Down to the Sea (11 page)

“Abraham, you can carry my guidon.”

Vincent looked over at his bugler.

“Ruffles and flourishes, Sergeant.”

The high piercing call sent a chill down his spine. Looking up at the line of Bantags, he half wished it was the call for charge instead. He smiled inwardly. Old memories, old hatreds, and passions, die hard. He had been seasoned by war, bitterly scarred by it, and yet after all these years the dark coiled longing for it lingered in his soul.

The words of Robert E. Lee whispered to him: “It is good war is so terrible, else we would grow too fond of it.” The deep, throaty rumble of a narga, the Horde battle trumpet, echoed back in reply. He saw two figures separate from the Bantag line, a rider followed by a standard bearer.

With a gentle nudge he urged his mount to a canter and started up the hill to meet Jurak, Qar Qarth of the vanquished Horde of the Bantag.

Qar Qarth Jurak reined in for a moment, his gaze sweeping across the steppes, focusing on the antlike column deploying across the streambed below. They glanced at the flyer circling overhead.

“Damn them,” he whispered softly.

“My Qarth?”

He looked over at his son, who today was serving as his aide, and smiled. “Nothing, Garva. Just remember, stay silent and observe.”

The lad nodded eagerly, and Jurak felt a stab inside. The boy’s mother had died during the winter of the breathing sickness, which had swept through the impovished camps, killing thousands. He had her eyes, the set of her jaw, the proud visage, and to look at him triggered memories that were still too painful to recall.

“Is that their Qarth?” Garva asked, nodding toward the two that were approaching.

“General of their armies, Vincent Hawthorne.”

“He is tiny. How can that be a general?”

“He’s one of their best. Remember, he defeated us. Never judge an enemy by physical strength. Always consider the mind. Now, be silent.”

Over a year passed since he had last seen Hawthorne. Hawthorne’s hair was showing wisps of gray, and by the way he rode it was obvious that he was in pain. He looked even smaller on his diminutive mount. The humans had been breeding their mounts for a size that fit them better. Their horses now looked almost toylike.

Vincent reined in a dozen feet away, stiffened, and formally saluted. “Qar Qarth Jurak, you are well?”

His command of the language was good. It was obvious he had been studying.

“I am well, General Hawthorne, and you?”

Vincent smiled. “A reminder of the old days troubles me.” He absently patted his hip. “I heard the sad news of your mate’s passing and bring the regrets of Colonel Keane.”

“Thousands died,” Jurak replied. “Some see it as a sign of the displeasure of the ancestors.”

Vincent nodded. He stiffly swung his leg over the saddle and dismounted. It was an interesting gesture, Jurak thought, for the first to dismount was acknowledging subservience, and he wondered if Vincent knew that.

There was a slight grunt of amusement from Garva, but a quick glance stilled him.

Jurak dismounted as well and came forward. For an awkward moment, the two gazed at each other, the small general of the humans, who were the victors in the Great War, the towering Qar Qarth of the Bantag Horde looking down. He let the moment draw out. Humans tended to be frightened when a Horde rider stood close, and they were forced to gaze up at dark, impenetrable eyes. Hawthorne did not flinch. His gaze was steady, and a flicker of a smile creased his mouth.

He finally broke the silence. “We can stand here all day and play this game, Jurak, or we can sit down and talk like two civilized leaders.”

Jurak laughed softly and looked back at his son. “Something to eat and drink, Garva.”

Without ceremony, Jurak sat down on the hard ground.

The scent of crushed sage washed up around him, a pleasant smell: crisp, warm, ladened with memories.

Hawthorne’s aide dismounted as well, unclipping a folding camp chair from behind Vincent’s saddle and bringing it up.

“Hope you don’t mind that I use a chair,” Vincent asked. “At least then we can see eye to eye, and it’s a bit easier on me.”

Jurak nodded, realizing that Vincent was aware of the implications of sitting higher in the presence of the Qar Qarth.

Garva brought forward a jar filled with kumiss and two earthen mugs. Pouring the drinks, he handed them over. Jurak dipped his finger into the mug and flicked droplets to the four winds and then to the earth before drinking.

As he did so, his gaze fell on Vincent’s aide. The boy was watching him, fascinated. There was something vaguely familiar to Jurak.

“Jurak, may I introduce Lieutenant Abraham Keane, who is serving as my adjutant.”

“Your sire, then, is Andrew Keane?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You come from good blood. How is your father?”

“Well, sir. He asked that I convey to you his personal respects, and his regrets as well for the passing of your mate.”

Jurak nodded his thanks. “We both know pain, your sire and I. You are his only surviving son, are you not?”

“Yes, Qar Qarth Jurak.”

“Interesting that he became your—how do you call it— your president yet again. Does he enjoy such power?”

“No, sir. It was never his desire to hold that rank.”

Jurak smiled. “All of ability desire power.”

“And I assume your aide is your son?” Vincent interrupted.

Garva stiffened, and then formally nodded with head slightly bowed.

Jurak, caught by surprise, said nothing.

“I could see your blood in him. Tell me, do you desire power, son of the Qar Qarth?”

“Of course,” Garva replied stiffly. “When my sire goes to our ancestors, I shall rule as he did.”

“And how shall that be?” Vincent asked. “How shall you rule?”

Jurak looked over at his son, eyes filled with warning “Justly,” Garva replied coolly.

“Yes, your father has been just.”

“To whom?” Jurak asked. “Just to your people or to mine?”

“There has been no war for twenty years. I think that is a worthy accomplishment.”

“No war. Define war, Vincent Hawthorne.”

“I don’t need to do that for you. We both know what it is.”

“Let us get, as you humans say, ‘down to business.’ ” Vincent nodded.

“I received your listing of complaints—the incident at Tamira’s Bridge, the refusal of passage to the Nippon settlers, the supposed raids, the disappearance of two flyers, the rumors of raids to take prisoners for the moon feast, and all the other allegations.”

“You may call them allegations. I attended the funeral of the thirty-two men killed at Tamira, and their dead bodies were not allegation but fact. As to the incident where a dozen Chin settlers disappeared, by God, if they were sacrificed, I will have one hell of a problem restraining Congress from ordering a punitive expedition. Remember, the Chin are the single largest voting block, and they are screaming bloody murder over this rumor.”

“Fifty-three of my riders died at Tamira,” Jurak replied, choosing to ignore the issue of the Chin, “and the question is who shot first. We both have our own answers to that.”

“It could have sparked a war.”

“And you have yet to define war to me, Hawthorne. Remember, I am not of this world. I came here from another place, as did you. I was educated on a world where there are things you cannot imagine or dream of.”

Vincent stiffened slightly. “Such as weapons you might dream of?”

“Perhaps, yes. And in my education, I studied the writings of Ju ta Vina, who stated, ‘War is the eternal process, and peace is but the preparation for the renewal of conflict.’ ”

“Do you believe that?”

“You do, otherwise you would not be here, in uniform, in command of the tens of thousands of troops that ring us in on what you call the Bantag Range and which many of my people define as nothing more than a prison.”

“What, then, was the alternative?” Vincent asked sharply. “My God, we could have slaughtered you after the Chin rebelled. Remember, it was Hans that offered the compromise and saved your life as well.”

Jurak lowered his head. “I owe him blood debt,” he acknowledged, “and yes, you could have slaughtered us.”

“We are drifting onto dangerous ground here,” Vincent interjected. “Refighting the past is meaningless.”

“Yet history is the foundation of the future.”

Vincent said nothing, taking a sip of kumiss, then setting the cup down.

“The reason for this meeting is that we are dying here. The herds of the great hairy giants are all but gone after twenty years of hunting. In a few more years what food we can gather will be gone forever. More and more of our horse herds are being devoured. Riders who once owned a dozen mounts now rarely have more than two or three. We once ranged around the entire world. Now we are confined to but one small corner of it, and the land is used up.”

“We survive on less land with far more people.”

“You are farmers, and you have the machines that you have denied us the right to make or to own.” As he spoke he nodded to the flyer, which continued to circle overhead. “Then be farmers.”

Garva barked a defiant laugh, and Jurak did not look back. “Go suggest that to my warriors up there,” Jurak replied sharply, pointing at the regiment deployed on the ridge behind them. “See how long you or I would live. The Ancestors would scoff at us, would be ashamed and deny any who did thus the right to join them on the Everlasting Ride through eternity.”

“You are not of this world. Do you honestly believe that?” Jurak stiffened, knowing that his son was standing but half a dozen feet away, hearing everything.

“Of course,” he said hurriedly, “but what I believe does not matter. It is what my people believe that is important. I convinced them to give up the ride, for it was either that or the war continued. I convinced them to forswear the moon feast, to become hunters of other creatures instead.”

Vincent’s gaze went icy.

“I mean no offense, Hawthorne, but remember, that is how you were viewed.”

“I know, and that is why I wonder what it is you and your warriors are now truly thinking.”

“You must acknowledge that the way it now is cannot last. Do you honestly expect my people to quietly sit on this empty land and starve to death? The lung sickness of last winter was but the start. They will grow weaker, ask your doctors of it. It is called malnutrition, and as they grow weaker they will become susceptible to a whole host of diseases.

“You have your medicines, inoculations, a wealth of food. We do not.”

“Then make them.”

Jurak laughed. “How? Where in the name of the Gods do I start? Build a school? Who will teach? What will we teach? I am but one from another world. You Yankees had hundreds of minds to start with. To do what you suggest will take a hundred years, which I don’t have. I am worried about what will happen when winter comes again.”

“So what are you asking for?”

“To leave this place, to resume the ride.”

Vincent shook his head. “You can’t ride west. The Chin will never stand for it. You mix your people in with mine, and there will be a slaughter on both sides, and we both know it. If you go east, Congress will never accept that. There are people there. They are not yet part of the Republic, but soon will be. It is their land, and we are sworn to protect it.”

“So, you are telling me that we are stuck here.” Hawthorne looked down at the ground, absently kicking an anthill with the toe of his boot.

“The Merki are all but dead. They tried to continue on. Wherever they went, there was rebellion and slaughter, hundreds of thousands of humans, and riders have died far to the west across the last twenty years. The Tugars have settled into the great forest and are surviving.”

“Surviving?”

There was a snort of disdain from Garva, and again Jurak let the youth have his way. The humans fully understood that the Tugars were held in contempt for their betrayal of the Merki at the Battle of Hispania. If ever the two Hordes should meet, no matter what the humans threatened, there would be a war of vengeance.

“We are two aging warriors,” Vincent said, his gaze again fixed on Jurak. “We can speak bluntly. I am ordered by Congress and by the president of the Republic to inform you that the boundaries of your lands are permanently fixed by the treaty that you yourself signed. Any attempt to move beyond them will be construed as an act of war, and we both know what that would mean.”

“You will slaughter us,” Jurak replied, his voice cold. “If I had a thousand of those things”—he pointed at the flyer circling overhead—“not those primitive machines but the kind I knew on my world, you would not speak so lightly of war. You do so now because you know that with your land ironclads, your trains, and your flyers, it would not be war, it would be extermination.”

Vincent nodded. “I speak to you now as someone who has come to respect you. I came to this world a stranger. At first I hated your race and everything associated with it. I killed as you did.”

“Yes, I know. You are a legend, Vincent Hawthorne, when it comes to killing.”

Vincent was silent for a moment, features gone pale as if a dark dream had seized him. He lowered his head, the slightest of tremors flickering across his face.

“Yes, I killed on a level that even the oldest of your warriors would admire. I don’t want any more of it. Fighting in the field as we once did, line facing line, there was at least some honor to that butchery. This is different. How long could your warriors stand against our land ironclads, our gatlings, the firebombs dropping from our flyers?”

“You made sure in the treaty that we could not. Remember, we are denied the ability to make such weapons.”

“What the hell else were we supposed to do? If the roles were reversed, I daresay you would have not been so generous. It would have been all of us to the slaughter pits.”

As he spoke his face turned red, anger rising to the surface. “Yes,” Jurak replied quietly. “My people would have demanded such a thing, for both of us realize a fundamental point now. Only one race will survive on this world.”

“Sir, it does not have to be that way.”