The Conqueror

by Louis Shalako

  The trouble was that the ones that went home would talk—and his own rather burgeoning nation was abuzz with talk. Talk of troop movements, talk of ships building. Talk of press-gangs going through remote fishing ports with writs of assistance, forcing men into service. Men who had no choice but to work for a living, forced to abandon their homes and family to man the galleys and supply ships, in a fleet that had doubled and then tripled in size over the course of two or three years.

  As for the wedding of Theodelinda and Kann, who they had labeled a ‘Master-General,’ a ludicrous bastardization of the term, it apparently had happened and there didn’t seem to be any subterfuge involved. Jumalak was treating it as a joke.

  It was said the couple were very much in love and that they were living fifteen miles from Lowren’s capital of Lemnis, a few miles back from the sea, on the high road to Windermere.

  Jumalak was living on milk and rice these days, so nervous he was about the spring thaw.

  It was vital to be the first into action.

  The closer the day came, the more objections he could think of. Endlessly changing the plan would only sow confusion and cause foreseeable headaches a little further down the road.

  The plan was set, the forces were in position or garrisoned not far from their start-lines. The training of secondary levies was approaching its peak.

  It was to be the largest combined-arms operation in history, with ships, men, horses and siege train designed for maximum mobility and the ultimate in controllability.

  Some of it was experimental, and he was on tenterhooks as to how it would all turn out.

  In the meantime, he worried, fussed, fretted and watched as best he could—and he waited.

  ***

  The worst part of winter wasn’t winter at all. It was the lead-up, late autumn, when the sky was persistently grey, when the days were getting shorter and shorter, and the world existed in a barren five or six colors. There was grey of the sky, setting the tone with its luminous bleakness, and then there was white, and then there was black. There was the blue of the sky on those rare occasions when it could be seen. There were tiny bits of green, moss and the erratic blades of hardy native grass poking out from beneath the dead leaves, and then there was the color brown.

  In the beginning, all of the world was brown, and, the moon shining through the mist hanging over the hot springs and their attendant swamps, and the stars at night, were the only cheerful things not of human manufacture.

  When the snow finally fell, and when it stayed around a while, the world was a brighter place and extended travel again became possible over mud now frozen. Impassable rivers became highways through the black and howling wilderness.

  The yellow glow in behind many a small, grimy, steamy window was the only visible reminder of human existence, and with the dim shadows moving around behind them, a welcome beacon for anyone caught on the road when the night came down and obliterated the dismal prospects of day.

  Winter that year was long and cold with unusually heavy snowfall right up until the bitter end. Then there came the weeks when the lakes were still frozen, but the rivers and streams foamed white and green with melting snow, and after that, all of the land was mud. Cubs and fawns suckled and took their first tentative steps. The birds of spring returned to join their brethren of the wintering populations, and reptiles climbed up out of the mud again to bask on rocks and logs in their backwater sloughs. In rivers and streams, oxbow lakes scatted up and down the lengths of the great rivers, schools of fish fought to spawn and continue their race for another season.

  The first green sprouts came up, and the small red ends of the tree branches began to swell, and enlarge, and to finally crack open. The winds picked up, warm enough that men, lungs tired and sooty after a long season indoors, would gasp and sweat and curse just walking a few yards on the soft ground getting to the barn.

  In the meantime, the world, agog from end to end with the foreshadowing of great events, held its breath and wondered.

  ***

  Jumalak was of average height, although of unnaturally-pale coloring for one of his race. He was of average build, and yet his erect bearing and superior posture had always made the most of the costume. With its narrowing black trousers, tight-fitting field grey vestments and under that, a white shirt with slightly billowing sleeves, and wide cuffs of three buttons, he looked fit, healthy and eager. And yet, he had found no more time for rest than anyone else. The Khan worked as hard as any junior officer, one had to give him that much. As for the jacket, the garment closely resembled that of the other uniformed officers in the room. It was the ornate headgear and more than anything the high, arching collar with the pointed corners sticking up about his ears that really distinguished him from any other person in the room. All of them were of noble birth. In a very real sense, Jumalak had no more right to the seat of power than any of them. It was not solely by force either, that he had gained such political and personal power that at times awed his most trusted advisors. Having learned much about political intrigue in the seraglio and ultimately the court of his father, Jumalak had achieved a cool and rapid assessment of character and abilities. This skill enabled him to collect the sort of men who would do his bidding, and well, and in perhaps too many cases, without a whole lot of questions. While Verescens could see the usefulness, he also saw the potential complications that such men could too often spawn. One could not be in the room with him and not feel the force of his personality, his dynamism, and what some had called his sick, dead eyes.

  It was the power of that mind that was impressive.

  In some strange and possibly unrequited fashion, Verescens had found a kind of liking for Jumalak, which was a strange bird indeed. The fact was, that Verescens worried about him sometimes. Jumalak could be refreshingly open and honest in spite of his power and position, and wasn’t all guile. It was a glimpse of the genuine person underneath.

  Jumalak was happy today, it was written all over him when most others looked worried or if nothing else, slightly nervy. The Horde had a lot riding on this adventure—which was how Verescens had seen it right from the start, as there was no real need for it.

  In a private moment, Jumalak had even admitted as much, saying it was the hobby of kings to quarrel and to make war. He was only thirty-four years old, and he wasn’t getting any younger.

  The Horde was strong, stable and rich.

  There would never be a better time, as the Khan had put it to an intimate little gathering of his most senior advisers.

  To say the fellow carried it off well would be something of an understatement, and yet the Khan was subtle and sophisticated enough to realize that it helped immensely if the men immediately about him actually liked him.

  Verescens had admitted a kind of personal affection for the Khan, and believed that he had always served his master very well because of it.

  “All is ready, oh, Great Khan.” Mastioch stood, hands clasped, head slightly bowed.

  Verescens, standing beside his Lord and Master, nodded in agreement with the statement made by General Mastioch.

  “Gentlemen.” The Great Khan’s golden voice rang out over the heads of the men there.

  All of the orders had been cut and dispatched, and the first waves of troops were marching according to plan.

  “The greatest battle in history has begun.”

  The Khan turned to his senior strategist. He rubbed his hands thoughtfully.

  “Give the order, Master-General Verescens. The honor truly belongs to you.”

  “Thank you, oh, Most Enlightened One. A signal honor indeed.” Verescens nodded at Mastioch, standing at attention before them. “You may proceed, General.”

  Mastioch, speechless apparently, almost overcome with the moment, made his formal salute, turned and quickly left the map room. He had an oddly jerky gait as he went. Their coterie of gaudy and rather rigid-looking staff officers stood waiting in hushed attention, all eyes on them.

  While they ex
pected to win in the end, every man there knew there would be losses and defeats. There would be disasters and incompetence. Heads would be lost on the single toss of a coin, and those heads might not be confined to the enemy, as the Khan did not tolerate failure except after the most extraordinary of efforts.

  This moment, important enough for the history books, was really more of a formality. All formal responsibility rested here, on this very spot.

  The troops had left the start lines an hour before true dawn, and certain rather heavy contingents of the fleet had been at sea for days. A point had been reached and there was no recalling them now.

  “At last.” The Khan signaled for drink. “There is no stopping us now.”

  A previously tense and silent assembly of the most senior staff officers began to swell and murmur with talk that seemed more gratitude than anything else. It was the release of tension, after literally months, years in some cases, of planning, training, and exercises, followed by critique, analysis, and then more training and preparation.

  The fortunes of war were so very uncertain, and yet fortune favored the bold—and the best, and those with the longer swords, the stronger bows, and the most arrows.

  They were finally going to do it, after years of talk and preparation—and these men would be an honored, integral part of it. If they weren’t already rich, and most of them were, they all certainly expected the shower of rewards to begin imminently.

  Some of their first objectives would have already been taken by now; small border crossings, towns just inside enemy territory, that sort of thing.

  “Yes, oh, Great Khan.” Verescens took a long breath, as he wondered just for a moment if that really was a burst of adrenalin in the guts and why it might be there.

  He really hadn’t been looking after himself, not for months, and in the previous weeks, sleep had been a luxury he couldn’t afford. His mouth felt tacky, his eyes were like radishes in their sockets and he couldn’t recall the last time he had had a proper bowel movement.

  He sighed expressively. His wives and children were becoming strangers to him, but there was no point in complaining.

  “It couldn’t have come a moment too soon, Great One.”

  Jumalak, feeling this was the best natural high he’d ever experienced, laughed aloud, slapping Verescens on the shoulder and giving a delighted glance at the nearest of the officers.

  “That’s the spirit.” Jumalak cleared his throat. “Now you see why I love this great, big lummox.”

  They cracked up and Verescens smiled in spite of himself, shrugging in a theatrical manner and rolling his eyes. He clenched his jaws and went with it.

  It wouldn’t last long, but it was a good moment. In point of fact, he was a good head taller and fifty pounds heavier than their Khan.

  “Ah. Let there be wine—”

  And sure enough there was, brought in by a flurry of young men in their household hose and tunics, fancy enough at the best of times.

  Verescens suppressed a grin.

  While alcohol wouldn’t have been Verescens’ first choice right about then, there was something to be said for the camaraderie and the opportunity for the Great Khan to let his hair down for a moment and just be there. He was one of them, all engaged in the greatest military exercise this planet had ever seen. Verescens, with plenty of opportunity to observe the Great One up close and personal, had often wondered why he had ever wanted such a fate, or why he was so well-suited to it, and quite frankly, how he stood it.

  In his own opinion, it really was a fate worse than death, where there was no one you could ever really trust, all statements were self-serving, all friendships false and all acquaintances grasping.

  I would strangle myself with my own bowstring, thought Verescens, meeting the Khan’s eyes in an oddly intuitive moment.

  The Khan’s face, with his sweeping mustaches and pointed black beard, his wide cheekbones and pinched cheeks, looked every inch the fearless leader. It was that superior intellect that had impressed him the most—that and the pathological need for dominance, usually by means of terror rather than persuasion. His tight-fitting golden skull-cap, conforming to every bump and contour of that long head, gleamed in the light of a hundred torches.

  As for Verescens himself, he had only truly been happy at the head of a small but intrepid band of his own people, when poverty and danger were not hardships but the forging of a bond that could never be broken. He longed for those days; those days were long gone—a line from an old epic poem he had once recited before the hetman and his table in his own village, so very, very long ago.

  The Great One eyed him curiously, allowing him a moment for whatever reason.

  Jumalak gave an inquiring twitch of the head.

  “A penny for your thoughts.”

  “And you shall have them, oh, Great One.”

  A few of the nearer officers chuckled on hearing it, still eying the map and each other in speculative fashion though.

  The master nodded thoughtfully, the eyes came up and Verescens grinned.

  “Yes, master!”

  Jumalak smiled, almost colorless eyes probing, seeking, always studying those around him for any sign of defect, uncertainty, or evasiveness. Verescens examined him in return, just as frankly, perhaps one reason for his long survival in a position not known for job security or a long life expectancy judging by the fate of some of his predecessors.

  He nodded, looking around at the others.

  The Khan raised his glass.

  “Here’s looking at us, boys!”

  A ripple of suppressed energy went through the assembly, now gathering in close, as close as they dared, in the hopes of being seen, of being rewarded and remembered, in the hopes of seeing some signs of approval or even affection.

  Ultimately, they were not to be disappointed, thought the Master-General.

  Verescens’ line was right out of the Book of Protocols.

  “Here is to our Lord and Master, Jumalak, the Great Khan of the Horde!”

  “…yayyyyyyyyyy!!!”

  The cheer that rang out in the great map room was something that hadn’t been heard in quite a long time, and as they drank, a philosophic and rather somber Verescens was fairly certain that there would be more of them.

  Not to say there weren’t risks, because there were—and plenty of them.

  There was just no way to foresee every possibility, to forestall every gambit, to win every battle.

  The simple fact was that no one could foresee the future, and the fact that all the auguries were good comforted the highly-experienced Verescens not at all. Auguries were just chicken-guts, in the final analysis. It was an old proverb of his people.

  The communications officer stepped forwards, fully briefed on what to expect today and what exactly he was supposed to say.

  He clapped his hands.

  “Your attention please, gentlemen.”

  The glasses were reluctantly lowered and the room grew silent.

  “Reports will begin to trickle in within a day or two. These reports will be mostly routine, at first, reports of departures and deployments, and we cannot expect any real results for several days.” He glanced back at Verescens and his sovereign, who nodded casually. “Some will find it expedient to return to their posts, your offices and departments, and that is to be expected. We await further developments. Suffice it to say that all is well so far.”

  There was a light and incongruous smattering of applause at this statement and Verescens suppressed a snort. There was nothing much happening that wasn’t hundreds or even thousands of miles away and there was nothing to do but wait. It was like hanging on meat-hooks while you tried to eat, to piss, to shit and to sleep, he thought.

  The communications officer, a captain on this shift, turned back to the semi-circle of bright and expectant faces. There were any number of races and creeds in that room, which said much for the swath the Great Khan’s father had cut through the desert and the mountains a generation ago,
not to mention Jumalak’s own more recent acquisitions.

  “In the meantime, while there is a tendency to relax, let’s all stay on our toes and do our jobs. And pray to the gods that everything goes our way.”

  After another quick glance at an indulgent master, he bowed rather informally and quickly moved back to the periphery, where he had a large table of his own and a number of scurrying assistants. This was the locus of all messages coming in and out, written or oral, whether excruciatingly important or the most niggling of detail.

  With the Khan giving no real cues, sooner or later someone had to be the first one to speak, the first one to drain their glass. And then, seeing that all was well with the Great One and that he was cheerfully ragging some of the more junior attendants, a bit pale around the gills as they might be, the talk eventually became a little more animated.

  Chapter Fifteen

  There was a faint glow on the northeastern horizon.

  It was a moment pregnant with suppressed emotions. The tension was unbearable. It was also a moment of sublime beauty, to be remembered as long as one lived...

  Dawn lay not far off. Lowren stood in the bow with a picked man or two, for the reefs lay on their port side—hopefully. It was only when they saw the creamy foam of the surf, which lay a good one and half miles out from the land, it was only then, when they knew they had succeeded. There were only the faintest of sounds from over there.

  He turned to a sailor at his elbow.

  “Good. Excellent. Send the signal.” With constant trade all along the littoral of the Great Sea, the area was not just well-known but well-marked on their charts—just as Captain Rollo and other fleet captains had assured them.

  Showing confidence in his captains and their navigation, Lowren had stationed the Cygnus at the head of the port column. She was a hundred and twenty feet long. Swift, long, low and lean, thirty warriors rode the ship. They were all armed to the teeth. Twenty more hand-picked men sat with oars ready to be fitted. There were a half a dozen sailors and boys, all busy and underfoot at the present moment. Under full sail and making good way, the ship breasted the waves with a lurch and a shudder, wind full at her back and stern-high much of the time as the helmsman sawed at his massive oar.