After the Downfall (29 page)

“You don’t want to have to count on the other guy doing something dumb,” Hasso said. “You want to be able to beat him even if he does everything as well as he can.”

“Well, sure,” the Lenello officer said. “But when he does screw up, you want to make him sorry.”

Hasso nodded; he couldn’t very well disagree. In Russia, you could bet the Ivans wouldn’t move as fast as they should have. Lieutenants didn’t dare do much on their own - they had to get authorization from higher up the chain of command. For that matter, so did colonels. Again and again, the Germans made them pay for being slow.

Hasso’s laugh was so bitter, Nornat raised a questioning eyebrow. “Nothing,” Hasso said, which was an out-and-out lie. The
Wehrmacht
had taken advantage of the Russians time and again, sure. And in the end, so what? Stalin won the goddamn war anyhow.

The Bucovinans’ faults were different from the Russians’. These guys were still trying to figure out how the Lenelli fought. They didn’t have enough practice to be as good as the invaders from across the sea. No wonder they screwed up every once in a while.

“They fall to pieces when we take Falticeni?” Hasso asked.

“They’d better!” Nornat said. “We grab their stupid king or lord or whatever they call him, we hold his toes to the fire, they’ll spread their legs for us, never you fear.”

“Good.” That was what Hasso wanted to hear. He remembered how Skorzeny’s paratroopers had stolen Mussolini. What if some of those guys had managed to grab Uncle Joe? Wouldn’t that have been something? The
Reich
would have got what it wanted then, by God!

Or would it? Would some other Moscow bureaucrat have grabbed the reins instead and gone on fighting? How could you know with Russians? Stalin was a strong leader, but he didn’t personify things the way Hitler did in Germany. You couldn’t imagine the
Reich
without the
Führer.
Russia might be able to go on without the tough bastard from Georgia.

What about Bucovin, which was the only enemy that mattered to Hasso nowadays? “What’s the lord in Falticeni like?” he asked. “Can they find somebody to take over if we get our hands on him?”

“He’s a Grenye,” Nornat said. “He kind of pretends to be like a Lenello king, but it’s just pretend. The savages used to think their lords were gods, like. That was before they found out we knew about the real gods and we could work magic on account of it. Now the poor stupid bastards don’t know what the demon to think.” His snort held more scorn than sympathy.

Magic here was like gunpowder in America: it not only gave the invaders an edge, it gave them a big, scary edge. But the Grenye were closer to the Lenelli than the American Indians had been to the Spaniards. They knew how to work iron, and they had had plenty of real kingdoms of their own. If the Lenelli had guns as well as wizardry ... That thought had gone through Hasso’s mind before. But it was one for another time, another war. Bottero wouldn’t let him fool around with sulfur and saltpeter and charcoal now, or stand by while he tried to show local smiths how to make cannon that wouldn’t blow up.

Nornat hadn’t said anything about whether the Bucovinans could get along without their lord. That probably meant he didn’t know. If the Grenye had decided their kings weren’t gods after all, they had a better chance of doing without them.

I hope we get to find out, that’s all,
Hasso thought.

The Bucovinans hadn’t given up. They didn’t seem afraid of the Lenelli, either, even if they couldn’t fully match them. The raiding bands they sent out against Bottero’s army got bigger and bolder, and slowed the army’s advance. Several times, the king had to send reinforcements forward to keep his scouts from getting overwhelmed. And, in spite of all of Hasso’s magic, the rain got worse again. He waited for Bottero to scream at him. To his surprise, the king kept quiet. Velona explained why: “I reminded him how deep inside Bucovin we are. We can’t expect things like that to go our way here. We just have to win anyway.”

Maybe the Grenye didn’t think their rulers were gods any more. King Bottero had no doubt Velona was at least part goddess, and that what she said went. After some of the things Hasso had seen, he didn’t have many doubts along those lines, either.

And then the rain blew away. Hasso would have taken credit for it if he’d worked a spell any time recently. Since he hadn’t, he just accepted it along with the Lenelli. The weather stayed cool - it was November, after all, or something close to it - but it was crisp and sunny: the kind of weather that made having seasons worthwhile. It seemed as if he could see for a thousand kilometers. One of the things he could see was a smudge of smoke on the horizon ahead, a smudge big enough to mark a good-sized city or a really big camp. “Is that Falticeni?” he asked Velona, pointing.
Are we there
yet?

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. It looks like the Grenye are going to fight us again after all.”

“It sure does,” Hasso said.
It looks like they’re going to throw the whole goddamn world at us, too.
Velona looked at that differently. “We’ll beat them here, and they won’t be able to stop us again.” If the goddess said it, didn’t that make it true?

XIII

No matter what Velona - or maybe the goddess, speaking through her - said, the Bucovinans didn’t think they were bound to lose. King Bottero’s army found that out midway through the next morning, when they came upon their foes drawn up in line of battle ahead of them.

“They pick their ground well, anyhow,” Hasso said to Orosei. Trees protected both sides of the enemy line, and the field in front of them sloped upward toward their position. A few bushes and a lot of calf-high dead grass covered the field. Hasso didn’t think the Grenye could find enough cover there for ambushes.

“Even if they do, they aren’t very smart. It’s like I told you - look a little to the left of their center.” The master-at-arms didn’t point in that direction; he didn’t want to show the foe he’d spotted anything out of the ordinary. “See that, outlander? They’ve left a gap between a couple of knots of horsemen. It’s not a big gap, but - ”

“We can pour through there,” Hasso finished, excitement rising in him. Orosei nodded, a smug grin on his face. He’d spotted it, and Hasso damn well hadn’t. Fine, then: let him take the credit. Hasso said,

“We need to tell the king. The striking column goes in there.”

“Just what I was thinking,” Orosei agreed.

“They’re standing there waiting for us to hit them, aren’t they?”

“You bet they are,” the Lenello said. “Whenever they try to take the lead in a big battle, we clobber ‘em even worse than we do this way. They’ve figured that much out. I bet they’re just trying to slow us down, waiting for snow to make even more trouble for us.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Hasso said. Tactics like that didn’t surprise anybody who’d won the Frozen Meat Medal.

Hasso and Orosei rode over to Bottero. Hasso let the master-at-arms take the lead in showing the king the gap in the Bucovinan line. Orosei still didn’t point. King Bottero needed longer to spot the opening than Hasso had, which made the
Wehrmacht
officer feel good. When Bottero did, a predatory grin spread across his face. “They’re ours!” he cried. “The goddess has delivered them into our hands!”

He sounded like an Old Testament prophet. For a moment, that thought cheered Hasso. Then he frowned, wondering whether it should. After all, what were the Old Testament prophets but a bunch of damn Jews? Hasso hadn’t done anything to Jews himself, not directly. But he had no great use for them, and he’d made sure to look the other way when the SS cleaned them out of Polish and Russian villages. Like the priest and the Levite, he’d passed by on the other side of the road. Well, he didn’t have to worry about Jews here. Things were simple. There was his side, and there was the other side, and that was it.

The guys on the other side were feeling pretty cocky, too. Even if the Grenye stood on the defensive, they waved their weapons and yelled what had to be insults at the oncoming Lenelli. They wanted Bottero’s men to think they were plenty ready for a fight, anyway.

Orosei turned to the king again. “By your leave, your Majesty?” he murmured.

“Oh, yes,” Bottero said. “By all means.”

Leave for what?
Hasso wondered. He understood all the words, but still had no idea what was going on. He supposed he ought to be glad that didn’t happen to him more often here. Orosei didn’t leave him in the dark for long. The master-at-arms rode out into the open space between the two armies. He brandished his lance and shouted in the direction of the Bucovinans, challenging their champion to come out and meet him in single combat.

Hasso whistled softly. There was a grand madness to this. War in his own world had lost that personal touch; you seldom saw the men you fought. You didn’t want them to see you, either. If they did, they’d shoot you before you knew they were around. This was a different kind of warfare. It was personal. Would any of the Bucovinans dare to meet Orosei? If they were smart - from Hasso’s point of view they’d send out half a dozen guys at once and try to finish him off. Nothing degraded the idea of military honor like years on the Russian front.

But a single lancer rode out from the line waiting ahead. The natives cheered him like men possessed. He stopped a few meters out in front of them, turned in the saddle to wave, and then turned back and gave Orosei a formal salute. Damned if the master-at-arms didn’t return it. Then they spurred their horses straight at each other.

Riding downhill give the Bucovinan a little edge: he could go faster and build more momentum. If that bothered Orosei, he didn’t let on. He bent low over his horse’s neck, his lance aimed straight for his opponent’s short ribs. The other guy was aiming at his, too, but that didn’t faze him a bit. From what Hasso had seen, nothing that had to do with battle fazed Orosei.

Clang!
Both lances struck home. Both riders went off their horses and crashed to the ground. And both riders were up with swords drawn faster than their comrades could cheer and groan at the same time. As lancers, the two champions proved evenly matched. As swordsmen Orosei towered head and shoulders above his foe, who was good-sized for a Grenye but nothing much against a big Lenello. Orosei’s arm was longer, and so was his blade. If the Bucovinan turned out to be fast as a striking cobra, he might have a chance. Otherwise, Hasso guessed he was in over his head, literally and figuratively. And he was. He had no quit in him. He ran straight at Orosei, probably figuring his best chance was to get in close and see what he could do. Iron belled on iron as they hacked away at each other. Orosei had no trouble holding off the Bucovinan champion. They were both well armored, so getting through with wounds that mattered took a while. The one that did the Grenye in never got through his mailshirt. It didn’t matter. That stroke had to break ribs even through chainmail and padding. The Bucovinan staggered back and sagged to one knee.

He kept on trying to fight, though he must have known it was hopeless. Orosei approached him like a stalking tiger. The master-at-arms was a professional; he didn’t take anything for granted. Sure as hell, the Grenye jumped up for a last charge. With his side so battered, though, he couldn’t use the sword the way he wanted to. After a sharp exchange, it flew from his hand.

“Ha!” Orosei’s shout of triumph echoed over the field.

The Bucovinan went to both knees this time, and bowed his head. How much chivalry was there here?

Would Orosei send him back to his own side, especially since he couldn’t fight in the battle ahead? The Lenello’s sword rose, then fell with a flash of sunlight on the blade. Blood spouted. The body convulsed. Orosei picked up the head by the hair and turned to show it to the enemy. Still carrying his trophy, he went over to his horse, which was cropping dead grass not far away. The stink of blood made the beast snort and sidestep, but he grabbed the reins and swung up into the saddle. He rode back toward the Lenello line. Bottero’s men cheered wildly. The Bucovinans stood silent as the tomb.

“Toss me another lance, somebody,” Orosei called as he drew near. “Mine cracked when I hit this bastard.” He held up the head again.

“Use mine,” King Bottero said. “I’ll take another one. Now they’ve seen: victory will belong to us.”

“So may it be!” Velona shouted.

“So may it be!” the Lenelli echoed. If the embodiment of their goddess said so, they thought it had to be true.

Hasso peered up the slight slope toward the Bucovinan line. “I don’t see any striking column there,” he said to Nornat, who rode beside him at the head of the one King Bottero would hurl against his foes.

“Neither do I,” Nornat said. “They haven’t put one together yet, I guess. They copy things from us all the time, but they need a while to work out what to do with them and how they go. They aren’t real big, and they aren’t real bright.”

Bottero rode out in front of his army, not to challenge the enemy as Orosei had done but to harangue his own soldiers. “One more fight, boys!” he said. “One more fight, and then it’s on to Falticeni. Then
we
take over Bucovin, and all the other Lenello kings turn green with envy and die. And we all get rich, and we all get estates, and we all get lots of slaves, and we all get plenty of pretty Grenye women to screw!”

The soldiers cheered like maniacs. Hasso yelled along with everybody else. No German officer’s speech had ever been so direct. But this was what war was all about, wasn’t it? You killed the other guys and you took away what they had. Whether you talked about estates and slaves and women or about
Lebensraum,
it boiled down to the same thing.

“All right, then!” King Bottero yelled. “Let’s go get ‘em! The goddess is with us!”

“The goddess is with us!” the Lenelli shouted. Hasso looked over to Velona. She blew him a kiss. He sent one back to her.

Bottero waved to the trumpeters. They blared out the charge. The Lenelli - and Hasso - set spur to their horses. They thundered forward. The striking column aimed straight for the little gap Orosei had noted in the Bucovinan line. Break through there and they’d cut the enemy army in half. While Bottero heartened his men, some Bucovinan bigwig or another was doing the same with the small, swarthy natives. They’d shouted, too, but the lusty cheers of the Lenelli all but drowned them out. As Hasso galloped toward the Bucovinans’ battle line, he knew the same feeling of invincibility, of playing on the winning team, he’d felt in France in 1940 and in Russia in the summer of 1941. Once he’d been dead right to feel that way. Once...