The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  He had no doubt whatever that he could find his way several hundred miles cross-country to Burnt Woods.

  This morning he sat cleaning the beginnings of rust from shovels, sharpening them with a mill file, and rubbing them with an oily rag. It was the sort of work a man could do who didn't get around well and was thought to lack proper mobility in his left shoulder.

  Fingas Kelromak came into the tool shed, his forester with him. The forester held a pistol, and stationed himself to one side of the door. Varky put the shovel down and looked at Fingas questioningly. "It seems," said Fingas, "that you are not the only injured man about the place."

  Varky nodded, completely calm. "I heard folks tell what happened to you."

  Fingas's eyes latched onto his. "I suppose you've heard too of the great damage done. It's thought to be by mercenaries from Smolen. The generally accepted theory is that they were smuggled into the country on a freighter, perhaps from Oselbent. But they could have gotten here crosscountry, through what the Smoleni call the High Wild."

  "Yessir, I heard that too."

  "I have another theory."

  Varky said nothing.

  "They could have come down the Raging River in small boats. I'm sure there are Smoleni who know the river well enough. Then separated and hiked to Linnasteth, to regather there." Varky's gaze never wavered. "If they had," Fingas added, "they'd probably come through here."

  Still there was no reaction.

  "Our government failed to capture any of the raiders. If they had one, they'd question him at length. Undoubtedly a horrible experience."

  It was Fingas's eyes that turned away; he reached into a pocket and held up the magazine. Varky knew at once where it had come from. "You see what this is," Fingas said. "It was found in your rucksack while you were being brought here, and given to me. I decided then that it was simply something you'd found."

  "Could be. I don't recall."

  Fingas looked long at him again. Finally he said, "I need you to do something for me: I need you to tell me the truth. And when you have told me the truth, I'll need you to do something else for me: an errand." He paused to let his words sink in. It wasn't necessary. "But first the truth—two questions. Number one, how did your hands get so heavily, and really rather peculiarly callused?"

  Varky waited for three or four seconds before answering. Not making up his mind; his reaction to the situation was as quick as his reactions to physical confrontations. He simply knew without computation that Fingas Kelromak expected a lag, and it would be better to meet his expectation. He held up his hands as if examining them—and answered with a typical Iryalan accent. "They result mainly from a form of training, but partly also from the temperatures in which the training was done."

  "Ah!" Fingas's face twisted, as if with some inner adjustment. "My second question is, are you able to travel cross-country now, with your injured knee and shoulder?"

  "I can travel."

  "Good. Now for the errand: I want you to convey for me a message to your commander."

  Varky nodded. Fingas drew a thick envelope from inside his jacket, and handed it to him. "You may read it if you'd like. In fact I recommend it."

  It was open at one end. Varky shook out the contents and scanned them; there were several pages.

  "You can see it wouldn't do to be caught with it. If at some point you seem to be in danger, I want you to burn it. Are you sure you're willing to do all this?"

  The risk this Komarsi nobleman was taking was remarkable, Varky realized, even astonishing, given what he had to lose. Romlar and the president would very much want to see this letter. He folded it, put it back in the envelope, and tucked it in his own shirt. "More than willing," he said.

  "Do you think you can find your way?"

  Varky let himself grin. "Like a migrating bird," he answered.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later they were in the carryall, Varky in the back out of sight, traveling up the road first north, then west. Food had been provided for Varky's rucksack—cheese, bread, honey in a can—and insect repellent, which he could have done without but was happy to have.

  Several miles within the forest, Chenly pulled off on a spur road and drove to near its end, where they got out. Now Fingas drew his own pistol, extending it to the trooper. "Best you take this. And—" Reaching in a pocket, he took out the magazine. "See if it fits. The design is standard, but the make is undoubtedly different."

  This, Varky thought, is a real man! He removed the magazine already in the butt and tried the other. Standard didn't mean as much on the trade worlds as on Confederation member worlds, but he wasn't surprised to find it fitted. He slid the action back, and a cartridge seated nicely.

  "Thank you, sir. Much appreciated."

  He slung his pack, being only a little careful with his shoulder, then turned and jogged off easily toward the north without a limp.

  26

  Gulthar Kro was the grandson of freed serfs—freed for having served in the last war with Selmar. His childhood was spent in a shantytown outside Wheatland, a provincial seat. At age twelve he'd gotten into trouble with the authorities for excessive fighting in one of the poor, ill-taught schools provided for freedmen. He'd hit the road, working at whatever he could, stealing as necessary.

  At age sixteen he'd been sentenced to life in prison. He'd waylaid and beaten a notoriously brutal undersheriff, would no doubt have killed him if two constables hadn't interrupted. He was already man-sized and more than man-strong, with a reputation among the drifters for ferocity in fights.

  In prison he was assigned to quarrying rock. Because he was so strong, he was alternately a hammer man, whaling away with a twelve-pound sledge, and a prizer, using a crowbar to move blocks of granite. This work, imposed on an exceptional genotype, developed extremely powerful back, arms, and shoulders. The sledgehammer work in particular developed ferocious strength in his hands and forearms.

  In the prison camp, fights were frequent. He soon became respected by the toughest inmates, and feared by the rest. He wasn't sadistic, but he could be ruthless, even brutal when it served his purpose.

  At age twenty-two he was part of an escape that left three guards dead. Once out, he left the others, mistrusting their judgment. The camp had been in the hills that farther north became the "High Wild" of western Smolen. The others had determined to move eastward out of the forest, planning to sleep in haystacks and rob farms. Kro, on the other hand, had moved northward through the forest, stealthy and swift, disciplining his hunger, sleeping on the ground. Two days later he found a woodsmen's shack, where he stole a can of beans and two cold pancakes, but nothing else. With three men living there, so little might never be missed.

  The next morning he ambushed a timber cruiser and killed him. First he ate the man's lunch, then took his belt with its knife and pistol, and hid the body in a ravine.

  The next day he was across the border. Already he was becoming woodswise; it seemed natural to him. Eventually he found work as a log cutter, and got the feel of the Smoleni speech. When fall came, he'd joined with two Smoleni brothers who trapped in the High Wild.

  By spring he was tired of the quiet, the lack of excitement. However, for the first time in his life he'd lived among men who were reasonable and cheerful—neither violent nor contentious—and he'd been affected by it. He traveled south again, by bus now, returning to Komars where he joined the army. The law required identification cards, but these were not ordinarily asked for, and their lack was disregarded in men volunteering for the expanding army. He was a natural warrior, his mind was quick, and he was self-disciplined. He was also a natural leader, and advanced quickly.

  After being selected for the Commander's Personal Unit, he was promoted to warrant officer and made a platoon leader. Within two weeks the unit commander was removed as ineffectual, and Kro was made acting commander. Two weeks after that, having beaten several men severely for insubordination, his appointment was made "permanent" by the general, who ra
mmed through a jump to captain for him.

  The post remained his for more than a year.

  27

  A submachine gun resting on his lap, Gulthar Kro rode in a commandeered Smoleni bus, sitting next to the driver, where he could see out. He'd selected twenty two-man teams, men who might at least attempt to carry out their mission, while leaving the unit most of its officers and sergeants.

  For ten days he'd worked the selected teams in the forest, making sure they could use a compass and read and follow maps. He'd made competitions of it, and before the ten days were over, the men were competent and confident. Each man wore a captured Smoleni uniform; each team had a book of forest maps taken from the captured headquarters of the Smoleni Forest Survey, maps showing the major variations in forest types, every creek and pond, and every open fen larger than perhaps twenty acres, which gave them many reference points to guide on.

  Finding Burnt Woods was entirely feasible with them. The question was, how many would do it. Because it was also feasible to desert now, hike westward to the Raging River and cross it on a raft or stolen boat, or even travel eastward to the border with Oselbent. He guessed that perhaps half would try for Burnt Woods. They'd been shown a sketch map of the village, with the president's house marked, and the general's, and each team had been assigned a primary target. When they got there, they'd have to play it by ear.

  They'd been shown where, on the appropriate forest map, the merc headquarters was, too, but he hadn't assigned its commander to anyone. No one knew what he looked like or what tent was his, and anyway it seemed to Kro that it would simply waste a team to try for him.

  The bus had taken them west along a graveled east-west connecting road, and he'd dropped off team after team at intervals marked on the maps. The first stage of the troop pull-back had been completed, and tomorrow this road would be left to the Smoleni, too. Not that they'd get any good of it; every farmstead along the road would be burned, as well as the sole village.

  Now Kro was the only man left on the bus besides the driver, who'd turned it around on an old roadside log landing and was driving back eastward. Kro watched through the windshield for a landmark, and when he saw it, told the driver to stop.

  He turned to the man before stepping out the door. "When you get back," he said, "tell your commander I gave you a message for the general—an important message that he's gawta get." He stopped, waiting for the man to digest that, then went on. "Tell him I'm gawn north too. And with enough luck, I'll be back.

  "You got that?"

  When the man had repeated it to him, Kro nodded, stepped off the bus, and disappeared into the forest. The merc commander was his target, his alone.

  28

  Kelmer Faronya had been having nightmares. He'd felt better about himself after the night of the mortar attacks. He'd done his job in the face of heavy fire, and stayed as long as the others. But on several nights since then, he'd had recurring dreams in which the grenade once again landed in front of him. In one of them, Jerym had thrown himself on it to save him, and it had exploded. Then Jerym's corpse had followed him everywhere in the dream, mangled and bloody and grim. He'd get in front of Kelmer, stand in his way, take Kelmer's seat at the table. There was no escaping him. The dead mouth moved, but no words came out. The dreaming Kelmer was sure that the message it mouthed was horrifying, that if he ever heard it, he too would die. Meanwhile the corpse decayed. Pieces sloughed off. He could even smell it! Finally, with a horrid resonance, the words would start: "Kelmer . . ." And he'd waken sweating—with the smell of putrefaction seemingly still in his nostrils! It seemed to Kelmer that odor had never been a part of his dreams before.

  More terrifying, though, was the one in which the grenade landed and Kelmer ran. And running looked back—to see it rolling and bouncing after him! He would run and run, but always it followed him, getting nearer. And implicit in the dream was the certain knowledge that if it caught him—when it caught him—it would explode. He tired. Actually it was as if the air thickened, making running almost impossible, and his legs grew heavier, harder to move. Then, looking back, the grenade would be closer, almost at his heels. Sparks flew from it! He knew with dead certainty it was about to explode.

  That's when he'd waken, sweating and panting, a wakening that was like a reprieve.

  It was twelve days after the action, and he'd just dreamed of the rolling grenade for the third time. He lay on his cot at Shelf Falls, wide-eyed and gasping, when the thought struck him. The dream, it seemed to him, was a warning, a premonition. In the next action, or the one after that, or perhaps one later, a grenade would kill him. And somehow—somehow he would cause Jerym's death! There was no doubt in his mind that this was so.

  So when, on the next day, a message came from Romlar that he was to come to Burnt Woods, he felt like a prisoner pardoned. For Burnt Woods was far away from combat, and Jerym wouldn't be there.

  * * *

  Romlar had a different kind of assignment for him. The repeated successful strikes at Komarsi brigade bases, followed by the raid on Komarsi army headquarters at Rumaros and the destruction at Linnasteth, had rejuvenated the Smoleni. Even Belser had come around to an activist position. He'd approved the training of Smoleni ranger units, men selected for their wilderness skills, their marksmanship, and their warrior auras. Troopers would be their cadre.

  Kelmer was to record some of their training on video cubes as part of regimental history. Selected parts would be distributed to other countries on Maragor, as public relations for Smolen.

  Beyond that, he was to record civilian survival activities. These had been underway earlier at backcountry villages, but now the refugees had joined in. He took cubeage showing trees of certain species being felled, the bark stripped from them and carried in pack baskets to village houses and refugee camps. There the inner bark, the phloem, was scraped off and pestled into pulp that would be added to flour for baking. Centuries earlier, "bark bread" had kept their ancestors alive when they'd hidden in the forest, and the process had been passed down in stories and history books.

  That wasn't all. Crews with scythes hiked to wet meadows in the forest, where they cut hay and stacked it to dry on racks made of poles, so the horses herded up from the Leas could be fed that winter.

  There was even a pair of crews sawing roivan trees into five-foot logs, splitting staves from them, and cross-stacking the staves to dry. They could be shaved and carved into bows, against the time when ammunition might run out. Still others cut and peeled osiers from stream banks and fen margins, and straightened them, to be made into arrows if the need arose.

  Concussion grenades were thrown into lakes, stunning and killing fish. These floated to the surface, and were gathered in baskets for drying or smoking.

  * * *

  More important, it seemed to Kelmer, were activities near Smolen's northernmost village, a tiny place named Jump-Off.1 The border lay only forty miles north, forty miles of true wilderness. The Granite River flowed out of it, south through Jump-Off; the river was the only road there. In summer the village was reached by boat, in winter by skis, snowshoes, or sleigh.

  Tiny as it was, and more than two hundred miles north of Rumaros, Jump-Off nonetheless had strategic importance. Smoleni diplomats outside the country were negotiating secretly with the governments of Oselbent, The Archipelago, and Selmar for food and munitions. Oselbent was a long and mostly narrow country, mountainous and incised by fjords, living largely by its fishing boats, merchant marine, and mines. It feared Komar's army and fleet, and would like to see her militarism broken. Especially since, with the Smoleni coast occupied, Oselbent had Komarsi forces at her southern border. And it seemed to the Oselbenti that once the Smoleni surrendered, the Komarsi would be tempted to conquer Oselbent, or make a tributary of her. Besides, Oselbent, like Smolen, was a republic, of which there weren't many on Maragor.

  But to antagonize Komars could be fatal.

  The Archipelago was another republic. And more important, from the
Smoleni and Oselbenti point of view, she had a strong fleet. If she could be gotten to sign a mutual defense pact with Oselbent . . . But she had her own vulnerabilities.

  Selmar was the kingdom to the south of Komars, and a considerably more limited monarchy. No friend of her northern neighbor, she'd lost the last war they'd fought, along with some of the planet's diminishing iron mines. Potentially she was as strong as Komars, but suffered serious political and economic problems that a new constitution and king had only recently begun to ease. If The Archipelago were to sign a favorable trade agreement with her, the Selmari economy and morale would substantially improve, and Komars would find a revitalized old adversary on the south. One worrisome enough that Komars might be reluctant to extend her northern war to Oselbent.

  If a mutual defense pact could be engineered between Oselbent and The Archipelago, and a trade pact signed between Selmar and The Archipelago, then surely, covert assistance agreements could be worked out for Smolen, with The Archipelago as the main supply source.

  To Kelmer Faronya, a young man of the Confederation, all this seemed very very foreign—something out of a novel—and beyond photography.

  The other problem of foreign supplies was getting them into Smolen, now that her coast was occupied. This was one the Smoleni could do more about, and one readily recorded on cube. Jump-Off was fifty-four miles from the border with Oselbent, and seventy-five miles from the town of Deep Fjord, which was a busy, even somewhat congested, harbor. The Falls River, which emptied into the fjord, was the site of a large hydroelectric development, which supplied the power for a large plant that manufactured nitrogen compounds, notably nitrate fertilizers. (Ironically, it was also a major supplier of nitrocellulose for the Komarsi munitions industry.) On the plateau above the fjord, and near the border with Smolen, were mines producing iron and magnesium. Thus a railroad climbed its way up from the fjord almost to the border.