"Good! Will they be here in time?"
"Probably, but they had some problems. They ran into something like a 'mountain atul.' Some of the turom panicked, and one of the carts ran back over... Despreaux."
"What?!"
"She's fine! Just a broken arm," Julian said, raising a hand as Roger shot to his feet and turned towards the picketed civan. "And the captain asked me to point out that you've got a job here."
"Yes, but—" Roger began in a semi-frantic tone.
"And Despreaux said for me to tell you that if you come rushing back to see 'your poor hurt girlfriend' you'll have a broken arm, too."
"Yes, but—"
"And you called me all the way up this frigging road on one of those ass-busting civan," Julian finished. "So you can damned well tell me why, Sir."
Roger thought about that for several moments, then drew a deep breath and turned back around.
"Ah, hell," he sighed.
"Let's just get on with the job, Sir." Julian patted him on the shoulder. "Life's a bitch, and then you die. Right?"
"Right." Roger sighed again, then gestured into the darkness. "All right, then. I've got a job for you. And, I have to admit, not one that could wait while I went back to check on Nimashet. Take a look at the target."
They walked to the crest of the ridge, and Julian jacked up his helmet's light-gathering and zoom.
"Big pocker," he remarked, gazing at the wall. "Any idea on the garrison?"
"About two hundred," Roger said calmly.
"Be a bitch to take by frontal assault, even against swords and arquebuses," Julian observed. He looked up both flanking ridges, and grimaced. "Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"
"You and Gronningen are our high-country experts," Roger said, with a smile in his voice.
"Sure," the sergeant grumped. He didn't mention that that position had previously been occupied by Dokkum. The native of the planet Nepal had been an expert at everything involving "elevation." Unfortunately, "had been" was the operative term. He'd died just before Ran Tai.
"This isn't going to be a short movement," the NCO went on after a moment. The carpeting Mardukan jungle had given way to a more open, deciduous forest, but even that stopped well short of the tops of the ridges. There was a faint track, a trail left by the local equivalent of goats, along the ridgeline, but getting to it would be difficult. The ridge was at least five hundred meters above their present position, and those meters were damned near vertical.
"We'll get the Vashin moving by just before dawn, one way or the other," Roger said. "I need you in position by then."
The Mardukan night was eighteen hours long, which would give the squad at least fifteen hours to effect the move. Julian thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded.
"Can do, Boss." He shook his head in mock sorrow. "I need to get less competent, or something."
Roger chuckled and clapped him on the back.
"Just imagine the stories you'll be able to tell in the NCO club. You'll never have to buy a beer again."
Julian looked back up at the trackless mountain and nodded.
"Now there's a motivator. Free beer. Free beer. I'll just keep repeating that."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Macek spat over the edge of the ridge and shook his head.
"You look into the abyss, and the abyss looks back," he muttered.
"Less philosophy, more climb," Gronningen growled back from where he'd paused on a wide spot at the base of the second peak.
The squad was strung out along a knife-edged ridge, the top of the saddle between two mountains. The "flat" surface was no more than a meter wide, with sheer drops on both sides. And the assault team would have to cross a nearly vertical shoulder of the second peak to get into position above the citadel.
"There was a shelf," Julian said, puffing slightly. The ridge was nearly five thousand meters above Mardukan sea level, which meant that even with the slightly thicker atmosphere, oxygen was in short supply. More than that, Julian had let Gronningen set the pace, knowing the indomitable Asgardian would push them to the limits... and he had. "About another hundred meters up and to the northwest," the NCO added with another pant.
"I think I see it," Gronningen agreed. He dialed up the zoom on his helmet and studied the terrain feature. "Narrow," he opined, then removed his helmet and wiped at the sweat on his forehead. The night had gotten downright cool, and there was a strong wind blowing up from the valley, but the pace had everyone sweating as if they were still in Marduk's jungles. "Really narrow."
"Best His Nibs could spot before sundown," Julian replied, checking his toot for the time. "Four more hours until we need to be on the walls."
"We can make that easily," Gronningen said, replacing his helmet and picking up his pack. "If we keep going, that is."
"Lead on, Mule," Julian said. "Onward and upward."
Julian leaned out from the narrow ledge and sent a laser sweep across the top of the fortress far below.
"Two thousand meters."
"Right at The Book's outside drop limit," Macek said with a dubious headshake. "Long way to fall."
"It is that," Julian agreed unhappily.
The ledge was, indeed, narrow—a thin shelf of slightly harder granite intruded into the surrounding matrix. Some latter-day earth movement had shifted and folded the mountain, thrusting the horizontal dike outwards, exposing it to erosion. Over time, the remnants had become a half-meter wide section of granite, suspended over a two thousand-meter drop.
"It's the only choice we have, though," the squad leader added. "I want everyone to spread out. It looks like we're right over the inner battlements. Watch your distribution, and for God's sake, don't get entangled—this damned spider-wire'll slit you in half if you give it a chance."
"Yeah, but it works," Gronningen said as he surreptitiously attached a clip to the sergeant's descent harness. The combination of his voice and the night wind concealed the tiny sound it made as it clicked home... and then he pushed Julian off the cliff.
There wasn't a thing Julian could do—the blow to his back was too unexpected. He was thrown well out from the cliff, and found himself almost automatically shifting into a delta-track, a sky-diving position for maneuvering. His brain ran frantically through a list of ways to survive the drop, but nothing came to mind, nor could he understand why one of his best friends had just succeeded in killing him.
Macek spun in place, his bead rifle level, but Gronningen held up one hand with a screaming spider reel in it. It was obvious that the other end of the wire was attached to Julian.
"What the pock are you doing, Gron?" the corporal snarled. "You've got about two seconds to explain!"
"Just this," Gronningen said, with a rare smile. He attached the reel to the wall with a mag-clamp and laid on the tension. "I mean, now we know it works, right?"
Julian gazed down at the battlements, a hundred meters below him. He'd been observing them fairly carefully for the last several minutes, since the spider-line had slowed him to a halt. There wasn't much else he could do; the line had him suspended almost head-down.
He heard a faint rattle of rock, and then Gronningen appeared next to him, fully inverted.
"Gronningen, what are you dicking around at?" Julian asked with deadly menace.
" 'I love you, too, man,' " the Asgardian quoted. "You remember in Voitan, I said 'You gonna pay'?"
"Oh, you son-of-a—"
"Ah-ah!" The Asgardian grinned. "I pull this clamp, and it's really gonna smart when you hit the top of that thing."