Battle Hymn

by William R. Forstchen

  "So you used humans."

  "You know there's a city of them east of here, Yellow-skinned, call themselves Chin. A million in one city. We promised them exemption from the feast if they'd do my bidding. They're excellent workers. But my gun—that's beyond them for the moment, at least. So I drew on older designs. Breechloaders next. We have the weapon that was taken with you."

  Hans thought fondly of his cherished Sharps carbine and unconsciously he flexed his hand, as if the reassuring weight of the gun was again balanced in his grip. Ha'ark smiled. "The same with artillery, even airships," he continued. "Steam power as well. Not very efficient at the moment, but we're learning. Even showed them how to making a printing press, so technical books can be printed, and harvesting machines, so more laborers can work in the factories I plan."

  "So what do you want of me? If it's understanding machines, I know nothing, but even if I did, you can go to hell."

  "Spoken like a soldier. No, not that, though it was suggested that if we slowly burned you to death you'd talk. A waste, though."

  "So what do you want?"

  "You will be, how do they say it, my ragma.”

  Hans stiffened angrily. "A pet? Be damned to you."

  Ha'ark extended his hand. "A poor choice of words. Let us say 'companion,' then. We'll talk at times."

  "You'll get no help from me."

  "Most likely not. But I would like to ask a question."

  "What?"

  "Tell me about Keane."

  Hans smiled. "You'll never beat him. No one ever has. I should know—I was with him from the beginning. A dozen battles in our war back on Earth, in every campaign here until I was captured. Even if he knew he was facing final defeat, he'd spit in your eye and die fighting."

  "You're proud of him, aren't you?"

  "You're damn right I'm proud of him," Hans snapped.

  "I understand you were as his father to him. You trained him in war. Perhaps in knowing you I can know him."

  Ha'ark smiled and Hans suddenly sensed that perhaps he had said too much.

  "Come with me."

  Hans looked at Tamira, who was still fast asleep.

  "She's safe," Ha'ark said softly. "You are now of my circle, and so is she."

  Hans tried not to let his relief show.

  Ha'ark stood up and motioned Hans to follow. Stepping out of the yurt, Hans squinted from being shut up for so long. The evening sun was low on the horizon, bathing the rolling steppe in a blood-red light. The encampment of the Bantag stretched to the far horizon, coils of smoke wafting up from the dung campfires. The scent of roasting meat drifted on the breeze. He had long ago learned to suppress the horror that the smell engendered. In the distance he could hear the plaintive screams of someone about to be slaughtered. Ha'ark had momentarily put him at his ease, but the sound of the cries caused an icy chill to run through the aging sergeant major.

  "As long as that continues," Hans snarled bitterly, "the war between us will be to the death."

  Ha'ark looked at Hans, puzzled, not understanding at first. The screams grew louder and the realization dawned.

  "Maybe someday it will change. I hear the Tugar have forsworn human flesh. Some are even riding with your Keane."

  Hans shook his head and mumbled a curse. The idea was absurd.

  Two guards approached, each leading a horse, and to Hans's surprise one was offered to him. He reached up, struggling to get in the saddle of the Clydesdale-like mount. It felt good to have a horse beneath him again, and for an instant he almost felt free.

  I could spur it and be gone, he thought, the vision forming in his mind of galloping free across the steppe, heading north and west. But then the memory of Tamira seized him, and he felt a wave of guilt that even for an instant he had imagined abandoning her. Not a chance in a million anyhow that he could escape, he realized as well, but at least for a moment, he might be free.

  “You won't get fifty strides," Ha'ark announced calmly. "And besides, what of your companion?"

  Hans looked over at him, startled. Can this one read thoughts, he wondered. Andrew believed they could. Was it true? He looked at Ha'ark, who smiled cryptically.

  Hans followed Ha'ark's lead and they set off at a leisurely canter, weaving through the maze of yurts. More than once they passed a family clan sitting around a fire, and in more than one boiling pot Hans saw part of a human body.

  At the approach of the Qar Qarth, all rose and then bowed low, many openly curious at the sight of a human riding.

  "They're primitives," Ha'ark announced.

  "You hold them in contempt?"

  "No. Not really. More in tolerance. According to our legends, the ones of my world, these are the ancestors, who once bestrode the universe—until the Great War. They were the builders of the Tunnels that let one leap between worlds. It was a shock to discover them reverted, decadent. But we shall raise them up to their former glory once again."

  The way Ha'ark had said, "We shall raise them up" had a certain chill to it. Hans knew that Ha'ark was not speaking in his native tongue, but the use of the plural was unsettling.

  Once out of the camp, Ha'ark urged his mount to a gallop and Hans followed. The surging of the horse beneath him and the wind in his hair set his pulse to pounding. He closed his eyes for a moment, and he was twenty-five years younger, galloping across the Texas plains, chasing Comanche in his first charge. The vast steppe rolled by beneath him. Cresting a low hill, they galloped down into a hollow that was already filling with the damp mist of early evening and then back up another rise. Now Ha'ark gained the crest ahead of him, and reined in, his mount rearing up. Hans came to a stop beside him. He was about to speak, to make a comment about the pleasure of riding, when he felt his heart constrict.

  Ha'ark smiled at him.

  Hans looked disbelievingly at the thousands of humans who labored in the valley below. Then in the distance came a low mournful sound that chilled his blood.

  ''You're building a railroad," Hans whispered.

  Ha'ark again smiled. "Twenty miles already back to the city of the Chin. Thousands of humans are laboring upon it in the mines and foundries, turning out rails, cutting ties, building bridges. We're laying a quarter mile of track a day."

  Ha'ark edged his mount in closer to Hans.

  "It was the one advantage you had in your last war that the Merki lacked. You could move strategically by rail. You could support an army hundreds of miles away. The Merki were dependent on the grass around them, on what food they could harvest within a few days' march. Your Keane chose his ground well to fight upon and burned everything as he retreated. Now, that will not help."

  Hans sat meditatively, watching the labor gangs working under the threat of Bantag overseers. He found an old craving coming back and wished more than anything for a good chew. Ha'ark extended his hand to Hans. In it was a tightly bound twist of tobacco. Amazed, Hans looked at his companion, who smiled.

  “At times I can," Ha'ark replied coolly. “The Merki had the tradition of the tu and the ka. The spirit walker and the warrior spirit. If we practice, some of us do have the ability to see as I now see you."

  Hans felt a ripple of fear. Was all that he was thinking, the fear created at the sight of the railroad, the sense of doom it created—had Ha'ark picked up on that as well? He hesitated for an instant and then reached for the plug, nodding his thanks as he took a bite. The jolt of nicotine made him light-headed for a moment, and he could not stifle a sigh of contentment. An old instinct to offer a chew to Andrew momentarily caused him to forget where he was, and he almost extended his hand to Ha'ark but then stopped. The Qar Qarth was looking straight into his eyes.

  “Why?" Hans asked softly.

  “Just curious about you," Ha'ark replied calmly. “You were one of the designers of the defeat of the Merki. I paid well for the trade of you and the other survivors taken in the war against you and the Cartha, nearly five thousand in all."

  Hans spit a stream of tobacco juice onto the
ground.

  “Merki. Dumb bastards."

  “But we're not," Ha'ark said, his voice now edged with a brittle hardness.

  “Why are you even bothering? Hell, where we live is fifteen hundred, maybe two thousand miles away. Can't you let it be?"

  Hans was afraid that his tone had a note of pleading in it. He fell silent and chewed, staring straight at Ha'ark.

  "You're planning to renew the war."

  "When we are ready," Ha'ark replied calmly.

  "To what end?"

  Ha'ark laughed and reined his horse around in front of Hans. "First you defeat the Tugars. Unthinkable: A despised race rises up, in less than two seasons arms itself, goes to war, and defeats nearly twenty umens of a proud Horde. That should have been the alarm. At that moment Bantag and Merki should have forgotten their differences, should have prepared, and should have eradicated you. But the fools left themselves divided. I have studied the campaign the Merki launched. If but ten umens of the Bantag had swept up from the south, between what you call the Inland and the Great Seas, Roum would have been flanked from the south. You could not have held two fronts. You would have been destroyed."

  "But you didn't, and we won."

  Ha'ark nodded. "You wouldn't have if I had been there."

  He held up his rifle.

  "I understand this. I understand where it comes from. I know where you come from. Two, perhaps three generations at most behind my own world. But fifty, a hundred generations ahead of what these savages I now rule could ever dream of. I know the rule of it all, that when a superior culture meets an inferior one, the inferior one is doomed either to adapt or to die. The choice is that simple: Either you will die or we will die."

  Hans stared at Ha'ark. He wanted to tell the bastard to go to hell, but he knew that Andrew would handle it differently, would want him to handle it differently. He took a deep breath.

  "It could have been different. It doesn't have to be that way even now. If you saw a race that slaughtered your own children and devoured them, would you not fight to the death?"

  Ha'ark nodded slowly in agreement. "Of course. Ask me to change them? Impossible."

  "Then it will be war. That abomination we will never accept."

  "Don't you think I know that?"

  "You are Qar Qarth. You can command anything and it shall be so."

  "Not all things. I sit lightly upon the golden throne. Many of the clan Qarths already doubt that I am the Kathul."

  Hans continued to stare at him:

  "A prophecy of the Hordes says that a leader will come through the Tunnel of Light, sent by the Ancestors, to return his people to the stars."

  "And are you this Kathul?"

  Ha'ark smiled and Hans felt distant and alone. He believes it, Hans realized. Now we've got a religious fanatic to deal with.

  "I'm not a fanatic," Ha'ark whispered and Hans averted his eyes, a response that elicited a soft, growling chuckle.

  "What do you want from me?"

  Ha'ark sighed and leaned forward in the saddle. He motioned for the tobacco plug and Hans offered it. It felt so damn strange, a ritual he had practiced with Andrew for years, repeated now—he wondered if Ha'ark did it for just that reason.

  Ha'ark took the plug, bit off a chew, and handed it back.

  "We have a similar leaf on my world. It's called lakh gudak, soldier's weed. More potent than yours, it stills nerves yet keeps you awake for the long night watches."

  "So there's war on your home world?"

  Ha'ark nodded, his gaze distant. "Wars you could little dream of. Constant war, dynastic struggles, war just because we feel we need one. Weapons you could not even imagine, though the ones you carried are the beginnings of them."

  Ha'ark chewed, looking off to the horizon as if lost in thought. "This world, the wars here. Stuff of legends, child's play. I want you to run my factories for turning out iron and steel. You are respected and known. You can organize and lead."

  Hans snorted and spat on the ground. "Like hell."

  Ha'ark nodded and motioned for Hans to follow him. He set off at a trot along the low ridgeline. As they rode Hans noticed the rail line under construction. It struck him as something right out of the old etchings of slaves working on some wonder of the ancient world. Thousands of laborers dressed in rags moved in slow, shuffling gangs, flanked by Horde overseers. Whip cracks snapped the air. Even as he watched, a slave faltered. A guard walked over and in a casual gesture picked the man up by the throat with one hand. The rest of the work gang continued on, carrying a rail, their eyes averted. The guard shook the man several times, but there was only a feeble response. With frightening ease, the guard snapped the man's neck, then threw him to one side.

  Hans had slowed down to watch. Though he had seen such acts hundreds of times in the last year, he felt rage building within him. He saw that Ha'ark was looking at him.

  "To help continue that?" Hans snarled. "Let's just be done with it, you bastard."

  Ha'ark motioned for Hans to follow. At first he refused. Ha'ark swung his rifle around.

  "Go ahead and be done with it."

  "And what of your mate?"

  Hans looked at him silently. We're doomed anyhow. We're fooling ourselves to think differently.

  "Come. Indulge me and then decide."

  Ha'ark turned around and continued his ride. Hans looked down at the body and saw that the guard was staring straight at him, casually flicking his whip, letting its coils drift back and forth across the twisted corpse. Tamira… and he found yet again the bitter conflict, the sense of love, countered by something edging on bitter resentment of her, for his life, and that what he would do with it was no longer completely his to decide.

  He jerked his bridle sharply, and flinging the foulest of curses in English at the Bantag guard, he galloped to catch up with Ha'ark. At the top of the next rise Ha'ark had already reined in. Before him was arrayed the center of the vast Bantag host. As the sun touched the horizon, all faced the blood-red light of the sunset. The call of the chanters echoed on the breeze, and Hans felt a corkscrew shiver rim down his back. The steppe, as far as he could see, was filled with Bantag warriors raising their swords heavenward to catch the last light of the dying day. Ha'ark, as was appropriate for his rank, remained astride his mount, and rather than a sword he held his rifle aloft, an ululation erupting from his throat and mingling with the cries of his host.

  As the sun disappeared, all now turned eastward and within seconds the first faint sliver of a moon broke the horizon, followed immediately by a second moon, appearing only a hand's span to the right. Wild cheering broke out, with the strange accompaniment of a steam whistle and a booming cannon.

  Ha'ark said to Hans, “It is the night of the Moon Feast. You know that."

  Hans nodded.

  “Shall I tell you the names of the prisoners I bartered for with the Merki?"

  “No need to," Hans replied, knowing what was coming.

  “More than fifty Rus from your army, taken at Hispania and in the skirmishing that followed the Merki withdrawal. We have more than four thousand Cartha." He hesitated. "And you and your—what did you call her—your wife."

  Hans watched him as he continued. "I have Hinsen, but I know you'd love to see him go to the Moon Feast. As for the others, the offer is simple. Many of them worked in the iron factories, a few even on the railroads and in armories. We've even taken half a hundred prisoners of our own, in skirmishes with your army in the lands between what you call the Great Sea and the Inland Sea. I promise every one of them life for as long as they are willing to work."

  "Or?"

  "They will go to the Moon Feast this very evening if you refuse to cooperate."

  Hans sat in silence, his heart torn. If it were only himself, he knew the answer: He would have almost welcomed it. Why did Tamira come into my life? he wondered. There was a small part of him that still thought that the lovely young woman now asleep in the yurt must somehow have a pact with the Horde, that
she was sent to him for just this purpose, to seduce him. But he knew that could not be. He had looked too often into her eyes, had held her close to him too many nights, not to know her love and to know his own as well, a love he had never dreamed would come to him.

  But we could be free. There would be only the moment of final terror for her, and we would be free, rather than being among the living dead.

  "All of them," Ha'ark said again. "I understand that at the funeral of the Merki Qar Qarth you witnessed the slaughter of a hundred thousand and you alone were spared."

  Hans tried to force the memory away… the blood-filled pit, the insane hysteria of killing, and I alone the Lazarus to remember it.

  "You will see it again, Sergeant. Know that I can get others to do the labor, so nothing will change. The machines will be built, the war will come, and you will watch the agonizing torture of your wife. And I promise you, when it is revealed who you are and who she is, there are many who will delight in dragging out the torment till dawn."

  As if to add weight to his argument, a hysterical scream sounded from the encampment below—the first victim being dragged to the pit.

  "You've not seen a Bantag Moon Feast, have you, Sergeant?"

  "The Merki do it well enough."

  "They do some extra forms of entertainment in my Horde," Ha'ark said quietly. "They believe that the torment, the screaming, the struggle, make the meat taste better when it finally comes time to cut open the skull and consume the brain. Slow roasting over a simmering fire for half the night while still alive is the preferred method to start the festivities. Your wife has such lovely brown skin, it would be a shame to see it roasted black while she was still alive."

  Hans looked bitterly at Ha'ark, who was staring straight at him. "Bastards, you are all bastards," Hans snarled.

  "Decide, human. I have no more time. And remember, even if you die, nothing will change for me. Others will simply fill your place. The machines will be built. But for you, your wife—the agony this night will be beyond your worst imaginings."