The Far Side (44 page)

“I’d have to say that does appear to be case,” the Sachem said lightly.  “Come, let us see what he’s brought down.”

The whole party went towards where Ezra was kneeling next to the dralka.  Melek had no idea why anyone would bother to cut one open.  They tasted terrible, a harsh, acrid, oily flavor that few people could tolerate more than a small bite.

The men pushed close, seeing a dralka that had been killed further away than most of them had ever seen before, and while they were wary of a dralka, the man who’d killed it was held in awe.

“What do you see, Ezra?” Collum asked.

“I was curious, and now I know.  You’ve got your work cut out for you.  Isn’t Rari a Dralka?”

“Aye, he is.”

“The stomach is filled with fish, Collum.”

“Fish?” Collum asked, confused.  “I’ve never heard of dralka eating fish.”

Ezra held up a handful of what clearly were fish.

Captain Dumi looked at one of the sergeants standing close by.  “Sallan -- you are the senior Dralka here.  Have you ever heard of a dralka eating fish?”

“No, Captain, but honestly?  What do you do with a dead dralka?  Bury it if you’re in an inhabited area, and leave it lie everywhere else.  I’ve never even heard of someone looking to see what they eat.

“However, there was a warning passed two weeks ago, that there have been more dralka seen over Siran-ista, at the east end of Gonno’s Wall this year than in hundreds of years.”

Captain Dumi chewed on that for a moment, but Collum was ready to spit it out.  “And Dralka passed that warning to whom, Sergeant?  Dralka?”

Sergeant Sallan spread his hands helplessly.  “I do not make decisions like that, Sachem.  I do as I’m ordered.”

“And marching south with eighty comrades, fellow soldiers of the King, didn’t jog your sense of duty, Sergeant?”

“Sachem, I was told it was secret information of the Dralka and not to be shared -- not even with the junior members of the order.”

“I had a man nearly killed by the dralka,” Melek stormed.  “Thank you so very much, Dralka.  Thank you for nothing!”

Sergeant Sallan drew himself up.  “Say what you wish, Chain Breaker.  When my father was young, he was a Sea Fighter, and a dralka was in too much of a hurry to eat him -- it bit off part of his face.  He lost his nose and part of his cheek.  The Sea Fighters said he should quit, because he could no longer fight.  He could fight!  There was nothing wrong with his eyes or his arms.  He killed the dralka that hurt him!

“Dralka wouldn’t take him, because he had a Sea Fighter tattoo, but they took his three sons.”

Collum laughed.  “The Sea Fighters kicked your father when he was down.  The Dralka spit in his face and told him he should be pleased that they’d take you.  Join the Chain Breakers and we only care about your fighting ability and will!  I will make Kris, Andie, and Ezra Chain Breakers when we get to Arvala!  I will make your brother, Rari, a Chain Breaker as well!

“And you think because of this, there is some reason you shouldn’t share with the rest of us that there is more risk from dralka than at any time for centuries?”

“I do not make these decisions, Sachem.  I doubt if you cheer your soldiers if they tell you they don’t choose to obey your orders.”

“And I tell you that a Chain Breaker forbidden from breaking chains had better disobey such a stupid order.  Probably it would have come from a Dralka -- men who choose which of their oaths that have taken that they will obey.”

Sallan’s nose flared.  “You are Sachem, but that doesn’t give you leave to insult the Dralka order!”

“Captain Dumi, face Sergeant Sallan.  Melek, you and Ezra do so as well!”  The four men faced the sergeant, their backs to the others.

“Men!  Raise your hands if you wish our brothers, the Dralka, had told us that dralka are present in unusual numbers.”

Melek saw Sallan’s eyes turn hard.  Collum had to have seen the change in his expression as well.  “So, are any of your fellow Dralka standing with raised hands, Sallan?  Men!  Put those hands down.”

Collum spoke to the sergeant, his bearing controlled and taut.  “Only you and the men know who raised their hands, Sallan.  I will never make an issue of this again, at least with you.  If you are as smart as you seem to be, the next time some fat toad gives you a stupid order, you might want to think about it.  You might give a thought to the men around you who believe that you are faithful to the same oaths they hold dear.”

“I wish very much to catch the Tengri,” Captain Dumi said loudly.  “But we have too many important things to tell General Flaner in Arvala.  We can’t continue south -- we have to make sure we get what we know north, along with Kris, Andie, Ezra, and Chaba.”

He pointed north and the point started out, followed in order by the rest of them.

They had only been traveling for three hours, but with the planet’s shorter day, they had to stop within two hours, within sight of the other camp, but not able to cover the distance in the dark.

The next day they arrived just a bit before the eclipse ended, and Captain Dumi had the men work hard at getting the wagons and draft animals ready to go.

Within an hour, they were moving north, not nearly as fast as they’d gone south.

* * *

They reached the bottom of the hill and managed another mile before they had to stop for the day.

Melek watched the men carefully at the fire that night, as he’d watched them the night before.  There was clearly resentment directed at Sallan, and more than one of those angry were Dralka.

Captain Dumi was in no mood to waste time.  The wagons were ready as soon as it was light enough to travel, and they kept going until the sun was down.  A few days later the eclipse was no longer a factor, and the distance they traveled each day increased as a result.

There was no denying the beauty of Arvala, as they crossed into the river valley.  The city was a golden gem sitting along the far side of the Arvala River that flowed north.  The Arvala was not a very large river, nor was it very long, flowing along the golden cliffs that gave it its name.  As beautiful as the city was as the sunset, Melek knew it would be a hundred times more beautiful in the morning, when the sun shed its golden light on the city and the cliffs beyond.

Ezra had come to stand next to him.  “Pretty,” Ezra told him.

“Aye, very pretty.  Ezra, whatever happens there, you are my friend and always will be.  I will do what I can to keep you, Kris, and Andie safe.”

Ezra nodded gravely.  “Can I ask you a question, Melek?”

“Yes, I will answer it honestly.”

Ezra laughed, “No, not like that.  Very rarely you call Kris and Andie with the word ‘Lady’ in front of their names.  Mostly, you just use their names.”

“It is complicated, Ezra.  Here those of noble status belong to certain households.  Households known and ranked as all know.  It is difficult to the point of impossibility to change that.  Three hundred years ago, King Gonno upset his soldiers enough so that they put him to death.  Since then, no one admits to being of House Gonno.

“To claim establishment in the nobility -- without it being true -- is a crime.  On the other hand, sometimes using a noble title is done among those who wish to pay respect to someone who isn’t a noble.  So we give them the title, and they are careful never to use it themselves.”

Melek smiled slightly.  “You have no nobles where you come from, right?”

“No, we don’t.  Once we did, but no more.”

“So, you have never used those words for yourselves.  We do it when we wish to show your great significance.  If possible, forget the words, pretend you don’t know them.  We can call you what we wish -- you cannot.”

“That’s not a problem.”  Ezra waved at the scene before them.  “Is there going to be trouble?”

“There is no way I can see to avoid it.  Collum -- he is not who he seems.  He is the Sachem of the Chain Breakers, indeed so.  He has another name, one that he chooses not to use.  His brother is the King.”

“I figured that out.  Is that something similar?  He doesn’t claim to be the King’s brother?”

“I do not know, Ezra.  There is no rule about that that I know of.  It is certainly not generally known who he is.”

“And that is going to help?”

“I expect so.  Collum is a very clever man, I’ve learned.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“You have the crossbows.  They will ask Andie to show them again.  They will ask her to make a ship that moves against the wind.  That should make her -- and you and Kris -- fairly safe.  I do not see how General Flaner could prevent you from showing what you know.  I don’t even know that he will try to prevent it.  But he is Dralka, and Dralka are moving to rise above their position.

“This isn’t done -- at least not quickly, not among our people.  Gradual change -- yes, we go with that.  Crossbows aren’t so different than regular bows.”  He laughed again, “They only shoot straighter, harder and further.  As do our bows compared to those of our ancestors.

“The numbers -- that I don’t know.  Collum says his brother will love them.  But his brother is a very great distance away and is unlikely to come here himself.  Perhaps to fight Tengri -- but it is hard to tell.

“Ships that sail against the wind -- that has been a dream of every shipbuilder since we set foot in this land.  That won’t be a problem, either.”

He faced Ezra.  “Beyond that, I don’t know.  It depends on what General Flaner does.  He isn’t very smart, and since he’s gotten elderly and infirm he’s worse than ever.  Captain Seros is his pupil, and he hates Chain Breakers and me personally.

“I am sorry you have to see our dirt.”

“We have our own dirt, Melek.  Andie is very smart, as you’ve seen.  She found a way to generate power that would have made a million men rich beyond avarice -- but would beggar that many more.  No one likes to see their world smashed by an upstart, particularly one who is young and a woman.

“Our friends would have come for us long ago, Melek, unless they were restrained.  I have no idea how that could be, because Kris’ father is very powerful, and Andie’s father has a lot of money.  I cannot imagine what has stopped them for coming for us, but there is no doubt that something has stopped them.”

Ezra scuffed the ground with his boot.  “Dirt, as you can see, is everywhere.”

“Indeed so.  Trust me, my friend!  I will do what I can!  I have other friends besides Collum, including Captain Dumi!  We will do what we have to, to keep you three safe!”

Chapter 17
:: Arvala -- the Golden City

Andie stood next to Kris, both of them staring quietly at the view before them, all the while Andie shaking her head.  “Wow!  At least double wow!” Andie whispered in awe.

“Yeah!” Kris agreed.  The morning sun shone yellow on the city and on the yellow cliffs that led northwards.  It was like an exclamation mark with the dot being Arvala.  Along the eastern edge of the city flowed a river, hemming the town between the cliff, the ocean, and the river.  “Who would have thought?”

“I keep zoning out on the fact that Melek, Collum, and even Captain Dumi think it’s going to suck down there.  How can people suck when they live in a city as beautiful as that?”

“They stop looking around them and only check their navels,” Ezra said from a few feet away.  “Andie, you are a font of weird miscellaneous information.  I have a feeling the fact that dralka are eating fish is significant... but then again, they always have had to eat, yes?”

Andie looked at him and shook her head.  “My old man bought me a pony.  The silly fucker thought it was small enough to keep in the house.  The first time it dumped on the carpet was the last.  I was ten and God!  Did I want to keep that pony!

“So I studied everything I could find on any kind of animal there was.  Maybe I scratched the surface -- I doubt if I got any deeper.  The pony was toast -- no one has ever housebroken any kind of a horse.

“One thing I read was about chimpanzees.  They were a lot more interesting the horses, ‘cause horses are brain-dead.  Chimps learn from each other.  Teach one of them to crack nuts with a rock, and he’ll show his buddies.  A mother chimp will teach it to her kid.  Of course, chimps are brain-dead too.  They don’t know squat about how to teach.  The kid is left to figure out on its own if it’s doing it right.  The mom shows the baby chimp what to do, but she doesn’t correct mistakes.

“Like my father telling me I wasn’t saying ‘fuck’ enough when I spoke -- he taught me how to talk at an early age.”

She glanced at Ezra.  “Someplace up north a dralka figured out that fish were food too.  If I were a betting person, that diet change gave his or her flock a huge advantage.  They would be able to feed lots of little dralka, and they learned to eat fish too.  Pretty soon there was a great fucking herd of dralka that liked fish.

“They need to think about what happened to them back in the day when the Tengri conquered them.  Population pressure, for sure -- either that of the Tengri or another people pushing on the Tengri.  The oceans are fucking huge, and evidently full of fish -- fish-eating dralka are going to be very successful in no time.”

Ezra explained it to Melek and Collum.  Both men looked sick and Melek said a few words to Ezra.  “Melek says that they got a grip on things when the rains changed, because dralka had to eat, and there was nothing to eat.  If there’s something to eat as far south as they can range -- they are likely to return in strength.  That sucks, of course, but more importantly, that gives Melek’s and Collum’s enemies a leg up -- they are the enemies of the dralka.  If they were to become a scourge again, their star would ascend.”

Melek said something and Ezra nodded.  “Did I mention that Melek is concerned that we haven’t been met?  You’d think that the first people to break chains, the first soldiers to beat the bejesus out of the Tengri in 1200 years would at least have one person waving a flag or something when they returned home.  The word has to have been passed.”

“So, things are likely already in the toilet?” Andie told him.

“Yeah, like as not.  You two might want to think about slipping those pistols into a pocket.  Out of sight is out of mind.”

“Won’t someone rat on us?” Andie asked.

“Maybe, maybe not.  Did I mention, out of sight is out of mind?”

“And your rifle?”

He laughed.  “I have it on safe and took the magazine out.  They may not even know that the two things go together.  The first shit we get, I flip the lever to single shot and pull the trigger group.  It’ll be a fucking piece of iron, then.”

“I’m going to bow to your expertise on how short-sighted military commanders can be,” Andie told Ezra.  She looked at Melek and Melek sighed and shook his head.

Yeah, it was going to be like that, Kris thought.  Life sucked!  Andie was right!  How could you live in a city as spectacularly beautiful as this one and plan treachery?

They got about half of the six miles to the city before a column of soldiers unwound from one of the city gates and headed towards them.  Kris and Andie had had plenty of time to get ready.

Kris, in particular, was proud of herself.  Melek didn’t know it, but she’d given him her pistol.  The magazine remaining she’d kept, but the actual weapon was in a pack with Melek’s few personal items.

She had no idea what Andie did with her pistol, but she was sure that Andie was ten times cleverer than she was.

The man at the head of the soldiers who met them was well into his dotage, and was being hauled around in something like a rickshaw, only with a draft beast instead of a man pulling it.  He couldn’t stand up straight and was unable to string more than a half dozen words together without prompting -- something that Captain Seros did while standing next to his left ear, whispering into it.  Like the worst replay of Grimma Wormtongue, Kris thought.

Ezra translated for them carefully after a few minutes of discussion.  “They are going to take us prisoner.  Whatever you do, don’t make a fuss.  Captain Dumi’s whole company wants to fight the bastards, and the least bit of resistance will set them off.  We have no way to know how many people would die as a result -- moreover, we’d be right smack dab in the middle of it.  I’d rather not be right in the middle of it.”

So Kris and Andie let men take their arms without trying to resist.  The only bit of resistance was Andie snarling at the men who bound her arms.  “What proud fellows you must be!  It takes four of you to bind one child!”

No one moved, but the hostility notched up a level.  “Andie!” Kris remonstrated.

“Yeah, hell.  I’m not going to go quietly, no matter what.  I gotta have the last word.”

Ezra was bound, and then so were the two girls.  Rari was bound and so was Chaba.  Melek wasn’t bound, but two men marched, one on either side of him, bared blades pressing over his kidneys.  No one bothered with Collum or Captain Dumi, but they had men next to them, even if their weapons were sheathed.

Their entrance into the city wasn’t exactly what Kris pictured.  There was a great deal of unease, and while crowds thronged the way, they mostly stood mute, doing nothing.

The city was a little less beautiful up close.  There was a fair amount of refuse in the streets, the buildings showed signs of age and disrepair.  The main street was cobblestones, but the side streets seemed to be mostly hard-packed dirt.

In spite of being tied up, Kris looked around with interest.  She turned to Andie after they’d come a quarter of a mile.  “I don’t see as much storm damage as there was further south.”

“Lucky them,” Andie said, her voice bitter.

They emerged into a large open area up against the cliff that overlooked the city.  There was a fairly large square with what looked like a stone fort at the foot of the cliff.  There was a large gate leading into the fort that was open and she could see men drilling with swords in an open area beyond the gate.

There was also another building, not nearly as large, that looked official as well.  They were brought to stand in front of it.  The doddering old man croaked a few words in Captain Seros’ ear, and Seros spoke to the crowd that was swelling even as they watched.

Ezra looked disgusted and turned to Kris and Andie.  “He says ‘Our ancient enemies have come to these shores.  Our valiant soldiers have defeated them, killed many and have taken prisoners.  We will question them and then kill them.’”

“What?” Kris said, startled.

“I suppose ‘due process’ is a concept a little much for that man’s tiny, shriveled brain,” Andie added.

Collum spoke up and almost at once two soldiers grabbed him and put swords to his throat.  Another man appeared from inside the fort-structure.  He was about forty, and Kris thought he had the slimiest expression of any human being Kris had ever seen.  He could give Art Foster slime lessons

Collum spoke to the man without trying to raise his voice.  The swords were pressed more firmly against him.

This time the crowd made a sound, but Kris had to characterize it as “confused.”

Captain Dumi spoke urgently to the men in charge but, the new man snapped at him.  Kris was pretty sure he’d been told to shut up or receive the same treatment.

Ezra spoke softly, his voice flat and uninflected.  “Well, that didn’t work.  A civil war just started, and there’s a fifty-fifty chance that fighting will break out here and now.”

Kris looked around the square, not sure what was happening.  “It doesn’t look that uncivil to me, Ezra.”

“That’s because, like with most common folks, the soldiers here have the weapons and the thought of fighting armed soldiers with their bare hands is going to take some getting used to.  But I can understand some of the comments.  They are asking why the ‘prisoners’ look like they do, why some of the prisoners are men they know.  Someone just asked why the soldiers who fought their enemies are the ones bound, while the men who stayed away from the fight hold them prisoner.”

More orders snapped out, and Kris could hear shouts inside the fort.  Shit!  Shit!  Shit!  Additional soldiers were forming up and coming out moving to interpose themselves between the prisoners and the crowd.

Something arced up from the crowd and spattered on the stones not far from where Kris, Andie and Ezra were standing.

“God, I hope that’s a rotten egg,” Andie said, grimacing as she caught a whiff of it.  “’Cause if it ain’t, it fucking should be!”

Collum told something to the man who’d come out and was now giving orders.

Ezra grimaced.  “The guy is Mardan, Sachem of the Dralka.  Collum is asking how it is one Sachem is threatening another.”  The reply was short and Ezra translated.  “He says if Collum keeps talking, it won’t be a threat.  He wants to know what happened to the south, how many enemies we ‘permitted to escape.’”

Andie jerked her chin.  “Those three just made ‘Andie’s Shit List.’  The only people on it before were Kit and Art.  I’m going to kill every last one of the
bastards.”  She glared at Ezra.  “You find a time and you tell them.”

“They’ll react badly, Andie, their kind always does.  They will most likely just have you killed here and now.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be right this second,” Andie told him.

They were hustled inside the smaller, but still substantial, building and chained to large iron rings set in one wall.  “Oh yeah!” Andie said with disgust.  “These guys had no trouble at all with figuring out what those iron rings back there in the cave were!”

For a long time the questions came from Captain Seros and the Dralka Sachem, directed mostly to Captain Dumi and occasionally Melek.  Collum was ignored, and Kris could see that it angered Collum at first.  Then his face relaxed and turned bland, which Kris thought was actually scarier.

“What’s a girl got to do if she needs to pee?” Andie asked Ezra.

He rolled his eyes.  “I have no idea.  Typically, they give you a bucket.”

Mardan asked Ezra something and Ezra tried to make himself understood.  “The bastard wants to know if you’re a noblewoman,” Ezra told Andie.

“Bat!” Andie snapped.  That was the Arvalan word for no, and hadn’t been hard to learn.

“Tell the fucker that my father is a fucking rich man who could buy this fucking town, and drown every one of these fuckers in vats of beer, and still have enough money to buy big screen TVs for every one of their mud fucking huts!”

Ezra smiled and said something long and involved back.  Kris had no idea how you could even begin to try to translate something like that.  But from Mardan’s expression he knew he’d been insulted, and he knew it came from someone who looked like a ten year old.

Mardan snapped something at Ezra and Ezra smiled slightly.  “The bastard wants my rifle.  The stupid shit told me to hand it over, and that if I tried to nock an arrow, I’d be killed.  Rock and roll time, girls.  It’s gonna be loud and exciting for about three seconds.”

Ezra smiled and pulled the rifle off his shoulder, holding it casually.  He pulled out a magazine and inserted it into the rifle and then he aimed at a clear spot across the room and pulled the trigger.  The sound was stunning in the confined area, leaving Kris with ringing ears.  Chips of rock and bits of wood from the wall flew in all directions.

The Arvalans were stunned, not knowing what was happening.  Ezra said something apologetic and quipped in English, “Oops!  I didn’t know it was loaded.  Watch this!  This is going to hurt!”

He handed the rifle to Mardan who grabbed at it, only to shriek in pain.  There was the awful stench of burning flesh, as he struggled to free his hands from the barrel of the P90.  When he got his hands loose he continued to writhe in pain.  Kris was appalled.  It was like steak sticking to a hot frying pan -- she could see tendrils of flesh left behind on the searing barrel of the machine gun.