Deadly Wands (17 page)

While several could survive their injuries, a
few dozen suffered mortal wounds, leaving Genghis no choice but to
slit their throats. Men who entrusted their lives to their Khan. It
dawned on him that his enemy left them this way so that Genghis
would see them suffer. He suddenly realized something: he was not
being defeated. He was being punished.

The only thing that kept Genghis from losing
his mind that long lonely night was the prospect of his division
catching this bastard. That morning, however, he backtracked to
find them slaughtered in small groups, their precious wands
gone.

While all marathoners are super-quads, most
super-quads are not marathoners. Their relative scarcity made them
far more valuable. And the only thing better than a marathoner, was
a high-altitude marathoner.

The Khan spent a fortune recruiting the best
marathoners from across the Empire. For a force this precious, he
left governing the empire to lead it himself. That’s how important
it was. And they died because he let his rage blind him.

That’s when Genghis Khan realized he was
out-matched. His enemy had thought all this out before ever pulling
a wand, and he fell for it. Genghis Khan, the greatest general
ever. The Conqueror. Beaten by literally a nobody.

Who was this guy? They said he was a baron,
but everyone called him Willy. He sent agents to find out from the
Americans, but they didn’t know much either: middle aged, paranoid,
he always covered his face, he had a million scars, they only met
him a few years ago, and that he was completely awesome.

Genghis had his few surviving bodyguards hunt
because they were famished. They spent the night hiding, without
even a fire to warm them. In the morning, the Khan flew alone to
the Bering Strait to confirm his worst suspicions -- that this was
all a ruse to keep him busy while the Americans destroyed his
marathoners. After seeing his heavily fortified bases buried in
corpses, Genghis Khan flew home spiritually comatose.

CHAPTER 19

The destruction of the Mongol marathoners
allowed the one hundred thousand American near-marathoners to raid,
and made it safe for the two hundred thousand half-marathoners to
work as golden mules again. New graduates and better wands let the
University bring them up to full strength.

William exploited the Khan’s bizarre absence
by sacking cities in the heart of Mongolia. Billy scouted ahead
with the marathoners to ambush enemy units while the twenty
half-marathon divisions carried plunder to Alaska.

It took Genghis months to find enough troops
to confront the American armada. Only now did it occur to him that
he should not have believed his own propaganda -- that he had
infinite quads.

Before winter started, he rushed his force to
the Bering Strait to block the Americans from escaping. The loaded
down half-marathoners were leaving anyways. Genghis desperately
wanted to destroy them and take the wealth back, but the Americans
aggressively defended that first line of fortifications. The
Americans had destroyed the Mongol bunkers, so the Mongols didn’t
have food, bombs, or shelter. Still, Genghis launched one massive
assault because he knew the Baron was still raiding in
Mongolia.

And got his butt whooped. Willy had already
told them what to do. Half of them kept the Mongols in the air all
day, then the other hundred thousand bombed them that night. The
half-marathoners could fly higher and longer than most of the
Mongols, and so rotated shifts to exhaust the enemy before
seriously engaging. Each half-marathoner made five trips from
Mongolia, taking one hundred kilos of loot each time. The Americans
certainly weren’t going to give up a million kilos of plunder.

Genghis not only had to flee but, before he
fled, learned that the bombs that killed so many of his troops were
his own. Stolen from his camp during his disastrous invasions of
the Americas.

The Khan had enough. The Americans couldn’t
cross during winter anyways, and he couldn’t keep his troops there
without a huge logistical train, so he took his force after the
real enemy -- Willy. Why didn’t he give himself a fearsome name,
like Bobby or Harold? Who the hell was gonna write songs about
someone named Willy?

But at least he trapped the bastard in
Siberia, where feeding one hundred thousand mouths was
impossible.

When William heard that Genghis was gonna
block their path home, William literally jumped for joy. Without
his wife, there was nothing he wanted more than to kill Mongols.
His near-marathoners had to follow him as if their lives depended
on it. The Siberians were running out of herds to feed them. Plus,
the Strait was really far away, which meant the Khan gave him that
much more time to kill. He led the Americans southwest, where they
sacked cities and overwhelmed air bases.

They buried their loot on top of the Ural
Mountains. Colder weather forced them to move south into the Stans
-- the area between Mongolia-China-India and Persia-Turkey-Europe.
The people of the Stans were not Mongolian, but lived a similar
nomadic life and were the Empire’s closest allies. The Empire
relied on these nomads to fight their wars.

Forewarned, a massive force of five hundred
thousand active-duty, police, militia, veteran, and civilian quads
confronted William. Instead of engaging, Billy and the ten marathon
battalions lured the fifty thousand fastest enemies away on an
exhausting all-day flight that ended when William and the
near-marathoners ambushed them after sunset.

Knowing the geography intimately now paid
dividends. Instead of engaging the main enemy unit, William led his
force directly away, destroying everything within reach. As he
expected, thousands of enemy quads abandoned their armada to defend
their homes or flee with their families.

The enemy rushed to catch up with William,
leaving the slowest behind with the baggage train. The marathoners
followed the enemy, picking off the slowest, taking their food, and
dropping their own bombs on them. With ten thousand marathoners
bringing them food, the near-marathoners didn’t even have to slow
down to forage. Billy’s marathoners also picked off enemy units
scouting, foraging, and reinforcements. This left the enemy hungry,
exhausted, and blind.

After sacking another major city, the enemy
camped too close. Sensing an opportunity, the near-marathoners
stocked up on bombs from the city’s munitions depot and surprised
the enemy armada while they slept. After spending a few days
hunting down survivors, they faced no more organized resistance in
the Stans.

By late winter, however, new enemy armadas
started shadowing them and the Americans were too loaded down with
loot to fight effectively. They were also too far from the Urals to
bury their plunder with the rest. At the Caspian Sea, William told
them they were going home via Scandinavia-Iceland-Greenland. The
cheering troops had been raiding for almost a year.

A week later, however, they got some bad
news. William called a leadership meeting and laid out their
situation.

“The enemy has been shadowing us instead of
stopping us, so I sent Shorty ahead, who found Genghis Khan, with a
large force in St. Petersburg, waiting for us. The Mongols have
been herding us.

“As all of you know, I don’t like fair
fights. I think it’s dumb to confront someone looking for battle.
So, instead of going home through Scandinavia, I say we reach
Iceland via England. That means we fly west, where it’s warmer,
rather than northwest, where the enemy wants to trap us. Europe has
a lot of enemy troops, but it also has a lot of food and shelter.
And I, for one, could use hot food and an even hotter bath!”

The marathoners carried light loads, so Billy
led them to where enemy scouts would see them flying towards
Scandinavia, while the loaded down near-marathoners fled west and
avoided population centers. For an exciting month William pounded
the enemy in Europe, finally stopping for a week to decimate the
Mongol unit in France. The French greeted them like saviors. Not
even San Francisco had welcomed so enthusiastically. William feared
the wine, women, and song more than the Mongols. So when Billy and
the marathoners finally showed up, William tried to look
disappointed when he gave his troops the bad news:

“I hope you’ve all had your hot food, hot
baths, and hot women, because the Khan has combined his forces and
will arrive soon with half a million quads. Genghis hates crowded
places, and so has never even been to France. But, once he gets
here and hears we’ve flown home, I imagine he’ll vent his rage on
the people who have treated us so well. Can you see the irony? We
started raiding to stop the Mongols from conquering Europe, and now
we’ll leave when they need us the most.” His squad, company, and
battalion commanders no longer looked like they wanted to party.
“Yet we cannot even fight the Khan’s huge armada because we’re too
loaded down with loot! Nor can we get the plunder we buried in the
Urals because we can’t carry a single kilo more.”

“I have an idea,” Billy said, as they
rehearsed. Billy walked in front of them. Although he always
covered his face, they knew it was him because he was the shortest
guy in the entire armada.

“We can’t let Genghis conquer Europe, so we
must reduce the quality and quantity of his troops. If we cannot
fight loaded down, then let’s just give this loot to the European
quads risking their lives for little pay. Then, after spanking
Genghis Khan, we get our treasure from the Urals, and no enemy
force will be strong enough to block our escape home.”

The commanders gave Shorty a standing
ovation, followed by a huge group hug that Billy found suffocating.
And oddly endearing.

The French king loved the idea of the
Americans paying his troops what they deserved. That much loot
would make the Free Europe economy boom. And he certainly
appreciated getting a million sets of wands (William sent half a
million more to Spain). What he didn’t like was loaning his best
ten divisions to a total stranger. But that was the price he had to
pay.

The king called up his one hundred thousand
best quads in the middle of Paris and sobbed like a baby,
anticipating their reactions when the Americans handed them their
backpacks. The Free European quads (only half were French and about
5% were American) had no idea what to expect. The only thing the
king said was the Baron, who had been sending so much money and
wands these past few years, had another gift. William wanted the
act to speak for itself.

The near-marathoners, facing them, levitated
their loot closer, then saluted. One hundred thousand curious quads
opened their new backpacks and screamed as one. The million people
watching had no idea how to react. Then some Europeans hugged their
American counterparts, and the rest joined in. In the process, they
knocked over some backpacks and bucketfuls of coins, jewels, and
bejeweled cups spilled out. The crowd now erupted into cheers.

Billy, wearing his father’s bloody red body
armor, led the marathoners over the parade ground. The boy did his
scream and fire dance so that everyone could see him project flames
from his boot wands. His ten thousand companions blasted the sky
like a drum beat as Billy landed on a tower surrounded by
French-speaking Americans.

“Genghis Khan must pay for his crimes. Today,
he makes the first of many payments. Never have so few fought so
many for so long for so little. This compensation is the least we
can do for heroes who risked their lives for our freedom. We only
ask that you give half to your comrades who have been disabled and
to the families of those slain. But, to keep the Khan from taking
this wealth back, you must join us tonight.”

Billy didn’t mention that his guys removed
the precious gems and jewels for the ladies back home. He himself
was accumulating a huge collection of diamonds.

When the Khan’s vanguard got close enough,
the Free Europe Air Force bombed them to bits. The Europeans had
just enough time to strip the dead of their armor, money, and wands
before Genghis arrived with reinforcements just before dawn. The
Europeans fled as soon as the enemy appeared on the horizon, and
the Mongols had already flown too far to pursue them.

The Americans, meanwhile, ate the Mongols
food and took a nap a half-hour away. An hour after dawn, they
returned to the camp. As William predicted, the Mongol
reinforcements slept in the camp made by their vanguard. Unlike the
Europeans, the Americans had not dropped their bombs. Until now.
One hundred thousand explosions woke the tired bastards up and a
million fireballs a minute finished them off. Genghis had already
returned to his main force.

Instead of returning to France, the Americans
flew around the Mongols to get their buried treasure on the Ural
Mountains. While crossing Russia, they emptied every bank and
overwhelmed every enemy unit that didn’t get out of their way.
Split into eleven divisions, they swept a wide path.

William gave money and stolen wands to a
descendent of the old Czars called Ivan the Terrible so he could
rebel with more than patriotic rhetoric. The rest he left with
trainers to hire the ten thousand Russians and the ten thousand
Scandinavians with the greatest endurance and turn them into
formation fliers -- a process that takes years. He based them out
of Helsinki because that’s where he had just opened another bank
branch.

Genghis moved on France determined to take
Paris like a sexy bitch. He should have finished Europe long ago,
but worried he’d run out of enemies for his quads to kill. He never
told anyone this, but he feared civil war far more than any enemy.
At least, until the Baron. Without an enemy, his millions of quads
would turn on each other rather than suffer from withdrawal.
Conquering the primitives in Africa and the Americas would probably
cost more than it was worth.