Men of War (27 page)

He turned, looking down at the docks. If it was possible to pity the Bantag, he did so at this moment. No longer were they the feared masters. Some still fought, several dozen of them forming a square, bayonets poised outward. Most were simply being swarmed under. He saw one rising up into the air, held aloft by a dozen Chin, kicking feebly while the mob tore at him, beating him with clubs, slashing with knives; one, holding a Bantag rifle, plunged the bayonet in the warrior’s side, pulled it out, then plunged it in again.

The flames continued to sweep along the docks, jumping from ship to ship, feeding hungrily on canvas sails, tarred ropes and decks, stores of kerosene, crates of ammunition.

He leaned against the walls of the city, resting for a moment to catch his breath.

“Hans, you all right?”

It was Ketswana, obviously delighted with the slaughter, carbine slung over his shoulder, sword still in his hands and dripping with blood and matted hair.

He nodded. It was too damned hot, made worse by the fires and the press of the mob.

A flyer streaked overhead, skimming down the river, forward gunner firing at a lone junk that had managed to push off from the dock. Water foamed around the ship, tracer rounds walking onto the deck, dropping the Bantag crew, sails sparking into flames, a wild hysterical cheer rising from the thousands of Chin along the riverfront.

Hans watched it soar past, the thought forming, wishing he was on it, above all of this madness, blood, and chaos where he could still his pounding heart and breathe cool air.

“Easy, so damned easy!” Ketswana exalted.

“Not yet, damn it,” Hans snapped, refocusing his attention.

“First. Detail off some of our Chin sergeants. Get the people down there on the docks organized and put out those fires. We want those ships and the supplies on board.”

Ketswana looked at him.

“This is no longer a raid; we’re going to hold this place.”

His companion broke into a grin. He pointed to the south end of the dock, where he had first spotted two land ironclads. The ship was still there, fire licking along its bow.

“I want those ironclads saved. We can use them. Next, detail off a company, get into the city, find out if there are any pockets of resistance. Try and find the human chieftain or ruler in there. I’m heading back to the airfield; we’ve got to organize the flyers, and find out if anything’s coming at us from outside the city.”

He broke away from the press around the gate, motioning for his guidon bearer and bugler to follow. Moving back along the wall, he was horrified by the extent of the slaughter left in their wake. He had seen far too many a battlefield, but there was nothing worse than the wake of a bloody murderous riot. The dead were not simply shot, they were torn apart, humans and Bantags locked in deadly embrace, hands about each other’s throats, clawing at each other’s eyes; blood, brains, looping entrails covered the embankment. Hundreds of Chin wandered about aimlessly, many of them seriously injured, but still capable of falling on a Bantag if they saw the slightest sign of life.

He reached the northwest corner of the wall. The airfield was again in view. Burning airships littered the ground, patches of dried grass burning as well, thick white smoke swirling up. He could hear a scattering of shots in the distance. He caught a glimpse of the ironclad boat sheds; the buildings were in flames. He moved slowly, winded from the battle, reaching the shed which must have been the headquarters for the airfield. Jack was out front shouting orders and threw his hands wide in exasperation at Hans’s approach.

“Damn all! Where the hell have you been?”

“Fighting a battle.”

“It’s your job to stay in one damn place and give orders. I’m not a ground commander, and that’s what you’ve got me doing here.”

Hans smiled at Jack’s exasperation.

“One of my men who just landed said he flew several miles to the northeast. Do you know there must be several regiments of Bantag camped up there, and they’re already forming up?”

“We had to expect that,” Hans said, forcing himself to conceal his surprise.

“We did our job here, Hans. Let’s get the hell out while we can.”

“How many airships left?”

Jack looked around at the packed confusion of the airfield.

“We lost nine coming in, at least I think that’s the count. Another half dozen got lost or turned back. We’re down to twenty-five, with just barely enough fuel to get home. Let’s off-load the weapons, hand them out to the Chin, so I can get our airships out of here.”

Hans shook his head.

“The air fleet stays here.”

“What?”

“Just what I said. Pick out one ship with a good crew that won’t get lost, and send them back to Tyre with word that we’re in. I’ll write out the message before they leave.” Jack drew closer.

“Hans, you know and I know that wasn’t the plan I agreed to fly. This was a raid to smash up Xi’an and, hopefully, trigger a revolt to tie Jurak down and cut his supplies. If you and your men were going to stay, I was to turn my fleet around and get back to Tyre. We’ve done that. I want my airships out of here now.”

Both ducked as a bullet whined past. Turning, Hans saw a couple of Bantag on the wall. A volley of shots erupted from the Chin soldiers standing around the two, driving the Bantag down.

“Damn all, Hans, a dozen Bantags with rifles could riddle the rest of my ships. I’ve got to get them up and out of here. This place is just too hot.”

“I know that. Get airborne, we still got a couple hours of daylight. Range east, up the track, get some other ships over that camp where their troops are forming and shoot it up. Let’s get some panic going out there. If you can, have someone land twenty or thirty miles up the track and tear up some telegraph lines. Once dusk settles come back in and land here. We should have this place secured by then.” Again another shot snapped past them. Cursing, Hans raised his carbine, took careful aim at a Bantag on the wall, and dropped him.

“If I do that, we won’t have enough fuel to g£t everyone back,” Jack cried even while Hans was shooting.

“I know that,” Hans said.

“Hans?”

The sergeant major stared at him, saying nothing.

“Damn it, Hans, you won. Jurak will choke up there at Capua. It’ll take him weeks to get any supplies after this. If you want to stay here, well that was part of the plan if you thought you could hold. I can be back from Tyre by tomorrow evening with two hundred more men and supplies.”

“No.” He shook his head violently.

Jack stared at him, and their eyes locked.

“I knew you would do this,” Jack finally whispered. “Damn you. I didn’t think we’d even make it this far. Hans, I’m still alive. Do you understand that? I thought I was dead, and I’m still alive. For God’s sake, all I want to do now is live out a few more days without being terrified.”

As he said the last words his voice started to break.

“And you knew as well as I did what we have to do out here.”

“You’re talking bloody suicide for all of us,” Jack cried.

He backed away from Hans, cursing violently.

“I’ll not order my men to die. God damn you, Hans, I’ve lost nearly half of them already.” He pointed toward the flaming wrecks littering the field.

“You’re not ordering them,” Hans whispered. “I'm ordering them.”

“Andrew said nothing of this to me,” Jack shouted.

Hans started to reach for the letter of authorization tucked into his breast pocket and hesitated. No, that wasn’t the way, he realized. He stepped up to Jack, putting his hand on the pilot’s shoulder. Jack tried to shake it off, but Hans grasped him tight, forcing him to look into his eyes again.

“Jack, I’m going to end this war the only way it can be ended,” he announced slowly. “We’re going straight into the heart of this bloody empire and tear it out. We’re not stopping with Xi’an. We’re going to liberate all the Chin.”

Jack said nothing.

“I can’t order men to near-certain death, Jack. But you know this is the only way left, and someone has to do it.”

* * *

“So, they found the weak spot.”

Jurak turned away from the map in the center of the yurt illuminated by oil lamps looted from a nearby Roum villa.

He motioned for his aging friend to have a seat. Taking down a wineskin, he tossed it over. Zartak grunted his thanks, uncorking the skin and draining half of it off in long, thirsty gulps.

“This Roum wine, far better than the brew the Chin make. About the only thing I like in this damnable country is the wine.”

Jurak said nothing, turning back to study the map and calculate his next move.

“There’s a wine from the south, a land out across the great encompassing ocean,” Zartak said. “Our cousins who live there make it themselves, delicious as nectar.”

“Make it themselves?” Jurak asked.

Zartak nodded, motioning for Jurak to sit down. The - expression on Jurak’s face made it obvious that he did not want to be diverted at the moment, but Zartak simply chuckled and patted the camp chair.

“You already know what needs to be done, and so do I. Now relax for a few minutes before you go off.”

Jurak grudgingly gave in and sat down, taking the wineskin.

“None of these humans down there,” Zartak continued. “Oh, a few slaves are traded as we ride past. Five hundred leagues or more south of Cartha. The two oceans here are mere lakes to the Great Sea.”

“Have you ever seen it?”

“I’ve ridden nearly four circlings,” Zartak cackled. “I’ve seen everything of this world. Not like the stories you tell me of your world, my Qar Qarth.”

Jurak looked up, annoyed at the honorific title. Zartak smiled as if joking.

“Cities that glow at night, flying machines that are as fast as sound. Now you are my Qar Qarth, but I must confess I find it hard to believe, for nothing can outrace the voice of thunder. So many strange things you’ve seen Jurak.”

Zartak sighed wearily, shaking his head, running long, knurled fingers through his thinning mane.

“You’re different, too,” Jurak replied. “Not like the other clan chiefs.”

Zartak laughed.

“The Merki had a position within their Horde, the Shield Bearer, believed to be the spiritual advisor, the other half of the soul of the Qar Qarth. The fallen Tugars as well had an elder general. I fought him once, the last one that is. He was good, very good.”

“And you were thus to the last leader of the Bantag, before we, Ha’ark, the rest of my squad came here?” Jurak asked.

Zartak nodded.

“We’re not all as primitive as Ha’ark believed, or wanted to believe. We were here long before the first humans trod this world. I, for one, believe this was the home world, the birthplace of the first ancestors who grasped the stars and then fell from greatness. How else is it explained that you came from another world through the Portal of Light.”

Jurak nodded. The history of his own world taught that they were descendants of the first elders, godlike travelers who stepped through space and then became stranded upon his world. If so, they had to have come from somewhere. This world might very well indeed be the ancestor world of all of his race.

“The portals, I’ve wondered about that since we came here,” Jurak said, staring up through the open flaps of his yurt, the Great Wheel overhead.

“Gates, I think,” Zartak replied. “And may the gods and all the ancestors curse the day the gates into the world of the humans were created. The fools who built them, then left them unattended, were mad.”

“Yet it brought you the horse, even the great woolly beasts, and of course the cattle?” Jurak said cautiously.

Zartak looked at him carefully and leaned forward. He picked the wineskin up, realized it was empty, and tossed it aside.

Jurak reached under a table and pulled out another sack, handing it over. The old warrior nodded his thanks.

“The air up in this region is chilled at night; this will warm my bones and help me to sleep.”

He smacked his lips, sighing as he recorked the skin, which was now half-empty. Picking up the folding stool he had been sitting on, he moved it over to the open doorway of the yurt, motioning for Jurak to join him. They sat in silence for several minutes, gazing out at the steppes and the Great Wheel rising in the eastern heavens.

“The Endless Ride,” Zartak whispered, gaze fixed on the heavens.

“Oh how glorious it was in my youth. You came long after these troubles had started, and all was changing. I think you would have liked it then, even though you are civilized.”

Jurak looked over and saw that Zartak was smiling slyly.

“At dawn to see the vast multitude arise, facing to the east, chanting our greetings to the morning sky. The yurts, a hundred thousand of them, and that of the great Qar Qarth drawn by a hundred oxen with room for a hundred within. Our encampments blanketed the steppe for as far as the eye could see.

“And then we would ride, the wind in our hair, the thunder of a million hooves causing the earth to shake. Hunters sweeping far forward, bringing in game, the great wool-clad giants with tusks that could feed a thousand for a day.”

He smiled, taking another drink.

“I remember my first hunting eagle. I named him Bakgar after the God of the Westerly Wind. His cry would reach to the heavens. We’d range far ahead, he and I. Have you ever truly been alone on the steppes, my son?”

Jurak shook his head, inwardly pleased that the wine had loosened the old one’s tongue, causing him to drop the deference, the titles, to call him son. He realized that Zartak was not even aware of the slip.

“To be truly alone, the bowl of the blue heavens overhead, the great green sea beneath you, spring grass as high as your stirrups. When the god Bakgar sighed, the green sea shifted, rocking, the wind taking form as it touched the land. And the air. the smell, you know you were breathing the sweet breath of heaven.

“And I’d raise my wrist, setting my own Bakgar loose, and with a great cry he’d circle upward, bright golden feathers rippling. Alone, so truly alone, and it was worth everything to be alive and to know that, to know the joy of a fleet horse, an eagle on your wrist, and the wind in your hair.”