The Days of Glory Read online

  Table of Contents

  THEME

  INTRODUCTION

  SOMEWHERE ON MERION

  A FRAGMENT OF A BATTLE

  SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION

  EAGLEHEART

  ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE GALAXY

  STORMWIND

  INITIATION OF A CHAIN OF EVENTS

  CHAOS

  THE TRIAL

  DEATH SENTENCE

  CONTINUATION OF A THEME

  THE DISSENTING VOICE

  HORNWING

  STORMWIND’S DECISION

  CONSEQUENCES OF DECISION

  VIEW FROM THE HOUSE OF STARS

  STARCASTLE

  STARBIRD

  THE HUMAN ANGLE

  BLACKSTAR

  STARBIRD’S CHALLENGE

  SKYWOLF

  INTRODUCTION TO STONEBOW

  DUEL ON STONEBOW

  PROGRESS OF THE DUEL

  STARBIRD’S MIRACLE

  SUNRISE ON STONEBOW

  DEATHDANCER

  THE BATTLE IN THE RAIN

  CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE

  COUNCIL OF WAR

  LICKING THE WOUNDS

  STARFLARE

  RAINSTAR

  BLACKSTAR AND THE BEASTS

  MINDMYTH

  MAN TO MAN.

  CONVERSATION

  A LITTLE TRUTH

  OVERTURES TO STORMWIND

  FALSE MOVE

  HARE AND HOUNDS REVERSED

  INTERSTELLAR MELODRAMA

  RAYSHADE

  BACKTRACKING

  KEYRIE

  HARDLY WORTH MENTIONING

  INTERSTELLAR MELODRAMA CONTINUED

  SAPIA

  THE LANDINGS ON SAPIA

  ONE MOVE AHEAD

  SLAVESDREAM

  THE BATTLE OF THE KARNAK SYSTEM

  THE HERO’S SHADOW

  THE PRICE OF SUCCESS

  KARNAK

  CRASH ON KARNAK

  THE DEATH OF A SHADOW

  MISLEADING EVIDENCE

  THE WRATH OF STORMWIND

  ALPH

  THE BATTLE OF THE SWAMP

  SHOCK TACTICS

  SITTING DUCK

  DYING DUCK

  THE DESERT

  REVENGE FOR THE DEATH OF A SHADOW

  DREAMS

  SECOND REVENGE

  THE STEPPES OF HOME

  HIDEAWAY

  LAST STAND

  MEANWHILE

  CLIMAX

  ABOVE GROUND

  UNDERGROUND

  Landmarks

  Cover

  One of Heljanita’s toys was ascending the staircase. It was a tall, thin creature of bright metal, shining by reflected light. It was a parody of a Human or a Beast, with long sleek limbs that had no joints but bore small, delicate hands and feet. Its electronic eyes were slanted and red; its chest decorated with metal whorls which suggested nipples.

  “Everything is ready,” said the toy in a silky, musical voice.

  Heljanita passed into another room where there was a large instrument like a church organ built into the wall. He sat and watched the screen that formed the face of the instrument, and the screen began to shift and spin as the power cables sucked energy from the molten core of the planet.

  He was listening—listening to all the myriad messages of Humans and Beasts which flicked through the galaxy on high-omega waves. Irrespective of the frequency, he absorbed them all at one and the same time, planning and weighing: the armies were his puppets, the Beast lords and Human lords his pawns.

  Heljanita listened to the galaxy and planned its future.

  BRIAN M. STABLEFORD has also written:

  CRADLE OF THE SUN

  THE BLIND WORM

  BRIAN M. STABLEFORD

  DIES IRAE 1

  ACE BOOKS

  A Division of Charter Communications Inc.

  1120 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, N.Y. 10036

  The Days of Glory

  Copyright ©, 1971, by Brian M. Stableford All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Kelly Freas.

  For Rosemary

  Printed in U.S.A.

  THEME

  This book tells the story of the anger of Richard Storm-wind, and its consequences; but it is more concerned with the vanity which prompted the anger, and why the consequences were so important.

  INTRODUCTION

  There had been ten thousand years of peace. War ought to have been forgotten. But there arose a quarrel between the Beast Lord Daniel Skywolf of Sula and a son of the House of Stars. On Sula, David Starbird of Home, high lord of the House of Stars and second son of Starcastle of Home, found Angeline of Sula, and took her back to Home with him. He was consumed by a madness which, although entirely bom of love, was not entirely his own. While on Sula he had been visited by an agent of Heljanita the Toymaker, and something undoubtedly passed between them. So it might be argued that the quarrel was of Heljanita’s making rather than Starbird’s.

  Daniel Skywolf laid claim to the girl Starbird had taken in secret back to the House of Stars because she had been promised to him as a bride by her family. He demanded her return. But David Starbird was in love, and had looked into Heljanita’s crooked wheel besides, and he refused.

  Daniel Skywolf was undoubtedly in the right. What is more, he was a great warrior, who had killed twenty men or more in duel, and he attracted the sympathy of all the Beasts. But his natural arrogance had been given full expression in the outraged demands which he made to the House of Stars, and the demands were couched in such terms that they could not possibly be granted. The House of Stars was, after all, the highest in the galaxy, and Daniel Skywolf bore the crux ansata—the mark of the Beast—on the base of his neck and the palms of his hands. The Humans were therefore unanimously behind Starbird.

  And so the affair of honor called for blood.

  There was another man who had looked into Heljanita’s crooked wheel, and that was Ralph Eagleheart, Beast lord of Chrysocvon. But he had taken no inspiration from the crooked wheel: his dreams were already formed. He had been born with fire in his belly and fury in his voice. His dreams were of destruction and conquest, of the fall of the House of Stars and the extirpation of Humankind. He despised the honest, contented people which Adam December had created ten thousand years before, and gave the mark of the Beast. He renounced the doctrines of Moon-glow of Amia, first of the great Beasts, and formed his own gospel of violence.

  Ralph Eagleheart came quickly to Skywolf when news of the quarrel reached him, and pledged his aid against the House of Stars. He suggested to Skywolf a means of settling the quarrel that was totally unprecedented in an era of personal duel and gladiatorial games in the arena. The fury in his voice won the dull-witted Skywolf completely to the idea of a large-scale confrontation with the House of Stars. Eagleheart was a great tactician; his performances in the arena were unsurpassed. No matter how many men were involved, his strategy was always impeccable.

  So Skywolf listened to him, and believed that it could be done. He summoned his kinsmen and his friends and all of the greatest fighters among the Beast lords. And he and Eagleheart mustered the largest fleet of starships that had ever been seen.

  The House of Stars looked on with horror. The raising of a warfleet in the galaxy, for the first time, was cause for some concern. But because it was new, because the warnings were so old, no one stood up to oppose the madness. Instead, the House of Stars accepted the challenge. They prepared themselves to fight—to settle the quarrel in an honorable manner.

  Skywolf had powerful allies. The greatest of them all was Richard Stormwind of Sabella, whose name was made into a legend. He had no doubts about the war, at first; war had no place in the history of the Beasts. Only the Hu
mans remembered it. He came with all the ships he could raise, and Saul Slavesdream of Vespa, his cousin, came with him.

  Judson Deathdancer of Falcor was second only to Storm-wind in the arena, and had killed many more men in quarrels because he was hot-tempered and his clan loved fighting.

  Robert Hornwing of Ligia, who was related to Stormwind by marriage although their clans were different, brought a substantial force exceeded in number only by Eagleheart’s and Skywolfs. The only other force of any real size belonged to Cain Rayshade of Aurita, but others arrived in threes and fours and the fleet grew to impressive dimensions. One man of real consequence, who brought no great number of ships, was Mark Chaos of Aquila, and who was to prove invaluable to Eagleheart’s cause.

  Although Eagleheart was a clever man and a persuasive man, he lacked the painstaking attention to detail that the conduct of his plans demanded. His strategy was brilliant, but it was direct and destructive. In a close, long-fought battle, he would lose because he could not sustain his attack indefinitely. He lacked finesse. He did not know how to cheat. Mark Chaos knew all these things. He was a scholar and a gambler. He was strong exactly where Eagle-heart was weak.

  Chaos, Eagleheart, and the warfleet could win Skywolfs cause for him where the Sulan alone would probably have failed. But Eagleheart and Chaos had more sweeping plans in mind than winning back Angeline for Skywolf. Their aim was not to settle a quarrel honorably but to smash the House of Stars and abolish the hold which the Human race had on the galaxy. To do this, they intended to use Sky-wolf and the other Beast lords as pieces in a strange and dramatic game.

  The House of Stars knew nothing about this. They gathered their warfleet in a calculated, formal fashion, sending invitations as though to a banquet. They armed themselves to match the Beast fleet as closely as possible. The fight had to be as fair as it could be made. The Human race no longer believed in the barbarity of war.

  The four sons of Starcastle commanded the army, under the grand command of David Starbird. Starcastle himself held aloof from the conflict. Those who fought with Star-bird and his brothers—Alexander Blackstar, James Starflare and Christopher Rainstar—included their cousin, Martin Hawkangel of Home, and the Lords Sunpiper, Ringrack, Calmagest, Castanza and Mindmyth, the guardians of the Human Empire.

  And so the war began…the first war in ten thousand years. The galaxy watched with awed fascination. There was not a Beast nor a Human in the universe who did not pledge himself in his imagination to “his” side and follow its progress. That progress at first was tentative. This was new and neither side wished to commit themselves too deeply until they knew what they were doing. The fleets met briefly time after time in omega-drive, out in the depths of hyperspace on the edge of the galaxy, but they were normally content with experimental maneuvers and the first shots usually ended the fight with the outmaneuvered fleet running unpursued for a planetary base.

  The weapons they used were newly adapted to war and the ships had not been designed for it. There were faults in communication and neither commander was confident Only gradually did the conflict become more meaningful. But eventually the fleets began inflicting minor wounds on each other, and real victory and defeat entered into the war.

  As soon as men began to die—although very few did, because Eagleheart and Starbird were careful—the days of glory began. Heroes were bom, and the galaxy followed them with intense dedication. The battles on the ground, on half a dozen inhabited worlds, were easier to follow and easier to fight as well, but the free interpretation which could be put on hyperspatial encounters were more responsible for the blowing up of reputations and the making of legends.

  The names of Richard Stormwind and Alexander Black-star emerged, almost by spontaneous generation, as the new idols of galactic civilization.

  The deliberate slowness of the war never reached the watching galaxy, because the reports they received were colored with romance and melodrama; but the fighters themselves felt it all too clearly. Skywolf grew impatient, and even Deathdancer and Hornwing, who understood what they were doing, began to pray for something more definite. Eagleheart, on the other hand, was perfectly content to foster the total involvement of the Beast nations. He wanted to give them enough time to have the idea of confrontation beween Beast and Human ingrained in their minds. He encouraged the unification of the Beasts with careful propaganda. He used the illusions of heroism and glory, which the Beasts themselves had created, to commit the Beasts to his project. Later, he would use that commitment to drag the Beast nations on an altogether new tack.

  The unity of the Beast nations was a new idea to most of the clans. But the sight of Stormwind’s Ursides, Death-dancer’s Felides and Hornwing’s Phocides all united in a common purpose, under a single general, destroyed rivalry and promoted a new patriotism.

  The Humans noticed what was happening, but did not realize its significance. They, too, were following the progress of the war with avid interest. Nominally an affair of honor between Skywolf and Starbird, the war became something else entirely in the eyes of the galaxy. Which was what Eagleheart—and Heljanita the Toy maker—intended.

  And so the stage is set for the story of Richard Storm-wind’s anger. The days of glory are with us—the days of drama and heroism—with blood enough to spice the dish but not to horrify and disgust. The war is still an honorable war.

  SOMEWHERE ON MERION

  Merion is an ordinary world. There are thousands of others like it. People live there and die there. Starships come and go. In appearance it might be any of any of those thousands, with an almost identical similarity to Home. It has its ice caps and its tropics, its deserts and its mountains, tundra and taiga, savannah and rain forest.

  But somewhere on Merion, the Human warfleet is encamped—in a pleasant place where it is summer; where there are country roads and a great deal of grass and woodland, but not very many houses.

  The place is timeless. Except where cultivation has stained the flat countryside with unnatural patches of orderly color, the greenness and the wildness belong to no age. Only the sleek silver shapes of the Human horde give a date to their surroundings. The fleet is unique in all the time which this countryside will endure.

  Before the fleet came, Merion was peaceful. After they have gone, it will be peaceful again. But their presence is to leave a scar. The battle of Merion—the first surprise attack of the war—will leave lingering memories whose endurance will long outlast the scorched grass and litter of flesh and blood. The battle of Merion will be a pivotal event in the history of the universe. It will determine the fall of an empire, eventually, and events more spectacular and consequential than even that. The chain of events which begins with the battle of Merion and ends with the near destruction of the universe, is the most momentous in all history.

  But as time passes, even that will be forgotten. Its effects will die away. The changes it brings will become a matter of familiarity. Balance will be restored.

  But there is one consequence that will last. Merion will have achieved an identity. It will not be one of the thousand worlds which it might be. It will be Merion, an individual world. Long after the battle which brought about that recognition is forgotten, the people of Merion will have a kind of identity which the people of a thousand worlds do not have.

  Remember Merion. It lends some kind of perspective to the story of the Beast war.

  A FRAGMENT OF A BATTLE

  The Beasts- switched out of omega-drive in the sky of Merion. They poured out of the sun like sand tumbling from the waist of an hourglass. They split into small groups and swooped low, like silver wasps, over the planet’s six continents. Within minutes, the entire planet knew they were there.

  Cain Rayshade located the Human ships, and his war cry threaded the sky on high-omega, instantaneously. The Beast ships converged from all directions on their target.

  They landed in a rough, makeshift formation around the encamped Humans. The silver ships opened their great bellies to dis
gorge charging mobs of soldiers who formed crude flying columns and tore into the Human camp as fast as possible, trying to gain the maximum benefit from their surprise attack.

  The Beasts went through the hurriedly formed Human defensive lines like a knife through water; but once inside the outer ring of the Human ships, their formations dissolved into chaos under heavy but badly directed fire. The Humans were totally confused by the ferocity and the lack of order in the attack. They were totally off guard and given no opportunity to coordinate themselves. Before Merion, battles had been carefully planned and neat, like tactical games, with intangible positional advantages determining success or failure. Recklessness had played no part in the plans of either side. Yet here were the Beasts making every effort to engage the Humans in what was little more than a vast brawl. What is more, it was a brawl the Beasts could hardly hope to win. The area covered by the Human camp was a large one, and the Beasts could not penetrate it to any real depth without being cut off from their own ships.

  Richard Stormwind, in the midst of the battle, with the crude array of his followers melted away behind him, was only just realizing the enormity of the hopeless assault. It had been Eagleheart’s intention only to hit and run, but the retreat was going to be a matter of considerable difficulty. Once committed, the Beasts were bound to lose a lot of lives getting away again. The main difficulty, Stormwind judged, was that now they were in amongst the Human ships, where they had so little chance of gaining reasonable positions to fight from, the confusion into which the Human army had been thrown could not be properly exploited. The cover was all occupied by the panic-stricken enemy. Every hill, every gully, and every glade of trees was theirs—not because of strategy, but because they had got there first.

  Powerful rifle fire slashed long pathways of burning grass on all sides. But the fire was localized and sporadic, the Humans ran a great risk of destroying their own men with intense blasting. Ordinarily it was easy enough to tell Beast from Human even when the betraying mark of the Beast was invisible, but in the confusion of battle the two races were so similar that mistakes could be made.