It was a gruesome sight. The villagers were now rummaging through the last of the rooms in the complex, but finding them empty. The deaths might have been prevented if the Descendant leaders had shown some humility, but they had often cursed the villagers who wouldn’t convert to their religion, and promised them an eternity of damnation.
Reegis quickly restored order. He could see no benefit in putting the offenders under guard, and when he had memorised their faces he sent them to help emptying the storehouses. It was already getting late to plant the next crop of seeds in the ground.
Some of the villagers were regretting their loss of control, and some had revelled in it. Such was the nature of people, and that was why there had to be rules that everyone understood and lived by, or were forced to live by. Not that Reegis lived by those rules, but he considered his work for Cordez to be different.
It was a subdued camp that rested that day after the hard work of the early morning, and after the fear and excitement of the battle. The militia council met in the afternoon, and Habna put forward a version of her original plan. ‘Mind warfare’ as she called it.
“We have to use this opportunity,” she insisted. “I don’t like senseless murder any more than you do, but if we play this sorry mess up for all it’s worth, we may not have to go through it again and again, all the way to Roum!”
“But it’s not the Hud way to be bloodthirsty,” said Battrick, who commanded a troop of his dock workers.
“Are we going to remove the Descendants from power and show good leadership is capable of mercy, or do we show the same brutality they have shown?”
“It will save lives,” said Reegis with finality. “I’ve seen a lot of the mechanics of war in my time, and the sooner it is over, with the least number of people killed, the sooner the healing can begin.”
The others considered this carefully. It was true this strange man from another world knew a great deal about such things, while they knew little of it.
By late that afternoon the storehouses were emptied, and the Saintsborough villagers had chosen fertile flats bordering the Kapuas river some distance away to start a new town. The next day the militia would help them build the first houses, completely free of associations with the past.
Then the bodies of the slain Descendants were scattered about the compound and the fort was burned. Runners left to take the news to the surrounding settlements. Word would soon spread of the fierce and merciless outcasts, the sea people, who were burning and killing their way across the land. Rumour and exaggeration would do the rest.
Soon the Descendants would be fleeing from the villages and towns as the militia approached, running to the last place they would feel safe, Roum.
“Let’s get the Descendants all in once place, and have an end of them,” breathed Menon to Habna, his eyes glittering fiercely. “And I hope that’s where that godless spawn Partheni went. I want to see the fear in his eyes before I kill him.”
Habna understood. The two villagers that had been murdered by Partheni had been killed when Menon was trying to arrange a truce with the Tribunal chairman. Menon felt responsible. This was something he had to put right if he was to live with himself.
She thought idly there were other ways for him to do that, but she couldn’t see any other way to deal with the Tribunal chairman. He couldn’t be left to corrupt new generations of the people of Hud.
CHAPTER 19
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Habna was called away to a long, low tent where the wounded were being treated. Her skills were especially needed for Metris, the villager Reegis had sent to bring the militia word of his progress at the back of the fort.
The Shellport man had shown incredible courage, making his way round the fort with a fractured leg and smashed ankle. He had alerted the militia to the difficulties Reegis and his fighters were having, and Hudnee had acted quickly to do something about it.
The powerful builder had remembered a log on one side of the copse where his builders had been fashioning ladders earlier. He had detailed his strongest troops to charge the main gates with it, and thank the god of good fortune the gates had given way at the first massive impact.
Several of Habna’s helpers had to hold Metris down while she re-set the leg, and massaged a piece of bone back into place at the ankle. She had given him so much of the sedative she boiled out of rock lichen that his heart rate had slowed to a crawl, but he still felt everything.
Eventually she sat back and inspected her work, and decided it was all she could do for him right now. She walked out of the tent and looked across the mayhem of temporary shelters and wagons – pulled by the people themselves – that made up this army on the march.
It made her think of the many changes that continued to affect her and her people. The old order had already, in many ways, been overthrown. Sea People outcasts and mainland villagers now worked side by side, people across Hud were now united in a common purpose, and the privileged ruling class of the Descendants would soon be overthrown.
Reegis and Salan were doing all they could to help in the fight against the Descendants, and that was building up the people’s trust in them. When they turned to the people of Hud for help in the future, Habna felt sure they would provide the pilots the space travellers needed.
It made her pause. This was the stuff from which a people could become great. They could stand for something that was good, and rise up in prosperity and understanding. It was an extraordinary time to be alive.
Half a quadroon later Habna was back at her medical tent – now a lot further inland on the way to Roum – finishing her treatment of those who had come to her for help that morning. Any of the militia too wounded to walk had been left with the Saintsborough villagers, who were now well underway with the construction of a new Saintsborough beside the Kapuas river. But there was work for Habna to do on the wounded who were healing, but unable to keep up easily, and the usual range of infections and stomach upsets.
Disease was still rampant after the months of rain, and the wholesale extinctions it had wrought on the planet. Dressings for the wounded needed to be replaced daily, and the area had to be cleaned with plant juices that burned the wounds unpleasantly, but stopped infection taking hold.
Habna mulled over the wide range of fighters she had seen so far today. There were hardened Shellport men and women who had been with the militia from the start. Also villagers the militia had liberated who had joined them and been trained on the march. Then there was a fair smattering of the captured Descendants who thought the Descendant structure had gone rotten some time ago.
A group of them finally convinced Hudnee to let them join the militia. Habna thought it a good sign for the future of Hud that even those people dedicated to a cause like the Descendants could look at its organisation and treatment of others, and find it wanting.
Treating her patients was taking a long time today, she thought. Menona would have been a real help. She had a good eye for this type of work, and was naturally attentive to detail. However Menona was back in Shellport, recovering from some major treatment herself.
Her memory losses were decreasing, and Habna was very happy for her. The medical ship the Earth people had sent to help the militia circled the planet somewhere far above the clouds, and Menona had been taken there to have the depression in her skull put back into place. Unfortunately there was still a long way to go before she was back to normal.
Parts of her brain had suffered from the long compression, and she was having to relearn some of her social skills. On top of that she had to work daily to improve her coordination. She had been given some strange, alien concoction to drink, and it was helping her recall fragments of the past. That had been one of Habna’s main concerns, that those memories might be permanently lost.
It felt a little strange having Menon away too. He had left the day before with a squad of the militia to scout the way ahead. The three of them – her, Menon and Hudnee – had become the triumvirate that
made all the final decisions for the militia.
There was always an open meeting that discussed the pros and cons of each situation first, but ultimately decisions were up to them. Habna found it tiring work on top of her healer responsibilities. It had not been that long since the Shellport militia first marched up the Kapuas river to overthrow the Descendants of the Prophet, but it felt like they had been marching, camping, and fighting, forever.
At least Menon had been there when it came time to settle the matter of the Hud people Earth wanted to train as pilots for their starships. It had soon become clear that none of the militia would volunteer to leave Hud and steer starships, though it was a tempting thought for some. A strong camaraderie had developed among them, from marching and fighting together, and the loyalty they felt to each other proved stronger then the chance to become a starship pilot.
In the end Habna had suggested sending a small group of the young adults, no more than children really, that had been left at Shellport because they hadn’t made it into the militia. If some of them were sent, it would slow down food production for the militia, though the seas were proving more bountiful now the weather had returned to normal, and fewer helpers may not be a problem. In the end it was decided that sending the youngsters was one way the people of Hud could help Earth.
Young Battrod would lead the trainees. He was an intelligent youth, but slight of build for a Hud male. Perhaps because of that, he seemed to be lacking in confidence. He was of an age to take on adult responsibilities, but the villagers seemed to be waiting – by an unspoken consensus – for him to develop a little more maturity first.
However he was a quick learner, and Habna had often considered training him in her medicine arts. Now he would lead three girls and Kanuk, Hudnee’s boy, on a trip to the giant Human Prometheus project, which was apparently on a moon. Habna couldn’t see how that was even possible, but she was envious of all the things the youngsters would see, and learn.
As the sun rose higher, and her healer round ended, she wondered how Menon and the scouting party were doing. Menon had been looking forward to a break from leadership matters, even if it was only for a few days. If she could have seen them, she would have realised how much Menon was enjoying the break.
It was another cool morning in the uplands as Metris and Menon led the militia squad through the sparse covering of brown tussock that adorned the valley floor. They were looking forward to meeting up with the southern militia at the end of the day, a momentous occasion indeed!
Metris still limped slightly, and he was excused from carrying any of the heavier sacks. He didn’t remember much of his time on board the Human medical ship, spending all of it heavily sedated. Apparently his bones had been been glued back together and braced with strips of his own bone that had been grown quickly in some special liquid. It was all hard to believe.
Around the two men new growth crowned the dried and decayed remains of tussocks. The tussocks had succumbed to the long months of continuous cloud cover and afternoon rains, but had somehow risen again. It seemed miraculous, and never ceased to lift Menon’s heart.
He did a quick check of their position. The sun had just lifted its face above the low escarpment to the side of the valley, and on the hills around them dark, brooding boulders protruded from a thin layer of poor soil and thorny scrub.
The main body of the Shellport militia had left the Kapuas river behind them two days ago, reduced as it now was to a gushing stream. Somewhere ahead of them their brother militia, the federation of free villages of the southern plateau, was reforming after a bitter fight with the Descendant guards at Harrow’s Crossing.
Much of the fortified village had burned to the ground during the attack by the militia, and many of the Descendant guards had escaped in the confusion. That had been a major setback. Reinforcements for Roum would only make it harder to take the sprawling Descendant capital when the combined militias got there. At least the villagers of Harrow’s Crossing had managed to get away from the fire safely.
The runner who had brought the squad these details had arrived in the middle of the previous day. He was now showing them the way through the tangled uplands between the headwaters of the Kapuas river and Harrow’s Crossing. One of the squad had left for the slower-moving militia the previous afternoon with news that the southern militia had made contact.
Metris had been particularly excited by his promotion to leader of a squad of his own, and had volunteered immediately for scouting duty. Like Menon he was a hunter, and had some experience of travelling. Still, Menon had decided to come along, to keep an eye on the less experienced man. Truth be told, his main reason for joining the scouting party was to get out and about in the countryside again.
“It’s good to be free to roam across Hud,” said Menon contentedly, as their new scout led the way toward Harrow’s Crossing. Hudnee and Habna would keep the militia on the march behind them, and it was a blessing to leave the problems of logistics and endless discussions of command. His first love had always been exploring the wild places of Hud, and lately, picking up medicine plants for Habna.
He stopped to dig out a curdock root with his knife and stow it in one of the pouches on his belt. It would help with inflammations of the skin on the outside of the body, and diarrhea on the inside.
“You must have seen some amazing places,” said Metris wistfully. His hunting and exploring had all been relatively close to Shellport, and the small amount of trading he had done had been along the coast.
“Don’t you believe it, boy,” said Menon, picking up speed to catch up with the scout. Metris hurried to keep up with him.
“Hud is much the same everywhere, just a long, low land in the middle of the sea. Towns is towns, and people is people. All with the same concerns about livin’ and dyin’.”
The younger Metris looked a bit crestfallen, as if he’d hoped there might be exotic places and great adventures in every direction as soon as they got into uncharted lands.
Menon laughed. “You’re in the middle of a war,” he said. “That’s more than enough excitement for one lifetime. Just pray you survive it, and hope you get to settle down to a regular life in the sea forest when it’s all over.”
He could see that Metris wasn’t convinced.
CHAPTER 20
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The ground ahead was changing, and Menon became more alert. Different country required a different approach, and there was now the threat of the Descendant guards that had escaped from Harrow’s Crossing. Part of him was sure they would have headed for Roum as fast as they could, but part of him had survived this long by not listening to such reassurances.
“What makes you want to travel?” asked Metris, sticking to his previous topic, and wanting to find something exciting about the idea of going out and exploring Hud.
Menon tilted his head to think about that one. They had caught up with the scout by the time he was ready to answer. The runner from the southern militia was leading them down a long washed-out gully. The squad was making its way off the uplands now, and into a broad valley that lay spread out below them. It contained the first real trees they had seen for a long time.
“You get to enjoy the peace and quiet of the first light of morning,” said Menon slowly, “and if you move quietly you get to see the wildlife.
“Most of all there is time to think. Time to ask yourself who you really are, and why you’re here.” He shrugged his shoulders apologetically.
“That’s about it really, but it’s everything to me. Besides, I know Habna’s medicine plants now, and the ones I collect help our people. It might even save a life. Maybe stop an infection before it gets serious, or save a woman during childbirth.
“Sometimes,” he concluded, “it’s nice to feel useful.”
Metris was silent for a long time. He had expected tales of discovery and adventure. This was something completely different. He would have to do some thinking about what was important in his ideas of explor
ing.
Something shone in the trees ahead. Menon dropped to his knees and hissed softly. The others lowered themselves slowly down and froze in place, as they’d been trained to do. Reegis had trained Hudnee, Menon, and a few of the others well, and they in turn drilled the militia every day . It was part of wanting their fighters to survive.
Menon sent one of the squads right, and went left himself. It wasn’t long before they were back.
“Two Descendant guards, sitting around the ashes of last night’s fire,” whispered Menon to the others. The scout who had taken the other side nodded agreement.
“There’s equipment beside the fire for two or three more,” continued Menon, “and from what I can see, they’re preparing to move out.
“The only question for us is whether we set an ambush here, and lure them in, or use the tree cover and take them where they are. We’ll have to move quickly if we take the second option.”
The squad were all agreed on the idea of taking on the guards right now. Descendants stopped here meant Descendants that wouldn’t be defending Roum.
“Take them down there,” said Metris. “Not enough cover up here for an ambush.”
Good choice, thought Menon. He would have done the same thing.
The squad moved quickly along the top of the ridge until they met up with a few scrubby trees that ran into good cover below. The militia checked short stabbing swords made from long fisherman’s knives, and prepared the loops of twine they kept for immobilising opponents.
Sometimes the twine was used to silence them – when it was absolutely necessary to do so. The militia were slowly getting used to this rather unpleasant side of civil war. The squad ghosted from tree to tree until they reached the valley floor. From there the attack unfolded like the set pieces they had practised so many times in training.
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