The sight of the city spurred him on, driving his boot heels down the road. In the heat of the day, he'd removed his jacket and shirt and tied them up in his pack, so when he reached great South Gate, he stopped just long enough to rinse his fur off under the pump and put his uniform back together.
He was Colonel Gillo now, commander of the Sixth Brigade of the Sulmese army, and he had to look the part even though his uniform was tattered after sixth months of active service. His grey outer coat was newer issue and still had its nap, but the brown inner tunic was a ruin, as was his shirt. Still, he tied it all together as best he might and hoped his coat would cover the worst. Finally he adjusted the red wooden peg that he wore in the top buttonhole of his coat, which marked his rank as a brigadier colonel.
Inside the outer gates was the visible evidence of Sulmo's decline. The Outer Ward had returned to vegetable gardens for the most part. What buildings were left were scattered about like small villages inside the outer wall. The real city had retreated back inside its original walls, which were still ahead of him, two miles down the road.
The road now ran between gardens and small fields. It could as easily have been countryside as part of a great city with trees along the road, small green fields with young crops, and strips of houses, or perhaps a larger building. But everywhere, in the fields or in the houses, the old city clung to its sleepy southern rhythm. At noon, by ancient tradition, everyone ate a big lunch and then took a nap. The city didn't get going again until the middle of the afternoon. Nor was this restricted to the city itself, it was the habit throughout the Sulmo Valley.
In the winter, when he'd first taken command of the regiments, he'd had problems in getting Southern recruits back on the parade ground right after the midday meal. They'd cussed a lot about "Northern ways" back then. But they were volunteers and after a while accepted the necessity of discipline.
The only traffic he passed consisted of a few donkey carts until he entered the inner gate. Inside the old city the air bustled. Sulmo had not been able to entirely escape the upheaval produced by the invasion from Shasht.
On the Street of Charms he pushed through crowds of soldiers and workers and made his way to the warehouse on Dock Street, which was the headquarters of the new army. Fourteen thousand mots had responded to the King of Sulmo's muster. Eight thousand had now been trained and deployed across the southern counties from Blana to Reel Annion. Six thousand were still training in Sulmo. Inside he found the usual hum of bureaucracy. He handed over a small sack of letters from the mots of his regiment. Then he dug out his request for the indemnity and hunted for his friend Meu of Deepford.
Meu was now an important officer of supply, in charge of feeding the vast establishment of professional soldiers that filled the streets outside. Finding him took a little work, since Meu was hidden behind several layers of booths and offices, but he emerged immediately when he heard that it was Brigade-Colonel Gillo waiting to see him.
They embraced, took the time to look each other up and down. Both still bore the scars of their encounter with pyluk in the Farblow Hills some years before. Indeed, few mots who had come so close to armed pyluk, had lived to tell the tale. The green-skinned lizard men of the eastern deserts had a well-deserved reputation for ferocity.
"How did you find the time to come up here?"
"Well, I was actually the only one who wasn't absolutely needed."
"How long can you stay?"
"I'm going back tomorrow."
"Ah." Meu nodded. "Well, that's quite a hike."
"We're all used to it now. Glaine's a big place when you're trying to cover all of it against raids."
Meu understood. He'd been out there in the field in the early part of the winter, before being posted to his current position.
"Here's my problem," said Thru, handing Meu the paper on the Alvil's orchard back at camp. Thru explained that he needed more space for his troops to set up tents. Meu nodded briskly; this was a familiar problem.
"I think we can get this indemnity written up pretty fast. I can put in with Major Huba, who feeds those requests to the royal legal department. Huba owes me a favor or two. The King does not need to seal it personally, since it is a document of the Second Tier, you see."
"Well, that's good to hear. I absolutely have to go back tomorrow morning."
"And one night of true love, eh?"
"You've seen her?"
"Yes, she sought me out when she arrived. Wanted to know all about your adventures."
"Such as they've been."
"You were there in Bilauk together weren't you?"
"Yes." Thru shook his head to dispell the images that name brought up. For a moment Thru was back there in that ruined village, smoke still swirling up from the blackened houses. He could see the mound of heads that the men had left on the jetty. Every person in the village, bar a tiny handful of survivors, had been beheaded and their bodies taken as meat. Meu shifted uneasily on his feet.
"Yes. Well, let's go find Major Huba and get this indemnity process in motion."
Huba turned out to be a charming old brilby with white side whiskers that grew down below his chin.
"Gracious," he said. "I know the dear old Alvil of Panute. Oh, yes."
The indemnity was written up in no time, then signed and sealed. Thru and Meu parted company with a hug and a promise to dine together the next time Thru reached the city. Then Thru headed for the Outer Ward.
Whiteflower Lane was a street he knew well. On that street were a few houses and three famous inns. During the previous winter when he'd been billetted in Sulmo, Thru had visited them often. Even in wartime these kitchens turned out food in the manner of the Land.
Gardens filled with lush vegetable growth went all the way up to the edge of the street. No space was wasted. The fragrance of gardenias filled the air. He found the house quite easily, two stories of wood on a brick foundation. His knock brought her to the door.
"Thru!" was all she had time to say before she vanished into his arms. They stayed that way, rocking back and forth in the doorway for a long time.
"Oh, my love, my darling, my only Thru," she babbled as they kissed and nuzzled and kissed again. After a separation of almost a year, it was almost overwhelming to be together once more.
They sat together on the little bench at the back of the whitewashed cottage. The garden was filled with blooming asteria and wild yellow foxgloves. Thru felt alternating surges of wonder and pure happiness. This was something he'd dreamed of for most of the last year.
He saw her examining him, seeing the red pin of rank on his coat, and the frayed edges and worn cuffs of most of his clothes.
"How did you do it?" she said, somewhere between tears and joy. "I thought you would be tied up in Glaine for months."
"I had business here." He grinned at her look of disbelief.
"Really. I had to get some legal paper signed. My brigade is jammed into a tiny camp barely big enough for one regiment. We have to have more space."
Well, I'm glad you have an excuse. But couldn't you send someone?"
"I had to see you."
"Oh, Thru."
Eventually they sat together in her room upstairs, wrapped in a sheet, backs against the wall while the sun threw long setting beams through the window onto the opposite wall.
"Did you know that this day last year was the day we left Tamf for the last time? Old Tamf, the way it was." Her voice caught. There were tears on her cheeks.
"No," he whispered. "I didn't. I haven't kept track, too much to do."
By the Spirit, their whole world had changed since that day. Lovely old Tamf had been burned to the ground by the invaders.
"It seems a long time ago now. Another world."
She rested her head on his shoulder. "Sometimes I think it will never end. We will be forced to live like this forever."
"Yes, I know that feeling."
"I want to pretend that we're in the old time, before they came, before the war."
"Yes," he said, bending his mouth down to kiss her lips.
They tried not to think about the war, just for a little longer.
Later, she told him about her trip down from Lushtan, using the coast road through Suffio to Twist in the Braided Valley.
"We brought six donkeys loaded with bandages, splints, and dried herbs for poultices."
His eyebrows bobbed up and down as he thought of all the work involved in making that much bandage.
"Sad to say, but we'll probably need them."
The war and its grim consequences was hard to shut out for long.
"They will come again, everyone says so."
"There have been raids all the way to Awn Annion. Sometime this summer they'll land an army," Thru predicted. "We will have to fight them again and defeat them so utterly that they are forced to flee this part of the world."
"Have you seen them?"
"Myself, no. But one of my regiments caught some raiders fair and square, before they could even burn the town. Killed some of them, too."
"I have heard that the wolves are helping the watch."
"Thanks be to the Assenzi. They have roused all the wolves, 'tis said. They helped warn the villages on two occasions."
"Do you have enough food?"
He laughed. "Barely, it's Highnoth rations for everyone these days. But none have died of starvation. We got through the winter. We ate turnips more than bushpod, but we ate."
Later, they went out in search of a meal and stopped in at the Whiteflower Inn. They dined on bushpod pie and crumbly beeks, a Sulmo specialty, and washed it down with some thin ale.
"What happened when you took Simona to her people?"
Thru's face grew solemn. He had fond memories of the human girl who had lived among the mots for a while the previous year. The circumstances in which she had returned to her own people had not been auspicious.
"The men can never be trusted."
"I know." She was still watching his eyes.
"They took me captive. They tortured her."
Nuza was left appalled at this thought. Indeed, the ways of men were hard to comprehend.
"I met her father. He helped me to escape. He is not like the rest of them, I think."
Afterward they strolled along the lane, enjoying nothing more than each other's company and the lush scent of the gardenias that were in bloom throughout the Outer Ward.
They spent the night in her room on Whiteflower Lane.
"I have to leave early in the morning. I left Ter-Saab in charge, and he's capable enough, but I should be there."
"Of course. And I will be here. We will build a new hospital."
"How I wish I could be posted here."
"Hush, my darling, don't talk anymore," she said, sealing his lips with her own.
CHAPTER THREE
In the early morning they took breakfast at the army kitchen by the South Gate. It was simple food, bushpods and meal mush, but there was plenty of it. Thru ate with a mind on the long march ahead of him.
"I wish this didn't have to be the way," he said, holding her hand like a drowning mot clutching at water weed. One night together seemed but an instant in time. If he let his thoughts turn to self-pity then every second seemed like a fragile flower, passing away to dust before his eyes.
"Oh, my love, it is cruel, but that is the way of our world. So much cruelty, so little love." Nuza closed her eyes. In the long winter months of separation, she had found a way to accept their fate. He had to learn to accept it, too. "We will survive this war. I know it." She reached out to stroke his cheek. "We've been so fortunate, just to have this."
They wandered for a while along the great Street of Charms, deliberately avoiding the gate. The Street of Charms had five solid blocks of shops and emporia stocked with goods both usual and exotic.
There were many emporia selling high-quality floor mats. He noticed a window showing two beautiful Misho mats, one a "Brilbies at the Gate" the other a "Mots at Prayer." In many other windows he saw the usual "Mots at Prayer," plus the traditional style of "Brilbies at the Gate." He even saw a few mats with the old "Chooks and Beetles" pattern. The same handful of pictures, repeated over and over. Only the Misho stood out with its obvious brilliance of effect and technique.
And suddenly an idea blossomed in his mind. It frightened him so much that almost immediately he shrugged it away. But it had been there for a moment. A new pattern, introducing a new subject. "Men at War" he would call it. He could visualize the work, oh, so easily!
And then it was gone, banished from his thoughts as too heretical to even be considered. But though it was dismissed, it was not quite erased. Nothing could do that.
The craft of mat weaving was organized with the customary thoroughness of his people. A handful of designs, those that had first been produced and blessed by the Assenzi many thousands of years before, were all that were ever produced. It was much the same in the other crafts, from woodwork to painting.
"Are you all right?" Nuza was looking at him with concern in her eyes.
He shook his head as if to clear it. "Yes, yes, it's just a difficult time."
They found a dry goods store that was open despite the early hour, and Nuza bought some fine Fauste cloth.
"I will make you some new trousers. By the looks of those you're wearing you need new ones very soon. You see, my love? That gives you a reason to come back to Sulmo."
They laughed for a moment and then turned away, too sad all of a sudden to look each other in the eye.
Outside, walking along, getting closer to the gate and their good-byes, Nuza was drawn to a stall selling stylish little boxes, buttons, and brooches. It, too, was open very early in the day. The stall displayed rings and other pieces of jewelry, lovely things from Mauste and Geld. Thru found a brooch for her, an antique piece, a lily worked in soft gold, with an emerald as the flower.
She fastened it to her jacket, and they admired its brilliance for a moment. The green stone accented her pale fur and grey eyes.
"I've never had anything so lovely." And right out in the open she kissed him hard on the lips. The owner of the stall gave a gasp at such scandalous behavior, but Nuza was an independent-minded mor who went her own way, and at that time of day there weren't many people on the street.
When they parted at the gate, they both understood that this might be the last time they would see each other. They hung back. Thru stared at the ground. The desperation was visible on both their faces.
Then time ran out. His regiments needed their commanding officer present in these times when a raid might come at any moment.
"Good-bye, my love."
He squared his shoulders and set off up the road without a backward glance. It was the only way he could do it. He covered fifty, then a hundred strides.
Suddenly there came a blast of trumpets from the direction of the Royal Palace. Thru stopped and looked back. Everyone was staring off toward the tower of the palace. The trumpets continued to call frantically. Distant figures were in motion. Mots scrambled to the top of the gate tower for a better view.
Shaking his head, Thru turned back. Something important had happened. He had to find out what this emergency was before he left the city.
"What can it be?" said Nuza as he rejoined her.
"Let us go to the palace and find out."
They hurried through the crowds to the palace gate, where they found a message board set up for all to see.
As Thru read the words, it felt as if a pit had opened up in his stomach. The enemy had landed in Reel Annion. At least three thousand men. This was more than a raid; this was the invasion they had expected all summer. They were at war and he was a day's march away from his command!
In huge red letters all soldiers were ordered to prepare themselves for an immediate march to the Annion coast.
From others in the crowd they learned that the news had come by messenger pigeon that very hour. More trumpets could be heard from the palace
. The city of Sulmo was shaking itself awake to face the long-expected crisis.
King Gueillo published a proclamation that was read aloud by the city criers. He called on the folk of Sulmo to go about their work with determination and courage. Now was the time they had known must come when they must rise up and defeat the invaders. Many would be called to serve. It was imperative that everyone give everything they could to the cause, for defeat meant only one thing—complete annihilation at the hands of the men.
More birds and runners were sent out at once to carry the news quickly throughout the kingdom of Sulmo. Other birds were sent north by the Assenzi to take the word to Dronned. Within two or three days at most the news would have spread to the remotest parts of Creton and the north.
In the streets rumors swarmed like bees on clover as Thru and Nuza struggled through the crowds to the military headquarters. It was said that the invaders had been defeated by the local militia and chased back to their ships. Then they heard that the men had captured a village and devoured its inhabitants down to the last chook, and now they were marching through the county of Annion slaughtering anyone they captured. At the headquarters building the crowds stirred anxiously while mots hurried hither and yon in the effort to rejoin their units.
Thru had to report his presence. As a brigade-colonel he might be needed for any force sent out from the city itself. He saw Nuza for the last time there, on the steps outside the buildings.
She waved, a curious little frown on her forehead, even while she tried to smile. He waved back and then turned in through the big doors. Immediately he was swallowed up in the gathering storm. The confusion outside helped distract him from the chaos inside his head.
Mots, brilbies, and kobs jammed the passageways. Voices sent up a roar inside. Adding to it were the trumpets and drums going on the parade ground behind the palace. The trainee regiments were already forming up.
The Shasht War Page 2