Gods of Riverworld (36 page)

Burton was free of any immediate attackers for a moment. He looked around swiftly, trying to gauge how the battle was going. He could not find Alice, but Star Spoon was still high up on the roller coaster. She should come down and help them, but he did not blame her for fearing to do so. The field rang with hoarse cries, screams, yells, groans, and roars. The White Knight and the Red Knight were still on their horses, their arms rising and falling as they brought down their spiked clubs on the heads of the humans. The White Knight had not put his helmet on; his gentle face was as placid as if he were discussing the weather.

The Unicorn was dead, its horn stuck through the chest of a Hussar. The man’s saber had not yet been picked up by one of his fellows. The Lion, roaring, was rearing up, a paw ripping off a woman’s breasts and sending her whirling. Its sides and mane, however, were dripping with blood, not all of it its enemies’. Even as Burton watched, a Hussar brought the edge of his saber down with both hands just back of the mane, and the beast fell.

A black woman was riding the back of a Walrus, holding on with one hand and stabbing repeatedly with a dagger. Then the Walrus stood up and fell backward, crushing her. But it was too wounded to do anything but bellow and wave its flippers.

The Jabberwock had three spears in it now but was still ravaging. It bit a man in two as Burton watched.

A pink flamingo leaped at Burton, its wings fluttering, its toes out to grab him. He lopped its head off, whirled, parried a sword thrust by a White Rabbit, stepped in, grabbing the gloved hand of the Rabbit, and jerked it off balance. Before it could regain it, its neck was cut half-through by the saber.

Burton turned to defend himself against a tove, a creature the size of a dog and looking like a combination of badger, lizard, and corkscrew. Its three-foot-long nose handicapped it, because it had to rear up to get the nose out of the way before it could bite. Burton severed the nose and ran at three living cards, a deuce of hearts, a four of diamonds, and a jack of clubs. They were side by side and holding spears, but he was going to attack the one on his left and dispose of him before the others could get behind him. His feet slipped on blood on the grass, and he slid feet first into the legs of the one in the middle. The four of diamonds fell forward, but his wide flat body acted as a plane, and he flew over Burton. The others turned slowly and clumsily. Burton rolled away, holding the saber above him, got to his feet, and cut the two down.

Now the March Hare approached, the shaft of a morning star in his hand. This was a medieval weapon consisting of a two-foot-long wooden stick to which was attached a length of chain to which was attached a large spiked steel ball. Handled properly, it could crush armor. Burton had to retreat before it, meanwhile glancing around to make sure that no one was about to jump on him from behind or on his sides. Then he stepped forward as the spikes just missed him and severed the hand holding the wooden shaft. The March Hare screamed, as it was programmed to do if hurt, but it did not run away as a human might have. It stood there until the loss of blood from the stump caused it to crumple.

Burton saw another Walrus, the last one, go down before a flurry of cuts from three men. Then the White Knight was on these and felled two before Burton had to turn away to defend himself against a Carpenter and a chicken-sized gnat. After putting them away, he attacked a Red Queen from behind, sliced off her crowned head, and whirled just in time to defend himself against the Cheshire Cat. This lynx-sized creature’s enormous head was blood-smeared; evidently, it had done considerable carnage. Yowling, it sprang at him, its dripping paws out, but he brought the saber down against its skull, between the eyes. He was bowled over, but when he got up he saw that the feline was permanently out of action.

Something hit him from behind. Stunned, his sight dimmed, not knowing who he was or where, he fell to his knees. He was easy prey now for whoever had hit him, but a man he did not recognize rushed by him. He heard the thud of weapon on weapon as he fell to all fours and shook his head. Then a hand was helping him up. His senses came back slowly, the back of his head hurting abominably. The man who had rescued him was Monteith Maglenna. He was holding a bloody two-edged sword. His clothes were torn and cut, and blood was welling from a dozen wounds.

“Close call, that,” he said hoarsely.

Burton looked at Bill the Lizard and at the reddened flat cap and the club on the ground beside his body.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be all right.”

“Good,” Maglenna said. “Have to get that bloody Jabberwock out of the way. Come help when you feel up to it.”

The big blonde man ran off, his sword held high with both hands as if he were holding an ancestral claymore. By now, the Jabberwock was showing signs of internal bleeding from the spear thrusts and other wounds. The blood flowing from its mouth could not all be that from its victims. It was crouching on all fours, its tail still lashing but not as vigorously as before. Its head turned this way and that as it bellowed at the pestiferous men and women surrounding it. These were not, however, coming close to it; they were leaping in and out, slashing at it but not daring to come within reach of the still-dangerous head. Behind those keeping it distracted was a line of people fighting off the androids, guarding the backs of the Jabberwock attackers. They, at least, had some organization.

He turned around, fighting dizziness and nausea. The White Knight and his horse were down, but the Red Knight, aided by some cards, Father William, some Eaglets, two White Rabbits, some toves, and a Carpenter, was bashing heads right and left. Its horse slipped several times on blood but recovered and stumbled once over a pile of bodies. He groaned, heartsick. So many human bodies. And there were many androids still standing. Some were not fighting but were killing the wounded humans. They must have had orders to finish off all those they downed before going on to do more battle.

He caught sight of Alice. She was holding a rapier, and her clothes were crimsoned. She had broken free of the melee and could have fled to her house. Perhaps she had thought of that, since she looked several times longingly up the hill. But she turned away, ran down the slope, and thrust her rapier through a Carpenter’s back.

Star Spoon was climbing down from the roller coaster. Whether she was doing so to join the fray or to run for safety he had no time to find out.

He turned away and walked up to the back of a Dodo that was beheading wounded humans. Under its wings, it had short arms at the ends of which were human hands, just as in Tenniel’s illustration. The shortness of its arms made its sword strokes ineffective, forcing it to hack again and again before it could get its victims’ necks completely cut through. Burton snickersneed its head off just as it was about to deliver a final stroke to a Chinese man.

Burton wondered where Li Po was. No sooner asked than answered. There was the tall Chinese on a big table, fighting off a trio of cards with his rapier. They kept thrusting their spears at him from three sides, but he danced around, leaping to avoid thrusts, kicking with one foot against the shafts, and flicking the rapier point at them. Then Frigate, covered with blood, ran up holding a strange weapon. For a moment, Burton did not know what it was. When it was brought up and down against one of the cards, Burton recognized it. It was the Caterpillar’s hookah. In short order, Frigate had smashed down two of the cards, and Li Po had run the other through twice.

Burton turned again to help those fighting the Jabberwock. Maglenna was running straight at it, his sword held high.

With his vorpal blade
, Burton thought.

A dozen men and women were still harassing the monster; a dozen were protecting the attackers’ backs. While Maglenna was running, the rear guard was cut down to six, and some androids immediately launched themselves at the other humans after dispatching the wounded. These caught four of the Jabberwock attackers from behind, and the rest of the humans were caught between the great beast and the other androids. Maglenna ignored all of them. He leaped from a body just as the Jabberwock dipped its head to close its jaws around the head of a man. Burton could hear the Scot’s war cry from across the field. Maglenna was going to sever that thick neck, no doubt about it. Unfortunately, the corpse he used as a launching platform turned a little under his foot, and the tip of his blade only nicked the scaly neck. He fell flat on his face, his blade flying from his hand at the impact. He was up quickly, looking for his weapon, but the Jabberwock opened its mouth and dropped the lifeless body on top of Maglenna. He pushed it aside and stood up. The gigantic jaws seized his head and shoulders, and his writhing body was lifted up. It came down minus head and shoulders, which were spit out a moment later.

He could hear Alice’s scream through all the noise; he knew it from long experience. Turning, he saw her standing horrified, the back of her hand over her mouth, her eyes huge dark holes.

He also saw the Red Knight on his galloping horse, charging toward him, the spike-knobbed club held high. The crimson armor and the horse-head-shaped helmet were a terrible sight. The beat of the horse’s hooves was like the roll of a drum just before the gallows trapdoor was dropped.

Burton shifted the saber to his left hand, stopped, picked up a spear, and braced himself for the throw. His target was not the Red Knight but its charger. When the armored thing was thirty feet away, he cast the spear, and its sharp broad head plunged into the horse’s shoulder. It fell forward, turning over. Its rider flew through the air and landed with a crash of steel upon the grass. Burton took the saber in his right hand and ran to the horse, which was starting to get up, and he slashed its jugular. It, too, had been programmed to kill; it had bitten and kicked while its rider was swinging its club; it had to be made harmless first.

The Knight lay prone and motionless. Burton turned the heavy body over and undid the helmet fastenings. He had to make sure that the thing was dead, not just unconscious. Seeing the face, he recoiled with shock. It was his face.

“One of Alice’s jokes,” he said.

He rose, looked at the dead features, and thought of how strange it was to see himself as a corpse. He gazed over the field between him and the foot of the hill. There were bodies everywhere, some in heaps. The only one standing in that direction was Alice, who was just pulling her rapier from a Humpty Dumpty. Her tears were washing the blood from her face.

Then he saw Star Spoon running down the hill with a beamer in each hand. She had fled, but only to get weapons from the house that would assure their victory, though she might be the only one left alive.

He turned. There were ten androids on their feet, not counting the Jabberwock. Three humans were still fighting, Li Po, a black man, and a white woman, one of Aphra Behn’s friends. The woman went down under a rain of swordstrokes as he watched.

The Jabberwock, breathing in short unsteady gasps, waddled toward the cluster of battlers. It turned when it got near, and its tail whipped out, catching three androids and the black man. Li Po rapiered the White Queen in front of him and ran for the parking area. There were still three chairs there.

Frigate came from somewhere and also headed toward the chairs. The remaining androids hacked at the fallen black man before pursuing the two men.

The Jabberwock swung its head from left to right, saw Burton, and lumbered toward him.

The field was comparatively quiet now, but, suddenly, Burton heard a motor turning over. That was followed by a series of explosions, and Bill Williams, bloody but grinning, rode his cycle from behind the little house with the chimneys like rabbit’s ears and the fur-covered roof. Burton did not know what he had been doing there or how he had gotten his cycle there. Perhaps he had pushed it there during the fray, intending to get away at an opportune moment. Perhaps, and this was more likely, he was just waiting for a chance to use it. Or he might have gotten the machine hidden and then fainted from his wounds. Recovering, he had followed his original plan. Whatever had happened, and Burton was never to know, the fellow was now doing what only he could have thought of.

As the monster advanced toward Burton, not turning its head to find the source of the new noise, Williams speeded up the machine. Dodging around the bodies, sometimes driving over an outstretched arm or leg, Williams sped straight at the side of the Jabberwock, and he smashed his motorcycle into its ribs.

So great was the impact, the Jabberwock was moved a few inches to one side. Williams flew headlong over its back and slammed into the ground. The monster raised its head as high as the neck could reach, gave a great bawling cry, and died.

Burton ran to Williams and turned him over. He was dead, his face smashed and his neck broken.

Though doomed, the androids advanced toward Burton as programmed. They never reached him. Frigate’s and Li Po’s chairs smashed into them and knocked them down again and again until they could no longer get up. Then the two men got out of the chairs and finished their work.

Burton heard a gasp behind him. Turning, he saw that Star Spoon had slipped and fallen on her face. She had let the beamers loose to soften the fall with her hands. He walked up to her and picked her up. Sobbing, she went into his arms.

Except for the weeping of Alice, Star Spoon, and Frigate, the field was silent. Only he, those three, and Li Po had survived. No. The Blue Caterpillar was sitting on the giant mushroom, and the rocking-horse-fly, a creature too fragile to have been programmed to kill, was alive. They did not, however, count.

He felt more weary, more emptied, than he had ever felt in his long life. He was in shock, numb, the world around him seeming alien and drifting way.

“Who could have done this horrible thing?” Alice wailed.

Who, indeed?

At that moment, William Gull groaned and sat up from the dead.

33

Though covered with blood, the Englishman was uninjured except for a bump on the back of his head.