The Conqueror (20 page)

With no moral objections either way,
not going up against their own tribesmen, they usually acquitted
themselves well enough. The lure of plunder and adventure,
beauteous slaves and a fistful of gold pieces was plenty of
motivation for the typical barbarian auxiliary soldier. The money
was one thing and making a name for oneself as a warrior was
another.

The trouble was that the ones that went
home would talk—and his own rather burgeoning nation was abuzz with
talk. Talk of troop movements, talk of ships building. Talk of
press-gangs going through remote fishing ports with writs of
assistance, forcing men into service. Men who had no choice but to
work for a living, forced to abandon their homes and family to man
the galleys and supply ships, in a fleet that had doubled and then
tripled in size over the course of two or three years.

As for the wedding of Theodelinda and
Kann, who they had labeled a ‘Master-General,’ a ludicrous
bastardization of the term, it apparently had happened and there
didn’t seem to be any subterfuge involved. Jumalak was treating it
as a joke.

It was said the couple were very much
in love and that they were living fifteen miles from Lowren’s
capital of Lemnis, a few miles back from the sea, on the high road
to Windermere.

Jumalak was living on milk and rice
these days, so nervous he was about the spring thaw.

It was vital to be the first into
action.

The closer the day came, the more
objections he could think of. Endlessly changing the plan would
only sow confusion and cause foreseeable headaches a little further
down the road.

The plan was set, the forces were in
position or garrisoned not far from their start-lines. The training
of secondary levies was approaching its peak.

It was to be the largest combined-arms
operation in history, with ships, men, horses and siege train
designed for maximum mobility and the ultimate in
controllability.

Some of it was experimental, and he was
on tenterhooks as to how it would all turn out.

In the meantime, he worried, fussed,
fretted and watched as best he could—and he waited.

***

The worst part of winter wasn’t winter
at all. It was the lead-up, late autumn, when the sky was
persistently grey, when the days were getting shorter and shorter,
and the world existed in a barren five or six colors. There was
grey of the sky, setting the tone with its luminous bleakness, and
then there was white, and then there was black. There was the blue
of the sky on those rare occasions when it could be seen. There
were tiny bits of green, moss and the erratic blades of hardy
native grass poking out from beneath the dead leaves, and then
there was the color brown.

In the beginning, all of the world was
brown, and, the moon shining through the mist hanging over the hot
springs and their attendant swamps, and the stars at night, were
the only cheerful things not of human manufacture.

When the snow finally fell, and when it
stayed around a while, the world was a brighter place and extended
travel again became possible over mud now frozen. Impassable rivers
became highways through the black and howling
wilderness.

The yellow glow in behind many a small,
grimy, steamy window was the only visible reminder of human
existence, and with the dim shadows moving around behind them, a
welcome beacon for anyone caught on the road when the night came
down and obliterated the dismal prospects of day.

Winter that year was long and cold with
unusually heavy snowfall right up until the bitter end. Then there
came the weeks when the lakes were still frozen, but the rivers and
streams foamed white and green with melting snow, and after that,
all of the land was mud. Cubs and fawns suckled and took their
first tentative steps. The birds of spring returned to join their
brethren of the wintering populations, and reptiles climbed up out
of the mud again to bask on rocks and logs in their backwater
sloughs. In rivers and streams, oxbow lakes scatted up and down the
lengths of the great rivers, schools of fish fought to spawn and
continue their race for another season.

The first green sprouts came up, and
the small red ends of the tree branches began to swell, and
enlarge, and to finally crack open. The winds picked up, warm
enough that men, lungs tired and sooty after a long season indoors,
would gasp and sweat and curse just walking a few yards on the soft
ground getting to the barn.

In the meantime, the world, agog from
end to end with the foreshadowing of great events, held its breath
and wondered.

***

Jumalak was of average height, although
of unnaturally-pale coloring for one of his race. He was of average
build, and yet his erect bearing and superior posture had always
made the most of the costume. With its narrowing black trousers,
tight-fitting field grey vestments and under that, a white shirt
with slightly billowing sleeves, and wide cuffs of three buttons,
he looked fit, healthy and eager. And yet, he had found no more
time for rest than anyone else. The Khan worked as hard as any
junior officer, one had to give him that much. As for the jacket,
the garment closely resembled that of the other uniformed officers
in the room. It was the ornate headgear and more than anything the
high, arching collar with the pointed corners sticking up about his
ears that really distinguished him from any other person in the
room. All of them were of noble birth. In a very real sense,
Jumalak had no more right to the seat of power than any of them. It
was not solely by force either, that he had gained such political
and personal power that at times awed his most trusted advisors.
Having learned much about political intrigue in the seraglio and
ultimately the court of his father, Jumalak had achieved a cool and
rapid assessment of character and abilities. This skill enabled him
to collect the sort of men who would do his bidding, and well, and
in perhaps too many cases, without a whole lot of questions. While
Verescens could see the usefulness, he also saw the potential
complications that such men could too often spawn. One could not be
in the room with him and not feel the force of his personality, his
dynamism, and what some had called his sick, dead eyes.

It was the power of that mind that was
impressive.

In some strange and
possibly unrequited fashion, Verescens had found a kind of
liking
for Jumalak, which
was a strange bird indeed. The fact was, that Verescens worried
about him sometimes. Jumalak could be refreshingly open and honest
in spite of his power and position, and wasn’t all guile. It was a
glimpse of the genuine person underneath.

Jumalak was happy today, it was written
all over him when most others looked worried or if nothing else,
slightly nervy. The Horde had a lot riding on this adventure—which
was how Verescens had seen it right from the start, as there was no
real need for it.

In a private moment, Jumalak had even
admitted as much, saying it was the hobby of kings to quarrel and
to make war. He was only thirty-four years old, and he wasn’t
getting any younger.

The Horde was strong, stable and
rich.

There would never be a better time, as
the Khan had put it to an intimate little gathering of his most
senior advisers.

To say the fellow carried it off well
would be something of an understatement, and yet the Khan was
subtle and sophisticated enough to realize that it helped immensely
if the men immediately about him actually liked him.

Verescens had admitted a
kind of personal
affection
for the Khan, and believed that he had always
served his master very well because of it.

“
All is ready, oh, Great
Khan.” Mastioch stood, hands clasped, head slightly
bowed.

Verescens, standing beside his Lord and
Master, nodded in agreement with the statement made by General
Mastioch.

“
Gentlemen.” The Great
Khan’s golden voice rang out over the heads of the men
there.

All of the orders had been cut and
dispatched, and the first waves of troops were marching according
to plan.

“
The greatest battle in
history has begun.”

The Khan turned to his senior
strategist. He rubbed his hands thoughtfully.

“
Give the order,
Master-General Verescens. The honor truly belongs to
you.”

“
Thank you, oh, Most
Enlightened One. A signal honor indeed.” Verescens nodded at
Mastioch, standing at attention before them. “You may proceed,
General.”

Mastioch, speechless apparently, almost
overcome with the moment, made his formal salute, turned and
quickly left the map room. He had an oddly jerky gait as he went.
Their coterie of gaudy and rather rigid-looking staff officers
stood waiting in hushed attention, all eyes on them.

While they expected to win in the end,
every man there knew there would be losses and defeats. There would
be disasters and incompetence. Heads would be lost on the single
toss of a coin, and those heads might not be confined to the enemy,
as the Khan did not tolerate failure except after the most
extraordinary of efforts.

This moment, important enough for the
history books, was really more of a formality. All formal
responsibility rested here, on this very spot.

The troops had left the start lines an
hour before true dawn, and certain rather heavy contingents of the
fleet had been at sea for days. A point had been reached and there
was no recalling them now.

“
At last.” The Khan
signaled for drink. “There is no stopping us now.”

A previously tense and silent assembly
of the most senior staff officers began to swell and murmur with
talk that seemed more gratitude than anything else. It was the
release of tension, after literally months, years in some cases, of
planning, training, and exercises, followed by critique, analysis,
and then more training and preparation.

The fortunes of war were so very
uncertain, and yet fortune favored the bold—and the best, and those
with the longer swords, the stronger bows, and the most
arrows.

They were finally going to do it, after
years of talk and preparation—and these men would be an honored,
integral part of it. If they weren’t already rich, and most of them
were, they all certainly expected the shower of rewards to begin
imminently.

Some of their first objectives would
have already been taken by now; small border crossings, towns just
inside enemy territory, that sort of thing.

“
Yes, oh, Great Khan.”
Verescens took a long breath, as he wondered just for a moment if
that really was a burst of adrenalin in the guts and why it might
be there.

He really hadn’t been looking after
himself, not for months, and in the previous weeks, sleep had been
a luxury he couldn’t afford. His mouth felt tacky, his eyes were
like radishes in their sockets and he couldn’t recall the last time
he had had a proper bowel movement.

He sighed expressively. His wives and
children were becoming strangers to him, but there was no point in
complaining.

“
It couldn’t have come a
moment too soon, Great One.”

Jumalak, feeling this was the best
natural high he’d ever experienced, laughed aloud, slapping
Verescens on the shoulder and giving a delighted glance at the
nearest of the officers.

“
That’s the spirit.”
Jumalak cleared his throat. “Now you see why I love this great, big
lummox.”

They cracked up and Verescens smiled in
spite of himself, shrugging in a theatrical manner and rolling his
eyes. He clenched his jaws and went with it.

It wouldn’t last long, but it was a
good moment. In point of fact, he was a good head taller and fifty
pounds heavier than their Khan.

“
Ah. Let there be
wine—”

And sure enough there was, brought in
by a flurry of young men in their household hose and tunics, fancy
enough at the best of times.

Verescens suppressed a grin.

While alcohol wouldn’t have been
Verescens’ first choice right about then, there was something to be
said for the camaraderie and the opportunity for the Great Khan to
let his hair down for a moment and just be there. He was one of
them, all engaged in the greatest military exercise this planet had
ever seen. Verescens, with plenty of opportunity to observe the
Great One up close and personal, had often wondered why he had ever
wanted such a fate, or why he was so well-suited to it, and quite
frankly, how he stood it.

In his own opinion, it really was a
fate worse than death, where there was no one you could ever really
trust, all statements were self-serving, all friendships false and
all acquaintances grasping.

I would strangle myself with my own
bowstring, thought Verescens, meeting the Khan’s eyes in an oddly
intuitive moment.

The Khan’s face, with his sweeping
mustaches and pointed black beard, his wide cheekbones and pinched
cheeks, looked every inch the fearless leader. It was that superior
intellect that had impressed him the most—that and the pathological
need for dominance, usually by means of terror rather than
persuasion. His tight-fitting golden skull-cap, conforming to every
bump and contour of that long head, gleamed in the light of a
hundred torches.