a field of vegetation. They descended on the other side and hundreds of small explosions could be heard all the way across the field. The moment one group had released their arrows they ran back behind the wooden wall and another squad rushed out to release their own deadly volley. Hundreds, thousands of the arrows filled the sky, wreaking havoc wherever they landed. Cannons and machine-gun emplacements, along with the KGB’ers lining the walls, were blown into bloody rubble as the fusillade of high explosives coming in like bullets exacted a terrible toll.

  “Ladder squads forward,” Panchali commanded, riding amongst the infantry and main part of the Sikh force, urging them on, giving them his mad energy to kill, infusing them with his fighting spirit. Thousands of Sikh warriors streamed out across the field at full run, holding the long rickety ladders beneath their arms. They let out a shrill war cry as they ran that sent shivers up even the Freefighters’ spines. A sound of primordial challenge, an ear-splitting melody that sang out the pre-eminence of death. When the ladder men had reached mid-field, Panchali turned to Rockson and with a smile, said simply:

  “Now, it is our turn.” He raised his sword as Rock leaned around and gave his own hand signal to his troops to move. They started forward slowly at first, Rock and his men—and women—right alongside Panchali and Ragdar, their mounts chafing at the bit from standing around for hours. From out of the woods along a five-hundred-yard front, the horsemen emerged—the Sikh fighters carrying brilliantly colored war banners, their swords pulled free of jeweled scabbards. And across the field from them, their handguns and .9mm Liberators in their hands, the Freefighters in their olive and khaki combat uniforms.

  “Toward the center wall there,” Panchali screamed out to Rockson above the roar of the battle. “Where it’s been most damaged.” The Sikh general pointed the way with the tip of his gleaming sword, curved like the backbone of a cobra about to strike. The Doomsday Warrior squinted through the mist of cordite and powdered dirt and saw that the crates had done their work. Dead center of the mile-long wall, still shrouded in dust, a hole had been blown right through—rubble-filled but passable.

  They were about halfway to their destination when the remaining artillery units on the wall opened up on the charging cavalry, at last having a target they could sight. Hundreds of the horsemen and their steeds went flying into the air as shells tore into their midst. Arms, legs, and heads flew indiscriminately in all directions. But the commando squads reached the wall at that very moment and as the catapults far behind stopped their barrage, the Sikh fighters threw the rickety assault ladders up against the walls and shot up them like cats climbing trees. Within seconds they were over the top and engaging in fierce hand-to-hand fighting with the confused KGB troops on the ramparts. But trembling Turganev revolvers are no match for swinging swords cutting off limbs like human scythes, and the advance units took out much of the north wall artillery crew within seconds. They swept up and down the wide walkway, out toward the other walls, which continued to fire at the diversionary attacks from the other three sides.

  As the cavalry came to within a hundred yards of Minsk, bodies of fallen Sikhs filled the ground and the steeds had to stomp through them, grinding the flesh beneath their hooves into red mud. The break in the wall appeared larger as they flew toward it and Rock pulled out his .12 gauge death dealer, leaning forward on Snorter’s back to make himself less of a target.

  “We kill or we die,” Panchali yelled to Rockson as he guided his stallion at full gallop toward the opening. His sword, held high above his ruby-laden turban, looked like the shimmering lightning bolt of a god, ready to descend and take out whole cities.

  Rock and the Sikh general were the first to reach the wall and they pushed their steeds up and over the smoking pile of rubble that had once been the impenetrable north side of Fort Minsk. The animals slipped and stumbled on the piled chunks of mortar and steel but made it up to the top of the heap, rising a good fifteen feet from the ground, and headed down the other side right into the belly of the beast. And smack into a welcoming committee of heavily armed KGB troops who had pulled back to a second defensive perimeter inside the walled fort. The leaders of the Sikh and Freefighting forces rode into the enemy full speed, sending bodies flying from the charging mass of their mounts. Rockson fired his shotpistol continuously, whipping it around, while Panchali used only his sword, slashing in every direction, causing whole heads to depart their bodies as if they’d been launched from them. The KGB’ers tried to bring down the riders by firing at them, trying to grab at them as they swarmed over the invaders like ants. But there were just too many and they shot through the crowd, dispatching Blackshirts to the grave by the dozen.

  It was a bloodbath. The red liquid spurted from hacked bodies and formed widening puddles. In an ordinary fight the KGB troops, who were tough, hardened fighters in their own right, would have made a go of it. But the war-screams of the Sikh warriors, the slashing swords, the heads of their comrades flying by them, and the cyclone of Freefighters firing as fast as their fingers could pull their triggers unnerved them. It was as if they were facing super-soldiers, men without a flicker of fear in their blood-hungry eyes. It was that hesitation, the knowledge that they were doomed to defeat that marked them as beaten from the start. And beaten men are sitting targets for those filled with the will to destroy.

  Rockson glanced over at Panchali as the two of them pushed their mounts through the disorganized resistance. The man looked more than human, his jeweled robe swirling through the air, reflecting the myriad small fires around them like a cloak of electric sparks. The Sikh general’s eyes were wide as saucers, his expression vicious and unforgiving as his sword hand came down again and again like a machine. For a split second, Rockson remembered an ancient Hindu painting he had seen in a dusty book, a picture of Siva, the God of Destruction, wading through an army with just such a sword. No wonder the KGB troops ran in terror, facing such a demon. For Panchali existed to kill, his face alive and filled with fury, his eyes darting like a hawk’s from side to side while slicing every offending arm, every proffered rifle in two. He looked for the life of him as if he were in paradise, dancing the waltz of destruction with the fiery angels.

  The Doomsday Warrior suddenly felt a shape coming at him from the right and turned to see three KGB’ers kneeling on a ten-foot-high wall, sighting him up. He pulled the trigger of his .12 gauge, knowing as the heavy weapon bucked in his hand that he couldn’t get all three. His stomach clenched involuntarily as he waited to receive the return fire. The teflon-coated steel pellets from his shell slammed into the chest of the attacker on
the right, grinding bone and lung into instant pudding. But as the two others got Rockson fitted in their sights and went for the triggers, a mini-buzzsaw came whirling from the clouds of dust and slammed into the cinder blocks at their feet. Both were blown apart at the thighs, their legs falling down in shapeless red masses to the ground below while the rest of them shot into the air and came down behind the wall, ready-fitted for coffins.

  Rockson turned and saw Chen, galloping about fifty feet off, raise his arm for a split second and Rockson returned the salute. Then the Chinese had his own business to attend to, as two black-suited figures tried to grab him from each side of his ’brid. Rock knew that the man could take care of himself—he’d have to—and glanced around quickly, seeing the rest of his team and even Rona and Kim, right in the thick of it, riding side by side, sending out a blistering wall of firepower that blasted everything in front of them as they went. McCaughlin had somehow tied the .50 cal. submachine gun to the top of his stout ’brid and was firing the thing right over the animal’s head, having been thoughtful enough to place a pillow of thick cloth between the smoking machine gun and the creature’s skull.

  Rock and Panchali shot ahead suddenly, seeing an opening, as dozens of the KGB defenders were blasted aside from two of Detroit’s grenades. They were through the gap before the smoke had cleared or the pieces of steaming humanity had fallen from the air in a snowstorm of flesh.

  Rock slammed another clip into his .12 gauger as they galloped into a long wide corridor with rounded walls and ceilings made of thousands of hand-painted ceramic tiles. The slamming hooves of their mounts echoed like drumbeats off the shining walls. On the other side was a wide square and more streaming units of KGB all heading to the north wall. But in their terrified faces Rockson could already see the seeds of defeat. They didn’t know what was happening or how to respond to it. The two mounted figures roared through the ranks like express trains, coming at them with such speed the men couldn’t even raise their rifles to fire. Again Panchali’s sword rose and fell, like the judging arm of fate itself, finding a skull, a throat, a chest at every descent. Rock’s hand bounced around as he held tight to the bucking shotpistol that spat out its loads in loud cracks of smoke, the shells automatically ejecting and flying up past him as he rode. At such close range, firing into faces just feet away, the destructive power of the handgun was magnified ten-fold. Whole skulls split apart, leaving headless corpses to topple over at their leisure. Spinal columns shattered right out of the backs of black leather jackets, bent and twisted like the spokes of a broken bicycle wheel dipped in red. They came—they saw—and they left behind a field of corpses plowed into their own blood. What the KGB had sowed they would now reap—and the crop would be their own destruction.