Zenya

target might draw his fire.

The man was lucky; none came. Dumarest waited, then moved from behind his cover.

'Search,' he ordered. 'House to house. Be careful.'

He kicked open the door of the building behind which he had crouched. The interior was dark. Cautiously he felt along the wall, found a switch, turned it. No light came, and he crept forward, tense, nostrils flaring with remembered smells. His foot hit something soft, and he jumped back, eyes narrowed, cursing the darkness. The window was shuttered, and he threw them wide, light from the flares illuminating the room.

A woman stared at him with wide, dead eyes. The ax in her hand was stained, her hand, the entire arm to the shoulder. The man beside her lay face-down, the back of his head crushed and oozing brains. Dumarest stooped over the woman. She was young, nubile, her body firm. The blood coating her was not her own, and as far as he could see, she was uninjured.

Uninjured, but dead, her flesh barely cool.

Upstairs a baby lay in a cot. Dumarest took one glance and turned away. A pet, a small animal, lay against the wall, fur matted with blood, fangs bared in a final defiance. The claws held strips of skin and particles of flesh. The rest of the house was empty.

Back in the street, he called for three men and went in search of the power supply. It was housed at the far end of the village, a compact atomic pile together with generators and rectifiers. In it someone had run berserk, chopping wires, hacking at cables, paying the price in released energy, which had seared him to a crisp. Motes of soot hung in the air, which stank of char.

One of the men said, 'Hell, we'll never be able to fix this in a hurry.'

'How long?'

'At least three hours, sir. It will be dawn by then.'

Dumarest nodded, arriving at a decision. 'Get back into the street. Find something to make a fire, several if you can. Get the doors and windows open. If there is anyone still alive, I want to be informed at once. Move!'

As they emerged into the street, a man came running toward him. He halted, saluted, said, 'Report from the lieutenant, sir. The raft above is almost out of flares. Your orders?'

'I'll give them personally. You help these men.' At the raft Dumarest snapped, 'Tell them to ride high, drop what flares they have left, then land to take on those we are carrying. Where is the other raft, the one sent to the east?'

The lieutenant shrugged. 'Still there, as far as I know, sir. I can't establish contact.'

'Damn them!' Anger darkened Dumarest's face. 'Keep trying. I want them to head north and land to form a line ten miles ahead facing the village. If…' He broke off, listening.

'Sir?'

'Be quiet!'

It came again, the distant blast of shots, a thin screaming. The pilot of the raft said, 'They've found something! Goddamnit, they've found the enemy!'

That or another outburst of hysteria which turned shadows into menacing figures; yet there was always the chance they were fighting living things. Dumarest sprang into the raft, snapping orders.

'Lieutenant, contact the other raft and have them follow us. Pilot, up and head toward that noise. The rest of you stay here and hold the village.'

Lightened, the raft almost shot into the sky, leveling, the air gusting as it drove toward the sound of battle. Ahead, the darkness was broken by a dull glow, smoldering plants sending up thick columns of smoke from a base of flame. Details sprang into life as flares dropped from the sides of the vehicle, men crouching, firing, their raft lying to one side, shielded by smoke drifting beneath the impact of a gust of wind. They faced southwest, toward the village.

'They've got them,' said Fran Paran. His voice was tense with eagerness. 'Trapped the swine on their way back to the hills. If we land, we can catch them between us.'

'And face the fire of our own troops,' reminded Dumarest. He glanced to where the other raft, laden with men, moved toward them. 'Have them land to the west of the action, drop half their men, then move on to the east. Open order and reserve fire until they recognize their targets.'

A basic maneuver when fighting in darkness against an unknown enemy. Properly conducted, it would face them with a wide semicircle, which could move in to surround them with a ring of steel. A trap that could not fail-if the men remained cool, if they obeyed orders, if they retained their fire and didn't shoot each other down.

As the raft passed them, the lieutenant said, 'And us, sir?'

'We'll stay aloft, dropping flares and maintaining observation.' Dumarest thinned his lips as he recognized the other's expression. 'You don't like it, lieutenant?'

'I'd rather be down there killing the swine who did that horror to the village.'

'Instead of which you'll have to let others do the killing while you tell them where to shoot.'

Leaning over the edge of the raft, Dumarest studied the scene below. The fire was erratic, seemingly unanswered, rifles and lasers blasting in all directions. Above the shots rose the sound of shouting, a wild screaming, a hideous cacophony of bestial noise. And then, suddenly, the raft was the target of concentrated fire.

The pilot reared, crying out, falling as bullets tore at his chest, a laser beam searing into his side. The raft tilted, the engine ruined, the anti-grav conductors ripped and inactive. Dumarest caught Fran Paran as he almost went over the side, throwing him to the floor of the raft, holding him as the vehicle crashed. The vegetation saved them, cushioning the impact, and they landed heavily, to roll on the soft dirt.

'They got us!' The lieutenant staggered to his feet. Blood trickled from a shallow gash at the side of his head. 'Where's my rifle? They must be close. Where the hell is my rifle?'

'We were shot down by our own men,' said Dumarest He watched as the other found his weapon, his eyes cautious. 'What do you intend to do?'

'Get in there and join the fight. What else?'

'It might help to know what we're up against,' said Dumarest dryly. He coughed as a gust of wind threw an eddy of smoke over the place where they stood. 'We don't want to kill our own men, and we certainly don't want to be shot in error. They almost got us once. We might not be as lucky the next time.'

'They wouldn't do that.'

'They did. I was watching. The fire came from directly below.' Dumarest coughed again, his lungs constricting, his eyes watering so that the figure of the officer blurred and took on distorted lines in the dying light of the flare. And there was something else, a sweet, sickly odor riding on the breeze, bringing an overwhelming tension, a sharp appreciation of impending danger. 'We'd better get away from here.'

'Run, you mean?'

'We were shot down. If the enemy are close, they would have seen us fall. They know we would carry arms and ammunition. Take the lead, lieutenant. Head for the east.'

'The action is toward the north.'

'And the other raft is over to the east.' Anger sharpened Dumarest's voice. 'This isn't a one-man operation, lieutenant. And we've no place for heroes. Just obey orders and stop arguing if you want to avoid a court-martial. Now, move!'

Fran Paran said tightly, 'You can go to hell, marshal. I'm here to fight, and that's just what I intend, to do. Run if you want, but I'm no coward. Those swine are going to pay for what they've done, and I'm going to see they do it. And neither you nor anyone else is going to stop me.'

He stood, very young, very defiant, breathing deeply of the smoke-laden air. And then, abruptly, he screamed.

It was a harsh sound, wordless, a noise torn from a distorted throat, powered by fear and hate and blind ferocity. Dumarest was moving as the first note cut the air. He had sensed the tension, seen the beginning of the grimace, the rifle lifting, aiming directly toward his chest. As the officer fired, he threw himself to one side, ducking low as a second bullet cut the air where his head had been. Before the muzzle could lower, he was rising beneath it, slamming his shoulder hard against the barrel, throwing it upward, to spout missiles at the sky. His right hand lifted, the fingers clenched, the hard mass of bone and sinew slamming at the unprotected jaw.

He caught the man as he fell, fighting a sudden nausea, a flashing of his vision, the sickness which filled his stomach. Dropping the limp shape, Dumarest staggered to one side, doubled, retching. Around him the plants