by David Drake
“If he’s the son of the leader, his name is probably Bara. And I can tell he’s been in the Redlands,” Abel said to Timon. “The Blaskoye led them down and put them on our flanks.”
Timon looked up toward Abel. “What? How do you know that?”
“I was in the Scouts, remember? I’ve spent time in the cursed place,” Abel replied. “Anyway, Bara’s a common Hurthish name. It means something like ‘Junior.’ Ask him.”
Timon gave Abel an inquisitive look, but turned back to the young man. He motioned for his squad to crank the ropes up a notch. Timon leaned over, turned the Hurthman’s head, and looked the young man straight in the eyes.
“Speak,” Timon said. “Speak, Bara of Hurth.”
Cursing himself and his father, Bara began to spill all that he knew. Abel translated. After this, Timon sent a runner to notify the regimental commander that the interrogation had reached a critical point. The first of the prisoners had broken.
* * *
Colonel Zachary von Hoff had been an instructor at the Guardian Academy, and then Abel’s commanding officer for his year in the planning division. Timon may have chosen his specialty after graduating the Academy, but Abel had his chosen for him—by von Hoff.
“Do you think the man who orchestrated the destruction of the Blaskoye horde at the Battle of the Canal is going to get a regular company command? Think again, Dashian.”
“My father led the Battle of the Canal.”
“And his son understood the use of the nishterlaub breechloaders, drafted the battle plan, and led the Scout charge that broke the final Blaskoye resistance,” von Hoff had replied. “I know this because your father told me as much in a written response to my inquiries. You see, I am writing the record of that battle for the Tabernacle archives.”
“My father exaggerates.”
“I think not,” said von Hoff. “In any case, you came into the Academy already a captain. Tradition dictates you leave a rank higher. To give you a company would be akin to military heresy. Not quite a breach of the Laws and Edicts, but close enough in our world. No, your specialty will be planning with an eye toward eventual brigade or district military command.”
So, whether Abel liked it or not, von Hoff had appointed himself Abel’s mentor. And when the Progar Campaign was announced, the Academy martial instructors had taken their primary posts: as brigade commanders. This was the Goldie way. Usually brigade-sized units within the Guardians were demobilized for much of the year. Most of the Corps’s day-to-day activity was garrisoning the capital and policing the Lindron District in company-sized troops. Brigade-size maneuvers occurred only in the yearly war games and practice drills.
An appointment as a tenured military scholar at the Academy was also an appointment to brigade command staff or higher. It was Goldie tradition that teachers must also be fighters.
As soon as von Hoff had taken up his brigade duties, he’d requested Abel as his executive officer for the campaign. Abel’s long and fairly content stint as Cascade District military commander had come to an end, as he’d known it would.
Center had predicted the call up nearly a year before it happened.
Von Hoff is no fool. He knows a good thing when he sees it, Raj had commented when the messenger delivered Abel’s new orders.
To accept the commission is a necessary strategic move, Center put in. Abel will now be in a position to affect long-range outcomes through individual initiative—with proper guidance.
But you’re not going to like this excursion up north, lad, said Raj. The Goldies are not being sent to Progar to police it or even merely to conquer it. They are going to make an example of the place. You haven’t seen that kind of slaughter yet.
How is that not policing?
If I were in Zentrum’s place, with his goals, I would burn the place to the ground and salt the earth with the ashes of the people.
There had been the Progar water heresy, which had been going on for decades. The people of Progar had developed ways to harness the abundance of water and the power of the quickly running streams in their mountainous region. Plus, there were rumors of experiments with metal and weapons even beyond the crossbows of the Hurthmen. There was some sort of modification of the musket underway. Modifying the rifle, as Zentrum had shown in Treville by burning the chief priestsmith, Golitsin, was utter nishterlaub. An unforgivable breach of the Edicts.
It was time to put a stop to it.
When they reached the interrogation site, Timon saluted von Hoff with a hand across the breast.
“Which one?” von Hoff asked, nodding toward the prisoners.
Timon pointed out Bara. “That one, sir.”
Von Hoff strode forward and knelt beside Bara. He scowled, but spoke to the Hurthman in a low, friendly tone. Abel had gotten in position to translate, but, to Abel’s surprise, his colonel spoke the Hurthish patois tolerably well.
“What I want to know,” said the colonel, “is how many other militia bands like yours are there?”
“Want my mar,” said the youth, gasping between his words. “Want to go home.”
Instead of answering, von Hoff reached out with a hand and placed it on the rope above the young man’s head.
“I won’t lie to you. Your chances of going home are not good.” Von Hoff leaned over and casually applied pressure to the rope. “Now, how many other bands are there? Where are they heading?”
“I don’t . . . know, sir,” Bara gasped.
Von Hoff shifted his weight, pressing down harder on the rope.
One of the Hurthman’s elbows seem to disintegrate—the cartilage that held the bones parted—and Bara flopped down to one side, his right elbow bent in the opposite direction from its usual fold.
Bara screamed a rasping, almost silent scream, like steam escaping from a pot with a tight lid. Abel glanced at von Hoff. He was trembling, deliberately controlling his breathing, a terrible scowl on his face.
The colonel is not enjoying this, Abel thought.
Von Hoff seemed to have had enough with the young Hurthman. He rose, set his jaw firmly, and moved to another of the staked men.
This man was older. The screams of Bara had agitated him—which had perhaps been von Hoff’s purpose. The older Hurthman was grunting and feebly struggling against his bonds.
Von Hoff put a hand to the rope that bound his ankles, pressed down. “The youngster won’t answer me, and will die in agony for it. So I’ll ask you,” said the colonel, still in the patois. “How many others?”
This man bit his lip until blood ran, but then something inside him seemed to crumble and he answered in a dry, choking whisper. “Seventeen that I know of, bossman, sir,” he said. Von Hoff eased the pressure, but left his hand on the rope.
“Seventeen bands from Hurth?”
“Yes, bossman, sir.”
“Go on.”
“The seventeen First Families, they were to put in two bands apiece, the way I heard it. Twenty men each. One to fight and one to go scouting.” The man closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Tears welled from his tightly shut eyes. “For the love of the Law, please remove your hand, bossman, sir.”
“All right.” Von Hoff pulled his hand back and stood up. “But my officers may have other questions.” The colonel turned to Abel. “Anything, Major?”
Abel asked the obvious question. “Is there a general agreement between Progar and the Blaskoye? Do all the scouts travel along the Rim?”
Timon took the colonel’s place and touched his fingers against the rope that bound the man’s wrists. One tap was enough to send a paroxysm of agony across the man’s visage.
“Your answer?” said Timon. He took the pressure from the rope.
The Hurthman cried out, gasped to catch his breath.
“Yes. It is known. The eastern paths are open if Kerensky of the Blaskoye has sent guides.”
“So other bands such as this one might be lying in wait as we march,” von Hoff said. He smiled grimly. “Well, we know wh
at to look for.”
The colonel turned to Timon. “Get him out of that contraption, Captain.”
“Yes, sir.”
Timon motioned to one of his men, who stepped forward with a knife and followed von Hoff’s orders. The Hurthmen lay gasping and moaning on the ground. There was no question of any getting up to flee, even if there were a chance at escape. None of them presently had working joints with which to do so.
Colonel von Hoff brushed the dust from his pants. “I think we’re finished here,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Timon replied. “And what’s to be done with them, Colonel?”
Von Hoff shrugged. “Suggestions?”
Timon answered without a moment’s hesitation. “Recommend crucifixion, sir.”
Von Hoff put a hand to his chin and considered the groaning prisoners. “Yes, that will do, I suppose.”
“I’ll see to it, sir.”
“No, please, master bossman, sir!” one of the Hurthmen called out. The prisoners may have spoken Hurthish, but they understood the word “crucifixion” well enough. It was the same word in Hurthish.
Von Hoff glanced at the group with distaste, then turned back to Timon. “Captain, pierce those Progar tongues with their own nishterlaub crossbow bolts while you’re at it,” he said. “That should be a display the locals won’t forget. Someone of the Land let them pass through the eastern fields without alerting us, after all.”
He turned to Abel. “What was the platoon that was attacked, Major?”
“Friday Company, the Second, sir.”
“See that these prisoners are staked along the roadside near the Friday Company encampment. They’ll want to see justice done.”
“Yes, sir.”
Abel showed them the way to the roadside and stood by to watch as ordered.
Timon knew his business. When they reached the spot for the crucifixion, dawn was beginning to break. Timon’s interrogation baggage train carried three wagonloads of stakes for crucifixion.
Of course they do. Stout riveroak is scare anywhere north of the Delta.
The stakes were lashed to daks. Likewise, the prisoners had been slung over daks and tied in place as well. Once at the roadside site, the riveroak was quickly drilled and beaten together to form crosses. The interrogation detail used wooden dowels made of heartwood maple from the Delta as fasteners.
By the time they arrived, some of the prisoners had recovered enough to stand upright. These were made to dig holes by the roadside. They were then ordered to strip naked and place their remaining clothes—only a loincloth at this point—and sandals in a pile.
A group of four of Timon’s soldiers laid each Hurthman upon his cross. This was done gently, not out of pity, but to ensure proper alignment for the nails that would be driven through wrists and feet.
When his turn came, Bara struggled momentarily, broke free, and tried to crawl away, but Timon kicked him hard, professionally, and the Hurthman stopped moving. This time, Bara’s arms were bound to the crosspiece to hold him in place.
Timon’s squad worked as a well-honed unit. The backs of the wrists and feet were aligned with perpendicular grooves previously drilled in the crosspieces. Then maple stakes were driven through wrists and through the bone cluster on the top of the feet, out the back, and into the grooves. The result was a neat tongue-and-groove bond that was tighter than mere nails driven into wood might have been.
The prisoners writhed and groaned at first. They were soon made silent when their tongues were pulled out with tongs and a crossbow bolt driven through each tongue’s flesh.
Some tried to rip the metal rod through their tongue by pressing it against the inside of the lip in order to rip the bolt out. None succeeded.
Tongues are made of some tough meat, Abel thought grimly.
Upon Timon’s order, the crosses were lifted up, along with the men hammered to them. Each cross was dropped into its hole. Stones were piled at their bases to hold them upright. The staked men were perhaps two elbs from the ground, but the distance might as well have been a hundred leagues. Their feet would never touch the earth again while they lived.
Timon had placed them on the western side of the road, facing east. Dawn brightened to day. The sun rose over the Rim, and the crucified men closed their eyes against the sudden brightness.
Abel considered for a moment whether or not to order them blinded in order to avoid the slow torture of the rising sun in their eyes. It went beyond his colonel’s orders, and he wasn’t sure Timon would do it in any case.
Best not, lad. The sun in their eyes is the least of their worries, said Raj. Besides, you still have the dead to bury, don’t you?
Yes, I do, Abel thought. The Friday Company funeral. He’d almost forgotten.
3
Staff Sergeant Silverstein and the three others who had been killed lay wrapped in their own wax tarps. Temporary sergeants had been appointed, and the platoon had eaten breakfast and packed while a detail dug a hole in the middle of the trampled barley field.
Presiding was the squad sergeant who had given Abel the hard cider the night before. He was platoon staff sergeant now, in charge of the entire twenty-five men of the second platoon. Abel learned his name was Grimmett. He had a calf wound, which was treated and bound, but blood still seeped into the bandage and formed a red splotch on the side of his leg. Grimmett had tied his sandal straps over the wound and was going to make the day’s march with his men.
Derek Ogilvy, the company captain, was present. They’d been waiting for brigade command staff to arrive. The staff sergeant called his men to attention.
Abel straightened himself as well. Coming to attention was a relief. He had been hunched and tight from watching the interrogation and then the crucifixion, his muscles tensing vicariously with each pulled joint and hammered stake. He raised his right arm diagonally across his breast in the Guardian salute.
“Would the major say a few words?” Ogilvy asked him. This was ceremonial, de rigeur. The highest ranking officer present must speak the eulogy.
After a moment of silence by the open grave, Abel spoke the words he’d learned his first year at the Academy in Marching Order and Protocols.
“We are but wheat in the fields of the Law. We are grain in the hands of Zentrum. Let these who have served the Edicts and the Stasis faithfully be commended to the ground.”
Abel turned to the assembled men.
“Repeat after me,” he said. “We are the harvest.”
“We are the harvest.”
“We are the Land and the Land is us.”
“We are the Land and the Land is us.”
And the codes, spoken by Abel alone: “To serve Zentrum is to serve the Land. To serve the Laws of Zentrum is to serve the Land.”
Abel made the circled pyramid sign of Zentrum over each of the bodies with his right hand.
“As it is now, it always was, and ever shall be, Stasis without end.” He looked up, faced the men. “Alaha Zentrum.”
“Alaha Zentrum,” they returned. And it was done.
The burial detail dragged each of the dead men by their tarps and, with a yank, dumped them into the hole. The detail carefully folded the tarps and packed them away. A good wax tarp was not an item to part with.
The detail went to work with a will and filled the grave quickly, while the remainder of the platoon looked on until the task was complete. The men of the burial detail then took their place back in formation.
“Shoulder arms!” called the sergeant.
With a clank of metal and wood, the assembled men raised their musket to marching position.
“Right face!”
The men turned.
“By the left, double-march!”
With two abreast, the staff sergeant marched them over the fresh grave in the barley three times, each time stamping the earth down more. No one would disturb these bones, for there would be only a flat bit of bare ground in a field after they were through, soon overgrown with grain. The
bodies of the dead would feed the Land. The dead would serve Zentrum’s divine purpose even in decay.
Then the sergeant marched them to the road, careful to join it south of the spot where the Hurthmen hung crucified.
When the platoon passed the crucified prisoners, the Guardian troops barely glanced aside. None stopped to gape or gloat. Abel wondered if even his Treville Scouts would show such restraint. He doubted it.
Zentrum’s finest.
The same did not apply to the crucified men. Although they could make only grunts and groans, their agonized eyes followed Abel as he moved past them. Bara, the youth, hung crookedly, like a shield that had been carelessly placed on a peg, his tendonless elbow distended on his right arm.
Abel could feel the young man’s eyes lingering on his back. He had never so badly wanted to go against the utilitarian path his head told him he must follow.
The boy’s agony, his desire to see his mother again, tugged at Abel’s heart.
He’s like me. He never will.
He glanced back.
I could break his legs; I could cut his throat quickly, Abel thought.
Not advised, said Center. Observe:
No matter how carefully Abel did it, there was a witness. He was seen and reported. He’d given the Hurthman an easy way out. He’d disobeyed orders.
The following day, he was brought up on charges. Flanked by two Guardians, Abel found his sword removed, his weapons stowed.
Then Abel was forced to gaze into the suffering eyes of von Hoff as the colonel pronounced judgment on his protégé. There was nothing von Hoff could do. Orders were orders.
Abel’s sword was brought forward. Von Hoff laid it next to a stone and broke it with a quick kick to the flat of the blade.
Abel was turned over to Timon for punishment. Friend or not, Timon did not shirk when delivering the one hundred lashes. He could not.
Then, with his back torn to ribbons, Abel was forced to complete the day’s march. He was put in ranks and did as his sergeant bid him. He was a private now.
And when the Progar campaign was done, he was nothing at all. For then Abel lay on the field of battle, a minié slug in his brain.