Down to the Sea (15 page)

“So how is it with the general?” Togo asked, nodding toward Hawthorne’s tent.

“What do you mean?”

“With them bastards over there.” As he spoke he indicated the encampment of the Bantag, which filled the plains to the east.

“Nothing’s changed.”

“I heard rumor we’re to stay on for a while, keep an eye on them.”

Abe stiffened slightly, and Togo laughed.

“Don’t get upset, Lieutenant. It’s my job, in a way, to know what generals are thinking.”

“Well, you didn’t hear anything from me.”

“Relax, Lieutenant. You’re the model of a proper officer, you are.”

Abe wasn’t sure if Togo was being sarcastic or just having a little fun with him. He knew he was still too stiff and formal, typical of the academy with its spit and polish and every button buffed to a shine. Out here on the frontier it was a different world; of dirty blue and khaki, muddy water, and glaring heat.

“In the old days, they marked the time of dread,” Togo said, pointing at the twin moons. “Tomorrow they’ll be full, signaling the moon feast.”

Abe nodded. God, what a world his parents had known. He could hardly imagine the terror of it. Looking back to the east, he could see the early morning glow silhouetting the golden yurt of Jurak Qar Qarth.

It had been a subject in class more than once, the primal terror that the mere presence of a Horde rider engendered in all humans, and yet somehow he could almost feel a pity for them now in spite of all that his father, Hawthorne, and others had endured in the Great War. What was it like to lose, to see one’s greatness shattered, to live at the whim of another race? A generation ago they had bestrode the earth, riding where they pleased, living as their ancestors had for thousands of years.

In the negotiations of the last week he had sensed that and developed a begrudging respect for Jurak, wondering how his own father would react to the reality of what was happening out here.

He had seen the poverty of their camps, the thin bodies of their young, the scramble for food when the carcass of a mammoth was brought in, more than a little ripe after two days of hauling it from the place where it had been killed and butchered.

“My father, brothers, and sisters all died at their hands,” Togo announced, gaze fixed, like Abraham’s, on the yurt. Abe turned. “You never told me that.”

“No reason to talk about it.” He shrugged, taking another sip of tea.

“Do you hate them?”

Togo smiled. “Of course. Don’t you?”

“I’m not sure.”

Togo looked at him with surprise. “You, the son of Andrew Keane?”

“I don’t know at times. From all that I’ve heard, my father in battle became another person. But he always said that hatred makes you vulnerable. It clouds your judgment. It closes off being able to think as your opponent does and through that defeating him.

“I do know he hated the leader of the Merki, I think in part because of Hans Schuder. But those over there”—he pointed toward the yurts—“I can’t say.”

Abe sat down, stretching out his long legs. The ground was cool, and the wetness of the morning dew soaked through his wool trousers. The scent of sage wafted up around him, a pleasant smell, dry and pungent.

He looked around the encampment, a full regiment of cavalry, and he felt a chill of delight. He knew he was romanticizing, and yet he could not help it. The last of the fires had flickered down, wispy coils of smoke rising straight up in the still night air. Like spokes on a cartwheel, still forms lay around each of the fires, curled up asleep. At times one or two would sit up, then settle back down for a few final moments of rest.

He caught a glimpse of a sentry, riding picket, slowly circling the encampment, whispering a song, a lovely tune popular with the Celts, who so eagerly volunteered for service with the cavalry.

A few night birds sang, and the first of the morning birds were stirring as well, strange chirping and warbling calls. A shadowy ghost drifted past, an owl swooping into a stand of grass, then rising back up, carrying off its struggling prey.

“That’s the steppes,” Togo said, “beautiful but deadly. It’s where I grew up. My uncle settled a thousand or more square miles abandoned during the wars. It’s part of the land that the general was talking about with them yesterday.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

Togo plucked up a stem of grass and slowly twirled it into a knot.

“It is always that way, Lieutenant. It is about power and survival. The world is not big enough for us all. One side or the other must give way. Their mistake was, they didn’t realize that by enslaving us, they had sown the seeds of their doom. They should have slain our ancestors on the spot the moment any of us came through the Portals. If they had, they would have owned this world forever and could live on it as they pleased.”

“But they didn’t.”

“And so now they will lose all. And frankly, I hope they all go to the devil, where they belong.”

“General Hawthorne says that we must find a way to settle this without fighting.”

“If you doubt me, go to that yurt that looks so exotic, and listen to what is being said within. Then you will no longer doubt.”

They know something is happening, Jurak Qar Qarth thought, staring into his golden chalice of kumiss, which had been stirred with fresh blood.

His gaze swept the yurt, which had been his home now for more than twenty passings of the year. Strange, it was hard to remember anything else, of a world of homes that did not move, of cities, gleaming cities, books, quiet places, sweet scents, and peace.

Like the Yankees, I am a stranger here, but unlike them, I knew of wars in which entire cities burned from the flash of a single bomb, of fleets of planes darkening the sky, of ten thousand armored landships advancing into battles that covered a front of a hundred leagues. No, they do not know war as I know, as I could dream of it here if I but had the means.

And that, he knew, was how this world had changed him. When he had come here he’d felt almost a sense of relief of having escaped alive from the War of the False Pretender, a war that was annihilating his world, turning it into radioactive ruin. At first, when his companion had seized the Qar Qarth’s throne of this primitive tribe, he had stood to one side, observing, almost detached from it all as if he were a student sent to watch.

All that had changed, however, when it was evident that the new Qar Qarth had gone mad with his power and was leading the Bantag to doom. Plus, if he had not acted decisively, these primitives would have killed him as well.

He had accepted peace to save them, and for a while he had even harbored a dream that somehow he could find a way to preserve them. He knew now that was folly.

He looked over at his son, asleep in a side alcove of the yurt, and his chosen companion of the moment curled up by his side.

My son is of them now, and I am but a stranger in this terrible land. My son dreams of glory, of the ride, of the return to what was.

He looked down at the goblet, the foaming drink stained pink, and took another sip.

And I have become like them as well, he realized. I have learned to hunt, the joy of the ride, even though the land is now limited, to listen to the chant singers, to gaze at the stars and tell tales of what lay beyond the stars while the fire crackled, the scent of roasted meat filling the air. And I have learned to eat of the flesh of cattle.

If Hawthorne but knew of that, what would be the reaction? Their meal tonight, a lone prisoner snatched in a border skirmish, had been led in and sacrificed even though the true moon feast was not until tomorrow, but such niceties were no longer observed.

They had slowly roasted the limbs while he was still alive, his mouth gagged so that his cries might not carry to the Yankees encamped nearby. Then the shamans had cracked the skull open, poured in the sacred oil, and roasted the brains while the victim still breathed, listening to his final strange utterances for signs from the gods and ancestors. The blood had been drawn off to flavor the drinks of the Qars and the Qar Qarth, a now precious brew that not so long ago even the youngest of cubs had savored.

“The night is passing, Qar Qarth Jurak.”

An envoy stood at the entryway to the yurt, the first glow of sunrise behind him. The guards of the Qar Qarth flanked him, ready to allow admittance, or, if ordered, instant death for any who dared to disturb him.

He motioned for Velamak of the Kazan to enter.

The envoy offered the ceremonial bow to the purifying fires glowing in their braziers to either side of the entryway and came forward, again inclining his head as he approached.

“Stop the bowing and take a drink,” Jurak said, beckoning to the half empty bowl.

The envoy picked up a goblet, poured a drink, and sat down on a cushion across from the Qar Qarth. Then he raised the cup in salute, following the ritual of dipping a finger in and flicking droplets to the four winds and the earth.

“You’ve learned our customs well, Velamak,” Jurak said.

“As an envoy such things are important”—he smiled knowingly—“in the same way you had to learn when first you came here.”

Jurak stirred, not sure if there was some sort of hidden meaning here, but then let it pass.

“I am curious,” Velamak continued, “about your world.”

“Yes?”

“The fire weapon.”

“Atomics.”

“Yes, that.”

Jurak smiled. “And you want to know its secret.”

“Think what you could do with such a thing.”

“What we could do, or should I say, what the Kazan could do,” Jurak replied, his voice cool.

“We do have some skills.”

“That my people do not.”

Velamak shifted, taking another sip, his gaze drifting to where Garva and his consort slept. “You must admit that when it comes to machines, your people are limited, whereas mine are not.”

“I think, Velamak, that even for you such a weapon is beyond all of us,” he hesitated for a moment, “and I pray it always shall be.”

“Even if our race is finally annihilated by the Yankees?” Jurak barked a laugh and sipped his drink. Before him was perhaps the answer to all his bitter prayers. Or was it a curse? he asked himself, remembering the old saying to never beg too hard of the gods, or they just might grant you your wish.

Here was an envoy of the Kazan Empire, a realm across the Great Ocean that dwarfed anything imagined by the Horde riders or their human opponents. Here lay the true balance of power to this world.

Here was the possible redemption of his people, a path to survival. Up until the meeting with Hawthorne he had harbored a thought that perhaps there was another way, to move north, and by so doing avoid completely what was coming. If there was to be war between the unsuspecting humans and the Kazan, let it come.

Surprisingly, he did trust Hawthorne and his word. Twenty years of dealing with him had taught him that. Hawthorne believed in honor, even to a hated foe. He was haunted as well by a guilt that made him easier to maneuver. Yes, Hawthorne would go back to their Senate, would plead his case. There would be arguing, the Chin would cry yet again for final vengeance, the Nippon would refuse, and six months from now, when the grass of the steppes was brown, he’d return with a vague promise that he would try again next year.

Equally evident was what Velamak was offering.

“This half-life of radiation that you mentioned in our last conversation, what is it?”

Jurak smiled. “The rate of radioactive decay. Do you understand what I speak of?”

Velamak smiled and shook his head. “Perhaps those of my people who study such things do. Remember, I am just a messenger of the emperor.”

“And a priest of your order,” Jurak added.

Velamak said nothing.

“Tell your people they need to achieve a fissionable mass through a controlled and uniform implosion.”

He smiled as he spoke, knowing that the words were meaningless to the envoy but would be faithfully reported. Perhaps someone back in their capital would vaguely grasp the concept, but to make it a reality, would take far more than a nation that still used steam power to propel its ships and weapons.

“Achieve that, and you can bum a city, a hundred thousand die in an instant, a hundred thousand more die later from poisoning of the air. And no one can return to that place until the half-life of the fissionable material has resulted in a drop below fatal levels of radiation. Does that explain it?”

Velamak gave him a cagey smile. “You talk in riddles.”

“Not on my old world. Every student learned it. The question was how to make it. We were in the eighteenth year of the war of the Pretender before it was achieved by the False One’s side. A spy stole the secret and gave it to our side. On the day I left my world, eleven years later, more than five hundred such weapons had been made and exploded. Entire continents were wastelands. I got dosed at the Battle of Alamaka.”

He rolled his sleeve to show a bum scar on his arm where the hair did not grow.

“The warriors to either side of me were looking in the direction of the blast and were struck blind.”

“A weapon that blinds, how fascinating.”

“Not if you were there,” Jurak whispered.

He remembered the way his tent companions had thrashed in their trench, eyes scorched to bloody pulps, while the blast and shock wave thundered over them. He recalled the terror of wondering if he had been fatally dosed. He had been ordered to shoot his blinded companions, since they would be a burden if allowed to live.

Jurak sighed and took another drink. “I suspect someday I’ll find a lump or start coughing up blood and it will kill me at last.”

“I suspect that even if you did know how to make this thing, you would keep it hidden from us.”

Jurak smiled. “You can be certain of it.”

“Even at the cost of the people you now lead?”

“Believe me, Velamak, everyone dies in the end from it. Stick to the weapons you already know.”

“Yet part of the reason I was sent here was to gain information so that we might have weapons to defeat the Yankees when the time came.”

“And what time is that?”