第42节

opening wide, sucking breath into his chest to fuel a tortured

scream.

It never came. He blacked out instead.

Having climbed beyond the normal range of Mute crossbows, Gus White

switched radio channels and tried to raise Fazetti and Naylor. The net

result, after several attempts, was a deafening silence. Circling the

forest area at two and a half thousand feet Gus could see no sign of a

napalm strike on the vast red canopy of leaves below him.

He cut his motor and criss-crossed the area in a series of shallow

glides, losing fifteen hundred feet of altitude before levelling out.

Eventually he spotted a ragged patch of blue.

On closer investigation, Gus saw that it was the tangled wreckage of

two Skyhawks speared on the upper branches of one of the closely packed

tall trees. He called up The Lady, reported the successful firing of

the cropfields then gave them the bad news; Steve's crash landing and

his sighting of what looked like the wreckage of the Skyhawks flown by

Naylor and Fazetti.

The reply from the wagon train was uncommunicative.

'Roger, Blue Seven. Return to base. Out."

terse and

Above the escarpment, where the surviving M'Call Bears had gathered, Mr

Snow saw the black smoke rising from the direction of the cropfields.

High above him, a lone arrowhead glided silently westwards across the

blue. Mr Snow eyed it with a mixture of caution, envy and cold

hatred.

He would have dearly loved to have been able to scramble the cloud

warior's brain and bring him plummeting.down but he was fresh out of

magic. It would be several days, perhaps even a week before he could

summon up the powers of the earth again. He hoped it would be longer

for it was an ordeal he did not relish.

With nearly two hundred and fifty warriors left dead and dying around

the iron snake, plus those killed earlier by the cloud warriors, the

fighting strength of the clan had been cut by over a third. Although

seriously weakened, the M'Calls were still numerically stronger than

many neighbouring clans but another full-scale assault on the iron

snake was out of the question. Alliances would have to be

considered.

Mr Snow did not relish the prospect of the endless negotiations

involved. If only Talisman would come! In the meantime, however,

there was only one thing to do: head for the hills.

They had to find a secure, sheltered base where they could heal the

wounded and rebuild the shattered confidence of the Bears, and they had

to find new stocks of food to see them through the White Death.

Two She-Wolf messengers reached him in quick succession. One had been

sent by the small rear guard that had stayed to watch the iron snake.

She reported that the snake had broken into two pieces. The tail had

become a new head; half its body had crawled out of the river and was

heading towards the escarpment, puffing out clouds of its burning white

breath. Deep-Purple, the other She-Wolf, sent by Cadillac, brought the

bad news that the cropfields had been almost totally destroyed by

fire.

She also had a second message for Mr Snow from Cadillac. The cloud

warrior the Sky Voices had spoken of had been delivered into their

hands.

When Gus White reached the Now and Then River, he found that the rear

command and power cars plus nine of the wagons had been freed and were

now parked up on the east bank from where its guns could command the

surrounding area. Gus buzzed the mobile element of the train - which

included the flat-topped flight section - then turned and made a low

pass back along the river. He saw Barber's men swarming round the

front five wagons. They still lay across the river bed but were no

longer tilted over. A few of the guys in the work party stopped and

waved to him as he flashed past.

Gus called up Flight Control and got the green to land on.

Baxter, the F.O.O met him as he came down on the lift.

Gus pulled himself out of the cockpit of his Skyhawk and saluted. 'Has

the