Suddenly, the thick, dark-wood portals of the church flew open. There, framed in the light of the sun, stood a demon. The people — women, children, the very old — screamed and drew away as the demon advanced into the church. He drew a long, wicked looking blade, as other beings of the same general sort filled in behind him, spreading outward along the park-side wall of the church.
The people clustered closer to their priest and salvation. For his part, the priest kept reading from his sacred text glancing up from time to time at the advancing wall of aliens.
When the time came when he could no longer delay the priest drew from his pulpit an olive green device from which wires led. This he gripped tightly in his hand.
The priest’s last words to his flock, spoken with calm faith, were, “We will meet very soon and God will know his own.”
He squeezed the device.
Binastarion was nearly thrown from his tenar by the explosion. Some of his underlings were thrown.
Even though not thrown, Binastarion’s auditory membranes rang with the blast. He cursed yet again the treacherous thresh of this world.
Binastarion addressed his Artificial Sentience, “I sense a pattern. Are these thresh deliberately taking themselves out of the food chain?”
“Lord, reports are conclusive that they will often go to extraordinary lengths to avoid being consumed.”
The God King almost vomited at the heresy.
“It is good we have come here then,” he snarled softly, not so much to his Artificial Sentience as to his ancestors. “Beings so wastefully vile have no place in this universe. Blasphemers!” he spat out, with disgust.
Ahead of Binastarion a skirmish line of tenar led the way, fire lancing down wherever resistance was met. Beneath him a solid phalanx of normals oozed through the streets. To either side, and on the same level, more God-King-bearing tenar rode.
Looking around and down, Binastarion was pleased to see that not all, perhaps not even most, of the thresh avoided their proper fate. Forward-deployed normals pulled many from buildings and ruins. These were always rendered on the spot, the dripping cuts of meat being passed back. The cries of the thresh grew hysterical whenever a group of them was brought out for slaughter.
“Uncle? Uncle? Uncle?!”
Silently, ignoring his nephew, Roderigo simply shook his head in shock.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken us,” he muttered.
From the hills to the southeast of the city of David, using binoculars that were passed from hand to hand, Roderigo’s company of cavalry had a good view of the slaughter below. The winds blew from the northeast, bringing with them the smell of blood and fire. This made the horses shake their heads and paw the ground nervously.
“UNCLE!”
With a start Roderigo came out of his shock. “I’m sorry, Nephew, it’s just that…”
“Yes, I know, Uncle. But what are we to do?”
Roderigo looked down from the hill at the road and followed it toward the city. Another, broader road skirted the town to the east. He looked behind and saw where the road led to Las Lomas and his clan.
He came to a sudden decision. “Sancho,” he ordered his eldest son. “They’ll be coming down both those roads soon. Take half the men back. Set up an ambush there,” he pointed behind, “at the split in the roads that lead to Las Lomas and Bijagual. Orient the ambush so that it seems we are covering Las Lomas.
“I’ll join you after I avenge at least some of the friends we’ve lost down there in that slaughterhouse. Leave the radio with me.”
Even as the clatter of massed hooves told of the departure of half of his cavalry, Roderigo and one of his own grandsons were taking positions at the edge of a nearby copse of trees. Another grandson took their horses’ reins and waited in defilade.
Lying in cover under the trees, Roderigo made a “gimme” gesture. The grandson passed the radio handset over.
There had never been time to train on the finer points of artillery forward observer procedures. Polar fire missions? Forget it. Shifts from a known point? They could try to talk their way through it. Grid missions? They only had two maps with a grid and Roderigo didn’t have one of those. Instead, Digna had worked out a system of known points from simple tourist maps. It was one of these that the old man spread out before him on the ground.
“Edilze, Edilze, this is Uncle Roderigo.”
“I am here, Uncle,” the radio crackled back.
“Tell Mamita that the city has fallen, mostly, and the enemy will be spreading out soon. I am going to need support from your guns, girl, and soon, at the juncture of the Inter-American highway and the road into the town center.”
“Do you have a watch, Uncle?”
Unconsciously, Roderigo glanced at his wrist.
“Yes, why?”
“The time of flight for my shells is twenty-three seconds to that intersection. Can you guess at when it will take the aliens twenty-three seconds to reach that point?
“I can make a guess,” Roderigo answered into the radio.
Digna’s voice replaced Edilze’s on the radio. The main reason she had stayed behind, when she was plainly the best choice to lead the forward screen, was that she was also the only choice to actually command the battery of guns in this, its first engagement. Solid as a rock or not, Edilze just didn’t have Digna’s depth of training.
“My son,” she said, “you can do a lot with artillery if you hit the target just right; massed and confused. If you can hit that junction when two streams of the enemy are crowding it, you can reap a fine harvest.”
Roderigo hesitated before replying. When he had steeled himself, he said, “Mama, speaking of harvests… the stories are true. I have seen with my own eyes; the aliens butcher and eat all who fall into their hands.”
“I never doubted it, my son. See to your target and your duty. Here’s your niece back.”
“The guns are ready, Uncle,” Edilze reported. “We will fire at your command.”
Even as Edilze gave that word, beneath Roderigo’s ad hoc observation post, along the Inter-American highway a strong column of the enemy marched, six abreast. Above the column, evenly spaced, were the enemy’s flying sleds, each one bearing one of the centauroid horrors.
“Edilze,” Roderigo asked, “is there some way for your shells to hurt aliens flying five or six meters above the ground?”
Again the radio crackled. “I’ve already thought of that, Uncle. Some of my shells are tipped with variable time fuse. That’s what I have in the tubes now. They’ll go off, most of them, five to eight meters above the ground.”
Roderigo did some rough calculations in his mind. Just… about…
“Fire!”
“On the way, Uncle… watch out for it… Splash… I mean now!”
The uncle looked quickly into his binoculars just in time to see eight puffs of angry black smoke appear in midair.
“Closer to the road, Edilze,” he said, frustration in his voice.
“Which direction, Uncle? How far should I correct?”
“Direction? Ummm… Well, I am on the hill to the northeast of the junction. And I think the shells were about two hundred meters short.”
There was a momentary hesitation and then, “On the way, Uncle… impact in… five… four… three… two…”
This time Roderigo was gratified to see the eight angry puffs appear right over the enemy column. He was even more gratified to see that, while several dozens of the marching centaurs went down, screaming and with legs kicking in the air, two of the enemy’s sleds were likewise emptied.