C J Cherryh - Brothers of Earth

by Brothers Of Earth [lit]

The men who stood on Sidek's bow as the Ilev longship put into harbor at the head of the fleet watched the shore in silence. The smoke appeared to come from high up the hill, but no one ventured to surmise what was burning.

  At last Kta turned his face from the sight with a gesture of anger. "Kurt," he said, "keep close by me. Gods know what we are going into."

  Oars eased Sidek in and let her glide, a brave man of Ilev first ashore with the mooring cable. Other ships came into dock in quick succession.

  Crowds poured from the gate, gathering on the dockside, all Sufaki, not a few of them in Robes of Color, young and menacing. There were elders and women with children also, clamoring and pleading for news, looking with frightened eyes at the tattered rigging of the ships. Some seamen who had not sailed with their Indras crewmates ran down to their sides and began to curse and invoke the gods for grief at what had happened to them, seeking news of shipmates.

  And swiftly the rumor was running the crowd that the fleet had turned back the Methi, even while Ian t'Ilev and other captains gave quick orders to run out the gangplanks.

  The plans and alternate plans had been drilled into the ships' crews in exhortations of captains and family heads and what practice the narrow decks permitted. Now the Indras-descended moved smartly, with such decision and certainty that the Sufaki, confused by the false rumor of victory, gave back.

  A young revolutionary charged forward, shrieking hate and trying to inflame the crowd, but Indras discipline held, though he struck one of the t'Nechisen half senseless. And suddenly the rebel gave back and ran, for no one had followed him. The Indras-descended kept swords in sheaths, gently making way for themselves at no greater speed than the bewildered crowd could give them. They did not try to pass the gates. They took their stand on the dock and t'Isulan, who had the loudest voice in the fleet, held up his arms for silence.

  News was what the crowd cried for; now that it was offered, they compelled each other to silence to hear it.

  "We have held them a little while," shouted t'Isulan. "We are still in danger. Where is the Methi to be found? Still in the Afen?"

  People attempted to answer in the affirmative, but the replies and the questions drowned one another out. Women began screaming, everyone talking at once.

  "Listen," t'Isulan roared above the noise. "Pull back and fortify the wall. Get your women to the houses and barricade the gates to the sea!"

  The tumult began anew, and Kta, well to the center of the lines of Indras, seized Kurt by the arm and drew him to the inside as they started to move, t'Nethim staying close by them.

  Kurt had his head muffled in his ctan. Among so many injured it was not conspicuous, and exposure had darkened' his skin almost to the hue of the nemet. He was terrified, none the less, that the sight of his human face might bring disaster to the whole plan and put him in the hands of a mob. There had been talk of leaving him on the ship; Kta had argued otherwise.

  The Indras-descended began to pass the outer-wall gates, filing peacefully upward toward their homes, toward their own hearths. It was supreme bluff. T'Isulan had hedged the truth with a skill uncommon to that tall, gruff breed that were his Family. It was their hope to organize the Sufaki to work, and so keep the Sufaki out of the way of the Families.

  And at the inner gate, the rebels waited.

  There were jeers. Daggers were out. Rocks flew. Two Indras-descended fell, immediately gathered up by their kinsmen. T'Nethim staggered as a rock hit him. Kta hurried him further, half carrying him. The head of the column forced the gate bare-handed, with sheer weight of numbers and recklessness. It was sworn among them that they would not draw weapons, not until a point of extremity.

  There was blood on the cobbles as they passed, and smeared on the post of the gate, but the Indras-descended let none of their own fall. They gained the winding Street of the Families, and their final rush panicked the rebels, who scattered before them, disordered and undisciplined.

  Then the cause of the smoke became evident. Houses at the rising of the hill were aflame, Sufaki milling in the streets at the scene. Women snatched up screaming children and crowded back, caught between the fires and the rush of fleeing rebels and advancing Indras. A young mother clutched her two children to her and shrank against the side of a house, sobbing in terror as they passed her.

  It was the area where the wealthiest Sufak houses joined the Street of the Families, and where the road took the final bend toward the Afen. Two Sufak houses, Rachik and Pamchen, were ablaze, and the blasphemous paint-splashed triangle of Phan gave evidence of the religious bitterness that had brought it on. Trapped Sufaki ran in panic between the roiling smoke of the fire and the sudden charge of the Indras.

  "Spread out!" t'Isulan roared, waving his arm to indicate a barrier across the street. "Close off this area and secure it!"

  A feathered shaft impacted into the chest of the man next to him; Tis t'Nechis fell with red dying his robes. A second and a third shaft sped, one felling an Indras and the other a Sufaki bystander who happened to be in the line of fire.

  "Up there!" Kta shouted, pointing to the rooftop of Dleve. "Get the man, t'Ranek! You men, spread out! This side, this side, quickly-"

  The Indras moved, their rush to shelter terrifying the Sufaki who chanced to have sought the same protected side, but the Indras dislodged no one. A terrified boy started to dart out. An Indras seized him, struggling and kicking though he was, and pushed him into the hands of his kin.

  "Neighbors!" Kta shouted to the house of Rachik. "We are not here to harm you. Gods, lady shu-t'Rachik, get those children back into the alley! Keep close to the wall."

  There were a few grins, for the first lady t'Rachik with her brood was very like a frightened cochin with a half dozen of her children about her; other Rachiken were there too, both women and men, and the old father too. They were glad enough to escape the area, and the old man gave a sketchy bow to Kta t'Elas, gratitude. Though his house was burning, his children were safe.

  "Shelter near Elas," said Kta. "No Indras will harm you. Put the Pamcheni there too, Gyan t'Rachik."

  A cry rang out overhead and a body toppled from the roof to bounce off a porch and onto the stones of the street. The dead Sufaki archer lay with arrows scattered like straws about his corpse.

  A girl of Dleve screamed, belatedly, hysterically.

  "Throw a defense around this whole section," Kta directed his men. "Ian! Camit! Take the wall-street by Irain and set a guard there. You Sufaki citizens! Get these fires under control: buckets and pikes, quickly! You, t'Hsnet, join t'Ranek, you and all your cousins!"

  Men scattered in all directions at his orders, and pushed their way through smoke and frightened Sufaki; but the Sufaki who remained on the street, elders and children, huddled together in pitiful confusion, afraid to move in any direction.

  Then from the houses up the street came others of the Indras-descended, and the chani, such as had stayed behind to guard the houses when the fleet sailed. Sufaki women

  screamed at the sight of them, men armed with the deadly

  ypai.

  Kta stood free of the wall, taking a chance, for t'Ranek's men were not yet in position to defend the street from archers. He lifted his sword arm aloft in signal to the Indras who were running up, weapons in hand.

  "Hold off!" he shouted. "We have things under control. These poor citizens are not to blame. Help us secure the area and put out the fires."

  "The Sufaki set them, in Sufak houses," shouted the old chan of Irain. "Let the Sufaki put them out!"

  "No matter who started them," Kta returned furiously, his face purpling at being fronted by a chan of a friendly house. "Help put them out. The fires are burning and they will take our houses too. They must be stopped."

  That chan seemed suddenly to realize who it was he had challenged, for he came to a sudden halt; and another man shouted:

  "Kta t'Elas! Ei, t'Elas, t'Elas!"

  "Aye," shouted Kta, "still alive, t'Kales! Well met! Give us help here
."

  "These people," panted t'Kales, reaching him and giving the indication of a bow, "these people deserve no pity. We tried to defend them. They shield t'Tefur's men, even when the fires strike their own houses."

  "All Nephane has lost its mind," said Kta, "and there is no time to argue blame. Help us or stand aside. The Indras fleet is a day out of Nephane and we either collect ourselves a people or see Nephane burn." ,

  "Gods," breathed t'Kales. "Then the fleet-"

  "Defeated. We must organize the city."

  "We cannot do it, Kta. None of these people will listen to reason. We have been beseiged in our own houses."

  "Kta!" Kurt exclaimed, for another man was running down the street.

  It was Bel t'Osanef. One of the Indras-descended barred his way with drawn ypan and nearly ran him through, but t'Osanef avoided it with desperate agility.

  "Light of heaven!" Kta cried. "Hold, t'Idur! Let him pass!"

  The seaman dropped his point and Bel began running again, reached the place where they stood.

  "Kta, ye gods, Kta!" Bel was close to collapse with his race to get through, and the words choked from him. "I had no hope-"

  "You are mad to be on the street," said Kta. "Where is Aimu?"

  "Safe. We shelter in Irain. Kta-"

  "I have heard, I have heard, my poor friend."

  "Then please, Kta, these people... these people of mine... they are innocent of the fires. Whatever... whatever your people say... they try to make us out responsible... but it is a lie, a-"

  "Calm yourself, Bel. Cast no words to the winds. I beg you, take charge of these people and get them to help or get them out of this area. The Indras fleet is coming down on Nephane and we have only a little time to restore order here and prepare ourselves."

  "I will try," said Bel, and cast a despairing look at the frightened people milling about, at the dead men in the street. He went to the archer who lay in the center of the cobbled street, knelt down and touched him, then looked up with a negative gesture and a sympathetic expression for someone in the crowd.

  There came a young woman-the one who had screamed. She crept forward and knelt down in the street beside the dead man, sobbing and rocking in her misery. Bel spoke to her in words no one else could hear, though there was but for the fire's crackling a strange silence on the street and among the crowd. Then he picked up the dead youth's body himself, and struggled with it toward the Sufaki side.

  "Let us take our dead decently inside," he said. "You men who can, put the fires out."

  "The Indras set them," one of the young women said.

  "Udafi Kafurtin," said Bel in a trembling voice, "in the chaos we have made of Nephane, there is really no knowing who started anything. Our only identifiable enemy is whoever will not put them out. Kta-Kta! Have these men of yours put up their weapons. We have had enough of weapons and threats in this city. My people are not armed, and yours do not need to be."

  "Yours shoot from ambush!" shouted one of the Indras. "Do as he asks!" Kta shouted, and glared about him with such fury that men began to obey him.

  Then Kta went and bowed very low before t'Nechis, who had a cousin to mourn, and quietly offered his help, though Kurt winced inwardly and expected temper and hatred from the grieving t'Nechis.

  But in extremity t'Nechis was Indras and a gentleman.

  He bowed in turn, in proper grace. "See to business, Kta

  t'Elas. The t'Nechisen will take him home. We will be with

  you as soon as we can send my cousin to his rest." By noon the fires were out, and the Sufaki who had aided in fighting the blaze scattered to their homes to bar the

  doors and wait in silence. !

  Peace returned to the Street of the Families, with ] armed men of the fleet standing at either end of the street and on rooftops where they commanded a view of all that moved. The scars were visible now, hollow shells of buildings, pavement littered with rubble.

  Kurt left Lhe t'Nethim sheltered in the hall of Elas, the Indras grim-faced and subdued to have set foot in a hostile house.

  He found Kta standing out on the curb. Kta, like himself, was masked with soot and sweat and the dim red marks of burns from fire fighting.

  "They have buried t'Nechis," Kta said hollowly, without looking around. They had been so much together it was possible to feel the other's presence without looking. He knew Kta's face without seeing it, that it was tired and shadow-eyed and drawn with pain.

  "Get off the street," Kurt said. "You are a target."

  "T'Ranek is on the roof. I do not think there is danger. Fully half of Nephane is in our hands now, thank the gods." |

  "You have done enough. Go over to Irain. Aimu will be I anxious to see you."

  "I do not wish to go to Irain," Kta said wearily. "Bel will be there and I do not wish to see him."

  "You have to, sooner or later."

  "What do I tell him? What do I say to him when he asks me what will happen now? Forgive me, brother, but I have made a compact with the Indras, and I swore once that was impossible; forgive me, brother, but I have surrendered your home to my foreign cousins; I am sorry, my brother, but I have sold you into slavery for your own preservation."

  "At least," said Kurt grimly, "the Sufaki will have the same chance a human has among Indras, and that is better than dying, Kta, it is infinitely better than dying."

  "I hope," said Kta, "that Bel sees it that way. I am afraid for this city tonight. There has been too little resistance. They are saving something back. And there is a report t'Tefur is in the Afen."

  Kurt let the breath hiss slowly between his teeth and glanced uphill, toward the Afen gate.

  "If we are fortunate," he said, "Djan will keep control of the weapons."

  "You seem to have some peculiar confidence she will not hand him that power."

  "She will not do it," Kurt said. "Not willingly. I could be wrong, but I think I know Djan's mind. She would suffer a great deal before she would let those machines be loosed on nemet."

  Kta looked back at him, anger on his face. "She was capable of things you seem to have forgotten. Humanness blinds you, my friend, and I fear you have buried Mim more deeply than earth can put her. I do not understand that. Or perhaps I do."

  "Some things," Kurt said, with a sudden and soul-deep coldness, "you still do not know me well enough to say."

  And he walked back into Elas, ignoring t'Nethim, retreating into its deep shadows, into the rhmei, where the fire was dead, the ashes cold. He knelt there on the rugs as he had done so many evenings, and stared into the dark.

  Lhe t'Nethim's quiet step dared the silent rhmei. It was a rash and brave act for an orthodox Indras. He bowed himself in respect before the dead firebowl and knelt on the bare floor.

  He only waited, as he had waited constantly, attending them in silence".

  "What do you want of me?" Kurt asked in vexation.

  "I owe you," said Lhe t'Nethim, "for the care of my cousin's soul. I have come because it is right that a kinsman see the hearth she honored. When I have seen her avenged, I will be free again."

  It was understandable. Kurt could imagine Kta doing so reckless a thing for Aimu.

  Even for him.

  He had used rudeness to Kta. Even justified, it pained him. He was glad to hear Kta's familiar step in the entry, like a ghost of things that belonged to Elas, disturbing its sleep.

  Kta silently came and knelt down on the rug nearest Kurt.

  "I was wrong," said Kurt. "I owe you an accounting."

  "No," said Kta gently. "The words flew amiss. You are a stranger sometimes. I feared you were remembering human debts. And you have found no yhia since losing Mim. She lies at the heart of everything for you. A man without yhia toward such a great loss cannot remember things clearly, cannot reason. He is dangerous to all around him. I fear you. I fear for you. Even you do not know what you are likely to do."

  He was silent for a long time. Kurt did not break the silence.

  "Let us wash,"
said Kta at last. "And when I have cleansed my hands of blood I mean to light the hearth of Elas again, and return some feeling of life to these halls. If you dread to go upstairs, use my room, and welcome."

  "No," said Kurt, and gathered himself to his feet. "I will go up, Kta. Do not worry for it."

  The room that had been his and Mini's looked little different. The stained rug was gone, but all else was the same, the bed, the holy phusa before which she had knelt and prayed.

  He had thought that being here would be difficult. He could scarcely remember the sound of Mim's voice. That had been the first memory to flee. The one most persistent was that still shape of shadow beneath the glaring hearth-fire, Nym's arms uplifted, invoking ruin, waking the vengeance of his gods.