Out of the Dark Read Online Free Page B

Joraym said in the tone of someone trying very hard to be detached, “but the Shongairi are bound to be a little . . . twisted, you know. I mean, they
are
. . . carnivores.” The xenoanthropologist’s distaste for the near-obscene term was evident. “I hate to say it, but these ‘humans’ are
omnivores
. They don’t have that excuse, Garsul.”
    “I know, but—”
    “Wait!” Syrahk interrupted. “Something’s happening!”
    •  •  •  •  •

    “My Liege!”
    Henry looked up at the messenger’s cry. The king was on his knees, beside the pallet on which his youngest brother Humphrey, the Duke of Gloucester, lay. Humphrey was barely three weeks past his twenty-fifth birthday, and Henry had personally led his guard to Humphrey’s rescue when he went down. They’d gotten him out of the maelstrom and back to the surgeons, but he’d been wounded in the abdomen, and belly wounds were fatal far more often than not.
    “What is it?” the king asked harshly now, fatigue and worry over his brother shadowing even his indomitable visage.
    “My Liege, I think the French are regrouping!”
    Henry rose abruptly, striding through his protective cordon of knights and men-at-arms to see for himself. The French rearguard had never advanced, but now the third line was stirring, and his jaw tightened. There were almost as many men in that line as in his entire army, and his archers’ arrows were exhausted. It would take hours to get more of them up from the baggage train, and in the meantime his men were weary and out of formation and their prisoners were still unsecured. Literally thousands of armored Frenchmen lay in the mud—exhausted and fallen, perhaps, but unwounded—and their weapons lay with them.
    Henry looked up the length of the field at the remaining French host and his nostrils flared.
    “Fetch me Baron de Camoys!” he commanded.
    “At once, Your Majesty!”
    A messenger hurried off and returned minutes later with Sir Thomas de Camoys, who’d commanded the English left wing throughout the battle. With the death of Edmund of Norwich, the Duke of York, who’d commandedthe right wing (and who, like hundreds of Frenchmen, had suffocated under a crushing pile of dead men and horses), Baron de Camoys had become Henry’s senior field commander.
    “Your Majesty,” de Camoys said, bowing, and Henry jabbed a gauntleted finger at the stirring French third line.
    “Those bastards mean to attack us, Baron,” the king said flatly, his scarred face grim, “and we cannot chance what will happen here”—the same hand indicated the mud-mired Frenchmen heaped and piled before the English line—“when they do.”
    •  •  •  •  •

    This time, Garsul did vomit.
    Perhaps it was simply cumulative revulsion. Perhaps it was more than that. Whatever it was, when the English began methodically slaughtering the helpless French men-at-arms and knights, thrusting daggers through visors or using axes and hammers and mattocks to literally hack open their armored carapaces and get at the men within, it was too much.
    He turned away from the display at last.
    “Kill the audio!” he said harshly. “We don’t need to hear
this!
”
    The sound of screams, babbled pleas for mercy, and prayers cut off abruptly, and Garsul shook himself.
    Clahdru
, he thought sickly.
Clahdru, preserve me. Of Your mercy, grant that I
never
see anything like this again! I thought those “secret orders” of mine undermined everything Survey stands for, but not now. Now I know how wise the Council truly was to issue them!
    “We’re done on this world,” he said, his voice flat. “We’ve got all the physical data we need, and Clahdru knows we’ve got more ‘societal’ data than any sane being is ever going to want to look at. Ship Commander,” he looked at Syrahk, “I want us out of orbit and headed home within two day segments.”

PLANET

KU-197-20

Y EAR 74,065 OF THE H EGEMONY

. I .

    “So, fearless