Twilight at the Well of Souls

of any Dillian without even noticing—and just the sight of them was fearsome.

Next was Olborn, about which Mavra Chang still had nightmares. A theocracy whose magic could transform enemies, dissidents, and even casual travelers into donkeylike beasts of burden, they had almost done it to her. For many years she had suffered, half-human, half-donkey, because of them. Her only solace was that the long- ago war had not been kind to them.

And yet, they had voted on the council with the opposition. She had to wonder if her name, after all those centuries, was still cursed in Olborn.

And, true enough, at the border their advance aerial scouts told them that a large armed force of Olbornians was waiting for them. They even brought back photographs of the massed troops, great cats that stood upright and wore some kind of livery that indicated a well-organized army.

“Should be relatively simple,” Mavra commented, looking at the photos. “This looks like the way they lost to the Makiem alliance a thousand years ago. We just outflank them and cut them to pieces.”

Asam shook his head worriedly. “Uh uh. Think about it. It may be in the dim past for me and most o’ the Well World, but that was the most significant event in their history, not to mention the most humiliatin’. I just don’t think they’d be dumb enough to do it again. Just a gut feelin’, o’ course—but there’s some dirty work afoot here.”

“I don’t know…” she responded hesitantly.

“We’ll pull up close to the border but we won’t cross right off,” he said firmly. “I want more recon, day and night, of that area. They’re just too much like targets in a shootin’ match.”

“Those are machine guns they’re packing,” she pointed out. “And those are gun emplacements. This isn’t any pushover—particularly with that swampy area, there, of over fifteen hundred meters. They’ve cleared it—see? We’ll be coming into them, there in the trees, over fifteen hundred meters of open ground that’s also soggy, maybe even quagmire.”

“You’re thinkin’ too much in the past,” he admonished. “I know a little o’ the history here. Hell, woman, that damned war was the most interestin’ thing in the history books to me! After them pussy cats got sliced to pieces by the Trelig alliance, well, it blew hell outa their religion. I mean, how can you be the Well World’s chosen people and get wiped up like that, like I’d swat a fly with my tail? They turned on the priests, there was a wholesale massacre, and a real revolution. O’ course new, strong leaders finally took over. Hard rule was clamped back on, this time by what was left o’ the military and the aristocracy. They got tramped on because they didn’t truck with other folks, other hexes. Nobody to help ’em out. This is a pragmatic lot now. Bet on it. And they been workin’ on their magic, too. I think we got trouble if we do the expected thing here. I want a lot more recon here—and I want a staff meetin’ soon after.”

“All right, all right,” she said, surrendering. “It’s your show.”

Asam frowned at the photographs. “How many scouts did we send out?” he asked worriedly.

“Fifteen, I think,” somebody replied. “All aerial, of course.”

He nodded. “And how many got back?”

“Why, all of them,” the officer, another Dillian, responded. “I don’t even remember a report of anybody being shot at.”

“That’s what I thought,” he murmured. “Damn! It don’t make sense a’tall! Not a bit! Five thousand pussy cats all lined up in neat rows, so’s they’re easier to attack, and fixed gun emplacements so obvious we could wipe ’em clean with an air attack. And with all that firepower there, do they take shots at us? Try and knock us out o’ the air? They do not! They sit there, posin’, and smile for the camera. It stinks, I tell you. Stinks wors’n a Susafrit— beggin’ yer pardon, there.”

One of the commanders, a strange, round creature with short quill-like hairs all over its body, just shrugged. She was used to it by now: to all but her own kind, her race literally stank when it wanted to. It came right out of the pores in the skin.

“Now, then,” Asam continued, “let’s take a look here again. What would you say the regular, orthodox military move would be here?”

“Use our flying people to drop hell on them,” one of the commanders said. “Then, when they scatter to their positions, send forces of one or two thousand on either side and close in on the main one when we get into position. Encircle and that’s it.” It sounded simple.

“And what’s the last thing you’d do?” he prodded.

“Attack straight on,” another said. “Suicide.”

He nodded. “And yet, that’s exactly what I intend to do. Go in with a limited aerial attack, keepin’ most of the force in reserve to cover the flanks. Then we’ll send in our biggest, nastiest-looking crowd first, the type that won’t get bogged down there. I also want a squad of flyers—those bat fellows will do—to drop a load o’ rocks and buckshot on that swamp before dawn. Lots of it—and from a height.”

Mavra watched him with growing admiration and fascination. This was his first large-scale battle, yet he sounded like all the generals of past history. Crisp, professional, analytical.

“Buckshot?” somebody asked.

He nodded. “Got to be mines in there. Tell artillery to bring up the cannon in rows, too. I want a pattern of fire from just across the border slowly advancin’ until it’s covered the whole territory—before our people go in. And emphasize strongly to the troops that they keep advancin’ as long as they don’t hear retreat blown. Understand? Reserves follow the first wave in sections, wave after wave. Pack ’em in—and move up the artillery as soon as you can. Expect flank attacks. And when you get to them trees, here’s what you do…”

Mavra listened with amazement at his detailed instructions. And, after they’d left to convey the message to their troops, she told him, “You’re going to kill a lot of people if you’re wrong.”

“I’m gonna kill a lot of people if I’m right, too,” he responded gravely. “But this’ll be our test, how our dscipline works, how all our units work together. And, if I’m right—and I am—I’ll be the genius who won the battle.”

Asam had been right about the mines, but he hardly needed the artillery barrage. The Olbornians understood a lot more about war this time, of course, but they themselves were a thousand years removed from any practical experience. On the theory that the more mines you had the more enemy you got, they’d sunk them by the hundreds in that muddy swamp. When the aerial bombardment of rocks and buckshot finally hit one, it set off every one near it. The chain reaction was spectacular in the predawn sky; it looked as if the entire world were blowing up. The concussions reverberated for kilometers in all directions, practically deafening all sides and almost knocking several ghostly aerials out of the sky.

Asam, who had not slept all night, immediately sent word to the artillerymen to cancel the carpet and concentrate on widening the area covered. He was certain now that the mines had been laid in close rows and that hitting one in a row would set off the entire row.

He was correct.

Mavra, who had never seen anything like it before, looked at the exploding, bubbling mass uneasily. “You expect people to charge into that?” she asked, aghast.

He nodded. “On the run and laying down fire all the way.”

With first light, he signaled for the attack to proceed, and at the same time diurnal aerials took off to either side while more started dropping much more lethal stuff into the trees, mostly inflammables.

The Olbornians, although shell-shocked, knew that the attack was coming and went to their emplacements. They had a good, solid defense line—from the air it could be seen that they had raised bastions, star-pointed redoubts that could cover each other every step of the way. To secure an area, three bastions would have to be taken at the same time while the ones on either side still receiving a withering fire from the ones farther down.

Olbornian artillery waited for the leading wave to get almost to the center of the clearing before they opened up their presighted cannon. Palim, Dillians, Slongornians, Dymeks, Susafrits—they started to go down. Creatures that were crablike aided creatures that were insectival; creatures that were elephantine shielded creatures that were centauroid. And each wave moved quickly to fill in for its fallen comrades.

Asam studied the scene through field glasses and nodded approvingly. “Uh huh. They’re holding together,