"Well, I picked up some yellow cloth for a pennant when I was back in combat support," Halagar told him, the yellow pennant being Akahlar's symbol of truce. "I'd say we hold it and come in openly, slowly, and wait for the challenge. If we talked our way through back there, we should be able to talk our way through here, surely."
None of them talked much about what they had seen back at the border, but it was on all their minds. For Charley, it had always been a cut-and-dried situation: the Akhbreed should give the colonials and natives their independence and deal with them as equals and everybody would live happily ever after. Happily ever altering, though, wasn't the result. Oh, you could argue that the Akhbreed had brought this on themselves by maintaining such a system for so long, but did anything excuse what she'd seen back there? Did mere oppression warrant genocide? Or would she think it did, if she had been one of the oppressed? And what were those people going to do once they had totally destroyed the Akhbreed culture and its knowledge and skills? They knew the basics of getting raw materials, but did any of them know how to build the buildings and repair the machines or engineer even a sanitary system? Who would keep them from fighting each other in constant wars? Were they in fact anticipating something that was going to wind up reverting thousands of civilizations back to the Stone Age?
It was much too heavy for her; there shouldn't be situations where all the solutions were bad. All this war and hatred and savagery was so unnecessary and so tragic for all of them. Things had been so much simpler back home—or had they only seemed that way?
Well, the bottom line was that she couldn't do a damned thing about it, and that fact, instead of frustrating her, made her a little happier. God, she'd never want that kind of responsibility….
"Did you really have a brush with a Changewind?" Boday asked Don on.
"No, I was making that up as I went along. All my life my best asset has been my voice. One on one, anyway, I've always been able to talk my way out of just about anything. It explains why there were so many magicians there doing their bidding and yet getting along in that crowd of hate, though. Changelings and those somehow deformed by delving into forbidden magic way beyond them—that's who those guys are. Now their differences, their deformities, become an asset and not a curse. Hounded out of the hubs, made to feel like monsters—the kind of folks like we saw back in the Kudaan. Now they got a chance to get even with all those fine Akhbreed types who looked down on them before. You know, until now I never could figure why somebody like Boolean, who never missed a chance to knock the whole Akhbreed system, would risk his neck to defend it. This is the first time I think 1 can understand- It's all hatred and revenge. This whole revolt is all hatred and revenge, from Klittichom and the Storm Princess on down to those people back there. That's what their whole new society is gonna be built on—hatred and revenge. Makes a society built on callousness and indifference seem downright nice by comparison."
It took several hours of slow, cautious travel to reach the outer defense line of Tishbaal hub, and when they did, in spite of their pennant and their precautions, they still got shot at.
"Hold your fire, damn it!" Halagar shouted. "We're Akhbreed and we're not with them! Let us talk to your officers!"
There was no immediate reply and he grew impatient. "Damn it, look at us! If you have anything to fear from the likes of us, then all the guns in the world won't save you!"
Suddenly an entire squad of uniformed soldiers rose from the mist, guns pointed directly at them. "All right, sir." said a nervous sergeant. "You just keep those hands free, all of you then dismount and follow us."
In a stroke of luck, the intelligence officer of the forward defenses knew Halagar— Not personally, but they had met in the performance of the mercenary's old duties as a Covantian courier. After that, there was no question that they would be admitted, although first they had to be thoroughly debriefed on what they'd seen back where they'd come from, and how the hell they'd gotten through.
Without identifying the two women and letting the officer's mind assume the obvious about them, Halagar gave the basic story flat out.
"Perhaps we should hire you on," the intelligence officer, whose name was Torgand, remarked. "We've tried infiltrating people over there regularly and none of them ever get back to report."
"The Akhbreed they have working for them keep well back of the border and in their own camp," the mercenary told him, "as would I in their place. I'm not certain any Akhbreed will be safe once the fight begins."
"Yeah, well, we're still trying to figure out how that can be. Our shield is strong; they can take out our forward element, of course, but even our picket line is within range of hub artillery. And even if they send that rabble in wave after wave, they're not going to break the psychic shield that prevents any non-Akhbreed from entering the hub. They've got a bunch of magicians, maybe even a few real sorcerers on their side. but all of them together couldn't break the kind of shields the hubs have."
"I thought so, too, until I saw that Changewind valley. Those shields, like all magic, are as nothing to the Changewind, and I am convinced that their bosses can drop one wherever they want it. Right in the center of the capitol if need be. No sorcerers, no shield. Or even a Changewind that simply sweeps from inland to the border, breaking it in a wide swath. An avenue in. I'm not certain what they plan. but I am certain that they are confident of success."
"Nobody has ever been able to influence a Changewind, you know that," Torgand responded. "That valley might seem impressive but I've seen the winds do things just as regular and just as odd. They follow their own rules but they do follow rules. And even if there was somebody who could do it, they'd have to do it one at a time, and it wouldn't take much to find out who and from where and all the other sorcerers would track them down and destroy them out of sheer self-defense. No, it just doesn't fit the way the universe works."
Dorion was having none of this. "Then why are you holed up here in fortifications, shooting at yellow pennants, and scared out of your skulls? Those poor people we saw being abused are citizens, damn it! They have rights. And the right of any citizen is protection and defense from his King and all the power at the command of the Crown."
"He's got a point," Halagar noted. "Why wasn't this nipped in the bud in the usual manner, with massive force, even big-league sorcery? That's what the damned army's for keeping order and law in the colonies. Instead you withdraw everybody to the hub and let it spread."
"I know, I know," Torgand agreed- "You think it hasn't gotten to us, either? Complacency, mostly, I think. The Chief Sorceress here has been cracked in the head for more years than I can remember. Senile, batty, and mean as hell. She no longer emerges from her quarters at all, and nobody can tell her anything she doesn't want to hear. She ignores even the King's commands, and she's powerful enough to zap even some of the strong adepts who'd normally take care of this. You know how nuts she is? She keeps calling His Majesty King Yurumba. and Yurumba died over two hundred years ago! She insists that this isn't happening and seems to really believe that she was on a tour of the colonies only weeks ago. 'She's completely lost, senile, and mad, and nobody dares cross her since she's never allowed any of the adepts to live who came close to approaching her power or threatening her position. She's the only one we have who can keep the shield up, and since that's the case we had very little choice. We can't go against them without sorcery to back us up, not on this scale, and not with those damned illegal automatic weapons that are better than anything we have- All we can do is pull back and rely on her to at least keep up the shield."
Dorion nodded knowingly. "I thought as much when I saw this. They're all too old or too lazy or too incompetent at this stage to really do the job. I wonder how many centuries we've been running on sheer reputation? How long we've kept the colonies in line with fear of sorcerous power that in many cases just isn't there and hasn't been for some time? The best Second Rankers don't want to be Chief Sorcerers they want to experiment or specialize
or pursue their art to the bitter end. They retire and separate themselves from politics, or they get into territory too dangerous even for them, and they wind up malformed creatures or they wind up summoning the Changewind and vanish into the Seat of Probability. That leaves mostly mediocrities as our defenders. Damn! That's what the enemy saw. He wined and dined and socialized with them and he saw what frauds our whole way of life, our whole world, was built upon."
"That's water under the bridge," the mercenary pointed out. "I am far more concerned with the rebel general's comment on the forthcoming 'fun' at Masalur. You have any information?"
Torgand shook his head. "None. We've been pretty much pinned down here for weeks. Right now, you know as much or more than we do about all this."
Boday caught Dorion's eye and he went over to her and bent down and she whispered, "Ask him if he has any knowledge of a short, fat girl about the age of our own coming through here."
Dorion nodded and went back to the soldiers. "Any sign of a girl, maybe twenty or so, pretty fat with a deep, almost mannish voice, who might look like the overweight sister of the pretty one there?"
Torgand shook his head negatively once again. "Sorry, no. At least, if she did it was before we were set up here. You might check with Immigration and Permits to see if she cleared before that, but since we've been here only a few refugees have made it across and none of them sound like somebody like that and I've had to interview them all. Why? Somebody else trying to get through here that got separated from your party?"
"You might say that." Dorion responded carefully.
"Well, think about what you went through to get here. If she didn't make it by now, my guess is she either can't or she's dead or she's some colonial's slave over there. You were damned lucky. It'd take a full-blown sorcerer to get as far as you have at this stage."
They had spent several days in Tishbaal hub, like the other hubs a relatively compact city-state, but, unlike the others, one that had been under siege for some time. At one time it must have been a bustling metropolis, and exciting place to be. As they had progressed north and west, the kingdoms had seemed to be looser and far more liberalized than the more conservative Mashtopol. Here the women had some fashions, the dress and moral codes seemed loose, relaxed, sort of the way Charley remembered things back home. Now, though, it was looking like a fading shadow of its former self, its factories and distribution centers closed both for lack of raw materials and for lack of ability to deliver anywhere. Shops were running out of many things to sell; electricity was rationed due to the lack of coal and other fuels that kept the plants going. Nearly half the city was unemployed and mad as hell about it and about the government's seeming impotence to deal with it.
And it was incredibly crowded and dirty, with far too many people living in quarters barely large enough for two or three people and many more sleeping in parks or tent cities. The refugees and the panicked, come to the hub for protection, and further straining its resources.
About the only thing that had kept the lid on was that the layout of the hubs included managed truck farms that produced an adequate supply of food for the population. Still, meat was rationed and there was a lot of hoarding. People who were used to thinking of themselves as the height of creation and masters of all, were now forced into decisions between their pride and the government handouts of food and other supplies that kept them going on a basic level. Although a fair number of colonial populations had remained loyal (or so at least was the word from a few brave folk who made it across the null from the other, less defended, border points), no colony was truly safe for Akhbreed or the great wagon trains the Akhbreed had depended upon for so long. Loyal colonists simply could not enter the hub to deliver things themselves, for to drop that prohibition would have invited the rebel forces in as well.
Leaving the hub, they entered what was supposed to be a friendly colony named Qatarung, their identity stones and Halagar's glib tongue giving them few problems in getting by the paper-thin rebel line on the Masalur side. The rebel force was there merely to enforce the siege; it was clearly not ever intended as an attack force, although if Tishbaal in its desperation overran them, their commander was confident that reinforcements sufficient to crush such an attempt were easy to bring up. Halagar did not disbelieve him.
Qatarung was vast fields of sugar cane and palm? and other tropical agriculture. The large, apelike natives seemed mostly ambivalent to all that was going on around them, more than truly loyal. It was easy to get the impression that they would love to join the revolt if they could believe even for a moment that it had a chance of long-term success. In spite of their brutish appearance, they weren't at all stupid or even naive; if the hub could be broken that was the end of it and they would be overjoyed, but they were as convinced as Torgand had been that the hub could not be broken and overrun, and, if it could not, eventually there would be vengeance of the most horrible sort, no matter how batty the chief sorceress was or how dismal the conditions were in the hub itself.
In the meantime, they were exactly what the rebel sentry on the other side hated the ones who, by taking no side, had profited the most. Tens of thousands of Akhbreed colonial families had moved into the hub for safety or, after the troops had closed the hub because it simply could accept no more, had moved well away from the intersection points, in many cases thousands of miles away, where there were neither natives in any number or rebel troops on the march.
The Qatarung, in fact, were for the first time running their own place, pretty independently of the Akhbreed and under their own tribal rules, and they seemed to be coping just fine. If the hub held, their loyalty would be remembered and their relative racial position vastly enhanced; if it did not, they would cheer the victorious rebels. Dorion and the others suspected that most of the colonies were really like this, with only a few totally committed to the rebel cause. Still, those few would outnumber the Akhbreed by a fair amount, and the level of weapons they had made up to some extent their lack of real training.
Not all Qatarung were playing both sides, though. The rebellion still had a good deal of emotional appeal, particularly to the young, and there were signs of looted plantation houses and even uglier events here and there.
They were three days in when they were set upon by a gang. It was on the quiet road going between endless tall stalks of sugar cane, in the middle of the day, with the sun shining brightly. Shadowcat was napping, and while he heard something rustling it was far too late to give a warning by the time any of them, including him, realized it was danger.
They emerged from the cane with shouts, panicking the horses, and surrounding the quartet of Akhbreed in a flash. Their weapons were two single-shot stock rifles, a shotgun. and three enormous machetes; a half-dozen young Qatarung males showing solidarity with the rebels and contempt for their clever elders.
Through Shadowcat's eyes Charley saw them, round-faced, barrel-chested, with muscles on their muscles and thighs bigger than watermelons, nearly covered with brown hair, kind of like a cross between Bigfoot and Alley Oop.
"What do you want?" Halagar demanded to know in his best command voice, which really was impressive. "Why do you greet us this way?"
"Get off your horses, Akhbreedall of you!" growled back one of the thickest, if not the tallest, of the natives and clearly the leader of the pack. "Your days of arrogance are past. Qatarung is ours now." He turned to his gang. "Five seconds or you shoot both the men. And shoot the magician if he so much as raises his hands. Shoot him in the head."
7
Little Practical Treason
"You MISJUDGE us," Halagar told the gang. "We're not with the kingdom; you can surely see that just by looking at us. I'm a mercenary in the employ of Lord Klittichom's general staff, charged to go to Masalur in advance of, well, what will happen there, to evaluate it for them."
"Shut up and dismount!" the leader barked. "We're not as cut off as you think- We know who you are. You match the description perfectly. We want th
e woman. The rest of you might live, if we feel like it; the woman's our only concern."
Halagar put his hand on Charley's head and jerked it around a bit. "Her? She was wanted once, but no more. Didn't you get the word on that?"
"Not her," the Qatarung gang leader responded. "Her." He pointed to Boday, whose mouth dropped in sheer surprise. "No more questions! Get down! Now! I'll count to five! One"
Halagar judged their position and the position of his own party, then nodded- "Everybody do as he says," he said calmly, eyeing the leader, who held the shotgun.
The four dismounted, Halagar helping Charley down. Clearly not professionals, he decided at once. Otherwise they would have realized that we were better targets and easier to cover up there than down here, on the same level as the horses. There was no time to alert or prompt the others; they would just have to follow or get the hell out of the way.
"All of you up here where we can see you!" commanded the leader.
"Yes, right away, sir," responded Halagar, taking out the pocketknife he carried in his pocket and then sticking and slapping his horse.
The horse whinnied in shock and pain and reared up; the other two backed up. startled, and at least Boday got the idea, grabbed her whip, then slapped her own horse hard on the rump and leaped into the fray.
Halagar went right for the leader, grabbing him and spinning him around, so that the shotgun discharged into the rifle-toting gang member nearest him. Dorion. knocked back when the horses unexpectedly bolted, recovered quickly and rushed the other man with the rifle. The gunman was twice his size and four times his muscles, but Dorion was able to discharge his shock spell, which also had the effect of firing the rifle harmlessly.
A fourth was bringing his machete down on the magician when there was a sudden crack! and it was plucked from his hands with a whip that left a bleeding wound. Dorion was startled for a moment as the big knife fell narrowly missing his head, but he rolled, picked it up, and plunged it into the nearest abdomen.
Changewinds 03 - War of the Maelstrom Page 19