by John F. Carr
Today, before the meeting, Ben had suggested that Timur might be more willing to bargain with the Free Tribe than the Americans and so they had agreed that Chuluun would lead the talks on their side.
Without looking away from Timur, Chuluun gave Bataar a slight nudge with his elbow, silently asking for information.
“They’re speaking their dialect of Persian among themselves,” Bataar said quietly in Mongolian. “I think many of them know some English or Russian but they’re hiding it. They hope we will say something in those languages that we do not want them to understand.”
Chuluun glanced over at Ben. The stout mayor, whose white hair flowed from under his battered leather cowboy hat, was conferring in whispers with Yates. Chuluun had worked well with Yates for more than eighteen years. Ben had become a good friend. Without the Americans’ good will, Chuluun doubted the Free Tribe would have survived its early years.
Timur gave a big, phony smile and spoke in Russian.
“He asked again what our offer is,” said Bataar.
“We offer friendship,” said Chuluun. “We have learned how to survive in these valleys. You are new to this region. We can help.”
“That’s right,” Ben said in English. He nodded his agreement without waiting for the translation from Yates, knowing from prior discussion what Chuluun would say.
Chuluun’s desire for friendship with the United Front was genuine, but he had no optimism. He had learned about Timur and his people from scouts led by Bataar. His son had reported back that the United Front had driven cattle, horses, sheep, and muskylopes with them in their flight south, raided from the CoDominium outposts and Dover Mineral Development during the Jihad. Some of them rode Bactrian camels, which handled the high altitude and climate of Haven better than horses.
Bataar and his scouts had estimated about two thousand people in the United Front. That included roughly one thousand armed men, and the others migrating family members. Bataar reported that some Afghans, Iranians, and Arabs seemed to be among the group, based on their appearance and clothing, but most of the United Front consisted of the Temuri Aimak people led by Timur.
While Chuluun did not know details of Timur’s military role in the Jihad, he held the man suspect. Timur had not gone down fighting and he had escaped from the defeat with too many followers and too much livestock in Chuluun’s opinion. Chuluun cared nothing for the Jihad or the CoDominium, but he believed Timur to be a coward and traitor to the cause he had claimed to support.
Timur responded, still smiling, with a tone of ridicule.
“He asked the same question again,” said Bataar.
“We offer livestock, mineral ores, and a bond of friendship against the CoDominium and Dover—those who have mistreated all of us,” said Chuluun.
After receiving the translation, Timur stood, his feet apart, and sneered as he spoke in Russian.
Bataar, Yates, and Luke leaped to their feet. Belatedly, Ben pushed himself up.
Across the fire, the rest of Timur’s men jumped up as well, snarling and shouting.
Chuluun stood slowly, with dignity, glaring at Timur.
“He said he’ll take our livestock, our ores, and our daughters as toll for the passage,” said Bataar.
Timur laughed, knowing that Chuluun finally understood, and then shouted at Chuluun in Russian.
“He says he would have taken the women from our caravan if they had not been ugly and heavy with child,” said Bataar.
Luke took a forward step, about to leap across the fire.
Bataar turned and body-slammed Luke, wrapping him up in a bear hug. “Not here,” Bataar said quietly in English. “Not now.”
Timur threw back his head and laughed.
“Son of a bitch,” said Ben, after Yates translated into English. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Naran, without turning away, whistled. Behind them, the hoof-beats of their mounts sounded on the hard ground as they came cantering forward.
Timur peered through the smoke at Chuluun, looking for a reaction that would show he had angered or even scared him.
Knowing what Timur wanted, Chuluun gave him no expression at all.
One of Timur’s men, likely an Arab, gave a long, ululating cry. The shrill sound carried in the cold, crisp air.
As the two sides eyed each other warily, Chuluun saw the dust rising far behind Timur, beyond the horizon: riders, coming fast, were sending up grit into the wind even from the hard sand and scattered rock.
“Just like you expected,” Bataar said to his father.
Timur, still sneering, walked backward from the fire as one of his men called to their mounts. He shouted angrily at Chuluun and laughed again.
This time, Chuluun neither knew nor cared what Timur had said. He refused to back up and gave Timur a stony stare even as he heard their own six horses come up close.
“Chuluun Khan.” Naran slipped the reins into his hand.
As a wide line of riders crested the horizon roughly two kilometers distant, Chuluun swung up into his saddle and reined away. He kicked his mount into a full gallop, leaning low against the horse’s neck to make himself appear smaller. His companions rode with him at wide intervals, to avoid creating a group target.
At first, their pursuers’ distance prevented them from shooting. However, the United Front riders had several precious moments of a head start, and now came riding into the valley with the advantage of galloping downhill. Chuluun and his companions were on a long, upward slope toward the pass into the next valley to the east.
He knew the gap behind them was growing smaller. Ahead, the valley sloped upward to a pass about a half-kilometer wide, with rocky bluffs on each side leading to steep slopes. Chuluun and Yates had chosen to parley in this valley precisely because they wanted this narrow pass at their backs.
The pursuers began firing Kalashnikovs far behind Chuluun, some with barking single shots and others with the distinctive machine-like full auto. When he heard a cry, he looked to his left and saw Ben Carhall listing to one side as he struggled to stay in his saddle after being hit. Yates angled toward him to help.
The gunfire continued behind them as Chuluun rode hard. As Chuluun rode ahead, he saw riders of the Free Tribe, dismounted and lying prone with their rifles, with the group of Americans brought by Yates. Each line numbered fifty with a gap between them and so far they were virtually invisible to Timur’s men. Like Timur, Chuluun and Ben had brought riders with them to wait outside the parley perimeter.
Chuluun’s biggest concern had been the disparity of weapons—the Free Tribe and the Americans had mostly old rifles, whatever they had taken or bought many years ago, when the small arms on Haven had been haphazard. Bataar and his scouts found that the United Front was heavily armed with Kalashnikovs of many variations, with much greater efficiency and firing speed. Chuluun responded by selecting this naturally protected site for their defensive position.
Ahead of Chuluun, Bataar and Luke rode through an opening in their line and dismounted just down the next slope, protected by the terrain. Chuluun came next, leaping to the ground with his rifle in hand. Naran followed him.
Yates had pulled Ben across the withers of his own horse and cantered safely through the line, followed by Ben’s horse. Their men’s horses waited safely behind the two bluffs.
Chuluun ran up to the crest of the pass and threw himself down. He estimated the enemy numbers at roughly three hundred. Timur was leading from the rear, surrounded by the same five men who had come to the parley with him.
Naran shouted orders in Mongolian and Yates called out orders in English. Maintaining their discipline, the Free Tribe and the Americans waited as the enemy, firing wildly on full auto as they rode, came closer.
“Now!” Yates shouted.
The first rifle volley sent riders falling from their saddles.
Chuluun chose a target and squeezed the trigger, blasting a rider from his saddle. As Chuluun picked another target, he wondered if Timur
had believed that the Free Tribe and the Americans would not make the same kind of contingency plans—bringing the dismounted riders now firing at will—that Timur had made. If so, Chuluun judged Timur to be an impulsive and amateur commander.
Free Tribe shooters aimed at riders on their left flank, driving survivors toward the center of the valley. Likewise, the Americans forced the riders on the right toward the middle.
“Hold your fire!” Yates shouted, and Naran yelled the same in Mongolian.
Chuluun watched as the remaining United Front riders still came on up the slope grouped tightly now, most of their rifle fire still high and unsteady from the saddle.
“Now!” Yates yelled, and another volley ripped through the oncoming line.
Chuluun watched the remaining riders wheeling in disarray. They broke and scattered, aware that finishing this charge would be suicidal.
The surviving riders, led by Timur, shrank in the distance. Near the middle of the valley, they pulled up and shouted, taunting the tribal members and American riders to break ranks and charge into the open.
“Keep your positions,” Naran ordered, as Yates made the same point in English. Their riders would maintain their defensive position until they could withdraw safely.
Chuluun knew, like Naran and Yates, that another charge from Timur was possible. At least the bluff and steep slopes prevented an enveloping maneuver. Scouts on the crest kept watch.
Staying low, Bataar moved close. “Mayor Carhall is dead.”
Chuluun turned. Several of the Americans, safely behind the rocky bluff to the right, were carrying Ben’s body to the back of one of the horse-drawn wagons that brought supplies. Anger burned within Chuluun for the friend and ally who had been shot in the back after a parley.
* * *
The Free Tribe, based on the women’s caravans to the Karakul Pass, had gradually adopted the manner of marking time on Haven that was used increasingly by the CoDominium. It recognized human circadian rhythms and Haven’s cycle of light and darkness. Dictated by the sun and also by the gas giant planet around which Haven orbited, the Haven cycle required two hundred and sixty hours that were called a Haven week. The H-week was divided into eleven days that were just short of twenty-four hours. However, brightdays were lit by the sun while dimdays were lit by the gas giant, and two during the eleven-day week were truenights, lit only by the stars. Those were too dark for humans to be active without artificial light of some kind.
Hornicott, one of the larger of Cat’s Eye’s satellites, bathed the landscape with reddish light as Chuluun led the main column eastward. Scouts remained behind, falling back in good order, ready to sound the alarm if pursuit appeared. Chuluun knew they would have to make camp soon, after Hornicott dropped below the horizon.
Chuluun kept to the foothills of the Girdle of God Mountains, where thin forests and numerous creeks offered water and forage for the mounts. Scattered fan trees and squat bottle trees led toward higher altitudes with forests of egg trees, tall evergreens with oval seeds. The forest floors were carpeted with dry evergreen needles that helped silence the movement of the horses. Imported Earth plants sprouted among the indigenous forest even at this distance from significant human settlement, mesquite and chaparral among them. Occasionally one of Haven’s few flying creatures, dactyls—which reminded Chuluun of bats on Earth only much larger— would fly from their perches as the column neared.
When Chuluun found they were riding in the bluish light of two of Cat’s Eyes moons, he ordered the column to make camp. They still had many kilometers ahead before reaching Independence Valley, and beyond it Gobi Valley. Every kilometer, he reminded himself, enlarged the maze of mountains, valleys, and the Northern Plains that Timur would have to travel in order to find their homes.
Chuluun and his four companions warmed themselves at a camp-fire and ate boiled meat, washed down with American moonshine from a stoneware jug. Memories of his good friend Ben Carhall filled his thoughts. He wished Ben was here to share the moonshine.
Yates, too, seemed lost in his thoughts.
“We’re at war,” said Chuluun. “We must plan.” He waited for Bataar to translate.
“We got to think of something, all right,” Yates said in English. “That son of a bitch never intended to make a deal.”
After Luke translated, Chuluun nodded. “He just wanted to observe us, see who we are.”
As usual, Naran listened and said nothing. He was a short, blocky man with gray in the beard along his jawline. A man with tremendous personal discipline and a skilled drill master who commanded the respect of their troops, he had been as steady as a rock in helping Chuluun lead the Free Tribe.
“Ben’s a lifelong friend of mine,” said Yates, gazing into the fire. “I should have protected him. We should have moved out faster.”
“I want payback,” Bataar said in English.
“Damned right,” said Luke, taking a long drink of moonshine.
Chuluun understood his son’s tone if not his words. He exchanged a look with Yates, two middle-aged fathers concerned about their grown sons.
“We’re outnumbered,” said Yates. “Gotta consider how to handle that. They got a thousand fighting men, according to Bataar’s scouts.”
“Yeah,” said Bataar. “Hard to be exact.”
Luke looked up with a hard, humorless grin. “Not as many after today.”
Bataar translated for his father.
Chuluun nodded. “They have the advantage of weapons. Not just the Kalashnikovs, but the ammunition.”
“Yeah,” said Yates, after Luke translated. “They were wasting ammo like it was nothing. They’re not worried about their supply. And we’ve spent all our years being careful about ammo, haven’t we?”
Bataar translated and Chuluun nodded. The United Front had taken some losses. He had estimated about thirty enemy bodies on the ground, while Ben Carhall had been the only fatality on their side. Other enemy riders had been visibly wounded, but still managed to ride away. The tribe and the Americans had also captured twelve of the enemy’s riderless horses, and picked up the weapons and ammunition of the dead.
The group sat quietly, gazing into the flames.
Chuluun considered the issue of numbers. The Free Tribe had barely maintained its size in the years when Bataar had grown up. While some families had helped boost the tribe’s population, most of the first members of the tribe—seven hundred and sixty-one miners who survived the breakout from a Dover Mining Company camp near the town of Last Chance—had been male. The Free Tribe, a mix of ethnic Mongol, Manchu, Korean, and Hui people from the Dongbei region of China, had seen their numbers drop to about four hundred at one point.
The drop had come especially in the early years when food was scarce and shelter haphazard, leaving people vulnerable to disease and questionable recovery from occasional injuries. Now, with enough women having at least two or three children survive during eighteen years, the tribe’s population hovered around six hundred.
On a regular basis, Chuluun and Naran drilled two troops of one hundred riders each. Another hundred or so older men and boys in their early teens could ride and shoot as a last-resort Home Guard. Every child was taught to ride.
Chuluun reflected that he and his wife, Tuya, whose name meant ray of light, had been fortunate. She had been with child ten times and four of them had lived. Bataar’s brother Batkhuyag, whose name meant strong warrior, was sixteen years old. Odgerel, or starlight, was fifteen. Sarangerel, or moonlight, was twelve.
During Bataar’s lifetime, the number of Americans in Independence shrank, from about four thousand people to slightly more than three thousand. With the United Front blocking the route to the Karakul Pass, both communities faced extinction within a generation or less.
“We got maybe four hundred riders,” said Yates, breaking the silence. “That’s leaving the older guys and some of the young ones in town to keep order. You guys got what, about two hundred?”
“Two hundred who
can go on campaign,” said Bataar. “So how do six hundred riders defeat almost a thousand?”
“I like what I saw today,” said Luke. “Think we can do that again?”
“They will be more careful next time,” said Chuluun, after the translation. He focused on the strategic puzzle. They had two advantages, a better knowledge of the Girdle of God Mountains and Northern Plains, and also the great distances between the last known location of the main body of the United Front from Independence Valley and, over the next rise in the steppes, Gobi Valley. The numerical disadvantage with the United Front was not insurmountable, but it required thought.
“We’re alone out here,” said Yates. “Just like always. Nobody to turn to.”
“Nobody,” Luke agreed with a scowl.
“They can track us now,” said Bataar. “Whether they do it sooner or later, they can follow us.”
“That’s true,” said Yates. “Most likely they’ll have scouts track us right away, before weather destroys the trail we leave. Once they know where we live—even the general area—they can move against us when they want.”
Chuluun took another swig of moonshine. It burned his throat. As he lowered the jug, he realized that while the sprawling, nearly empty mountains and steppes had protected them in the past, now the problem was reversed: The Americans and the Free Tribe would have to maintain scouts and sentries to watch for an enemy approach from any direction through that same expanse. The task was immense.
“We’ll have to watch for them forever,” said Yates, echoing the thought.
Yet, Chuluun realized, their strategic dilemma was simple: They faced the United Front and the CoDominium.
“We have a potential ally,” said Chuluun.
“No way,” said Luke. “We’ve never had allies.”
“What ally?” Bataar asked.
“CoDo smashed the Jihad,” said Chuluun, passing the moonshine jug to Naran.
“The CoDominium hates us,” said Yates. “And we got damned good reason to hate them—your folks and ours.”
“All true,” said Chuluun. “And yet—now we have a common enemy.”