Warlock

features into dark blue bas relief and gave them all an other-worldly color that reminded the Shaker, for a brief moment, of the way they had looked in the jeweled forest in the east.
        
        “And now what?” the Shaker asked, peering through the viewports toward the dock lights of the enemy capital.
        
        “At first,” Richter said, “I had intended to use shells upon the town. Not nuclears. Pray that we can avoid those no matter what transpires. But now I do not believe that shelling the city is necessary either. There on the slopes above the town lies the Matabain castle.”
        
        There were a few lights there, barely enough to outline the thrusting towers and the hard, high walls of the mad emperor's domain. It seemed so distant and unreal that they might have been fighting a war of the imagination. It was suddenly obvious to the Shaker why the more civilized men of earlier eras had dealt so heavily in war. Long-distance wars, from submarines and aircraft and rocketships, was impersonal or seemed to be. The killer did not think of himself as the killer-but merely as a technician, a cog in the great wheel of things.
        
        “And you plan to shell Matabain's castle in hopes the armies will flounder without him. But remember that another man will assume the tiller of state. One man is not responsible for a nation's policy.”
        
        “More than the castle,” Richter said. He turned and looked back to the land. “Up there on the slopes, laid out as nice as you please, are fifty aircraft and many other land vehicles. Perhaps the largest part of the enemy arsenal lies before us.”
        
        Sandow strained. “I see nothing,” he said at last “Is this wishful thinking that guides you?”
        
        Richter turned and handed the Shaker a pair of heavy, enormous binoculars. “Look upon it with those and see if you do not note what I have told you, friend. Luck indeed has turned upon us.”
        
        The Shaker raised the glasses to his eyes, grunted his surprise. Through some magic mechanism in the instrument, night was driven away and everything seemed as brightly lighted as if the sun shone. He had to remove the binoculars for a moment to check whether this was perhaps the case. But stars were there in blackness, no sun. He looked again, saw the aircraft banked along the slope beneath the towering castle walls. There were lumbering trucks and other ground vehicles, a wide assortment of weapons of war, there for the plucking.
        
        “It will not be all his supply,” Sandow said.
        
        “Of course,” Richter agreed. “We know that aircraft and ground vehicles now work in the lower colonies of the Darklands. So this is not all, but some, a good many, a large blow to them.”
        
        “You speak as if you've heard more word about the way the Darklands fare in all this.”
        
        “An hour ago,” Richter said, “we intercepted radio reports between the castle and aircraft to the south in our home counties. It is said that only Far Walk, Lingomabbo, Jenningsly and Summerdown are still under the reign of General Dark. All other twenty-seven counties have succumbed to the Oragonian forces. There are reports of slave camps in the fallen colonies, of women pressed to service as prostitutes. General Dark and his wives now reside in Summerdown, by the fjord, with nowhere to go if the last perimeters of their defenses fall. Jerry Matabain has ordered the General executed immediately upon capture, his body to be returned to Blackmouse for a public disembowlment and burning.”
        
        “They are not playing games, then.”
        
        “No games.”
        
        “Then let us move swiftly,” Shaker Sandow said. “Every hour may mean life or death to our master.”
        
        Richter turned to Crowler who was manning the armament station. “Have you got the range, Sergeant?”
        
        “Radar identifies it: three and a quarter miles, sir.”
        
        “Very well. To protect the citizens in the buildings immediately downslope from the castle, we'll use implosion missiles. That should reduce flying debris considerably.”
        
        “Aye, sir!”
        
        “Fire three rounds when ready,” Richter directed.
        
        Everyone but Crowler turned to the amber viewports.
        
        There was a slight whoofing noise a bit aft and