Battle Hymn (17 page)

Karga stood by the open door, his hands resting on his hips, as his human scribe read off a production report. Finished, the scribe stood with head bowed, waiting nervously. Karga barked out a command and the scribe scurried away. Hans too started to turn away.

"Come here!"

Hans saw Karga coming toward him. He lowered his head and waited.

"You are to go outside the gate."

Surprised, Hans looked up.

Karga extended his hand. He was holding a medallion of pure gold dangling from a heavy rope chain of silver. It was a summons from the Qar Qarth. Any who wore the medallion, human or Bantag, were safe from molestation whether they were called from the next yurt or half a world away.

"Appear outside the gate. A guide is waiting."

Don't think … his mind was all but screaming the thought … don't think about it.

Bowing low, he backed away from Karga. He knew the overseer was curious, wondering why Hans was being summoned. He might fear that Hans would reveal something that he, Karga, would prefer to keep hidden.

"We will speak when you return," Karga growled as Hans turned away. The threat was clear. Say the wrong thing and someone will pay, perhaps someone dear.

Hans walked along the outside of the building, looking at the flatcars and locomotive out of the corner of his eye. It was strictly forbidden for any human, other than those few cattle who worked the trains, to examine any of the equipment. To dare to set foot on one was punishable by instant death. He walked slowly, trying to take in details. The engine had a curiously alien look to it—heavy, overbuilt, lacking the graceful lines engineered in Ferguson's designs. There was not a single item of ornamentation on it, except for horsetail standards mounted to either side of the cowcatcher and a rack of polished human skulls arrayed across the front. Alexi was standing in the engine cab. Hans gave him a subtle nod and moved on.

He approached the entry gate, slowed, and extended his arms wide, holding up the Imperial summons. A Bantag guard casually swung his rifle around, pointing it at Hans, and motioned for him to step forward. A second guard wordlessly snatched the summons from Hans's grasp and examined it, a look of surprise crossing his features. He finally nodded to a guard in the watchtower next to the gate, and the guard unsnapped a heavy stone counterweight, which swung the gate open. It was a simple device, Hans realized, but quite cunning. If there was a disturbance, the guard merely had to cut the rope holding the counterweight and the gate was thus held firmly in place. A dozen men could not hope to raise it. The same device was used on the gate for the train. Given the short length of track inside the compound, it was impossible to build up sufficient speed to crash the locomotive through.

For the first time in months, Hans stepped through the gate, passing beyond the heavy log walls that surrounded the compound. It was an amazing feeling, and for the briefest of moments he felt free. It seemed as if a different sun shone on this side of the wall—cleaner, brighter. He moved as slowly as he dared, limping slightly from the wound he had picked up at Cold Harbor, which had been made worse by the round of canister that cut into nearly the same spot at the Potomac. To his right, the food warehouse by the rail siding was a bustle of activity, a labor crew working to unload bags of rice. Lin stood to one side, sheaf of paper in hand, meticulously checking off each bag. If the count should be off by even one, the Bantag would assume that a theft had occurred. Punishment could range from withholding rations for a day to execution. Lin was extremely careful in his count … yet his attention to detail had not spared his wife and child. Hans could see the drawn features. His quiet sobs had echoed in the barracks the entire night.

A human dressed in the scarlet livery of the Qar Qarth was waiting, and to Hans's delight the messenger was mounted and holding the bridle to a second horse.

"You're late." The man spoke in the language of the Horde, his tone nervous.

"I just received the summons," Hans announced as he swung into the saddle. He saw Lin looking at him and he gave a subdued wave, trying to indicate there was nothing to fear. Following the lead of the messenger, Hans nudged his mount into a slow canter.

"Do you know why I've been summoned?"

The messenger looked at him with haughty disdain.

Hans smiled. "Look, cattle. You might report every word we say. Hell, I might report every word you say. We might even lie about what was said. I just asked a simple question."

"The Qar Qarth wishes to speak with you."

"About what?"

The messenger looked away.

Hans shook his head. "You know, we're the same race, the same side, and look at you. You're terrified of me, afraid that with one wrong word on your part, your precious position will be lost."

He spat the words out, while the messenger rode on in silence. Curbing his anger, he realized that an opportunity was being lost, and he diverted his attention to the sights around him. The rail yard was to his right as they rode northward away from the factory. Half a dozen trains were parked, several with boilers lit. He saw a dozen flatcars loaded with breech-loading artillery. The muzzles of several of the guns were powder-stained, as if they had been recently fired, and one of the caissons was scored from shrapnel. Curious. They'd obviously been in a fight recently. Where?

He tried to examine the details, troubled by the fact that the Bantag were now turning out such weapons. The Rebs had some during the war, and he knew Ferguson had developed plans for breechloaders. Were they making them yet? A new sight caught his eye … an armored train with an iron-sheathed car forward of the engine, an artillery barrel protruding from the forward gun port. The engine, as well as the two cars behind it, were covered in iron.

What caught his attention next were two trains, each with two flatcars. The cargo was covered with heavy tarpaulins. His damned escort was leading him away, but he desperately wanted to swing by for a closer look. Something about the bulk and shape was troubling. There seemed to be the glint of an artillery barrel poking out from one of the tarps. Bantag guards were posted around each of the trains, and even from a hundred yards away he knew they were watching him, poised to move if he should deviate from his path or even slow down for a second.

What the hell were they? Half a year back, some of the crews from the steam engine works had been taken away, never to return. There were rumors of a new factory on the far side of the Bantag camps, built in a narrow valley from which no human, once sent there, ever emerged.

His escort was gazing straight ahead. He wanted to ask but knew it was useless.

"Damn it," Hans snarled, "don't you have anything to say?"

"If you want to live, don't ask," he whispered. "Don't even think about it, especially around him."

As they crested a small hill, Hans looked back over his shoulder. The nightmare factory filled the low ground below, dark smoke belching from its chimneys. The hills beyond were scarred by the open-pit mining for iron ore, thousands of antlike figures moving in endless procession up and down the slopes. The sight of such mass labor back in Suzdal had always filled him with hope. There was the feeling in the air that what he was looking at was free men laboring to maintain that precious freedom. Here it was the endless torment of hell. His gaze swept down the valley to the west, following the train track as it dropped down into the steppes beyond. Three hundred fifty miles to freedom, he thought wistfully.

"Schuder!"

Startled, Hans turned. It was Ha'ark, sitting alone, waiting for him.

Clear your thoughts, the escort had warned him, clear your thoughts! Hans bowed low from the saddle, struggling to purge all that he had been thinking of. As he looked back up, he saw Ha'ark's gaze boring into him.

Ha'ark nodded to the escort and the man withdrew, his eyes piercing Hans as if he did not even exist.

"I wanted to speak with you, Schuder. It has been long since we last talked."

"I am at your command," Hans replied quietly.

"You sound obedient, Schuder," Ha'ark chuckled softly. "Is that because you are broken or is it because you are hiding something else behind your groveling words?"

"I want to live," Hans said, his tone flat.

"You were thinking about what lies up that rail track, were you not?"

"Yes." He knew there was no sense in denying it.

"You were considering just how far it was to freedom."

Hans nodded, saying nothing, engaged in the effort of forcing away any thought that might be dangerous.

"Which means you are not broken, not reconciled to your fate."

"Would you ever be broken, reconciled to captivity, to working, to helping your enemies?"

Ha'ark laughed. "I would not be captured."

"I once thought the same thing. It's hard to effect that, though, when you're knocked unconscious and wake up in chains."

"You divert the intention of what I wish to speak of," Ha'ark snapped. "If you are not reconciled, then that means you might still be dangerous to me."

"If you go and look at the factory I helped to create," Hans said, a bitter irony creeping into his voice, "you will see nearly two hundred tons of iron a day being poured. Steam engines are being produced, cars for your trains, the trip-hammers for rail, it is as you order. The state of our minds, whether we love you or hate you, cannot alter that fact."

"But it can still make you dangerous."

Don't think …

"There are rumors that you are planning a revolution, or perhaps an escape."

"Absurd," Hans replied calmly, looking straight into Ha'ark's eyes. "Escape how? And to where? And as for a revolution? You have a full umen guarding us, armed with rifles and artillery. What would we fight with? Our fists?"

Ha'ark nodded. "Still, it has been suggested that we separate you. Your women, your children should be moved to another camp. There they will act as assurance of your continued loyalty."

Hans remained silent for a long moment. Almost casually, he pulled out his plug of tobacco and bit off a chew. As had become a habit, he offered the plug to Ha'ark, and the Qar Qarth took what was left.

"Order that, and we will commit suicide," Hans finally replied.

"An empty threat. Go ahead. We can now replace you with others who have been trained."

"If you don't need us, and if you have come to fear us in some way, then why not kill us all? Is it because you still need us?"

Ha'ark smiled. "Yes, we can still use you."

"All we have left is the ones we love. It is the threat of harm to them that keeps us to our tasks."

"Such as yourself."

Hans nodded. "Separate us and there is nothing left to live for in this world. If you do this thing, I can assure you we will die. Then go ahead and replace us, but I can promise you as well that your iron production will be cut in half for weeks, perhaps months."

"Then this rumor."

"Who told you that? Or are you just guessing?"

"It doesn't matter who. I just thought to ask."

Hans leaned over and spat on the ground, Ha'ark following suit.

"You know something, human. I think on another world, in a different world, you and I might have been friends. I admire your courage. There is not another human on this world who would dare to address me as you do. To a point, I like that."

Hans was silent, struggling to keep his thoughts clear, not to let his guard down in this ostensible moment of friendship.

"Are all your soldiers such as you?"

"Most. Our army is made up of free men. When a man is free and must defend that freedom with his life, it does something to him. He learns to control his fear, he knows the sacrifice will be worth it. That, like it or not, he's the one that's been called and it's his duty."

"Your Keane. I suspect he learned that from you."

"It was already there. All I taught him was how to lead in battle and the tactics of fighting. The character was there before I ever met him."

"Yet you made him tougher."

Hans smiled. "When you go against him, you'll see just how tough he can be. If you want another opinion, ask any Merki."

Ha'ark laughed and shook his head. "I heard about the council that was held between the Merki Qar Qarth and Tartang, the Qarth of the Bantag, before the start of the war."

"The one you murdered?"

Ha'ark leaned over, fixing Hans with his gaze.

"He was a fool. He should have offered alliance with the Merki and not tried to use the war to his own advantage, thinking of stealing some cattle and horses while the Merki sacrificed themselves for our race. If it had not been for him, the issue would have already been decided."

"And I would not be here now," Hans said.

Ha'ark nodded. "Human, though I might find something in you that I like when we speak alone, know that we are mortal enemies. That is as fixed as the stars overhead. You saw what is beginning here.

The type of war you unleashed upon this world can have but one conclusion. Either you shall outproduce us and win or we shall outproduce you and win. That is the harshest lesson my people still must learn. In the end, valor is nothing. Whoever has the heavier armor shielding, the heavier artillery, the swifter airships—that is the race that will win."

"Courage still counts," Hans said quietly. "Always has, always will."

"What is courage against a bullet? This new age upon this world is still young. The places where these new weapons are made are everything in the balance of victory here, and two thousand miles away in your Rus and Roum. One sharp campaign that destroys the ability of the other to produce new weapons, and the balance will forever be on the side of the victor. You can run no further than the end of your rails. The Merki didn't quite grasp that. I have studied the story of your retreat from Suzdal to Hispania. Masterful, but fragile. All based upon one rail line."

Hans nodded, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

"You are guarded around me today, Schuder."

"Why shouldn't I be? You are discussing the annihilation of my people."