by John Ringo
He found, to his surprise, that he didn't hate the humans at all. Perhaps that was partly shock. Perhaps in another part it was simple adrenaline-cognate. Yet, so Borasmena thought himself, a good part of it was the shared brotherhood of the battlefield.
A human, missing an arm, fell down right in front of Borasmena's field of view. The human seemed to be in great pain.
It was an uneven contest from the beginning. While Rossini's baselard was clearly handier for a human, he could not put the strength behind it that the Posleen facing him brought to his own blade. Nor was there any objective sense in trying to conserve strength. The Posleen would always have more of that than any human.
With something near a sigh, Rossini took one last chance at a victory, however temporary such a victory must prove to be. Batting aside a Posleen slash, he took two half steps in and drove the point of his baselard into his opponent's neck, just above where it joined the chest. The Posleen gave off a great cry of anguish, even as it made a last slash downward.
Rossini felt a shock on his left side. He looked over and down and saw a single arm, laying on the yellow and red sprayed ground. His grip on his baselard loosened of its own accord. Then he felt his legs going out from under him.
For a moment, everything went black. When they lightened once again, Rossini found himself lying on his back, with his head turned to one side, facing the muzzle of the very Posleen who had impaled himself on their halberds. That Posleen nodded his head, very slightly, and then reached out a single claw.
Rossini expected the claw to rake his neck. He braced himself for the pain, squeezing his eyes shut. The pain never came. Instead there was a gentle touch, almost a pat. The Switzer opened his eyes again and saw that, indeed, the fallen kessentai, the Posleen's own von Winkelried, was doing just that, giving a series of gentle pats to his armored chest.
Instinctively, Leopoldo took his own hand, the one remaining, and patted the claw of Borasmena. He then took that claw in a firm but brotherly grip.
Which was exactly how the two bodies were later found.
Von Altishofen stood upon a small pile of bodies. From that vantage point, he could see three knots of fighting. One of these centered on Querida who, with two Switzers—one of them Kaporal Grosskopf, was fighting off twice as many kessentai. The other was centered on Frederico, who with three of the guardsmen was doing the same. The Wachtmeister thought that neither contest would be long drawn out.
He, himself, was in a little knot of five—no, four now—still trying to use their halberds. There was no formation, though, and so most of the humans' advantage was gone. Even so, where the humans' could present more than one spearpoint to a Posleen, the kessentai usually kept some distance.
And why not? They'll wear us down a little at a time, as is.
From the direction of the pyre, von Altishofen heard the Reverend Guanamarioch scream. He didn't look in the Christian Posleen's direction, but spared a glance first at Querida, who was sinking with a boma blade plunged into her side, then at Frederico, just as the juvenile kessentai burst like a fury from the knot of Switzers, trying to reach his mother's side.
Frederico heard his father's wail of despair and looked immediately toward his mother. It was like a knife in his own hearts to see her slowly going down while plucking ineffectually at the hilt of the boma blade protruding from her torso.
"MOTHER!" the boy screamed.
His eyes opened wide in full battle fury. His crest, though it should not have been possible, erected itself even more fully. In sudden fear, the kessentai facing Frederico backed off, despite having size on the boy. He did not back of quickly enough.
Frederico batted his enemy's boma blade aside, then reached forward with the hook on the back of his halberd. The inside curve of the hook was dull. No matter; he caught the back of that kessentai's leg with the thing and pulled it forward, knocking out that strut. A quick slash with the axeblade and the Posleen fell over. Before he could rise Frederico chopped right through the center of his head, killing him instantly. Into that space, the boy lunged forward.
He slashed right; he slashed left. He jabbed with the point or stroked with the butt. A kessentai unfortunate enough to bar his path soon found himself missing a leg . . . an arm . . . a head.
One among his enemies' number, though, trotted over to bar the boy's way. Others moved to surround him on all sides, even as the Swiss behind him began to succumb to the blows of their enemies.
"You are a brave kessentai," that one said, in High Posleen, "too brave to die for an alien faith. My name is Koresnagi. Yield you, now, to our grace, and be spared."
In answer, the Posleen boy took a firmer grip of his great ax and spat upon the blood-stained ground. "I stand with my sire and I stand by my faith," he answered, as if the grip and the spittle were not answer enough.
"So be it," the kessentai answered, sadly, placing his blade in guard position and moving forward to the attack.
Despite his shock at the fury of the humans in close combat mode, Finba'anaga was still surprised by the sound of Tulo'stenaloor's tenar and then the clan lord's gravelly voice, coming from behind him. He could see those he had placed as guards upon the clan lord fanning out into the crowd or racing to the pyre.
"You said this new thing, this religion, would weaken us, did you not, Finba?" the clan lord asked.
His eyes riveted to the battle scene playing out before them, Finba could only shake his head. This was not in denial of the words, but in denial of the events unfolding.
"I see no weakness down there," Tulo continued. "Instead I see a courage to match any in the old tales. Do you deny this?"
This time, when Finba shook his head, it was in conscious acceptance.
"Cease this, now," the Clan Lord ordered. "Call off your followers."
Finba's muzzle opened, yet no words came out. In that delay, another human, standing guard over Querida's corpse, fell. "NOW, I said."
"Ce . . . cease!" Finba shouted. "Back off, kessentai."
"And release the kessentai who joined the humans," Tulo ordered. "I mean both their 'minister' and those who chose to follow him. This was a filthy way to have put them to death, in any event, and I shall be long in trying to understand how you could have permitted it."
Frederico didn't quite understand what had happened. The kessentai facing him had had him, dead to rights, with a boma blade poised to take off his head.
He was wounded. He knew that in a distant way. But he thought it was not a fatal wound. He wasn't sure if that was a pleasing thought or not. Yet, pleasing or not, it was true. That blade never descended. His head remained attached.
Instead of killing him, Frederico saw, the kessentai who had named himself Koresnagi was sheathing his blade, and then reaching down a hand to help him up.
"You were good," Koresnagi said, "very good. I doubt I could have taken you alone."
"I must see to my mother," Frederico said, as he began to walk unsteadily to the little mound that contained she who had raised him, plus the bodies of Grosskopf and Affenzeller, along with several other Posleen. He stumbled.
"Here," Koresnagi said, gesturing to his own broad back. "Put one arm over me. I will help."
Frederico nodded. "Thank you. I think I need the help," he said, just before collapsing.
As soon as Guano was released from the chains which bound him to the pyre, he raced across the bloody ground to the side of his cosslain.
Querida was still breathing. She would not be for much longer. Besides the boma blade that pierced her nearly through, she was bleeding from a dozen other cuts, large and small, shallow or deep.
Guano couldn't contain the moan that escaped his muzzle as he sank to his chest besides her. The moan was enough to bring her eyes open. She saw the being who meant everything to her, even more than her son. She tried to raise her head.
"No . . . no, Querida," Guano said, lightly pushing her head back to the ground and laying his own across her bloody neck.
She took a deep breath, causing her pierced lungs to rattle as air escaped them through a bloody froth. One syllable, she managed to get out. "See . . ." Another breath, harder and drawing less air, and she gasped, "Ay . . ." Still another. "Lo?"
"Cielo?" Guano said. "No, not Heaven yet, Love. "Soon . . . soon enough we'll together there. I promise. I pro—"
Guano felt the body beneath him shudder then. Slowly, the air escaped from lungs that no longer needed to draw breath. He lifted his muzzle to Heaven and from it issued a wail or despair that reached to every human and kessentai present.
"Now collect and sort their dead," Tulo ordered, "theirs and ours. Treat them all with respect."
"Yes, Lord," Finba answered.
"And dismantle that obscene pyre."
"Yes, Lord."
With a grunt of disdain, Tulo'stenaloor turned his tenar then, leaving the platform on which Finba'anaga stood, with nary a glance behind. He glided easily for as long as the roadway was clear, then dropped his tenar to the ground and began to walk once he reached the bodies. These he stepped through gingerly, lest his claws profane them.
For you were all holy, Tulo thought, insofar as I can believe anything to be holy. Whether it was the Posleen who fought to keep up our restoration of the old ways, or the humans and Posleen who fought to bring us the new . . . all were holy, alike together.
"There is no going back then, is there, priest," Tulo said to Dwyer, still standing and holding his processional cross.
Dwyer shook his head, then said, "There never was any going back, I think, Lord of the Sten Clan."
"Was it worth it to you, sacrificing your people as you have?"
"To me? No. To our peoples?" Dwyer glanced over to where Guanamarioch's followers were still in the process of being unchained from the pyre. "I think it may be. And then, too . . ."
"Yes?"
"I do believe. It is no act. Believing, as I do, I do not think that those who fell here will be ignored by God. They shall have their reward."
"I do not believe," Tulo said. "Neither in your God nor in the old ones some of my people tried to resurrect. Yet I do believe this much: Faith is strength and in the days to come we shall all need all of the strength we can muster. I will order my people to convert to your faith, priest."
"Ours?" Dwyer asked, uncomprehending. "I don't understand. It was Guanamarioch's version that your people mostly turned to."
"His way allowed his people to be led to a pyre to be burned to death," Tulo explained. "That is a kind of strength, yes, but it is not the kind we will need for the future. Your faith, on the other hand, your kind of faith, led these humans to battle like heroes of legend. So, priest, my people will become Roman Catholics . . . isn't that what you call yourselves? Rejoice; you've won."
Dwyer looked around at the piles of bodies, and the few stunned and dazed survivors. And how does one repay then, He asked himself, how does one repay a sacrifice that brings an entire species into the fold of Mother Church. Sainthood? Dwyer could hardly keep from laughing. These men were soldiers, not plaster saints. Of course, we don't really make saints for the benefit of the beatified, but for those who remain. So, yes, perhaps that, if I can swing it. Would roughly a ton of humans and another half a ton of Posleen standing up to twenty tons of Posleen for some minutes count as a miracle? Maybe; maybe not. Well . . . we'll still see what we can do.
USS Salem
"I feel empty now," Sally said, tears in her eyes, "without those boys here to do their drill in the hall. And to lose Querida . . ." She buried her face in her hands and began openly to weep.
"She really was a person, wasn't she?" Dwyer agreed. "Lord knows, poor Guano feels the loss like she was."
Between sniffles Sally got out, "And Frederico . . . losing his mother . . . like that . . ."
"How are they taking it?" Dwyer asked.
"You know I can't actually look anywhere there aren't cameras," she said.
"Yes, but."
She sniffled again and shrugged. "They have faith. They hurt; but they have faith."
"Do you, Sally?" her husband asked.
"Not yours, of course, but I do have faith in a couple of things. One of them is that in about eight and a half months I'm going to give birth to a baby. If it's a boy, I want to call him 'Martin.'"
Dwyer was almost speechless. Of course, he was a Jesuit and so 'almost' speechless didn't mean quite speechless. "I'm going to be a father father?"
Sally nodded quickly, the kind of nod a person makes when words can't possibly express their feelings quickly enough.
"What if it's a girl?"
Sally sniffled again. "That's a stupid question." Sniffle. "If it's a girl we're going to name her 'Querida.'"
At which point they both started to cry, more for Guano and Frederico than for the fallen cosslain.
Dwyer was carrying a small sack when he found Guanamarioch in the non-denominational ship's chapel. The Posleen was on his knees (a terribly uncomfortable position for a Posleen) with his grasping claws clasped, his eyes closed, and his head bowed. The imam, al Rashid, was there, too, though the Moslem was seated, cross-legged, on the floor beside the minister, one hand laid across the Posleen's back. Frederico was still in the sick bay; his wounds, while not fatal, had proven more serious than the simple cuts on the outside would have indicated.
"He's been this way for hours," the imam explained. "Didn't think he should be alone."
"I didn't think so, either," piped in the AS hanging on Guano's chest.
"Sally sent me down, Guano," the priest said, as he sat down in a mirror of the imam's own posture.
"Eeesss . . . pllleeeaaasssinggg . . . knowww . . . sheee thiiinksss oppponnn me," the kessentai answered, head still bowed.
From the sack Dwyer drew a bottle and a jar. "She thought you could use a drink, Guano. And she didn't think you should get drunk alone. So I've got this one time special dispensation, better than from the Pope, to share a drink with you. The jar's for you. The bottle . . . that's for me."
"For us," al Rashid corrected.
Only one of the moons had risen, a bright dome in heaven, casting a sharp shadow from the tripartite statue. Finba'anaga stood before that statue, its shadow running across his legs and claws.
"Why?" the kessenalt asked of the statue though, it being merely stone, it could not give him the answer he sought. "Why?" he asked again, fruitlessly. "I believed in you, and in the old gods. I believed in the message you carried, and yet you abandoned me. And now this alien faith will spread, by order of the Clan Lord, no less, and the old ways will be lost forever."
It was too much to be borne, really. And Finba could see no way to make it better. Still, he believed in the old gods. If they had proven less powerful than this new one of the humans . . . Well, and so the humans proved more powerful than us.
Pained, with a deep soul-searing inner agony, Finba turned from the statue and began the long trudge upward to the top of the acropolis of the city of the Posleen. Just once, before turning a bend, he twisted his head back to look again at the statue.
Why?
The path wound upward, between rough, rocky walls. Head bowed down in defeat, Finba paid the walls no mind. He barely noticed the ground upon which he trod.
At the top of the path, Finba looked upward, as if seeking the human ship that had brought this ruin upon him. I would curse you, he thought, but, since your God is more powerful than mine, such a curse would be nothing but another exercise in futility. And of those I am very tired.
In truth, I am tired of life. Tired . . .
Finba picked his way through the pyramids dotting the top of the acropolis, to the edge. From there he looked out over the city. I had this uncovered. I had the walls rebuilt, the paths recleared. Gods of my forefathers, was it all in vain?
Unlike all other Rememberers in living memory, Finba'anaga had never tossed his stick. He took it now from his harness and, looking at the square where he had met ultimate defeat at the hand
s of the humans, he raised the stick high overhead and threw it.
"You win," he whispered. He then closed his eyes and followed the stick, over the edge of the mesa and down. The only sound he made was when his body struck pavement, and even that was involuntary.
"We've won here, Guano," Dwyer said, his speech only a little slurred. "The People of the Ships are going to become Christians."
"Well," al Rashid shrugged, "I never could explain to them how to find Mecca to bow for daily prayers. And the whole Hajj thing? That was just never going to happen."
The imam's speech was clearer than Dwyer's, even though he'd drunk as much if not more. Then again, he was Egyptian and was not exactly a stranger to beer.