CHAPTER 41
The next day Jack found them in Cuenca and had his own tall tale to tell.
“On the Pyrenees I found the 2nd and 3rd divisions eager to get back to work. We couldn’t get to Madrid in time, so I led them to Valencia. Imagine everyone’s surprise when we showed up in the middle of the night. The Mongols assumed we were their bombers returning home, so they flew up to greet us.
“We arrived in a line of two hundred companies abreast. So when thousands of ecstatic Mongols flew in front of us, their wands singing -- well, you just don’t get targets like that very often. We swatted them from the sky. It looked like a giant meteor shower. Picture twenty thousand quads in an ideal position shooting fireballs across one kilometer of night sky. The video is stunning.”
Jack sighed, savoring his rare victory.
“Well, we couldn’t stop there. The surviving Mongols naturally fled back to their bases around Valencia, so we followed them. The Spanish couldn’t wait to take advantage of their change in fortune. They swamped the air bases, their two-wanders going building-to-building. The long-suffering residents of Valencia finally saw an opportunity to strike back against their oppressors and joined in. It wasn’t a battle so much as a massacre.
“The Americans found the Mongol vaults, with ten tons of gold, and took over the stone barracks. They’re now using the Valencia bomb factories to hit the nearest Mongol air units while we still enjoy surprise.”
Billy literally and figuratively patted him on the back. “Great job, Jack. I think a thousand or so marathoners from the bombing run escaped, so we should spend a few days hunting them down. They’ll be easier to kill now, while they’re scattered, than if they join another unit. Let’s break into squads to cover more territory. I’ll need another day to heal, and could someone please find me some clothes?”
Princess applied more lotion and creams while Billy napped naked. He drank enough pain-relieving tea to cure a corpse. It turned out that he needed two extra days before he could join his friends, and it took that long to have someone pick up the spare set of wand launchers he kept at Global Bank in Madrid. His father left him dozens, yet Billy feared wearing them out all. He could make his own, but they were never as good as his father’s, and just one defect could kill him.
Usually they flew as high as possible because that was the safest way to travel, but hunting Mongols who did not want to be found forced them to fly low.
Team Red found a few hundred survivors the last two days, so they were surprised to spot a squad of Mongols below them, flying low and slow. That’s a good way to get killed. Their steep dive increased their speed, quickly catching up to the sitting ducks. Then they slowed to match speed and course to blast them to hell.
Except the Mongols did something new.
A flash of reflected light caught Billy's attention, something he later recognized as a mirror, and the squad rose while turning in place to fire point blank at them. That was a tricky maneuver that required a lot of practice, and only very confident quads would risk using themselves as bait.
Billy heard someone yell out in pain as he squeezed between two big fireballs. He saw Ox falling uncontrollably, but the one frantically taking off her smoking armor was Blade. The blasts from these guys implied double strength. And that’s when it hit them: the mercenaries sent to kill him!
Which meant this squad was not alone. Billy turned and saw the rest of their company dive out of cumulus cloud cover to surprise them from behind. The irony of the same attack being used against them would not register until later.
"Bear! Lead them to the forest," Billy commanded.
Normally, one hundred enemies did not worry Billy. But these guys signed up to kill the Red Baron, so they must be very good. And that worried him.
Billy cut up the squad below him, while the enemy company chased his friends. Then he rose at maximum speed to fire into the back of the mercenaries. A squad broke off to catch Blade and another squad moved to face Billy. He tried popping to the side really fast, but it didn’t work nearly as well as on mediocre quads. He was probably still twice as fast, but he was usually four times as quick. It took longer to weed them out, and the mercs looked shocked that he beat them.
Billy saw them capture Blade instead of just killing her outright. And, of course, he knew why: her burned shirt exposed her fantastic breasts. Princess once joked that her breasts must have wands because they defied gravity. Enraged that she’d be raped again, he watched the Mongols knock her out and take her away. Instead of pursuing, he had to rescue Princess.
In the forest, Bear waved them down in some trees to organize a response.
"Hotshot," he said to Prince. "We need to split them up. Go north and blast some to distract the others. The rest of you, find cover before they shoot us from above."
Four enemy squads landed like a square in the trees, while the others hovered above, shooting down at every shadow. They had their backs to him, so Billy cut them up. The fourth one screamed, which drew the attention of the others. He now had a serious firefight on his hands as some moved to flank him while others fixed his position. Those thousands of duels against teams of three now paid off as Billy juggled multiple opponents.
Then another firefight broke out below the tree line to the northeast and the enemy split up. Afraid of those soon to attack him from behind, Billy pressed forward. Then Prince fried one quad hovering above him, popped up above the forest to nail another and wing a third. He fled, luring several after him. Billy’s other super-quads popped up and found themselves behind the skirmish line facing Billy. They attacked the enemy from the rear.
"They captured Blade. Let's go after her!" Billy yelled.
But just as they rose in the air, the remaining thirty enemies moved to block their way.
"Go get her!" Bear told Billy, who flew away, taking several enemies with him as his team disappeared back into the forest.
Billy ignored his pursuers because killing them would only slow him down. He flew higher until he spotted Blade on the horizon. He caught up with the slower ones before they knew he was there. Six flew together, so he pierced the body armor of two using steel from his boot wands, while cutting the legs of the rest. The leader, holding Blade, shrieked a warning and a patrol from his fortress responded. Billy cursed his lousy luck at having another squad blocking him. He swung around rather than engage.
When Billy saw the castle, he realized he was near Barcelona. The Mongols not only replaced the battalion he killed in the arena, but based the mercenaries there, too.
Billy dropped near the ground to use the terrain to get closer unseen. He hid in woodlands, making his way forward as more Mongols flew south. He hopped over the fortress rim, slashed at two enemies, then used his boot wands to propel him forward along the battlement while cutting down defenders with swords. Not shooting gave him several extra heartbeats before somebody noticed and fired. For a long minute he fired at those with their backs to him while avoiding fireballs coming at him. He then fell upon troops rushing out of the barracks until the defenders along the battlements poured down fire. Fittingly, Billy was much better with steel because of Blade. He popped sideways and a dozen blasts struck those trying to exit the building.
"Everyone get down!" he yelled into the doorway, then ran in and stabbed those foolish enough to follow his order. As more blasts struck the entrance, he rounded a corner and extended hand blades to pierce several enemies each, then jumped up to fire his boot wands into the survivors, landing painfully on his back. Billy used a wand to push himself sideways and another wand to blast two guys standing too close together. Then he opened a door that led to a narrow corridor, fired at those in it, and ran deeper into the fortress.
As he passed burning bodies, he thought it must be horrific to see a ball of flame swallowing a hallway, and knowing there’s nothing you can do to save yourself.
As long as he had surprise, it worked. B
ut he heard people blasting behind him and knew he was dead if they caught him inside where he had nowhere to maneuver. He found a doorway into the courtyard and peaked out to see a lot of troops on the battlements and perhaps one hundred more flying overhead.
Billy returned to the last corridor and blasted blindly, before risking an eye to stab survivors. Those at the other end also shot at him blindly, so he closed and locked the door, fuming that he did not find Blade. He changed clothes and armor with a dead Mongol, then opened the door enough to fire blindly again, catching several more. Dense smoke consumed the hallway. He could hear a few wounded survivors coughing, which gave him an idea.
He brazenly marched arrogantly into the courtyard, swearing in Mongolian.
"The bastard escaped!" he shouted to call attention to himself, then kicked a water tub for the hell of it. He felt a dozen skeptical wands pointing his way when blasts from inside told him that the door he locked had been blown open. From the battlements, it sounded like a firefight.
"Let’s get him!" Billy yelled.
He led them through the same entrance he entered originally, knelt down next to someone wounded, waited until they passed, slit the wounded guy's throat, then caught up with the group. He carefully positioned himself to extend both blades into as many as possible, then blasted. His fireballs struck with such force at close range that they literally lifted bodies into the air to smash into those behind them, which made finishing them all easier.
Now he ran the other way. He soon encountered two golden mules guarding an open steel door. Crap. That meant more elite troops.
In their own way, quads who transported money were as rare as marathoners because it’s hard to trust fliers with backpacks full of coin. They didn’t have to fly as far, but they had to fly and fight while weighted down. Paying for a couple million quads and several million two-wanders took a lot of golden air mules.
So it felt good to kill them.
He couldn't just turn around without raising suspicion, so he said, "have you guys heard the news?" Then he thrust two blades into their chests from twenty meters away and ran past them downstairs to what must be a dungeon. There he found ten more looking at him suspiciously. He let his helmet hang from a strap, put his wands away, and held out his hands to show he was unarmed.
"I was never that young," a veteran remarked after getting a good look at Billy's innocent baby face. Their leader stepped into his way and drew a wand.
"The captive is wanted for questioning," Billy tried.
The leader laughed. "I'm sure she’s getting questioned as we speak." Billy flashed back to his nightmares of the Khan’s bodyguards brutally gang raping his mother to death. He suppressed a shudder. "Who wants the girl for questioning?"
"The general."
From their reaction, he knew he screwed up. The general must be the one doing the questioning downstairs. While falling backwards, he pressed his elbows against his body to launch his wands. From their expressions, Billy doubted they had ever seen wand-launchers before.
He blasted them with even his boot wands, which conveniently propelled him away. More golden mules burst through the door from the dungeon. Billy slide down the hall like a sled, before smashing into the wall where the corridor turned. Frantic, the teenager rolled out of line-of-sight as a stream of fireballs cooked the wall.
They were not far behind, so he squatted, pointed one wand near the floor and blasted blindly. His fireballs swallowed the corridor. The bastards still shot back, so they must have used shields to make what the Romans called a “turtle.” While most projected interlocking metal from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, the rest would shoot through small openings.
Since he could not defeat this effective tactic, Billy ran, panting like a dog. Hearing voices coming from upstairs, he retracted his wands and yelled out, "Help! The damn mules killed the general!"
Hoping his obvious youth would protect him, he collapsed under one of the torches that illuminated the otherwise dark corridor. Then he cried like a scared little boy. It was not hard.
Everyone demanded answers at once, but the smell of burning flesh trumped everything. Billy screamed in pain and begged them to remove his smoldering chest plate. He had no idea he had even been hit. Most of them dismissed the crying boy and raced down to see what the hell was going on. Billy cried out for someone to help him to the infirmary. Not a moment later the firefight resumed downstairs.
With an arm around an old veteran and a young kid, he limped to the infirmary for medical attention. He made sure to groan in pain whenever someone got a good look at him, and this time he didn’t have to fake it. At least one hundred quads still patrolled the skies as Billy entered the courtyard. As they passed a water barrel, he stopped to slosh water onto his chest. The relief felt better than sex. It was like taking a giant dump after a week of constipation.
In the infirmary, he killed his helpers, the staff, and the wounded, before stumbling into the headquarters and turning it into a bonfire.
The good news is Billy learned where Blade was. The bad news is one hundred elite troops blocked the way.