The Brave Free Men (22 page)

At Rhododendron Way the column paused. Six chieftains, conspicuous for bibs and chain mail

hanging over their chests, conferred and peered down Mirk Valley toward the Hwan. There was, however, no indecision; they swung west along Rhododendron Way, passing under the great, dark trees. Hearing the news, Etzwane remembered an urchin named Mur playing in the white-dust under these same trees. At the end of Rhododendron Way, with open country before them, the chieftains paused once again to confer. An order was passed down the column; a score of warriors stepped off into the foliage beside the Way. The threat of their scimitars effectually prevented any close pursuit by the cavalry, which must now retreat and circle either north or south of the Way.

The Roguskhoi left the main road and slanted south into the Hwan foothills. Above them bulked Kozan Bluffs, a knob of gray limestone pocked by ancient caves and tunnels.

The Roguskhoi approached the bluff. In the west appeared a company of Brave Free Men; from the east came the cavalry which had harried the rear. The Roguskhoi jogged down toward the Hwan, passing close under Kozan Bluff. From the holes and crannies came sudden white streaks of gunfire. From the east the Brave Free Men cavalry approached; and likewise from the west.

Placards of purple, green, pale blue, and white announced the new government of Shant:

The Brave Free Men have liberated our country. For this we rejoice and celebrate the unity of Shant. The Anome has graciously given way to an open and responsive government, consisting of a Purple House of Patricians and a Green House of the Cantons. Already three manifestos have been issued:

There are to be no more torcs.

The indenture program is to be highly

modified. Religious systems may commit no further

crimes.

The Purple Patricians include the following:

Listed were the directors and their functions. Gastel Etzwane, a director-at-large, was declared Executive Director. The second director-at-large was Jerd Finnerack. San-Sein was Director of Military Affairs.

Aun Sharah occupied the top floor of an ancient blue and white glass structure behind Corporation Plaza, almost under the Ushkadel. His office was very large, almost eccentrically bare of furnishing. The high north wall consisted entirely of clear glass panes. The work-table was at the center of the room; Aun Sharah sat looking north through the great expanse of glass. When Etzwane and Finnerack entered the room, he nodded courteously and rose to his feet. For five seconds a silence held; the three stood each in his attitude in the great bare room, fateful as players on a stage. .

Etzwane spoke formally, "Aun Sharah, we are

forced to the conviction that you are working adversely to the interests of Shant."

Aun Sharah smiled as if Etzwane had paid him a compliment. "It is hard to please everybody."

Finnerack took a slow step forward, then drew back and said nothing.

Etzwane, somewhat nonplused by Aun Sharah's agreeable demeanor, spoke on. "The fact of your actions is established. Still, we are puzzled as to your motives. In fostering the cause of the Roguskhoi, how do you gain, how do you serve yourself?"

Aun Sharah, still smiling—peculiarly, so Etzwane thought—asked: "Has the fact been demonstrated?"

"Abundantly. Your conduct has been under scrutiny for several months. You prompted Shirge Hillen of Camp Three to kill me; you put spies on my movements. As Director of Material Procurement you have in several instances substantially lessened the war effort by diverting labor into nonessential projects. At Thran in Green Stone your ambush of Brave Free Men failed, by luck alone. In the engagement at Kozan Bluff we have achieved decisive proof. You were informed that Mirk Defile was to be guarded, whereupon the Roguskhoi veered aside and were destroyed. The reality of your guilt is established. Your motives are a cause for perplexity."

The three again stood silently in the center of the vast, bleak room.

"Please sit down," said Aun Sharah gently. "You have pelted me with such a barrage of nonsense that my mind is confused and my knees are weak." Etzwane and Finnerack remained standing; Aun Sharah sat down and took up stylus and paper. "Please repeat your bill of charges, if you will."

Etzwane did so, and Aun Sharah made a list "Five items: all wind and no substance. Many men have been destroyed for as little."

Etzwane began to feel perplexed. "You deny the charges then?"

Aun Sharah smiled his curious smile. "Let me ask rather, can you prove any of the charges?"

"We can," said Finnerack.

"Very well," said Aun Sharah. "We will consider the items one at a time—but let us call in the jurist Mialambre Octagon to weigh the evidence, and Director of Transportation Brise as well."

"1 see no objection to this," said Etzwane. "Let us go to my office."

Back in his old office Aun Sharah waved the others to seats, as if they were underlings he had summoned to conference. He addressed Mialambre: "Not half an hour ago Gastel Etzwane and Black Finnerack entered my office to deliver a set of five charges, so preposterous that I suspect their sanity. The charges are these:" Aun Sharah read off his list.

"The first accusation, that I notified Shirge Hillen of Etzwane's coming is no more than an unfounded suspicion, the more vicious in that Etzwane has made no attempt to find an alternative solution. I suggested that he investigate the balloon-way offices; this he neglected to do. I made a few quiet inquiries; in twenty minutes I learned that a certain Parway Harth had in fact sent out an
intemperate
and somewhat ambiguous message which
Shirge Hillen might well have
understood as an
order to kill Gastel Etzwane. I
can prove this three
different ways; through Parway
Harth, through a
subordinate
who took the message to the balloon-
way
radio, and through the files in the balloon-way
radio
office.

"Item Two: the charge that I put spies upon Gastel Etzwane. The reference is to a surveillance performed by one of my trackers: an act of casual interest. I do not deny this charge; I claim that it is too trivial to be significant of anything whatever.

"Item Three: as Director of Material Procurement I have in several instances diminished the war effort. In hundreds of instances I have augmented the war effort. I complained to Gastel Etzwane that my abilities did not lie in this direction; he stubbornly ignored my statement. If the war effort suffered, the fault is his alone. I did my best.

"Items Four and Five: I arranged a Roguskhoi ambush at Thran and I attempted to betray an ambush of our own in Mirk Valley. A few days ago I stepped into the office of Director Brise. In a most peculiar and embarrassed manner he contrived an elephantine hint as to an ambush in Mirk Valley. I am a suspicious man, skilled at intrigue. I detected a plot. I declared as much to Brise; I further insisted that he leave me alone not for an instant, day or night; he must absolutely assure himself that I had transmitted no information. I convinced him that such was his duty to Shant, that if an ambush were in fact betrayed we must learn the true culprit. To do this we must be able to demonstrate my innocence beyond argument. He is a reasonable and honorable man; he agreed to my analysis of the situation. I ask you now, Brise: did I, during the applicable period, inform anyone at any time of anything whatsoever?"

"You did not," said Brise shortly. "You sat in my office, in my company and that of my trusted associates, for two days. You communicated with no one, you betrayed no ambush."

"We received news of the battle at Kozan," Aun Sharah went on. "Brise now confessed to me that he considered himself to blame for the fact that suspicion had fallen upon me. He reported his conversation with Gastel Etzwane.

"I understand now that I am linked to the ambush at Thran by one question and one answer. I required that Brise send bottoms to Oswiy; he said 'No, I must send my goods to Maurmouth.' On this basis my guilt in regard to the Thran ambush is assumed. The concept is farfetched but remotely possible, except for a secondary fact which once again Gastel Etzwane has not noticed. This question and this answer, in a thousand variations, has become a joke between Brise and myself: repartee as we coordinate our functions. I ask him for transport at one place, he says impossible, find freight at another. Brise, is this correct?"

"It is correct," said Brise in an uncomfortable voice. "The question and the answer might be repeated five times a day. Aun Sharah could have understood nothing of significance in the remarks regarding Oswiy and Thran. I reported them to Gastel Etzwane because he required my every word; I neglected to put them into context."

Aun Sharah asked Etzwane: "Do you have any other charges?"

Etzwane gave a sick laugh. "None. I am clearly unfit to make a rational judgment on anyone or anything. I apologize to you and will make amends as best I can. I must seriously consider resigning from the Purple House."

 
Mialambre Octagon spoke in a gruff voice: "Come now, the matter need go no farther; this is no time for extravagant acts."

"Except in this single regard," said Aun Sharah. "You spoke of amends. If you are serious, return me to my own work; give me back my Discriminators."

"So far as I am concerned," said Etzwane, "they are yours, any that are left. Finnerack has turned the place inside out."

The Roguskhoi had been driven back into the Wildlands, and for a period the war dwindled to a halt. Finnerack presented his estimate of the situation to Etzwane. "They are as if in an impregnable fortress. Our radius of penetration is twenty miles; beyond this line the Roguskhoi breed, rearm, regroup, and presumably recast their strategies."

Etzwane mused. "We. have captured thousands of scimitars; they are made of an alloy unknown in Shant. What is the source of supply? Do they operate foundries deep in the Hwan? A great mystery."

Finnerack gave an indifferent nod. "Our strategy now is self-evident. We must organize our total manpower and gradually occupy the Hwan. It is a toilsome and complicated task, but is there any other method?"

"Probably not," said Etzwane.

"Then back to Palasedra with the brutes! And let the Palasedrans interfere at their peril!"

"Presuming that the Palasedrans are responsible, which is not yet proved."

Finnerack stared in astonishment. "Who else but the Palasedrans?"

"Who else but Aun Sharah? I have learned my lesson."

Chapter 13

Summer brought a lull to the war, which extended into the long mild autumn. Shant repaired its damage, mourned its dead men and kidnapped women, augmented its armed might. The Brave Free Men, expanding in numbers and organization, separated into regional divisions, with the cantonal militia serving functions of support and supply. Weapons poured from the Shranke assemblies; the Roguskhoi scimitars, melted and molded, became ballast.

Gliders flew forth from Whearn: double-winged craft, light as moths. A special corps of the Brave Free Men became the Flyers of Shant. Their training at first was makeshift and merciless; those who survived instructed the others. By sheer necessity the Flyers became a skilled and cohesive force, and as natural consequence began to make prideful demonstration of reckless daring and élan.

To arm the gliders, the technists produced a ferocious new weapon, a simplified, nonballasted version of the halcoid gun. The projectile was composite: halcoid joined to a metal, the firing tube was open at each end. When fired, the halcoid struck forward, the metal was ejected aft; in effect the weapon acted in both directions, eliminating recoil and the need for ballast. When fired from a glider, the ejected missile usually spent itself harmlessly in the air; on the ground the guns were intolerably dangerous.

Before sending gliders out against the Roguskhoi, Finnerack drilled the Flyers in battle tactics, the dropping of bombs with accuracy, and safety techniques with respect to the halcoid gun.

From the first Finnerack had been fascinated with the gliders; he learned to fly, and presently, not altogether to Etzwane's surprise, he relinquished his command over the Brave Free Men in order to assume control of the Flyers.

In the middle of autumn the ground armies began to move up into the Hwan, pushing west from Cansume, Haghead, and LorAsphen, retaking cantons Surname and Shkoriy. A second force moved south through Bastern, Seamus, and Bundoran, into the Wildlands itself. Other companies worked east and south, from Shade and Sable, penetrating the Mount Misk region, and here the Roguskhoi put up fierce resistance. Theirs was now a lost cause. Trained ahulphs spied out their concentrations, which then were bombed or subjected to halcoid fire from guns mounted in clusters of six.