They scourged him up onto his feet with blows and jabs from spear and sword. Trembling, he stood, nauseous from the pain. His shoulder and arm felt broken. His head throbbed and momentarily blanked out, as he came close to falling on his face.
They shoved him ahead of them through the battered village. He saw a pitiful huddle of a dozen other wretches, all cut and bloody, pushed together in the center of a ring of men with spears. After another heave on his unsteady legs, he joined this group. They were mots of the Sixth Regiment. They recognized him, nodded, one or two tried to salute, then thought better of it.
Around them the village echoed with the victory shouts and whoops of the men. There was no doubting who had won the victory. The mots of Glaine kept their eyes downcast. One, badly wounded in the chest, collapsed suddenly, twitched a couple of times, and died.
Two men pushed into the group, shoving them all back with their spears, and dragged the dead mot away by his heels.
Other survivors were shoved into the group. Among them Thru noticed Ter-Saab. And then he gave an involuntary shudder as he saw the hill brilby's full face. Ter-Saab's left eye was gone, broken from a terrible cut that had placed a dark, straight line from his temple to the far side of his nose. All was ruined. Thru wondered that Ter-Saab was still alive.
They found each other, gripped hands with terrible strength.
"Can you see?" whispered Thru, wanting to say, how are you managing to stand up?
"Still have one eye. How about you?"
"All right, I think. Keep blacking out."
"What will they do now?"
"Kill us," said Thru tonelessly.
A few more survivors were pushed into the group, and then orders were bellowed. Thru understood some of the words, his Shashti came back to mind with a sudden clarity.
"Move, the 'somethings' down along the south road" was what he heard.
"What are they doing?" Ter-Saab was looking around himself with anxiety. Was this the signal for the killing?
"They want us to move somewhere," said Thru, feeling puzzled by this development. Indeed, the men did not kill them; instead they were herded out of the village.
Soon they were standing along the road, between small fields surrounded by stone walls. More survivors, from the Blanans and the Twelfth Regiment, were added to their group. The back of Thru's neck and his entire shoulder were stiff and swollen. Moving either was extremely painful. His left arm still numb, with a deep pain in the upper part, convinced him it was broken.
But compared to most of the others standing with him, he was in good shape. Despite everything, despite the imminence of death, Thru felt a little tremor of pride. The mots and brilbies had fought until they could no longer lift their weapons. They were all walking wounded, many of them staggering like himself, but they were still walking.
His head cleared somewhat, though it still hurt. They headed away from the village into the forest on a road that he could have sworn lead to the sea. He checked the sun's position, which he judged to be well nigh at the apex. The fighting had been in the early morning. He must have been unconscious for several hours.
Under the eaves of the forest, they escaped the heat of the day. It was dark and cool as they shuffled along, with men in front and behind them. Surprised at first that the men didn't bind their captives, Thru realized that none of the fifty or so survivors was capable of running ten steps, let alone trying to escape.
They stayed on that road all afternoon. One or two mots collapsed along the way and were speared and left for the scavengers. Once they paused by a stream, and the men made them drink from the stream on all fours, with spears pressed into their backs.
After being watered like this they were broken into smaller groups, ten mots apiece, with guards in front and behind. Now they were spurred on again with jabs and blows. Thru heard the curses, but did not understand them.
They were urged on to a faster pace until darkness when they halted for the night in a small clearing by a stream. Once again they were made to drink, then they were bound together in threes, roped at ankles and wrists.
Ter-Saab was still alive. His terrible wound had scabbed over and was no longer bleeding. He sank down beside Thru, and they were bound together with a skinny youngster that neither of them recognized. None of them had any energy left for conversation, and all were asleep in moments after being allowed to lie down.
The men posted a three-man watch while they ate some way bread and dried curd and went to sleep themselves. In truth, they hardly needed a watch. Their captives were so exhausted that none stirred until kicked awake at dawn.
There were no dreams for Thru, only the renewal of the nightmare the next morning when he was awoken with a blow from a spear butt on his agonizingly sore shoulder. With the rest he was hurried onto his feet after his bonds were loosed. A handful of mush, some kind of paste of beans and water, was thrust into his mouth from a spoon, and then a man with a whip started cracking it above their heads. The mots bristled at the crack of the whip. But it was a sound they would soon grow used to.
Thru and Ter-Saab walked beside each other. It appeared that as long as they were furtive and spoke in whispers they could converse.
"We are heading west, toward the sea," said Thru.
"Yes. I have heard that they kill their victims on the shore, then take their bodies out to their ships as meat."
Thru swallowed hard. "Yes, that is what I have seen."
Piles of heads left on jetties and headlands along the coast of the Land had become the calling cards of Shasht.
"What will happen now? To the Land I mean," said Ter-Saab.
"I don't know. There will be more battles. Our armies will improve. The Meld was not the best general we have."
"We should not have attacked so hastily," said Ter-Saab.
"We were just a little too late. The Meld's army withdrew too soon."
"Disaster."
"That is war, my friend. Triumph and disaster, so the Assenzi warned us. We have tasted triumph, it is sweet. Now we taste disaster. I would have preferred to have neither."
Ter-Saab straightened his shoulders and got a grip on his emotions.
"Until they do kill us, we must fight to stay alive. We may have a chance to escape."
The march went on to the noon hour when they were allowed to drink again, on their knees from a stream. Some of the men amused themselves by urinating in the stream at the same time.
An officer saw them and berated them angrily. Another man, heavyset, clearly a sergeant type, came up and threatened the men with whippings that would peel the hide off their backs.
"These is special!" snarled the sergeant, turning on his heel.
The guards made jokes after that about the "special" animals in their care, but they refrained from damaging blows or sharp jabs with their spears. After being allowed to drink the captives ate another handful of mush from a communal bowl and then staggered on the trail through the forest that ran past Farnem to the sea.
In the late afternoon they glimpsed the blue water for the first time, a little later they came down by the sea on the fishermot's road. Men had been building a fort there. Thru expected the axe, but instead boats waited on the shore. The captives were pushed into the boats and then rowed out, ten at a time to the ships.
The mots knelt in the center of the boat, while men with spears kept a close watch. Other men, in front and behind, heaved on the oars and made good speed through the chop to the huge ships anchored farther out.
The huge Shasht ships awed the mots and brilbies. Thru had been on one of these ships before, and he knew something of their huge size, but now contemplating them as they approached he was struck again by the might of the enemy. Such ships were far beyond the power of the folk of the Land to build. Simona's descriptions of her homeland returned to him. A harshly lit, brilliant city of stone, much larger than any place in the Land.
And then they were under the side of the huge ship, and netting was being
lowered over the side for them to climb up.
Now was the moment, if they were ever to try and make a break for it. Thru looked at Ter-Saab, but both saw the defeat in the other's eyes. They had no weapons. The other mots were just as badly hurt. The men had taken up spears and swords.
Spears jabbed at them. They climbed up the heavy netting. For Thru that climb was an agony of grinding bone endings in his arm. Somehow he managed it, knowing that the alternative was to be left to drown. For some reason the will to live was too strong.
He lay on the deck for a while recovering. Then with the others he was driven below decks to a dark, narrow room. They had to remove their clothes and boots. Their clothes were taken away by the men with the scarlet paint on their shaved heads.
Now, Thru thought, came the killing.
But instead they were taken one by one through a door to another room.
There Thru was examined by a man wearing a white canvas apron. He recalled the other man, Simona's father, who had examined him in this manner. That man had given Thru a razor blade. This time there was no such assistance.
Thru's broken arm was set and bound in a splint. The shoulder was palpated, but apparently it was not broken, just severely bruised. His cuts were cleaned and treated with a sharp smelling liquid that stung furiously. Thru's curiosity was piqued. Clearly they were not going to be summarily executed.
Then he was placed with another dozen captives in a dark place, deep inside the ship. Their clothes and boots were returned to them, and they were left unbound. The air was hot and close, but to the exhausted captives that hardly mattered. They slept as if they were dead.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Victory was sweet. Admiral Heuze rested his stump in his private tent, set up behind the command post. The walls of the monkey city had finally been breached. His army was busy looting.
With military matters taken care of for the moment, the admiral summoned Biswas, his favorite confidant. When Filek appeared, now wearing his new uniform, the black tunic with the yellow stripe down the center that marked him as the army's chief surgeon, the admiral's good spirits were in full flow.
"Well, well, Filek, come in and take some of this ale. We found it in a monkey shebeen. There are lots of them inside the walls. The men are enjoying the fruits of conquest."
"Actually, sir, I will take a little. I'm not sure if we can trust the water here. And I have to say I'm very concerned about looting the city."
"Ach, by the Purple Ass of the Great God, the men need some fun."
"You recall the plague of last summer?"
"Who could forget? Killed a third of our army." Heuze shrugged. That was in the past. Victory was in the present.
"That began soon after we looted that first city of theirs. I think the two events were connected."
"Ach!" Heuze downed a gulp of the beer. It was excellent stuff, full-bodied with a nice bitterness to it as well as a hint of sweetness.
"The men have been stuck in this pestilential hole for almost three months. It was time we let them loose. Besides, you can forbid looting, but the men will loot anyway. It's their nature."
"It's a risk. That plague came from the native people somehow."
"Bah, stop calling them 'native people.' They are not people. They are nothing but sodomistic monkeys, and we are going to kill every last single one of them."
"You have that woven piece, some carvings of theirs. We're even drinking this beer they made. You know that they aren't just monkeys."
"Well, of course not, but we have to believe that so we can do what we have to do."
"It isn't essential to exterminate the natives."
"According to the orders from Aeswiren himself, it is essential. The Emperor's advisors have delved deeply into the histories of ancient times. They say that in the event that we meet a native folk, of whatever kind they may be, we must exterminate them. Any fragment that we leave to survive, will revive in time and threaten our hold on the new lands."
"They were peaceful folk until our arrival."
"Well, they haven't been very peaceful since," snapped Heuze. He wanted to bask in his triumph, not worry about the fornicating monkeys. Or even a renewed outbreak of plague.
Filek shut up, thirstily drained his beer, and called for another. He had more surgery ahead of him that day, two leg amputations, and a spearhead removal from a chest, but his tolerance for beer had increased markedly since the beginning of this campaign.
Indeed, he was fit, tanned, and far tougher physically then he'd been on the day they'd come ashore four months earlier. Every day of that time had been filled with a crisis of some kind and the challenge had done him good. Filek had taken to the life of an army on the move. He hadn't expected to like camping, but he had, and the country they'd marched through had been extraordinary.
Forest covered the terrain, like nothing any of them had ever seen before. Sometimes the roads gave out and became mere trails in dark woodland. The trees were enormous, far larger than any he had seen in Shasht. At other times they overlooked great sweeping vistas of wooded hills and vales. And almost everywhere the land was virgin, untouched except in the river bottoms, where the natives made their dwellings among a multitude of ponds. It was exhilarating to march through this bountiful land and breathe in the scents of forest and meadow.
"This was a splendid victory," said Heuze, since Filek didn't seem to appreciate what he was supposed to say.
"Indeed, sir. A very clean one, few casualties, until today."
"Well, it's not possible to storm a walled city without suffering some casualties."
"No, of course not. I understand that, sir, but you see, as a surgeon, busy sewing up our wounded men, I see it all from the point of view of the casualties."
"Of course, of course, perfectly understandable. That's why I enjoy your company, Filek. You're not like the rest of these butchers."
Filek knew well why the admiral liked his company. The army was headed by dolts, since all the brighter officers had long been weeded out by the secret killers of the Hand of Aeswiren. So Filek offered the only chance for good conversation that Heuze was going to get.
"Well, sir, have we taken the entire city now?"
"No, not yet. The pestilential enemy have retreated into a kind of fortress sector of the inner city."
"Monkeys that build fortresses?"
"Shut up, Biswas. They're monkeys and that's that."
"If you say so, sir."
"I do. And we're going to loot this place of theirs and then burn it. Just like we did with the one we took last year. We'll send up a pall of smoke to terrify the fucking monkeys."
"Yes, sir, if we must."
"But first we'll help ourselves to their finery. There are some amazing things to be had."
Filek heard the greed in Heuze's voice. Filek had seen the shimmering woven mats, the carvings in wood and stone, and the paintings of country landscapes that decorated the homes of the natives. Beautiful work, of a quality beyond anything he'd ever seen before. He knew the market in these goods was already strong, just within the fleet. Once these things could be auctioned in Shasht, their value would grow exponentially. The admiral's liberality in regard to loot was sure to be popular with both men and officers.
"Stay and dine with me, Filek. I want to show you something. Going to be an excellent dinner. My hunters have brought in a dozen deer. The game in these hills is absolutely breathtaking. Our hunters can barely contain themselves. Two hundred ducks were taken the other day, from a single lake."
"Thank you, sir, I will. It's been warm work today, and I have a few more operations to undertake later. A good meal would set me up properly."
Soon afterward the slaves brought in the first course. Grilled breasts of duck, sauced with fresh-squeezed blood and served with wild mushrooms.
It was delicious. That was another thing about this expedition, thought Filek as he chewed. The food had been wonderful. After years of getting by on mush and fish, they were
eating well on the bounteous game of this new land.
The admiral was still caught up in his plans for the army.
"Now that we've taken this place, I intend to burn it and turn back to the coast. I prefer that we operate in reach of the fleet."
"Wisdom, sir, if you don't mind my saying so."
Heuze nodded, smiling. "These duck breasts are sensational, aren't they?"
"Wonderful."
"And I've got something to show you afterward that will astonish you. Yes, even you, the connoisseur from old Shasht."
They gulped down beer and duck breasts.
"What news is there from the fleet?" asked Filek. "I forgot to ask."
"Not much. The monkeys have not troubled them in the slightest. No fire ships this time."
Filek felt a twinge at the mere mention of those things. The thought of his daughter left behind on the ship, alone, troubled him enough. He had appointed his young deputy Tomak to become fleet surgeon in his absence. But Tomak could not protect her from fire ships.
"Has the post packet come yet today?"
"Yes, there are some letters for you."
Filek always enjoyed receiving letters from his intelligent daughter even if she was also rebellious and wicked for not obeying him and agreeing to wed Wurg Gembeth. She wrote every day and always found something witty and uplifting to say.
"Anyway, the timetable I'm thinking of is to spend the next couple of days here, letting the men loot while we see if we can reduce this fortress. Then we'll burn the place down and march to the sea. Along the way we'll burn all their places that we find. We'll make them remember us, by God."
Filek heard the admiral's thirst for vindication in the history books. He knew that historians would not treat him well for the conduct of the first campaign the previous year. Or for the earlier campaign this summer. But now Heuze had taken a more active role in command, and victory had followed victory. Now the army was ready to follow up with a great raid to the sea, burning villages and cutting down the enemy and piling their heads in the ruins.
"You know, Filek, when the historians come to write of this campaign, your exploits will be mentioned, too." Now Heuze was being generous, in his way, incorporating Filek into his grandiose projection of the future.
The Shasht War Page 15