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"Oh, that the foot soldier's life should bring such bliss! And have you the
intention of reading this, thy proclamation, to our King, Eskenderom, and his
Court personally? Well, may good luck go with you, Sallakar. Doubtless we
shall all speak of you with fondest sentiments and remembrances."
"Shame on you who can speak thus contemptibly without embarrassment. Would you
partake your share of the betterments we might secure? Oh yes unquestionably!
But to pledge in return your share of allegiance to our cause? Oh
no unthinkable! Is it not . . ." Sallakar stopped speaking and turned his head
away to look as a commotion broke out somewhere up ahead. A
moment later the column halted. "What the fom "
"The desert heaves!" Moxeff exclaimed.
"Is't a storm?" someone ahead shouted.
"No storm appears thus," another cried.
"Is this some Carthogian trickery?"
"The ground ahead boils! It is on fire!"
"And around us also we are trapped!"
A wall of smoke and flame had erupted across the line of march and was
climbing higher by the second to blot out the sky ahead, while above, on the
overlooking slopes to left and right, curtains of shimmering violet
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ifemaker.txt light had appeared, hemming in the front of the column. "I AM THE
ENLIGHTENER, WHOM THE LIFEMAKER HAS SENT AMONG YOU," a voice boomed, seemingly
from everywhere at once, and echoing among the surrounding hills.
"SOLDIERS OF KROAXIA, LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS, FOR HE HATH COMMANDED, 'THOU
SHALT NOT KILL.'"
"Deploy for ambush! Scatter the column!" a mounted officer shouted as he
galloped back down the line. "Infantry under cover. Cavalry to the flanks.
Close up the wagons."
"A Company to those rocks. B Company, string out along the gully. C
Company, follow me," Sergeant Bergolod called out. Officers in front and in
the rear began to shout orders, and in moments the column had disintegrated
into bodies running in all directions. Sallakar found himself crouched with
Moxeff and a couple of others behind some rocks. He peered up over the rock
and saw that figures dressed in white had appeared amid the wall of swirling
radiance higher up elusive, dancing, etheric figures, apparently devoid of
physical substance. They seemed to be approaching, down the slope.
A soldier nearby raised his hurler loosely to his shoulder and fired, knocking
himself over backward with the recoil. A ragged volley came from another group
behind, and in seconds firing had broken out all along the column. Gripped by
the fear that had seized everyone, Sallakar sighted at a pair of white-robed
figures, held the hurler hard and firm against his shoulder as he had been
taught, and squeezed the finger-lever. The hurler juddered . . . but had no
effect, even though Sallakar was aiming straight at the advancing figures. He
swept the weapon desperately from side to side and up and down to cover every
inch of them, but they kept on coming.
Inside the flyer hovering just at the edge of the smoke clouds boiling upward
from the napalm tanks and explosives planted ahead of the Taloids, Zambendorf
was watching the scene in close-up. It was as well that they had allowed for
the possibility of the Paduans' panicking, he reflected, and decided not to
expose any of the Taloids on their own side prematurely.
Stretching away from the lurid glow immediately below the flyer, two streaks
of whiteness flickered eerily where recorded Taloid images were being
projected onto internally illuminated smokescreens from lanterns concealed
several hours earlier on the rock-strewn slopes overlooking the obvious route
through the valley. "Let's see if we can put a stop to that shooting," he said
to Clarissa.
"Plan C?" she said.
"Yes a low-level bomb run at those ice crags, accompanied by some
pyrotechnics."
In the copilot's seat, Abaquaan prepared to repeat another recording of a
pretransmogrified message from Moses over the flyer's bullhorns, suitably
modified for high frequency, and from the ultrasonic amplifiers positioned to
command the area.
"Ayee!" One of the soldiers dropped his weapon and stood up, pointing in
terror at the sky above the wall of fire. "A dragon descends! We have brought
the Lifemaker's wrath down upon us!" A sleek, slender-limbed creature, unlike
any that Sallakar had ever seen before, was swooping down at them.
Instinctively he turned and aimed his hurler upward in its direction, then
realized the futility of that and lowered it again.
"We are doomed," MoxefF moaned next to him. Several nearby infantry robeings
dropped their weapons and began running blindly back the way they had come.
Then a series of brilliant lights and clouds of violet radiance
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ifemaker.txt blossomed overhead, and simultaneously more lights streaked down
from the dragon and destroyed a formation of rock outcrops and large boulders
in a fury of deafening concussions. Sallakar cringed and covered his ears . .
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but he was still alive.
"DESIST, SOLDIERS," the voice that had called itself Enlightener thundered
again from above. "THE COMMANDMENT IS, 'THOU SHALT NOT KILL'!"
And then a much larger dragon emerged from the fiery wall before them, flying
slowly and majestically right above their heads with fire blasting from
beneath it. "Angels!" Moxeff gasped, straightening up and pointing.
"Angels are descending from the skies!"
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